Overview
The deck plays as a low to the ground aggressive Red aggro deck. It focuses on taking advantage of the tempo of Earthshaker Khenra and Ahn-Crop Crasher to make it difficult for the opponent to block while it punches through with damage early in the game. It also takes advantage of Desert lands to give the deck a bit of added reach and versatility on card choices.
Paulo's decklist departs from most of the other successful PT decklists at a couple of key points. He opted to play a couple of Chandra mainboard and plays more lands main to help to cast the additional 4 drops on time. He also plays less burn spells in general, cutting Flow and Collective Defiance. Paulo also stuck with Messenger, which was common in the early versions of the deck, while many of the other successful PT decks had replaced this creature with Soul-Scar.
This is the only deck at PT Hour of Devastation to go undefeated in the constructed portion of the tournament. Arne opted for Soul-Scar over Messenger, and plays 10 burn spells that can hit the player. His mainboard card for card matches the most successful shell for the tournament based on an aggregate examination of the top performing PT Red decks.
Using Frank Karsten's method to generate an aggregate mainboard decklist, I have taken the 8 decks that achieved 24 points or better in the constructed portion of the Pro Tour. This is the mainboard which I would consider "stock" going forward.
The early iterations of the deck used a fairly wide variety of spell suites. Some decklists splashed Black for Scrounger.
This build is more in line with the early versions of the deck, which was based on the 2tix red deck popularized on MTGGoldfish as a budget deck during Amonkhet standard.
This version goes a little bit larger on the curve, using Chandra and Garrison in the maindeck, and does not play any pump spells like Cartouche of Zeal or Built to Smash.
This verion has a very light splash of Black solely to enable the recursion ability on Scrapheap Scrounger. Otherwise, it stays low on the curve and includes pump spells like the early Mono Red versions. However, it has no reach, cutting the direct Burn spells in favour of Abrade and Magma Spray. These spells likely perform better under the right metagame.
Threats 1-Drops
In this deck, this is basically just a vanilla 2/1 for 1. However, that is exactly what we want because the aim of the deck is to deploy threats as early as possible, and then keep the opponent off balance with Khenra and Crasher. This card forms part of the essential core of the deck.
Courier is an interesting option. While it does not hit very hard, it comes out early and if your opponent does not respect a T1 Bomat, then you can setup a pretty good hand to draw into later in the game when you are starting to gas out. Generally at worst it can be cycled for a card.
One of the weaker 1-drops in the deck. It does have haste, but can sometimes be difficult to transform if not cast on turn 1. Some decks have cut this card completely in favour of other options. Just be mindful that it will transform back to a 1/1 if you cast multiple spells.
A solid option in the 1-drop slot if you are running enough spells to trigger it's prowess. The extra ability is excellent paired with instant speed burn spells. For example, if an opponent blocks your Mage with a 4/4, you could Shock the blocker before damage to reduce it to a 2/2. Then due to prowess, your now 2/3 Mage will kill the blocker without dying himself.
2-Drops
Hasty threat with a moderate size body. It's main draw is its enter the battlefield trigger, which paired with other Panic effects in the deck, make this deck hard to stablize against early in the game. It's Eternalize ability also gives the deck a little bit more staying power in a longer drawn out game.
Solid 2-drop which attacks for an evasive 3 damage owing to the token and her own Menace. She also survives Kozilek's Return, Shocks, and Magma Sprays. Her main draw back is being legendary status and otherwise not dealing much damage herself if they have a blocker that can handle the token.
This card is the reason to run a light black splash. At a base level, its an aggressive 2-drop. Later in the game it is a difficult to deal with recursive threat. Excellent in a meta where you are expecting control decks or otherwise longer removal heavy matchups.
3-Drops
Goblin Heelcutter 2.0, this card can be very annoying for midrange decks that prefer to cast one large body brick wall to stablize. This is another essential piece of the deck, as the strategy requires a critical mass of its effect.
Bushwhacker had a run early in its Standard legality in some of the top decks of the time. While it is best paired with token spells, it is still a potent threat in a deck that runs lots of 1-drop creatures. Not all versions of the deck play this creature, but those that do should try to manage their hands such that they will have the ability to surge Bushwhacker if they draw it. Keep in mind that Bushwhacker gives haste as well as a pump to the creatures, so it can be deployed along side a 1-drop to recover quickly from a sweeper.
4-Drops
A hard hitting, hard to kill, hasty threat for the top end of the curve. It's discard ability gives the deck a certain amount of inevitability. With Hazoret in the deck, it is important to keep the curve of the deck low so that you can clear out your hand quickly and allow Hazoret to attack quickly as possible. It is also reasonable to consider going to 23-24 lands in order to cast her on curve.
