Dies to Removal

It's a different world now.

It's a dromokas commands world and we're just living in it.

Even rebuying a slash when you hit 5 is solid value.

More often than you think. Sometimes as early as turn 4 if you can convoke a stoke.

I'm gonna call the deck RW Dragons.

Yeah, the mana base looks great on paper. Can't wait to try it out:

2 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2 Wind-Scarred Crag
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Plains
8 Mountain

Cut a Plains and a Mountain, add a Crag and a Haven?

Sold!

1 is sometimes okay. I wouldn't want more than that for game 1. The deck still runs Stoke the Flames as removal too.

Just off the top of my head.

[deck]
Creature 22
3 Seeker of the Way
3 Soulfire Grand Master
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Hordeling Outburst
4 Thunderbreak Regent
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells 14
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Wild Slash
4 Draconic Roar
4 Stoke the Flames

Land 24
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
1 Wind-Scarred Crag
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge
5 Plains
9 Mountain

Sideboard 15
2 Roast
2 Valorous Stance
2 Outpost Siege
2 Mastery of the Unseen
2 Erase
2 Arc Lightning
2 Hushwing Gryff
1 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
[/deck]

I suppose I could run a much lower to the ground version with Seekers and Slashes though.

I got rid of all my Brimaz.

I'm a big fan of the list.

For the old men out there, does anybody want to discuss this?

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30 ... Aggro.html

For those too lazy to click:

[deck=DJDeluxe 2nd Place at Magic Online Daily Event on 4/6/2015]
Creature 19
4 Soulfire Grand Master
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Thunderbreak Regent
4 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos

Spells 16
4 Hordeling Outburst
1 Outpost Siege
3 Roast
4 Draconic Roar
4 Stoke the Flames

Land 25
2 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
2 Evolving Wilds
8 Mountain
5 Plains
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Battlefield Forge

Sideboard 15
2 Wild Slash
2 Valorous Stance
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Roast
3 Erase
2 Outpost Siege
3 Mastery of the Unseen
[/deck]

Their both role players as far as I'm concerned. Neither one replaces the other in any specific circumstance, but each one has its place when deckbuilding. If you choose to go the Dragon/Draconic Roar route, you need to play all four regents plus Stormbreath (obviously), but that leaves little room for Phoenix. If you go more removal heavy, focusing more on a burn style/control-ish route, then Phoenix does a lot of work (especially since you're not going to have a lot of room for a bunch of regents).

Mardu has always been bad.

That's probably where the deck is heading, unfortunately. Previously, RW bridged the gap between Mono Red and Jeskai, but without getting direct help from DTK (along with the others getting a HUGE boost), it's probably time to make a choice between Jeskai or Mono Red. At the risk of displaying what LP calls "old man syndrome," I HAVE considered playing the deck without Chains and using some number of V-Stance in its stead while taking a more Ben Stark approach. With that said, the deck still does have some very powerful cards like Rabble, Seeker, Grand Master, a plethora of Burn, and Stormbreath.

Dromaka's Command is really good against RW.

Although, Twin Bolt does go to the dome. That's a big plus.

You should consider playing twin bolt. I had it in the board of Jeskai tokens and it felt much better then arc lightning ever did.

I considered it and ended up playing Scouring Sands at FNNM. Since the majority of the room was playing Mono Red, Sands certainly over performed.

As for Arc Lightning, you can pry that from my cold, dead hands.

We shall see.

You don't want that many Outpost Siege when you maindeck Dagrons. It is possible to make Chandra a Siege, but the deck really just wants to go hard, gaining small, incemental advantages along the way (especially in the mirror).

The Ben Stark Special is fucking amazing against little aggro decks and Jeskai tokens. Against everything else, the traditional version of RW is solid versus the majority of field, including the Ben Stark deck because it's hardpressed to deal with dragons/fliers game 1.

Man, after looking at the top 8 for the Invitational, I still feel like this is highly relevant:

[deck]RW Aggro[/deck]

Regent is very powerful.

Not at the moment, no. Pretty sure this new set will really shake things up so its probably safe to say I'll just see how the meta shapes up before making any major changes.

