MTG Salvation

When creating a new competitive mono-red deck of any kind, use one of the below lists of cards, they should be used as the base for deck-building.

Please discuss what cards you think should be added or removed from these lists.

Note1: Card degeneracy, availability, or cost is not considered. Only cards powerful/useful enough to warrant being an automatic inclusion (staple).
Note2: This list is for every kind of mono-red competitive deck (Beats, Control, Stax, Storm, Etc.). Cards that are good for some mono-red decks but not all of them, cannot be included on these lists
Note3: One key to help determine if a card belongs in this list, is if you have a hard time justifying removing this card from your mono-red deck

Commander: 2 Players


Commander: Multiplayer




Commander: Duel Commander


Removed Cards:

Ruination is hilariously unfair.
Chandra, Pyromaster is a redundant Outpost Siege.

Stranglehold stays in my monored deck, regardless of commander, theme, or strategy. So does Goblin Welder.

Why Cavern of Souls? Unless running a tribal-ish deck (and a goblin package is strong), I don't see it as a mandatory inclusion.

Cheers!

Vandalblast has been popular.

And given how popular blue is, Pyroblast and/or Red Elemental Blast would have a place.

Insurrection doesn't require any justification.

Wheel of Fortune is amazing in any mono-red deck. Red's card draw is typically bad, and this is an enormously powerful card drawing source.

Quote from Outcryqq »

Wheel of Fortune is amazing in any mono-red deck. Red's card draw is typically bad, and this is an enormously powerful card drawing source.

On the flip side, one could argue that the wheels should be things like Faithless Looting, Magmatic Insight, Tormenting Voice, and Wild Guess instead.

I suppose it comes down to whether your deck can abuse the mass draw, and/or whether you need raw draw or filtering more.

Gauntlet of Might seems extremely relevant here.

Imperial recruiter? There is almost always something awesome you want at power 2 or less in red.

1. I added Chandra, Pyromaster thanks.

2. Ruination seems like it could hurt you as well. Doesn't seem like always an auto-include to me although it is nice when it works well.

3. Stranglehold is nice as an anti-blue (because it has lots of ways for extra turns) and anti-tutor because green, black. blue, and even white can have a lot of tutors. This card will prevent this deck's own cards of Gamble or Expedition Map to work. I'd like some more feedback from others before saying every mono-red deck should have this card.

4. For Goblin Welder to be an auto-include we need to say certain artifacts are an auto-include. I have trouble determining that any other artifacts are an auto-include and that it's worth putting the Goblin Welder in a deck to switch one card for another if one happens to somehow get in the graveyard.

5. Cavern of Souls is anti-counterspell. As every deck has at least 1 creature (Commander), this card can be used in every deck. Can you come up with a reason why a certain Competitive Deck would not want this protection?

6. Regarding Vandalblast. I included Shattering Spree which can destroy 1 artifact per red mana. It's only worse than Vandalblast if you have 5 mana and there are 6 or more enemy artifacts to destroy. I don't recall any significant artifacts with Shroud themselves that would make the targeting an issue in most games.

7. Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast are good cards if you're playing against Blue. They'd be auto sideboard cards (if Sideboards are legal and used), but I couldn't justify an auto-include for every deck.

8. Insurrection is expensive and a sorcery and is dependent on your opponent using a creature deck to be effective

9. I personally love Wheel of Fortune and its ilk. I am also told however that it gives your opponents a lot of card advantage as well and often hurts you more than helps overall.

10. I don't know what to think about Faithless Looting, Magmatic Insight, Tormenting Voice, and Wild Guess. I need more feedback on those.

11. I think I'll add Gauntlet of Might. It would help in a Goblin Tribal as well as a Direct Damage. It wouldn't help a combo red deck, but I don't know a competitive consistent red combo due to lack of tutors.

12. Imperial Recruiter is a cool card. The issue for me is to say that Imperial Recruiter is an auto include for all decks requires that there's also a power 2 or less creature (preferably more than 1) that is also an auto include. I don't know any red creatures that are an auto-include in every kind of competitive red deck. Do you?