Very versatile threat that can serve as removal, ramp, card draw, and direct damage. I think this card excels in the removal heavy matchups, where the planeswalker type might be harder for them to deal with once it is resolved.
Spells
At instant speed and 1 mana, the only thing to complain about is that it isn't Lightning Bolt. Shock is a solid burn spell that is efficient and can hit the player if needed.
Sorcery speed is painful, but real burn spells are few and far between. Very well positioned in a meta full of Scrapheap Scrounger, due to its exiling text. It also helps us attack down opposing planeswalkers and gives the deck added reach.
While this does not hit players, it does have the relevant exiling text and is instant speed. If you expect a lot of mirrors and Scrounger matchups, this is likely a better positioned card than Flow.
Versatile removal that can kill Vehicles along with some of the larger artifact creatures like the Gearhulks. In a vacuum, the deck would prefer to play regular burn spells, to give it reach, but Abrade in certain metas will outperform those cards in its versatility.
One of the more expensive options. Generally this will be cast for 4 mana. It does a pretty good Searing Blaze impression. The main draw is that it can kill a lot of 4 toughness creatures that are otherwise fairly annoying like Thought-Knot Seer, Kalitas, and Glorybringer.
This card got a lot more play in the budget lists prior to Hour as it was looking to get that critical mass of Panic effects. With Khenra, it is less necessary, but still a valid option in the deck.
A pump spell that can make blocking difficult once your opponent is finally able to. However, while this card is instant speed, keep in mind that it can only be cast on an attacking creature. Given the limited window, it can be the right play to just cast it when your opponent does not have mana open to respond.
Lands
Ruins gives the deck a little added reach in the late game at very little cost. It also opens up the option of running cards like Eldrazi Obligator and even Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher in the sideboard.
On its own it does somewhat little, though every damage matters. When paired with Ramunap Ruins it becomes excellent. Ruins allows you to sacrifice "a Desert" so you can choose Sunscorched Desert first before deciding to bin the Ruins itself.
Other/Sideboard
Akoum Firebird - Recursive option that excels against control matches, where the 6 mana rebuy on this evasive threat can be too much to deal with.
Glorybringer - Top rate card, its only issue is the mana cost. A deck that wants to run it will need to consider having enough lands between the mainboard and sideboard (around 24) to reliably cast it on time.
Kari Zev's Expertise - Fits in well with the Panic plan, allowing you to both remove a blocker and get an extra attacker for the turn. Best against decks running large midrangy creatures. Keep in mind that you cannot surge a Bushwhacker off of its cast a 2 mana spell portion of its text
Chandra's Defeat - Hate card for other decks running red creatures and/or Chandra. Often the main target for this other than the planeswalker will be Glorybringer.
Scavenger Grounds - Graveyard hate that works well with our desert plan. Ideally you will have a Sunscorched Desert you can sacrifice to allow you to get another activation if needed.
Sea Gate Wreckage - Another attrition option that gives the deck more staying power into the late game.
Blazing Volley - A very efficient option against the mirror and other aggressive decks.
Release the Gremlins - A great artifact hate card, which gives you a body or two to attack with afterwards. Don't be hesitant to cast this for 3 mana, as that alone is good value.
Sand Strangler - A good option against other aggressive decks and the mirror. Very tempo positive, as you get a body while removing one of theirs. Just be mindful of the curve when siding this in. Furthermore, you will want at least 10 Deserts in the deck to reliably enable its trigger.
Thought-Knot Seer - Another 4 mana option, which we can cast thanks to our Deserts. This one is best at snatching payoff cards from ramp decks and disrupting control decks.
Reality Smasher - Another aggressive 5-drop option that can be cast off our Deserts. Some decks will run a couple of these along side a couple of Glorybringer. Just be careful of the curve, and similarly with the dragon, be prepared to side into more lands post board.
Furyblade Vampire is another two-drop to consider with your current build. A solid beating if you have cards to pitch, crews copters when you don't, and is also a vampire on the occasions that matters.
Some early play through a with both decks, and there is a fine balance needed between Burn (which largely gets the job done) and Crew (that helps you get there).
