Updating since the last post was a while ago, Dreadhorde Arcanist is probably worth taking a look at, it’s a wizard and can replay spells from the graveyard. Heartfire is possibly another option, it turns late-game Viashino Pyromancers or other small creatures into additional damage. There may actually be some merit in running Samut’s Sprint in the deck, you can use it to send a land to the bottom of your deck and playing it on Dreadhorde Arcanist allows you to replay all of your three-drop spells like Light Up the Stage and Skewer the Critics.
Let’s not forget that black is the color of Cabal Stronghold, so maybe even if this card is the weakest of the cycle, it may be the most likely one to get the X=10 effect to happen.
Azor, the Lawbringer? It has an ETB effect that can be useful, and it actually can be blinked for value, unlike Hydroid Krasis, while fulfilling the same role of gaining life and drawing cards. Angel of Grace is probably better, but Azor seems to fill a niche in your deck that is currently held by a card with less overall value in Hydroid Krasis, so it would be an easy swap.
At that point, there would be very little difference between what you are doing and mono-blue tempo, which is already a thing. You could just slot Pteramander into mono-blue and call it a day.
The scariest part of this deck is that it’s so ridiculously cheap to make and straightforward to pilot that you can fully expect to see something like this all over Arena and FNMs as soon as the set releases. The rares are not that crucial, although Risk Factor in particular is super strong, so a no-rare version can be built and played by basically anyone.
What about Rix Maadi Reveler instead of The Flame of Keld? Its spectacle cost is high, but it’s a way to refill your hand without having to wait a turn to get cards back. It can also pitch Risk Factors early and let you cast hem later, when they are more likely to draw you cards and win after the opponent tries to stabilize. There is a black splash there, but you can cover that with Blood Crypt and Dragonskull Summit with very little cost.
I think that this deck wants to be low on the curve so that the opponent has to face the maximum number of these decisions as quickly as possible. The first one is easy to take the damage and deny you cards, but you have to keep the pressure up so that your opponent eventually gets down to a life total that makes it impossible for them to deny you the cards; once that happens, the cards need to be relatively cheap so that you can actually get value from them. Pehaps The Flame of Keld could work in this deck?
Core 2019 doesn’t rotate anything, the next rotation will be with the fall set, which will rotate Amonkhet block as well as Kaladesh block. At that point, mono-red will be very different from what it is now. The only things that survive rotation are Chainwhirler, Shock and Lightning Strike, and some side cards.
I don’t agree that you need to run ramp, especially creature-based ramp, to play dragons in Standard. For one thing, doing that means the deck isn’t really tribal. Secondly, you can also take a controlling approach to let you get to the point where you can play dragons naturally. If the goal is to show that a dragon tribal deck is possible, I think something like this deck is more thematic:
This deck is much closer to dragon tribal, and I think it can be viable without resorting to ramp or other non-tribal creatures.
Lathliss is debatable and the land base is very rough, but I think the idea is pretty clear. If you can control the game early, Demanding Dragon is a really hard card to deal with as there are only a few red removal spells that can deal with it and it can just deal 5 to the face as soon as it hits. You could also run Verix Bladewing if you want to blank your opponent’s Cast Down, or Glorybringer if you want more immediate pressure. Since the blue is only there for Nicol Bolas, removing it from the deck allows it to be pure R/B, although I do like the discard effect and the potential threat to flip.
I think paying BBBB for a 7/6 is plenty good enough. I probably would go out of my way to play mono-black if there was a card like that, never mind a cost reduction. I’m pretty sure if it could potentially cost 0 we’d be looking at Phyrexian mana levels of brokenness, so what you’re suggesting just doesn’t seem doable in Standard.
Sorry, it seems you are only valuing this card in relation to Eternal formats, in which case I would be inclined to agree with you that it probably doesn’t do enough to win games, considering that there are more broken things you can do in Modern or EDH than this. I would think that was pretty obvious, though.
