Currently there are approximately infinite decks in our beloved subforum("Unequivocably the Best Archetype in the Format"). While all of this brewing is fun and I'm a victim of it myself, when it comes to actual tournament time, I want my children possessed of my wisdom so that they may properly and discriminately choose the proper weapon for blazing a path to victory.
I'm going to go over several aggressive decks based on color, give each a rating amongst themselves, explain how they compare to other archetypes in standard and hopefully with that information, you'll be more confidant in your deck choices. In we go.
Pure. Consistent. Fast. This is what red should be. You're deck can operate on 2 lands and still kill people in a reasonable fashion. You punish any and all stumbles by your opponent by issuing them a Game Loss. And you have meaningful interaction with the board to boot. Thragtusk? Pyreheart wolf doesn't card. Centaur healer? Eat a spear. Lingering souls? Get embarrassed by flames of the firebrand. Mono-red is crisp. This deck is great against most multiple color non-naya decks, beats Bant enchantments, and has a decided edge in most mirror matches do to being one-color(consistent) and generally faster, at least initially. The only things sligh red lack are a high power level and a powerful sideboard. The sideboard is fine, but limited naturally by being mono-colored. Power is something that you can change, but it's not really necessary when you can goldfish turn 4 and 5 regularly before powerful cards from other decks come online and/or are relavent.
Boros, ***** yeah!. Boros is slower then mono-red but has more toys. For one, boros charm is an absurdly powerful card. Drawing 2 in game is like having drawn a free card when they're in damage mode and being an anti-wrath and/or combat tool is just icing. Slayers' Stronghold is also exceptionally powerful turning your late game 1-drops into actual cards that affect the board meaningfully. Outside of those cards, your sideboard options are absurd. You have access to artifact hate, enchantment hate, fogs, lifegain, blind obedience, whatever you want really. That's a mindblowing amount of options for an aggressive deck and ultimately results in boros being virtually unhateable. If boros wants to beat something, it will. The boros deck isn't as consistent or as fast as the red deck, but barely so and the power is definitely higher. I love how boros lets you basically be the jund of agro decks(no bad matchups) with it's sideboard.
Gruul is the toughest deck to build, since it has a lot more maindeck choices then say Boros or Rakdos, but one thing is for sure; Rancor is amazing. Gruul is the one R/x agro deck that is actually favorable versus naya game 1 by virtue of trampling through all of Naya's threats. There is no board state that gruuls huge monsters can't punch through when you have Rancor, Wolfir Silverheart, Kessig Wolf Run and Bonfire of the Damned. The key is building the deck to your wants and needs. Do you want Burning Tree Emissary? Huntmaster of the Fells? Arbor Elf even? And what of the burn package? Fitting all these shifting parts together is our challenge as players and Gruul is definitely a tough nut to crack. The good news is all the cards are good so it's hard to mess up. I could see Gruul ultimately being "the" agro deck with it's trample, haste, threat density and overall card quality. It even has a playable planeswaler! Domri Rade is something I could see myself boarding in certain matchup. The only worry I have with gruul is consistency since it has a relatively greedy manabase compared to the other guild decks, but I think that's justified for the power of the cards you get.
While I don't think this was quite our first love, the affectionately named Dos Rakis no doubt holds a special place in the hearts of the Founding Flames of our clan and this subforum. This. Deck. Is. Power. You have the typical agro curve that all the other agro decks have, but instead of quad hellrider, you have quad falkenrath aristocrat which is tremendously more durable and unrelenting, no matter the board state. There are tons of tricks that this deck has, especially when you introduce threaten affects and cards like brimstone volley. Sometimes, your opponent doesn't know that they're just dead. This deck has one million haste guys, can recover from anything, and enjoys employing the aid of hasty fliers ignoring board stalls. To boot, black has solid if not exciting board options; aside from Olivia. I love her. The issues come from lacking sufficient(or any) mana sinks and being much more reliant on the 4th land drop then the other red decks. Still, UNLIMITED POWER. The big downside is that you're pretty bad in the mirror. Not the best deck choice in an agro heavy metagame.
