Becker is right. You need to ask yourself why VR is gas. If it’s the damage, Banefire is more flexible (you can play it with less than 6 manas and can scale it down if you need to play an additional spell on the turn) and more powerful (the only limit to how much damage you can do is the number of lands you control plus it can’t be countered, prevented, or foiled by graveyard hate). If it’s rebuying a card, most of the cards in your list that you’d want to get back on turn 6 can be Mannequined. By the time you have 6 mana you don’t want to pick your reactive cards back up and if you really need to sweep the board or off a dork you’ve got Hellion and Redcap to do it. Are there going to be some times that Banefire or Mannequin aren’t going to be able to do what you’d like them to do? Certainly. But they both give you access to plays far superior than you could ever make in this deck with VR.

One of the things I like about your list is the Broodmother. I dunno how good she is, but in a deck with persist you’ll have guys around that you probably won’t miss too much and the tokens come into play big enough to reduce the effectiveness of sweepers like Violent Eruption. This sort of deck might just be the appropriate place for Verdant Force’s smaller, redder cousin. Especially if you can manage to fit in Finks and Redcap number 4 or some Civic Wayfinders–a saucy hit off Bloodbraid that should help your mana base considerably while keeping the deck just as resistant to Anathemancer.

Good luck at Regionals!

I finally picked up my copy of Deckade and I have to say it was the best $25 that I’ve spent in a while. I first encountered the Magic Internet somewhat late in the game (graduating from Sideboard Magazine to Sideboard.com) and, aside from oft hyperlinked classics like “Investment” and “Who’s the Beatdown?”, am reading the Usenet/Dojo articles for the first time. They certainly aren’t all gems, but, whether it’s a bad beat or a mise, they are all entertaining. I’m only halfway through the Psylum era, but even thus far Deckade demonstrates how quickly our understanding of the game developed due to writers such as yourself, Jamie, Hahn, Baxter–the first and only other proper book on Magic I own is Baxter’s Dominating Dominia: A Type II Tournament Player’s Guide for Magic : The Gathering–and others. From the Stone Age of the Magic Internet where you were advising CoP: White to improve the efficiency of Icatian Moneychanger and echewing sideboards as a concession to poor deck construction (Baxter’s T2 book was printed in the same era; the Vise was restricted, yet there is no mention of the Skull) to stressing the metagame as a pimary influence on deckbuilding and deconstruction of the mechanics of Sligh and Necro, the evolution of your writing style and depth of knowledge about the game reflects the sophistication with which the Magic comunity understood the game. Anyone who’s reading this can remember something along the lines of pairing Orcish Artillery with CoP: Red (it was Lure + Wolverine Pack/Thicket Basilisk for me) just as vividly as the first time they copied an established deck card for card (Budde’s R/G Beatdown). As one of the few who have been actively writing about the game since there was a game to write about, the journey of Mike Flores is that of every Magic player.

Many Thanks.
Brendan

P.S.: I’m glad you enjoyed the Captured Sunlight comment. It strikes me as the type of card I’m drawn to but shouldn’t be. Sunlight + Finks just has to be a trap.

Becker.

x3 finks
x3 redcap
x3 hellion
x4 bloodbraid
x3 broodmate
x2 broodmother (insanely better than she looks)

x4 terminate
x4 pulse
x4 jund charm
x3 blightning (this is the card that may change from the main to the board if anything)
x3 vengeful rebirth (seriously insane)

x2 g/r filter
x2 g/b filter
x4 savage lands
x3 jund panarama
x3 treetop
x2 forest
x4 swamp
x4 mountain

i know that its a little bit different direction than you are in at the moment but its been seriously hardcore in our testing. the manabase isnt set in stone but its honestly pretty solid maybe a couple cards off. very resistent to anathamancer which is good. i would love to know your thoughts on it if you have the time.

thanks, hope im not out of line

On Banefire over Anathemancer main: the matchups where Banefire is at it’s best, Anathemancer–despite being unable to take out evil lifegaining walls–is perhaps superior, but you probably want both. As with one of my favorite of Mike’s decks, Kuroda-Style Red, the other deck can play all of the Tier 1 cards it wants and it just won’t matter so long as you get to throw fire at them. Dead is dead regardless of what cool stuff the bad-guys can do. The matchups where Anathemancer is pointless/inefficient, Banefire is still excels in the end-game next to Dragons/Cloudthreshers while providing additional spot removal.

If the deck were about cheap dudes and redundant fire as opposed to incremental card advantage Anathemancer main might be a better choice. That is not the case. The deck needs to be able to play the Beatdown against slow decks–where Anathemancer shines–and the Control role against aggressive decks–where Anathemancer is unimpressive. Banefire does both of these things very well. Overall, considering how the deck functions, the Banefire seems much more deserving of a maindeck slot.

Now what decks do you to kill with Banefire?

I am pretty sure in all of those matchups Anathemancer is just as good Fireball and doesn’t suck coming off the elf.

Maybe I am wrong though, but I would like to here what you think.