I'm posting this here so I can keep a more accurate change-log of my current Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh 1v1 decklist, and to suck in some external ideas an opinions. It's not quite an "oops, all ___" deck, but close enough IMO.
When she was first released I was very skeptical about her playability, and frequently ranted on her weakness. I almost exclusivity play multi-player, so my first few months of experience with her were not stellar, and she eventually ended up in a binder;
When she was first released I tried Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh in many various builds, from aggro, good-stuff, MLD + mono-red-super-friends, up to a big-spell slinger design. This design performed the best at multi-player tables, but was incredibly close to a latulla, keldon overseer deck that I was already maintaining, so Chandra was eventually set back into a binder.
Here is a link to the last multi-player decklist on this forum, with some game-play synopsis, and a video showing a visual of the decklist.
Around mid-December of 2015 I was invited to a buddies private EDH tourney a few hours away, and when hearing that it was going to be sets of 1v1, I realized that I had nothing compatible for a strictly 1v1 environment past a very tedious and typical Wydwen deck. I needed something knew and chaotic to bring to the table. Seeing how well my modern "oops-all-burn" deck was doing (a completely creatureless burn deck), and having a never-ending desire to make burn work in this format, I started working on another Jaya Ballard, Task Mage decklist (again), but saw that Chandra sitting in my binder.
I considered that in multiplayer, the biggest issue is threat-assessment of on-board threats, and how most of the tech that works great for a burn deck (furnace of rath for example), would be an ideal thing that opponents can all mutually agree on destroying. In 1v1 that political aspect is gone, so that opens the doors for some pretty sweet cards.
Here is an outdated video of this 1v1 deck in its early stages. It has changed slightly since then to the following decklist.
Piloting Chandra is damn tricky, but here are a few pointers;
The most confusing thing about Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh to players is understanding her flip trigger. She will only flip if you activate her ping ability, and only if she has already done 2 damage to anything during the same turn. You could have Chandra deal 21 points of commander damage in combat, but this won't cause her to change into Chandra, Roaring Flame. Her activated ability to ping a player must be used in order for her to transform.
This confusion is not necessarily a bad thing. It is your option on how bluntly you explain this to your opponents. After a few games they will figure her out.
While Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh does feel like a very underpowered card, and it is tempted to complain that her ping only hits players, or that she could have been a 2/3, she is deceptively strong. She is already an upgraded Cinder Pyromancer, but she sneakily gives you quite a bit of control over her.
The flip requires her to do a total of 3 damage in the turn. But that damage could come from anywhere. Past the obvious ping ability, she counts as the source of damage from fighting creatures with arena/swift kick/rivals' duel effects, as well as combat.
The reason we run brute force, balduvian rage, and fury charm are just to help flip chandra as a combat trick. Most people wouldn't mind blocking your 2/2 general, but a random pump-spell that also untaps her after being declared as an attacker is very unexpected. The only dead-card late game is brute force, since we can still cantrip off balduvian rage for x=0 on an opponents creature, and fury charm can off an annoying artifact.
We can save Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh from removal spells, or use her as a temp-chump-blocker, and transform her out of harms way. This requires her to be untapped, without summoning sickness, and for us to have two instant speed red spells ready to go (3 spells if she is tapped).
When utilizing her ping ability by casting our red spells, it is best to cast the spell first and let her untap-trigger go on the stack. You can then tap her to ping, let the untap resolve, and let your spell resolve. Having her tapped down first before you cast your red spell means you may be (more) vulnerable when an opponent tries to use instant-speed removal on her. You would need more instant speed spells to untap her again to get that 3rd ping off. This really helps against our opponents tricks, and should be burned in to your brain when abusing dual casting.
In most games (if you do not see dual casting or sword of the animist) it is best to consider Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh as just a cheaper, distracting lava axe from the command zone that has summoning sickness. She won't last for long, so don't squander resources pushing for the emblem if you can't guarantee it. However she gets transformed, Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh will typically will do 3 points of damage, she will transform, and Chandra, Roaring Flame will shock the opponent. After that, you can try to keep the opponents creatures at bay, or let her die. If they can't remove her, then you have some sweet free damage coming up on the next turn!