I don't think I'll bother with a decklist for this deck, but suffice it to say that you have OPTIONS. Zoo is the fastest most powerful agro deck on the block when built right and this applies to pre- and postboard games. The issue being that the mana base is *ahem* ambitious at best. But when it comes together, who can beat you? This is definitely a deck for the person who likes taking risks and wants to spike a tournament regardless of what shows up.
Hope this all helps. Here's a brief synopsis since that was a lot of information:
Mono-red is the most consistent and great against the mirror and durdling decks but not to hot versus Naya. It makes up with speed what it lacks in power. Boros is slightly less consistent and fast as mono-red but can be tailored to beat any meta with a proper read do to having a great sideboard. Gruul is very powerful, can be very fast, and beats naya, but there's no good list and the mana can occasionally be awkward. It will thrive in a midrange environment though. Rakdos has all the top end power and is favored against most every deck accept the mirror. Falkenrath aristocrat is a very good magic card. Zoo is the fastest most powerful color option but it can and will die to it's manabase on occasion. If you're fine with that, then come up with a good list and melt peoples faces.
In closing, I'd like to add that just adding up the cumulative rating points doesn't prove anything and shouldn't be a metric for choosing a deck. Go with what fits your style and hopefully what fits the field you expect. I'd like to say that I advocate all the decklists posted in this thread, though I haven't extensively tested them so take them with a grain of salt.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
LK...excellent, EXCELLENT comparative overview. Your touching upon the nuances of each deck gets to the heart of each build and really helps differentiate between the subtypes.
Your mono red list also has 4x stonewright for a total of 62 cards. Other than that, a very well written article with very accurate statements about the strengths and weaknesses of the respective red decks. Good Job!
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"Don't worry about figuring out the metagame breaker, and don't get tricky and add all sorts of bizarre cards to a staple deck -- just play something good, something you play well, and something that lets you play Magic."
~ Patrick Sullivan
"Sometimes you can win without being perfect and sometimes you can be perfect and not win. But if you lost, and you weren’t perfect, then you have no one to blame but yourself."
~ Harry Corvese
There is no discernible difference between the decks. It's either you go with autopilot, autopilot splash W, autopilot splash G, autopilot splash B or some kind of an autopilot abomination.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
In all serious, very nice write up. You did a good job of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each variation. Hopefully someone having a hard time choosing his or her R/x path will have that decision made easier by this thread.
I agreed with mostly everything, aside from Domri Rade. I just think he's awful.
But seriously, if ever there was a card that was a fan of wolfir silverheart. It's basically -2, Skred. I'm also really interested in Gruul utilizing arbor elfs. That seems gross. Maybe go base green instead and drop Ash Zealot for strangleroot geist? That's a big reach, and might not even actually gain you speed, but you'd become a much better bonfire deck if that becomes important.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
Very nice. I like all of the build examples, the brewer in me wants to tune each one. But I have the build I am taking to FNM tomorrow all set so I am going with that. A nice Mono-red punisher build incorporating Boros Reckoner.
You're opinion has been noted and disregarded since arguing about the specifics of my arbitrary decklists was most definitely not the point of this piece.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
You're opinion has been noted and disregarded since arguing about the specifics of my arbitrary decklists was most definitely not the point of this piece.
If your decklists are arbitrary, so are your ratings. Compairing well polished and proven decks against something you slapped together that doesn't curve and giving it higher marks for consistency doesn't make sense. The boros deck you posted would get 1.5 /4 for consistency in my book.
If your decklists are arbitrary, so are your ratings. Compairing well polished and proven decks against something you slapped together that doesn't curve and giving it higher marks for consistency doesn't make sense. The boros deck you posted would get 1.5 /4 for consistency in my book.
I guess that's the awesome thing about being the thread starter. I'm judge, jury and executioner when it comes to the content. I don't know how a curve of:
and 24 land is inconsistent. Neither do I know how your posting is contributing anything to this thread or the community for that matter since for the last week(month?) all you've done is ask questions without appearing to figure things out for yourself and spew criticisms without being constructive. This may come off as harsh, but everything you post seems utterly devoid of content and it's really annoying.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
damn it LPK! I was all set to trade my summits and crypts for clifftops and foundries, but now I want to keep em AND get the RW AND get 3 more Stomping Ground....crap I'm gonna have to draft a lot.......
