Big red politics (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Big red politics

Commander / EDH

durahan

Artifact (24)

Planeswalker (4)

Creature (16)

Sorcery (10)

Instant (4)

Commander (1)

Land (36)

Enchantment (5)

Maybeboard

Creature (5)

Artifact (4)

Sorcery (1)

1x Disrupt Decorum

Do you like sitting back and letting your opponents fight each other? Do you like playing politics and pulling the strings of what people are doing? Do you like control but don't like blue? Do you like to see people get got by things they don't expect? Do you like playing big spells and making impactful plays? Do you like your turns to be relatively short?

Then do I have the deck for you!

This is my personal favorite deck, if you said yes to all of the above questions then this would probably pique your interest. As a personal note about my meta, the decks are incredibly varied from relatively casual players who just have altered precon EDH decks to 75% decks that use quite a bit of tutors, disruption, and combos that go off on turn 6 or so. This deck is certainly more on the casual end and requires a lot of durdling around; the goal of this deck is not to win, but to have fun by making big plays and enabling opponents to do stupid things. This is a relatively slow deck, and for the first half of a game you'll probably just be sitting back ramping and letting people doing their thing and occasionally tapping diaochan. If you get focused on by an aggressive deck, there's not much you but take it in the early game or ask for help to be payed back with favors down the line. The deck does interesting stuff with lots of mana, but making infinite mana to just win the game is not the end goal even though it's possible in the deck, which is why I've only got one tutor in the deck in the form of Planar Portal. The combo pieces of Reiterate + Mana Geyser are not a consistent way of making infinite mana because they also play other functions in the deck for when I don't go infinite.

Now let's get down to why this deck is a riot.

Big Mana for Big things

There are quite a few mana rocks in here, but aside from that I try to put in as much land ramp and search as possible since you want to be hitting your land drops each turn. oftentimes I will be matching a green player in mana because of how much ramp there is in this deck.

Hit that big mana

You want to hit your lands every turn if possible, to aid in that there is a bunch of cards that search up lands, some put them into play as well to ramp you ahead.

Land tutors:

There are several mana flare effects in the game which is pretty important as the deck is pretty mana intensive even though there is only 3 X-spells in the deck. The cards you want to look out for are the following and you want to get them out as soon as possible:

And of course we have some rituals one shot mana rituals: Koth of the Hammer, Mana Geyser.

Payoffs

Now that we have lots of mana, let's do something with it!

Any 6+ CMC card in the deck is a payoff really, but let's go over their inclusion in the deck.

Bearer of the Heavens :Bearer of the heavens is always a riot when I drop it. It makes people double take when they realize it destroys ALL permanents including their lands. It holds the board hostage unless they have an exile or counter effect. Dissuades people from coming my way or I pop it with diaochan or a Trading Post

Colossus of Akros :This card perfectly encapsulates this deck, it sits back and blocks, but it has the potential 20/20 trampler making people sweat. It's indestructible making it basically not worth targeting for diaochan's ability and does not paint a target on my head.

Malignus :This card is a big threat when it comes down, a 20/20 on turn 4 or 5 is scary. More than once people have forgotten about it's damage being unpreventable. Don't be afraid to just give up on this though as it is in the end just a big beater.

Soul of New Phyrexia :This is one of the biggest reasons why we want so much mana. Makes Diaochan much more potent as all of your targets are unprofitable as they are indestructible. It also saves your board from wipes, and combos perfectly with Bearer of the Heavens above. It slives, it dices, it does everything this deck needs.

Batterskull :The name of the game for creatures is bad diaochan targets that are also impactful, and boy is batter skull impactful, give Jaya Ballard, Task Mage lifelink and wipe the board to gain a lot of life or just as a recurring blocker.

Walking Ballista :this slot used to be for Kumano, Master Yamabushi, still testing this one out. Either way it is a big mana sink for direct damage to opponents or their stuff. If you ever get infinite mana, this or a big devil's play wins you the game.

Insurrection Simple to understand, usually wins the game on the spot, or at least kills someone.

Playing the political game

I very much ascribe to Rachmiel's view of politics in EDH as laid out in his Tariel Deck. This deck gives opponents lots of choices, through diaochan's ability, giving opponents cards with temple bell effects, and mana; it plays somewhat like a group hug deck, going after you would limit their choices, maybe they need diaochan to get rid of big dudes, or they're counting on your extra mana, or perhaps you are just not a threat with most of the game just having a mana 1/1 on the board when there are bigger threats on the table.

