I wanted to start a discussion about red card draw. The idea here is that the deck is mono red or red is the color doing the card draw. Just to get this out of the way I don't consider browbeat to be card draw. 90% of the time people will take the damage and you won't get any cards. I also have no interest in talking about wheel of fortune. Its banned or restricted in most formats, so yea I get that its good. For the purpose of this thread lets assume the deck has to be legacy legal.
Also, I am just giving my opinion on these cards to start things off. I want other people's thoughts. This is not meant to be a guide its meant to be a discussion. I myself need advice and struggle as to which to pick and when. If you like a card I didn't list here then feel free to add it.
Wheel of fate: The good is that it will give you 7 cards and you will have all your mana open the turn it comes into play. The bad is that it helps your opponents and the later you draw into it the worst it is. Playing it turn 2 gets you the cards on turn 6. Not too bad. Playing on turn 6 gets you the cards on turn 10. Not so good. I feel like you kinda need card draw to help you get this card draw. This card is best in a deck where you will quickly drop your hand. Something that runs lots of low costed stuff. Honestly, even then giving all my opponents 7 cards scares me.
faithless looting Pro: Its only one mana, it has flash back so you can use it again later, and while you do have to discard you get to draw first and then you pick what you get rid of. So its not random. The bad is you end up down cards. faithless looting plus the 2 cards you discard is 3 cards total. You drew 2 cards. So, with the exception of something like madness you can't use this if its the only card in your hand as you would draw 2 and then just discard those 2. Its use is when you need specific cards, not for replenishing your hand (like i said it actually depletes it) The deck that runs this either needs to put together a combo or just needs to find solutions to problems.
dangerous wager This is a much less potent but much safer version of wheel of fate It doesn't help your opponents at all, it can be cast whenever you need it, and since its an instant all of your mana will be free since you cast it at the end of the opponents turn. Downside is it only gives you 2 cards instead of 7. The deck that would run this is a deck that depletes its hand quickly and is unaffected by the downside.
desperate ravings The flashback doesn't mean anything to me since it costs blue and if my deck had blue in it I would never run this card. Unlike faithless looting you end up with just as many cards as you started so you can cast it even if its the only card in your hand. The danger is that the fewer cards you have the more likely you are to discard the thing you need. Still, if you are running it to to help insure you have general things then it can work. Example: you run it just to help make sure you don't miss a 3rd turn land drop. Or you run it to help make sure you get another one of your 12 board wipes. Times when your deck has lots of what you want so its not a massive disaster if the thing ends up being discarded.
tibalt, the fiend-blooded Haven't run tibalt so I don't have any personal experience with him but I see potential. To me he is red's closest thing to merfolk looter and I have a tremendous amount of respect for merfolk looter (Yes I know merfolk looter lets you pick the card you discard but this is red not blue). His middle ability seems blatantly bad to me. His ultimate ability seems perfectly usable to me, kinda just a bonus. Would love feedback on people who ran him. I assume he is like desperate ravings in that the deck that runs him isn't looking for specific things but general smoothing. Help in not missing a land drop, help in not miss a creature drop.
tormenting voice You can't use this if its the only card in your hand, and its a sorcery not an instant. Upside is you pick what is discarded and your not down cards. Might be bad luck but when I have tried running this either I haven't had another card in my hand so I couldn't use it, or the fact that its a sorcery and used up 2 of my mana has always made this card seem really slow to me. Would love feedback from others who have run it.
Again, this is meant to be a discussion not a guide. If you disagree with what I have said then tell me. If you like a card I didn't mention then let us know what it is, if you think something I mentioned us unplayable then let me know why.
I was the guy playing the relentless rats deck back during mirrodin and kamigawa blocks. Yes, cranial extraction was used on me. No, I didn't win much. Yes, I do have a relentless rats edh deck. No, it doesn't win much either...
Outpost Siege is Red's strongest card draw engine. You can play any number in any Red deck and it'll always be "fine." You obviously run the risk of whiffing early on if your deck has 5+ drops and that's life but in general the card is a solid draw engine that will provide you with a constant stream of action. Buy 4 and never look back.
Humble Defector is a solid draw 2 for 2 + early-game blocker in decks with tons of mass removal such as Anger of the Gods and Blasphemous Act. Very good with Repercussion. Card is extremely underrated but, again, your deck has to be playing a lot of mass removal to truly abuse him.
Commune with Lava is decent as a 1-2 of in big Red decks that lean on things like Cloudpost, Braid of Fire, Koth of the Hammer and Mana Geyser to generate a large mana advantage in the midgame. Never play 4 but 1-2 is usually solid. For the record, I almost always Main Phase this spell in order to play 2 lands with it. Everyone likes to get cute and cast it EOT but I personally think that you should Main Phase it at least 50% of the time or you're missing out on (mostly) free value.
Browbeat and Sin Prodder are odd cards that I personally dislike but they must work for some people in some metas. If nothing else you can always test them to see how they fare for you and yours. That being said I personally don't consider either to be especially competitive/playable.
Wheel of Fate is unplayable trash. Best case scenario it goes off on turn 6 and drawing one on turn 5 is ostensibly a mulligan. Moreover, everyone gets the see the effect coming from a mile away, jam their hand and refuel. At least with other Wheels no one sees it coming but you. Card is awful.
Reforge the Soul is the "all purpose" Wheel of Fortune that has more generic applications than Magus of the Wheel. It still basically has to be played in "unfair" decks IMO but even if it's merely being used a value card this is your best bet. If you Miracle it, cool, but even if you have to cast it for 5 that works too. Has some marginal combo applications with things like Underworld Dreams and Molten Psyche but nothing overly competitive.
Insolent Neonate is a great Dredge enabler since you get to discard then Dredge your card. It's also fantastic in Reanimator strategies since it has significantly more value than a card like Putrid Imp. No "fair" applications however.
Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice (Wild Guess is also fine in monored) and Daretti, Scrap Savant are strong cards that fair decks can play insofar as they care about their graveyard to some extent. Obviously the cards have plenty of unfair applications as well but you're not "forced" to utterly abuse them to break-even. If your list has no combos or GY synergies then they suck but most MP decks can field some number of them and experience success.
Dangerous Wager is unplayable trash. Way too conditional. Magmatic Insight is also too unreliable since you rarely want to pitch lands in multiplayer. Never play either.
Goblin Lore and Control of the Court are criminally underrated. Not every deck wants this type of effect but it's really good in the ones that do. Drawing 4 cards in Dredge decks is absurd and it fills your GY full of random crap for things like Daretti, Scrap Savant, Living Death, Scrap Mastery, etc. "At random" means that it's not perfect but binning 3 random cards and digging deep for something like Life from the Loam or Unburial Rites is a big game. Again, not good in every archetype but very good in some of them.
Tormenting Voice (I already discussed it but you asked for more insight) is niche but the key is to actually support it. Copied spells don't pay additional costs so if you Dualcaster Mage or Pyromancer's Goggles the thing then you get to draw 4 discard 1 which is sweet. Otherwise looting can help with cards like Mizzix's Mastery since you can bin an early Cruel Ultimatum (or whatever) and then Recoup it for the low-low price of 4 mana. It also helps you dig for cards like Mana Geyser which can easily win games on their own.
Red is the single worst Cloudpost color in my opinion but assuming that your deck doesn't need tons of Red mana you can still jam Cloudpost and Glimmerpost (or Urzatron) in generic Red shells to support Endbringer. Card is very good.
I second the things that Prid3 and Xyx said with some additions.
Reforge the Soul works well in decks with a low average mana cost, where you can empty your hand fast. Burn, Goblin and Devotion decks (Fanatic of Mogis) come to my mind.
Humble Defector is a favorite of mine recently as I've found that the best abuse for him is either in mass removal style decks, or with alliance games where you can pass him off to someone who'll pass it back to you. Great blocker and engine makes him solid in my books.
Outpost Siege is underrated but is a solid draw engine for Red. I usually play at least two in my Mono Red decks, though sometimes I skip over the draw feature in order to use the Dragon mode if I plan on making an Insurrection + Blasphemous Act WinCon.
Reforge the Soul is a good alternative to Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel is obviously better, but Reforge is one of the single best draw spells for Red. As with the Wheel the trick with Reforge is to play out your hand before your opponents can play their own cards, though sometimes you really ruin your opponents day by making them discard needed cards they already had. Quite satisfying.
Staff of Nin / Mind's Eye are solid Red engines as well, albeit slow and in the case of Eye costly. However, in excess mana decks like Cloudpost or Gauntlet of Might the mana needed to fuel Eye becomes trivial and nets you needed advantage.
A final word; Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded is trash. Terrible, horrible, comically bad trash. His +1 is a joke, his -4 has limited application in multiplayer, while his -6 is a Insurrection, good luck getting up to 6 Loyalty with him before someone murders him off. Red has much better draw than demon-boy, stay away from him!
My favorite card draw combo in the game for colors that lack it, is Pristine Talisman and well of lost dreams combo. You also get some ramp and lifegain. My heartless hidetsugu deck and boros molten disaster deck both uses it and have fantastic win rates in a pretty competitive meta. It's stronger than it seems! Its especially good with glacial chasm because the life from talisman may not seem like much but often ends up buying you 2-3 extra rounds which is more than enough to secure many extra wins. That land also happens to be amazing with many red decks. I also often like to have a single copy of alhammarret's archive with the combo if it makes sense with the rest of the deck. For instance if I'm running 4 faithless looting it can get pretty crazy.
Humble Defector is a favorite of mine recently as I've found that the best abuse for him is either in mass removal style decks, or with alliance games where you can pass him off to someone who'll pass it back to you. Great blocker and engine makes him solid in my books.
"Great blocker"?
Bit of a stretch, I agree, but it's a 2 power creature on turn 2 which is good enough to threaten most opposing 1-2 (and some 3) drops. The key isn't that you want to trade but rather that you can threaten to trade/reciprocate which is significantly more important than actually going through with the action.
I like to block than sac the Defector; Advantage for me? 2. Advantage for my opponent? 0. Usually.
Whoops!
As Prid3 said, while Defector is no Wurmcoil Engine, it's a strong enough early drop that can dissuade my opponents from going after me right out of the gate.
I like to block than sac the Defector; Advantage for me? 2. Advantage for my opponent? 0. Usually.
You can only activate his ability on your turn. How do you block and sac?
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I was the guy playing the relentless rats deck back during mirrodin and kamigawa blocks. Yes, cranial extraction was used on me. No, I didn't win much. Yes, I do have a relentless rats edh deck. No, it doesn't win much either...
You can only activate his ability on your turn. How do you block and sac?
Yeah, my bad. Alas, it cannot be done. I've only recently started using Humble Defector (1-2 weeks), I totally spaced when saying I could use it too block with. Pretty sure I was thinking of Yavimaya Elder at the time.
Something like Faithless Looting and Tormenting Voice is more along the lines of graveyard filling and card selection, not actual "draw" in the sense of card advantage.
Humble Defector is cute, but it isn't quite card advantage if the opponent gets him, and you are already down 1x card by playing him and donating him. This could be less than card-parody from a smart opponent.
IMO the best card advantage that red has, while not quite draw, would be its ability to flash-back spells. Mizzix's Mastery, Recoup, and Past in Flames can generate some absurd card advantage. Again this isn't "drawing" cards, but it is the sort of authentic card advantage that mono-red has access to.
The card is very confusing. For example, a lot of people think that it combos with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker because the copy gets sacrificed at EOT. What most people overlook is the fact that you can't sacrifice objects that you don't control. That is, if you send someone a copy of the Defector via KJMB they keep it. Flameshadow Conjuringexiles so that's a decent combo but KJMB doesn't work well at all.
Oh, don't ask how I learned about these kinds of interactions myself. I totally didn't make any of these mistakes myself. Carry on.
So far it seems that you guys dislike all the low costed card draw unless you are dredging or copying. I'm a little surprised. It must be that my playgroup is incredibly aggressive because I feel that I don't have the time to cast something like outpost siege on turn 4 (more likely 5 with missed land drops) let alone the 5 or 6 costed options. I feel like my opportunity to cast something to smooth my hand or draw is turn 1 or 2. By turn 3 I need to be palying a solution to something an opponent has cast and by turn 4 I need to be playing my own heavy hitter. Then in the late game I feel like it can only be part of what I do. Cast a card draw spell and play something else on the same turn. Even on turn 7 where I have say 6 mana a 4 costed spell would very likely be the only thing I can cast.
I was the guy playing the relentless rats deck back during mirrodin and kamigawa blocks. Yes, cranial extraction was used on me. No, I didn't win much. Yes, I do have a relentless rats edh deck. No, it doesn't win much either...
It must be that my playgroup is incredibly aggressive because I feel that I don't have the time to cast something like outpost siege on turn 4 (more likely 5 with missed land drops) let alone the 5 or 6 costed options.
Red also has some very good 2-3 CMC blockers such as Veteran Brawlers, Taurean Mauler and Adamaro, First to Desire that aggro decks legitimately can't beat past. Since it would be moronic for someone to use removal on Walls that early into the game jamming these into mass removal such as Anger of the Gods makes aggro a complete joke for a properly built Red shell. If turn 2 Veteran Brawlers turn 3 Anger of the Gods isn't good enough to stabilize you against aggro then nothing will.
I feel like my opportunity to cast something to smooth my hand or draw is turn 1 or 2. By turn 3 I need to be palying a solution to something an opponent has cast and by turn 4 I need to be playing my own heavy hitter.
There's almost no such thing as a 3-4 CMC "heavy hitter" in multiplayer. Even things like Taurean Mauler and/or Pia and Kiran Nalaar can't possibly win games of Magic for you. That being said an easy way to consistently succeed is to stabilize early, build a board and then out-resource your adversaries until you can cheese them out with combo kills or pseudo-combo kills. Red is very good at playing "unfair" on a reasonable budget since a lot of its "power cards" (such as Repercussion, Mizzix's Mastery, Mana Geyser, Mob Rule, Vicious Shadows, Insurrection) are relatively inexpensive. Rather than trying to beat people down with marginal threats you're way better off curving an Inferno Titan into a Wildfire or Rite of the Raging Storm into a Jokulhaups.
Aggro is one of Red's better matchups in a multiplayer game and it has access to a lot of useful early-game blockers. Check out my signature for a link to one of my Red Multiplayer Decks; I run cards like Veteran Brawlers, Varchild's War-Riders, Taurean Mauler & Boros Reckoner.
These are all designed to stall out the game against both aggro opponents and combo players by fielding low-cost but highly effective blockers/damagers in the early game. Brawler is a big dumb blocker, Varchild is as well but can double as a political card, Taurean is always a threat & Boros makes people very hesitant to attack you when your opponent realizes they'll take that damage right in the face if I block with it.
I could run cards like Anger of the Gods but most of my opponents use much bigger creatures than 3+ toughness, so I prefer to stall them out. War-Rider's has been very useful; I've had opponents use the tokens to wipe out other opponents for me, though there is always the possibility of backlash. However, I also use War-Rider's in order to ensure that my Blasphemous Act goes off. My deck doesn't usually win through directed aggression, instead I pick and choose my battles, stall the board, and win through some combination of cards like Insurrection, Inferno Titan or Comet Storm.
Gauntlet of Might does a lot of heavy lifting for me, but Outpost Siege is a star card as well, helping to ensure I can speed up my drops. I'll always play a Gauntlet on turn 4 before I play an Outpost, 8-10 mana on turn 5 is pretty damn impressive for Red after all, but the Outpost has been fantastic for me.
Outpost Siege is Red's strongest card draw engine. You can play any number in any Red deck and it'll always be "fine." You obviously run the risk of whiffing early on if your deck has 5+ drops and that's life but in general the card is a solid draw engine that will provide you with a constant stream of action. Buy 4 and never look back.
Humble defector seems interesting and complicated. Its all one ability right? So you can't just stifle the part where you give it to an opponent and they can't just stifle the card draw? Its everything or nothing?
Lets say we are playing emperor. I am a general and my opposing general has shroud. Do I then keep humble defector?
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I was the guy playing the relentless rats deck back during mirrodin and kamigawa blocks. Yes, cranial extraction was used on me. No, I didn't win much. Yes, I do have a relentless rats edh deck. No, it doesn't win much either...
Humble defector seems interesting and complicated. Its all one ability right? So you can't just stifle the part where you give it to an opponent and they can't just stifle the card draw? Its everything or nothing?
Lets say we are playing emperor. I am a general and my opposing general has shroud. Do I then keep humble defector?
No idea! I've never had this come up. My gut tells me that in the same way you can't use Goblin Sharpshooter to ping a Slippery Bogle you can't activate the Defector unless you can target an opponent but I don't claim to be a Judge or anything. You'd have to ask the rules forums. The answer might seem obvious to someone else but I'm not 100% clear one way or another and Magic is complicated enough that I don't take much for granted.
Don't get me wrong, the card is amazing when there is a mana-doubler out. But sometimes, even when using it early for ~3, just to grab a landfall, you just end up punching yourself in the face.
Molten Psyche. Can be brutal for your opponents in artifact-centric builds. Easy enough to hit Metalcraft by Turn 3 using Great Furnace and mana rocks. I've seen it resolved with Metalcraft and then forked with Chandra, the Firebrand on T4 for the win.
Aren't you happy then that one spell saved you from nine turns without drawing anything useful. Considering that you have access to ten mana already...
Don't get me wrong, the card is amazing when there is a mana-doubler out. But sometimes, even when using it early for ~3, just to grab a landfall, you just end up punching yourself in the face.
The same thing happens all the time in Sphinx's Revelation decks. The cards aren't designed to excel in low-mana environments and will underperform when cast early.
I've tested this extensively and ultimately determined that Squee doesn't have much of a place in the best versions of the best decks. First are foremost Squee itself itself is a mulligan (I don't count a recurring blocker to be a real card) so any value that he generates first comes at the expensive of the do-nothing body to begin with. If you deck has cards like Bonehoard that can actually abuse the body, that's different because otherwise he generates less value that most realize. Beyond that you can never justify running more than 1 and that frequently means drawing him randomly on the 5th-6th turn with nothing to do with him. Yes, if you haphazardly draw him on turn 1 with looters then he's solid but his average use-case is significantly weaker than that. Otherwise I think that people under-value looting effects in general and that they should be actively abusing discards with cards like Drownyard Temple, Mizzix's Mastery, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, etc. as opposed to play loot spells for "generic value." The reality is that blindly adding Tormenting Voice to a "creature and spell" deck is an overall losing line which means that you need to be abusing inherent synergies to justify fielding them in the first place. It doesn't have to be on the level of turn 1-2 "pitch Enter the Infinite" turn 3-4 "Mizzix's Mastery it back" but you want a reason to have those cards in your deck.
Also, I am just giving my opinion on these cards to start things off. I want other people's thoughts. This is not meant to be a guide its meant to be a discussion. I myself need advice and struggle as to which to pick and when. If you like a card I didn't list here then feel free to add it.
Wheel of fate: The good is that it will give you 7 cards and you will have all your mana open the turn it comes into play. The bad is that it helps your opponents and the later you draw into it the worst it is. Playing it turn 2 gets you the cards on turn 6. Not too bad. Playing on turn 6 gets you the cards on turn 10. Not so good. I feel like you kinda need card draw to help you get this card draw. This card is best in a deck where you will quickly drop your hand. Something that runs lots of low costed stuff. Honestly, even then giving all my opponents 7 cards scares me.
faithless looting Pro: Its only one mana, it has flash back so you can use it again later, and while you do have to discard you get to draw first and then you pick what you get rid of. So its not random. The bad is you end up down cards. faithless looting plus the 2 cards you discard is 3 cards total. You drew 2 cards. So, with the exception of something like madness you can't use this if its the only card in your hand as you would draw 2 and then just discard those 2. Its use is when you need specific cards, not for replenishing your hand (like i said it actually depletes it) The deck that runs this either needs to put together a combo or just needs to find solutions to problems.
dangerous wager This is a much less potent but much safer version of wheel of fate It doesn't help your opponents at all, it can be cast whenever you need it, and since its an instant all of your mana will be free since you cast it at the end of the opponents turn. Downside is it only gives you 2 cards instead of 7. The deck that would run this is a deck that depletes its hand quickly and is unaffected by the downside.
desperate ravings The flashback doesn't mean anything to me since it costs blue and if my deck had blue in it I would never run this card. Unlike faithless looting you end up with just as many cards as you started so you can cast it even if its the only card in your hand. The danger is that the fewer cards you have the more likely you are to discard the thing you need. Still, if you are running it to to help insure you have general things then it can work. Example: you run it just to help make sure you don't miss a 3rd turn land drop. Or you run it to help make sure you get another one of your 12 board wipes. Times when your deck has lots of what you want so its not a massive disaster if the thing ends up being discarded.
tibalt, the fiend-blooded Haven't run tibalt so I don't have any personal experience with him but I see potential. To me he is red's closest thing to merfolk looter and I have a tremendous amount of respect for merfolk looter (Yes I know merfolk looter lets you pick the card you discard but this is red not blue). His middle ability seems blatantly bad to me. His ultimate ability seems perfectly usable to me, kinda just a bonus. Would love feedback on people who ran him. I assume he is like desperate ravings in that the deck that runs him isn't looking for specific things but general smoothing. Help in not missing a land drop, help in not miss a creature drop.
tormenting voice You can't use this if its the only card in your hand, and its a sorcery not an instant. Upside is you pick what is discarded and your not down cards. Might be bad luck but when I have tried running this either I haven't had another card in my hand so I couldn't use it, or the fact that its a sorcery and used up 2 of my mana has always made this card seem really slow to me. Would love feedback from others who have run it.
