As anyone who plays Magic with me will realize, I love red, and I especially love burn. However, a real burn deck isn't too feasible in Commander, but fortunately abusing triggers that deal damage is. The goal of this deck is simple: Burn and/or bash face via nifty ETB triggers. Secondary goals include answering some threats, stealing opponents' things to be sacrificed for value, and utilizing goblins as though they were machine gun bullets.
Additional note: I've cut any "Oops I win" cards, including infinite combos and things like Insurrection. Also, we do not run Sundial of the Infinite because it has 'infinite' in its name. Actually, it's because we have a lot of death triggers that it cancels out when used properly.
Masses of tokens aren't consistent enough to warrant the inclusion of a Hellrider (totally would if they were common enough), but I could use a group hug deck to give me the tools to blast out 3 Spawns of Thraxes and incinerate someone down ~40 life instantly
So it's been a while since I've done anything with this thread, but the deck's been changing bit by bit. It's one of my all-time favorites and my opponents telling me that it's fun to play against. In the months since I posted the decklist, the main changes have been removing anything infinite (I hate that "oh you're playing infinite combos stigma Kiki-Jiki gets), improving the land base for more utility, adding more mana rocks, and more fun synergies. This is my funnest, Johnniest deck and shines as an example of what a fair mono-red deck can do.
Cuts:
10 Mountains Journeyer's Kite - A lot of turns, it was either keep three open for this or do something cool. I like doing cool things. Mana Geyser - Too conditional. Elixir of Immortality - With Feldon in the deck now, we like that graveyard sitting right where it is. Besides, running into a mill deck is a rare occurrence for me these days. Shattering Pulse - I'd always feel guilty if I wasn't paying for the Buyback for not making the very best out of the card. When I was paying for the Buyback, I'd feel guilty for investing so much mana to just blast one artifact. Stigma Lasher - He never really did anything. Cool answer, wish he would've done more. His slot has been filled for more effectiveness. Thornbite Staff - This went when I pulled the infinites. I love the interaction with this and KJ, buuut I don't like the "Oops I win" moment it causes. Mages' Contest - Red counterspell: cool idea people don't see coming, not what this deck is going for though. Harness by Force - I've got my Primordial and Manticore for stealing guys repeatedly, moving away from the spell-based steals. Aftershock & Fissure - These two were kind of my "Look at this old mono-red tech!" cards, but they're pretty darned inefficient and I can't copy them with KJ. Their homes aren't here. Insurrection - This went with the infinite combos. I like this being a fair deck rather than "Oops I win." Zealous Conscripts - Probably KJ's most notorious infinite combo.
More Mana Wayfarer's Bauble - Great in the first couple turns. Fire Diamond - We like mana. Mind Stone - We still like mana, especially with an optional cantrip. Ruby Medallion - At it's best when we're casting a lot of red. It may be one of my first cuts though. Worn Powerstone - An expensive Sol Ring is still good enough for me.
Card Advantage Seer's Sundial - Even in the late game, this can be an extra card every other turn(ish).
Utility Fork - I love my Forks. Copying spells alongside creatures only feels natural. Feldon of the Third Path - He's KJ's best friend ever. Feldon's not as explosive as the crazy goblin, but he brings pseudo recursion to this deck which is so very welcome. He expands our power level by broadening our pool of creatures. Of note: KJ can copy the copies that Feldon makes. In other words, Wurmcoil Engines for days. Tuktuk Scrapper - He's the objectively best option for artifact destruction that KJ can copy. With each copy made of him, both the copy and original trigger (yay Allies triggers!) AND blast your opponent for four damage. A few weeks ago, this guy and KJ single-handedly took a Daretti deck out of a game. Hoarding Dragon - I really like Illusionist's Bracers gosh darnit. I like Wurmcoil Engines too.
Burninating the Countryside Fanatic of Mogis - This guy ends games. Save him for when you've got a good board state and you can blast all of your opponents each for twenty or thirty all at once. Note: the copy counts towards devotion. Scuttling Doom Engine - This deck's a sucker for death triggers and for blasting faces. This was inevitable. Bloodshot Cyclops - I really like Fling but I don't like the one-use nature of it. Chuck fixes that. His name's 'Chuck' btw. Vicious Shadows - Oh, five goblin tokens just died and you've got ten cards in hand? BOOM, Sudden Impacts to death.
