[ARTICLE] Playing as a Control Deck in the RDW Mirror

[zemanjaski]

On Playing as a Control Deck in Red Deck Wins Mirrors

In this article I want to cover off some of the fundamentals about playing red mirrors. We were recently discussing in the PyroRed thread about the deck’s position in the field, and almost universally, we were all reporting a very strong winning record in semi-mirrors (not true mirrors because outside of our team, no one else plays this variant). I have a bit of a reputation for almost never losing in red mirrors, so I thought I would give up some of my advantage and try to put my insight into words. My secret? I build a red deck that can always draw in the mirror.

The first thing to make clear is that when building your 75 card red deck, you need to know whether you want to play your red mirrors by always wanting to attack, or always wanting to draw. This is
incredibly important and will fundamentally affect the composition of your deck post-sideboard (this article will almost exclusively focus on side-boarded games as they’re not only more strategic, but you’ll play up to twice as many of them in an event). Almost always I will play a red deck that want to draw, and the deck will be constructed in such a way so as to exaggerate the advantage of that. This article doesn’t have much to offer red mages who always want to attack, or who are playing a variant that doesn’t play control well, but there are still some lessons for you later on. I like to be the “control player” in red mirrors and hopefully by the end of this article, you will too.

Not every red variant can be configured to play as the control deck. Sometimes the card pool, or the specific card choices to that variant, don’t support a control strategy. Last season, Dos Rakis didn’t play control well in red mirrors because Falkenrath Aristocrat and [card]Knight
of Infamy[/card] were very poor defenders when compared to the Mono Red deck’s attacking alternatives and the deck didn’t have the same quality of mana-base (two-coloured with shocklands, fewer if any mandlands). Dos Rakis was a wonderful attacking deck, but poorly positioned to play control in a strict Red Deck Wins mirror. It could play the role very well against White-Weenie or GW Little Kid, but not against Mono Red.

So Why Draw?

There are a bunch of good reasons, here are the three most compelling;
• you get to play the same role every game, so you can build a strategy and deck that is effective at executing that strategy;
• you get to use your life as a resource (and you do it better than a real control deck because you’re designed to interact with the board faster); and
• you get an extra card.

If I win the die-roll, I can choose to draw, whereas if my opponent wins the die-roll, they will choose to put me on the draw. This means that I get to do exactly
the same thing every game, so my deck can focus on always being the best “control” deck possible. When you build your red deck to attack in mirrors, you need to accept the reality that you’ll likely spend have your games making a compromised defence (as most every other red mage will choose to go first if they win the die-roll).

Life as a resource is worth giving some thought to – the only point of damage that matters is the one that kills your opponent. You can afford to take quite a bit of damage to run your opponent out of resources if that leaves you up on cards and with a winning board position. Yes, they can absolutely burn you out, but most red decks are only running eight to ten burn spells, and most of those are going to be Shock variants that they want to use on your creatures anyway. All this means is that you have some leeway to run a slightly higher curve than they do, giving up a little life early to have a winning endgame based on superior card quality.

An
extra card does everything you think would do. Your entire game plan is based upon 1-for-1 trading to run them out of resources, then generating card advantage to get ahead, before finally resolving a game ending threat. To make all of that happen, and to have the lands to cast it all, you need more cards. Starting off with an extra card is a good way to have more cards I think. Also consider threat density; if you’re both playing 22 land decks, but one of you has 22 mountains and the other has 18 mountains and four Mutavault, then as far as the dynamics of the mirror are concerned, the player with the manlands has four extra creatures that can relevantly block in his deck, which is a huge advantage as on average, that player will draw more spells throughout the course of the game.

Some rules to keep in mind:

Rule #1: Only Play Spells that Relevantly Affect the Board
I see red mages trying to play control do this wrong all the time, so it
obviously requires explaining. Don’t play spells that do not relevantly impact the board.

Discard doesn’t do anything (seriously, you all know how lamentable Thoughtseize is when your opponent plays it against you).

Spells that only damage the opponent don’t do anything.

Threatens don’t do anything.

Creatures that cannot at least trade efficiently when blocking don’t do anything.

It really is that simple. They’re trying to attack you until you are dead and their strategy is supplemented by burn. Everything that you do needs to interact with their plan in a meaningful way. All you want is cheap removal (Shock and Magma Jet are easily the best two, Lightning Strike,Mizzium Mortars and terrors are just OK but not exciting, you’re often paying extra to overkill your target), ways to generate card advantage (hello [card:
29nwpz23]Boros Reckoner[/card] and Flames of the Firebrand!), creatures that block well and enough threats to eventually win the game.

Rule #2: Only Play Creatures that Block Well on Curve

At its most basic, Red Mirrors are a battles of Grizzly Bears and Gray Ogre. Sure, many of the cards have other relevant text, back if you look at the core cards of all the red variants, they’re all more or less identical when it comes to the mirror; they’re all two power and they all die to the aforementioned removal. Sure, there are some subtle differences (eg: Rakdos Cackler cannot block; Firefist Striker is weak to Flames of the Firebrand) but largely the cards are completely fungible and as the control player, you don’t really care about the difference, you just need to trade down.