Again, this is meant to be a discussion not a guide. If you disagree with what I have said then tell me. If you like a card I didn't mention then let us know what it is, if you think something I mentioned us unplayable then let me know why.
Humble Defector is a solid draw 2 for 2 + early-game blocker in decks with tons of mass removal such as Anger of the Gods and Blasphemous Act. Very good with Repercussion. Card is extremely underrated but, again, your deck has to be playing a lot of mass removal to truly abuse him.
Commune with Lava is decent as a 1-2 of in big Red decks that lean on things like Cloudpost, Braid of Fire, Koth of the Hammer and Mana Geyser to generate a large mana advantage in the midgame. Never play 4 but 1-2 is usually solid. For the record, I almost always Main Phase this spell in order to play 2 lands with it. Everyone likes to get cute and cast it EOT but I personally think that you should Main Phase it at least 50% of the time or you're missing out on (mostly) free value.
Browbeat and Sin Prodder are odd cards that I personally dislike but they must work for some people in some metas. If nothing else you can always test them to see how they fare for you and yours. That being said I personally don't consider either to be especially competitive/playable.
Wheel of Fate is unplayable trash. Best case scenario it goes off on turn 6 and drawing one on turn 5 is ostensibly a mulligan. Moreover, everyone gets the see the effect coming from a mile away, jam their hand and refuel. At least with other Wheels no one sees it coming but you. Card is awful.
Magus of the Wheel is decent in "unfair" decks that can care about creatures. For example if your list has Feldon of the Third Path or Flameshadow Conjuring. "Unfair" doesn't have to mean "degenerate infinite combos" but you probably want to be using Mizzix's Mastery, Vicious Shadows or Insurrection type spells to finish everyone off.
Reforge the Soul is the "all purpose" Wheel of Fortune that has more generic applications than Magus of the Wheel. It still basically has to be played in "unfair" decks IMO but even if it's merely being used a value card this is your best bet. If you Miracle it, cool, but even if you have to cast it for 5 that works too. Has some marginal combo applications with things like Underworld Dreams and Molten Psyche but nothing overly competitive.
Insolent Neonate is a great Dredge enabler since you get to discard then Dredge your card. It's also fantastic in Reanimator strategies since it has significantly more value than a card like Putrid Imp. No "fair" applications however.
Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice (Wild Guess is also fine in monored) and Daretti, Scrap Savant are strong cards that fair decks can play insofar as they care about their graveyard to some extent. Obviously the cards have plenty of unfair applications as well but you're not "forced" to utterly abuse them to break-even. If your list has no combos or GY synergies then they suck but most MP decks can field some number of them and experience success.
Dangerous Wager is unplayable trash. Way too conditional. Magmatic Insight is also too unreliable since you rarely want to pitch lands in multiplayer. Never play either.
Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded is heinous. He has no potential. Never play him.
Goblin Lore and Control of the Court are criminally underrated. Not every deck wants this type of effect but it's really good in the ones that do. Drawing 4 cards in Dredge decks is absurd and it fills your GY full of random crap for things like Daretti, Scrap Savant, Living Death, Scrap Mastery, etc. "At random" means that it's not perfect but binning 3 random cards and digging deep for something like Life from the Loam or Unburial Rites is a big game. Again, not good in every archetype but very good in some of them.
Tormenting Voice (I already discussed it but you asked for more insight) is niche but the key is to actually support it. Copied spells don't pay additional costs so if you Dualcaster Mage or Pyromancer's Goggles the thing then you get to draw 4 discard 1 which is sweet. Otherwise looting can help with cards like Mizzix's Mastery since you can bin an early Cruel Ultimatum (or whatever) and then Recoup it for the low-low price of 4 mana. It also helps you dig for cards like Mana Geyser which can easily win games on their own.
Because Red is a strong Artifact color things like Staff of Nin and Mind's Eye are solid draw engines. Turn 1 Faithless Looting turn 2 Fellwar Stone turn 3 Daretti, Scrap Savant "Trash for Treasure" mode to recur a Staff is sweet.
Red is the single worst Cloudpost color in my opinion but assuming that your deck doesn't need tons of Red mana you can still jam Cloudpost and Glimmerpost (or Urzatron) in generic Red shells to support Endbringer. Card is very good.