Nevelo, just a couple of discussion points - first of all, Inventor's Apprentice. I think I may rate it a bit higher than you, as I think it should be considered as a 2/3 more than a 1/2 for 1. Using the idea of Regent turning on Roar from Dragons (see Frank Karsten's DTK Magic Math article here), 6-8 turn 2 artifacts gives the boost 60-70% of the time, and 10-12 artifacts gives the boost 80-85% of the time. Running 4 Copters and 2-4 Couriers, plus maybe some more artifacts (see later thoughts about 2 drops) means that the pump is pretty easy to get. Coupling it with Gorger, we now have 8 cards with the potential of doing 2 damage T2. That one extra point could mean it all! Subsequently, I'm wondering if a 3/3 split, or even a 4/2 split of Courier and Neonate could be the way to go, in order to get that early game pump...?
I think you're right in your assessment of Speedway Fanatic. Right now, it's a 2-drop that fights for the Copter spot. I see it better in a deck that drops a similar T1 to us, Fanatic on T2 to get in for 4, then something like Renegade Freighter giving haste and swinging in for another 7 (assuming your T1 play was Gorger or Apprentice). I'm curious as to why you're not considering Borderland Marauder or Thriving Grubs, or even Scrapheap Scrounger as permanent 3/2 for 2, as opposed to something that only gets buffed a) later in the game (Scourge Wolf) or b) when you pitch a card (Furyblade, and only really benefits Fiery Temper through Madness).
Also, good call on Pia Nalaar. As you know from the mono-red thread, I'd been considering Lathnu Hellion at 3, but I'd already ordered 4 Pias for that exact slot a couple of weeks back!
EDIT: more random thoughts:
- your comment on the wheel part of Collective Defiance, and holding on to lands. What about Fateful Showdown somewhere in the 75? It's the wheel from Defiance, but with more than 3 cards in hand, becomes more damage than casting Defiance and choosing damage and wheel.
- what about considering either Expedite or Renegade Tactics for both acceleration and their effect?
- Incendiary Sabotage in the side as well?
Thinking is as follows. Unlicensed Disintegration whilst not as cheap as lightening axe or Incendiary flow, it is unconditional and I already have multiple madness outlets. Plus 3 to the face when I have a copter out is a nice bonus.
Not sure about using Chandra as not sure what can be cut. Need a good number of creatures to avoid copter becoming a do nothing after a board wipe.
Have no idea about sideboard so thoughts would be appreciated.
you're already running black... deck is very aggro.
tons of madness enablers... why not Alms of the Vein
So, based on Nevelo's posts, plus my random thoughts I added earlier, I've got a couple of deck lists together. The first is very similar to the Wolf-less list. I've swapped out Neonate for Apprentice for the potential of extra damage, and increased the number of Couriers to get a little more card replacement given the removal of the Neonates. I also dropped Pia to 3 for the same reason that most people ran three Zurgos or flip Chandra - legendary creature, and does the creation of a 1/1 Thopter offset the chance of having multiples in hand? I also put in a few Built to Smash as I think that this should be a staple of the red aggro format - punching through an unexpected 3 damage for R is going to be vital, I think.
I also played around with a deck that builds on my second paragraph above - the inclusion of Speedway Fanatic. The idea of this one is to get a Fanatic out T2, and then hit the opponent with a runaway train T3 to (potentially) hit for 11 points of damage by T3, and get a subsequent kill on T4. Couriers are there for haste, but could easily be Neonates in this deck. I just think I may prefer them with the potential to get more than one card out of it. Four Copters, because Copters, and then four each of the Fanatic and Freighter because that's what we're aiming to get out asap. The burn spells here are now primarily for creature removal, in order to push through the early attacking creatures, but I didn't want to include cards like Harnessed Lightning over, say, Fiery Temper, as there's always the potential for the need to go to the face as well. Built to Smash is there for two reasons - first, creature removal, and second, a finisher. I was toying with the Freighter's namesake, Renegade Tactics as a way to both dig for a wanted card and also to remove early game blockers, but I think permanently removing small creatures is better than just avaoiding them for a turn. Incidentally, this deck has 11 artifacts, which means that we could consider something like Incendiary Sabotage as a sideboard card to get rid of Copters in mirror matches and other go wide strategies.
Cool to see everyone's decklists. Any feedback from testing would be great. I'm almost thinking the title should be Red Copter Madness, as pushing the build more towards Madness is likely the best approach.