Okay, I won the GPT.

I'll let that sink in....





















It took exactly11 beers (thank you, Yuengling ), but I won.


It was the stock list I last posted after Miami. Maindeck dagrons and all that. I went 3-1-1 in the Swiss to make Top 8.

Some notes:

- Dragon became good in the main because it was well positioned due to Wing Mate Rocs and other things. Suddenly, main deck Dragons became extinct after Ben Stark came along. Since then, Dragons aren't expected in Game 1. So they're still well positioned, right? The free wins agree with that.

- Ashcloud Phoenix: My baby, my love, don't ever leave me. You give me strength when I have none. Even in Game 1.

- Abzan Advantage: HOLY FUCKING SHIT! BUSS IT WIDE OPEN! BUSS IT WIDE OPEN!

This was the mirror breaker. My god. It's even great against any Courser deck. Funny story: Polu went monstrous to ping an Ashcloud Phoenix and Abzan Advantage said, "FUCK YO COUCH, NIGGA!" and proceeded to smoke Polu, make opponent lose a Mastery, and then made a pissed-off Phoenix deal 5 damage the following turn.

- Sideboarding: My sideboard is perfect right now. Would not change a thing.

Well....it was perfect for that tournament, at least.

I found that a lot of wins were not just from the "free win" cards like Rabble and Dragon, but from next-leveling opponents postboard. For example, in a lot of Game 2's and 3's, I was taking out EVERY SINGLE ENCHANTMENT IN MY DECK and just trying to strand opponents' Erases and whatnot.

It worked. Very well.

Luck: A little goes a long way. I made Top 4 simply by being paired against a Top 8 player that had to drop. It happens. I refused to lose after that.

The mirror: It's a fucking crapshoot. There, I said it. However, the general rule (and I use that loosely) is to squeeze the most advantage out of your cards than your opponent can get out of their cards. Everything from extra cards from Siege, Phoenix flips, Outburst -> Stoke, Heliod's Pilgrim -> Chains, or Abzan Advantage blowouts greatly increase your chances of winning. But sometimes you just eat shit and die because their haymakers couldn't be answered. And the same goes for them also. It's kill or be killed.

It also doesn't hurt when they draw multiple lands from Sieges.

Never give up, never surrender: I won a few Game 3's today simply because I didn't give in and scoop when all the signs said I should've thrown away the towel. I had a few great running draws and managed to stabilize before mounting a formidable offense.


Anyways, dunno if I'll go actually play in Vegas. It's not "for-sure", but it's something to think about. All I know is that today was a great day to drink beers and tap Mountains.

Glad you like it.

I'm going to go play in a GPT today for Vegas. No expectations going in as I probably won't even go to Vegas, but hey, it's a good day to play some Magic.

It'll have to adapt, yes.

You did.

Big whoop. Wanna fight about it?

In no way do i mean cheating either.

Make your own luck? Lol

LD, sounds like you're having just terrible luck.

With that said, UB can be tricky at times. Mastery + Flyers postboard is my plan. Just jam all the threats.

Rdw can be tough game 1 if you're drawing you're high end spells. You gotta lower the curve as much as you can post board. Arc Lightning helps a lot.

Hell, I've even ran morphed birds out there for chump blockers until i could stabilize.

It's been really good to me so far.

My only issue at my LGS now is that RW is popping up everywhere and I'm getting real sick of the mirrors.

What have you guts been doing vs UB / Sultai control? I've been eating shit.

Throwing Ashcloud Phoenixes and Manifest tokens at them.

they do me so well

Oh baby



Feel free to use whatever list you want.

On a side note, it doesn't look like RW will be getting much help with this new set. I'm okay with this though.

Because the Pilgrim is a body and is good in the mirror for blocking tokens.

In my experience, V stance is better from the board.

I'm not trying to convince you. I'm just sharing what has worked for me.

Also Abzan Advantage in then main is good right now.

Can you please add 1 Dragon's Mantle or Hammerhand for versatility? This would make the pilgrim infinitely better, IMO.

No. Tried it and wasn't needed.

I love that card.

I don't know what that says, but I'll take it as often as I can get.