That said, I do like your analysis and your Boros base build, I think between that base list the iterations of mono red I'm running, I should have actually options for meta gaming now. Im glad october is so far away!
I should say that the introduction of boros makes knight of infamy in dos rakis like 10x better.
I like the writeup and I agree with pretty much everything.
What's knight going to do, block boros reckoner? you still take 2 damage to the face. It's possible that Boros White takes off, but personally, I'm not a believer in that deck. If anything I think some sort of naya human deck will make KoI attractive.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
LK, a question for you; not a criticism, but rather a desire for stylistic understanding.
Why did you choose not to play Stonewright in the Dos Rakis build? I've always felt that KoI and Aristocrat bring some of the greatest synergies with SR to the table, so I'm interested to know what you see differently.
Again, fantastic resource. Though as many have already shared, you did nothing with helping me to make choices...you just convinced me that I have to build versions of each and try them out!;)
Thanks again!
EDIT: I should have said that I appreciate the great synergy between the Threatens and FA; if the choice was based on that alone, I see where you're going.
If your decklists are arbitrary, so are your ratings. Compairing well polished and proven decks against something you slapped together that doesn't curve and giving it higher marks for consistency doesn't make sense. The boros deck you posted would get 1.5 /4 for consistency in my book.
I guess that's the awesome thing about being the thread starter. I'm judge, jury and executioner when it comes to the content. I don't know how a curve of:
and 24 land is inconsistent. Neither do I know how your posting is contributing anything to this thread or the community for that matter since for the last week(month?) all you've done is ask questions without appearing to figure things out for yourself and spew criticisms without being constructive. This may come off as harsh, but everything you post seems utterly devoid of content and it's really annoying.
It's inconsistent because it doesn't have enough two drops to curve consistently. There is a reason that Dos Rakis runs 11/8/4/4/2 and sligh runs 10/8/4/4/2. The reason is so you can curve properly and play efficiently.
As far as me not contributing anything for the last week / month, I guess you're right. I have posted FNM reports for the last two weeks and a very detailed report from GP Nagoya, but that wasn't premium content like you've written here. The fact of the matter is, I have a modern PTQ next Monday and I've been foccusing my efforts there, since anything standard related is baseless speculation until we see how the meta develops. I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you.
What's knight going to do, block boros reckoner? you still take 2 damage to the face. It's possible that Boros White takes off, but personally, I'm not a believer in that deck. If anything I think some sort of naya human deck will make KoI attractive.
he also can't be blocked by or targeted by reckoner.
I'm not saying that knight of infamy is the "I win" card vs the field now, but he does get better.
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Big thanks to DarkNightCavalier from heroes of the planes studios for the sig!
LK, a question for you; not a criticism, but rather a desire for stylistic understanding.
Why did you choose not to play Stonewright in the Dos Rakis build? I've always felt that KoI and Aristocrat bring some of the greatest synergies with SR to the table, so I'm interested to know what you see differently.
Again, fantastic resource. Though as many have already shared, you did nothing with helping me to make choices...you just convinced me that I have to build versions of each and try them out!;)
Thanks again!
EDIT: I should have said that I appreciate the great synergy between the Threatens and FA; if the choice was based on that alone, I see where you're going.
I think I have some scribbles on a piece of paper somewhere where I changed the dos rakis deck based on a brief convo with Z. Basically, but ultimate prices, shave a boros reckoner, add 2 stonewrights and a land and you probably make the deck better. It's mostly about space, red sources, and desire for instant speed interaction. Something that I've been thinking about though is that ultimate price is becoming more and more unreliable as there are simply more multicolored cards around. It's probably correct to move them to the board as you want more then 3 ways to interact with hellrider.
It's inconsistent because it doesn't have enough two drops to curve consistently. There is a reason that Dos Rakis runs 11/8/4/4/2 and sligh runs 10/8/4/4/2. The reason is so you can curve properly and play efficiently.
As far as me not contributing anything for the last week / month, I guess you're right. I have posted FNM reports for the last two weeks and a very detailed report from GP Nagoya, but that wasn't premium content like you've written here. The fact of the matter is, I have a modern PTQ next Monday and I've been foccusing my efforts there, since anything standard related is baseless speculation until we see how the meta develops. I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you.