@JohninWherever: I think Inventor's Apprentice would be quite good in a build with a lot more artifacts. If you can reliably get it active on T2, then that is quite strong. However, the number of artifacts you need to make it reliable is a lot more than I'm running. To get it "reliable", i.e. 90% of the time, you have to have 14x artifacts that cost 1-2 cmc in the deck. Only running a full set of Copter and Bomat Courier, chances to get her active on T2 are only 70%. That doesn't factor in the number of times you have an artifact but didn't draw Apprentice. It seems pretty high variance. The pump also doesn't mean that much in conjunction with Copter, so I figured Neonate and Gorger were just better 1-drops. I think I'd want to run Courier before Apprentice too, assuming no changes in the number of artifacts in the deck.
I think Marauder, Grubs, or Scrouger are all fine for 2-drops. Of all the slots, that seems to be the hardest to fill. Loading up on practically all 1-drops seems wrong too. Wolf just seems like one with a higher ceiling, and the 2/2 first strike body seems quite good by itself. It really depends on how the meta pans out. Its possible that having 3-power will be more relevant that first strike with 2 power.
One thing that pushed me more towards wolf was that I wanted to play as many direct damage spells as possible. I think a big strategy of the deck is to just Copter to chip shot them with evasion and filter out draws into Burn to finish the game. I wanted all of the spells to do damage. Since I wanted to play Chandra to help dig in the mid games, Oath seemed alright. It can be cast without a target to deal 2 damage to the player the turn we cast Chandra and +1 for RR. That gives us 12 spells that deal damage to the player, a Planewalker that can do the same, and Evasive threat that draws us into that Burn, and some very early aggressive plays to start the process.
As far as Fateful Showdown. Its a card that maybe could get a slot? It seems like a bad Collective Defiance. I often only pitch 1 or 2 cards to the Defiance Wheel (lands generally), so with Fateful Showdown I'd likely not be getting much from the Burn part. I suppose you could gamble and just cast it with a half full hand on T4, but thats a bit too variant for my tastes. Concerning Expedite and such, I'm finding the deck super tight on slots. You need a critical mass of pilots and burn to make the deck function properly. I don't think I'd want to dilute that focus too much.
Anyways, that's way more than I wanted to write. I am thinking maybe my initial builds don't have enough Madness payoffs, but I don't necessarily know what to add. Gorger does help us a little bit with this if we can remember the flavour text. That is one reason why I don't think adding Furyblade actually hurts too much, since we can often madness it in with a Gorger in play.
Nevelo, the way you describe the overall game plan of the deck is different to the way that I had thought about it, which was to get in as much early damage as possible then finish off with burn. However, using the Copter for the filtering does seem to be a more sensible, consistent plan. At that point, I think you're right - Neonate does appear to be a better 1-drop than Apprentice. And considering my philosophy with Built to Smash, rather than, say Oath - I even mentioned that I had Smash in there potentially as creature removal. Maybe 4 Oath main would be better in my first list, and have Smash in the side for games that we need to go faster (and use it as a pseudo-Lightning Bolt during attacks). I don't consider having it in as "loading up on practically all 1-drops" though, as I count it in the 2-drop slot. After all, we're never going to cast it turn 1! I think that the level of 2 drops we need is probably around 12-14, and once you include Copter, Oath and Flow, there's not a lot of room for any of the other 2-drops. I agree that there are too many options to test, and not enough card space! I'm almost thinking of dropping a Neonate/Apprentice, then maybe running a 3/2 split of Oath and either another 2 drop creature, or a pump spell.
As for the madness comment, I'm not sure how much we have that can be madnessed in either. Really the only other consideration is to run Distemper of the Blood as the pump spell, as that then gives us an option to pump during blocks as well (given that Copter lets us pitch a card on blocking too).
I thought about Splashing Black for Alms of the Vein. I suppose with Black Scrapheap Scrounger becomes a bit more appealing as a 2-drop. We can also discard it and reanimate for value later on.
I've done some testing against BW Angels (7-3) and Naya Humans (5-0). Mostly unsideboarded games. Not exactly the expected Tier 1 meta, but both were fringe players. The Naya Humans matchup is almost embarrassing for them. I think it is primarily because my build runs so many 3 point burn, and hits basically all of their threats. A more creature heavy version of this deck would possibly have a harder time. Angels was scary going in, since they had Kalitas, Gisela, Linvala, and Shambling Vents to gain life. But they were often a bit to slow. Chandra and Collective Defiance matched up pretty well against Kalitas, Flow and Oath against Gisela, and they often didn't have time to activate or we just flew over Shambling Vents. Here is where I am with the build:
Falkenrath Gorger: Solid threat. The madness text came up a few times discarding extra Gorgers to Neonates early to filter while keeping the initiative.
