Lightning Bolt

Instant

Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to target creature, player or planeswalker.

Discussion (51)

zapyourtumor on Mono-Boo-hoo

10 hours ago

General notes:

Running less lands increases your chances of flipping Delver--it also increases your chances of not being able to play any of your spells which feels like shit. 14 lands is insane, you probably want at least 18-20.

Cards like Unsubstantiate are bad because they are pure card disadvantage. Against spells that can't be countered its better to just let them resolve instead of running bad cards against them.

If you want the deck to be budget, just cut the Force of Negation. 1 copy isn't going to be doing anything the vast majority of the games you play, and its half your deck budget alone.

I highly recommend splashing another color. Blue has good card draw and countermagic, but lacks removal. Splashing red or black would be the best imo. Even though it does make the manabase a little more finicky, it should be fine as long as you don't run any cards with RR or BB mana cost. If you run around 8-12 cheap duals it should be fine.

Red would be for Dragon's Rage Channeler, Lightning Bolt, Unholy Heat, and Expressive Iteration.

Black would be for Fatal Push, Inquisition of Kozilek, Drown in the Loch.

ulmo on Jund Goblins Combos

22 hours ago

start saving for Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer? perhaps a Lightning Bolt or 4?

memdem on My deck

1 day ago

Also something important is to choose what archetype (deck idea I guess) you want to play. You can even add splashes of colors to benefit the archetype like Mono red burn, It splashes white usually for a Lightning Helix because it is basically 4 more copies of Lightning Bolt. Also like what Balaam__ says about having 4 copies is very important for getting good cards and/or win cons. Good luck with your deck!

Omniscience_is_life on Eidolon of the Great Revel

3 days ago

There's only one number a burn player needs to care about: their opponent's life total. Anything else is just a distraction, because it takes a deck's full attention to burn your opponent from 20 to 0.

If you waste a Lightning Bolt on an opponent's Tarmogoyf (old-school style!), that's essentially three life that your opponent gained from you not using the bolt on them.

All that is to say that when piloting burn, you'll take whatever sources of good burn you can get--because burning a player entirely out of the game is hard if you don't. And sometimes those sources of burn happen to hit you too.

Polaris on Eidolon of the Great Revel

3 days ago

Yes, but burn decks don't care about their life totals. The burn deck's goal is to remove the opponent's life total before the opponent can get in a position to deal damage back. This makes opponents still take damage off of early game creatures and counterspells, and the like—for a burn deck, taking 2 damage to cast Lightning Bolt is absolutely worth the opponent taking 2 damage to counter it.

OnTheCurve on Norin Nonsense (Optimized)

3 days ago

Hi Profet93 and thank you so much for your valuable input on my Norin deck! He is by far one of my favorite commanders. I get t he impression you have been running Norin for some time considering all of the recommendations you have provided me.

I will do my best to address each item:

Yes the Hero's Blade was in there just for that reason but in recent play I have found that it has not provided me with enough value to warrant it remaining in the deck. I also was running equipment protection with Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots, but again the value was not there. Sure they would protect the extra creatures in the deck but did not provide a step forward in the game. I have since removed these and have added one of your recommendations. Heat Shimmer and Dualcaster Mage. These two plus Imperial Recruiter seemed like the right changes considering the Recruiter can fetch virtually half of the creatures in the deck . The additional win con is a nice touch as well.

I find with such a low mana curve I have not run into mana issues. I will also be removing Shadowspear as well adding in Smoke as well as Gauntlet of Power. the mana ramp will assist with the low mana rate as well.

So far out of 18 games I have played Norin as won a Whopping 14! This has come from a variety of ways with ETB Purphoros, God of the Forge, Genesis Chamber, Repercussion + Blasphemous Act or mass creature damage with Glacial Chasm on board. nominal creature damage and of course politics. Norin never really feels like a threat to anyone until he goes off. Evenly depleting everyone for damage without being the aggressor.

some of the items you recommended like Lightning Bolt / Outpost Siege do not tickle my fancy due to the singular damage. I prefer equal damage for political reasons and the simple fact that 1 damage per ETB is not enough for my liking.