Stranglehold only prevents opponents from searching, leaving you free to tutor up whatever. While Goblin Welder is best alongside your own artifacts, it can also hit opposing artifacts, breaking combos and getting around indestructibility.

Cheers!

Krenko...because everyone loves goblins jkjk. On a serious side, bonfire is pretty good still

Insurrection is no less situational than blood moon, shattering spree, or maze of ith. I could go on. The card meets your original criteria easily, at least for multiplayer.

outpost siege and chandra, pyromancer - I would cut these cards for things like mind's eye, I don't particularly care for a time limit slow draw engine

I would run vandalblast over shattering spree most of the time

I consider blasphemous act to be one of the strongest wipes red has, and value it highly. Often it's a board wipe for R

If I had to make a choice between extraplanar lens or grim monolith in mono red, I'd probably take the lens

Quote from billbisco »

2. Ruination seems like it could hurt you as well. Doesn't seem like always an auto-include to me although it is nice when it works well.

There are a lot of greedy decks and ruination just ruins their day. Even if you lose multiple good nonbasics the price is worth it.

Also price of progress.

Goblin welder on his own is a most definite auto include. He can turn mana rocks into something less useful/more useful, depending on if it's your deck or your opponents. More than once I've used it to screw up an opponent's plays as well as being one of the more busted things I can play. Red almost always plays with a TON of artifacts, so abusing a welder is a good trick. In addition to the welder, if you're not playing an early combo red, then cards like solemun simulacrum and burnished hart are pretty much auto includes. What do all three of these have in common? Imperial Recruiter finds them all. While there arguably better plays depending on the deck style, red has to work with what it has and imperial recruiter will almost always find something useful. If only magus of the wheel was 2 power or less.....

Alright,

1. I'll add Imperial Recruiter. If you have a goblin deck, he can get almost any other goblin card. If you have a higher cost deck, he can get Burnished Heart or Solemn Simulacrum to help with Ramp. This makes perfect sense.

2. You're right that Goblin Welder can hurt an opponent, but we need to ensure that he can help every competitive mono-red deck to be worth a slot. He works with Expedition Map which we have already. If we add Wayfarer's Bauble, then that's one more sac card for him to use I suppose, but it's not like Expedition Map which can fetch utility lands. For mono-red it's not much of an advantage over say a multicolor deck which can get the right mana fixing land. I don't see a lot of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Goblin Tribal Decks with Goblin Welder. I'll await more justification.

3. I like fetchlands a lot personally for deck thinning. I'll await more concurrence from others that these belong in every deck.

4. Hmm. I am sad to hear that about Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle but I am willing to hear more. You are correct that if you run a lot of nonbasics, it is less attractive, and the ability of the land will not see play until turn 7 at the earliest. I'd like to hear some more feedback on this.

5. I could add Insurrection to multiplayer. This potentially adds more opportunities to be useful and eliminate a player. At the end of the day, Insurrection is opponent dependent for a lot of mana. I await more feedback.

I'm going to go on record as saying Perilous Vault has no place on the 1v1 lists, and likely doesn't belong on the Multiplayer list either. Not only is it a 9-mana board wipe, but red tends to rely a lot on artifacts (and often recurring artifacts) so the Vault is often counterproductive.

All is Dust is probably better than Vault in multiplayer but still questionable for 1v1.

I am also not sure why you have to choose between Shattering Spree and Vandalblast. Both are great and red has limited tutoring, so if you want one you can probably use both.

What about arcane lighthouse? To me, personally, I think lighthouse should be included in every single commander deck you ever make. Removing hexproof and shroud from all creatures your opponents control is always, always, always relevant, whether or not you run a lot of targeted removal. There's a lot of games where somebody has targeted removal that can remove a problem creature that you and someone else both don't like, but it has hexproof/shroud and needs to be removed. Also, you knever know when somebody will sit down with Uril, Narset, geist, Thrun, or any other commanders who have hexproof/shroud stapled onto them. Also Whispersilk cloak, Swiftfoot boots, and lightning greaves all being so popular. Keeps maze of ith relevant. All at the cost of tapping 2 lands.