Dual Casting is probably the best card in the deck. This will confuse opponents the first time you go for it, so explaining it step-by-step helps. When you cast a red-anything, Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh has a trigger that goes on the stack to untap her. Even if she is already untapped. With that trigger on the stack you can tap Chandra, let the untap trigger resolve, and let the stack continue. You could tap her to ping with her ability, you could tap her for mana from paradise mantle, or you could copy a spell with dual casting. This means that you can double-copy, making Chandra copy every spell you cast for just RR. The most frequent reason an opponent scoops against this deck is when I can cast 3x stone rains against them early via this interaction.
Better yet than getting 2x copies for just RR? Cast another cheap instant speed spell to get her to untap again mid-resolution of the above mess, so you can get another copy of that important spell.
The deck has a few routes to choose from when a game starts, depending on what is in the opening hand, and what the opponent is playing;
2.) Dual Casting means we take on a more controlling roll. We don't want to flip Chandra, and instead want to hold back some cheaper spells and try to get up to 5-mana on turn-5 so we can copy a 3cmc spell twice.
3.) Sword of the Animist means Chandra is going to be swinging, and we don't want to try and flip her. The deck goes in for the long-haul, holding back as many spells as possible to just nick out possible blockers that would kill Chandra. This deck works better by not drawing lands after we have ~5 mana. We can flip Chandra to try and protect her from a removal spell if we hold up a few instant burn spells, but with sword of the animist we are using our spells to remove creatures and smash for 3 damage. This works even better if we see valakut, the molten pinnacle early, so we can get a free ghostfire for every attack.
This deck wins by burn! Here are the most common ways this deck can win a game;
~ Obtaining one (or more) emblems from Chandra, Roaring Flame. With rings of brighthearth to copy her ultimate or damage doublers from furnace of rath/dictate of the twin gods, an emblem or two can make a game end fast. This is one of the hardest things to achieve against a smart opponent, but having that free consistent damage every turn is what an EDH burn deck needs to actually work in this format. Decree of Annihilation used to be in the deck just for this scenario, but was a bit too erratic.
~ Burn Spells. Well, duh. But realistically, most of these spells are used to lower the opponent to a more reasonable life total for Chandra to pick at.
~ Mizzix's Mastery! Ignore the primary casting of this spell, this is here just to be overloaded. Every time this card has resolved from this deck, the net result has been absolutely overkill.
This deck fails hard against specific deck archetypes, specifically big creature ramp decks like maelstrom wanderer, or any form of early discard/mind twist. There are also a few silver bullets that can absolutely cripple this deck. Seeing these cards usually means you should just pick up your cards and pick a different deck to play;
Ironically this deck has beaten a Zur deck with leyline of sanctity out, just by focusing on getting Chandra's emblem (pinging myself!). This is not going to always be an easy thing to do although, especially if we had lost the race against Zur and he got shroud.
There are some cards I really want for this deck, but can't afford currently;
I've always been on the fence about wheel of fortune effects here. Yes it gives me ammunition, but it also gives the opponent more creatures to aggro me/Chandra, and answers. Perhaps it can make an inclusion if only to be held until very late-game.
The major issue although is the utter reliance of finding an equipment in mono-red.
This is a deck that I've been enjoying for some time now, and will continue to update. It plays so wildly different from any EDH deck that I've ever ran before, and every game is usually very entertaining. If I don't get completely hosed early, the games tend to turn into a race. Seeing some decks turn on their heads trying to deal with something as bizarre as this (like attacking arcanis the omnipotent into Chandra, Roaring Flame to stop her from getting an emblem!) is hilarious.
I took them out since the deck has a very high reliance for immediate red mana in the first few turns. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is a gem, but in most games the deck will either have victory in its hands by the time I have it active, or I've already lost.
In a deck that wants to have 8+ lands then they are solid inclusions to help Valakut, but here the only time I need that much mana is for inferno or overloading mizzix's mastery.
I really need fetch's for this. When things seem to be going well, the most frequent stuttering end is when I continue to draw too many lands, especially when the opponent is just one or two spells away from death.
I'm working on a build for Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh as well. Mines a little more creature based so I can have blockers for Chandra and can beat face when the field is clear, take a look http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/15-08-15-chandra-fire-of-kaladesh-edh/. One card I ABSOLUTELY must recommend is Glacial Crevasses replacing you regular mountains with the (unfortunately) more pricey Snow-Covered mountain. This card is so good at protecting Chandra and stalling that last turn or two before you ultimate, and after than can just fog until your opponents are dead from the emblem. And since you'll be replacing your mountains anyways for their snow-covered counterparts, you might as well be picking up skred, and a Scrying Sheets to help you out with that problem of topdecking lands late game. Speaking of lands better than the two horrid budget fetches you're running now(Terramorphic and Evolving), mishra's factory blocks as a 3/3 which is pretty needed planeswalker protection AND comes into play untapped. I know deck thinning is a legitimate thing, but in commander it's no where near as effective as 60 card decks, wherein it's STILL not worth it to play a CIPT land like Terramorphic for it.
