MTG Salvation

Hello there. I've noticed some spots in my cube (and I'm sure many other cubers) seem overcrowded. My biggest glut is 4 drops in red. I have 10 of them in a 360 unpowered cube. I'd love to get down to 8, but I'll settle for 9 (or even staying at 10). The main 2 things I want to discuss are:

1. How do you rank the 4 drops in red? What is your criteria? What should I consider cutting (or even adding)? Here's the 10 I'm running. Feel free to add more to the mix:

Flametongue Kavu
Hazoret the Fervent
Hellrider
Hero of Oxid Ridge
Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Fiery Confluence
Koth of the Hammer
Sneak Attack

Sneak Attack, Chandra, and Fiery Confluence seem uncuttable from a power level perspective. Purphoros is powerful and helps define a token strategy and is splashable. Pia and Kiran Nalaar is great in non-aggro red decks (and I do support artifact synergies), but harder to splash. Flametongue Kavu is good, splashable value. The rest of the cards shine in aggro strategies so I should find one to cut, but they're all so potent. If I had to define a group of cuttable options, I'd go with Pia and Kiran Nalaar since red doesn't have a ton of synergy with artifacts, Flametongue Kavu for being a bit boring, and whatever the weakest aggro card is.

2. In your cube, how heavily to you factor in curve when compared to power level? This is a general question so feel free to take it where you want.

With both Hellrider and Koth, I think you can easily skip Hero of Oxid Ridge at 360, and maybe even Hazoret too. The others I'd keep for sure. Purphoros isn't a must unless you really support a good token strategy for players to bbuild around. Daretti, Scrap Savant is a 4cc card I love in red, but it's expendable if you're not supporting the artifact.dec. Even without artifacts, I think Pia and Kiran is still a great card, and while boring, FTK is still a solid dude. The splashable cost is helpful for a lot of manabases.

Hero of Oxid Ridge doesn't belong in a 360 powered list. Hellrider does the same job far better in most situations.

FTK is boring but incredibly good. You can exclude it until you want to give red a power boost.

My cube is unpowered Sephon19. Thanks for the feedback! And thanks wtwlf123!

At 360 powered, I play 7 Red 4 drops:

Flametongue Kavu
Hellrider
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Koth of the Hammer
Fiery Confluence
Sneak Attack
Splinter Twin

I think the first 6 are staples, with Splinter Twin only being worthwhile if you support the Kiki-Twin package.
In your list, the most obvious cuts are Hero of Oxid Ridge and Hazoret the Fervent.
The next two weakest are Purphoros, God of the Forge and Pia and Kiran Nalaar.

I think your weakest and cuttable cards are Hazoret, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, and Purphoros. A lot of people suggest removing Hero of Oxid Ridge if you already play Hellrider, but to me Hellrider is by some distance the best aggressive red 4-drop, and Hero does an extremely decent Hellrider impression.

I am playing everything you have listed, except Hero, and I include Daretti, Teritorial Hellkite and Rekindling Phoenix. That is at 720, so you are definitely over the top. Of everything you wrote, I'd definitely cut Hero, he is reliant on board presence and is weak to blockers. I also think Hazoret is cuttable due to consistency issues and overcrowding of the aggro-only 4 drops.
I like Pia and Kiran as a multiple role card. Good in token decks, artifact decks and more minor interactions with blink and 2-power matters (like Alesha). Still a great card at face value for slower red decks, as it provides three blockers, 2 of them in the air, and pressures planeswalkers very well. I prefer them over FTK unless your cube is excluding a lot of the synergies and the demand for non-aggro red 4 drops is very low. I'd also play them before Purphoros, as it's sub-optimal to play a token payoff card without playing the good, generally playable token producers first.

I'm at 400 and play Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Koth of the Hammer, Hellrider, Hazoret, FTK, Pia and Kiran, Fiery Confluence, Purphoros, Sneak Attack, and Experimental Frenzy. I almost don't even count Sneak Attack and Purphoros in the conversation with the others, since they're archetype support. So is Pia and Kiran, to an extent. I used to play Daretti but cut it because the artifact deck got to be a little too on-rails for my tastes. I could cut Hazoret and not be too worse for the wear, but it's a fun card. Frenzy is new and I like to test out newer cards for a while, especially when they kick my teeth in in other formats.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Definitely some food for thought.

I'm not sure what I would keep at 360, but I think I'd play everything on IMorphling's list except Splinter Twin. I'd try to cram Purphoros in there too, just because he's a fun build-around. If I was still supporting the artifact deck, I might swap out Koth for Daretti, but I doubt I'd have room for the deck at 360.

Cheers,
rant

I play all of these at 465 unpowered and am happy with all of them, if I had to cut a couple to go down to 360 while keeping all of my archetypes intact, I'd cut Hero, then Hazoret, then Pia.

I only run 7 red 4s at 360. The only locked slots are Sneak Attack, Hellrider, Fiery Confluence and either of the good good Chandras.

If archetype support for Splinter Twin, Past in Flames or Purphoros, God of the Forge exists, those go in, no further questions. If they aren’t fully supported, they don’t. Totally binary.

In terms of power, the next best cards are: Flametongue Kavu> Pia and Kiran Nalaar > Rekindling Phoenix and the second good Chandra, but they push the cube toward a midrange value-grind, so I think they’re lower priority than high-end aggro beaters.

Then aggressive dudes I rank: Hazoret the Fervent > Hero of Oxid Ridge > Territorial Hellkite > Koth of the Hammer

And once aggro has enough high-damage beaters, I don’t think any of these are embarrassing: Avalanche Riders, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Experimental Frenzy, Outpost Siege, Thunderbreak Regent, and Vance’s Blasting Cannons

I play 6 red 4 drops at 360, and I don't personally think playing any more would be correct. Red aggro hardly ever reaches 4 mana, so the payoffs have to either be absurd or be usable in other strategies to good effect. We currently play (in order from best to worst):
Sneak Attack
Fiery Confluence
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Experimental Frenzy
Hellrider
Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Not much to say in regards to the op, but honestly after the first 3 cards you could probably get away with not playing any more red 4s if you wanted, they're good but certainly not remotely as good as the first ones and don't typically warrant splashes.

The 4 drop slots are tricky because the most powerful cards are generally there. It is also aggro’s curve topper slot, and thus you must support multiple archtypes here. That is why it is ok to have many 4 drops. Previously red is limited to aggro but in cube it has artifact.dec, tokens, kiki combo and cheaty.

For me, top cards are powerful and versatile:
Chandra, TOD
Flametongue Kavu (Aggro, Control, Blink/Kiki combo)
Fiery confluence (reach, wipe, artifact control)

Aggro
Hellrider (works with tokens too)
Koth
Hero of Oxid Ridge (out for me)
Hazoret (out - I never tested this)

Artifact
Pia and Kiran Nalaar (works as aggro reach, and tokens
Daretti, Scrap Savant (works as cheaty also)

Cheaty
Sneak Attack

Tokens
Purphoros

Its really hard to rank them by power level, because there are cards that I put in due to versatility. Pia and Kiran, for example, works in Tokens, Aggro(evasion, reach), Control (chump/removal) and Artifacts. If you notice I have one specific card for each archtype and the rest are versatile cards. If I were forced to cut one of these it will depend on the archtype of the incoming card. If, let’s say it is a versatile or goodstuff card, I think Purphoros or Daretti or Koth maybe the next cut.