Banefire

Sorcery

Banefire deals X damage to any target (creature, player, planeswalker or battle).

If X is 5 or more, Banefire can't be countered by spells or abilities and the damage can't be prevented.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (45)

kamarupa on Cumulative Fire

1 month ago

hmm, I'm not sure I see what you see, Cloudy2024. I can't know how familiar you are with the Turbo Fog archetype, but typically, it relies not just on packing a ton of Fog spells, but also a lot of draw card (usually group draw), which are an essential component to keeping your hand full of Fog spells. It's just not enough to have lots of Fogs in a deck. A deck must also have a way of getting all those fogs into our hand. There's simply no avoiding the need for land, so even if a deck had 40x Fog and 20x Land, there's a 33% chance every draw step yields a land. Which means that it's likely an opponent is going to get to hit us eventually. Unless we can draw more cards each turn. So in my mind, adding more Fog spells at the expense of draw card will actually make the deck work less well.

I did consider dropping Ghostly Prison or cutting it back to fewer copies, but that doesn't yield a lot of slots and more importantly, the advantage Ghostly Prison gives the deck is a static defense that allows us to have a chance of tapping more mana on our own turns without being completely defenseless. I'm not 100% sold on that strategy, namely because I really don't like dropping 3 mana on it, but I know it works, so the real question is how much weight can it pull in this brew.

When it comes to other non-fog spells, the most slots are devoted to Ashling, Flame Dancer and Leyline Tyrant, which are basically 33% of the combo. Without those creatures, the cumulative mana we get from Braid of Fire evaporates before we can use it to cast Banefire at Sorcery speed. Since neither red nor white really have anything I'm aware of for creature tutoring, there's no way I can see cutting them.

I really don't like Idyllic Tutor as it's not only quite narrow in a deck that requires more than just an Enchantment to win, but it also costs 3 to cast. At least with Ghostly Prison we can a static defense. With Idyllic Tutor, we get a single use out of that 3 mana while also exposing the card we need, which, in many cases, won't get cast until the next turn. If I could grab anything and not reveal it (like Mastermind's Acquisition, I could see the possible value of adding more tutors. But it's just too inefficient to add more tutors that are so specific. I'd have to devote space in the deck for Sorcery, Enchantment, and Creature tutors. Which bring us back to the value of simple card advantage spells. I need all the spells in the deck. United Battlefront gets us slightly closer than Idyllic Tutor, but still misses on creatures (and my essential creatures are too big anyway). So my verdict is still out on that spell, but I'd likely not choose to run a full set if I thought there was even room for it at all.

I suppose I could try to run more creatures like Kami of False Hope and go the Tocasia's Welcome route, but that seems... I dunno... convoluted.

So to sum up - in my mind, "focus[ing] more on the strategy of the deck is probably the opposite of what you suggested - not more fog and white control spells but less. I could drop the Fog spells altogether and resort to creature based defenses. Not the worst idea, but I think it would come at a higher mana cost, which slows down Banefire.

The only other thing I'd add to all this is that the biggest issue Turbo Fog faces is decks that aren't creature driven. Things like Burn, Mill, Life-drain, etc go right through Fog. That's the primary reason I included Riot Control - because it doesn't just stop combat damage - it stops ALL damage. I mainboarded it because it also has the potential to result in a big lifegain, which is a good stall tactic against lifedrain (keep in mind this is intended to be a multiplayer brew, so it could very easily be facing threats from both creatures and lifedrain in the same game). And that's the other major issue with going in even harder with the Fog strategy (which is itself a secondary, defensive strategy). Granted, the sideboard can help a bit to shore up Turbo-Fog weaknesses.

Bottom line - While I really don't expect this brew to be top tier in any sense, I do like exploring with brews and try to make them the best I can. It's probably clear that I think about strategy, uh, let's just say, "enough." I want to be clear about this though - I'm not saying "I'm right and you're wrong" or that I don't appreciate your advice. It's quite the contrary - I write all this because I'm [overly] interested in these things and want to have conversations about all of it. I understand if you're not interested in that. I just don't want you to feel like I have any intent of antagonizing you, etc. It's just so easy to give/get the wrong impression over the internet.

Barbarian_Sun_Pope on Lotus-Bane

2 months ago

I like the idea of Radiant Lotus to set up Banefire here, especially with Whir of Invention to tutor the lotus. Have you considered Breeches, the Blastmaker as a back-up up plan? His curve is low and he can kill or draw additional cards with Treasure Cruise. Hope this helps.

kamarupa on The Passive Aggressive Aproach

4 months ago

Overall, I like the deck. I have a few thoughts that could be helpful. Feel free to disregard.

