MTG Salvation

Yes, I know this deck is not in right now, but let me explain... my girlfriend is enamored with mono-red. She has played casually, but since we got together and she found out I go to things like Grand Prix and stuff, she wants to go too. But... she would want to stick with mono-red. She's not expecting to do well with it, but as long as it can win games here and there (or even a match) she'll be happy with it. And maybe eventually I can get her to splash another color and move onto something stronger, like the UR Control I'm planning to play.

I'm gonna work on a version of this myself, but I'm less familiar with this archetype than a lot of other people, so I'm sure some of you can do better than what I will come up with.

• Bloodlust Inciter
  
• Combat Celebrant
  
• Glorybringer
  
• Ahn-Crop Crasher
  
• Bloodrage Brawler
  
• Hazoret the Fervent
  
• Fiery Temper
  
• Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
  
• Reckless Bushwhacker
  

Start there and customize it to her liking.

A line:

T1 Bloodlust Inciter
T2 Kari Zev ,Skyship Raider, give haste, attack for 3
17
T3 Ahn-Crop Crasher, swing for 7
10
T4 Bloodrage Brawler, discard Fiery Temper, cast to do three damage, swing for 7
-1

Obviously uninterrupted but I helped my friend make a RDW deck and he loves it. You just land four land drops and you're off to the races.

I did promise to post my own take on this... and some notes after.

1. Even with only 18 land, I noticed in a few solitaire hands that it felt like I was getting more land than I needed.
2. Hanweir Battlements is very unlikely to end up melding with the Hanweir Garrison, but there is virtually no penalty to including it, the deck has 14 other sources of red mana and it comes into play untapped. The haste can also be beneficial.
3. I wanted plenty of 1-drops so that you can reliably play one on turn 1. That said, Insolent Neonate isn't really an aggro card, not sure about its inclusion here. It does help enable getting Madness on Fiery Temper, which is pretty great.

The two tix red list from saffronolive was reasonably competitive when I tried it:



It didn't pick up anything in Hour of Devastation but you can still blitz people out. If you want to go bigger with Glorybringers and such I think red eldrazi is the best shell.

Hello,

This is my homebrew and it rips people apart, it is a vicious deck that starts hitting hard and continues for the rest of the game, which is usually about 6-7 turns only. Out of the 24 creatures in the deck a full 18 of them have haste so they can hit the turn they come into play. And also 5 creatures have either embalm/eternal so it's more like you are running 29 creatures in the deck since you can bring them back after they die. The burn is meant to clear the board for your guys to attack or they can finish off the opponent.

Quote from jacobk »

The two tix red list from saffronolive was reasonably competitive when I tried it:

D90Dennis14's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Bomat Courier 4 Falkenrath Gorger 4 Soul-Scar Mage 4 Bloodrage Brawler 3 Borderland Marauder 4 Ahn-Crop Crasher 2 Reckless Bushwhacker	Spells (12) 4 Built to Smash 4 Shock 4 Incendiary Flow Enchantments (4) 4 Cartouche of Zeal Lands (19) 19 Mountain	Sideboard (15) 3 Lightning Axe 4 Magma Spray 4 Destructive Tampering 4 Savage Alliance

It didn't pick up anything in Hour of Devastation but you can still blitz people out. If you want to go bigger with Glorybringers and such I think red eldrazi is the best shell.

I think that this is the way to go with mono red, you need to be fast otherwise it is better to go with another color.

This version has actually got some decent upgrades (imho) from Hour:
#Earthshaker Khenra for the MD over Borderland Marauder, either a 3x-of or a 2/1 split with Kari Zev, Skyship Raider.
#Abrade as a good SB option.

Not sure if it is worth it but maybe Crash Through can also be playable in this deck.

playing any colourless lands in these deck has to be wrong. I would play mountains and four Ramunap Ruins, that card is a perfect addition.

That's a lot of great advice you guys have given. A few cards mentioned were ones I completely forgot about. Here's the new version I'm going with:

Observations:
1. In addition to removing the Hanweir Battlements, I went and removed the 4x Hanweir Garrison as well. It's a card that can promise some crazy value, but it's not fast enough, and unlike the Goblin Rabblemaster that it's been compared to, it doesn't generate any tokens until the next turn.
2. Is having 12 non-creature spells enough to make Soul-Scar Mage's prowess worth it? I'm inclined to think that its other ability as well as being more than 1/1 for 1-cmc is still enough reason to play it.
3. Deck feels better in solitaire play than the previous version. Typically turn 4-6 to deal 20+ damage. In actual play I know this won't happen due to blockers and disruption effects, but that seems like reasonably good speed for Standard.
4. There are enough 2-drops that playing Reckless Bushwhacker on turn 3 with surge is never a problem. Typically I end up playing a 2nd 1-drop plus the bushwhacker.

Thanks for all the assistance!

Soul-Scar Mage is a hard card to gauge in value that I've considered exchanging for Village Messenger. Without Cartouche of Zeal, the mage loses the ability to gain haste as well as a non-creature spell to proc prowess. I would still consider running Cartouche regardless for the ability to bypass a blocker.

I'd advise exchanging some mountains for Sunscorched Desert: the deck isn't reliant on multiple red sources, an extra damage helps, and they can be sacrificed to ruins for an additional 2.

I just realized yesterday that you can sacrifice whatever deserts to Ramunap Ruins: that makes Sunschorched Desert much better in this deck than I thought before.

Quote from BiadeticG »

How have you found that mana base to be working Xaltair?

I recall from the days of Koth when I first looked at numbers needed, you would need 24 land to consistently hit a T4 Koth as a double red source. 22 with Glorybringers and Manticore seems tough especially with 5 colourless land. Has it been enough for you though?

I wonder if madness is the better shell for mono red currently.

The mana base is fine, unlike other people who are just giving their opinions I am actually playing and testing this deck, I played a local Standard tourney yesterday evening and went 2-1 with this deck, should've been 3-0 but I made a bad mistake in the 3rd game.

The deck is mono red so having 16 mountains + 1 Ramunap Ruins + 4 Sunscorched Desert + 1 Endless Sands actually works because 22 lands in a 60 card deck is enough to draw them often enough and having 17 red mana sources and only 5 colourless sources doesn't hurt at all, most of the time I only need to have to 2 mountains out and the rest can be colorless.

The Sunscorched desert won me a game today as I got my opponent down to 1 life after combat and I drew into the land, played it and killed him. The Ramunap Ruins won me a game as well as I got the opp down to 1 life again and after combat I sacced a desert to the Ruins and hit him for 2 damage.

The deck can take apart any creature deck out there, I am working on a good sideboard against control/counter decks, but aside from that this deck is stable and very dangerous.

Quote from BiadeticG »

Do we want Lupine Prototype in the 2 tix deck?

It's a trap. It's always harder to empty your hand than you'd think.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-r-39480
This seems to be the new high performing mono red deck.

Interesting to see Eldrazi Obligator and Trial of Zeal in the deck.

Some other lists run different configurations with cards like:
Collective Defiance, Reckless Bushwhacker and Hanweir Garrison/Akoum Firebird (the bird seems really bad).

I really like Defiance as the curve topper. It plays well with the early aggression as it both clears the way and offers extra reach.

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-of-the-day-mono-red-aggro-2/

There's a good starting point.