Book Burning

Sorcery

Any player may have Book Burning deal 6 damage to him or her. If no one does, put the top six cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (33)

Delphen7 on How to Handle Multiple Players …

1 year ago

Say Player A cast Book Burning with some target.

Player B really wants to take the 6 damage because something of their will trigger if they do. Player C wants to take the damage so that Player B's card doesn't trigger.

Does the game specify a way for B and C to decide who takes the damage, or do they just resort to Rock, Paper, Scissors?

Fuzzy003 on Punisher: The Illusion of Choice

2 years ago

Kinda surprised not to see Breaking Point or Book Burning somewhere in the lists. I miss decks like this. :)

Balaam__ on Topdeck Manipulation

2 years ago

Thanks Chasmolinker, I saw some possibilities with the general idea here and wanted to see what I could do with the cards available. I’m in the same boat as you though, this certainly didn’t turn into a Tier 1 deck, ha. Although I hadn’t seen the card Book Burning before, that’s an interesting one.

Chasmolinker on Topdeck Manipulation

2 years ago

Cool deck idea. I used to sling Erratic Explosion along with Book Burning way back in the day. Not with any kind of success though. lol +1

TheoryCrafter on Gavi, The Mill Warden

3 years ago

Have you considered any combination of Maddening Cacophony , Ruin Crab and Jace's Archivist ? Both MC and RC can get around permanents that give your opponents hexproof and JA has an activated ability that works like windfall.

Also, I'd suggest considering Teferi's Ageless Insight . This enchantment combined with JA essentially increases the number of cards in your hand each time you activate the ability, increasing the size of your hand each turn if you have no maximum hand size.

With Drake Haven's activated ability and Gavi's static ability, may I suggest Altar of the Brood to add some extra mill for the deck?

Tibalt's Trickery and Book Burning do permit some red mill.

With all the cards in your deck offering damage, I'd recommend adding Mindcrank .

Happy Hunting!

Rhadamanthus on Book Burning, what do they …

4 years ago

That first line break in the card's text and the less than ideal phrasing caused a lot of confusion back when it was first printed, and I'm not surprised to hear they're still confusing people today. The current Oracle text is re-worded to be a bit clearer:

"Any player may have Book Burning deal 6 damage to him or her. If no one does, put the top six cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard."

It just asks if anyone wants to be dealt 6 damage by the Book Burning spell on the stack, and if no one does then the targeted player will get milled for 6.

Caerwyn on Book Burning, what do they …

4 years ago

You are misreading the card--the Book Burning referenced in the card's rules text is itself.

So, just to walk through how it works:

1. Player A casts Book Burning .

2. Book Burning resolves, so you are going to do what the card says to do.

3. Player A and B (and C, D, E, F, etc. if multiplayer, with each player having the choice in order) can choose to have the resolving copy of Book Burning deal 6 damage to them. I'm guessing Player A will rarely want to take 6 damage from their own spell, but the rules text does allow that.

4. If no player takes the 6 damage, then the target player puts the top 6 cards of their library into their graveyard.

5. If one player takes the 6 damage, then there is no additional effect.

Spell_Slam on

4 years ago

Cool idea for a deck! I think you could try to build around your commander even more.

In your mana base, a very easy inclusion would be all the cycling lands. Desert of the Fervent , Desert of the Indomitable, Tranquil Thicket , Slippery Karst and Smoldering Crater are great for Gruul decks to have anyways because of the lack of card draw and they work super well with your commander.

All the Dredge stuff would be great in the deck. You already have Brownscale, but you could use Shenanigans (there's always a target), Moldervine Cloak and Greater Mossdog all give you consistent action in the late game that will also power up your damage.

There are tons of self-mill cards that are worth running for card advantage. Lead the Stampede , Beast Hunt , Benefaction of Rhonas , Commune with the Gods , Kruphix's Insight , Scout the Borders all work at varying degrees of efficiency. If you ran a few more enchantments (which wouldn't be hard to do), this could actually be a great way to stock your graveyard and give you tons of action throughout the game.

With that in mind, almost every Flashback card is probably worth running. Same goes with Retrace and Jump-Start. These will give you so many options over the course of the game and be an extension to your hand.

Book Burning Targeting yourself is a pretty good way to stock the graveyard quickly, unless an opponent wants to take 6, which is also nice.

Chainflinger is decent in PDH and would fit nicely in a deck like yours.

Firebolt is very good in general and gets even better if you're milling it into your graveyard.

Fortitude can make a big creature a bigger problem and feed your graveyard lands.

Mother Bear seems like a good fit, like most cards that generate value in the graveyard.

Elven Cache is a great card to have in green PDH. It doesn't cost you a draw like Reclaim does, which justifies the mana cost, in my opinion.

Is Renewal to janky? Cantripping and fixing your mana might not be worth 3 mana, but it does move your gameplan forward somewhat.

A lot of the cards in your maybeboard are cards I think you should actually play. Excavating Anurid is quite strong. A 5/5 vigilance that cantrips at almost no downside for you is really good. Igneous Elemental is comparable to Flametongue Kavu in many scenarios. All your burn and removal that requires sacrificing creatures or lands is also good for your game plan. Quicksand has no downside in your mana base.

In general, I think having more creature-based ramp might be better than sorcery or artifact ones, unless they sac lands. Rampant Growth, Land Grant, Search for Tomorrow, Renegade Map and Armillary Sphere seem like they would be stronger as mana dorks. Zhur-Taa Druid and Silhana Starfletcher are both cards that do a lot of work in PDH, plus all the typical 1-mana ramp creatures in Green.

Otherwise, I think Diligent Farmhand and Muscle Burst is cute, but not very effective overall.

Relic of Progenitus is powerful, but very risky for you. Something like Night Soil could be a stronger choice, or just plain old Tormod's Crypt .

Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt are oddly enough not impactful enough to play in PDH, in my opinion. I would vastly prefer Staggershock over either one for the better damage output or card advantage potential. These could be easy subsitutes for some of your maybeboard spells.

A lot of your creatures are aggressive, but not enough to really be pertinent in a game with 30-40 life (depending on how you play). Borderland Marauder, Burning-Tree Emissary, Moldgraf Scavenger, Zectar Shrine Expedition and to a certain extent even Scythe Tiger could be better as more resilient, synergistic or more powerful threats that scale better with all the ramping you're doing. Something like Sprout Swarm is a classic game-winning card that is good across the entirety of the game and works well with sac effects you're running.

Last thing: I think you should run more lands. I get that you're trying to be low to the ground and aggressive, but running a low land count hurts you in a lot of ways. It makes less opening hands keepable, it restricts the breadth of finishers you can use, it lowers the efficiency of your commander and cards like Winding Way and can even result in you running out of basics to fetch in the mid-to-late game. I think 38-40 lands would be a more appropriate number.

Again, great idea for a deck and I'm looking forward to hearing more about how you do with it. Is it more for 1-on-1 play or multiplayer?