Mill is something a lot of players hate. I think defenders are decent way to counter some of that hate, but I'd expect very aggressive removal of your two mana dorks, Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement in second games. I see you have 2xTurn Aside, which I'm sure helps, but I suspect something like Tamiyo's Safekeeping or Vines of Vastwood (there's a ton a green protection spells, really) would be more useful, as they could help with surviving blocking huge creatures in addition to foiling removal.

Banefire seems better than Bonfire of the Damned, since it can't be countered or prevented at a pretty low threshold.

Freed from the Real seems like a good fit here - lower casting cost than Sword of the Paruns and lower activation cost and no equip cost

63 is 3 too many. There are non-essential defenders that could easily be cut, and spells like Opt and Divination don't strike me as perfect fits for the deck, either. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of draw card in Modern, but I also think it's always best if you can get that draw card to come with synergy. For example, you have Wall of Runes and Gatecreeper Vine already - these seem at least 'on-theme' in a helpful way that render Opt more like filler than utility. You might also consider Wall of Omens or Drift of Phantasms instead of Divination. I'd also even favor Harmonize over Divination, as 3 cards for 4MV is a better deal than 2 cards for 3MV and more card draw off a single spell is more effective and efficient.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Why Do Recent Sacrifice Effects …

1 year ago

By that logic, what you're doing is like the blue player complaining why the red player has enough mana to fire of an uncounterable Banefire. Why wouldn't red do that? They were better prepared.

ThassaUpYo@ssa on Anyway I Started Blasting

1 year ago

Bluelian! I've got some additional cards that I think we should consider and potentially work into your list to provide you with more wincons and card draw:

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus, Jin-Gitaxias  ^Flip, Electrostatic Field, Docent of Perfection  ^Flip, Counterspell, Mana Drain, Fierce Guardianship, Deflecting Swat, Blue Sun's Zenith, Electrodominance, Lightning Bolt, Increasing Vengeance, Rapid Hybridization, Force of Will, Valakut Awakening  ^Flip, Sublime Epiphany, Jeska's Will, Finale of Revelation, Crackle with Power, Banefire, Finale of Promise, Red Sun's Zenith, Seething Song, Mindsplice Apparatus, Primal Amulet  ^Flip, The Magic Mirror, Twinning Staff, Thousand-Year Storm, Double Vision, City on Fire, Ral, Storm Conduit, Riptide Laboratory, Temple of Epiphany, Cascade Bluffs, Stormcarved Coast, Scalding Tarn, Fiery Islet, Spirebluff Canal, Training Center, Reflecting Pool, and Plaza of Heroes

Chasmolinker on [Primer] - Jund Midrange

2 years ago

Thanks for the feedback MTWEmperor!

Banefire was added as a mana sink late game where you just need to get the few last points of damage through. It is great against grindy control match-ups since it can't be countered at X=5+. It can kill bigger threats than lightning bolt in a pinch. And on top of all of that, it's only 1 damage when Bob flips it. The deck tends to get a lot of lands in play especially with Wrenn and Six so it fits well as a late game Win-Con.

Balaam__ on The Land(fall) Before Time

2 years ago

@hiddengibbons Were you able to finish that one? It sounds more feature complete, so I was wondering if you had any issues with the reliability of the wincons.

The problem I had here (with limited playtesting) was that if the opponent(s) weren’t able to prevent the combo where I get all my lands into play (or didn’t anticipate the combo), they would just wait to counter the different wincons I experimented with. That’s why I settled on Banefire in the end. It’s pretty much a win at that point, barring an Armageddon type response. What you’ve described is far beyond the budget I’ve allotted for this, but if the reliability and consistency is on par with the expense, you can’t really complain.

jamochawoke on Fire Dancing

2 years ago

That's a really good one!

One other you can do since you've already got it built into your deck with Mana Geyser, Runaway Steam-Kin, Birgi, God of Storytelling  ^Flip and Battle Hymn if you get any of those to go off and get you 10+ mana you really want an X spell to dump all that mana and end your worst opponent (or the game if you're close).

My suggestions would be these:

• Banefire - This is the most consistent one for ending someone and is best to copy.

• Fall of the Titans - This one is great if you're certain it's not going to be countered and if you can cast it for its surge cost and then copy it as needed to take out everyone.

• Crackle with Power - The biggest boom you can get with X iirc

• Red Sun's Zenith - If you are certain you can dig into it again with all the card draw this is a good option

• Jaya's Immolating Inferno - Decent like Fall of the Titans but not as good as Crackle

Also, since your deck relies on copying creatures so much you could add in more of that like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker