Standard

Blood, Fire, Passion: The Many Flavors of Red

So, about Standard-Mono Blue and Mono Black Devotion, huh? Mono Black is finally on top in Standard. Everybody rejoice! It only needed a card that invalidates your opponent’s entire strategy ([card]Thoughtseize[/card]) and one that invalidates your own entire strategy ([card]Pack Rat[/card]), combined with a card that creates 20-point life swings (Gary the Gray Merchant). Yup, that deck seems fair. Oh, and Blue is still good too, because, well… it’s blue. If you didn’t get the memo yet: they now also get the best creatures (cue the complaints about True-Name Nemesis).

I don’t really want to talk about beating people with Black and Blue, though. I want to talk about beating Black and Blue black and blue. How do we do that? With Red! I last left you with a Mono Red deck, and I’m not the only one playing the color to reasonable success. If we look at the results from Grand Prix Albuquerque, there were two more Red decks in the top 16, although they both splashed for some white cards. [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card] lets you deal with some cards that are otherwise big issues: [card]Master of Waves[/card] and [card]Desecration Demon[/card] (or if some poor soul brought a green deck to a tournament, Polukranos and [card]Arbor Colossus[/card]). Once you have some white sources to cast it, [card]Boros Charm[/card] becomes an auto-include for the deck as well.

Let’s look at some red-based deck lists that you can use to beat up on the top decks in Standard:

[deck title= Boros Red by Marcel Strautz]

[Creatures]
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Rakdos Cackler
3 Ash Zealot
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Firefist Striker
3 Boros Reckoner
4 Chandra’s Phoenix
3 Fanatic of Mogis
3 Rubblebelt Maaka
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
[/Spells]
[Lands]
12 Mountain
2 Mutavault
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Temple of Triumph
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Chained to the Rocks
2 Boros Charm
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Skullcrack
2 Flames of the Firebrand
2 Wear // Tear
2 Toil // Trouble
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

What is good about this list:
A low curve, a low land-count supported by scry spells like [card]Magma Jet[/card] to make your landdrops, a ton of cheap creatures to put the hurt on slower opponents, and a lot of reach with [card]Fanatic of Mogis[/card]: these features were all in the red list I wrote about previously as well. This list adds another: being able to easily punch through blockers. Instead of more burn or [card]Firedrinker Satyr[/card]s, Marcel plays four [card]Legion Loyalist[/card], three [card]Rubblebelt Maaka[/card] and the full set of [card]Firefist Striker[/card]s. This way, creatures like [card]Frostburn Weird[/card] become less of an issue, and the [card]Legion Loyalist[/card] even lets you attack into a board flooded with [card]Master of Waves[/card] [card]Elemental[/card]s thanks to the first strike it grants your team. Combine it with [card]Skullcrack[/card] out of the board, and your Mono Blue wielding opponent won’t be pleased.

What is bad about this list:
Sometimes I feel like certain people live in another reality altogether. If I were to play this list, I would constantly have [card]Boros Charm[/card], [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card], and [card]Glare of Heresy[/card] stuck in my hand while never drawing one of the only six white sources. Eighteen red sources also seems one or two shy of being able to play Reckoners when you want to, but you only play 20 lands, so maybe that’s fine? I would definitely add a Temple and cut a Maaka, Loyalist, or Striker myself. While these cards are the main things I like about this list, I don’t think you need that many cards to punch through blockers; you have a very reasonable amount of reach with the Phoenixes, Fanatics, burn spells, and haste creatures. Perhaps it’s a good idea if green decks become a bigger part of the metagame.

