Pattern Recognition #58 - Red Deck Wins

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

1 March 2018

1542 views

Hello everyone! My name is berryjon, and I am TappedOut.net's resident Old Fogey and part time Smart Ass. I write this series, Pattern Recognition, as a means to entertain, educate and something else that starts with an E. Apparently, that's supposed to be ... checks dictionary ... elucidate, but I'm not sold on that. Oh well, I'll see what's next in my thesaurus for next week.

Soooo today's subject actually came to me from a side comment from the discussion two weeks ago regarding Fetch Lands. On another board, a quick back-and-forth happened that included the lines of:

Sliverlord: * looks down at empty hand and a bin full of red spells. * "I suppose I am playing a different game."
Amphidsf: "Well, that's why Red Deck Wins right?"
Sliverlord: "That and reliable non-basic hate."

So I thought to myself, "Hey, berryjon, you know that mono-red decks have been a thing since the first pack of Alpha was cracked open, and someone saw Lightning Bolt, right? So why not talk about RDW?"

I talked about the issues with mono- all the way back in my fifth article, The Problematic Planeswalker and how the colour suffered from having a poor spread of abilities to choose from.

But not today! Today, I'm going to talk about RED DECK WINS! And why it keeps winning!

First, the archetype. Red Deck Wins (also known as RDW in case I get lazy when typing it) is a type of red aggro deck that runs very low to the ground with a light mana curve that optimizes for cheap creatures, often with Haste and with direct removal in the form of Burn or direct damage spells. They aim for a game lock on turn 4, and a victory by turn 5 or 6 at the latest.

RDW is a deck type that holds nothing back. You are intended to tap out every turn, casting spells to either deal damage, or deal more damage.

There is a ... purity in its design that I admire.

Now, that's what it is, damage to the face, but that's not how it works. Red Deck Wins works because Wizards has installed enough redundancy in to have burn spells in all formats at all times, from Limited to Legacy and Commander.

First, and most importantly, this makes RDW to be one of the first archtypes that I find players discover on their own. Because the cards involved are so ubiquitous, everywhere and omnipresent, new players can make the connection without any sort of suggestions on the parts of older and more experienced players.

So much so, that when I built my training decks when working at my FLGS, the first deck I put in front of a new player was the mono- one. All the card types, and it's interactive at all times. They have fun with it!

Yes, this means that RDW is a simple deck to run, but it's also very complex to build. There are a lot of moving parts in a deck like this, even if most of those parts are aimed at your opponent's face.

Creatures, as I have mentioned, tend toward the high-power, low cost type, often with Haste. Goblin Guide is an excellent example of an RDW card as it is a 2/2 with Haste and a 'drawback' that provides you with information about what cards your opponent has in their hand. Sure, they might get an extra land in their hand, but who cares?

And before Goblin Guide was printed, one relatively cheap card that found its way into these decks was Raging Goblin. I mean, how could you say no to that face? Although perhaps that's just me.

Here, you can see a short list of all sorts of creatures that a RDW deck would want to run. This is my no means exhaustive, but the intent behind the chosen creatures is clear. There can be no delay in striking your opponent.

For instants and sorceries to put into the deck, here is where a small problem emerges. There are just so many options to choose from when you get down to the idea of dealing damage that it's hard to pick and choose something, right?

Well, I, personally, have three standbys when it comes to my RDW decks that I like to keep in mind, and the rest can be up to your personal preference. The first is Lightning Bolt. This classic card has been above-the-curve in terms of damage dealt by cost and by opportunity ever since the game moved out of reprinting Alpha and into regular expansions and printings of new cards. Lightning Bolt has been such a game-defining benchmark that you either wind up with cards like Shock or Searing Spear which are almost-but-not-quite the same degree of efficiency. Fiery Impulse scales up from Shock to Lightning Bolt as the game progresses.

The second option I like isn't a common one ... OK, I lied. It was printed at common. Skred is a surprisingly solid choice when you realize that Snow Permanents include lands, and that Snow-Covered Mountain is a Basic Land and thus you can have more than four of in your deck. And once you hit turn 3, this becomes a Lightning Bolt and on turn 4 or higher, this will allow you to remove a blocker that your normal resources couldn't. Assuming of course, that your only snow permanents are lands.