Jokulhaups is also insane with any planeswalker commander since it misses them and enchantments. Since Chandra is also incidentally good at keeping other planeswalkers off the battlefield due to planeswalker redirection rules, this makes the card even better. You can pretty much all but guarantee your victory if you cast this card with Roaring Flame on the battlefield. Some people hate cards like this, so it depends on your playground, but as long as you cast this as a finisher instead of a restart button you shouldn't make anyone too mad.
I'm posting this here so I can keep a more accurate change-log of my current Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh 1v1 decklist, and to suck in some external ideas an opinions. It's not quite an "oops, all ___" deck, but close enough IMO.
When she was first released I was very skeptical about her playability, and frequently ranted on her weakness. I almost exclusivity play multi-player, so my first few months of experience with her were not stellar, and she eventually ended up in a binder;
When she was first released I tried Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh in many various builds, from aggro, good-stuff, MLD + mono-red-super-friends, up to a big-spell slinger design. This design performed the best at multi-player tables, but was incredibly close to a latulla, keldon overseer deck that I was already maintaining, so Chandra was eventually set back into a binder.
Here is a link to the last multi-player decklist on this forum, with some game-play synopsis, and a video showing a visual of the decklist.
Around mid-December of 2015 I was invited to a buddies private EDH tourney a few hours away, and when hearing that it was going to be sets of 1v1, I realized that I had nothing compatible for a strictly 1v1 environment past a very tedious and typical Wydwen deck. I needed something knew and chaotic to bring to the table. Seeing how well my modern "oops-all-burn" deck was doing (a completely creatureless burn deck), and having a never-ending desire to make burn work in this format, I started working on another Jaya Ballard, Task Mage decklist (again), but saw that Chandra sitting in my binder.
I considered that in multiplayer, the biggest issue is threat-assessment of on-board threats, and how most of the tech that works great for a burn deck (furnace of rath for example), would be an ideal thing that opponents can all mutually agree on destroying. In 1v1 that political aspect is gone, so that opens the doors for some pretty sweet cards.
Here is an outdated video of this 1v1 deck in its early stages. It has changed slightly since then to the following decklist.
Here is the most current decklist, by card type;
1x Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
1x Chandra, Roaring Flame
Instant (31)
1x Balduvian Rage
1x Brute Force
1x Burn Away
1x Carbonize
1x Chaos Warp
1x Char
1x Dead/Gone
1x Fissure
1x Flame Javelin
1x Fury Charm
1x Grab the Reins
1x Incinerate
1x Increasing Vengeance
1x Inferno
1x Lightning Bolt
1x Magma Jet
1x Magma Spray
1x Price of Progress
1x Reiterate
1x Reverberate
1x Searing Spear
1x Skullcrack
1x Smash
1x Smash to Smithereens
1x Staggershock
1x Sudden Impact
1x Sudden Shock
1x Thunderous Wrath
1x Volcanic Fallout
1x Volcanic Offering
1x Word of Seizing
1x Act on Impulse
1x Aftershock
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Arc Lightning
1x Chain Lightning
1x Exquisite Firecraft
1x Flames of the Firebrand
1x Into the Maw of Hell
1x Mizzix's Mastery
1x Overmaster
1x Pillage
1x Pillar of Flame
1x Rift Bolt
1x Ruination
1x Stone Rain
1x Vandalblast
Planeswalker (1)
1x Chandra, Pyromaster
Enchantment (6)
1x Dictate of the Twin Gods
1x Dual Casting
1x Furnace of Rath
1x Outpost Siege
1x Repercussion
1x Seal of Fire
Artifact (9)
1x Expedition Map
1x Isochron Scepter
1x Pyromancer's Gauntlet
1x Pyromancer's Goggles
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Sword of the Animist
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Evolving Wilds
30x Mountain
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Terrain Generator
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Thawing Glaciers
1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Piloting Chandra is damn tricky, but here are a few pointers;
The most confusing thing about Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh to players is understanding her flip trigger. She will only flip if you activate her ping ability, and only if she has already done 2 damage to anything during the same turn. You could have Chandra deal 21 points of commander damage in combat, but this won't cause her to change into Chandra, Roaring Flame. Her activated ability to ping a player must be used in order for her to transform.
This confusion is not necessarily a bad thing. It is your option on how bluntly you explain this to your opponents. After a few games they will figure her out.
While Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh does feel like a very underpowered card, and it is tempted to complain that her ping only hits players, or that she could have been a 2/3, she is deceptively strong. She is already an upgraded Cinder Pyromancer, but she sneakily gives you quite a bit of control over her.
The flip requires her to do a total of 3 damage in the turn. But that damage could come from anywhere. Past the obvious ping ability, she counts as the source of damage from fighting creatures with arena/swift kick/rivals' duel effects, as well as combat.
The reason we run brute force, balduvian rage, and fury charm are just to help flip chandra as a combat trick. Most people wouldn't mind blocking your 2/2 general, but a random pump-spell that also untaps her after being declared as an attacker is very unexpected. The only dead-card late game is brute force, since we can still cantrip off balduvian rage for x=0 on an opponents creature, and fury charm can off an annoying artifact.
We can save Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh from removal spells, or use her as a temp-chump-blocker, and transform her out of harms way. This requires her to be untapped, without summoning sickness, and for us to have two instant speed red spells ready to go (3 spells if she is tapped).
When utilizing her ping ability by casting our red spells, it is best to cast the spell first and let her untap-trigger go on the stack. You can then tap her to ping, let the untap resolve, and let your spell resolve. Having her tapped down first before you cast your red spell means you may be (more) vulnerable when an opponent tries to use instant-speed removal on her. You would need more instant speed spells to untap her again to get that 3rd ping off. This really helps against our opponents tricks, and should be burned in to your brain when abusing dual casting.
In most games (if you do not see dual casting or sword of the animist) it is best to consider Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh as just a cheaper, distracting lava axe from the command zone that has summoning sickness. She won't last for long, so don't squander resources pushing for the emblem if you can't guarantee it. However she gets transformed, Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh will typically will do 3 points of damage, she will transform, and Chandra, Roaring Flame will shock the opponent. After that, you can try to keep the opponents creatures at bay, or let her die. If they can't remove her, then you have some sweet free damage coming up on the next turn!
Dual Casting is probably the best card in the deck. This will confuse opponents the first time you go for it, so explaining it step-by-step helps. When you cast a red-anything, Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh has a trigger that goes on the stack to untap her. Even if she is already untapped. With that trigger on the stack you can tap Chandra, let the untap trigger resolve, and let the stack continue. You could tap her to ping with her ability, you could tap her for mana from paradise mantle, or you could copy a spell with dual casting. This means that you can double-copy, making Chandra copy every spell you cast for just RR. The most frequent reason an opponent scoops against this deck is when I can cast 3x stone rains against them early via this interaction.
Better yet than getting 2x copies for just RR? Cast another cheap instant speed spell to get her to untap again mid-resolution of the above mess, so you can get another copy of that important spell.
The deck has a few routes to choose from when a game starts, depending on what is in the opening hand, and what the opponent is playing;
1.) A compliment of burn spells and a damage trick (doubler like furnace of rath or dictate of the wing gods, enhancement like pyromancer's gauntlet or repercussion, spell copy like pyromancer's goggles or isochron scepter). The most common game-plan, which means we should try and flip Chandra and go for an emblem.
2.) Dual Casting means we take on a more controlling roll. We don't want to flip Chandra, and instead want to hold back some cheaper spells and try to get up to 5-mana on turn-5 so we can copy a 3cmc spell twice.
3.) Sword of the Animist means Chandra is going to be swinging, and we don't want to try and flip her. The deck goes in for the long-haul, holding back as many spells as possible to just nick out possible blockers that would kill Chandra. This deck works better by not drawing lands after we have ~5 mana. We can flip Chandra to try and protect her from a removal spell if we hold up a few instant burn spells, but with sword of the animist we are using our spells to remove creatures and smash for 3 damage. This works even better if we see valakut, the molten pinnacle early, so we can get a free ghostfire for every attack.
