New Friends and New Enemies
Let’s be clear about one thing, Standard is changing. The full Theros spoiler is out and if you’re like me and playtest decks on Cockatrice, you’ve probably been playing with most of it for weeks. I don’t think in the years I’ve played magic off and on since Revised do I remember a base set that came in and had such an immediate impact on a Standard format. There’s sets that have come in and had some powerful cards that were used right away, but the vast majority of this set seems immediately playable and I’ve seen some wild brews online along with great updates on traditional contenders.
I’ve tested a variety of brews, and have been tweaking those over the course of time. I don’t think any single one of them is ready for prime time, but a few of them are close. A lot of folks in my area and elsewhere have been talking up Mono Red, thinking that it’s going to dominate this format. Personally, I think red has its work cut out for it; there is a lot of resistance in Theros, and some of the new cards might seem cool but really require some work to build around. I’m going to take you on a tour of some of the decklists I’ve been working with along with the cards that they feature. At the end, I’ll cover some of the format’s obstacles, and please feel free to comment on what you think would be a good way to defeat them.
Mono Red Sligh
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Firedrinker Satyr
3 Legion Loyalist
4 Ash Zealot
4 Young Pyromancer
3 Chandra’s Phoenix
2 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Flames of the Firebrand
19 Mountain
4 Mutavault
Sideboard
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Burning Earth
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Electrickery
1 Act of Treason
1 Mizzium Mortars
1 Mountain
There’s not really a feature card for this deck, it’s your traditional balanced Mono Red Aggro deck. While a lot of people online and in tournament play immediately go for the Burning-Tree Blitz route, I’ve always felt that it was largely unnecessary. You’ll overwhelm a handful of opponents with that type of deck, but at the competitive level you give yourself no advantages play-wise aside from some nut draws. This deck looks to give you the power of flexibility in attacking from multiple angles (Phoenix, Chandra, Stormbreath, Loyalist, Burn, Mutavault) while still being very aggressive. Its tested better than most of the lists I’ve been running, and the only change I’m currently considering is to put Boros Reckoner in the maindeck. He seems very strong in this format out of the gate and he’s easily better in the Mirror than some of the other cards. It will depend on the metagame, and if what I’ve played online is any indicator there will be some variety. You also still have access to x4 Flames of the Firebrand which is great against the mirror. This list doesn’t embrace the new cards, but the ones it does use are arguably what I’d say are the most powerful for this shell. Purphoros is still in the heavy testing phase for me and is largely a build around card, so in this list he’s just an extra pressure point for the control matchups out of the board.
Big Red
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Chandra’s Phoenix
3 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Spark Jolt
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
1 Portent of Betrayal
3 Chandra, Pyromaster
21 Mountain
4 Mutavault
Sideboard
4 Skullcrack
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Burning Earth
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Shock
Arguably, this has been the most successful Mono Red list I’ve piloted thus far. It’s pretty much a direct port of the old Big Red that I was using, except we’ve upgraded some power levels. For starters, Stormbreath Dragon is often a better Thundermaw Hellkite. In the matchups where Mizzium Mortars or Doom Blade is not present, he usually goes unchecked; either killing them outright or letting you activate Monstrosity to ensure they’re finished off. Purphoros actually is a creature most of the time in this deck, as the supplementary early drops that you play tend to stick around. Initially I was using Ash Zealot like in my old list, but Frostburn Weird has been nuts for me. I saw him in some articles and decks online for UW and Mono Blue, and remembered that he was occasionally a good anti-aggro sideboard card. Well he still serves the latter role, but he’s also great at punishing slower opponents who are using the new scry lands and/or guildgates.
Purphoros has been a creature in this list more often than not, because Frostburn Weird plus any of your three drops will activate the needed devotion when he comes into play. Having a 6/5 Indestructible in red has usually been far too much for my opponents, and even if they remove him or you can’t get enough early critters down, Chandra typically functions as a great later play to trigger Purphoros anyway and remove any would-be blockers.
Spark Jolt is very much on the test bench still for this deck, and with Scavenging Ooze and other annoying creatures running around it might have to get cut. I saw a lot of Mono Red Aggro decks online using it, so I decided to try it here alongside Magma Jet, Chandra, and Portent of Betrayal to give this deck a solid cycling engine. While it’s not true draw power, the old version of Big Red had the occasional issue of just not being able to keep in a game with some decks because it had no way to filter through its cards, and so far having access to this much scry has really aided that issue.
Anger of the Gods is one of the most impressive cards to me in the new set, but in this list it hits a lot of your own guys which typically makes it not the card you want. You can play carefully if it’s in your hand, but I don’t think it’s a four-of here. Still, there will be those insane blitz decks that you may just want something that hits their entire board.