My third choice is an actual budget purchase! Blaze is one of those glorious spells with in the mana cost, meaning that it gets as big as however much mana you put into it, which I find great as a finisher when the game state has stalled.

Now, I'm serious here. Those are just my three favourite and reliable inclusions. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from picking your own preferences and working with those. You won't be wrong in your choices at all!

Enchantments in this sort of deck are an odd bunch. I can see the inclusion of Consuming Fervor in this archetype as a means to buff your creatures (in addition to Brute Force) because the game shouldn't be running long enough for the downside to matter. Another option would be Furnace of Rath for the endgame, but on the whole, Red Deck Wins tend not to run heavy enchantments as they are a long-term benefit rather than a short term escalation in power and utility. But if you find something worth your while, go for it!

Artifacts and Equipment are one of those love-hate relationships that exits in Magic. On one hand, love Artifacts when they're helpful, yet will also break out the Shattering Pulse to make sure Artifacts go away, and stay away.

On the other hand, Artifacts - especially equipment that are cheap and can boost a creature's power, fit nicely into the deck. And while I love and adore Loxodon Warhammer, it's too slow for most RDW styles, save as a finisher.

Once again, your mileage may vary, but you should always keep Equipment in the back of your mind as they will survive whatever creature they were attached to for the most part.

Planeswalkers are a bit of a conundrum. On one hand, they (and my they, I mean Chandra) are a reliable source of damage that is consistent over time, but on the other hand, are they fast enough? I want to say no, as our Red walkers tend to start with a cost of , and by that point, you need to be setting up your victory, and not putting out a side source of damage or a piece of ablative armor.

But naturally, all this has its problems, and by Urza does Red Deck Wins have problems. The first, and most important is that it is literally burning itself out to try and win the race from 20 to 0. You know why this decks wins by turn 5, or turn 6 at the latest? Because by that point, they have run out of cards in hand, and can no longer replenish them. Topdecking is the bane of this deck's existence because it means that you have lost your aggressive tempo and can no longer act or react properly. This is one of the reasons why I like Blaze and its cohorts - one last Blaze of Glory to push your opponent over the edge with every last bit of mana you got.

Bomat Courier is also a glorious card for RDW, both in being a hasty attacker, but also allowing you to blow it up to replenish your hand when the time comes.

There are also two deck types, that in wide brush strokes, also prove to be problematic for RDW. The first isn't what you would suspect, and that's actually Life Gain. This (with on occasion) supplementary aspect to a deck makes it harder for RDW to get where it wants by moving the goalpost. From 20 to 24 or 32 or even higher! And when you're trying to make a race a specific length, this can prove fatal by forcing the RDW player into top-deck mode when you don't have Hazoret the Fervent out to exploit that state of being.

The other is, as you have probably suspected, control. A player that holds back their first turn to cast Spell Pierce, sure it won't affect your creatures, but it can deal with Lightning Bolt or the like without a problem. But this just gets harder and harder to deal with as the game goes on, and the control player disrupts your ability to attack just enough to force you into a losing state.

Red Decks Win because they are fast, brutal, and utterly devoted to the one thing that lets them win. I've seen it commented, right before Ramunap Ruins got banned in Standard (Seriously?) that RDW's shine mostly when the format is otherwise stable, with each major archetype locked in a rock-paper-scissors network of who beats who.

Then RDW comes through like a cannonball, laying waste to all it surveys, decrying people for being 'cunning' and 'calculating' when it reminds them that all their plans in the world don't matter when their life hits 0.

This is why RDW works, and stays working as a constant archetype. Nothing really changes about it, save for a few tweaks here and there. And its simplicity makes it an easy deck to build for new players, as well as old players who want to run something different without much effort.

And so, unlike last week, when I failed to put together "Jace, the Deck", this week I threw together a RDW deck of my own to show off what it means to run right into your opponent's face at top speed!

Pattern Deck Wins

Modern berryjon

SCORE: 4 | 4 COMMENTS | 267 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Join me next time when I talk about ... something. I haven't thought of a subject yet. Maybe Portal? Maybe not.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream, and you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!