Insolent Neonate: Its amazing how many 1 land hands (or 4 land for that matter) you can keep with a Neonate. The card feels a bit like having Serum Visions for a blue deck, filtering your early hand and making the deck more consistent. Discarding a spare Vampire w/ Gorger out or Fiery Temper for value is just icing on top.
Bomat Courier: I'm coming around to this being a solid card for the deck. If you can get him T1 or T2, you can build up 2-4 cards before you have to stop attacking. Then cash him in for a new hand on T5. I don't try to hold up mana early on when I'm not prepared to discard my hand. He just chip shots or pilots at that point. I tried 1x at first, and now I am at 2x.
Scourge Wolf: Surprisingly strong. Especially with Courier, which is part of why I've evaluated both a bit higher. There have been games where I am able to attack with a couple of Wolves on T4 after burning most of their early plays, then sacrifice my Courier to get a creature/artifact/+ whatever else I've casted or am discarding to enable delirium and hit them for 8. Otherwise, he is a nice pilot that doesn't just die to Liliana (though he cant pilot anymore, which is annoying).
Pia Nalaar: I've come to call her "Thopter Mama" now. She is awesome. I want to play 4x, but Legendary and 3cmc sort of hold me back from going with the full set.
Incendiary Flow: Solid burn spell that goes to the face. Alway happy to see.
Oath: I've cut 1 copy since multiples are sometimes not relevant. They enable Wolf an they get a surprising amount of extra damage from Chandra entering the battlefield.
Fiery Temper: Solid and almost always cast for 1 mana. Super happy to see these always.
Collective Defiance: These are great, but a bit slow, so I've gone down to 2. I'd like to play 4x, but its hard to find room. I rely on the fact that Chandra can take on some of the 4 damage to creatures work if needed. We also don't nearly need the Wheel as often with all the looting from Copter, Neonate, and Courier, in addition to Chandra's +1.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance: While she doesn't win you the game on the spot, but she has been quite good in most of my games. I think in part because I'm playing so many burn spells to keep the board clean that she tends to be unthreatened when she comes down. Interestingly, I've plused her for mana quite a lot actually. Perhaps that majority of her activations have been for mana for me. Its a really high tempo play to cast her T4 and deploy Wolf, or a Burn spell to kill something. Also plusing to cast multiple things or enable a big Collective Defiance turn is great. Her draw card plus tends to only come up when I am gassed out and digging for something. The damage if I'm withing burn range. Her neg usually only comes up when I specifically need 4 damage (e.g. Kalitas), or I want to double up with a smaller burn spell to take down something big. Otherwise its just plus for mana and keep the card velocity going.
Anyway, I'm loving the deck. Its sort of a merge between the UR spell deck and a traditional RDW aggro deck in terms of the way it plays.
It almost looks like there's a settled main deck plan for now... The big question is - how do we set up the sideboard? Obviously it all depends on what other decks are going to be around, but I'm expecting lots of aggro (as it appears to be a fast set), GB Delirium and Temur-ge (as they really doesn't lose anything, and not sure what else. I'm a big fan of the pseudo-transform sideboard, running a lot more removal to deplete the other aggro decks, and a few cards to put in against the more mid-rangey/controlly type decks and try to go quicker than them. I think that Incendiary Sabotage may be a little better than Savage Alliance in terms of getting 3 to all as opposed to 1 to all and 3 to 1, but with only 6-8 artifacts in the list, may be hard to trigger. Ruinous Gremlins I think is a given, and probably Galvanic Bombardment too. Hijack seems a staple in a red deck to steal stuff. We probably need a way to remove Ishkanah, but Lightning Axe could be the card here, also enabling more discard for Fiery Temper, and Distemper of the Blood.
@Nevelo: Very interesting deck idea. I was trying to get Mono Red Eldrazi to work with a more aggressive theme, those this looks like it may work better. Have you run it against a legitimate control deck with a good pilot behind it? BW PW control, maybe? BW Angels doesn't seem well positioned. In my testing, Showdown is indeed a worse Defiance. I also like Harness Lightning better than Oath of Chandra. I see you have H.L. in your board. Why the choice of Oath instead? Of course it's better with Chandra around, but building for worse case scenario seems better?
@Everyone else: Nevelo's format in his original post is the best I have seen(to memory) of what a first post for deck threads. Looks absolutely stunning and it would be great to see more people move towards it.
Harnessed Lightning, in this shell, doesn't get any better than Oath, as there's no way really to accumulate more energy. Thus, it's (almost) always a "3 damage to target creature" spell. Oath can only get better. As a base, it's identical to Harnessed Lightning (3 damage to target creature). Playing a second helps turn on delirium for Nevelo's Scourge Wolf by throwing an enchantment in the graveyard, and dropping a Chandra gives the 2 points of damage to the face. So, my guess is that Oath is better because in the worst case, it's identical to Harnessed Lightning, but only one can get better.
