If you're aggro, go faster than them before they drop them. Get their life down low enough where it doesn't even matter. Three of them don't even do anything the turn they come down anyways. Not to mention Rhonas needs a board state for it to be impactful (you're already losing if it is), and Bontu is basically clearing the board for you to attack.
Deck building kits are bad, you're better off with boosters. With your budget a booster box might be too expensive, but I would look into getting two "fat packs" instead. They're boxes that comes with a bunch of boosters and lands. The newest sets are Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Alliance, and War of the Spark (coming out next week) so look into purchasing those.
Also if you can, buy from a local card store rather than online (unless you have to). Supporting a local store is always a plus.
Considering you have a bunch of small creatures and tokens I would look into building on that plan. Replace the Act of Treasons and Monstrosaur for Shock and Lightning Strike. This will lower the curve so you can cut the three taplands (the two guildgates and quarry) for a fun card in Cavalcade of Calamity or Pride of Conquerors.
You should look up the Vizier Combo decks in Modern. It plays with Devoted Druid for infinite mana that can be played in different ways. Melira's been bumped for Vizier of Remedies.
If you can endure the game for another 3 months the standard rotation will take away some toys from red decks
Six months. Rotation is in the fall, never summer.
I was under the impression that the first rotation happened with M20 coming, which is in a little more than 3 months.
I don't understand the confusion why so many people think this. It's never rotated with core sets before nor in the summer, just look at last year for example.
Again it's popular because it's Bo1 where aggro is king and it goes quick for people to complete dailies. Anywhere else it's not a good deck to play in Standard. Why does it matter if everyone else is playing a red deck for dailies? It just means it's guaranteed to go fast. If you want to build a counter deck to it, go ahead. No one is stopping you or judging you for doing so. As I said in another post, I made a Selesnya Angel deck to play against red decks when they flare up.
Playing a top tier deck does require skill to pilot. Just because you have Ferrari doesn't mean you know how to drive it in a race in the most optimal way. Sure it raises the chances of a win, but in closer matches and match ups it requires a lot of skill to know what lines of play to make. Mono Blue in standard is a prime example on a great deck that needs a great pilot to be successful with. Do you use Dive Down or Spell Pierce to protect your creature from a removal spell, do you risk tapping out to play a Tempest Djinn or keep the mana open with a counter in hand and risk dragging a game out longer than it should? Mono red has an advantage over Esper, but a bad player can trip on themselves with just one wrong play that costs them the game. You can't imagine how many red players complain about Esper being unbeatable but they never bothered learning why they have the advantage and the right strategy to take against control.
Instead of criticizing people for playing net decks, maybe you should study those decks or play them yourself to understand deck building better instead of jamming 78 cards into your deck and not understanding what needs to be cut. I'm going to sound like an a-hole for saying this but you not understanding how to cut down your massive deck to 60 cards shows your skill level and not understanding the game as much as you're trying to criticize.
First off buying packs/boxes are a massive waste of money because you are always getting less than what they are worth. It's always recommended to buy singles, especially if you know what you want.
Draft is a good way to learn the game since it teaches you how to deck build and evaluate cards. There's no right way to draft, whether picking money cards or not, but the general rule is to stick with two colors and prioritize removal spells.
I would look into playing Magic Arena since it's a F2P game. It's good practice and it'll help you decide what you like to be able to purchase in real life.
Between here and reddit, there's so many posts about "I've been playing MtG for so long, I hate _____ decks!" Quite honestly I'm surprised it's not another Esper control rant.
1. Literally every top deck can count as a cookie cutter net deck. It's not unique to just red decks. There's no problem in playing good decks, because against other good players, you better know how to pilot the deck.
2. That's how aggro decks work if they have a good hand. Mono Blue and WW can do the same if they have a good start. Control with a good starting hand can also shut down aggro to ensure they'll probably not win.
3. Wildgrowth Walker decks beat them. Selesnya decks beat them. Any combo with B or W can beat them with the amount of removal and playable lifegain cards beat them. Burn decks run out of steam quickly if they don't get you down to the danger zone. Every color has something that can be backbreaking to them such as Moment of Craving, Knight of Autumn, Absorb, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Lyra Dawnbringer, etc.
4. Funny, yesterday when I went through some Bo1 matches and noticed a high amount of red decks so I switched over the Selesnya Angels and didn't drop a single game against red. No deck is unbeatable, RDW is especially beatable if you play a deck to counter it compared to something like control.
5. You're playing Bo1, where aggro is king because once a sideboard is involved, they just lose. RDW isn't even a top deck in the meta right now because of that reason. Just look at the meta competitive breakdown: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper
People like to play fast games to get their dailies so it's an expected choice to play red because either they win or lose fast.
6. They don't need any nerfs because as I said, it's not a good deck. It's really laughable to say as an "old school" MtG player that you think burn spells is better now compared to the past when it's not.
Unfortunately all the auras in Standard are really bad right now other than Curious Obsession, which is played in Mono Blue Tempo in a way that it kinda works like Bogles in that you protect your evasive small threat and gain card advantage.
Deck building kits are bad, you're better off with boosters. With your budget a booster box might be too expensive, but I would look into getting two "fat packs" instead. They're boxes that comes with a bunch of boosters and lands. The newest sets are Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Alliance, and War of the Spark (coming out next week) so look into purchasing those.
Also if you can, buy from a local card store rather than online (unless you have to). Supporting a local store is always a plus.
Hareruya is, but most of them are sold out to no surprise.
Because it's done by the same artist that did the concept arts of all the early FF games.
I don't understand the confusion why so many people think this. It's never rotated with core sets before nor in the summer, just look at last year for example.
Playing a top tier deck does require skill to pilot. Just because you have Ferrari doesn't mean you know how to drive it in a race in the most optimal way. Sure it raises the chances of a win, but in closer matches and match ups it requires a lot of skill to know what lines of play to make. Mono Blue in standard is a prime example on a great deck that needs a great pilot to be successful with. Do you use Dive Down or Spell Pierce to protect your creature from a removal spell, do you risk tapping out to play a Tempest Djinn or keep the mana open with a counter in hand and risk dragging a game out longer than it should? Mono red has an advantage over Esper, but a bad player can trip on themselves with just one wrong play that costs them the game. You can't imagine how many red players complain about Esper being unbeatable but they never bothered learning why they have the advantage and the right strategy to take against control.
Instead of criticizing people for playing net decks, maybe you should study those decks or play them yourself to understand deck building better instead of jamming 78 cards into your deck and not understanding what needs to be cut. I'm going to sound like an a-hole for saying this but you not understanding how to cut down your massive deck to 60 cards shows your skill level and not understanding the game as much as you're trying to criticize.
Draft is a good way to learn the game since it teaches you how to deck build and evaluate cards. There's no right way to draft, whether picking money cards or not, but the general rule is to stick with two colors and prioritize removal spells.
I would look into playing Magic Arena since it's a F2P game. It's good practice and it'll help you decide what you like to be able to purchase in real life.
Six months. Rotation is in the fall, never summer.
1. Literally every top deck can count as a cookie cutter net deck. It's not unique to just red decks. There's no problem in playing good decks, because against other good players, you better know how to pilot the deck.
2. That's how aggro decks work if they have a good hand. Mono Blue and WW can do the same if they have a good start. Control with a good starting hand can also shut down aggro to ensure they'll probably not win.
3. Wildgrowth Walker decks beat them. Selesnya decks beat them. Any combo with B or W can beat them with the amount of removal and playable lifegain cards beat them. Burn decks run out of steam quickly if they don't get you down to the danger zone. Every color has something that can be backbreaking to them such as Moment of Craving, Knight of Autumn, Absorb, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Lyra Dawnbringer, etc.
4. Funny, yesterday when I went through some Bo1 matches and noticed a high amount of red decks so I switched over the Selesnya Angels and didn't drop a single game against red. No deck is unbeatable, RDW is especially beatable if you play a deck to counter it compared to something like control.
5. You're playing Bo1, where aggro is king because once a sideboard is involved, they just lose. RDW isn't even a top deck in the meta right now because of that reason. Just look at the meta competitive breakdown: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper
People like to play fast games to get their dailies so it's an expected choice to play red because either they win or lose fast.
6. They don't need any nerfs because as I said, it's not a good deck. It's really laughable to say as an "old school" MtG player that you think burn spells is better now compared to the past when it's not.
Other than that you might want to play with Vine Mare and Hadana's Climb.