I think it’s fine for Standard, though, if there is a deck for it to go in.
Except its just not good enough for constructed, but oh boy, if it hits, it hits really hard and will produce some very funny / sad moments if you get outplayed or miss-time the activation.
The card probably just needed to be more aggresively costed and the ability to be cheaper (or outright free of manacost to abuse its effect with stuff that doubles your lifegain by switchering around its power).
Still like the card, but they really made sure its not a factor in constructed with all its issues.
What would “more aggressively costed” look like? How much cheaper can you go and still leave it as a 7/6 with an added effect and a built-in cost reduction ability? I mean, it could have been a 1/1 for 2B and retained its abilities I guess. It can potentially be played for BB as it is. Perhaps I’m not understanding what you mean when you’re referring to “the ability to be cheaper”. You’re not suggesting you should be able to cast this for 0, right? Or are you saying that the cost-reduction ability should cost less?
Just pointing out as well that you don’t have to change anyone’s life total if you don’t want to, he can be just a beatstick if your opponent is at less than half their starting life.
I wouldn’t guarantee it will be constructed playable, but it seems like the kind of card a mono-black aggro deck would like in order to get over creatures bigger than their early plays. If there is such a deck post-Dominaria, this will definitely be in it.
I’m still not convinced that Firesong and Sunspeaker is going to only be available as a buy a box promo and is not in the set itself. My understanding of the article is that you can only get the promo card if you buy a box, which makes sense, and that the promo card won’t be in the regular set, which also makes sense. I just think there will be a lot of people who would be disappointed if the only way for them to obtain this card would be through the secondary market (not everyone is close to a WPN store or can afford to buy boxes), especially since the article stated repeatedly that these promos will be in short supply.
I think most people forget Heroic Intervention is a thing. I didn’t know what the card was until a friend of mine ran it in a merfolk deck. It sets up an infinite combo with either Raptor Hatchling or Polyraptor, a Forerunner of the Empire, and Frilled Deathspitter. The great thing about it is that you can play this straight as a R/G dinosaur deck until you want to combo off and the opponent may not see it coming.
I still don’t think R/W is the best combination to run if you are looking for an enrage deck. Carnage Tyrant doesn’t even have anything to do with enrage anyway, why exclude the best dinosaur color from the deck just because you don’t want to play Carnage Tyrant? In addition, there are a lot of white cards in this deck that don’t have anything to do with enrage either. I’d like to know if the deck really wants to be an enrage-based deck, or is this just supposed to be R/W dinosaurs, or what. Is green an option if we just ignore Carnage Tyrant? If you want, I can try and post a deck list that is R/G and is focused on the enrage mechanic but I don’t want to hijack the thread if you want to stay R/W.
What is this errata that is supposed to be coming for Carnage Tyrant? Regardless, I don’t think an errata on one card should be enough of a reason to ditch an entire color from the deck, especially since green has most of the better dinosaurs from Ixalan, including ones with enrage.
The way I see it, I have seen aggro decks use their removal on their own creatures (to prevent more life gain from Fumigate, or to keep a creature from being exiled from Cast about) if they are fairly certain you aren’t running creatures in the main deck. By running even a few creatures in the main, these kinds of plays turn into theoretical minuses for your opponent, instead of simply removing a dead card in hand to mitigate the effect of your removal. If you can at least show you are running some creatures main deck, you can force the opponent to make a decision as to whether it’s OK for them to kill their own guy or hold their removal to deal with your potential creature.
My question is the inclusion of Renewed Faith in the deck. It does nothing against controlling decks like Approach and doesn’t seem to do enough against aggro decks since it takes two mana to cycle and only gains you two life when you do. Given that the first three turns are critical against aggro, I really don’t like spending two mana on cycling this in the early game. It’s nice to have in the grave with Sarcophagus in play or in your hand after you stabilize as it will put you out of burn range, but drawing it early just seems like it doesn’t do enough against aggro, which is the only matchup it seems to be needed in. I have seen a drop in the use of Djeru’s Renunciationin this archetype, which seems like it would be more useful in the early game vs. aggro than Renewed Faith. It will gain you more life by preventing two attacks from hitting and can also cycle for cheaper than Renewed Faith.