The other Red deck in the top 16 of GP Albuquerque took the hastag #gpbbq fairly seriously, sporting a total of 34 burn spells between the main and side. Only seven of these can’t go to the face, but they will leave your opponent’s creatures burnt to a crisp:

[deck title= Burn Red by Joe Demestrio]

[Creatures]
4 Chandra’s Phoenix
3 Stormbreath Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Chained to the Rocks
4 Shock
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
2 Mizzium Mortars
4 Anger of the Gods
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Warleader’s Helix
[/Spells]
[Lands]
10 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple of Abandon
4 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Mizzium Mortars
4 Skullcrack
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Assemble the Legion
4 Toil // Trouble
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

What is good about this list:
Obviously inspired by the deck that won the last MOCS, this deck packs a fistful of burn instead of [card]Firefist Striker[/card]s. All this deck does is:

1) Go straight to the dome with burn spells
2) Kill creatures

The creatures all have haste and with careful play will get in at least one attack. Everything else is gravy. With so many burn spells available in Standard-especially ones that hit for more than three-suddenly it becomes possible to never have to interact with your opponent other than launching [card]Lightning Strike[/card]s at their life total. Only counterspells and lifegain truly interact, but between the most played counterspell being [card]Gainsay[/card] and the [card]Skullcrack[/card]s in the board there’s, not much interaction left. The deck is reasonably fast too and can still use burn to hold off creatures if absolutely necessary. And with the nine(!) scrylands on top of the [card]Magma Jet[/card]s, you are bound to keep the gas flowing for you to light stuff up.

What is bad about this list:
Twenty-three lands seems a little low with a bunch of four and five mana costing spells. Obviously the scrylands help, but I’d rather have those push lands to the bottom, not spells! I need those spells to kill people.

While convenient during sideboarding, the 10 maindeck spells that only deal with creatures are also not favorites of mine. There are plenty of controlling decks still around, and while [card]Anger of the Gods[/card] was “the new [card]Slagstorm[/card],” it does not go to the face. With no one-drops to pressure control opponents, the amount of potentially dead cards might hurt your control matchup too much. To me, the deck seems split between two ideas: it’s not Big Red (as in “a controlling version of red”), nor is it Burn (the almost combo-like deck that chains cheap burn spells). I’m guessing Demestrio won a lot of post-sideboard games, where he could fix his maindeck to suit whatever his opponent was playing.

Not having one-drops or other cheap creatures to pressure your opponent means that most decks will have “dead” removal spells in their hand, until you play a Strombreath Dragon. I’d rather have an [card]Ash Zealot[/card] come in for some damage and then eat an [card]Ultimate Price[/card] than let my opponent sit on it and try to find a spot where I can hit him for four with the Dragon. At that point, [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] becomes a worse [card]Warleader’s Helix[/card].

By taking the lessons from GP BBQ into account and adding some spice, this is what I propose to morph Demestrio’s deck into:

[deck title= Boros Burn Baby by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Rakdos Cackler
3 Ash Zealot
2 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra’s Phoenix
3 Stormbreath Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
2 Chained to the Rocks
4 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike
3 Magma Jet
3 Skullcrack
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Warleader’s Helix
[/Spells]
[Lands]
10 Mountain
3 Mutavault
4 Sacred Foundry
3 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
2 Chained to the Rocks
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Boros Reckoner
2 Assemble the Legion
3 Toil // Trouble
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

What is good about this list:
This red deck has more ways to pressure control decks in the main than the Burn list and eschews the entire “how do I get through” plan of the smaller red deck entirely by simply not caring. Cackler gets in twice and is then brickwalled by a Nightveil Specter? Job well done.

This deck is more like Joe Demestrio’s burn list than Marcel Strautz list, but it has the advantage of having fewer dead cards against control, and it has the additional option to use burn spells to get their creature off the board, getting yours through, and not losing any damage in the exchange. For example, in the Burn deck, imagine you have a [card]Magma Jet[/card] in your hand and your opponent has a [card]Tidebinder Mage[/card]. You now have to decide between killing the Mage or going straight to the face. Leaving the Tidebinder on the table might do too much damage in the long run, but if you kill it, you might end up with too little damage to kill your opponent. (Remember: it doesn’t matter if you dealt your opponent 19 damage if he still has one life left at the end of the game.)

Now imagine the same situation, but your opponent has your [card]Rakdos Cackler[/card] locked under his [card]Tidebinder Mage[/card]. Suddenly, the choice is easy: kill the Tidebinder at the end of your opponent’s turn, untap, and attack for two with the Cackler. No damage is lost, and you threaten to attack for more in the following turns.

