This is Skred Dragons and my first attempt to make a more competitive modern deck.
I'm still fairly new to the game but have played at my LGS a couple of times now, so these are my first impression with the deck. This description and list might very well change over the course of many FNM, but here we go.
Skred Red started out as an idea of having mono-red control deck, that could utilize card's such as
Blood Moon
,
Koth of the Hammer
, Anger of Gods,
Eternal Scourge
and
Skred
. This was the foundation of creating this mono-red control deck called Skred Red. This deck, however, has moved more and more away from that, with the addition of red cards that synergize with dragons, thus creating Skred Dragons. Skred Red started out with having usually 2 copies of
Stormbreath Dragon
as a big thread that could evade
Path to Exile
, but no other dragons.
In the more renewed decklist of Skred Dragons, you'll often find 4
Glorybringer
, 2
Stormbreath Dragon
and 4
Thunderbreak Regent
, giving us a much more creature heavy, control deck that synergizes well together. The reason as for why you'll see 3 Stormbreath Dragons and 2
Glorybringer
in this list is that there is not a lot of targets for Glorybringer's exhaust ability at my LGS, and moreover a lot of white decks is being played, which means a lot of
Path to Exile
.
Gameplay:
Skred Dragons are walking a thin line between reactive and proactive gameplay. Skred Dragons, wants to be able to put, hopefully a planeswalker, or any sort of threat on the board as quickly as possible, and remove the opponents threats, lock the opponent out by playing
Blood Moon
asap or simply deal with the specific deck's strategy with the help of the many hate cards this deck plays. This can be tricky since, you more often than not, completely tap out to get your threats out, which gives no room for removal.
Card choices:
Mana Acceleration:
This is a deck that offers a lot of mana acceleration in a few different ways. This is crucial as we want to put out high CMC threats asap, as well as remove the enemies.
Sarkhan, Fireblood
The reason for this deck's come about is among other things, the M19 Planeswalker
Sarkhan, Fireblood
.
Sarkhan allows us to start rummaging very early and help us dig for answers to whatever you are playing against. Other than that he gives us mana accelerate very early, that helps our dragon entering the board and threatening the opponent very early.
Simian Spirit Guide
Simian spirit is a great card since there are many 3 CMC threats in this deck. An early planeswalker can be very dominant, since the opponent will most often, not be able to deal with it. A turn 2 either, Chandra or Sarkhan, or Blood Moon is not unlikely to happen every few games, and it can snowball very hard. The thing with planeswalker is that they more often generate cumulative value instead of one big effect in that very instant. More than that, a planeswalker loyalty counter will usually grow bigger and bigger, if not dealt with immediately. This means that if a planeswalker cannot be dealt with, within the first 3 turns of it staying on the battlefield, you'll have gained an insane amount of value. Same goes for cards such as
Blood Moon
, that can make an opponent scoop as early as turn 1, due to no answer and the lands in their hand.
Simian Spirit Guide
is great for these plays to happen, which is why we run them.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Chandra is both mana acceleration and card draw in one card, and when dropped she'll often have 5 loyalty counters on your turn, which makes her difficult to deal with. Her ultimate is once again a win within very few turns.
Mind Stone
Upon more experience, I decided to put Mind Stone in as a replacement for Dragon's Hoard. This has had to be my best decision thus far with this deck since Mind Stone fills that 2 CMC spot, that this deck needed and has utility greater than Dragon's Hoard. Moreover, people very rarely decide to remove or counter Mind Stone, where Dragon's Hoard often would. Mind Stones usually stick on the board until you decide for it to get removed, and often help us leave that one mana open for either Skred or Lightning Bolt.
Removal:
This deck is fairly removal heavy since we play mono-red control. Mono-red control is forced to deal with the opponent's threats with the use of direct removal, since doesn't offer many other cantrips to make sure to keep your opponent at bay.
Lightning Bolt
is very self-explanatory. It's one of the best removal spells in the game for a single red mana and can ping any target for 3 damage. The reason we're only running 3 in this deck, is because of the addition of that many other removal spells, that each plays their part. Lightning Bolt is best early when you can kill a creature for only a single red mana.