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Curving out with the boros deck isn't as important because of boros charm and I'd rather have pyreheart wolf in my deck then lightning mauler. Boros charm is worth almost as much as a 2 drop damage wise and does half a million other things that are beyond the scope of this response. The deck isn't inconsistent. It's one of the decks I've played with the most in testing. Also, though this is comparing apples to oranges, Demigod Red only played 1 set of 2-drops(blood knight) and it wasn't nearly as good as ash zealot. Apology accepted.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
These lists are very helpful to me! I'm still not sure what I will build but at least I know where I can put my ash zealots and that ill save silver blade and Cotp for something more naya like in build. These threads are truly helpful for someone like me who never really played RDW and could use some input on the most efficient strategies
It's inconsistent because it doesn't have enough two drops to curve consistently. There is a reason that Dos Rakis runs 11/8/4/4/2 and sligh runs 10/8/4/4/2. The reason is so you can curve properly and play efficiently.
As far as me not contributing anything for the last week / month, I guess you're right. I have posted FNM reports for the last two weeks and a very detailed report from GP Nagoya, but that wasn't premium content like you've written here. The fact of the matter is, I have a modern PTQ next Monday and I've been foccusing my efforts there, since anything standard related is baseless speculation until we see how the meta develops. I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you.
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What LK is saying--and what others have tried to say before and not been able to get across--is that you demonstrate no interest here in anything but yourself. You do not take the time to try to glean answers from the massive amount of content and experience available; you demonstrate a stalwart refusal to even attempt to think around corners, always insisting that someone feed you answers; you question and nitpick everything that anyone takes the time to tell you, then you generally ignore it all and go your own route anyway. Then you come back, post your almost-always inconsistent, middling results and proceed to complain and ask for more spoon-fed help. All this, and you contribute nothing here that has the intent behind it of raising the quality of content or assisting others.
In other words, by purest definition, you are a parasite.
The best minds in this community have tried--patiently--to help you find your way. But as you should now realize, they--and the rest of us that are here trying to be balanced members of the community--are tiring of your perpetual shifts between whining, pleading and self-aggrandizement. Either catch the clue, or please peddle your complaints elsewhere.
What LK is saying--and what others have tried to say before and not been able to get across--is that you demonstrate no interest here in anything but yourself. You do not take the time to try to glean answers from the massive amount of content and experience available; you demonstrate a stalwart refusal to even attempt to think around corners, always insisting that someone feed you answers; you question and nitpick everything that anyone takes the time to tell you, then you generally ignore it all and go your own route anyway. Then you come back, post your almost-always inconsistent, middling results and proceed to complain and ask for more spoon-fed help. All this, and you contribute nothing here that has the intent behind it of raising the quality of content or assisting others.
In other words, by purest definition, you are a parasite.
The best minds in this community have tried--patiently--to help you find your way. But as you should now realize, they--and the rest of us that are here trying to be balanced members of the community--are tiring of your perpetual shifts between whining, pleading and self-aggrandizement. Either catch the clue, or please peddle your complaints elsewhere.
I was sort of over this, but then Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, posts and reminds me that he's exactly right. If I had a dollar for every time you've asked for advice or a decklist then ignored everything suggested to you from not Z, well, I wouldn't ever worry about rent money. This may sound like it's coming from left field, but your behavior has been noted and circulated. There are plenty of us who are more or less fed up and are going to stop breast feeding you. It's time to leave the nest.
LP, I'm checking your article out as well. Behind all of your swag is the brain of one of the most intelligent Magic players I've ever known. I guess that's one more thing for you to add to the wall of ego that is your Sally sig.
I can go with that. LK, you are the Mace Windu of red mages...cool, tempered logic in deliberation, but capable of just flat kicking tail when the situation warrants it.
Gruul!
Stomp! Trample! Crush! Nicely done Sir LK. Need to secure Stomping Grounds though I would lower my curve to 4, its just me. Again, very cool primer.
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I'm going to go over several aggressive decks based on color, give each a rating amongst themselves, explain how they compare to other archetypes in standard and hopefully with that information, you'll be more confidant in your deck choices. In we go.
