Not necessarily, because you can make really competitive decks in other colors without many of these colored staples, but for many red decks running competitive without many of these colorless staples is a lot harder.
Again, my point isn't that expensiveness is one of red's qualities, more that in order to achieve super competitive red decks, you are going to need to shell out money on these powerful colorless cards and a few expensive red cards.
Additionally, I'm a little curious as to why Worldgorger isn't in any of your Zirilan lists, considering it goes infinite with Flameshadow Conjuring and Minion Reflector.
Imperial Recruiter is real expensive as well, especially before the A25 reprint. I think most decks should be running some form of a Recruiter package, I know I'm tinkering around with it in my Slobad deck to fetch Metalworker, Myr Welder, Goblin Welder, and Treasonous Ogre.
You're right, Godo should be on there. I'll put up a list tonight
My point wasn't that mono-red is incredibly expensive, but that in order to make mono-red play at its most effective, you really need the high-cost cards. These are cards like Mana Crypt, Metalworker, Wheel of Fortune, Karn Liberated, Blood Moon, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, and Gauntlet of Might.
Have you ever been told that red is weak in commander? I know I have, plenty of times.
This is usually how I respond:
To many people, the above cards represent a clean slate, a new beginning to the game. I propose a different idea: the above cards are highly abusable, able to create incredibly lopsided board states where you are the only person with permanents in play. If your deck is built right, these cards are 1-card win conditions.
So looking at some of red's most powerful tools, there are a few commanders that come to mind by which you can build around these cards. These commanders need to be able to protect your board in some way, while also providing utility on their own. To that end, there are a few that I consider top-tier or near top-tier.
The first, and I will argue one of the best:
Slobad does a lot of things. For the unaware, Slobad works like this: sacrifice half your artifacts to make the other half indestructible, then make a funeral pyre out of your opponent's boards. Easy, simple, quick, effective.
So there are a lot of destructive combos this deck can utilize. But I think the first thing you should notice is the high planeswalker count. Decree of Annihilation and its ilk don't destroy planeswalkers. Simple enough- blow up the world, leave a walker or two behind.
Secondly, Mycosynth Lattice does some busted stuff here. This plus Vandalblast and Scrap Mastery are basically one-sided boardwipes. If you throw Nevinyrral's Disk into the mix with Slobad, you blow up your opponents' permanents while saving your best few.
Staff of Domination looks a little out of place, but it goes infinite with Metalworker and Myr Welder, as long as your Worker produces 6 mana, you can untap Worker for 3, and untap Staff for 1, generating 2 mana each time. With Welder, you can imprint the Staff onto Welder along with any artifact that taps for 2 so it reads: 1 untap Welder, tap: add 2 to your mana pool, allowing you to draw your whole deck and kill them with Staff of Nin pings after imprinting it on Welder.
Flameshadow Conjuring/Minion Reflector + Worldgorger Dragon= Infinite ETB triggers/LTB triggers (damage with Warstorm Surge effects and Valakut, the Motlen Pinnacle)
So this one is a little more complex and not exactly obvious. What you do is tutor for Worldgorger Dragon with Conjuring or Reflector in play with at least one or two mana floating (to activate Flameshadow/Reflector later). Two triggers go on the stack: Worldgorger's ETB and Flameshadow/Reflector's trigger. Pay the mana for Flameshadow/Reflector, creating a token copy of Worldgorger. The tokens exile trigger will resolve before the original, exiling all your permanents except for the Worldgorger Dragon token. Then the original Worldgorger Dragon's exile trigger will resolve, exiling the token and bringing all your permanents back, lands untapped, with Flameshadow/Minion Reflector seeing Worldgorger Dragon entering the battlefield again, effectively putting you back at square one, except you have your lands untapped and more ETB triggers to resolve.
The easiest way to set up this combo is to tutor Scourge of Valkas at the end of your opponents' turn, as Zirilan only exiles at the beginning of the next end step, allowing you to keep the Valkas in play for your turn. Then on your turn, tutor out Worldgorger Dragon with Zirilan and go ham.
