PART ONE: RED DECK WINS- A BRIEF OVERVIEW
Red Deck Wins is defined by weenie-sized red beaters, instant and sorcery speed burn, burn that sticks around, a little bit of control, and Blistering Firecat. These elements are fused together and forced from your hand and into play as fast as you can possibly play them. The strategy to the RDW's game is almost as easy as picking rock every time in Rocks-Paper-Scissors. Basically, you want to play creatures while burning your opponent's creatures. If your opponent doesn't have any creatures, you aim the burn at his or her head instead. In addition, you want to control your opponent as well, using cards like Wastelands and Ports to lock up your opponent's mana supply. Here's the three step plan:
1. Burn Creatures
2. Make opponent unable to play things
3. Swing and burn your opponent until one of you is dead (hopefully your opponent)
Simple enough, right?
PART TWO: RED DECK WINS IN THE WINTER '05 PTQ SEASON
The three-step Red Deck wins has had its fair share of victories this PTQ/GP season:
PTQ/GP Finishes as of 2/13*-
First: 2
Second: 7
Third: 4
Fourth: 4
Fifth: 5
Sixth: 3
Seventh: 3
Eighth: 5
No Place: 5
(*Statistics derived from 26 reported tournaments)
Although only two first place finishes doesn't seem very impressive, Red Deck Wins placed 33 times out of 26 tournaments in a diverse metagame of well over 13 high tier decks (including Affinity, Minds Desire, White Desire, Alluren, Reanimator, Welder Reanimator, Temporary Solution, UW Control, Madness, Psychatog, Gro-A-Tog, and others). Based on these results, it's plain to see that RDW is able to compete well against a wide variety of deck archetypes.
The following is one of the first place RDW builds, piloted by Corbett Grey-
| Red Deck Wins: 1st Place Portland, Oregon - 2/12Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Creatures - 16 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Grim Lavamancer 4 Blistering Firecat 4 Jackal Pup Spells - 20 4 Seal of Fire 4 Cursed Scroll 4 Volcanic Hammer 4 Lava Dart 4 Pillage | Land - 24 4 Wasteland 4 Wooded Foothills 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Rishadan Port 8 Mountain | Sideboard 3 Ensnaring Bridge 1 Gamble 1 Shattering Pulse 2 Pulverize 4 Fledgling Dragon 4 Cursed Totem |
Those of you who are veteran Red Deck Wins players will see that Grey uses all of the essential core components of RDW and can note where he has improvised for his expected metagame. Those of you new to Extended or RDW in general should be careful to pay attention during the next section- the parts of Red Deck Wins that make it, well, win.
PART THREE: THE JOY OF COOKING RED DECK WINS
In order to discuss your build of RDW, we need to lay down the groundwork of the deck: what must always go in a competitive build of Red Deck Wins? Let's use the first place decklist to illustrate the necessities. We'll start with the creatures:
| Red Deck Wins: 1st Place Portland, Oregon - 2/12Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
|---|
|
Creatures - 16 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Grim Lavamancer 4 Blistering Firecat 4 Jackal Pup |
The following creatures are essential:
4 Grim Lavamancer- While a red 1/1-for-one may not seem like a big deal, I will completely stand by the claim that Grim Lavamancer is the best red creature ever printed. Whether or not I get flamed heavily for this remark is irrelevant- you need 4 copies of this in your deck. Brother Grim provides two crucial elements of the core RDW philosophy; he is a cheap and reusable source of creature removal and he doubles as a cheap and reusable source of burn for your opponent's cranial orifices. Even in instances when you are landlocked with your opponent, Matoc provides a steady source of two damage that your opponent can only take for so long. The graveyard-resource factor is negated by the supply of fetch lands, Wastelands, burn spells, and kamikazi creatures that you should readily have at your disposal.
4 Jackal Pup- Wizards openly admits time and again that they always need to keep an eye out on two-power-for-one-mana creatures in order to avoid another 'Jackal Pup' problem. With that said, you have the problem child available to you. While he may look like a really crappy Savannah Lions, the familiar (look at the Tempest flavor text; don't worry, I'll wait) gives you a consistant threat of two damage a turn starting on turn one. Keeping in mind the RDW philosophy of 'you burn their dudes so you can swing with yours', a two power creature that early provides pressure at a point in the game when most players are still trying to decide whether or not they should have mulliganned.
4 Blistering Firecat- I don't think this card needs any explaining; Ball Lightning has always been a four-of in decks similar to RDW in the past. A larger Ball Lightning at a nominally higher cost seems to fit into the equation just perfectly. If that's not clear enough- seven damage for four mana in one card is extremely efficient. The End.
On average, out of the 20 non-creature spells in RDW, only four of them seem to remain static in all builds. That spell? Seal of Fire.
