Dies to Removal

I'm just sharing the awesomeness, I'm hardly the first to think of using it. I was skeptical of it myself for awhile until I decided to jam it in place of Domris and go to town to believe.

after losing to a BUG vampire nighthawk+runechanter pike deck last night (being unable to find a spear)... I think I may be having a 180 on Mizzium mortars as a card. I had pyreheart out, but I wasn't able to race the life gain.

I got to thinking, maybe I've just been doing too many cute things for red. Maybe red just needs to burn shit out of the way and keep up pressure while lightning things on fire.

Then after FNM was done this kid wanted to trade Domri Rade for 2 lightning maulers.... I felt pretty dirty but I made sure he understood he was getting shafted. He said he wanted them that badly and couldn't find them, so I went for it.

I adjusted the main deck for -2 LM and changed the SB up:

[deck]More Burn less Cute[/deck]

Pretty standard everything, with gruul charm for the Junk crats+Midrange tech. Rancors over madcap skills just for my meta

I figure with game day its time to streamline things more and just have more disruptive burn for all the combo crap people are gonna want to try and pull off.

Ranger's guile not so good against esper's sacrifice effects I'm finding in today's testing. Damn it Domri... stop calling my name.... I WANT TO RANGERS GUILE SOME PUNKS MOTHER FUCKIN WARLEADERS HELIX YOU HEAR ME

Is 4 boars and 2 maulers enough BTE fodder? My build has 12 BTE-friendly spells and I think that's what we really have to take advantage up. There definitely is some merit to a build with a bunch of 1-drops to chain off of BTE too, but I think we need to focus on one mindset!

I consider rancors pillars and spear to be BTE fodder, with the Rancor+Pillar awesomeness draw available again.

TBH I should just take out the 4 LMs from my earlier build (since I don't own 4 anymore) and go with the 4 firefist striker build. He's actually pretty good in the mirror to get around reckoners and boars

First time poster. Ran some games against esper sac effects were tough for me as well. I think Domri is kind of fool's gold, personally. You probably want to consistently play threats early and mid game. By the time you want to lean on him in the mid game the game should be prett much decided. I want a proactive answer to their spot removal. Guile has been less than stellar post board for you? What other cards are there?

I'm going to try this until new cards come in.

[deck]Lands (21)
4x Stomping Ground
4x Rootbound Craig
2x Temple Garden
12x Mountains

Creatures (27)
4x Rakdos Cackler
4x Stromkirk Noble
4x Burning-Tree Emissary
4x Flinthoof Boar
4x Boros Reckoner
4x Ghor-Clan Rampager
3x Hellrider

Spells (12)
4x Pillar of Flame
4x Searing Spear
4x Madcap Skills

Sideboard (15)
2x Domri Rade
2x Burning Earth
2x Blasphemous Act
3x Mizzium Mortars
4x Volcanic Strength
2x Skullcrack[/deck]

First time poster. Ran some games against esper sac effects were tough for me as well. I think Domri is kind of fool's gold, personally. You probably want to consistently play threats early and mid game. By the time you want to lean on him in the mid game the game should be prett much decided. I want a proactive answer to their spot removal. Guile has been less than stellar post board for you? What other cards are there?

Guile has been good to me, even against esper. It just happened to be a game in which the Esper player had two far//aways and used the away side on back to back turns to keep my board clear and I had a Guile in hand that was useless.

I still believe guile is better in line with our game plan, it was just an outlier sort of game
that was trying to convince me to be results oriented.

First time poster. Ran some games against esper sac effects were tough for me as well. I think Domri is kind of fool's gold, personally. You probably want to consistently play threats early and mid game. By the time you want to lean on him in the mid game the game should be prett much decided. I want a proactive answer to their spot removal. Guile has been less than stellar post board for you? What other cards are there?

Guile has been good to me, even against esper. It just happened to be a game in which the Esper player had two far//aways and used the away side on back to back turns to
keep my board clear and I had a Guile in hand that was useless.

I still believe guile is better in line with our game plan, it was just an outlier sort of game that was trying to convince me to be results oriented.

Definitely an outlier. I used Guile many times against Esper using both sides of Far / Away and it was big game.

