BOROS BURN AIKIDO
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on April 12, 2022, 5:15 p.m. by 9-lives
Aikido of the Inward Eye and Mirror Flame
Modern*
SCORE: 10 | 73 COMMENTS | 2011 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS
What are some useful aikido cards that i could use? Perhaps Hallow? Is Harsh Mentor a good card? I think that activating abilities is common? Braid of Fire is amazing for ramp. I'm really looking for straight up draw cards that are within boros manabase. Best thing i could find was Risk Factor; Useful as a damage card early on, and a draw card whenever the opponent is lower on health.
Hello! Thanks for your response!
One thing that I can take away from your post is Timely Reinforcements is useful. I don't quite understand much of what you said.
Metroid_Hybrid said: "Braid of Fire does hardly anything for you here. This is because Mana empties at the end of each & every step and phase. In this case it's only good for casting Instants and other Cumulative costs during your Upkeep.."
What does he/she mean by this?! I thought that you get mana on unpkeep, like when you tap your lands, then spend it however you want on your turn??? If not, then I can see why Braid of Fire isn't a great choice.
Also, do you think that Harsh Mentor is a good option? Like a Eidolon of the Great Revel but punishing use of activated abilities?? Do you think people often use activated abilities?
April 13, 2022 11:30 a.m.
lagotripha says... #4
9-lives Ok, so the turn order goes untap, upkeep, draw, mainphase, attack phase, main phase, end step. Whenever you go from one step to the next you lose any mana you've added to your pool.
Upkeep basically exists for things that happen once at the start of a turn, after you untap your lands, before you draw a card. A lot of cards literally had 'upkeep' which makes you pay every turn to keep them (eg. Brand of Ill Omen back in the old days)
Braid of Fire was printed to help pay these, pay for instant speed effects like abilities (eg pump on Shivan Dragon) or actual instants.
If you want to play a big instant speed spell like Searing Wind, pay full price for Thunderous Wrath, or activate Soulfire Grand Master its great because you don't need to play a ton of lands.
Harsh mentor is in the same category as Ash Zealot, Immolation Shaman Tunnel Ignus and Ishi-Ishi, Akki Crackshot- they care about your opponents doing very specific things, which most opponents can just ignore.
Effects like great revel deal damage no matter what deck your opponent plays. Even more, compared to things like Young Pyromancer that care about what you are doing, they are a lot less reliable.
You can build decks around and that use them - I have in the past, especially for budget brews, but it takes planning. Tunnel ignus feels bad until you start playing Path to Exile, Cleansing Wildfire and Geomancer's Gambit, but its rare that you want to just put one in there - its home is usually in the sideboard.
Someone whose combo casts a billion cards from the gravyard will hate losing game two to a single ash zealot, and harsh mentor is in the same category.
April 13, 2022 1:49 p.m.
Hello! Thanks for repsonding!
Wouldn't Braid of Fire function just like untapping a land? Don't understand why I would lose my mana after I draw a card since that's after untapping. In all of the games I've played, we always untap lands then draw. So why would I lose mana from my untapped lands? And, Braid of Fire function upon upkeep, which is in-between draw and untap. So why would that mana not be usable?!
April 13, 2022 5:15 p.m.
lagotripha says... #6
What happens when you tap a land for mana is that it puts mana in your mana pool. You can do this at any time with lands, which is usually exactly when you need it.
If you are say, adding 2 mana to your pool when you tap a land with Caged Sun, but you only spend 1 of that mana on a Lightning Bolt, you have 1 mana in your mana pool left over.
When you go to the next step in the turn (untap, upkeep, draw, main, attack, second main, end step) your mana pool empties, so you lose any mana still in it.
Braid adds the mana without tapping, once, automatically, during your upkeep. You can usually only pay upkeep costs and instant speed stuff in your upkeep, which makes it tricky to use before all the mana is emptied out of the pool.
lagotripha says... #2
If you want to play Braid of Fire you want to set up something like grandmaster to cast multiple 'return to hand' instant/ X cost spells, backed up by a second ramp engine, and it needs to win the game. This would be easiest with setting up a Time Warp loop or similar, but there are combo options with red/white that are similar, if a little less reliable.
To do this you'd need to respec the list into a grind/control setup -Path to Exiles and Lightning Helixes with the goal of getting a winning field where you just have better topdecks and a braid that keeps ticking up. This doesn't match the rest of your list.
I'm most used to seeing Boros Reckoner alongside Swans of Bryn Argoll as part of a combo engine, but the deck here doesn't have the parts to do that (wraths/land damage). It will work fine as a 3 drop choice for boros, but it will eat up slots that could be draw engines. You could go a little higher on the curve, run some more removal and try for Light from Within or Acolyte's Reward value, but it will take tuning and likely never quite reach competitive levels.
I've seen mono red tron where you try to cast wraths and burn people out with reckoner damage/ Fireball, but it hasn't been great in a long while.
I have seen combos using Hallow+Plunge into Darkness, a long time ago. It was a janky mess leaning hard on Children of Korlis. Hallow can definitely work for getting a high life total, letting you set up something like Aetherflux Reservoir or symetric burn, but every damage spell for it has big question marks above it.
The rest of your deck outside of braid is an aggressive 'get to low life totals then exploit that' list. This is where deflecting palm shines, but also where risk factor is great. It will, over time morph into boros burn if you keep pushing the power level - the curse of competitive is that you tend to get a generic deck with 6-7 cards that are your own twist on it.
You might get something unique if you focus on cards like Timely Reinforcements, which has been a traditional control staple, to win mirror burn matchups, or figure out Molten Psyche alongside delayed symetric draw - Howling Mine or similar could power a very aggressive list.
I hope this provides ideas and options at least - I don't have any great answers.
April 13, 2022 9:20 a.m.