The following spells are essential:
4 Seal of Fire- I can't quite put my finger on what makes the burn seal the spell that you never see missing from a t8 RDW list. The most obvious reasons are that it fits well with Grim Lavamancer, doesn't have a cost to activate, you can play it when you have the resources available and use it even when you don't. Well, I guess I put a pretty firm finger down on why Seal of Fire is the premier non-creature spell of choice in Red Deck wins. Regardless, it provides burn, Lavamancer fuel, and can double as a looming threat against your opponents' first turn Basking Rootwallas or early Goblin Welders.
Like some kind of crazy inverse of the spells in RDW, the lands are almost chiseled in stone and set in place. Just as a refresher, these are the lands I'm talking about:
| Red Deck Wins: 1st Place Portland, Oregon - 2/12Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards |
|---|
|
Land - 24 4 Wasteland 4 Wooded Foothills 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Rishadan Port 8 Mountain |
4 Wasteland- Wasteland does one thing and that thing is punish players whose decks thrive off of non-basic lands. In the current Extended metagame, this may as well be Strip Mine because Tog, Life, Affinity, Rock, and Reanimator/Machine, just as a few examples, all play a good deal of non-basic lands; some of which, such as in Machine, Life, and Affinity, are extremely essential to the deck's success. Wasteland shuts down your opponent's mana supply and puts them behind you in the tempo race, giving you, the RDW player, time to start pummeling your opponent like there is no tomorrow. Oh, and Wasteland provides mana to play spells like Cursed Scroll or that 1 non-red in Blistering Firecat's mana cost and becomes Matoc fuel.
8 Fetchlands- While it's been proven by the likes of Zvi (and others with degrees in math or a lot of spare time and a TI-83 Graphing Calculator) that the Fetchlands only thin your deck out a fraction of a fraction of a percent, that minute piece of your deck is still smaller than it was without a search. These lands provide that extra ounce of magic I like to call "Making your draws slightly less random"- less lands in your library means less of a chance that you'll draw a land over, say, a Blistering Firecat. In addition, they're free sources of fuel for Grim awesomeness coupled with putting another land into play (as opposed to Wasteland that only goes into your graveyard).
4 Rishadan Port- Like Wasteland, Port keeps your opponent behind his or her curve. Although a 2-for-1 land exchange may seem like an awful tradeoff for a tempo-crazy deck like RDW, you must keep in mind that it only takes one or two mana at the most to play any of the non-Firecat, non-Pillage, non-Tangle Wire spells in the deck. While an opponent is stuck at three land on turn four or five, Red Deck Wins will be able to still play the one-mana weenies it needs to keep pressure on the opponent. Obviously taking a pause to drop a Tangle Wire or Firecat is the only time pressure should be released with the Port because the former two are likely to apply MORE pressure than the one tapped land.
8 Mountain- I honestly don't understand why anyone would bother with these in RDW. Personally, I prefer running nine Islands over these in my build of Red Deck Wins in case I get into a counter war or need to drop a Morphling for the kill. I mean, these don't even interact with feeding your Lavamancer. Anyway, all the pros play these and I guess they know a bit more than me in the subject of winning Pro Tour and such, so include these but realize that they're a kind of tech that only the pros really seem to understand.
PART FOUR: ALL YOUR PTQS ARE BELONG TO RED DECK WINS
So far, this is what our build of Red Deck Wins looks like:
| Red Deck Wins SkeletonMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | |
|---|---|
|
Creatures 4 Grim Lavamancer 4 Jackal Pup 4 Blistering Firecat | Spells 4 Seal of Fire Undeclared Spells 20 Cards MIA Land 4 Wasteland 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wooded Foothills 4 Bloodstained Mire 8 Mountain |
First and formost, the creature list needs to be completed. On average, RDW plays 16 creatures. We already have 12, so lets look at possible inclusions for our last 4 slots:
PART FOUR A: CREATURES
4 Goblin Cadets- Goblins Cadets are basically self-mutilation free Jackal Pups. The only issue with these is that your opponent absolutely cannot have any blockers or creatures in the way unless you'd enjoy killing off your own creatures. The cadets are semi-efficient because of their 'two power for one mana' status but become exponentially less so when pitted against anything that can block. Personally, I don't like them at all.
4 Goblin Patrol- Those of you who have seen Snatch know one thing: don't @#$% with a piker. In both senses, the saying holds true for Goblin Patrol- these guys suck. At first glace, the Patrol is a 2/1 for one red with Echo. On closer inspection, the Patrol costs one red and has Echo. As a first turn drop, the card ties up your second turn pressure drops (EG: multiple creatures, a creature and a Cursed Scroll, or burn). This card is worse than the Cadets, but at least these don't change sides.