Remember: All of the artifacts that combo with these dragons can be effectively tutored out with Hoarding Dragon. Use this to your advantage!
This doesn't even account for the easy wins you get from tutoring out Worldgorger with your Obliterate/ Decree of Annihilation etc. on the stack (just be careful because if your opponents time their removal right they can exile your entire board).
That's it for me! Do you play Mono-R? What has been competitive for you?
My theory is that I'll acquire a good mana base for it eventually, recognizing I'll get screwed the first few times I play the deck. I do think I should probably run more answers, but that's more of a playgroup meta call, where my playgroup is the type where games last to turn 20 with 25 mana type games. Because the other decks are do durdly, I can afford to go lighter on the spot removal and focus on hyper aggro.
I also strongly urge you to consider Voldaren Pariah and Mirror Entity
I personally have a Mon-Black suicide aggro deck with Iname, Death Aspect at the helm. Basically it uses a supercharged graveyard to power out very cheap threats (Think Delve, mass reanimation, Avatar of Woe or Mortivore like cards) to put out massive damage relatively quickly. Even things like Liliana's Elite becomes a 23/23 with a Dark Ritualed out Iname. Really catches opponents with their pants down.
Additionally, you have good late game by being able to constantly recur threats out of your graveyard (think Kokusho) to finish off the table.
Now clearly this list is not the most optimized, (lacking the presence of the black tutors, presence of some pet cards) but the deck overall is very synergistic and fast, which makes it powerful.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm still working on the manabase, and trying to find room for Cathars' Crusade
However, I think Edgar is best used in a super linear go-wide strategy with late-game mana sinks and theft effects. Even in some games on cockatrice, my opponents are dead on turn 6/7 just after Edgar hits play.
The ability to get a free body for doing something that you already want to be doing is absurd. He essentially doubles all of your vampires- its a free Krenko activation!
If that doesn't work, you can have a super solid attrition game with the Grave Pact effects combined with cards like Vicious Shadows and all of the Vampires that allow you to sacrifice tokens. This "Aristocrat" style late game gives you an aggro deck with a very potent early game and a very potent late game.
Shout out to Dark Prophecy, as this card does not say "non-token", so you can very quickly churn out more and more fodder to grow your army even bigger.
Additionally, I'm a little curious as to why Worldgorger isn't in any of your Zirilan lists, considering it goes infinite with Flameshadow Conjuring and Minion Reflector.
You're right, Godo should be on there. I'll put up a list tonight
Mono-red can be really expensive.
EDIT: Imperial Recruiter as well.
This is usually how I respond:
To many people, the above cards represent a clean slate, a new beginning to the game. I propose a different idea: the above cards are highly abusable, able to create incredibly lopsided board states where you are the only person with permanents in play. If your deck is built right, these cards are 1-card win conditions.
So looking at some of red's most powerful tools, there are a few commanders that come to mind by which you can build around these cards. These commanders need to be able to protect your board in some way, while also providing utility on their own. To that end, there are a few that I consider top-tier or near top-tier.
The first, and I will argue one of the best:
Slobad does a lot of things. For the unaware, Slobad works like this: sacrifice half your artifacts to make the other half indestructible, then make a funeral pyre out of your opponent's boards. Easy, simple, quick, effective.
1 Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
Artifacts:
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Amber
1 Mana Crypt
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Sol Ring
1 Expedition Map
1 Mana Vault
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Winter Orb
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
1 Mind Stone
1 Grim Monolith
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Staff of Domination
1 Gauntlet of Might
1 Aetherworks Marvel
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Sisay's Ring
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Mind's Eye
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Ugin's Nexus
1 Caged Sun
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Planar Bridge
1 Staff of Nin
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Darksteel Forge
1 Obliterate
1 Jokulhaups
1 Decree of Annihilation
1 Devastation
1 Ruination
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Vandalblast
1 Gamble
1 Scrap Mastery
1 All is Dust
1 Chaos Warp
Creatures:
1 Goblin Welder
1 Myr Welder
1 Palladium Myr
1 Metalworker
1 Treasonous Ogre
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Soul of New Phyrexia
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Blightsteel Colossus
Planeswalkers:
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Karn Liberated
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Blood Moon
1 Stranglehold
Lands:
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Dwarven Ruins
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Buried Ruin
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Great Furnace
1 City of Traitors
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Sandstone Needle
1 Crystal Vein
24 Mountain
So there are a lot of destructive combos this deck can utilize. But I think the first thing you should notice is the high planeswalker count. Decree of Annihilation and its ilk don't destroy planeswalkers. Simple enough- blow up the world, leave a walker or two behind.