Note: On the topic of Dualcaster Mage, I own a copy but have been very hesitant on using it. I'm afraid he'll accidentally go infinite too easily but am leaning towards using him. If you catch any cards in my decklist that do go infinite with him, please let me know. He'd be so on-theme, but as stated earlier, I am consciously not including any infinite combos.
Conjurer's Closet should be nice for etb triggers at least.
Thanks for the suggestion! For a time, I ran Closet in this deck until I switched my only copy over to my Bladewing deck. Thew times when I had played it were not the best, it wasn't as useful as I had hoped, but that was probably due to the circumstances of those few games. It's a good effect though, if I get my hands on another copy, I'll try it again in here.
Changes! Yay for Fate Reforged! Cuts: Ghitu Encampment - This manland was pretty worthless. Dormant Volcano - Slow mana that's a prime target for LD? No thanks. Ruby Medallion - Not actually that useful in this format unless you plan on playing a few red spells per turn. Browbeat - This was always 50/50 in my meta. I'd prefer dependability. Seer's Sundial - Super mana-intensive. It's a good budget card, but we're trading it for something better. Devil's Play - I had a super-shiny Buy-a-Box promo of this that I had to jam somewhere, so it's on its way to another one of my red decks.
Adds:
1 Mountain Miren, the Moaning Well - We love sac outlets. Mana Echoes - This isn't a tribal deck, but I got a copy for $.99 and need to jam it somewhere. This should net us at least a couple extra mana per turn. Humble Defector - Play this with KJ on the field. Copy it, use the copy's ability. Give the copy to another player, copy sacs itself at EOT. Profit. Outpost Siege - This will be set to Khans 9/10 times for the pseudo-card advantage. If we ever set it to Dragons, it'll be because we have 70 goblins and a sac outlet. Flamerush Rider - Because we love to copy things. Also, Dash works pretty nicely with Warstorm Surge.
basically you cannot sacrifice a creature that is not yours. if it were exile, you would be right.
that said, i'd rather have my wurmcoil engine tokens producing more tokens than having humble defector usable anywhere else than in zedruu.
basically you cannot sacrifice a creature that is not yours. if it were exile, you would be right.
that said, i'd rather have my wurmcoil engine tokens producing more tokens than having humble defector usable anywhere else than in zedruu.
I see, thanks. That's a pretty big disappointment, but I think I'll keep the Defector around for a little while to play politics and cut it later. I've been meaning to get a Mind's Eye for the deck, that can be its replacement.
I used to run Mindclaw in the deck, but I could never get anything good with him. I suppose the meta I played in mostly during that time just wasn't ripe for the plundering. I may re-include him in the future, when I know I'll something better than just a Counterspell or a Fog. As for the dragons you suggested, Thundermaw doesn't add anything to the deck aside from occasionally tapping down some flyers and showing everyone that I'm a threat. Utvara and Scourge would be good with KJ if we had a higher concentration of dragons. As it stands, I could easily draw Scourge in my opening hand then not hit another dragon until it's far too late. I can tell you, he certainly performs well in my Bladewing deck though! Thank you for your suggestions!
Well just by himself Scourge is still pretty good. Copying it with kiki jiki and both deal 2 damage to any target which can be good to kill utility creature plus its a flying body to block with. You run enough dragons that it seems good enough.
So it's been a while since I've updated this, oops. The recent set of most concern is Origins, but there are some other little changes here and there to keep track of too.