Skred
is the name of the deck for a reason. Skred is one of the best examples of cumulative value, that there are. Opponents play a Bird of Paradise or Noblbe Hierarch turn 1, you can kill it with Skred. Opponent plays a
Mantis Rider
turn 3 or 4, you can kill it with Skred. Opponent plays any creature turn 12, you can kill it. Skred is perfect in this control deck since you more than often can kill any creature in play with it, for only a single mana.
Anger of the Gods
is probably the best 3 mana removal that red offers, and especially in this current meta, with decks that suffer a huge disadvantage when creatures are exiled. Apart from that, all of our creatures evades the 3 damage, which makes sure not to hurt yourself in the process of clearing the opponent's board, despite you having creatures in play.
Card advantage:
Card advantage is not the name of the game when we talk about mono-red. Despite that, this deck offers quite a lot of ways to draw cards, but some of them have requirements for it to work.
Scrying Sheets
is perfect in this deck, because of the Snow-covered theme. Scrying sheets can many times be a card draw for 3 mana since we have 22 different snow covered permanents.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
is a great card draw for this deck. If the exiled card is not usable at the given time or simply not worth to play, you still get to give 2 damage to the opponent.
Sarkhan, Fireblood
is interesting, since we often sit with few cards in hand, because of all the low CMC cost removal and mana accelerators such as Simian spirit guide. This is one of the reasons why rummage ability is great since it's very important to have the right cards at the right time. If you then happen to draw the 6th or 7th land, you will have the ability to get a new and possibly more useful card.
Threats:
Thunderbreak Regent
is one of my favorite cards. It's a decent body for 4 mana, has flying and can be problematic to remove. Moreover, if you happen to get two down on the battlefield at the same time, you need not to do much more than keep attacking for 8 every turn, and if they target any dragon, they'll get shocked for 6.
Stormbreath Dragon
is also a great card. Its body is once again decent, it has flying so it's hard to block, it has haste which means it's a threat as soon as it hits the board and most importantly in my LGS it has protection from white. Stormbreath dragon has proved superior to Glorybringer every time I play at my LGS. Other than that it has Monterous 3, which is not a strong keyword since it cost 7 mana to activate, but it seems often forgotten, by the opponent, which can lead to some neat cantrip kills.
Glorybringer
is another 4/4 flying with haste for mana, tho with a very different effect. Glorybringer's exhaust ability can be a great tool against some opponents but have not seen much success at my LGS. Despite that, it's mere body and threat is again, nothing to scoff at.
Disruption:
We have one extremely important tool here, that is part of the bread and butter of this deck.
Blood Moon
can be a card so powerful that it can win the game itself, against the right opponent. Yes it can also be useless against some, but when it's not it can make the opponent scoop the very game it is played.
Sideboard:
Relic of Progenitus
is a great card in this current meta. There is a lot of graveyard synergy going on with some of the most popular decks, such as Dredge, Phoenix, Drakes, Grixis Death Shadow, and Grixis Control. Relic can be very strong against these decks since some of them simply rely on the graveyard itself. It is also great against decks that run 3-4
Snapcaster Mage
. But even with that said, there's not a lot of that going on in the meta at my LGS at the moment, so they are in the sideboard for now, but could easily make it into the mainboard, if the meta changed.
Molten Rain
is a great card, that can help you lockout opponents that rely heavily on specific lands, such as Tron, or any deck that runs 3,4 and 5 colors. This is also a great prison card, if you have
Blood Moon
out on the board since you can start destroying opponents basic lands, only offering them red mana.
Dragon's Claw
is a way to deal with any sort of burn deck. Moreover the deck synergizes as well, with our mono-red deck.
Shattering Spree
is straight up artifact hate, against any deck that plays them.
Guttural Response
is often a cantrip against counters, and I've included it because U/W control is heavily played at my LGS.
Ratchet Bomb
offers enchantment removal among other things, but especially enchantments, since mono-red does not have a way to deal with any enchantments.
Anger of the Gods
is included as a third, for those creature heavy "go wide" strategies.