Thats' a lot of dead cards to have against control, Johnny (4 pillars 4 madcaps), and no 4 hellriders or any LM to make it strong. Is that archetype not a problem for you? Maybe I'm the one thats overpreparing for it (rancors and LM rather than madcaps which are insane against any and all midrange decks)

I'd go -1 pillar -1 madcap +1 mountain +1 hellrider. I also (from limited testing) believe burning earth is pretty friggin house. I'd want at least 3 copies in the SB and it definitely closes a game out faster than domri can (by making them literally unable to act, whereas they can interact with domri).

Thats' a lot of dead cards to have against control, Johnny (4 pillars 4 madcaps), and no 4 hellriders or any LM to make it strong. Is that archetype not a problem for you? Maybe I'm the one thats overpreparing for it (rancors and LM rather than madcaps which are insane against any and all midrange decks)

I'd go -1 pillar -1 madcap +1 mountain +1 hellrider. I also (from limited testing) believe burning earth is pretty friggin house. I'd want at least 3 copies in the SB and it definitely closes a game out faster than domri can (by making them literally unable to act, whereas they can interact with domri).

Was only able to get 2x burning earth at the release.

VS control, the plan is -4 Pillar, -4 MCS, +2 Burning Earth, +2 Skullcrack, +2
Mizzium Mortars, +2 Domri.

I feel like that gives you a tonne of game against them.

Here's what I'm running at at a tcg bronze event:

[deck]
Lands:
10 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Temple Garden

Creatures:
4 Rackdos Cackler
4 Stormkirk Noble
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Hellrider

Spells:
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Madcap Skills
4 Searing Spear

Sideboard:
3 Elecktrickery
3 Skullcrack
3 Volcanic Strenght
2 Blasphemous Act
2 Mark of Mutiny
2 Mizzium Mortars
[/deck]

14th isn't legal since its tomorrow. I'm thinking of -1 Kessig -2 Madcap +3 mutavault main and running 2 oozes in the board once 14 rotates in. For now I'm thinking of dropping the acts for guiles tomorrow. No idea what the meta is like.

As promised, I have streamed the two Zealous Conscripts matches I mentioned a few days ago. The second game is a little controversial because I could have pinged one of my own guys and gone for the win but I decided to play conservatively since I had Boar in hand for next turn and I didn't want to get ruined by Izzet Charm. Would you have gone for it?

http://www.twitch.tv/valdarith/c/2586936

Looking forward to see those games.

Anyway, just for the sake of asking, do you guys feel like we're getting anything cool from M14?
I'm thinking of the Mindsparker (I didn't manage to get any -_-), Burning Earth, MAYBE Chandra.
Witchstalker is double G, the Ooze is probably too green intensive as well.

Here's what I'm running at at a tcg bronze event:

[deck]
Lands:
10 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Temple Garden

Creatures:
4 Rackdos Cackler
4 Stormkirk Noble
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Hellrider

Spells:
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Madcap Skills
4 Searing Spear

Sideboard:
3 Elecktrickery
3 Skullcrack
3 Volcanic Strenght
2 Blasphemous Act
2 Mark of Mutiny
2 Mizzium Mortars
[/deck]

I'm not sure Kessig Wolf Run is worth it with only 20 lands. And why Mark of Mutiny instead of Traitorous Blood? Is the extra +1/+1 more important than Trample? Apart from that, the deck looks decent.

Looking forward to see those games.

Anyway, just for the sake of asking, do you guys feel like we're getting anything cool from M14?
I'm thinking of the Mindsparker (I didn't manage to get any -_-), Burning Earth, MAYBE Chandra.
Witchstalker is double G, the Ooze is probably too green intensive as well.

I don't know, wasn't too impressed with M14 when it comes to this Gruul variant. Ooze maybe as a SB card. Apart from that, I'm only considering Goblin Shortcutters. The only cards I pre-ordered were red cards, I think there's more potential in all red decks after M14 than before. I'll continue to play with my Gruul deck until the October rotation, but after that it depends on what Theros offers (or perhaps there's some untapped power in
the Ravnica-block).

Yeah, I forgot about Shortcutters.

As promised, I have streamed the two Zealous Conscripts matches I mentioned a few days ago. The second game is a little controversial because I could have pinged one of my own guys and gone for the win but I decided to play conservatively since I had Boar in hand for next turn and I didn't want to get ruined by Izzet Charm. Would you have gone for it?

http://www.twitch.tv/valdarith/c/2586936

I've seen the games, I would have probably pinged the Hounds without even thinking of Izzet Charm, but I recognize that if you were in fear of that card you've done well playing that way.