Cuts: Hoarding Dragon - I never ever felt any real compulsion to play this guy. He always just sat in my hand, gathering dust. He isn't necessarily bad, this a personal preference cut. Thawing Glaciers - This *is* a good card, this is another personal preference cut due to my laziness. Glaciers, over a long period of time, builds up a ton of advantage when played correctly. However, it does not add any of its own mana, and I include my lands so they can make mana. Mana Echoes - Moved to a different deck to do bigger and better things. We never had very good ways of utilizing the mana from Echoes anyway. Mimic Vat - Gets blown up 98% of the time. The other 2%, nothing good ever dies for it. Vicious Shadows - Somehow, I never once drew this card and was able to play it, not once in the twoish years its been in this deck. Ideally, this thing would single-handedly destroy life totals. Stalking Vengeance - He costs a lot, he doesn't even trigger on himself, and the only times he'd really get played were A. in a top deck war where I could *only* play him, or B. when snow-balling and he would be the third-best at dealing damage of everything on-board. Lightning Greaves - We like to live life dangerously. I might reinclude this if I see an upswing of removal for KJ on-sight. Twinflame - Still one of my favorite cards from JOU (right behind Spawn of Thraxes), but cut for Dualcaster. I have a strict No Infinite Combos rule with this deck in an effort to give KJ a better name, plus, assuming we're not playing super-jacked decks, it's just more fun that way. Chaos Warp - Initially taken out of the deck in response to the change to the Tuck Rule, might reinclude in the future for general utility.
Adds: Avalanche Riders - Got my hands on an altered version of this. The LD in this deck is really just for two things: taking out problem lands and taking any Archenemy off of his resources. This deck's gotten pretty good at playing as David versus Goliaths, and the LD certainly helps with that. Homeward Path - Insurance against Insurrection, etc. Abbot of Keral Keep - Basically Elvish Visionary for mono-red. Chandra, Pyromaster - I could've sworn I had her in here at the last update, but I guess I was mistaken. She and Outpost Siege are the closest thing mono-red comes to a Phyrexian Arena. Chandra has the added benefit of soaking up damage or using her +1 to get around blockers on occasion. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - I've had some great trades in the last half year. I'm including Kozilek mainly for his ability to refuel our hand in the late game and for his anti-mill trigger. One of the metas I play in has been seeing a few good mill decks, so Kozilek will be a great tool against those. Commune with Lava - Best to do for 3-5 cards. Gotta love this new pseudo card advantage red's getting. Dualcaster Mage - I ended up cutting Heat Shimmer & Twinflame and could thus allow myself to include this because he would not go infinite with anything else in the deck. Really, being able to copy Dualcaster over and over can get a lot more mileage than a one-shot sorcery, and it's better utility too. Flameshadow Conjuring - In the few games I've reaped the value from this card since including it, it's done serious work. The deck's already built to thrive off of copying tons of creatures and Flameshadow takes that and doubles it for one little red mana. Nothing takes someone off their throne like hitting them with four Tyrant of Discord triggers all at once, then swinging for 20+. Chandra's Ignition - I run Wurmcoil in this deck. 'Nough said.
This deck's been rising its way up my list of decks to become my favorite-to-play deck recently. It can play a grindy game or an explosive game, it can play politics, it can play control, aggro or (non-infinite) combo, it does exceptionally well at taking down Archenemies, it can scale with the other decks in the game, but most importantly, it does what I love to do most in Commander: it can deal out loads of damage. Right now, the deck's in a place where, as long as I don't keep an insanely bad hand, the mana flows easily and the card advantage has been vastly improved by some cards released in the last couple years, so topdeck mode happens much less regularly. Moving forward, I'd like to find more sac outlets for the deck (Ashnod's Altar?) and more new cards that can be copied for value with KJ (looking at you C15 and Oath of the Gatewatch).
Note: Humble Defector does *not* sacrifice itself at EOT when its ability donates it after being copied with KJ. However, you can put the ability on the stack and sacrifice it to another sac outlet to make sure no one else gets the value. However, you could always play politics and lend it to somebody.
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Additional note: I've cut any "Oops I win" cards, including infinite combos and things like Insurrection. Also, we do not run Sundial of the Infinite because it has 'infinite' in its name. Actually, it's because we have a lot of death triggers that it cancels out when used properly.
