dichotamancy
costs more and still cannot do anything.
You can make that work in a very narrow sense with control effects or some of red's random ownership stuff. I'm pretty sure someone brought this up earlier in the thread.
Sidenote: I have never even heard of Juju Bubble before. I really want one of those now, for no good reason.
Also, what should I use for haste? I have Sarkhan ATM, but may want Madruah Cyclops which can be Tooth and Nail/Defense of the Geart.
My current favorite haste card is Hall of the Bandit Lord. Takes a land slot, any kind of land tutor can grab it, and the drawback is negligible in EDH.
Of the cards you're looking to get, Demon's Herald doesn't seem worth it, mostly because all of the red creatures you run seem much more useful on the field than being sacced to find Prince. Rockslide Elemental probably won't get big enough fast enough, but it could be great. Butcher, Grave Pact, and Dominus are all pretty great, and the rest fall somewhere in the middle (though I have no experience with Din of the Fireherd).
I realize that's kind of a long list, but it's mostly small effects or one shot effects. You want most of the cards in your deck to be swinging the game. Big, flashy effects are more important than efficiency (not to say that you should ignore mana cost entirely, it's just less important here than in other formats). There are a few others that I would cut eventually, but this should be more than enough to start.
I'd try and get some artifact mana in here. Good stuff to have, and I prefer it to adding too many lands. All of these are fairly inexpensive and decent sources:
If you get a chance to pick up a Sol Ring or a Gilded Lotus, those are both worth playing but a little more expensive (moneywise).
Aside from mana, you may want to upgrade your counterspells a bit. EDH is a great format for expensive counters with weird effects that don't see play anywhere else. Here are a couple:
Hinder (shuffle effects are a much bigger deal here, because of the general)
You might also take a look at the Top 50 cards List for ideas about generally good stuff in your colors. A lot of it is fairly cheap, and you should be able to find quite a bit that fits your theme.
The thing to remember overall is that this is your deck. Half the fun of this format is tweaking your deck and finding hidden gems that fit perfectly, so have fun with it. Good luck!
Another thing to keep in mind is that the format is geared towards multiplayer, so small one shot effects and spot removal are significantly less powerful. Things like Dark Ritual, Doom Blade, and Assassinate generally don't make much of a difference at a multiplayer table. You want more impressively large or versatile spot removal and more permanent acceleration.
Also, you've got coffers in there. There are quite a few cards that support it well in mono-b:
There are definitely times in Wrexial where you don't want spells exiled. Can't steal them then. That said, Forbid is in fact strictly better than Cancel and pretty inexpensive.
Tolaria West ends up in any deck I make that has both blue and at least one utility land. You might consider it.
No, no, never do this. You will get manascrewed. My method is to run 38-45 lands depending on the curve, and then add 10-15 accelerants. May be overkill, but that's a good thing.
This is why it's important to read the entire post. The only reason the first part comes in is to give me a very rough idea of how much business I have space for, before I can figure out what works and what doesn't. That does not mean the ratio of land:accelerants:everything else stays like that, because that rarely works.
I generally start with about 40, then go by the rule of thumb that 2 ramp (in whatever form) cards means 1 less land.
Then I try actually playing the deck and ignore all of that and just play what seems right. There are too many variables to account for everything with a simple model, so it's easier to just figure it out for each deck through trial and error.
27 lands is not going to cut it. Most EDH decks run close to 40, unless they've got a ton of ramp. Even in that case, they don't really drop velow the mid to low 30s. You've got Progenitus listed, which you can't do unless you're five color.
I'm going to agree with darcangel here. I think you're probably better off with a 60 card deck here. Also, just an FYI: Avatar of Woe was in one of the Archenemy decks, so there's a new framed version.
nobody plays triskelion + blade of the bloodchief/basilic collar package ??? (tutorable w trinket mage)
I tried it. Trike is ok on it's own, but not great. Blade is pretty terrible most of the time. Collar was the only consistently good part, so that's all I kept. The issue is that you have a three card combo that gets disrupted by creature or artifact hate. While Trinket Mage fetches out the equips, you still need to see a trike and 2 mages/1 mage and 1 equip/both equips to do anything meaningful.
You're posting in the wrong thread. This thread is "Arid Mesa/Scalding Tarn - Do they belong in a mono-Red deck?" You just agreed with me that if you have landfall triggers you should play fetchlands. If you're in the RDW forums I can only assume that you're playing RDW. If you built your deck right you should be playing landfall triggers (fetchlands), in which case you should go beat this argument about loss of life to death somewhere else.
What RDW deck are you playing, that has none of these? You know you're in the RDW Forums? What is this I don't even...
When half of the thread has been about fetches thinning your deck, it's a valid point to discuss. My build has nothing to do with it. I do run a full 8 fetches because of landfall triggers. That doesn't change the math, and people should be aware of all the information.