What is bad about this list:
While I’ve been playing something similar, this particular build is untested. I was playing more creatures, and I am unsure whether more burn spells is better than the creatures. With more burn spells, some [card]Young Pyromancer[/card]s become attractive, but I haven’t played with them yet. I got the idea from a friendly judge who’s been having a lot of success with them online, though, so those are not completely untested.

The sideboard is also rough, although the numbers work, and I’m fairly sure these are the cards I want for a metagame filled with Mono Blue, Mono Black, Esper, Mono Red and some Green decks. Perhaps the [card]Ash Zealot[/card]s should just be Shocks to power up the Pyromancer as well, but then you run into the same problems as Demestrio’s list, where they always have the [card]Doom Blade[/card] stuck in their hand to kill your [card]Stormbreath Dragon[/card] when it does come down.

This is my own current Red list:

[deck title= MonoRed by Jay Lansdaal]

[Creatures]
4 Blood Crypt
15 Mountain
2 Mutavault
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
3 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
3 Ash Zealot
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
3 Firefist Striker
3 Ghor-House Chainwalker
2 Boros Reckoner
4 Chandra’s Phoenix
3 Fanatic of Mogis
2 Rubblebelt Maaka
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
1 Mutavault
2 Electrickery
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Skullcrack
1 Act of Treason
2 Boros Reckoner
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Burning Earth
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Toil // Trouble
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

What is good about this list:
It’s similar to Marcel Strautz’s, but with a more solid manabase. It’s going to be a bit weaker against Mono Blue without [card]Legion Loyalist[/card], but I do like Firedrinker. Being able to trade with a [card]Nightveil Specter[/card] is important against both Mono Blue and Mono Black, and it puts more pressure on decks like Esper or Andrew Cuneo’s creatureless UW Elixir control deck.

The sideboard has a bunch of one- and two-ofs, which I like because it makes it very hard for your opponent to sideboard against you. You can get away with it because they fill similar roles in a matchup (adding an extra angle of attack against control: Hammer, Chandra, [card]Burning Earth[/card]), or the second copy is way worse than the first ([card]Act of Treason[/card], Hammer, [card]Burning Earth[/card]), or you’d like to draw a mix of a certain effect rather than multiples of the same card ([card]Toil // Trouble[/card], [card]Skullcrack[/card]). The rest just increase the numbers of maindeck cards in the matchups where they are good.

What is bad about this list:
It does not have access to the white cards that Strautz’s deck uses. Right now, those cards ([card]Boros Charm[/card] and [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card]) might be so good that it’s worth splashing. You can probably cut the [card]Blood Crypt[/card]s and three [card]Mountain[/card]s for four Sacred Foundries and three [card]Temple of Triumph[/card]. Add [card]Boros Charm[/card] instead of the Maakas, then add three [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card] to the sideboard in the place of an [card]Electrickery[/card], a Mortars and a Reckoner or something similar. Then replace the [card]Toil // Trouble[/card]s with extra [card]Boros Charm[/card]s.

Wrapping it up
If you want to bring something competitive to the table in a sea full of Blue and Black, you could do a lot worse than the above lists. I personally wouldn’t take Demestrio’s deck to a tournament, nor would I take the Boros Burn Baby without testing, but I am confident that you can do well with Strautz’s deck or my last list (with or without white). The Mono Blue matchup might not be a cake walk, but there are very few decks that do walk over Blue, and you have a good shot at beating them. Play some dudes, burn away enough creatures that you can continue getting damage in, keep them on the back foot, and save your [card]Chained to the Rocks[/card] for [card]Master of Waves[/card] whenever possible.

Then again, I also wouldn’t fault you for switching to the dark side… it is tempting. So much power! (And Rats-Rats are sweet)

Jay Lansdaal
<a href=”http://twitter.com/@iLansdaal”>iLansdaal</a> on Twitter and MTGO

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