Dies to Removal

Good fuckin job man!!! Way to get fucked up and kick some ass. I bet you won some serious coin.

Was really hating magic lately but this deck has me excited. I get to play with my set of gameday regents =)

Few questions-

How many rounds was the event? What did you play against?

Hows the matchup vs Hangarback abzan?

Thanks. It was 8 rounds and then the Top 8. I played against G/R Dragons twice, Jeskai twice, UW Heroic, Mono Red, and an Abzan Elf Rally deck in the Swiss. Top 8 was Abzan Aggro, Naya Walkers, and Atarka Red.

A Stoke doesn't seem like a bad idea. Still, of the most powerful things you can do is cast Outburst and then a Stoke.

Here's a response I typed out from the reddit thread that may help people asking about the land count in my deck:

"The mana felt right for this deck. I've seen lists before that featured a set of four drops running only 21 land (like the original Red Fliers list from the beginning of Dragons Standard or the old R/g Hellrider lists), but those were terribly inconsistent for me and they always felt like I needed to get lucky hitting the right curve. My rule of thumb is that 21 lands will support 2-3 four drops and 4-6 3 drops, while 22 lands can support 4-5 four drops and 6-7 three drops. However, Ashcloud Phoenix lets you “cheat” those numbers a bit with its morph ability – I've cast that card for 3 mana more times than I care to remember.

What confounds this “21 Land Rule” of mine is Stoke the Flames. The old Mono Red Fliers ran the full set of Stokes and Dragons, and I lost more times with uncast Stokes in my hand than I'd like to admit. Sure, the convoke ability is a great feature, allowing you to cast it at a discount, but at the cost of sometimes not being able to attack with a perfectly good creature. The Pro Tour Red list also has a hard time casting Stoke when it needs to close games out early, especially when the deck has to spend its third turn casting an Exquisite Firecraft, a card that is terrible in the mirror.

With people advocating bringing back the Atarka Red strategies and swarming past the Abzan decks, I was able to make a lot of things click for my deck by playing Hordeling Outburst in the 3 CMC slot. Hordeling Outburst allows the deck to play Stoke for “free”, especially when stuck on 3 lands. The wall of tokens also provide a two-fold benefit in the ground war: it turns Goblin Rabblemaster into a faster clock in the games where you need to close fast, and the tokens allow you block and trade, thus preserving your life total while you can drop a flier to win the game.

Regarding Heelcutter, I cast the card 99% of the time as a three drop. Most of the time, he snuck in for 3 damage when on curve before I dropped a flier, and then locked out a blocker on turn 5 when I went for the big swing. In one game, I did hard cast him late to enable a Rabblemaster knockout, but that game went on very long and I already had a comfortable amount of mana.

Abbot of Kheral Keep, while a great card, always felt kind of clunky to me in large numbers. More often than not, I used him to dig for land when I needed it, which ended up paying off in a few matches. The body is okay most of the time, but Adam nailed it when he said that aggressive X/1's aren't that well positioned right now. I'm okay trading Goblin tokens, but you're usually in a bad spot when you have to trade away an Abbot. But with all that said, Mr. Keep was great in helping me keep my land count low.

The sideboard games do tend to go a little bit longer, which let me play a fourth “true” four drop in Outpost Siege. Since my removal package is beefed up in the aggro matches, I can afford to wait a bit longer to hit my lands.

Ultimately, I wanted to play a deck that was capable of fast, punishing starts that had a solid late game and a plan to use all my mana when I inevitably flooded out in long games. Lightning Berserker (who also enabled me to trigger my Ferocious Flamewakes), Ashcloud Phoenix, Thunderbreak Regent, and Stoke the Flames let me play that game plan out.

Looking back, however, I would definitely like to add another land and the fourth Regent. Thunderbreak was absolutely game changing whenever I cast him. The responses ranged anywhere from “Oh, well, that's a card!” to “Crap, I didn't expect that from you!” The Regent and Phoenix changed combat plans from my opponent and added more pressure in the games where I curved Zurgo into an Eidolon of the Great Revel."

Hey, no problem.

I take it you read the TCG Player article?

Most of it is pretty self explanatory -

2 Magma Spray
1 Scouring Sands
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Outpost Siege

is what you're bringing in against most other aggro decks. I say mostly because Sands is only good against token decks, and I could also use that spot to bring in Smash to Smithereens. What I take out is totally dependent on my position.

3 Flamewake Phoenix
1 Harness by Force
2 Exquisite Firecraft
3 Roast

This is the Green deck/ Abzan midrange package. A lot of what I take out depends on the exact matchup and my position, but the Phoenixes are straight swaps for the Hordeling Outbursts every time.

The only thing that I can think of changing is adding the 4th Thunderbreak and a 22nd Mountain, since sticking a Regent was clutch every time. I can't decide what I'd want to take out, but I may start with the Titan's Strength.

Shawn's Jeskai deck is really solid and it's his own original design. I'd like to make a few tweaks to it, should I ever decide to play it. But on the other hand, I still like bashing face with a Zurgo -> Eidolon curve, so who knows?

Hordeling Outburst is terrible against the big dumb green decks, so my plan is to just fly over them.

So I got drunk and won a TCG Player 5K yesterday with this pile:

[deck]Mono Red Scrumper Khaos Deck Wins v2.1[/deck]

You serious?

This is the list I'm currently playing, if anyone cares. Just thought I'd share, as I've finally cobbled something together that works for me and my playstyle. Plus, I get to play all my favorite cards.

[deck]Mono Red Scrumper Khaos Deck Wins v2.0[/deck]

It reminds of my old "Khaos Deck Wins" from a few years back or even the "Mono Red Scrumper" from post-rotation - just play a lot of threats, backed by adequate removal, and then change playstyles accordingly.