As for his formatting, Nevelo has always done a great overview when standard rotates - he set up the current primer for the current rotation's Rx aggro as well.
@Nevelo - Given that Copter is probably going to be a staple in most red aggro decks, I'm wondering whether this should just be renamed "R(x) Aggro" again, and make this the official thread for mono-red, plus any other splashes. I'm guessing WR Dwarf vehicles and RG Energy Aggro will get their own threads...
I think the fact that Harness is an Instant gives this deck more flexibility on how it sequences, which is an extremely powerful thing. I can appreciate that Oath helps turn on the Wolf, but Harness being an Instant helps as well with Fiery Temper currently being the only mainboard instant.
Edit: I also wanted to comment on the 2cmc drop. Wolf is nice with it having First Strike however, I feel that with Advocate being in the format, we need something with three power here. Being able to get Advocate off the table to make way for smaller creatures with a Harness/Oath plus a small creature to trade with their next creature(if larger) seems important. Wolf may be better if a 5cmc sweeper is heavily played, as the Double Strike may be relevant then. However, the timing of Delirium might mean that the damage differential is very marginal.
So is fiery temper a card that didn't cross your mind when making this thread? Or do you choose not to win?
All sarcasim aside fiery temper in a "copter" deck seems like instant four of. Another thing is, when describing "2 drops" it means what are we playing turn 2 and most the time that card that madnessed for 2 but costs 3 is a 3 drop.
Other then this, I think burn is really strong, either as r/b or r/u also cards you should consider are sin prodder and alms of the vein.
Azntron: I'm up in the air on whether Scourge Wolf is worth it. He's performed well enough, and with the current build Delerium isn't that hard to achieve. That being said, it is only 1 power more than Scrapheap Scrounger when enabled. Scrounger also can still pilot after a Liliana plus. So I might try a version where I splash Black and run him in that slot instead. At which point, Harness or Galvanic Bombardment might be a better choice over Oath if we don't just run straight up Alms and Unlicensed Disintigration.
@Johninwherever: Thought about that, but I think some of the splashes like RW Dwarves were too different and I wanted to focus on the Fiery Temper builds. Though maybe R/x Copter Madness would be better to include black or green splashes with a similar style.
@monoblueburn: nope, didn't forget it. It's been a 4x in every list I've tried.
Edit: Also, thanks for the compliments on the post guys.
Question - with our game plan being hit hard and fast, how many times are we going to want/be able to bring back the Scrounger? I know Alms is a good card for doing 3 for (hopefully) B, but is, in essence, just that one card worth the potential inconsistency in the mana base?
Avacyn's Judgement is probably something to consider, even if it is just in the sideboard. This deck type doesn't seem like it can afford to run something like Radiant flames, so having something that can hit multiple small creatures at once, or hit one small and the opponent, could be of use in some match ups. Also, if black gets splashed there should be at least some consideration given to Collective Brutality, as it works both as a madness outlet and a burn spell and it can do a lot with Fiery Temper to a player or creature, depending on mode picked.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I tried Avacyn's Judgment in an early test deck with a lot of 1-ofs to get a feel for cards. I tried it, Courier, Fleetwheel, and a couple other things just to see how they went. Courier over-performed. Fleethweel was mediocre. Avacyn's Judgment was unfortunately pretty bad. It was one I had high hopes for as a 1 or 2-of, since I felt like I needed more madness payoff spells. However, I only needed to draw it a few times to realize how little it did in most games. This deck just doesn't run enough lands for it ever to be much better than the "front" side. 4 mana and you get an Arc Lightning. It doesn't even work with Chandra very well, since often you are casting it in combat off Copter loot. That being said, I agree that Collective Brutality is likely a very good option for the Black splash.
Prerelease was awesome, got a couple of things for the deck, but I pulled an invention and got an offer of 2 sealed boxes of Kaladesh this Friday, that should help get some goodies.
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Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
2 Bomat Courier
4 Falkenrath Gorger
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Furyblade Vampire
4 Pia Nalaar
4 Incendiary Flow
4 Smuggler's Copter
4 Collective Defiance
4 Fiery Temper
4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
21 Mountain
Some early play through a with both decks, and there is a fine balance needed between Burn (which largely gets the job done) and Crew (that helps you get there).
