Hi everyone! I've always loved a fast Red-Green beatdown deck and decided to make one for Vintage. The following list is what I've been playing with on MWS to some success (not that that is a good indication of anything, but I thought it was a good start). Basically, I've been playing some of what I deem to be the best beatdown cards in colour, and some nice synergies are existent within the deck. Card choices to follow decklist.
MAIN DECK (60 cards)//Lands\\
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
3 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Strip Mine
//Creatures\\
4 Kird Ape
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Basking Rootwalla
3 Gorilla Shaman
3 Gathan Raiders
//Artifacts\\
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
3 Chalice of the Void
//Instants\\
3 Fiery Temper
3 Lighting Bolt
//Enchantments\\
3 Rancor
Side Board (15 cards)2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
3 Ancient Grudge
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
Card Choices:Lands:
-Full Complement of R/G dual land and fetchland because I would think it is pretty standard to do so in a 2 colour deck.
-1 of each of the "other" on-colour fetches to increase deck-thinning and to avoid pithing needle on foothills (albeit very little)
-4 Wastelands and 1 Strip Mine because this deck can efficiently win with 2 or 3 lands, and nothing is very colour intensive (except for hard-casting Fiery Temper, which doesn't happen often).
Creatures:
-For 1 mana, Kird Ape is ridiculously good. Especially when the one land you have is a Taiga. It's better than Isamaru and isn't legendary.
-The Mox Monkey is very good at killing cheap artifacts (especially moxen). Making it essentially say
, destroy target "land". Plus it beats for 1.
-Mogg Fanatic is a fantastic beater and can also ping off many utitlity creatures - Welder, Confidant, etc.
-Wild Mongrel is an amazing two-drop, has synergy with Basking Rootwalla, Fiery Temper, and makes dead land draws which would normally be unwanted into pumpage.
-Tarmogoyf is most likely the best green creature ever, and fits very well into this kind of deck (especially when mongrel can discard that extra card type into the yard to give a +2/+2 boost across your creatures).
-Basking Rootwalla has great synergy with Mongrel and Raiders. I especially enjoy discarding at EOT to mongrel or raiders to smash face the next turn (even if I don't benefit from the +1/+1 to mongrel)
-Raiders is oftentimes a colourless Phyrexian Negator (albeit, costing an extra card and without trample). However, with Fiery Temper and Rootwalla, sometimes it is much better, especially since it doesn't have the horrendous drawback of Negator.
Artifacts:
-The usual Power suspects here, on-colour moxen and the almighty Black Lotus.
-Chalices are to combat combo. Setting to 0 is usually good, but on 1 and 2 (after you put out some threats), can be devastating to a lot of combo decks. It is important to know key cards for the opposing deck so you can neuter them with chalice.
Instants:
-3 of the most efficient burn spell ever printed. I just wanted to include it because I love it. If there is a better choice than the Bolt, let me know!
-3 Tempers. It may seem dumb. I mean, why not just play Incinerates? The fact of the matter is that we have 7 cards in the deck that can discard it to make it a Lighting Bolt, and that's why it's in here.
Enchantments:
-The Rancors have just been recently added to the deck, and so far, I have been very happy with them. It makes even your smallest creatures into sick beats and is barely ever card disadvantage. And for the times that it is, Tarmogoyf can easily take advantage of that.
Sideboard:
Basically all of these cards are directed against one combo matchup or another, since it seems to be this deck's main weakness.
-Pyrostatic Pillar is great against storm variants or cantrips. Brainstorming is a much less positive experience when you're taking damage from it.
-Leyline of the Void is sided in against the decks that play with the graveyard to win. Ichorid, Flash-Hulk, etc. However, since you don't play any black sources, you are forced to mull agressively if you want to take advantage of this card. However, because of Mongrel and Raiders, a late game Leyline is usually never a dead draw.
-REB's and Pyros are against most Blue match-ups. The reason of splitting 2/2 rather than 4/0 is to combat against Meddling Mage or Extirpate effects.
-Ancient Grudge is against heavy artifact match-ups, but I've never had to side them in yet. Everyone on MWS is playing GAT
So, if anyone can give me positive feedback on this deck, that would be great! I really like this deck because it suits my playing style and because it was a homebrew creation (it's very possible that another deck already exists similar to this, but I had no previous knowledge of it). It's fun to play and is relatively cheap to build if you are in a proxy environment (I have not been specifically collecting anything for this deck and am only missing 15 cards from it myself).
Thanks for reading!