As promised, I have streamed the two Zealous Conscripts matches I mentioned a few days ago. The second game is a little controversial because I could have pinged one of my own guys and gone for the win but I decided to play conservatively since I had Boar in hand for next turn and I didn't want to get ruined by Izzet Charm. Would you have gone for it?

http://www.twitch.tv/valdarith/c/2586936

I've seen the games, I would have probably pinged the Hounds without even thinking of Izzet
Charm, but I recognize that if you were in fear of that card you've done well playing that way.

Yeah, I was basically hedging at that point. I felt if he did have the Izzet Charm it could lead to a loss on my part, whereas if I just clutched the Boar for next turn there was basically nothing he could do to win. It was just one of those times where I kept asking myself "How can I lose this game?"

Went 3-2 at the event. Got some really finnicky hands. 3 separate games I mulled a no land hand into a 1 land keeper with gas on the draw and missed the land drop on turns 2 and 3. I win at least two of those if I make my turn 2 land drop. Made a *bad* misplay against Bant Hexproof when I misunderstood how soulbond works (I hadn't played Magic except for the occasional casual game in ~4 years). Then I had another 2 games where I had a 1:1 spell to land ratio (one of which I managed to win anyway because my opponent had an equally hideous draw). So in 11 total games I had maybe 5 or 6 games with a very abnormal distribution of lands. Boarded in Mortars and Electrickeries and Acts in 2 different matches but never saw any so it's hard to say how effective they are. Post 14 I'm thinking of running 4 Mutavault and adding Hellkites and Oozes to the board.

[deck]
Lands: 22
8 Mountain
4 Mutavault
4 Stomping Ground
4
Rootbound Crag
2 Temple Garden

Creatures: 28
4 Rackdos Cackler
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Hellrider

Spells: 10
4 Searing Spear
3 Madcap Skills
3 Pillar of Flame

Sideboard:
3 Electrickery
3 Skullcrack
3 Volcanic Strenght
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Thundermaw Hellkite
[/deck]

Dunno how mutavault and reckoner mesh together. I remember it being hideous when my gf tried to run 3 reckoners and just a single swamp... those swamp games were just abysmal. With 4 mutavaults id imagine its even worse.


I went back to the "fuck it, race me" plan after being horrible with mortars in a mirror match. I played scared of VS and mortars his shit instead of building my board, and just got killed anyway because haste.

I'm back on the "sure you can VS shit, I will too and the race is on" plan.


Its meaningless since tomorrow m14 will be legal, but I don't think I'm going to change my deck that much. If anything I'll switch over to Zeman's mono red when I grab onto 4 mutavaults, but for now:

[deck]Race me[/deck]

ranger's guile will become burning earth'sx4 probably (and probably -1 fog).
n
I especially like the interaction between Blast act and fog, at least in theory. I seem to always run into Blitz players against tournies and that actually IS my scariest MU imo. Now you can fog for a few turns, blast act their bullshit battalion. Obviously gets much worse if they have boros charm, but its more of 1-game blowout tech vs their nuts. Also is nice vs. Junkcrats and the Naya players that try to race you (as opposed to those that board in like 6 removal spells, orings and shit)


Scavenging Ooze as tech vs. Rites? ehhhhhhhhh. it just seems slow, especially since we're red based and at best can hope for 1 green source a game. It will take 5 turns for an ooze to be able to fight a thragtusk and live, and if he's double blocked gg. Any later and it just ends up being hardcast AoS mana. I'll still be on the traitorous blood plan myself, PROBABLY with some burning earths thrown just to fuck em up.

I honestly don't see M14 affection our deck at all. I want to try out Chandra's
Phoenix+Rancor but there's barely enough room as is. You'd have to make your MB really weak to Mutavault Red, so you might as well just play muta red IMO. the advantage we have over them is reckoners, so the deck really can't change much (can't replace reckoner with chandra, don't have enough burn support anyway)

If anything I might go back to Saito's list with Ash Zealots just BECAUSE of mutavault, aka go more defensive with this deck. This will do double time against snapcaster+doom blade lists bound to come up. Rancor+Ash Zealot again? Rancor is also great against Jund which are gonna be out in full Scavenging ooze+doom blade force.


Yeah might go back to ash zealots. Or just keep playing LM till he rotates because Lightning Mauler.

