Dies to Removal

It's a big scrumper but still hairy and smelly like any good scrumper should be.

I can't comment on the deck much since I'm not experienced in building and running that sort of build. My initial thought is that you might be a little too top heavy (4, 5, and 6 drops) without any card draw engines to find your win cons in a timely manner. Hordeling Outburst might be useful to buy time and combo with Purphoros, but that too could just be bad.

Good post Lazerburn, I like the creature curve you've got going. I might steal a little of that myself. Be sure to post how Hammerhand is working for you. I can see what you're going for, but I'm skeptical about it.

I was thinking about something like this in the main:

[deck]
Creatures (23)
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Borderland Marauder
4 War-Name Aspirant
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
3 Ashcloud Phoenix

Spells (15)
4 Titan's Strength
3 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the Flames

Land (22)
21 Mountain
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
[/deck]

I like having 16 creatures 2 CMC and below. It gives a good shot at developing enough pressure to punish anyone who putters on lands. Which is proving to be critical for this archetype.

I had to cut Hordeling Outburst, something I'd rather not do. I also took Ashcloud Phoenix down to 3 because I found multiple copies aren't as useful because the card is so mana intensive. The bird plan requires 6 open mana a turn to go off on. 3 might still be too many for most match ups, but I'll need to test more.

I'm conflicted on Magma Jet vs Hordeling Outburst. Jet is pretty weak by itself, but it lets Swiftspears kill Coursers and helps set up my draws. Outburst applies so much pressure and it combos with Stoke the Flames so well. It's easy to cast both cards in a single turn and completely throw a game into your favor on turn 3 or 4.

Took the deck to FNM for a 3-1 finish. Overall I'm not as happy with this version as I was the one I took to the win a box tournament. Thoughts on the changes:

Hordeling Outburst is awesome. I liked playing it every time I did.

Mogis's Warhound + Prophetic Flamespeaker were mediocre. I think the problem with this version of the deck was that I was essentially rocking 14 3 drops. Most of my early turns were mountain, nothing, mountain, nothing. The overall power increase was only so-so as well. I hated not bestowing a warhound and Flamespeaker had me feeling conflicted. I'm debating on what to do with the remaining 6 slots. Do I go back to Swiftspear + Titan's Strength? Or maybe bite the bullet and go Foundry Street Denizen with some other card.

Borderland Marauder was all right. A little more consistent but no built in evasion. Not sure what to make of that.

I still love P-Daddy and his Bling Hammer in the side for control match ups. Those two cards create such a hard to handle board state.

I'm thinking about running something like this tomorrow.

[deck=Look Mommy! My Red Little Scrumper Is Getting Bigger!]
Creatures (22)
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Borderland Marauder
4 Mogis's Warhound
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Prophetic Flamespeaker
4 Ashcloud Phoenix

Spells (16)
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Hordeling Outburst
4 Stoke the Flames

Land (22)
21 Mountain
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Sideboard (15)
4 Arc Lightning
2 Hammer of Purphoros
4 Magma Spray
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2 Purphoros, God of the Forge
2 Stormbreath Dragon
[/deck]

Thought Process:
I'm basing this loosely on the PyroRed strategy from the last rotation where we only ran 4 1 drops. I chose Firedrinker Satyr because by himself he can fight through Sylvan Caryatids. I love Monastery Swiftspear, but without Titan's Strength, she can't beat a turn 2 Sylvan Caryatid. In my mind, Monastery Swiftspear and Titan's Strength are a pair.

With fewer 1 drops, I decided to drop War-Name Aspirant in favor of Borderland Marauder. The Marauder can't kill a Goblin Rabblemaster on defense, but she does fight through Caryatids. The new addition is Mogis's Warhound. It's not really a 2 drop, but a 3 drop bestow. In my last tournament, Goblin Rabblemaster or even a 1 drop with a bestowed Warhound was very hard to deal with.

No Denizen to back up the Hordeling Outburst. I really hate that it's a 1/1 on its own. I could be completely wrong on this. I'm mainly playing it as a red not-as-good spectral procession. I'm iffy on this, but this card single handily blew me out last weak. I'm totally willing to -1 Outburst for +1 Hall of Triumph.

Flamespeaker is there to get big, deal damage, and pseudo draw cards. Also he's the number 1 bestow target for the Warhound.

