Burning Vengeance: Criticisms, please.

Burning Vengeance decks control the game, utilizing cheap kill spells, sweepers, and counters to disrupt the enemy game plan. They rely on extremely heavy draw power to get answers until they can get to the late game with at least 1 burning vengeance on the board. The draw power utilized earlier then becomes its deadliest weapon, flashing back to burn away at the enemy 'til only ashes remain. *end dramatic entrance*

Here's my list:

Lands
4 Sulfur Falls
2 Drowned Catacomb
1 Dragonskull Summit
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Shimmering Grotto
4 Island
4 Mountain

Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage

Artifacts
2 Pristine Talisman

Spells
2 Doom blade
1 Go for the Throat
4 Think Twice
4 Forbidden Alchemy
2 Desperate Ravings
4 Mana Leak
2 Slagstorm
1 Blasphemous Act
2 Galvanic Blast
3 Geistflame
1 Devil's Play
4 Burning Vengeance

Sideboard
2 Tribute to Hunger (I'd like these to be Phantasmal Images, but alas I don't have those yet)
1 Devil's Play
1 Flashfreeze
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Ancient Grudge (probably gonna up to 3 or 4)
2 Dissipate
1 Nihil Spellbomb
4 Delver of Secrets (hehe, game 2 surprise!)

I want to improve this list. Any constructive criticism would be much appreciated.

this grixis? i don't even see burning vengence in your list?

a) if it is grixis i don't really see how your going to kill them

b) if it is vengence, you need to add alot of cards like

+2 ravings (its the best draw card in these colors)

+4 burning vengence (so you can kill ppl)

+1 giestflame

cut out the talismans, the blastmophous act, and idk what else.

Jason-admin wrote:this grixis? i don't even see burning vengence in your list?

a) if it is grixis i don't really see how your going to kill them

b) if it is vengence, you need to add alot of cards like

+2 ravings (its the best draw card in these colors)

+4 burning vengence (so you can kill ppl)

+1 giestflame

cut out the talismans, the blastmophous act, and idk what else.

Ah, sorry, haha, got so into typing the list that I totally forgot about the main card in the list. I'll edit it in now. Thanks!
Also, thank you for the suggestions!

i agree about the ravings its the bees knees

All right, changes made!

What do you guys think about the manabase? I've been reading other lists and they've been running fewer aggro lands (2-3, if any). It's making me question my mana judgment, hehe.

i like were burning vengence is after DKA - all list should start with the following imo

creatures:4
4 snapcaster mage

permanents:11
4 burning vengence
4 secrets of the dead
3 liliana of the viel

spells: 23
4 mana leak
4 giest flame
4 think twice
4 faithless footing
3 forbidden alchemy
1 doom blade
3 slagstorm

lands:
4 b/r aggro land
4 sulfer falls
4 darkslick shors
5 islands
3 mountains
2 swamps

Jason-admin wrote:i like were burning vengence is after DKA - all list should start with the following imo

creatures:4
4 snapcaster mage

permanents:11
4 burning vengence
4 secrets of the dead
3 liliana of the viel

spells: 23
4 mana leak
4 giest flame
4 think twice
4 faithless footing
3 forbidden alchemy
1 doom blade
3 slagstorm

lands:
4 b/r aggro land
4 sulfer falls
4 darkslick shors
5 islands
3 mountains
2 swamps

4 Secrets of the Dead seems like too much to be honest...I would run two or three. Also, Desperate Ravings of Think Twice always. ALWAYS. How do you feel about BSZ over Slagstorm right now?

I'm just theory crafting but in order to win with burning vengeance you don't need to drop it early game. It works that way but is pretty jank - you basically have to race to feed stuff into your grave and then hope you hit the enchantment and can flashback 20 pts of dmg into the other players face. A LOT can go wrong in that kind of strategy.

So your other option is to answer a million threats and go for a late game 20 pt dmg to the face explosion. Which is doable but I can only see that working as Grixis. And again, you've gotta hit that Past in Flames and Burning Vengeance combo to really bring the pain.

Phyrexian mana costing spells are also an effective way to get you to the 20 dmg mark.


Just brainstorming here but what about Ramping your brain out then self milling with increasing confusion for X, dumping half your library into your GY, and then you don't even have to worry about finding half your cards - past in flames is likely in there, a ton of shocks and gitaxian probes and god knows what else are in there and you go full face explosion on them.