Improving Ghey Red

[skecreatoR]

I been building Ghey Red for some time now, and after both testing and discussing with people, this is the list I ended up with:

// Lands
    4 Volcanic Island
    1 Strip Mine
    4 Wasteland
    3 Island
    4 Mishra's Factory
    3 Faerie Conclave
    3 Flooded Strand

// Creatures
    3 Grim Lavamancer
    4 Cloud of Faeries
    3 Rootwater Thief
    4 Spiketail Hatchling

// Draw
    4 Curiosity
    4 Standstill

// Counterspelling
    3 Stifle
    4 Force of Will
    2 Daze

// Disruption & Burn
    4 Lightning Bolt
    3 Null Rod

// Sideboard
    1 Null Rod
    3 Blue Elemental Blast
    3 Rack and Ruin
    4 Red Elemental Blast
    2 Energy Flux
    2 Arcane Laboratory

Matchups. While being able to beat most rogue and general aggro the decks biggest problem is against fat bigger then itself.

//TnT
An incredibly hard matchup, especially if they get to resolve a Blood Moon. Oh boy, is that the end of my game. Rack, BeB & Energy Flux can give me an edge if played in multiples, but yet the deck is just so weak against the deck that I could cry. This is my biggest concern.

//Keeper
This is actually a bit more favorable then one should think. The small men and Standstill is just so powerful against this deck, that you have quite a good chance of beating it. Disrupting mana is the most important thing.

//Dragon
Too fast. Packing both power & Bazaar, and me packing no GY hate, this is just nearly impossible. I can disrupt one of their 12 Animate effects, but they keep coming back.

This is the three problems I have with the deck. I need help improving both the Dragon & especially the TnT matchup. If anyone have suggestions or help with that, it would be gladly appreciated, as there is quite a bit of both in my meta. Comments & Ideas would be apreciated!

-ske

[Hi-Val]

I've been playing this deck a lot and find that the 4th null rod isn't worth it in the SB, and the BEBs don't seem to do enough. You can do a little trimming to fit in 3 Sword of Fire and Ice in the sideboard, a potent card to bring in against Oshawa and TNT, both of which are decks mostly unaffected by Null Rod, which gets sided out.

Dragon is a cake walk for me to play against. Daze and FoW take out their animation, Stifle stops Bazaar and Dragon triggers, Wastelands take out their Bazaars and sideboarded Tormod's Crypts do the rest.

[Moxlotus]

I am in love with Maze of Ith.  The card is excellent.  Also Tormod's crypt is a great card, even despite the mad awesome combo it is with Null Rod.

Also I much rather prefer Kai to Long.  I think Kai is just generally more useful.  I don't have the mana to make Long evade and take cards.  Also if you have room, Mis'D are great to have.  I don't know on the Lightning bolts, I think I would have Fire/Ice before it.  Or even Sigil of Sleep.

[RustyLighter]

If you dont want to play crypt i heard overburden is a nice tech aginst dragon thats blue. Uh for TNT rack and ruin and maybe Hurkyl's Recall?

[skecreatoR]

Lightning bolt is amazing. Never a dead card, it can easily (and it does) win games for you. 2 of these is already 6 damage, and backed with whatever is on the board and a Standstill, you got game in many cases. Fire/Ice was tested, it is not nearly as good as the ever <3 Bolt.

The Rack & so forth isn't fast enough agains TnT. I need some sort of either sweep or anything else. If I ever get the Energy Flux out, they usually just pay the damn 2 mana, let their moxen die & attack with whatever they have out.

Maybe it is just me whining over being so bad against TnT - maybe it is just the one matchup that is too tough.

[Hi-Val]

You can try Annul to stop the artifacts, it tends to work pretty well. But if you want to take stuff out on the board, you're pretty much stuck with R&R, which does the job well. If it is a matter of keeping creatures off the board, you can try Sigil of Sleep. Maze of Ith is another option as well.

[Nameless]

While it's already been said, a have a few friends that play this deck and they all run 3x Annul in the SB now.  Primarily to fight off that 1st turn Trinisphere, but it just so happens that they work good in other matchups, too.  3x Annul and 3x Rack and Ruin should make your matchups vs. Artifact decks much more favorable.  

EDIT:

I also think that those Daze need to be Misdirections then, because you really need Misdirection in the deck.  I'd swap Long for Kai in all 3, and drop a Spiketail for the Grim #4.  The 4th Grim seems even more important here because you're obviously trying to optimize your burn with the Lightning Bolts, but you go against your own ideals by dropping the 4th Grim.  That doesn't make much sense...

A lot of my friends lately have been SBing in 3x Mask of Memory for the Null Rods in matchups where they are dead, and it's worked amazingly well since they have good interaction with the Lavamancers in the deck.  You could try that...   Or even Bonesplitters, which would really ramp up the clock.

[Hi-Val]

Why do they need to be Misdirections again? What is there in the current environment to Misdirect? The only two things I can think of are Lightning Bolt and Ancestral, and sometimes a counterspell. They're not as good as they used to be.

Dazes terrify opponents, especially combo players. I can routinely catch players who drop moxes before land with the allmighty Daze. In my last tourney I took out a lotus this way. Daze plays right into the strategy of mana denial, whereas MisD is a cute trick. It results in temporary card disadvantage vs. permanent disadvantage as well.

[pinoy_tech]

@Hi-Val

mis-d's are good against chalice black and sui....mis'd their hymn or sinkhole and you can screw up their gameplan quite a bit...this is from experience as im a sui player and had a hymn backfire .....sui is going to be a staple deck for budget players for awhile and has proven to a pain for a control heavy meta