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Lands
22 Mountain
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Spinerock Knoll
1 Temple of the False God
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Terrain Generator
1 Homeward Path
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Smoldering Crater
1 Buried Ruin
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Arcane Lighthouse
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
More Mana
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Expedition Map
1 Iron Myr
1 Fire Diamond
1 Mind Stone
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Burnished Hart
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Caged Sun
1 Skullclamp
1 Abbot of Keral Keep
1 Humble Defector
1 Crystal Ball
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Outpost Siege
1 Staff of Nin
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Commune with Lava
"Copy Me!"
1 Dualcaster Mage
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Fanatic of Mogis
1 Clone Shell
1 Invader Parasite
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Flamerush Rider
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Scuttling Doom Engine
1 Duplicant
1 Inferno Titan
1 Conquering Manticore
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Molten Primordial
1 Spawn of Thraxes
1 Knollspine Dragon
1 Chancellor of the Forge
1 Tyrant of Discord
1 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Spawning Pit
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Bloodshot Cyclops
1 Greater Gargadon
Utility, More Ways to Copy, & Miscellaneous Synergy
1 Vandalblast
1 Illusionist's Bracers
1 Reverberate
1 Fork
1 Reiterate
1 Feldon of the Third Path
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Flameshadow Conjuring
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Chain Reaction
1 Chandra's Ignition
1 Warstorm Surge
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Comet Storm
Ho-k, so, creatures that should be copied by KJ for smashing and value:
This deck's super fun to play.
Wouldn't hellrider come in handy?
Cuts:
10 Mountains
Journeyer's Kite - A lot of turns, it was either keep three open for this or do something cool. I like doing cool things.
Mana Geyser - Too conditional.
Elixir of Immortality - With Feldon in the deck now, we like that graveyard sitting right where it is. Besides, running into a mill deck is a rare occurrence for me these days.
Shattering Pulse - I'd always feel guilty if I wasn't paying for the Buyback for not making the very best out of the card. When I was paying for the Buyback, I'd feel guilty for investing so much mana to just blast one artifact.
Stigma Lasher - He never really did anything. Cool answer, wish he would've done more. His slot has been filled for more effectiveness.
Thornbite Staff - This went when I pulled the infinites. I love the interaction with this and KJ, buuut I don't like the "Oops I win" moment it causes.
Mages' Contest - Red counterspell: cool idea people don't see coming, not what this deck is going for though.
Harness by Force - I've got my Primordial and Manticore for stealing guys repeatedly, moving away from the spell-based steals.
Aftershock & Fissure - These two were kind of my "Look at this old mono-red tech!" cards, but they're pretty darned inefficient and I can't copy them with KJ. Their homes aren't here.
Insurrection - This went with the infinite combos. I like this being a fair deck rather than "Oops I win."
Zealous Conscripts - Probably KJ's most notorious infinite combo.
Adds:
Lands
Ghitu Encampment - This is an experiment.
Tower of the Magistrate - Sorry, Voltron, not today.
Myriad Landscape - I'd be insane not to run this. It's slow ramp, but ramp in red is still good.
Terrain Generator - Surprise Valakut triggers?
Haunted Fengraf - Red isn't exactly known for its ability to recur creatures, so we like this.
Spinerock Knoll - Free card at instant speed.
Dormant Volcano - Another experiment, I may cut this if it becomes a big target.
Arcane Lighthouse - I like seeing Uril die to spot removal.
More Mana
Wayfarer's Bauble - Great in the first couple turns.
Fire Diamond - We like mana.
Mind Stone - We still like mana, especially with an optional cantrip.
Ruby Medallion - At it's best when we're casting a lot of red. It may be one of my first cuts though.
Worn Powerstone - An expensive Sol Ring is still good enough for me.
Card Advantage
Seer's Sundial - Even in the late game, this can be an extra card every other turn(ish).
Utility
Fork - I love my Forks. Copying spells alongside creatures only feels natural.
Feldon of the Third Path - He's KJ's best friend ever. Feldon's not as explosive as the crazy goblin, but he brings pseudo recursion to this deck which is so very welcome. He expands our power level by broadening our pool of creatures. Of note: KJ can copy the copies that Feldon makes. In other words, Wurmcoil Engines for days.
