Rapid Red Team

29 April 2010

I wanted to do what all the cool kids are doing and talk about strategy in the Standard environment of Magic: the Gathering

Let's start with a decklist:

That's the deck. Call it "Blue Team." Plan A is to use the 20 ramp effects to grow huge, then pony up the mana to be able to hardcast Emma or Koz. Depending on the matchup, one or the other of them should be enough to end the game right there. The walls are there to gum up the ground while I build, and the Predator even has power and could, I guess, attack. Garry himself plays nice with plan A, sometimes producing 8 mana on two lands (as long as those two are Eldrazi Temple), but offers a sizeable Plan B in, ya know, killing them with moves. Growth Spasm and Kozilek's Predator provide the bodies for the overrun effect there.

For my own edification I have enlisted the assistance of some minions in testing this deck for an event upcoming in May. I'll be able to walk to it, so I owe it to myself to build the best deck I can. Best, with the caveat that I am the one who is making the deck. This is my design and I designed this. I've taken suggestions, made substitutions, even hot-swapped an entire color and crafted what you see to the left. The minions are going to build some proxy versions of the various decks that the format currently sports. Call them, "Red Team." Red Team has all kinds of angles and game plans, and I need to have a fighting chance against all of them. Because really, the game is deeply random. I'm not trying to out-think the entire metagame here, that's impossible. All I need is to have game against a variety of decks (not even a terribly huge variety as it turns out) and I'll be satisfied in a craftsman's job well done.

In fact I have already tested the deck against the most popular deck in the format, and two much less popular decks. I wouldn't even post an article about it here unless I thought that the deck in question was and is a contender, and those practice matches against Red Boss certified thus in my mind. More testing against other decks will let me know how to alter the sideboard. I have a wealth of hate cards available to me thanks to the green white color pair, and I mean to choose the very best ones.

Currently, the side is mostly hate cards for mono red, which has a habit of beating me to death before my defenses are up. Four toughness walls alone are not enough to stop the deck (at least not when they cost 2), and many of my maindeck cards may as well be blank pieces of cardboard. That said, resolving Koz alone is enough to kill them if, you know, they don't already have enough damage to burn me to death. Kill the player and his cards can't harm you. So things like Perimeter Captain and Bear Claw make the cut easily. I think they may end up good against other archetypical decks as well. Celestial Purge wouldn't be bad either, considering they're siding in Manabarbs against me and it would be good to have the ability to interact. Of course purge earns it's place in the board because of huge versatility and power as a hate card.

But where is the concession to Dragons? Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Baneslayer Angel are hard dudes to answer. Well the board isn't infinite, but I may have to sneak Wall of Reverence in there somewhere as just that concession. Randomly gaining 12 or so life the turn the hammer falls could actually mean the difference between winning and losing, especially if I've been racing a five power flyer with naught but sticks and harsh language (Overgrown Battlement and Wall of Omens). Yeah, Reverence should really be there somewhere. I'll figure it out. Maybe I don't need to kill artifacts as badly as I thought.

Then again there's Basalisk Collar, Font of Mythos, Borderposts. The occasional warhammer. Heck, maybe even some auras will be seeing the light of day thanks to the latest set and its aura love. If only Qasali Pridemage were a 5 toughness wall. Clearly more testing is called for. I need to know how badly I need to kill artifacts, and how badly I need to block dragons.

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