Mono Red Aggro
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Ash Zealot
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Pyreheart Wolf
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Hellrider
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Flames of the Firebrand
21 Mountains
1 Crucible
Pure. Consistent. Fast. This is what red should be. You're deck can operate on 2 lands and still kill people in a reasonable fashion. You punish any and all stumbles by your opponent by issuing them a Game Loss. And you have meaningful interaction with the board to boot. Thragtusk? Pyreheart wolf doesn't card. Centaur healer? Eat a spear. Lingering souls? Get embarrassed by flames of the firebrand. Mono-red is crisp. This deck is great against most multiple color non-naya decks, beats Bant enchantments, and has a decided edge in most mirror matches do to being one-color(consistent) and generally faster, at least initially. The only things sligh red lack are a high power level and a powerful sideboard. The sideboard is fine, but limited naturally by being mono-colored. Power is something that you can change, but it's not really necessary when you can goldfish turn 4 and 5 regularly before powerful cards from other decks come online and/or are relavent.
Ratings:
Speed~4/4
Consistency~4/4
Power~2/4
Sideboard~2.5/4
Boros(R/w)
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Ash Zealot
3 Pyreheart Wolf
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Hellrider
1 Spark Trooper
3 Boros Charm
3 Pillar of Flame
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Clifftop Retreat
1 Boros Guildgate
1 Plains
1 Slayers' Stronghold
13 Mountain
Boros, ***** yeah!. Boros is slower then mono-red but has more toys. For one, boros charm is an absurdly powerful card. Drawing 2 in game is like having drawn a free card when they're in damage mode and being an anti-wrath and/or combat tool is just icing. Slayers' Stronghold is also exceptionally powerful turning your late game 1-drops into actual cards that affect the board meaningfully. Outside of those cards, your sideboard options are absurd. You have access to artifact hate, enchantment hate, fogs, lifegain, blind obedience, whatever you want really. That's a mindblowing amount of options for an aggressive deck and ultimately results in boros being virtually unhateable. If boros wants to beat something, it will. The boros deck isn't as consistent or as fast as the red deck, but barely so and the power is definitely higher. I love how boros lets you basically be the jund of agro decks(no bad matchups) with it's sideboard.
Ratings:
Speed~3/4
Consistency~3.5/4
Power~3/4
Sideboard~4/4
Gruul(R/G)
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Ash Zealot
4 Flinthoof
4 Boros Reckoner
3 Borderland Ranger
4 Hellrider
2 Ghor Clan Rampager
2 Wolfir Silverheart
2 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Temple Garden
2 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Stomping Grounds
4 Rootbound Crag
9 Mountains
Gruul is the toughest deck to build, since it has a lot more maindeck choices then say Boros or Rakdos, but one thing is for sure; Rancor is amazing. Gruul is the one R/x agro deck that is actually favorable versus naya game 1 by virtue of trampling through all of Naya's threats. There is no board state that gruuls huge monsters can't punch through when you have Rancor, Wolfir Silverheart, Kessig Wolf Run and Bonfire of the Damned. The key is building the deck to your wants and needs. Do you want Burning Tree Emissary? Huntmaster of the Fells? Arbor Elf even? And what of the burn package? Fitting all these shifting parts together is our challenge as players and Gruul is definitely a tough nut to crack. The good news is all the cards are good so it's hard to mess up. I could see Gruul ultimately being "the" agro deck with it's trample, haste, threat density and overall card quality. It even has a playable planeswaler! Domri Rade is something I could see myself boarding in certain matchup. The only worry I have with gruul is consistency since it has a relatively greedy manabase compared to the other guild decks, but I think that's justified for the power of the cards you get.