Tuktuk Scrapper - He's the objectively best option for artifact destruction that KJ can copy. With each copy made of him, both the copy and original trigger (yay Allies triggers!) AND blast your opponent for four damage. A few weeks ago, this guy and KJ single-handedly took a Daretti deck out of a game.
Hoarding Dragon - I really like Illusionist's Bracers gosh darnit. I like Wurmcoil Engines too.
Burninating the Countryside
Fanatic of Mogis - This guy ends games. Save him for when you've got a good board state and you can blast all of your opponents each for twenty or thirty all at once. Note: the copy counts towards devotion.
Scuttling Doom Engine - This deck's a sucker for death triggers and for blasting faces. This was inevitable.
Bloodshot Cyclops - I really like Fling but I don't like the one-use nature of it. Chuck fixes that. His name's 'Chuck' btw.
Vicious Shadows - Oh, five goblin tokens just died and you've got ten cards in hand? BOOM, Sudden Impacts to death.
Note: On the topic of Dualcaster Mage, I own a copy but have been very hesitant on using it. I'm afraid he'll accidentally go infinite too easily but am leaning towards using him. If you catch any cards in my decklist that do go infinite with him, please let me know. He'd be so on-theme, but as stated earlier, I am consciously not including any infinite combos.
Thanks for the suggestion! For a time, I ran Closet in this deck until I switched my only copy over to my Bladewing deck. Thew times when I had played it were not the best, it wasn't as useful as I had hoped, but that was probably due to the circumstances of those few games. It's a good effect though, if I get my hands on another copy, I'll try it again in here.
Cuts:
Ghitu Encampment - This manland was pretty worthless.
Dormant Volcano - Slow mana that's a prime target for LD? No thanks.
Ruby Medallion - Not actually that useful in this format unless you plan on playing a few red spells per turn.
Browbeat - This was always 50/50 in my meta. I'd prefer dependability.
Seer's Sundial - Super mana-intensive. It's a good budget card, but we're trading it for something better.
Devil's Play - I had a super-shiny Buy-a-Box promo of this that I had to jam somewhere, so it's on its way to another one of my red decks.
Adds:
1 Mountain
Miren, the Moaning Well - We love sac outlets.
Mana Echoes - This isn't a tribal deck, but I got a copy for $.99 and need to jam it somewhere. This should net us at least a couple extra mana per turn.
Humble Defector - Play this with KJ on the field. Copy it, use the copy's ability. Give the copy to another player, copy sacs itself at EOT. Profit.
Outpost Siege - This will be set to Khans 9/10 times for the pseudo-card advantage. If we ever set it to Dragons, it'll be because we have 70 goblins and a sac outlet.
Flamerush Rider - Because we love to copy things. Also, Dash works pretty nicely with Warstorm Surge.
Seriously? Did a judge rule it? I really liked the idea of that.
basically you cannot sacrifice a creature that is not yours. if it were exile, you would be right.
that said, i'd rather have my wurmcoil engine tokens producing more tokens than having humble defector usable anywhere else than in zedruu.
I see, thanks. That's a pretty big disappointment, but I think I'll keep the Defector around for a little while to play politics and cut it later. I've been meaning to get a Mind's Eye for the deck, that can be its replacement.
I also decided to add a little bit of a dragon sub theme by adding Thundermaw Hellkite, utvara hellkite, and Scourge of Valkas. As all benefit from Kiki-Jiki in some way and the latter 2 synergizing with Bogardan Hellkite, Hoarding Dragon, Spawn of Thraxes, and Knollspine Dragon.
I used to run Mindclaw in the deck, but I could never get anything good with him. I suppose the meta I played in mostly during that time just wasn't ripe for the plundering. I may re-include him in the future, when I know I'll something better than just a Counterspell or a Fog. As for the dragons you suggested, Thundermaw doesn't add anything to the deck aside from occasionally tapping down some flyers and showing everyone that I'm a threat. Utvara and Scourge would be good with KJ if we had a higher concentration of dragons. As it stands, I could easily draw Scourge in my opening hand then not hit another dragon until it's far too late. I can tell you, he certainly performs well in my Bladewing deck though! Thank you for your suggestions!
Cuts:
Hoarding Dragon - I never ever felt any real compulsion to play this guy. He always just sat in my hand, gathering dust. He isn't necessarily bad, this a personal preference cut.
Thawing Glaciers - This *is* a good card, this is another personal preference cut due to my laziness. Glaciers, over a long period of time, builds up a ton of advantage when played correctly. However, it does not add any of its own mana, and I include my lands so they can make mana.
Mana Echoes - Moved to a different deck to do bigger and better things. We never had very good ways of utilizing the mana from Echoes anyway.
Mimic Vat - Gets blown up 98% of the time. The other 2%, nothing good ever dies for it.
Vicious Shadows - Somehow, I never once drew this card and was able to play it, not once in the twoish years its been in this deck. Ideally, this thing would single-handedly destroy life totals.
Stalking Vengeance - He costs a lot, he doesn't even trigger on himself, and the only times he'd really get played were A. in a top deck war where I could *only* play him, or B. when snow-balling and he would be the third-best at dealing damage of everything on-board.
Lightning Greaves - We like to live life dangerously. I might reinclude this if I see an upswing of removal for KJ on-sight.
Twinflame - Still one of my favorite cards from JOU (right behind Spawn of Thraxes), but cut for Dualcaster. I have a strict No Infinite Combos rule with this deck in an effort to give KJ a better name, plus, assuming we're not playing super-jacked decks, it's just more fun that way.
Chaos Warp - Initially taken out of the deck in response to the change to the Tuck Rule, might reinclude in the future for general utility.
Adds:
Avalanche Riders - Got my hands on an altered version of this. The LD in this deck is really just for two things: taking out problem lands and taking any Archenemy off of his resources. This deck's gotten pretty good at playing as David versus Goliaths, and the LD certainly helps with that.
Homeward Path - Insurance against Insurrection, etc.
Abbot of Keral Keep - Basically Elvish Visionary for mono-red.
Chandra, Pyromaster - I could've sworn I had her in here at the last update, but I guess I was mistaken. She and Outpost Siege are the closest thing mono-red comes to a Phyrexian Arena. Chandra has the added benefit of soaking up damage or using her +1 to get around blockers on occasion.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - I've had some great trades in the last half year. I'm including Kozilek mainly for his ability to refuel our hand in the late game and for his anti-mill trigger. One of the metas I play in has been seeing a few good mill decks, so Kozilek will be a great tool against those.
Commune with Lava - Best to do for 3-5 cards. Gotta love this new pseudo card advantage red's getting.
Dualcaster Mage - I ended up cutting Heat Shimmer & Twinflame and could thus allow myself to include this because he would not go infinite with anything else in the deck. Really, being able to copy Dualcaster over and over can get a lot more mileage than a one-shot sorcery, and it's better utility too.
Flameshadow Conjuring - In the few games I've reaped the value from this card since including it, it's done serious work. The deck's already built to thrive off of copying tons of creatures and Flameshadow takes that and doubles it for one little red mana. Nothing takes someone off their throne like hitting them with four Tyrant of Discord triggers all at once, then swinging for 20+.
Chandra's Ignition - I run Wurmcoil in this deck. 'Nough said.
This deck's been rising its way up my list of decks to become my favorite-to-play deck recently. It can play a grindy game or an explosive game, it can play politics, it can play control, aggro or (non-infinite) combo, it does exceptionally well at taking down Archenemies, it can scale with the other decks in the game, but most importantly, it does what I love to do most in Commander: it can deal out loads of damage. Right now, the deck's in a place where, as long as I don't keep an insanely bad hand, the mana flows easily and the card advantage has been vastly improved by some cards released in the last couple years, so topdeck mode happens much less regularly. Moving forward, I'd like to find more sac outlets for the deck (Ashnod's Altar?) and more new cards that can be copied for value with KJ (looking at you C15 and Oath of the Gatewatch).
Note: Humble Defector does *not* sacrifice itself at EOT when its ability donates it after being copied with KJ. However, you can put the ability on the stack and sacrifice it to another sac outlet to make sure no one else gets the value. However, you could always play politics and lend it to somebody.