4 Slith Firewalker- I look at this card and all I can think of is Michael Jackson's Thriller. The red slith is a fantastic creature but is especially good in a control-heavy environment. If you know your local metagame is going to be fairly devoid of creatures, play this. This is one of the best final creature slots available to Red Deck Wins and is one of the few creatures that can be large enough to survive blockers.
4 Mogg Fanatic- This is my personal favorite 'fourth creature' in Red Deck Wins. Mogg Fanatic has so much versatility stored up in a one mana 1/1. He can pick at your opponent, kill multiple blockers/creatures, kill a blocker bigger than it, kill a blocker and ping your opponent, fuel a lavamancer, or clear a path for an alpha strike of two Jackal Pups and a Blistering Firecat. Really great for environments where you know you'll need the extra removal he provides.
With the filling of your creature slots, we still have room for 16 spells. These 16 spells, like the final four creature slots, are all dependant on what you expect to see in your local metagame. Most come from two categories- burn and control. While it’s usually safe to stock up on lots of burn, most builds will attempt at dedicating at least one slot to a playset of control. If you glance casually over some of the recent RDW builds, you’ll notice that many builds don’t include complete playsets. As a result, I’ve decided not to suggest offhand that any or all of these cards be included in playsets in your build of RDW. That said, these are the usual suspects for the final 16 maindeck slots:
PART FOUR B: BURN
Lava Dart- I like to look at Lava Dart as an instant form of Mogg Fanatic. Lava Dart gets rid of smaller creatures, usually blockers, and tends to go two-for-one in most cases. Unlike the Fanatic, this needs the sacrifice of resources to do the double-shot. However, you are guaranteed to take two weenies with you while using the dart, whereas the raining men will usually only trade with one outside of combat. Lava Dart works best against mirror matches and against weenie decks.
Firebolt- I personally prefer using Firebolt in my builds of RDW. Although the flashback is monstrous, Firebolt doubles as removal for larger creatures (namely against early Madness beaters, double white costed White Weenies, and Chris Pikula) and a good card for dropping this final points of damage in against your opponent. A final, last ditch strike, followed by a flashback Firebolt has won me a good deal of games that would have probably been unwinnable without that final two damage. If your local area can support the time needed to flashback Firebolt, I would definitely include a set.
Volcanic Hammer- The mallet has been seeing a fluctuating amount of play lately. This is mostly due to the increase in maindeck dedication to counter-metagaming. Like Firebolt, you’ll want to play this in an environment with larger creatures or when you know you’ll need larger sums of damage for your opponent’s life total. Hammer isn’t as versatile as Lava Dart or Firebolt because it has no additional perks besides being a sorcery speed damage spell. Because of its lesser versatility, Volcanic Hammer is a card I’d recommend testing heavily before etching its place in your Red Deck Wins build in stone.
Cursed Scroll- In many instances, these are Grim Lavamancers five through eight. Cursed Scroll plays the ‘landlocked control’ game, it provides the path-clearing, it provides the extra damage for the opponent or against blockers/attackers, and it does this all without consuming non-mana resources… as long as you have really good luck or multiples of a single card in your hand. The only complaint I’ve heard from RDW players is that, in some matches, the three mana needed for the Scroll slows the game down or can’t be realistically spent on the artifact. Some t8 builds have decided against running this. However, I would recommend it more often than not.
PART FOUR C: CONTROL
Pillage- Pillage is a catch-all for control and artifact-heavy decks. This includes, but is not limited to, Welder Reanimator, Affinity, Scepter Chant, and Tog. Pillage is only semi-decent in the maindeck, only because it doesn't help you with non-Artifact creatures and takes out lands on turn three. Also, a resolved Scepter-Chant on turn 2 can royally stop up your chances of winning without instant-speed artifact kill. While Pillage isn't a bad card to put in the maindeck, it's uses are fairly limited in comparison to...
Tangle Wire- This card goes in and out of RDW maindecks almost as often as Michael Jackson gets facial surgery (and you thought I was going to make a crack about child molestation). Here's the catch: while Pillage is really useful about permenantly solving an artifact or land problem, Tangle Wire gives you a temporary solution to your opponent's (probably) still unstable board position. Against control, a third turn drop of a Tangle Wire will usually wind up in a game win for you (unless, of course, you have no threats or the like). Against most other decks, like Madness, they'll usually get tied up in having to choose between their Wild Mongrels or playing spells. In RDW's case, the Tangle Wire, stacked properly, will be tapping two less permenants than your opponent had to tap. This means you still retain tempo advantage over your opponent who is most likely in a less developed board position than you are.
PART FIVE: SIDEBOARDING RED DECK WINS FOR GREAT JUSTICE
One of the most important parts of every deck is the sideboard; without a sideboard, much of Red Deck Wins' competition would devour it alive. The following chart illustrates what was sideboarded and in what quantity in RDW sideboards.