This deck wins by burn! Here are the most common ways this deck can win a game;
~ Obtaining one (or more) emblems from Chandra, Roaring Flame. With rings of brighthearth to copy her ultimate or damage doublers from furnace of rath/dictate of the twin gods, an emblem or two can make a game end fast. This is one of the hardest things to achieve against a smart opponent, but having that free consistent damage every turn is what an EDH burn deck needs to actually work in this format. Decree of Annihilation used to be in the deck just for this scenario, but was a bit too erratic.
~ Constant stream of burn from Chandra. Doubling her shock effect via rings of brighthearth helps, but something like pyromancer's gauntlet or the furnace of rath/dictate of the twin gods can really cause her to crank out serious damage.
~ Burn Spells. Well, duh. But realistically, most of these spells are used to lower the opponent to a more reasonable life total for Chandra to pick at.
~ Mizzix's Mastery! Ignore the primary casting of this spell, this is here just to be overloaded. Every time this card has resolved from this deck, the net result has been absolutely overkill.
This deck fails hard against specific deck archetypes, specifically big creature ramp decks like maelstrom wanderer, or any form of early discard/mind twist. There are also a few silver bullets that can absolutely cripple this deck. Seeing these cards usually means you should just pick up your cards and pick a different deck to play;
Ironically this deck has beaten a Zur deck with leyline of sanctity out, just by focusing on getting Chandra's emblem (pinging myself!). This is not going to always be an easy thing to do although, especially if we had lost the race against Zur and he got shroud.
There are some cards I really want for this deck, but can't afford currently;
1x Arid Mesa
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
Here are some cards that I plan on getting to playtest with, but am not sure what to remove;
1x Ruby Medallion
1x Flame Jet
1x Flamebreak
1x Shard Volley
1x Sphinx-Bone Wand
I've always been on the fence about wheel of fortune effects here. Yes it gives me ammunition, but it also gives the opponent more creatures to aggro me/Chandra, and answers. Perhaps it can make an inclusion if only to be held until very late-game.
I also have 4x cards in-transit that will be replacing a few cards listed above;
~ sulfuric vortex replacing seal of fire
~ fireblast replacing sudden impact
~ shattering spree replacing vandalblast
~ flames of the blood hand replacing...something...
Here is a block of theoretical nonsense that I've been sitting on, hoping that future cards can enable Chandra to perform differently;
Much like the above dual casting interaction, paradise mantle could allow Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh to become a nifty mana-dork. With spell-reduction effects helm of Awakening and ruby medallion out, and a buy-back spell like haze of rage or shattering pulse, we could build a very high storm count. If the reduction effects are copied via sculpting steel effects, we could do infinite haze of rage casts. If more 1-cmc red cantrips existed (expedite/crimson wisps/overmaster, or even low-cmc cantrips like stun/smash/turf wound/solfatara/boiling blood existed, we could dig through a deck pretty fast.
The major issue although is the utter reliance of finding an equipment in mono-red.
This is a deck that I've been enjoying for some time now, and will continue to update. It plays so wildly different from any EDH deck that I've ever ran before, and every game is usually very entertaining. If I don't get completely hosed early, the games tend to turn into a race. Seeing some decks turn on their heads trying to deal with something as bizarre as this (like attacking arcanis the omnipotent into Chandra, Roaring Flame to stop her from getting an emblem!) is hilarious.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
What made you decide to take out Vesuva, and Thespian's Stage?
In a deck that wants to have 8+ lands then they are solid inclusions to help Valakut, but here the only time I need that much mana is for inferno or overloading mizzix's mastery.
I really need fetch's for this. When things seem to be going well, the most frequent stuttering end is when I continue to draw too many lands, especially when the opponent is just one or two spells away from death.
I love the 3-damage exile spells like carbonize/annihilating fire/yamabushi's flame, and incendiary flow is on my testing list. Dropping the 3rd mana to make it sorcery speed is interesting.
I'm actually a bit more interested in Collective Defiance. Seems like nice utility.
Chandra, Flamecaller is also in the mail to finally join the party.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Jokulhaups is also insane with any planeswalker commander since it misses them and enchantments. Since Chandra is also incidentally good at keeping other planeswalkers off the battlefield due to planeswalker redirection rules, this makes the card even better. You can pretty much all but guarantee your victory if you cast this card with Roaring Flame on the battlefield. Some people hate cards like this, so it depends on your playground, but as long as you cast this as a finisher instead of a restart button you shouldn't make anyone too mad.