Today I decided to take a step back to the Magic Online Cube: Holiday 2012 and show you a video about a Naya midrange deck featuring Burning of Xinye. I find that people still tend to underrate cards like it, Wildfire, and other symmetrical disruption cards in Cube. Sometimes, people underrate cards like that because they haven't seen them really work out. This video will demonstrate them working well.
That said, I think that in the Magic Online Cube it worked much better in the powered iteration than in its post-Return to Ravnica update. It isn't because of anything like the Power 9, but more because of the reduced size and access to the Signets. (In theory, the archetype "lost" cards like Rite of Ruin, but they weren't very good). I would love to have another cube-worthy Wildfire effect, but unfortunately I haven't seen one outside of Wildfire and Burning of Xinye.)
Draft
Deck
Creatures (9)
- 1 Grim Lavamancer
- 1 Inferno Titan
- 1 Joraga Treespeaker
- 1 Primeval Titan
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 1 Thornscape Battlemage
- 1 Thragtusk
- 1 Thundermaw Hellkite
- 1 Woodfall Primus
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (16)
Spells (12)
In retrospect, I should have built it with the following changes:
- Sword of War and Peace, Forest, -Eureka, Thornscape Battlemage
+ Tangle Wire, Ravages of War, Nantuko Vigilante
I should have overloaded on disruption with Tangle Wire and Ravages since I'd usually be able to come up ahead (especially with Tangle Wire). The Vigilante would have been a nice disruptive answer to annoying mana rocks that could threaten my mana advantage. That and it's a much better answer to things like the Vigilante. Sword would have been a painful cut, but honestly, most of my things were heavy hitters anyway, although a case could have been made for cutting Tooth and Nail.
Either way, I should have worked on breaking the symmetry because that's what the deck wants to do, so it seems pretty awkward in retrospect to leave two of the best disruptive cards in the sideboard. Thankfully, I came to my senses and sided them in (but that could have been because my opponents' decks were slower than mine).
Round 1
After game 1, I sided everything that was somewhat aggressive in—Jackal Pup, Reckless Charge, Molten Rain, Tangle Wire, Ravages of War and Nantuko Vigilante all came in over my top end. I figured that I would need to be the beatdown because I did luck out by having my answers to his billions of Goblin tokens from Empty the Warrens in game 1.
Round 2
Like in the first match, I sided in Tangle Wire since my opponent was playing with a slow deck. I also definitely should have just played Thundermaw Hellkite in game 3 to push the advantage and give the opponent fewer opportunities to get back in the game, especially since the opponent was on the backburner with lands.
Round 3
It was because of this draft and watching other drafts of people playing with the Magic Online Cube: Holiday 2012 that I went from having just the blue signets to having all ten in my own cube list (linked on my blog below). Much like in my findings in my article about Signets and bouncelands, green and aggro haven't suffered, and in the last few five drafts I did, R/B Aggro went undefeated or had just one loss in three of the drafts, B/W Aggro went undefeated in another, and green decks haven't skipped a beat.
I hope that these videos have given you some insight into using the misunderstood and underrated Wildfire and Burning of Xinye duo, giving you some ideas on how to utilize the cards in your drafts and when building your cube.
May all of your opening packs contain Sol Rings!
@UsmanTheRad on Twitter
My blog featuring my updated pauper and regular cube lists: http://idratherbecubing.wordpress.com
Cube podcast that Anthony Avitollo and I co-host: The Third Power
About Usman Jamil
Usman Jamil has been playing Magic since Revised and Fallen Empires. Usman spends most of his Magic time thinking about, writing about, podcasting about, tinkering with and playing Cube, theorizing about its various aspects and going on his soapbox.