Secondly, Mycosynth Lattice does some busted stuff here. This plus Vandalblast and Scrap Mastery are basically one-sided boardwipes. If you throw Nevinyrral's Disk into the mix with Slobad, you blow up your opponents' permanents while saving your best few.
Staff of Domination looks a little out of place, but it goes infinite with Metalworker and Myr Welder, as long as your Worker produces 6 mana, you can untap Worker for 3, and untap Staff for 1, generating 2 mana each time. With Welder, you can imprint the Staff onto Welder along with any artifact that taps for 2 so it reads: 1 untap Welder, tap: add 2 to your mana pool, allowing you to draw your whole deck and kill them with Staff of Nin pings after imprinting it on Welder.
Unwinding Clock breaks both Planar Bridge and Kuldotha Forgemaster, as you can essentially assemble any infinite mana combo on your opponents' turns, usually Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith OR the Nevinyrral's Disk combo from earlier.
Now on to the next commander, a little more briefly:
Zirilan partners well with the cards that blow up the world and one other card-
So let's look at the second list!
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Coalition Relic
1x Commander's Sphere
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Dreamstone Hedron
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Expedition Map
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Hedron Archive
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mind Stone
1x Minion Reflector
1x Mirror of the Forebears
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Panharmonicon
1x Rings of Brighthearth
1x Scroll Rack
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Thran Dynamo
1x Worn Powerstone
1x All Is Dust
1x Apocalypse
1x Decree of Annihilation
1x Devastation
1x Faithless Looting
1x Gamble
1x Insurrection
1x Jokulhaups
1x Mana Geyser
1x Obliterate
1x Shattering Spree
1x Vandalblast
1x Reiterate
1x Wild Ricochet
Creatures:
1x Balefire Dragon
1x Burnished Hart
1x Hellkite Charger
1x Hellkite Tyrant
1x Hoarding Dragon
1x Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
1x Knollspine Dragon
1x Scourge of the Throne
1x Scourge of Valkas
1x Skyline Despot
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Thunder Dragon
1x Utvara Hellkite
1x Worldgorger Dragon
1x Blood Moon
1x Flameshadow Conjuring
1x Sneak Attack
1x Sunbird's Invocation
1x Warstorm Surge
1x Where Ancients Tread
Planeswalkers:
1x Karn Liberated
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands:
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Crystal Vein
1x Dwarven Ruins
1x Endless Sands
1x Haven of the Spirit Dragon
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Scrying Sheets
26x Snow-Covered Mountain
1x Spinerock Knoll
1x Strip Mine
1x Terrain Generator
1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
While not as effective and fast as the Slobad deck, this list has a quite a few things going for it.
Combos:
Hellkite Charger + Sword of Feast and Famine= infinite combat steps given that you have 7 lands. This allows you to clock opponents infinitely.
Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith= Infinite mana. While not a cornerstone combo, this gives you plenty of mana to play around with.
Flameshadow Conjuring/Minion Reflector + Worldgorger Dragon= Infinite ETB triggers/LTB triggers (damage with Warstorm Surge effects and Valakut, the Motlen Pinnacle)
So this one is a little more complex and not exactly obvious. What you do is tutor for Worldgorger Dragon with Conjuring or Reflector in play with at least one or two mana floating (to activate Flameshadow/Reflector later). Two triggers go on the stack: Worldgorger's ETB and Flameshadow/Reflector's trigger. Pay the mana for Flameshadow/Reflector, creating a token copy of Worldgorger. The tokens exile trigger will resolve before the original, exiling all your permanents except for the Worldgorger Dragon token. Then the original Worldgorger Dragon's exile trigger will resolve, exiling the token and bringing all your permanents back, lands untapped, with Flameshadow/Minion Reflector seeing Worldgorger Dragon entering the battlefield again, effectively putting you back at square one, except you have your lands untapped and more ETB triggers to resolve.