Also Nykthos, shrine to nyx is fantastic in any deck that can get more than 3 devotion with any regularity. It can generate tons and tons of mana. Often playing one has won me a game with a mono red deck by giving me such a large boost in mana. Also works great with burn spells.

1. @d0su You may be right. What card would you replace it with? Red has severe problems with enchantments and indestructible cards. I worry about Red's ability to survive and win other than "Just win first". The same argument could be made for Oblivion Stone and Nevinyrral's Disk. What's the right amount and kind of removal? I'll make a thread about it later.

2. My only reason for listing one instead of the other is I would be saying that every deck should have both of these cards. I'm not sure I can say that every red deck needs both of those. I'm making an assumption that Shattering Spree is inherently awesome enough that you want this card even if creatures do it as well because of this card's ability to destroy multiple artifacts cheaply and overcome counterspells.

3. @BlackVise You are probably right. I am trying to find out what those lists are. I am not afraid to add cards only to remove them later. I am okay with being wrong. I view this as a learning opportunity, and the only way I know how to learn is through you all's feedback (and I sincerely thank you all for it ) There is fluidity here of course as new cards come out, they may add more choice and some auto-must-haves may become more optional.

4. I like Lightning Bolt too and you're right about getting rid of a lot of utility creatures. I'm not sure though that a competitive
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker deck would want Lightning Bolt when creatures do the main lifting of the deck. Flametongue Kavu can be recurred repeatedly for damage for instance.

5. You make a good point on fetchlands and you remind me of something. Scroll Rack? Should this card be in every competitive mono-red deck?

6. @tombstone312 You make a good point about Arcane Lighthouse. Maze of Ith won't work on Shroud. You would need Arcane Lighthouse and Maze of Ith to defend against a lot of Tron Decks. Perhaps I should remove Maze of Ith from these lists? I would like to have Arcane Lighthouse, I am hesitant to include it because that would mean that we'd also want to include Homeward Path. There are just too many useful utility lands, I'm not sure I can say they must all be included.

7. Nykthos, shrine to nyx can indeed be a good card some of the time. My issue with the card is that it is very easy for the card to become a dead card and often you don't want it in your starting hand. It usually requires 3 lands to use (including itself) and will be worse for your mana unless you have 3 mana symbols out already and often the cards you want out will only have one mana symbol on them. Which means that you really need 7 cards for this card to actually make some kind of return on investment (2 other lands, Nykthos, and 4 cards with mana symbols. This also implies that your deck has to be aggro for a lot of creatures for mana symbols and you get less value from Instants and Sorceries. It seems to me that the card is too limited to say that it needs to be in every mono-red deck.

I added Scroll Rack and Lightning Bolt. I'll make a thread about removal.

If the aim is to build the base "auto includes" for a "competitive" deck with the color then Wheel of Fortune does belong. The argument that WoF gives to much value to your opponents only applies if your deck is weaker than theirs. If decks are about equal in strength than WoF should benefit the caster the most. Since a "competitive" deck should be at least as good as its opponents, WoF should be played.

if you are running snow-covered glacial crevasses needs to be in there

Quote from Life1ess »

Insurrection is no less situational than blood moon, shattering spree, or maze of ith. I could go on. The card meets your original criteria easily, at least for multiplayer.

Not really. The primary parameter is "competitive." It is pretty much universal that decks run fewer creatures as they become more competitive. Insurrection is pretty terrible at most competitive tables because you barely get anything out of that ridiculous mana expenditure.

Blood Moon on the other hand can wreck a hardcore 2 or 3 color competitive deck. Where most of your land base is fetchs, duals and other high value non basics.

Shattering Spree also gains value as other decks improve. Competitive decks depend heavily on artifact ramp and in some cases artifact combos.

Maze of Ith is questionable as a "staple" since very few competitive decks win with combat damage.

But Insurrection becomes exponentially worse as the power level of decks improves. Great card for mid level or lower metas. Awful card for competitive metas.