Surprisingly, I’ve found that a lot of people define politics differently here. The common wisdom is that “politics=power”, but I’m going to have to explain more than that. To me, “good” politics is not tricking your opponent, tactically staying out of a feud between two players, or making alliances and breaking them. Good politics is not Zedruu the Greathearted (Take that, she-goat!). There’s a philosophy in chess that you should never try to trick your opponent because it won’t work if they’re as good as you or better. Instead, you should force them to make moves which are rationally the move that they should make. This is exactly how I view playing good politics in Magic. You should try to create board situations where a truly good player would rationally decide to not attack you and to spend their resources on other players. You shouldn’t be too heavy handed about it though. I don’t like the Vows such as Vow of Duty or Vow of Malice because they don’t fulfill the above condition. Do you see why? It’s the part about a truly good player rationally deciding to attack you or someone else. I’ll mention this again later in the strategy section since it bears repeating. Regardless, this view of politics will shape the strategy and recommended play style of the deck. As a side note, when interacting verbally with other players, feel free to be yourself and have fun for the best results of course.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/490546-tariel-youll-thank-me-for-this

getting got, the red counterspell

People always think of blue as the king of stack manipulation, I won't dispute that but red has a few tricks up it's sleeve as well. Everyone always forgets about the red counterspell: Fork effects; of course, you can always use them to double up on your own spells or maybe use someone else's, but it's a great safety net against counterspells as you can counter their counter or copy your spell so the copy resolves first. And never forget, if someone goes infinite killing them in response with a copy of their own spell exiles the original copy from the stack; Wild Ricochet an infinite mana Blue Sun's Zenith to save myself and kill two other players or playing Price of Progress and copying it so it kills the caster of some game winning card while it's still on the stack feels amazing.

While not a large part of the deck, these instant speed effects play an important role of giving us stack manipulation.

Roll the wheel for card draw

I've stuffed as much card draw and wheels that I could in mono-red that wasn't horribly inefficient as that's the best way to draw cards. Aside from wheels, I have a few pieces of card draw that lets multiple people draw, definitely use these for political leverage; If someone is digging for something ask them if they need a card from Temple Bell. The name of the game is that you are in control of the card draw with the wheels and symmetric draws even though it helps everyone.

Wheels:

Pseudo-Symmetric card draw:

Temple Bell

Humble Defector

And of course we have a bit of impulsive draw with Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Outpost Siege. I love that Wizards is printing more impulsive draw cards for red as a way to get card advantage, but not exactly the best for this dick as a lot of the cards here are such high CMC that we generally want to keep as they have high impact like Insurrection or a card we generally want at all times in our hand like Reiterate.

The Planeswalker Threat

I personally hate planeswalkers, but this deck has them pulling double duty as mana ramp and card draw which is essential for any EDH deck, and being mono-color I need every bit of ramp and card draw I can get. Karn Liberated on the other hand is my enchantment removal with extra upside. Let's dig a bit deeper on the planeswalkers:

Koth of the Hammer: I've talked about him before under the ramp section and he's amazing as a ritual as we will often have lots of mountains from all the ramp we do. Even better is that if he survives, he can also ramp by uncapping a mountain with his + ability. Don't be afraid to throw him out to just use his + ability a few times to try and ultimate, but his main utility is as a ritual.

Chandra, Torch of Defiance: This has quickly become my favorite mono-red planeswalker, it gives us mana, it impulsively draws, in a pinch it can act as removal; It slices, it dices, it walks the dog, this planeswalker has absolutely everything we want.

Chandra, Flamecaller: highly underrated card, you'll probably only ever use it for it's 0 ability of wheeling for one additional card. Card advantage is a rare thing in red and this also comes with the ability to possibly dome someone for 6 with elementals or do a small board wipe.

Karn Liberated: Literally just Scour from Existence with pseudo rebound in this deck. If you want to cut something for budget, this would be the place to start, he's my enchantment or land removal that can hit another if he doesn't die.

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Date added	7 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.81
Tokens	Construct 6/12 C, Elemental 3/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Koth of the Hammer, Enchantment Golem 3/3 C, Goat 0/1 W, Elemental 5/1 R, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Thopter 1/1 C
Folders	Interesting Decks
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