The easiest way to set up this combo is to tutor Scourge of Valkas at the end of your opponents' turn, as Zirilan only exiles at the beginning of the next end step, allowing you to keep the Valkas in play for your turn. Then on your turn, tutor out Worldgorger Dragon with Zirilan and go ham.
Remember: All of the artifacts that combo with these dragons can be effectively tutored out with Hoarding Dragon. Use this to your advantage!
This doesn't even account for the easy wins you get from tutoring out Worldgorger with your Obliterate/ Decree of Annihilation etc. on the stack (just be careful because if your opponents time their removal right they can exile your entire board).
That's it for me! Do you play Mono-R? What has been competitive for you?
I also strongly urge you to consider Voldaren Pariah and Mirror Entity
Additionally, you have good late game by being able to constantly recur threats out of your graveyard (think Kokusho) to finish off the table.
1x Blood Artist
1x Bloodghast
1x Bloodline Keeper
1x Bloodline Necromancer
1x Bloodthrone Vampire
1x Butcher of Malakir
1x Captivating Vampire
1x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1x Driver of the Dead
1x Falkenrath Aristocrat
1x Falkenrath Exterminator
1x Falkenrath Gorger
1x Falkenrath Noble
1x Gatekeeper of Malakir
1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1x Incorrigible Youths
1x Indulgent Aristocrat
1x Insolent Neonate
1x Kalastria Highborn
1x Malakir Bloodwitch
1x Mathas, Fiend Seeker
1x Mirror Entity
1x Necropolis Regent
1x Olivia, Mobilized for War
1x Olivia Voldaren
1x Olivia's Bloodsworn
1x Olivia's Dragoon
1x Patron of the Vein
1x Pawn of Ulamog
1x Rakish Heir
1x Shadow Alley Denizen
1x Stromkirk Captain
1x Stromkirk Condemned
1x Stromkirk Noble
1x Vampire Aristocrat
1x Vampire Nocturnus
1x Viscera Seer
1x Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
1x Voldaren Pariah
1x Yahenni, Undying Partisan
1x Zulaport Cutthroat
1x Breath of Fury
1x Dark Prophecy
1x Dictate of Erebos
1x Grave Pact
1x Mana Echoes
1x Shared Animosity
1x Vicious Shadows
Land (38)
36x Command Tower
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Path of Ancestry
Instant (1)
1x Crib Swap
Sorcery (5)
1x Blood Tribute
1x Feast of Blood
1x Kindred Charge
1x New Blood
1x Patriarch's Bidding
Artifact (5)
1x Boros Signet
1x Orzhov Signet
1x Rakdos Signet
1x Coat of Arms
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
Now clearly this list is not the most optimized, (lacking the presence of the black tutors, presence of some pet cards) but the deck overall is very synergistic and fast, which makes it powerful.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm still working on the manabase, and trying to find room for Cathars' Crusade
However, I think Edgar is best used in a super linear go-wide strategy with late-game mana sinks and theft effects. Even in some games on cockatrice, my opponents are dead on turn 6/7 just after Edgar hits play.
The ability to get a free body for doing something that you already want to be doing is absurd. He essentially doubles all of your vampires- its a free Krenko activation!
To make the most of this, play lots of one-drops and two-drops into Shared Animosity, Necropolis Regent, and Coat of Arms effects for quick deaths.
If that doesn't work, you can have a super solid attrition game with the Grave Pact effects combined with cards like Vicious Shadows and all of the Vampires that allow you to sacrifice tokens. This "Aristocrat" style late game gives you an aggro deck with a very potent early game and a very potent late game.
Shout out to Dark Prophecy, as this card does not say "non-token", so you can very quickly churn out more and more fodder to grow your army even bigger.
Another shout out to Mana Echoes