For those running Farm // Market what do you do with it if you go up against a control deck? If they have no creatures it gets stuck in your hand and there’s no way to easily get it into the grave where the aftermath would be useful. Or is this card just not played anymore in this deck?
What about Rix Maadi Reveler instead of The Flame of Keld? Its spectacle cost is high, but it’s a way to refill your hand without having to wait a turn to get cards back. It can also pitch Risk Factors early and let you cast hem later, when they are more likely to draw you cards and win after the opponent tries to stabilize. There is a black splash there, but you can cover that with Blood Crypt and Dragonskull Summit with very little cost.
4x Demanding Dragon
2x Lathliss, Dragon Queen
3x Magma Spray
3x Abrade
4x Lightning Strike
3x Spit Flame
3x Cast Down
3x Vraska’s Contempt
4x Sarkhan, Fireblood
4x Dragonskull Summit
2x Drowned Catacombs
2x Sulfur Falls
9x Mountain
7x Swamp
This deck is much closer to dragon tribal, and I think it can be viable without resorting to ramp or other non-tribal creatures.
Lathliss is debatable and the land base is very rough, but I think the idea is pretty clear. If you can control the game early, Demanding Dragon is a really hard card to deal with as there are only a few red removal spells that can deal with it and it can just deal 5 to the face as soon as it hits. You could also run Verix Bladewing if you want to blank your opponent’s Cast Down, or Glorybringer if you want more immediate pressure. Since the blue is only there for Nicol Bolas, removing it from the deck allows it to be pure R/B, although I do like the discard effect and the potential threat to flip.
Sorry, it seems you are only valuing this card in relation to Eternal formats, in which case I would be inclined to agree with you that it probably doesn’t do enough to win games, considering that there are more broken things you can do in Modern or EDH than this. I would think that was pretty obvious, though.
I think it’s fine for Standard, though, if there is a deck for it to go in.
What would “more aggressively costed” look like? How much cheaper can you go and still leave it as a 7/6 with an added effect and a built-in cost reduction ability? I mean, it could have been a 1/1 for 2B and retained its abilities I guess. It can potentially be played for BB as it is. Perhaps I’m not understanding what you mean when you’re referring to “the ability to be cheaper”. You’re not suggesting you should be able to cast this for 0, right? Or are you saying that the cost-reduction ability should cost less?
Just pointing out as well that you don’t have to change anyone’s life total if you don’t want to, he can be just a beatstick if your opponent is at less than half their starting life.
I wouldn’t guarantee it will be constructed playable, but it seems like the kind of card a mono-black aggro deck would like in order to get over creatures bigger than their early plays. If there is such a deck post-Dominaria, this will definitely be in it.
My question is the inclusion of Renewed Faith in the deck. It does nothing against controlling decks like Approach and doesn’t seem to do enough against aggro decks since it takes two mana to cycle and only gains you two life when you do. Given that the first three turns are critical against aggro, I really don’t like spending two mana on cycling this in the early game. It’s nice to have in the grave with Sarcophagus in play or in your hand after you stabilize as it will put you out of burn range, but drawing it early just seems like it doesn’t do enough against aggro, which is the only matchup it seems to be needed in. I have seen a drop in the use of Djeru’s Renunciationin this archetype, which seems like it would be more useful in the early game vs. aggro than Renewed Faith. It will gain you more life by preventing two attacks from hitting and can also cycle for cheaper than Renewed Faith.
For those running Farm // Market what do you do with it if you go up against a control deck? If they have no creatures it gets stuck in your hand and there’s no way to easily get it into the grave where the aftermath would be useful. Or is this card just not played anymore in this deck?