Mono Red Tokens
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Chandra’s Phoenix
4 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock
3 Flames of the Firebrand
4 Goblin Rally
21 Mountain
4 Mutavault
Sideboard
3 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Mizzium Mortars
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Skullcrack
2 Burning Earth
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Portent of Betrayal
This deck is mostly a brew, but I heard some stirrings about Goblin Rally with Purphoros and Young Pyromancer and naturally the Timmy in me had to try it out. People floated around other ideas too, like Legion’s Initiative and Assemble the Legion, but for us die hard Mono Red players, other colors just won’t do. This deck has had some hilarious games online, I’ve had multiple times where I’ve just cast Purphoros on turn four, Goblin Rally on turn five to do 8 damage, and then played a land on my sixth turn followed by a swing for the remaining 12 life points (double-pumps with Purphoros). You have a lot of burn to clear blockers, and if they aren’t able to get rid of Young Pyromancer before he puts in some work, you’ll usually have some creatures on the board to supplement your late-game army. My biggest problem with this list though is that it’s fairly one-dimensional and the mana curve is somewhat clunky although it’s not too far off from traditional Big Red. I think there’s a lot more you can do here though, because the combo alone is worth playing a deck for it.
Mono Red Heroic
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Firedrinker Saytr
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Firefist Striker
4 Gore-House Chainwalker
4 Ash Zealot
4 Rubblebelt Maaka
4 Madcap Skills
4 Ordeal of Purphoros
1 Shock
19 Mountain
Sideboard
4 Skullcrack
3 Mizzium Mortars
3 Electrickery
2 Toil // Trouble
2 Mugging
1 Act of Treason
It might be a little too early to go full-blown on a Heroic deck, but I’ve seen a lot of people try online in a lot of different colors. Here you’re only running Akroan Crusader for the effect, but Ordeal of Purphoros and Madcap Skills are fairly good on their own if you play them around your opponent’s removal. You certainly take some gambles on both the land count and the control matchup, but the explosiveness of the creatures and the difficulty you create to block them can compensate a bit for this. It’s a fun list, and worth playing around with if you prefer the faster red decks. It may need some tweaking on the non-creature side of things, but I think with the burn in the sideboard you can adjust for some of the more difficult matchups.
Mono Red Blitz
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Firedrinker Saytr
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Ash Zealot
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Firefist Striker
4 Gore-House Chainwalker
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Rubblebelt Maaka
1 Act of Treason
4 Dynacharge
19 Mountain
Sideboard
4 Skullcrack
3 Mizzium Mortars
3 Mugging
2 Act of Treason
2 Electrickery
1 Toil // Trouble
This Mono Red Blitz deck is almost a straight port of what’s currently successful in MTGO’s RTR tournaments. You gain Firedrinker Saytr which can give you some greater reach, and Legion Loyalist is probably better than Akroan Crusader once you ditch the Heroic theme. This is the kind of deck that should be more powerful in the early stages of the format, but I would be very wary of Anger of the Gods. I’ve seen a lot of this card online, and being one turn faster than a Supreme Verdict is a huge deal. It’s one of the big reasons I don’t like the Blitzy route, especially now.
New and Old Enemies of the Format
Red has had to deal with these guys before, and unfortunately they’ve only become better. G/B and Junk both still have access to most of the good removal they had before outside of Tragic Slip, and now in addition to that they have a Hexproof 0/3 wall that ramps in Sylvan Caryatid. Firefist Striker, Burn, and Threaten effects can help, but at the end of the day the cards above are pretty challenging to beat on a regular basis. I’ve seen a lot of new Reanimator decks that use Whip of Erebos as both a reanimation tool and as a way to make Obzedat just absurd. My Big Red deck has no real answer for this at the moment, and a fourteen point life swing per turn is almost always a sure death. I’ve even seen people recur the Whip with Pharika’s Mender, or add to the threat level with Reaper of the Wilds. You could run artifact hate in the sideboard for the Whip, but it would be at the cost of threat density which is usually a big no-no for Mono Red.
Master of Waves is often paired with a blue devotion deck. Most of the builds I’ve seen online have closely resembled the one talked about in this article by Ryan Hipp. Good luck beating this without putting in some Ratchet Bombs and/or Electrickery somewhere in your seventy-five. In one game I played, I had eight creatures on the board and was threatening lethal, when two Master of Waves and Thassa just completely destroyed me. Master of Waves seems like the new Lingering Souls, and the fact that he’s pro red is just icing on the cake against us. I expect this style of blue to be public enemy number one in the first stages of the format.
There’s a lot of other stuff out there that has been interesting, from the new Planeswalkers to Mono Black Aggro to Mono White Heroic to updated Naya Midrange lists, so it will take some time to figure out a complete seventy-five and I’m guessing it’s going to be heavy adjustments from week to week. I look forward to any feedback on Mono Red, and while the road ahead looks difficult, I still expect a competitive list to surface in the very first weekend of major tournaments. Fanatic of Mogis, Purphoros, God of the Forge, and Stormbreath Dragon will not be denied their seat at the table. . .
– Red Deck Winning