(almost) Modern Burn

[WickedBoy6]

I posted this decklist recently in Kathleen's FFX Stream, and I was wondering if I could get some opinions. Here's my "casual" Burn deck, though it's probably way too streamlined to be considered casual:

18 Mountains

4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Satyr Firedancer
4 Spark Elemental
2 Ball Lightning

4 Browbeat
4 Incinerate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Thunderous Wrath
2 Shock
2 Wild Guess

2 Sulfuric Vortex

2 Shrine of Burning Rage

It's all Modern-legal, except for the Grim Lavamancers - they're from the Fire and Lightning Premium Deck - and the Sulfuric Vortexes - from the Sorin vs Tibalt deck. I can replace the Lavamancers with some M10s if needed, I just wouldn't know what to do with the Vortexes. Also, I think having a lot of draw might work against Thunderous Wrath, so I may cut the Wild Guesses. If I do, add more Shock, or better Modern burn spell? (For Casual, I plan on replacing Shock with Chain Lightning)

[Volafortis]

Grim Lavamancer is still Modern legal, it doesn't matter what printing you use.

Sulfuric Vortex is the only card that's not.

In the end, I'd make a list that looks like this (if you want to stay in Modern):

4x Grim Lavamancer
4x Goblin Guide
4x Spark Elemental
4x Hellspark Elemental
3x Ball Lightning
4x Keldon Marauders

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lava Spike
4x Rift Bolt
4x Skullcrack
3x Shard Volley

18x Mountain

[WickedBoy6]

Ooooh, I didn't think about Lava Spike, since it would still give me the same effect as Lightning Bolt with the Satyr. Shard Volley also does the same thing, and since nothing cost over 3 mana, I wouldn't mind sacing a land. Also, Rift bolt looks like a safer alt to Chain Lightning, since it doesn't have the weakness against other red decks. I also like Goblin Guide. A bit more butt than the Elementals, plus he sticks around.

[Del]

Reforge the Soul is your friend. You could also run manamorphose to pull miracles on their turn if you wanted. I'd probably run burningtrees over marauders as well. An optimal (although expensive) version would probably run 8 fetches and 8 mountains for deck thinning.

[WickedBoy6]

8 fetch and 8 mountains? That's dirty! Technically, that'd be a 52-card deck!

...I love it! Genuine love. I'll take out some of the 2X's I have, put in some of Volafortis' suggestions, and I'll pitch some Mountains for fetch. Ha! Amazing.

[Volafortis]

Reforge the Soul is your friend. You could also run manamorphose to pull miracles on their turn if you wanted. I'd probably run burningtrees over marauders as well. An optimal (although expensive) version would probably run 8 fetches and 8 mountains for deck thinning.

No, no, no, no, no. The only suggestion here that's correct is the fetchland one.

Reforge the Soul is bad. When you're running burn, you want to get your opponent from 20 to 0 as efficiently as possible. That means you want seven cards to deal 3 damage each. Any card that does more is a simple increase in efficiency. Reforge the Sould does nothing. It's awful in hand. Running out of gas is an issue the deck can face, but you run better cards than that to solve it, and those will be in the sideboard. In most games, you don't need to worry about running out of gas, because the statistical probability is that you WILL have the 20 damage in hand by the time your mana develops to cast 7 cards.

The only time running out of gas is an issue is in the case of a mana flood, or against life gain. Skullcrack is in the main to answer lifegain, alongside more sideboard answers. Ideally, you'd want fetchlands to feed Lavamancer, and to thin the deck, but that's not always an option on a budget. Yes, fetchlands would be good, but when you consider the cheapest Modern red fetchland is 45 dollars each, I don't want to recommend it unless we're not concerned about the budget.

Manamorphose has the same issue as Reforge the soul. It does nothing, other than make your 1-land hands worse. One could argue the merits of the deck being trimmed to 56 cards, but there are enough actual cards worth running that it isn't worth risking bad 1-landers.

If you really want to go the "I'm running under 60-cards" route, you might as well go all-in on it, and run 4x Mishra's Bauble, 4x Street Wraith, and 4x Gitaxian Probe as well, but you'll find it's not worth it, because the bottleneck isn't in what cards you run, or even in your mana development or efficiency. The issue is simply in the pace at which a Magic game develops, and it's a safety feature by which the game is created. Some decks circumvent this to break the game, like dredge. Burn, however, cannot, simply because of the nature of what you're trying to accomplish.

Keldon Marauders deals 2 damage without needing to connect, and deals 5 if the 1 swing it gets does connect. Burning-Tree offers no such guarantee, and offers a very poor rate of return in terms of consistent, reliable damage. You don't want to develop your mana faster. You want to get seven cards that deal 3 damage each.

EDIT: @WickedBoy: Yeah, if you have the fetchlands, or can afford them, do it. Don't run the ones that enter tapped, though, or mana development will become a significant bottleneck in your strategy.

[WickedBoy6]

I just caught the prices of non-tap fetchlands? Yeah, that's gonna be a LONG while before those go in the deck. $280 for just 8 cards? Yeah, I'd rather just put that towards a Modern Masters box and make a cube...which I've also thought of doing.

However, I WILL take the other ones into consideration. Especially the Lava Spike/Shard Volley/Rift Bolt.