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
I think you're right in your assessment of Speedway Fanatic. Right now, it's a 2-drop that fights for the Copter spot. I see it better in a deck that drops a similar T1 to us, Fanatic on T2 to get in for 4, then something like Renegade Freighter giving haste and swinging in for another 7 (assuming your T1 play was Gorger or Apprentice). I'm curious as to why you're not considering Borderland Marauder or Thriving Grubs, or even Scrapheap Scrounger as permanent 3/2 for 2, as opposed to something that only gets buffed a) later in the game (Scourge Wolf) or b) when you pitch a card (Furyblade, and only really benefits Fiery Temper through Madness).
Also, good call on Pia Nalaar. As you know from the mono-red thread, I'd been considering Lathnu Hellion at 3, but I'd already ordered 4 Pias for that exact slot a couple of weeks back!
EDIT: more random thoughts:
- your comment on the wheel part of Collective Defiance, and holding on to lands. What about Fateful Showdown somewhere in the 75? It's the wheel from Defiance, but with more than 3 cards in hand, becomes more damage than casting Defiance and choosing damage and wheel.
- what about considering either Expedite or Renegade Tactics for both acceleration and their effect?
- Incendiary Sabotage in the side as well?
you're already running black... deck is very aggro.
tons of madness enablers... why not Alms of the Vein
I'd take out the Neonates any day of the week.
probably would run 4 Furyblades also.
4 Falkenrath Gorger
4 Inventor's Apprentice
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Smuggler's Copter
4 Lathnu Hellion
4 Collective Defiance
4 Harnessed Lightning
3 Fleetwheel Cruiser
4 Aether Hub
Deck's really smooth. May want 3 Copters, so can add in a 1-of-fun-of the +3/+3 thing, or just another 3-power 2-drop.
2 Geier Reach Sanitarium
21 Mountain
Creatures (18)
3 Bomat Courier
4 Falkenrath Gorger
4 Inventor's Apprentice
4 Smuggler's Copter
3 Pia Nalaar
4 Built to Smash
4 Incendiary Flow
4 Collective Defiance
4 Fiery Temper
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
I also played around with a deck that builds on my second paragraph above - the inclusion of Speedway Fanatic. The idea of this one is to get a Fanatic out T2, and then hit the opponent with a runaway train T3 to (potentially) hit for 11 points of damage by T3, and get a subsequent kill on T4. Couriers are there for haste, but could easily be Neonates in this deck. I just think I may prefer them with the potential to get more than one card out of it. Four Copters, because Copters, and then four each of the Fanatic and Freighter because that's what we're aiming to get out asap. The burn spells here are now primarily for creature removal, in order to push through the early attacking creatures, but I didn't want to include cards like Harnessed Lightning over, say, Fiery Temper, as there's always the potential for the need to go to the face as well. Built to Smash is there for two reasons - first, creature removal, and second, a finisher. I was toying with the Freighter's namesake, Renegade Tactics as a way to both dig for a wanted card and also to remove early game blockers, but I think permanently removing small creatures is better than just avaoiding them for a turn. Incidentally, this deck has 11 artifacts, which means that we could consider something like Incendiary Sabotage as a sideboard card to get rid of Copters in mirror matches and other go wide strategies.
2 Geier Reach Sanitarium
20 Mountain
Creatures (19)
3 Bomat Courier
4 Falkenrath Gorger
4 Smuggler's Copter
4 Speedway Fanatic
4 Renegade Freighter
3 Galvanic Bombardment
4 Built to Smash
4 Incendiary Flow
4 Collective Defiance
4 Fiery Temper
@JohninWherever: I think Inventor's Apprentice would be quite good in a build with a lot more artifacts. If you can reliably get it active on T2, then that is quite strong. However, the number of artifacts you need to make it reliable is a lot more than I'm running. To get it "reliable", i.e. 90% of the time, you have to have 14x artifacts that cost 1-2 cmc in the deck. Only running a full set of Copter and Bomat Courier, chances to get her active on T2 are only 70%. That doesn't factor in the number of times you have an artifact but didn't draw Apprentice. It seems pretty high variance. The pump also doesn't mean that much in conjunction with Copter, so I figured Neonate and Gorger were just better 1-drops. I think I'd want to run Courier before Apprentice too, assuming no changes in the number of artifacts in the deck.
I think Marauder, Grubs, or Scrouger are all fine for 2-drops. Of all the slots, that seems to be the hardest to fill. Loading up on practically all 1-drops seems wrong too. Wolf just seems like one with a higher ceiling, and the 2/2 first strike body seems quite good by itself. It really depends on how the meta pans out. Its possible that having 3-power will be more relevant that first strike with 2 power.