Now Terror of the Peaks is on order for me already and Ruby Medallion and Sensei's Divining Top are both great suggestions that I will be scouting out additional copies to add to Norin. Very valuable recommendations!

I Prefer the Curse over the Sword due to the low CMC and lack of equip cost. The Wheel of Misfortune is also a quality suggestion and an extra wheel effect that could prove valuable mid to late game. Light Up the Stage and Ignite the Future do seem good. I did consider them during my initial build but leaned towards Stolen Strategy for the repeat effect. Most games I hold onto Warstorm Surge and Confusion in the Ranks for both their high CMC and lack of board utility. I might give your two suggestions another kick at the can!

I do have an extra Crucible of Worlds on tap that I could use and that coupled with fetches could trim down the deck thoughout the game. I like your idea on this.

I have no budget for this deck so i am also considering the better more powerful Gauntlet of Might but having trouble locating one! My playgroup is ULTRA aggressive hence the style of this build.

All in all I am having loads of fun with Norin. He is slowly becoming my most played deck and with some of these suggestions I am looking forward to seeing how they fair in battle!

I thank you for your beefy comment and time you took with the recommendations my friend. When I have some free time I will check out your profile and decks. Return the favor you gave me :) Cheers!

Lokotor on Marchesa, The Black Rose - Primer

3 days ago

EmperorPenguin

Immersturm Predator is fine, but there are better choices in my opinion. Yahenni, Undying Partisan has many of the same upsides, but comes out for less mana and less colors. Immersturm is probably better than Falkenrath Aristocrat in my opinion, though I haven't tested it.

Krav, the Unredeemed similarly there are just better options out there. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is obviously miles better, of course, these cards cost more $$ as well, so that's a consideration for sure. However, my budget list doesn't run these guys either, to be fair. A main concern is definitely that it both costs 5 to play AND has an activation cost on top of that. It's super important to play this kind of deck as fast and low to the ground as possible.

Juri, Master of the Revue is basically just a Lightning Bolt most of the time. It's not like that's terrible, but I'd rather just run something more impactful like Plaguecrafter as a means of controlling the board.

Black Market I've never really felt like I needed the mana from this honestly. Especially with the relatively easy access to 2MV mana rocks these days. As long as you have a decent amount of card draw you should be fine in most games in my opinion.

Terror of the Peaks is basically a better version of Flayer of the Hatebound so if you had wanted to run that, then Terror of the Peaks is the way to go. You can see in my primer that I don't think the effect is too important generally though. It's a high mana value card that requires you to already have a lot of other pieces in play to really take advantage of it, and I think there's better payoffs you could be running comparatively. It's best in a slower meta, but it's certainly playable as a top end of your mana curve card though.

Delphen7 on Waste Not during the Clean …

4 days ago

This is a complex example I thought of when I learned about Turn-Based Actions, and I want to make sure it works the way I think it does.

Assume that the following is true:

• It's my opponent's turn
• Opponent has 8+ cards in hand
• I control Waste Not
• Opponent controls a 2/2 creature that has +4/+4 until end of turn
• I have a Lightning Bolt in hand (For some reason I chose not to bolt the 2/2 creature)
• I can cast the Lightning Bolt

My opponent and I have both passed priority during their end step, so it's now the cleanup step. Cleanup step has the following turn based actions:

• Rule 514.1 (Discard down to 7).
• Rule 514.2 (Simultaneously all damage on creatures is removed and end of turn effects end)
• Rule 514.3 (No priority, but there are exceptions)
• Rule 514.3a (If an state-based action or triggered ability are waiting to go on the stack, they resolve / go on the stack, then active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities)

Waste Not wants to trigger because an opponent discarded (down to hand size). 514.3a lets it trigger. At this point, could I hold priority, bolt the 2/2 (That was previously buffed with +4/+4) and have it be destroyed?