Mutavault seems bad in our deck as anything other then like, the 21'st-3'rd lands or something. Ooze seems similarly bad for the reasons you mentioned. Of course I could be totally wrong here as it's an absurdly powerful card and is good in the mirror.

Yeah, I hadn't really thought of how the Reckoner would interact with the Mutavaults. The idea is/was to have more threats while working around mana flooding and being able to bring in hellkites from the board. I'd be more receptive to the idea of Zealots if it was run more recently in decks that are top 8'ing. Seems like the consensus is on Madcap Skills or Firefist Striker.

Post rotation, I guess the big question is to get back to the fundamental question of of what advantages a manabase like this gives you. There are a lot of versions of burn-based aggressive decks that curve out super low. I'm not an expert by any means on the differences, but it seems like there's a core set of cards to build around in red and then secondary colors that have certain advantages to support them. For this type of deck, it seems like the the green is there primarily to be able to run Ghor-Clan Rampager and also Flinthoof Boar. Light
enough that it's a splash. Burning Earth seems like a good reason to keep the mana base simple. The Ooze seems like another good reason to have green in there at the levels for this deck.

If you want to run mutavault, you could play mindsparker or pheonix over reckoner.

Ooze is probably a 1-of maindeck; you can't support THAT mana green cards and it's definitely mana intensive.

No way you can run Mutavault before you're on 21 land.

Stay away from the Ooze, it's a trap.
Mutavaults are good battalion enablers... too bad that the only battalion guy we could be playing (Firefist Striker) is pretty much already obsolete.
Playing strong cards is good and whatever, but I guess we should try to focus on what we're trying to do - playing 2 Temple Gardens in order to cast Reckoners on curve while increasing the green sources doesn't work well with adding colorless lands.

Now, for something completely different:
I've reduced my lands to 21 in order to have 1 more Pillar in my main deck, then proceded to cut things from the sideboard.

Today I'll play with this sideboard:
[deck]
SB:
3 Traitorious Blood
3 Pyreheart Wolf
3 Volcanic Strength
3 Skullcrack
3 Mizzium Mortars
[/deck]

I'm thinking of switching wolves with Shortcutters as they can be quite quicker, and I guess I'll take out Skullcracks for Burning Earth as soon as I get at least
another copy (I've got only one so far).

Ooze doesn't put any unnecessary strains on the mana as a 1-of. Firefist isn't obsolete per say, people are just orgasaming over mad-cap skills because it's fun to win games of constructed with limited powerhouses.

RE: Mutavault

I think you can play 2 if with this base:

[deck]4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
2 Temple Garden
10 Mountain
2 Mutavault[/deck]

Overall, this doesn't really weaken your mana base as you still have 18 red sources which is what AIR runs on and the 20 lands are what fate was jamming for a while anyways.

Ooze doesn't put any unnecessary strains on the mana as a 1-of. Firefist isn't obsolete per say, people are just orgasaming over mad-cap skills because it's fun to win games of constructed with limited powerhouses.

RE: Mutavault

I think you can play 2 if with this base:

[deck]4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
2 Temple Garden
10 Mountain
2 Mutavault[/deck]

Overall, this doesn't really weaken your mana base as you still have 18 red sources which is what AIR runs on and the 20 lands are what fate was jamming for a while anyways.

I'm not sure that a single Ooze does effectively help out in any way.
Still, I recognize that it's more a "might work under the right circumstances" card rather than a "stay
the hell away from this".

Also, I've got to admit that I'm just being too harsh with my opinions.

LP beat me to it. Firefist is still more solid for the effect, and if they see any MB removal (lets say, selesnya charm, mortars, abrupt decay, fiend hunter etc. for the decks madcap is best against) or if you're vs. Jund/control, Firefist is much better as its less investment in cards.

Also for those playable hands that dont have a 1-drop, but have BTE, BTE+Firefist is pretty much hella better than BTE into Madcap on itself or bte into nothing and chill...

23 lands, 2 mutas with 2 helllkites in the board or something is pretty appealing, might be the way to go. I'd probably cut just 1 reckoner for consistencies sake then?

[deck]Muta Smash[/deck]

I'm not playing Skills, though
I'll post later, as I'm having a draft in minutes from now...

I mean LM beats the pants off both of them IMO but if we're talkin just firefist vs. madcap firefist isnt obsolete.

Then again I'd imagine I'd feel quite a bit different if I played against voice Naya even once a night...

