Monored for TS Standard

[Komatteru]

Ok, I love red decks, and usually I tend to play Standard only when I can make a cheap red deck.  Although this deck costs a fortune these days, since Wizards made everything good rare to sell more cards, I want to play it.

So Jesus and I hammered this deck together in about 10 minutes:

Revenge of 1997
4 Magus of the Scroll
4 Scorched Rusalka
4 Rakdos Guildmage
4 Blazing Blade Askari
4 Squ'ata Lancer
4 Giant Solifuge
4 Sudden Shock
4 Char
4 Demonfire
3 Wheel of Fate
18 Snow-Covered Mountain
3 Scrying Sheets

Sideboard:
4 Wildfire Emissary
4 Serrated Arrows
4 Blood Moon
3 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage

So, basically, this is built on my desire to want to play with Squ'ata Lancer and Wildfire Emissary once again, you know, like it's 1997 or something.

So what decks could be problematic?  What will even exist?

White decks: have CoP red and Soltari Priest. We solve the former with cards like Demonfire and Sudden Shock, and a whole host of cheap threats that overwhelm.  The latter gets wasted by Serrated Arrows, which destroys pretty much all the little dudes they might play.  Do we even need to get into the problems Wildfire Emissary causes for white decks?

The real trick will be not walking into a huge Wrath from anything with white.  However, Blood Moon can help keep them from getting WW quickly if they are playing a multi-colored deck.

Blue "I do nothing but counter everything and consider myself a skilled player" decks: Ok, Demonfire, Sudden Shock, those are good.  Getting dudes to stick for a few turns and getting in every point of damage is going to matter.  Scrying Sheets should shine here, as it will help optimize the draws, finding more copies of Demonfire and Sudden Shock more quickly.  Resolving Jaya and keeping her around for 3-4 turns should be a blowout.

um...what else is going to be in this format?  Anything with creatures should be a favorable or fairly even match, given the 8 flankers in this deck, and host of direct damage.  Magus basically says that there's no need for the combat step, which is never bad.

Anything with multiple colors should fall victim to Blood Moon.  It's like Null Rod in Vintage--a hate card for the flat broke and those too cheap to buy expensive mana producers.

Thoughts?

[Roxas]

As far as decks I predict to exist in numbers worth preparing for, there's basically Vore, Solar Flare-style reanimator decks, various attempts at control decks, B/R decks, and the U/G/B "million dollar deck" with Birds and Finkel and Viper and stuff. I'd probably prepare for U/G aggro-control too.

[Keno]

Some random thoughts:

- Blazing Blade Askari seems godawfull to me. It's a 3/3 for 3 that deals 2 damage when unblocked. Atleast the Lancer has haste.

- Sudden Shock seems good at first glance, but I think it will just be worse then Shock in Constructed. There is no Psychatog, Wild Mongrel or Ravager for this card to kill. Almost no-one plays with Giant Growth and the uncounterability will almost never matter against control I think.

- Why not play Skred, main or sideboard? Skred is like Swords to Plowshares, for 1 mana you can kill anything that isn't an Akroma or Rimefeather Owl.

- Why not play Stalking Yeti? The Yeti just trades with a 3/3 at worst, but often will kill a guy (Guildmage, Viper whatever) and then block/attack into another guy and trade. If you can untap with it and seven mana you can bounce and replay him, shutting down a lot of cards in an opposing aggro deck. For example, the Yeti is able to kill 20 of the 24 creatures in your deck and live.

To sum it up, mainboard I would take out the Sudden Shock and Blazing Blade Askari, and replace them with Skred and some dude thats better, perhaps Boros Guildmage or Phyrexian Ironfoot. Sideboard I would replace Serrated Arrows with the Stalking Yeti.
You also might want to try and play with 8 stonerains. I don't know why but Mike Flores thinks its awesome and so do a lot of other people.

[LordHomerCat]

I agree on Askari, they just don't do anything.  What about running BR, since a second color is almost free, and running Dark Confidant (with possible Cruel Edict or Hit/Run as well).  Basically, use the Satanic Sligh shell (see Frank Karsten's wizards.com articles) but add in insane things like magus.

An Idea:

4 Magus
4 Dark Confidant
2 Rakdos Guildmage
3 Giant Solifuge

4 Seal of Fire
4 Cruel Edict
4 Volcanic Hammer
4 Sudden Shock
2 Wheel of Fate
4 Char
3 Demonfire

4 Blood Crypt
4 Sulfurous Springs
2 Rakdos Carnarium
4 Snow Swamp
8 Snow Mountain

2 Wheel of Fate because I have no idea if they are good or not (but I just got the MTGO Time Spiral Beta, with 4of every card, so much testing promises to ensue).

[Komatteru]

Playing black adds like infinite money to the deck, and it's already really expensive.  Actually, that's not the reason.  Playing black doesn't let you bring Blood Moon from the board, which seems like it will be a real beating to all those multicolor decks that have so much utility--"the million dollar deck" should have a lot of removal, and enough card draw to make life hard.

Sudden Shock also foils CoP: Red.  That becomes important.  Usually, you can get 10-12 damage in there easily, but getting that last 8 or so is usually pretty hard.  At least, that's what I found in the past.

Ironfoot might be good.  Having at least one creature that foils it might prove to be important, depending on the popularity of red decks and decks with white manas.

What about Gruul Guildmage?  One thing I fear is that having all these RR cards will make Scrying Sheets into a liability.  I only have three of them, though, so maybe it'll all be ok.  It's not a terrible finisher, even if it is a little slow.  It lets you get a lot of damage in there when the board is clogged up with creatures, and attacking just doesn't get enough through.

How about Avatar of Discord?  Seems like a hot turn 3 play.

I used to play with 8 Stone Rains in my Mirrodin/Kamigawa deck with Firewalker and Arc Slogger.  You won every single game where you dropped turn 1 Firewalker followed by a Stone Rain.  You won most games when you dropped Firewalker turn 2 followed by LD.  LD was to buy tempo before you could drop Slogger.  Then you just won, really.  We don't have amazing cards like Firewalker and Arc Slogger in this deck, and this one curves out a lot higher.  Do you want to drop a threat on turn 3 (like Lancer), or play LD?  Seems like the threat is the way to go.

[freakish777]

I could see Stone Rain followed by Avalanche Riders (read as 4 mana sorcery destroy target lands, put a 2/2 haste token into play, ddestroy it at end of turn) followed by Solifuge being an absolute beating for the control decks in the format.  That said, I'm not sure if the meta will be more control or more aggro come the legality of TS.  Maybe pack some number of LD in the board?  And if at the last minute your scouting shows there is absolutely no control in the meta, you can switch out for Serrated Arrows, Emmisarry and friends.

[Anusien]

The difference between now and Mirrodin is that LD is good.

Reason #1: Hitting a bounceland with a Stone Rain is ridic.

Reason #2: Cyroclasm is a bolt in addition to a stone rain.  So in other words, it's a Lightning Bolt that doesn't cost you anything in terms of cards or tempo

Reason #3: You can potentially color screw an opponent really easily.  How many three or even two color decks only have the one source of off-color mana in hand?  If you can Stone Rain that, you're golden.

[Komatteru]

LD was awesome when Mirrodin was legal.

Cyroclasm seems like a really hot board card.  Unless it's worth maindecking.  I know there should be lots of duals around, but it doesn't seem maindeckable.

My question on bounce lands, is anyone dumb enough to play one early if they know you have LD effects?  And if they are dumb enough to do that (or keep such a hand that needs to do that), do I care?  Shouldn't I win anyway because they'll spend their early game doing nothing and losing infinite tempo?

In any case, I think I'm gonna take out 2 of the Askari's (I want more than 4 flankers), and split the Guildmages between 3 each of Rakdos and Gruul.

[Disburden]

I don't like Wheel of Fate here. It's just bad when you top deck it late and you want to win asap with burn-attack-go. Maybe I'm wrong, how do you feel about it through testing? I was thinking of buildling a mono red deck to play Standard, since I don't want to buy all those crazy pricey dual lands (I spent enough on those in Vintage!).


Have you tried Avalanche Riders? They seem pretty good if you run a land destruction theme to your deck. I am going to try this plus four Stone Rain.

Also, with Scrying Sheets, why no Skred?

Orcish Librarian could be cool too, although I haven't tested him. I was even going to put in a single stuffy Doll.

Sucks I haven't seen this thread before, I love mono red too, especially when it was around during Mirrodin (kuroda FTW!).


This is what I am going to try:

4 Magus of the Scroll
4 Fenzied goblin
4 Orcish Librarian
4 Rakdos Guildmage
3 Avalanche Riders

4 Char
4 skred
3 Volcanic Hammer
4 Stone Rain

4 Seal of Fire

4 Scrying Sheets
18 snow mountains

SB

4 Serrated Arrows
3 Tormod's crypt
3  Guerilla Tactics
4 Cryoclasm
(??no ideaabout this SB)

I feel like there should be a big finisher in the deck to get their life totals down at the end of  your burn stream. What do you think about any of the dragons that are out in the format right now?

[Komatteru]

I'm not sure the deck will be good enough.  You just like lose to a quick Akroma (turn 4-5), as you don't win quick enough, and you won't get many things through that Akroma.  Dragonstorm also seems like a problem.

I think Void is needed, which makes a black splash very necessary.

[UR]

I can't see any reason not to play black in this deck. BR and mono-R are essentially the same decks but BR just has better cards, therefore making it better in the mirror (while producing the same results against other decks).

[Vegeta2711]

Yeah seriously. Confidant is the nuts and Hit/Run is amazing with so many Akroma running around.