Throughout MTG’s history, nearly every successful burn strategy has been base red. Red is well-known for having efficient, assertive threats and a plentiful array of burn spells to help close games. Lightning Bolt is not an easy card to replace, and red has tons of pseudo-bolt variants across all formats.
Well, what if I said that a Modern burn deck recently got 9th place in a Magic Online Modern Challenge playing zero red cards? Yes, you heard that right. The strategy is almost entirely mono-black, splashing green for a handful of cards.
Abandoning red is obviously a huge cost, but this deck does have some appealing pieces that incentivize you to stay as heavy black as possible. Red burn decks in Modern have largely fallen by the wayside in recent months, so if you’re a fan of burn as an archetype, this could be right up your alley.
Reducing the Opponent’s Life Total in Black
- Mana Value: B
- Rarity: Common
- MTG Sets: Innistrad
- Card Text: Target opponent loses 3 life. Flashback 5R (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
While black has always been outshined by red in the burn archetype, there’s a few older cards that have made the concept of a black burn deck rather intriguing. For instance, Chancellor of the Dross is a funny card that is quite strong if it’s in your opening hand. The problem is that if you ever draw it on a future turn, it will likely just rot in your hand.
This helped encourage the use of Soul Spike as a way to convert your dead Chancellors into additional burn. Imagine opening the game with two Chancellors and a Soul Spike. You get to drain the opponent for 10 life, all without investing any mana!
Another funky piece of the equation is Sleeper Agent. The idea is that you can donate the Sleeper Agent to your opponent on turn one, forcing them to lose life every turn cycle until Sleeper Agent leaves play. Obviously, you end up getting whacked for a bunch in the process by Sleeper Agent. Luckily, this is often offset by the life gain associated with Chancellor and Soul Spike.
From there, you can throw in some copies of Bump in the Night as a solid Lava Spike replacement, and Gonti’s Machinations serves as yet another Lightning Helix to the opponent’s face. the life loss certainly adds up, yet for years, it has felt like this strategy was simply too inconsistent to warrant playing.
Soul Spike, while cute, is pretty poor unless you’re pairing it with Chancellors that already drained the opponent. Sleeper Agent can theoretically go the distance, but similar to Vexing Devil, gives the opponent the opportunity to simply kill it before taking any damage.
Chipping away with Monastery Swiftspear and Goblin Guide while using ample cheap red burn to finish the opponent off has generally been a cleaner way to go about things. With some sweet additions to the black burn archetype in 2024, though, there may be room for a conversation.
New Toys
- Mana Value: BBB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- MTG Sets: Modern Horizons 3
- Card Text: Skip your draw step. At the beginning of your end step, you may pay any amount of life. If you do, draw that many cards. Your maximum hand size is five. If a card or token would be put into your graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.
At the top of the list of newer cards comes an elite MH3 enchantment: Necrodominance. Necrodominance may be a very fixed Necropotence, but there’s a lot of appeal in the right deck.
This black burn deck is well-suited to maximize Necrodominance. First of all, you naturally have a ton of life gain. Between Chancellor of the Dross, Gonti’s Machinations, Witherbloom Command, and Soul Spike, you should have plenty of life to spare to draw cards.
Speaking of Soul Spike, the card’s synergy with Necrodominance is absolutely incredible. Beyond the fact that Soul Spike buffers your life total, Necrodominance provides plenty of fuel for Soul Spike.
You can choose to draw a bunch of cards with Necrodominance, then still in your end step, cast Soul Spike for free before you would go to discard. Prior to the banning of Grief, Soul Spike and Necrodominance were best friends in Modern.
Furthermore, Soul Spike provides you with an easy way to flip Sorin of House Markov in short order. After Sorin transforms, you can immediately use the -1 ability to dome the opponent for even more.
Lastly, the release of Bloomburrow brough an awesome one-drop into the mix in Iridescent Vinelasher. Alongside Fetchlands, Iridescent Vinelasher can reliably deal multiple damage to the opponent each turn without having to deal combat damage at all.
In grindier games, making a copy of Iridescent Vinelasher and immediately following up with a Fetchland can be devastating. It isn’t a Hasty threat like Monastery Swiftspear or Goblin Guide, but it fills the one-drop role nicely.
Playing in a Hostile Environment
- Mana Value: W
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 1/2
- MTG Sets: Modern Horizons 3
- Card Text: Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, you gain 1 life and get an energy counter. Whenever you attack, you may pay three enrgy. When you do, put two +1/+1 counters and a flying counter on target attacking creature. It becomes and Angel in addition to its other types.
Overall, as sweet as this deck is, there are still some concerning matchups in the current Modern metagame. Right now, Boros Energy is clearly the best deck, and there are a number of Energy staples that line up well.
Both Ocelot Pride and Guide of Souls provide a consistent stream of life gain that can make it tough to race. At the same time, while the black burn deck is capable of gaining a lot of life to stave off opposing pressure, there aren’t too many removal spells available in game one to answer Guide of Souls.
The good news, at least, is that Witherbloom Command can answer Ocelot Pride as well as Goblin Bombardment, which is a huge boon. Fatal Push is also a great card to have in the matchup, of course.
Besides Energy, you have to be weary of mono-blue Belcher, too. With access to Flare of Denial and Disrupting Shoal, it can be tough to stick Necrodominance. Here is where Iridescent Vinelasher shines, though, since you can often get it down underneath counter magic and the Belcher deck has a tough time getting it off the table.
For right now, this black burn deck doesn’t seem like it will make it to the top echelon of decks in the near future. However, it does have the tools to compete, as the 9th place finish showcases. Perhaps if a future ban announcement brings some changes, this deck could be poised for a breakout. Only time will tell.