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Reforge the Soul works well in decks with a low average mana cost, where you can empty your hand fast. Burn, Goblin and Devotion decks (Fanatic of Mogis) come to my mind.
Humble Defector works with Homeward Path, although that land is not budget.
For red decks I would second the use of artifact card draw. One card combo is Bottled Cloister together with Ensnaring Bridge and/or Null Brooch. On a tight budget, Ichor Wellspring/Mycosynth Wellspring will do the trick. Red has ways to make use of these "kill me" artifacts (Goblin Welder, Trash for Treasure, Greater Gargadon, Kuldotha Rebirth, ...), but you can always fall back to Phyrexia's Core if you have to.
Outpost Siege is underrated but is a solid draw engine for Red. I usually play at least two in my Mono Red decks, though sometimes I skip over the draw feature in order to use the Dragon mode if I plan on making an Insurrection + Blasphemous Act WinCon.
Reforge the Soul is a good alternative to Wheel of Fortune. The Wheel is obviously better, but Reforge is one of the single best draw spells for Red. As with the Wheel the trick with Reforge is to play out your hand before your opponents can play their own cards, though sometimes you really ruin your opponents day by making them discard needed cards they already had. Quite satisfying.
Staff of Nin / Mind's Eye are solid Red engines as well, albeit slow and in the case of Eye costly. However, in excess mana decks like Cloudpost or Gauntlet of Might the mana needed to fuel Eye becomes trivial and nets you needed advantage.
Tormenting Voice is solid if you can pair it with copy effects like Pyromancer's Goggles, Dualcaster Mage or Mizzix's Mastery. On it's own the card is... okay. I wouldn't jam them in my deck unless I had another way to support them, but the power is there.
A final word; Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded is trash. Terrible, horrible, comically bad trash. His +1 is a joke, his -4 has limited application in multiplayer, while his -6 is a Insurrection, good luck getting up to 6 Loyalty with him before someone murders him off. Red has much better draw than demon-boy, stay away from him!
Bit of a stretch, I agree, but it's a 2 power creature on turn 2 which is good enough to threaten most opposing 1-2 (and some 3) drops. The key isn't that you want to trade but rather that you can threaten to trade/reciprocate which is significantly more important than actually going through with the action.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I like to block than sac the Defector; Advantage for me? 2. Advantage for my opponent? 0. Usually.Whoops!
As Prid3 said, while Defector is no Wurmcoil Engine, it's a strong enough early drop that can dissuade my opponents from going after me right out of the gate.
You can only activate his ability on your turn. How do you block and sac?
In terms of "draw" of legitimately red cards, the playable ones are really just the good wheel effects (wheel of fortune/magus of the wheel/reforge the soul).
The exile/temp spells (commune with lava/act on impulse/outpost siege/prophetic flamespeaker) are never a guaranteed "draw" in terms of card advantage, and might incidentally exile the best cards in your deck.
Something like Faithless Looting and Tormenting Voice is more along the lines of graveyard filling and card selection, not actual "draw" in the sense of card advantage.
Humble Defector is cute, but it isn't quite card advantage if the opponent gets him, and you are already down 1x card by playing him and donating him. This could be less than card-parody from a smart opponent.
IMO the best card advantage that red has, while not quite draw, would be its ability to flash-back spells. Mizzix's Mastery, Recoup, and Past in Flames can generate some absurd card advantage. Again this isn't "drawing" cards, but it is the sort of authentic card advantage that mono-red has access to.
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!
The card is very confusing. For example, a lot of people think that it combos with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker because the copy gets sacrificed at EOT. What most people overlook is the fact that you can't sacrifice objects that you don't control. That is, if you send someone a copy of the Defector via KJMB they keep it. Flameshadow Conjuring exiles so that's a decent combo but KJMB doesn't work well at all.
Oh, don't ask how I learned about these kinds of interactions myself. I totally didn't make any of these mistakes myself. Carry on.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
...
Or comboing. Or Reanimating.
Aggro is Red's best matchup.
Red has some of the best early-game mass removal in Earthquake, Pyroclasm, Anger of the Gods, the overlooked Breath of Darigaaz and Blasphemous Act.
Red also has some very good 2-3 CMC blockers such as Veteran Brawlers, Taurean Mauler and Adamaro, First to Desire that aggro decks legitimately can't beat past. Since it would be moronic for someone to use removal on Walls that early into the game jamming these into mass removal such as Anger of the Gods makes aggro a complete joke for a properly built Red shell. If turn 2 Veteran Brawlers turn 3 Anger of the Gods isn't good enough to stabilize you against aggro then nothing will.