Card | # Sideboarded | # of Sideboards
Ensnaring Bridge 102 28
Fledgling Dragon 74 25
Sulfuric Vortex 55 15
Pyrostatic Pillar 42 12
Flametongue Kavu 39 12
Pulverize 26 11
Blood Oath 21 7
Meltdown 21 9
Tangle Wire 16 4
Overload 12 4
Rack and Ruin 9 5
Pillage 8 3
Masticore 5 2
Shattering Pulse 5 3
Cursed Totem 4 1
Shatter 4 1
Stone Rain 4 1
Volcanic Hammer 4 1
Lava Dart 4 2
Arc-Slogger 3 1
Fire/Ice 3 1
Slice and Dice 3 1
Gamble 3 3
Pyroclasm 2 1
Shatterstorm 2 1
Covetous Dragon 1 1
Naturalize 1 1
Wasteland 1 1
Many of these sideboard cards are dependant on what was in the maindeck. For example, if you're already playing four Lava Dart in the main, you're not going to play any in your sideboard. If you already have Tangle Wires in, you're not going to play them in the side.
Keep in mind that it's good to know what to expect at your local PTQ. Scout ahead- look around to see what people are playtesting before hand. Ask around, look around, or just do a guesstimate by looking at the current 'most popular extended deck'. Here's a general run-down of what you should sideboard against specific decks:
Artifact destruction- Some people play Pillage in the maindeck just to have an edge on control and Affinity. If your local tourney is loaded with Affinity, Scepters, and/or Tangle Wire and Cursed Scroll, consider sideboarding some anti-artifact measures.
Ensnaring Bridge- A resolved fatty can sometimes result in a game loss for RDW. The reason Bridge is the MOST sideboarded RDW card is because it allows you to be more controlling against decks that have the same 'pummel the crap out of you' strategy as you with bigger beatsticks. This applies to Madness, Crusadeed WWs, Affinity, Rock, and other decks with some beef in them. Remember: almost all of RDW's guys are one-toughness, so if you can't burn what's in your way, you're going to have to chump block like crazy. EB allows you to sit around until you draw enough burn to win the game.
Bigger Creatures- Against insurmountable odds, a giant freaking dragon or a napalm loogie can usually settle the score. Side these in against decks that have a good deal of control against the smaller sets of creatures or have large creatures you need to compete with. The most commonly sideboarded choice is Fledgling Dragon but other choices include Flametongue Kavu, Covetous Dragon, or Masticore.
Damage Control- the final category of non-'I could have maindecked these, but didn't have room' cards are of the controlling nature. Cards like Sulfuric Vortex, Pyrostatic Pillar, Tangle Wire, and Blood Oath are best against control and combo. The Pillar is especially useful against combo decks like Desire or control decks that run on one and two mana spells like Accumulated Knowledge and Brainstorm. Vortex is the only real answer against Life.
PART SIX: OUR RED DECK WINS
Based on what we've covered, here's a sample decklist that can and will vary depending on what is played in your local area:
| Our Red Deck Wins 2k5Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Creatures - 16 4 Mogg Fanatic 4 Grim Lavamancer 4 Blistering Firecat 4 Jackal Pup Spells - 20 4 Seal of Fire 4 Cursed Scroll 4 Volcanic Hammer 4 Firebolt 4 Tangle Wire | Land - 24 4 Wasteland 4 Wooded Foothills 4 Bloodstained Mire 4 Rishadan Port 8 Mountain | Sideboard 3 Ensnaring Bridge 3 Fledgling Dragon 3 Sulfuric Vortex 3 Meltdown 3 Pyrostatic Pillar |
The build listed here is by no means the last word on what YOUR Red Deck Wins build should look like. Do you feel that you need more creatures? Throw in some Goblin Cadets in place of four spells. Blistering Firecat not working out so well? Do like some of the pros did and take one out. Think that Seal of Fire doesn't deserve the play it gets? Toss something more deserving in its place. Heck, play Chrome Mox, Great Furnace, and Shrapnel Blast by taking out some Mountains and spells to drop a first turn Slither Firewalker and boost your damage production. Remember, if something works better in your metagame, don't play an inferior build for your local tourney circle- your goal with Red Deck Wins is to win.
Red Deck Wins is a deck that has survived several Extended purgings. Remember to strike hard and fast; don't let your opponent have time to react, put him or her on the defensive and keep it that way.
My name is Kijin and if you really think I'm a groovy character with some great deal of savvy, you hate me, you have spare Orim's Chants you'd like to send me, or want a giant listing of some of the greatest Jrock songs in the history of ever, feel free to email me at blindkijin (at) gmail -dot- com, send me an instant message on AIM at KijinZabuza, or simply PM me.
- No matter how difficult the path is don't look away, keep on living. That is expiation. expiation...
Comments