Sideboard is a bunch of anti-red cards, transformational sideboard plan vs midrange decks, with Purphoros and his hammer for longer, grindier control match ups. That hammer wins me games I have no business winning.

Ok this one. I was thinking about DerViles (he has them in SB).

Also need info about both Purphoros and Ashcloud Phoenix.

I brought in Purphoros in any sort of match up where I thought my opponent was overloaded on removal. He makes all of my creatures into Shock which lets me keep up pressure. His pump effect is also good for finishing up the game when I keep drawing 1 drops and land.

Ashcloud Phoenix is great in longer, grindier match ups. It's amazingly resilient. My second round opponent, the one playing BUG control, told me that he was going to put in more exile effects just for the bird. However, I think I'm going to side them out against other red decks. It's a little on the slow side.

@LP: I can agree that Titan's Strength
was my most sided out card, but it seems necessary if I'm running Swiftspear. Without Titan's Strength there's no way a turn 1 Swiftspear can make it through a Caryatid or Courser. If she can't make it through, then why run her in the first place? If we take both out, then that frees up +8 slots for other cards.

Maybe something like this

[deck]A Little Red Scrumper[/deck]

I went went 5-1 at the win a box tournament last night, splitting for 1st. The store owner makes everyone play it out even if you split

[deck]My Little Red Scrumper[/deck]

Round 1 vs Mardu Control (2-1)
Had mana issues the first round but still almost won on the back of hammer. Game 2 was a shut out and game 3 went long. Phoenix wasn't too hot
here because of seemingly 10,000 exile effects he had.

Round 2 vs Sultai Control (2-0)
He had mana issues the first game and the second game I had them. Phoenix was an all star here. I drew 2 and played around bile blight by casting it for its morph. I flipped it when I went for the kill. Kiora ended up being a bitch this game by "locking" down my bird for awhile.

Round 3 vs BG Dredge Stuff (2-0)
It seems like this guy ported over his dredge deck from last season. These games were pretty open and shut. I killed him game 1 before he played a single spell. Game 2 he played a couple cards and then I blew him out.

Round 4 vs Jeskai Control/Burn/Combo Thing (2-0)
I have no clue what this was. I won handily though.

Round 5 vs Abzan Aggro? (2-0)
I think this was an Abzan aggro/discard list, but I thought it was Abzan midrange at first. Game 1 I curved out and overwhelmed the board with swiftspear/removal/rabblemaster/removal. Game 2, my opponent went a Despite/Brain Maggot game plan,
but ultimately lost because he couldn't deal with the bird. He was pissed that he gave his RabbleRed sideboard to his buddy and didn't have it for me.

Round 6 vs Rabblered (0-2)
I got trounced hard, even post sideboard. He went first and had the initiative from there. 1 drop -> War-Name -> Hordeling Outburst -> Goblin Rabblemaster is a bit too much to handle. I barely drew any of my removal but even if I traded with every creature he had, the little bits and pieces of damage he got me. He showed me his deck list afterward.

[deck]Rabble Red[/deck]

It's pretty close to My Little Red Scrumper. He main boarded searing blood because he thought everyone would be playing red aggro lists. I thought everyone
would be playing Caryatid/Courser decks. We both guessed the meta wrong but ended up in the finals anyway.

Thoughts on the list
- Monastery Swiftspear is one hell of a card, especially in multiples with a burn spell or two. There were several times I had 2 out and a couple burn spells in hand, burn 2, burn 3, swing for 6, game?
- Kiora can be a bitch for this list. This deck doesn't really go wide, but has one or two threats that it rides to game. Sure, rabblemaster makes tokens but I rarely had more than 1 or 2 if I was at parity or behind in a game.
- The list seems soft to other, more aggressive red decks. It could be that I didn't draw well enough, but it didn't keep up with my opponent's red list. Hordeling Outburst is hard to deal with even with 4 Arc Lightning in the side. I'll need to test this out more.

Ya know LP, sometimes, the obvious is so elusive.

For the open slot my buddy made another suggestion that I like, Phyrexian Revoker. Against any sort of planeswalker based deck, this fucks with their strategy pretty hard. It's a lightning rod for removal though and I'm not sure if it would be better than some number of Purphoros and Chandra.