There's almost no such thing as a 3-4 CMC "heavy hitter" in multiplayer. Even things like Taurean Mauler and/or Pia and Kiran Nalaar can't possibly win games of Magic for you. That being said an easy way to consistently succeed is to stabilize early, build a board and then out-resource your adversaries until you can cheese them out with combo kills or pseudo-combo kills. Red is very good at playing "unfair" on a reasonable budget since a lot of its "power cards" (such as Repercussion, Mizzix's Mastery, Mana Geyser, Mob Rule, Vicious Shadows, Insurrection) are relatively inexpensive. Rather than trying to beat people down with marginal threats you're way better off curving an Inferno Titan into a Wildfire or Rite of the Raging Storm into a Jokulhaups.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
These are all designed to stall out the game against both aggro opponents and combo players by fielding low-cost but highly effective blockers/damagers in the early game. Brawler is a big dumb blocker, Varchild is as well but can double as a political card, Taurean is always a threat & Boros makes people very hesitant to attack you when your opponent realizes they'll take that damage right in the face if I block with it.
I could run cards like Anger of the Gods but most of my opponents use much bigger creatures than 3+ toughness, so I prefer to stall them out. War-Rider's has been very useful; I've had opponents use the tokens to wipe out other opponents for me, though there is always the possibility of backlash. However, I also use War-Rider's in order to ensure that my Blasphemous Act goes off. My deck doesn't usually win through directed aggression, instead I pick and choose my battles, stall the board, and win through some combination of cards like Insurrection, Inferno Titan or Comet Storm.
Gauntlet of Might does a lot of heavy lifting for me, but Outpost Siege is a star card as well, helping to ensure I can speed up my drops. I'll always play a Gauntlet on turn 4 before I play an Outpost, 8-10 mana on turn 5 is pretty damn impressive for Red after all, but the Outpost has been fantastic for me.
Lets say we are playing emperor. I am a general and my opposing general has shroud. Do I then keep humble defector?
Correct.
No idea! I've never had this come up. My gut tells me that in the same way you can't use Goblin Sharpshooter to ping a Slippery Bogle you can't activate the Defector unless you can target an opponent but I don't claim to be a Judge or anything. You'd have to ask the rules forums. The answer might seem obvious to someone else but I'm not 100% clear one way or another and Magic is complicated enough that I don't take much for granted.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
More like commune with lava for 8 eot, reveal 7x mountains and a fire diamond, untap and draw a mountain. This has happened. I was about to learn just how aerodynamic my deck was.
Don't get me wrong, the card is amazing when there is a mana-doubler out. But sometimes, even when using it early for ~3, just to grab a landfall, you just end up punching yourself in the face.
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!
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
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The Multiplayer Power Rankings
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The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Aren't you happy then that one spell saved you from nine turns without drawing anything useful. Considering that you have access to ten mana already...
No love for Squee, Goblin Nabob as a facilitator in discard engines?
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
Most draw spells are going to seem terrible in that spot. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't still run them.
The same thing happens all the time in Sphinx's Revelation decks. The cards aren't designed to excel in low-mana environments and will underperform when cast early.
I've tested this extensively and ultimately determined that Squee doesn't have much of a place in the best versions of the best decks. First are foremost Squee itself itself is a mulligan (I don't count a recurring blocker to be a real card) so any value that he generates first comes at the expensive of the do-nothing body to begin with. If you deck has cards like Bonehoard that can actually abuse the body, that's different because otherwise he generates less value that most realize. Beyond that you can never justify running more than 1 and that frequently means drawing him randomly on the 5th-6th turn with nothing to do with him. Yes, if you haphazardly draw him on turn 1 with looters then he's solid but his average use-case is significantly weaker than that. Otherwise I think that people under-value looting effects in general and that they should be actively abusing discards with cards like Drownyard Temple, Mizzix's Mastery, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, etc. as opposed to play loot spells for "generic value." The reality is that blindly adding Tormenting Voice to a "creature and spell" deck is an overall losing line which means that you need to be abusing inherent synergies to justify fielding them in the first place. It doesn't have to be on the level of turn 1-2 "pitch Enter the Infinite" turn 3-4 "Mizzix's Mastery it back" but you want a reason to have those cards in your deck.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold