Red Deck Wins for the 5k

[John Galli]

From what I've heard the reasoning behind not running revival is that it makes your deck a collection of janky cards in the effort to support one or two other cards that you may or may not draw together. I'm not sure how to construct around miracle yet and I think it will mostly be on my back burner until the set is officially out.

As for storm blood, I'm confused on what your running at the moment because other than being a 2 drop like legionnaire the two of them shouldn't be replacing each other. The way ben and I saw it is that legionnaire could possibly sub in for some one drops, like the match ups where stromkirk is less effective.

Shrine is way too important to cut at the moment in my opinion. Every time I've considered that I'm reminded of all
the games its not only won but also about the fact that after using up your burn on creatures or getting wrathed you then usually have a shrine ticking away with lots of counters to help you kill your opponent or a six drop.

I don't think being more creature heavy is the way to go as most creatures available to rdw are outclassed. I'd rather have the good ones supplanted by as much burn as possible and some spicy board options.

Another fringe card I've been revisiting is curse of the bloodletting. Imagine playing that with an active shrine out and 1-2 burn spells in hand. . .

I won't be at misty tonight but will be at netherworld on thursday

[John Galli]

Johnny Hot sauce (a big online rdw player) just got sixth in a standard premier with this build

[John Galli]

After more testing this is where my red list is at currently-

4 Vexing Devil
4 Stromkirk Noble
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Porcelain Legionnaire
4 Chandra's Phoenix

4 Shrine of Burning Rage
3 Shock
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Incinerate

22 Mountain

Sideboard:
4 Whipflare
3 Manabarbs
3 Traitorous Blood
3 Torch Fiend
2 Vulshok Refugee

[Evan]

I'd be tempted to cut a phoenix and a mountain and add 2 faithless looting. Seems good - I've never been that impressed by stormblood berserker.


Cheers

[John Galli]

Yeah two of the shocks were faithless lootings so that may still be the way to go. I tried 21 lands a few times and just felt it caused a lot of hands to stumble but I may have just not played enough games with it.

[Evan]

FYI the 5k is now a 10k. I enjoy testing if anyone wants to get together for it, though it looks like I'll be working.

[John Galli]

Ok, so I'm officially playing Big Red at SCG Madison, whether it is competitive or not. I bought and ordered a few cards, sold some cards, etc, so I'm committed at this point with a week left till the event.

Here are some lists so far that I'm goldfish testing and will probably bring some variants of to NW on Thursday. I'd appreciate constructive opinions on the cards and any suggestions for cards you guys might have. I have a whole slew of considerables, so it's going to be about narrowing it down.

Here's some cards I'm not likely to play unless borrowed, and right now they're not really in any of my current lists anyway unless it becomes necessary-

Wurmcoil Engine
Solemn Simulacrum
Inkmoth Nexus

Onto the lists-

Big Red (based on the B/W Titan build I've been playing, seems to be goldfishing best so far)-

4 Sphere of the Suns
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Koth of the Hammer
4 Slagstorm
4 Chandra's Phoenix
3 Pillar of Flame
3 Inferno Titan
3 Tumble Magnet
2 Whipflare
2 Galvanic Blast
1 Batterskull
1 Contagion Clasp

4 Phyrexia's Core
20 Mountain

Sideboard:
3 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
3 Manic Vandal
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Act of Aggression or Zealous Conscripts
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Dismember

Big Red (based on Allen Terry's Build)

4 Sphere of the Suns
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Slagstorm
4 Koth of the Hammer
3 Urabrask the Hidden
3 Inferno Titan
3 Tezzeret's Gambit
3 Tumble Magnet
2 Batterskull
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Incinerate

3 Ghost Quarter
21 Mountain

Sideboard:
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Whipflare
1 Incinerate
1 Dismember
2 Zealous Conscripts or Act of Aggression
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
3 Manic Vandal

Big Red (based on Ken Adams Build)

4 Sphere of the Suns
4 Koth of the Hammer
4 Slagstorm
3 Tumble Magnet
3 Inferno Titan
3 Urabrask the Hidden
3 Pillar of Flame
3 Galvanic Blast
2 Contagion Clasp
2 Batterskull
2 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Volt Charge

3 Ghost Quarter
22 Mountain

Sideboard:
3 Shrine of Burning Rage
2 Whipflare
1 Bonfire of the Damned
2 Zealous Conscripts or Act of Aggression
1 Dismember
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded

Big Red (Evan's Build)

Big Red (Evan’s Build)

4 Pillar of Flame
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
3 Whipflare
2 Slagstorm
4 Pristine Talisman
3 Koth of the Hammer
4 Devil's Play
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Inferno Titan
3 Wurmcoil Engine

3 Ghost Quarter
22 Mountains

[Evan]

I really think pristine talisman is what you want for mana acceleration; it comes down a turn later but with so many agro decks in the format it makes a huge difference. It single handedly won me games.


Cheers

[John Galli]

Yeah that's what I had in my white list, the only reason I switched to sphere was to enable a turn 3 koth but I also felt like pristine talisman was really strong. I might give that a shot Evan (even though my 3 drop slot is heavily crowded, maybe I could run more whipflare main instead of slagstorm).

Also, I noticed not many lists out there for big red are running Shrine of Burning Rage. Any ideas why that might be? Last I checked, that card still is incredibly hard to deal with for most decks

Edit***

Thanks for the list in the other thread too, gets the ideas going for sure. I modified my thread above and added it in.

[Evan]

Because shrine is more of a "get there" card and not a control card, which this deck is in a fair amount of it's matchups. See: who's the beatdown. The other card I was thinking of running in that slot was ratchet bomb, which in this deck would likely be better. I played U/B tezzeret and it was definately an all star in that. If you're going a more artifact centrict build, you could run buried ruins instead of ghost quarters.


Cheers

[mastrcontrol]

It's kind of funny, I switched to big red myself. I'm trying simulacrums and would be running a wurmcoil if I could. I don't think the mycosinth's are what you want since they don't really do anything. Koth hasn't been getting there for me so I'm thinking about swapping him out for moltensteels. Also, I really like porcelain legionaire and whipflare. I'll post a list soon.

[John Galli]

I don't think moltensteels and legionnaires are a good way to go. Lingering souls, delver, moorland haunt, and vapor snag are all popular and shut down the former, snag makes them both awful, and legionnaire dies to slagstorm as well as not doing what you want. Yes he dodges your whipflares but he's your only early drop so he'll eat removal from your opponent as a result and this deck needs to get to it's endgame, not provide early threats that are easily disposed of.

Evan I goldfished your list a bunch against delver and R/G, I like a lot of the directions it was taking. Here's a few areas with question marks for me-

x4 Devils Play - the card is solid as an early game pick off spell and a late game bomb, but 4 seems excessive and taking up valuable spots needed in the early game. I feel this would be better as a 1 or 2 of.

x3 Wurmcoil Engine, x4 Inferno - This deck shoves out some heavy top game but with the current land number, ramp, and lack of card draw it doesn't seem to reliably get to six as often as I'd like. Its nutto when it does but I think I need a few more draw spells or a cut on the number of sixes. Wurmcoil seems less savory than inferno, but I might be wrong. I like inferno's ability to completely wreck their board but I also like the resilience of wurmcoil to removal. The latter only seems to be an issue post board though as the only mainstream decks packing removal for a six drop in game 1 are usually solar flare and humans (I suppose vapor snag counts in which case I like inferno better again. Other than that its only really DOJ, fiend hunter, and o ring)

I think I'd like galvanic blast to also be in here, the deck needs a few more turn 1 instant speeders and answers to inkmoth.

Overall I think I want to see something like this-
-2 or 3 devil's play, - 2 or 3 wurmcoil
+ 2 galvanic blast, +1 whipflare, +2 or 3 draw spells, +1 red suns zenith

Oh and btw ur list was missing 2 cards

Edit* Maybe something like this-

3 Pillar of Flame
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Whipflare
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
3 Ichor Wellspring
4 Pristine Talisman
2 Slagstorm
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Koth of the Hammer
4 Inferno Titan
1 Red Sun's Zenith
1 Devil's Play

2 Phyrexia's Core
2 Ghost Quarter
21 Mountain

Sideboard
1 Wurmcoil Engine or 1 Batterskull
2 Peace Strider
2 Manic Vandal
3 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Tumble Magnet
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Tibalt, the Fiend Blooded
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Ghost Quarter

(Alternatively we could keep wurmcoil engines main, get rid of pristine talismans, add back sphere of the suns, tumble magnet main, and tezzeret's gambit instead of wellsprings. Something like-

4 Pillar of Flame
2 Galvanic Blast
4 Whipflare
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
4 Sphere of the Suns
1 Pristine Talisman
2 Tumble Magnet
2 Tezzeret's Gambit
2 Slagstorm
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Koth of the Hammer
4 Inferno Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine

3 Ghost Quarter
22 Mountain

[Evan]

New version based on what you told me; I don't think I'd want to run less then 2 wurmcoils just because it pulls you out of long games. l dropped a shrine because you typically only want one, an inferno cause we're adding draw and added gambits for draw/koth surprise ult. I'd consider running cavern of souls instead of ghost quarters (or in the board) assuming budget isn't an issue.

4 Pillar of Flame
2 Galvanic Blast
3 Shrine of Burning Rage
4 Whipflare
2 Slagstorm
4 Pristine Talisman
3 Koth of the Hammer
2 Devil's Play
2 Tezzeret's Gambit
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Inferno Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine

3 Ghost Quarter
22 Mountains


Cheers

[John Galli]

Heh looks like we were thinking some of the same lines, I edited my post about when you wrote yours with a second list. I like some of the ideas going on this thread.

Btw, just a reminder everyone is meeting at misty and not netherworld on Thursday. NW is doing their board game night and Jim doesn't want the shop full of testers that would make them leave again

Other ideas-

3 Pillar of Flame
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
4 Whipflare
4 Sphere of the Suns
3 Tezzeret's Gambit
2 Tumble Magnet
2 Slagstorm
3 Koth of the Hammer
4 Inferno Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine

3 Ghost Quarter
22 Mountain

And

3 Pillar of Flame
4 Galvanic Blast
4 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
4 Whipflare
2 Slagstorm
4 Pristine Talisman
2 Koth of the Hammer
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Inferno Titan
4 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Devil's Play
1 Red Sun's Zenith

4 Phyrexia's Core
21 Mountain

[Evan]

Hmmm, was thinking about a new version; it takes better advantage of land. Even 17 red sources is a ton. Buried Ruin was a champ in the tez deck I was playing with ratchet bomb, metamorph, and wurmcoil.


4 Pillar of Flame 1
2 Galvanic Blast 1
3 Whipflare 2
3 Ratchet Bomb 2
4 Ichor Wellspring 2
2 Slagstorm 3
3 Pristine Talisman 3
3 Koth of the Hammer 4
2 Devil's Play 2+
2 Phyrexian Metamorph 3
3 Inferno Titan 6
2 Wurmcoil Engine 6

4 Phyrexia's Core
4 Buried Ruin
17 Mountains


Cheers