T2 I still prefer BTE into Madcap on 1-drop, swing rather than BTE into Firefirst, swing 1-drop. The immediacy of the effect and the demand for an instant-speed answer on your T2 wins out over giving them a full turn to answer Firefist in my opinion. Others have said it, but just connecting once with Cackler+Madcap is worth it - I'm ok if it only connects once and then is removed.

Of course, BTE into LM swing with 3 dudes is still preferable to both imo.

LP beat me to it. Firefist is still more solid for the effect, and if they see any MB removal (lets say, selesnya charm, mortars, abrupt decay, fiend hunter etc. for the decks madcap is best against) or if you're vs. Jund/control, Firefist is much better as its less investment in cards.

Also for those playable hands that dont have a 1-drop, but have BTE, BTE+Firefist is pretty much hella better than BTE into Madcap on itself or bte into nothing and chill...

23 lands, 2 mutas with 2 helllkites in the board or something is pretty appealing, might be the way to go. I'd probably cut just 1 reckoner for consistencies sake then?

[deck]Muta Smash[/deck]

That list is...almost exactly what I want to be doing. In the main, I'd go with a mauler/firefist split as I don't always want one or the other. In the board, I'd change stuff, but I like the thundermaw/mutavault/burning earth plan against midrange and control.

Well, I'm basically playing Fate's Muta Smash deck, only without Mutavaults, LM in place of Firefist Strikers and 4 Reckoners (21 lands).

I just don't feel like Firefist Striker does enough for me, but my meta is probably more control-based than yours.

Lost to the black control deck for the third week in a row. It gets a lot stronger with M14. How do you beat that deck?

Fates new list has a lot of play vs. it. Mutavault and Thundermaw out of the board help a lot. Still not the greatest matchup, but it gets better.

So how is everyone doing post M14? Seems like this deck is not being played very heavily lately in live tournaments. Do we think it's because red based aggro decks are not positioned well in the current metagame with so many spot removal heavy decks running around, or is it just being under played lately? I personally still feel the splash of green for Boars and Ghor Clans is still worth it. I had an opportunity to go X-1 in my last FNM but I made a play mistake on a mull to five in game 3 and that was all she wrote against U/W/R flash. I kept a 2x Rootbound Crag + Stormkirk + Boar + Reckoner 5 card hand. I ripped a mountain off the top and played my Boar instead of the Stormkirk. I got my opponent down to 3 before he stabilized and beat me. If I'd had the Noble out a turn earlier, I probably get an extra 3 damage in before he stabilizes.

I think I'm definitely just breaking down and adding a 21st land in Mountain to the
deck. Once again I kept a 1 land hand on the draw (Stomping Ground + 3x BTE + Boar + Stormkirk + Reckoner) and then proceeded to miss 5 straight land drops after turn 1.

Here's what I'll be sleeving up in my last attempt to make this deck work:

[deck]

Lands (21):
11 Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden

Creatures (28):
4 Rackdos Cackler
4 Stormkirk Noble
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Hellrider

Spells (11):
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
3 Madcap Skills
[/deck]

No idea what to run in the sideboard. I want 3 Burning Earth and 4 Skullcrack (a lot of Thragtusks and Sphinx's Revelations running around for me), and then I really don't know. I've been running Volcanic Strength and it's been great, but I'm almost always just boarding it in to replace Madcap Skills rather than increasing my vulnerability to being 2 for 1'd by having more than 4 auras. Elecktrickery has a place as well because it's
pretty versatile: It's good against Elves, B/W tokens, Aristocrats, heck even Naya Midrange and some variants of other aggro, especially on the draw when you aren't necessarily playing the aggressor. I'm thinking something like:

[deck]Sideboard[/deck]

Or maybe just go 3/3/3/3/3 on those guys. I think racing with Fog is probably the best bet against Jund and Naya Midrange rather than anything else. Or I could run Ranger's Guile instead of the Elecktrickery and sit back on Volcanic Strength and Fog in the aggro match ups instead.

The fact that its not being played heavily is a pretty big boon. Jund is dropping all its pillars because they suck in the mirror and that means even easier time for us.

I wouldn't ever bring in fog against Jund, >_>

I still think Firefist striker, hellkites in the SB with mutavaults is the best way to position yourself in this meta. Elecktrikeries sound important too because lol at losing to elves

Is it just me or does Naturalize seem like a better sideboard card than Fog? Fog only works once whereas destroying an Unflinching Courage stops the lifegain permanently.