Ratings:
Speed~4/4
Consistency~2.5/4
Power~3.5/4
Sideboard~3/4
Dos Rakis(R/B)
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Ash Zealot
4 Thrill-Kill Assasin
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Falkenrath Aristocrat
2 Hellrider
2 Zealous Conscripts
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Ultimate Price
1 Traitorous Blood
4 Blood Crypt
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Godless Shrine
12 Mountain
While I don't think this was quite our first love, the affectionately named Dos Rakis no doubt holds a special place in the hearts of the Founding Flames of our clan and this subforum. This. Deck. Is. Power. You have the typical agro curve that all the other agro decks have, but instead of quad hellrider, you have quad falkenrath aristocrat which is tremendously more durable and unrelenting, no matter the board state. There are tons of tricks that this deck has, especially when you introduce threaten affects and cards like brimstone volley. Sometimes, your opponent doesn't know that they're just dead. This deck has one million haste guys, can recover from anything, and enjoys employing the aid of hasty fliers ignoring board stalls. To boot, black has solid if not exciting board options; aside from Olivia. I love her. The issues come from lacking sufficient(or any) mana sinks and being much more reliant on the 4th land drop then the other red decks. Still, UNLIMITED POWER. The big downside is that you're pretty bad in the mirror. Not the best deck choice in an agro heavy metagame.
Ratings:
Speed~3/4
Consistency~2.5/4
Power~4/4
Sideboard~3/4
Naya Zoo(R/w/g)
I don't think I'll bother with a decklist for this deck, but suffice it to say that you have OPTIONS. Zoo is the fastest most powerful agro deck on the block when built right and this applies to pre- and postboard games. The issue being that the mana base is *ahem* ambitious at best. But when it comes together, who can beat you? This is definitely a deck for the person who likes taking risks and wants to spike a tournament regardless of what shows up.
Ratings:
Speed~4/4
Consistency~2/4
Power~4/4
Sideboard~3.5-4/4
Hope this all helps. Here's a brief synopsis since that was a lot of information:
Mono-red is the most consistent and great against the mirror and durdling decks but not to hot versus Naya. It makes up with speed what it lacks in power.
Boros is slightly less consistent and fast as mono-red but can be tailored to beat any meta with a proper read do to having a great sideboard.
Gruul is very powerful, can be very fast, and beats naya, but there's no good list and the mana can occasionally be awkward. It will thrive in a midrange environment though.
Rakdos has all the top end power and is favored against most every deck accept the mirror. Falkenrath aristocrat is a very good magic card.
Zoo is the fastest most powerful color option but it can and will die to it's manabase on occasion. If you're fine with that, then come up with a good list and melt peoples faces.
In closing, I'd like to add that just adding up the cumulative rating points doesn't prove anything and shouldn't be a metric for choosing a deck. Go with what fits your style and hopefully what fits the field you expect. I'd like to say that I advocate all the decklists posted in this thread, though I haven't extensively tested them so take them with a grain of salt.
Hope this is useful. Thanks for reading.
Edit: I actually edited the mono red when I meant to edit boros.
Raising my glass in salute...
~ Patrick Sullivan
"Sometimes you can win without being perfect and sometimes you can be perfect and not win. But if you lost, and you weren’t perfect, then you have no one to blame but yourself."
~ Harry Corvese
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
In all serious, very nice write up. You did a good job of highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each variation. Hopefully someone having a hard time choosing his or her R/x path will have that decision made easier by this thread.
I agreed with mostly everything, aside from Domri Rade. I just think he's awful.
But seriously, if ever there was a card that was a fan of wolfir silverheart. It's basically -2, Skred. I'm also really interested in Gruul utilizing arbor elfs. That seems gross. Maybe go base green instead and drop Ash Zealot for strangleroot geist? That's a big reach, and might not even actually gain you speed, but you'd become a much better bonfire deck if that becomes important.
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You're opinion has been noted and disregarded since arguing about the specifics of my arbitrary decklists was most definitely not the point of this piece.
If your decklists are arbitrary, so are your ratings. Compairing well polished and proven decks against something you slapped together that doesn't curve and giving it higher marks for consistency doesn't make sense. The boros deck you posted would get 1.5 /4 for consistency in my book.
I guess that's the awesome thing about being the thread starter. I'm judge, jury and executioner when it comes to the content. I don't know how a curve of:
10 one-drops
4 two-drops
7 three-drops
5 four-drops
and 24 land is inconsistent. Neither do I know how your posting is contributing anything to this thread or the community for that matter since for the last week(month?) all you've done is ask questions without appearing to figure things out for yourself and spew criticisms without being constructive. This may come off as harsh, but everything you post seems utterly devoid of content and it's really annoying.
That said, I do like your analysis and your Boros base build, I think between that base list the iterations of mono red I'm running, I should have actually options for meta gaming now. Im glad october is so far away!