One thing that pushed me more towards wolf was that I wanted to play as many direct damage spells as possible. I think a big strategy of the deck is to just Copter to chip shot them with evasion and filter out draws into Burn to finish the game. I wanted all of the spells to do damage. Since I wanted to play Chandra to help dig in the mid games, Oath seemed alright. It can be cast without a target to deal 2 damage to the player the turn we cast Chandra and +1 for RR. That gives us 12 spells that deal damage to the player, a Planewalker that can do the same, and Evasive threat that draws us into that Burn, and some very early aggressive plays to start the process.
As far as Fateful Showdown. Its a card that maybe could get a slot? It seems like a bad Collective Defiance. I often only pitch 1 or 2 cards to the Defiance Wheel (lands generally), so with Fateful Showdown I'd likely not be getting much from the Burn part. I suppose you could gamble and just cast it with a half full hand on T4, but thats a bit too variant for my tastes. Concerning Expedite and such, I'm finding the deck super tight on slots. You need a critical mass of pilots and burn to make the deck function properly. I don't think I'd want to dilute that focus too much.
Anyways, that's way more than I wanted to write. I am thinking maybe my initial builds don't have enough Madness payoffs, but I don't necessarily know what to add. Gorger does help us a little bit with this if we can remember the flavour text. That is one reason why I don't think adding Furyblade actually hurts too much, since we can often madness it in with a Gorger in play.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
As for the madness comment, I'm not sure how much we have that can be madnessed in either. Really the only other consideration is to run Distemper of the Blood as the pump spell, as that then gives us an option to pump during blocks as well (given that Copter lets us pitch a card on blocking too).
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
4 Falkenrath Gorger
4 Insolent Neonate
2 Bomat Courier
4 Scourge Wolf
3 Pia Nalaar
4 Smuggler's Copter
Planeswalkers
4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Enchantments
3 Oath of Chandra
Instants
4 Fiery Temper
4 Incendiary Flow
2 Collective Defiance
Lands
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
21 Mountain
Anyway, I'm loving the deck. Its sort of a merge between the UR spell deck and a traditional RDW aggro deck in terms of the way it plays.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Any other thoughts?
@Everyone else: Nevelo's format in his original post is the best I have seen(to memory) of what a first post for deck threads. Looks absolutely stunning and it would be great to see more people move towards it.
As for his formatting, Nevelo has always done a great overview when standard rotates - he set up the current primer for the current rotation's Rx aggro as well.
@Nevelo - Given that Copter is probably going to be a staple in most red aggro decks, I'm wondering whether this should just be renamed "R(x) Aggro" again, and make this the official thread for mono-red, plus any other splashes. I'm guessing WR Dwarf vehicles and RG Energy Aggro will get their own threads...
Edit: I also wanted to comment on the 2cmc drop. Wolf is nice with it having First Strike however, I feel that with Advocate being in the format, we need something with three power here. Being able to get Advocate off the table to make way for smaller creatures with a Harness/Oath plus a small creature to trade with their next creature(if larger) seems important. Wolf may be better if a 5cmc sweeper is heavily played, as the Double Strike may be relevant then. However, the timing of Delirium might mean that the damage differential is very marginal.
All sarcasim aside fiery temper in a "copter" deck seems like instant four of. Another thing is, when describing "2 drops" it means what are we playing turn 2 and most the time that card that madnessed for 2 but costs 3 is a 3 drop.
Other then this, I think burn is really strong, either as r/b or r/u also cards you should consider are sin prodder and alms of the vein.
@Johninwherever: Thought about that, but I think some of the splashes like RW Dwarves were too different and I wanted to focus on the Fiery Temper builds. Though maybe R/x Copter Madness would be better to include black or green splashes with a similar style.
@monoblueburn: nope, didn't forget it. It's been a 4x in every list I've tried.
Edit: Also, thanks for the compliments on the post guys.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
2 Bomat Courier
4 Falkenrath Gorger
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Pia Nalaar
Spells (21)
4 Incendiary Flow
4 Smuggler's Copter
2 Collective Defiance
3 Alms of the Vein
4 Fiery Temper
4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
2 Cinder Barrens
2 Swamp
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Smoldering Marsh
9 Mountain
3 Unlicensed Disintegration
I don't like the mana much, but it does give us some pretty good additions.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Black in general gives us a couple of other decent cards.
I'm going to build it and test out the mana consistency, as it is the main concern for me.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)