If you're playing Koth in a turbo-aggro deck you're just doing it wrong.
All the math you're posting shows me only one thing: it does make an improvement. That's what it shows. It's not a debate. That's 100% what it shows.
Your argument is that losing a few points of life isn't worth that improvement. I'm saying it is. If you don't want to run fetches, more power to you, but the idiots who post things like "O NOES I ALREADY SAID FETCHZ R DUM END O STORY NO MORE DISCUSSIN CUZ I SAYS SO" can go to Hell. If you're going to act like an ass at least try to be right about it.
You're right about fetches being used solely for thinning in that deck. I maintain that it isn't nearly as common as not having them, but you're right. I haven't been arguing that there is no improvement, because there obviously is. I've been arguing that the improvement is so marginal that it isn't worth the cost.
At the end of the day, it's up to you whether or not the marginal increase is worth a couple points of life.
You can make that work in a very narrow sense with control effects or some of red's random ownership stuff. I'm pretty sure someone brought this up earlier in the thread.
Sidenote: I have never even heard of Juju Bubble before. I really want one of those now, for no good reason.
My current favorite haste card is Hall of the Bandit Lord. Takes a land slot, any kind of land tutor can grab it, and the drawback is negligible in EDH.
First off, welcome to EDH! Now, onto the deck.
Of the cards you're looking to get, Demon's Herald doesn't seem worth it, mostly because all of the red creatures you run seem much more useful on the field than being sacced to find Prince. Rockslide Elemental probably won't get big enough fast enough, but it could be great. Butcher, Grave Pact, and Dominus are all pretty great, and the rest fall somewhere in the middle (though I have no experience with Din of the Fireherd).
These all seem kind of underwhelming:
I realize that's kind of a long list, but it's mostly small effects or one shot effects. You want most of the cards in your deck to be swinging the game. Big, flashy effects are more important than efficiency (not to say that you should ignore mana cost entirely, it's just less important here than in other formats). There are a few others that I would cut eventually, but this should be more than enough to start.
I'd try and get some artifact mana in here. Good stuff to have, and I prefer it to adding too many lands. All of these are fairly inexpensive and decent sources:
If you get a chance to pick up a Sol Ring or a Gilded Lotus, those are both worth playing but a little more expensive (moneywise).
Aside from mana, you may want to upgrade your counterspells a bit. EDH is a great format for expensive counters with weird effects that don't see play anywhere else. Here are a couple:
You might also take a look at the Top 50 cards List for ideas about generally good stuff in your colors. A lot of it is fairly cheap, and you should be able to find quite a bit that fits your theme.
The thing to remember overall is that this is your deck. Half the fun of this format is tweaking your deck and finding hidden gems that fit perfectly, so have fun with it. Good luck!
Also, you've got coffers in there. There are quite a few cards that support it well in mono-b:
There are definitely times in Wrexial where you don't want spells exiled. Can't steal them then. That said, Forbid is in fact strictly better than Cancel and pretty inexpensive.
Tolaria West ends up in any deck I make that has both blue and at least one utility land. You might consider it.
General damage is only combat damage, so no.
EDIT: Aaaaaaaand nath'd
Well, we can agree to disagree. I don't run into issues with my manabase, so my method obviously works for me.
This is why it's important to read the entire post. The only reason the first part comes in is to give me a very rough idea of how much business I have space for, before I can figure out what works and what doesn't. That does not mean the ratio of land:accelerants:everything else stays like that, because that rarely works.
Then I try actually playing the deck and ignore all of that and just play what seems right. There are too many variables to account for everything with a simple model, so it's easier to just figure it out for each deck through trial and error.
I may need to make an Ertai deck now. I was just thinking about a creature-based counter-heavy deck the other day.
I'm going to agree with darcangel here. I think you're probably better off with a 60 card deck here. Also, just an FYI: Avatar of Woe was in one of the Archenemy decks, so there's a new framed version.
I tried it. Trike is ok on it's own, but not great. Blade is pretty terrible most of the time. Collar was the only consistently good part, so that's all I kept. The issue is that you have a three card combo that gets disrupted by creature or artifact hate. While Trinket Mage fetches out the equips, you still need to see a trike and 2 mages/1 mage and 1 equip/both equips to do anything meaningful.
It was fun when I got it going though.
When half of the thread has been about fetches thinning your deck, it's a valid point to discuss. My build has nothing to do with it. I do run a full 8 fetches because of landfall triggers. That doesn't change the math, and people should be aware of all the information.
You're right about fetches being used solely for thinning in that deck. I maintain that it isn't nearly as common as not having them, but you're right. I haven't been arguing that there is no improvement, because there obviously is. I've been arguing that the improvement is so marginal that it isn't worth the cost.
At the end of the day, it's up to you whether or not the marginal increase is worth a couple points of life.