Cockatrice: lorddax MWS: lorddax MODO: lorddax
==Decks==
Standard - R Slighred
Modern - Seeking red list
Legacy - RBurning Red || BGContamination Pox
EDH - BRThe Wort Conspiracy
I like the writeup and I agree with pretty much everything.
Modern:
Twinning End
Commander:
Mayael the Anema
What's knight going to do, block boros reckoner? you still take 2 damage to the face. It's possible that Boros White takes off, but personally, I'm not a believer in that deck. If anything I think some sort of naya human deck will make KoI attractive.
Why did you choose not to play Stonewright in the Dos Rakis build? I've always felt that KoI and Aristocrat bring some of the greatest synergies with SR to the table, so I'm interested to know what you see differently.
Again, fantastic resource. Though as many have already shared, you did nothing with helping me to make choices...you just convinced me that I have to build versions of each and try them out!;)
Thanks again!
EDIT: I should have said that I appreciate the great synergy between the Threatens and FA; if the choice was based on that alone, I see where you're going.
It's inconsistent because it doesn't have enough two drops to curve consistently. There is a reason that Dos Rakis runs 11/8/4/4/2 and sligh runs 10/8/4/4/2. The reason is so you can curve properly and play efficiently.
As far as me not contributing anything for the last week / month, I guess you're right. I have posted FNM reports for the last two weeks and a very detailed report from GP Nagoya, but that wasn't premium content like you've written here. The fact of the matter is, I have a modern PTQ next Monday and I've been foccusing my efforts there, since anything standard related is baseless speculation until we see how the meta develops. I'm sorry that I seem to have offended you.
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he also can't be blocked by or targeted by reckoner.
I'm not saying that knight of infamy is the "I win" card vs the field now, but he does get better.
Modern:
Twinning End
Commander:
Mayael the Anema
I think I have some scribbles on a piece of paper somewhere where I changed the dos rakis deck based on a brief convo with Z. Basically, but ultimate prices, shave a boros reckoner, add 2 stonewrights and a land and you probably make the deck better. It's mostly about space, red sources, and desire for instant speed interaction. Something that I've been thinking about though is that ultimate price is becoming more and more unreliable as there are simply more multicolored cards around. It's probably correct to move them to the board as you want more then 3 ways to interact with hellrider.
Curving out with the boros deck isn't as important because of boros charm and I'd rather have pyreheart wolf in my deck then lightning mauler. Boros charm is worth almost as much as a 2 drop damage wise and does half a million other things that are beyond the scope of this response. The deck isn't inconsistent. It's one of the decks I've played with the most in testing. Also, though this is comparing apples to oranges, Demigod Red only played 1 set of 2-drops(blood knight) and it wasn't nearly as good as ash zealot. Apology accepted.
What LK is saying--and what others have tried to say before and not been able to get across--is that you demonstrate no interest here in anything but yourself. You do not take the time to try to glean answers from the massive amount of content and experience available; you demonstrate a stalwart refusal to even attempt to think around corners, always insisting that someone feed you answers; you question and nitpick everything that anyone takes the time to tell you, then you generally ignore it all and go your own route anyway. Then you come back, post your almost-always inconsistent, middling results and proceed to complain and ask for more spoon-fed help. All this, and you contribute nothing here that has the intent behind it of raising the quality of content or assisting others.
In other words, by purest definition, you are a parasite.
The best minds in this community have tried--patiently--to help you find your way. But as you should now realize, they--and the rest of us that are here trying to be balanced members of the community--are tiring of your perpetual shifts between whining, pleading and self-aggrandizement. Either catch the clue, or please peddle your complaints elsewhere.
I was sort of over this, but then Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, posts and reminds me that he's exactly right. If I had a dollar for every time you've asked for advice or a decklist then ignored everything suggested to you from not Z, well, I wouldn't ever worry about rent money. This may sound like it's coming from left field, but your behavior has been noted and circulated. There are plenty of us who are more or less fed up and are going to stop breast feeding you. It's time to leave the nest.
Stomp! Trample! Crush! Nicely done Sir LK. Need to secure Stomping Grounds though I would lower my curve to 4, its just me. Again, very cool primer.