Did some more testing against the BUG list with Chandra and Purphoros.

Chandra is good for digging and getting blockers out of the way, but she didn't take over the game like Purphoros did. She was usually dealt with. Purphoros did better by turning the deck into burn spells. His pump ended up being relevant when closing out a game with 2 or 3 1 drops on the field. I could just force through damage.

The biggest insight I found was on Ashcloud Phoenix. There were a few games I kept lands on top without much gas because I was trying to rush to 6 mana while having no other threats in hand. I ended up losing those games when my opponent 2 for 1'd themselves and I wasn't able to flip. Any sort of flood situation also made my deck much worse. It's a little bit of a nonbo with the bird, but I decided to put +2 Hammer of Purphoros in the main.

The hammer dies to sultai charm unfortunately, but it puts an immense amount
of pressure on the field. During the times I'm flooding out, it gets me 3/3's to fight with. It also gives the bird haste and start swinging in.

Bird and Hammer Playstyle:
I think the best way to use the bird and hammer together is to keep it at either 4 or 6. If you don't have a bird in hand or on the field, but draw a 5th land, sac it. Make the golem and keep up the pressure. Once you do get the bird, stop sacing land until you get to 6. If your opponent deals with the bird, punish them by sacing your land down to 4 again (if you need to). The bird is amazing when it goes off, but the heart of the deck is aggro. Pressure and punishment are how we win.

[deck]My Little Red Scrumper[/deck]

Still not sure what to do with the last slots. Part of me wants to play Purphoros, Chandra, or Prophetic Flamespeaker. Chandra was a bit lackluster in testing, but her ability to remove blockers would be great in those sorts of matches (but isn't that why I'm flying over?) I like that Flamespeaker lets me be even more aggressive in control match ups, but it's hard to find anything to take out for that (Magma Jet?).

@amcfviera The bird is something you need just need to play with. I was skeptical of a 4/1 flier without a haste, but then I went off with it. That bird will completely take over a game. Without 6 mana, your opponent must 2 for 1 themselves to get rid of it. With 6 mana they need to 3 for 1 themselves in a single draw step.

You should read War-Name Aspirant as "1R, 2/1 Creature, War-Name Aspirant cannot be blocked by Sylvan Caryatid." The early game creature selection is based on nullifying the first part of the Caryatid/Courser combo. Eidolon of the Great Revel cannot do that. Altac Bloodseeker has to jump through hoops to do that. If you really hate War-Name Aspirant so much, play Borderland Marauder instead. It'll have 3 power on the attack to kill Caryatids if it's blocked.

I did some testing against a BUG control list with this:

[deck=Livin' The Scrump Life]
Creatures (20)
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 War-Name Aspirant
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Ash-Cloud Phoenix

Spells (18)
4 Titan's Strength
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
2 Arc Lightning
4 Stoke the Flames

Land (22)
20 Mountain
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
[/deck]

The deck did quite well and fought through Caryatid/Courser very well. Arc Lightning and Magma Jet felt like the weakest cards in this match up. 3 mana sorcery speed was mediocre but that's to be expected. It's here to 2 for 1 aggro match ups. Magma Jet was good for fighting through Coursers and setting up draws.

One thing I noticed is that I found myself wanting to find a 4 drop often. Just something to help give the game inevitability when the games went long. For example, if I had to use most of my spells to kill caryatids and coursers
that kept stone walling. Next testing session I'm going to try out -2 Arc Lightning and +2 Purphoros. I like that he turns my 1 drops into shocks and provides another source of pumps. I could also see going -2 Arc Lightning, -1 Magma Jet, for +1 Nykthos, +2 Stormbreath Dragon as another option.

This deck can have some awkward draws, but also some ridiculous ones. This deck can pull out turn 3 kills if you're opponent doesn't have a 1 or 2 drop when you're on the play.

Turn 1: Swiftspear -> 1 damage (19)
Turn 2: Swiftspear -> Titan's Strength -> Prowess Triggers -> 7 damage (12)
Turn 3: Titan's Strength -> Lightning Strike/Titan's Strength -> Prowess Triggers -> 12 damage (0)

It's a nut draw that requires your opponent to stumble, but it's there. Something to be aware of if you're debating about whether to start burning your pumps on damage instead of killing annoying green creatures.