You need to
understand that your opponent’s strategy is to play a two power creature on turn one, then another on turn two, then either something bigger after that or maybe use some burn. They’re running a lot more threats than you can realistically have removal (typically they have 26 to 28 creatures, possibly supplemented by Mutavault, you’re never going to have more than 16 removal spells), so you’ll need creatures that can trade off. This is why your creatures must at least be good enough to block on curve because if they cannot, your opponent can continue attacking and your card may as well be blank (since you’re the control deck, your opponent’s life total is irrelevant; when you getting to a winning board state you can quickly kill them regardless of whether or not they are still at 20). Rakdos Cackler is not a good blocker. Burning Tree Emissary is a great blocker as it trades with nearly every creature in their deck,
and it accelerates your mana, allowing you to have more interaction sooner.

Finally, it is better to block and trade than to just infinitely block. They’re an attacking deck, so they’re going to have ways to take advantage of you allowing them to keep their creatures in play indefinitely: Battalion, threatens, combat tricks all need bodies in play and by not trading, you’re making these cards better than they should be against you. Yeah, Frostburn Weird is a 1/4, but it is as a 2/3 that he really shines, because that blocks well above curve in a Red Deck Wins mirror.

Rule #3: Go Big or Go Home

Drawing first requires you to have enough early interaction (removal and blockers) to relevantly affect the board, and conserve your life total beyond ordinary burn range. So you’ll need a lot of cheap cards to draw early, but at some point you need to be drawing into cards that are higher impact than theirs to convert your
theoretical advantage into a real resource advantage. While Rakdos Cackler is a fantastic card on turn one from your opponent, it is pretty anaemic on turn 12. You’ll want to have cards that are consistently as powerful as possible from early on and throughout the rest of the game.
Typically, you want your endgame to involve cards that they either cannot remove (eg: Stormbreath Dragon requires a very specific answer), or cannot interact favourably with (Boros Reckoner or Chandra, Pyromaster). While they can remove the latter two with a much larger range of answers, you’re usually generating a two-for-one for them to do so, further depleting their resources and at the end of the day, there is no difference between a win via planeswalker ultimate or Mutavault beats. Just be sure to have a way to put those extra cards to work.

Mulligans and
When the Extra Card Isn’t Everything

The final point that needs to be understood is that by virtue of you sideboarding out your creatures that are bad at blocking for other, more relevant and interactive cards, you’re going to be raising the curve of your deck. Often you’ll be cutting as many as eight one-drop creatures and replacing them with a bunch of two and three-drop creatures and spells. This decreases the range of keepable hands that your deck has, as you must be interacting on turn two. This is as close as I will get to making a hard, inviolable rule – waiting until turn three to relevantly impact the board is just too slow in a red deck mirror. You cannot keep a hand without at least a single two cost creature or removal spell. It is OK if the rest costs three or more and you have the lands to cast it, but not doing anything until turn three will just result in you taking too much damage. So when this happens, mulligan.

Sure, that means giving back the card that we wanted so
badly, and it means playing the card without easy card advantage. However, you still have a strategic advantage, insofar as your deck is only playing relevant cards and will still have a winning endgame. So while not having the extra card does make it harder to implement our strategy, the strategy still works and you still have an advantage, just a smaller one. You need to be honest with yourself – you’re going to win more hands with a good six card hand than you will with a terrible seven card hand; and by choosing to draw you’re kinda getting a free mulligan anyway >:)

- Zemanjaski.

[Helios]

Excellent article. Question, since this wasn't totally clear: do you prefer to be on the draw pre-SB? I know that isn't as relevant to MTGO as it is to IRL play, because at an lgs you'll often know what your opponent is playing. Given the choice I'd still play first game one, because it make your Cacklers and Satyrs actually relevant, and you can switch modes after getting some damage in. Then game 2 is all about control.

I've never had to play game 3

[zemanjaski]

Even if I know my opponent is red game 1, ill still play because my deck is configured that way game 1. Trying to run a defensive game with Rakdos Cackler and Firedrinker Satyr in your deck is gross.

[magicdownunder]

Good post

[Elricity]

Thanks, I've been too much of a coward to try it

[Self Medicated]

Very enjoyable read.

[DerWille]

Great article Zman, but I want to double check something. Let's say you lose game 1 and go onto game 2. Do you still take out your 1 drops and let your opponent go first? Likewise, when you go to game 3 and you have the option, do you let them go first?

[zemanjaski]

Yes and Yes. I draw in every post board game, though in a Bo5 i might switch it up once to catch them out. It's definitely scary to give up the play the first half dozen times though!

[magicdownunder]

I finally found the thank button

Z I have a quick question, I've had the displeasure of facing RDW Mirrors more often now from the PyroWhite PoV - I reckon due the casting cost of our burns, shock lands and CitpT lands its better to play first.

I sometimes find myself shocking myself to deal with early creatures or just taking 4 points of damage before I have two mana-online, sure you can mull those hands but that will defeat the purpose of going on the draw - what are your thoughts?

[F.I.A]

Since mirror runs them, is it a right move to burn it right away when a phoenix lands? It makes me cringe when my opponent has two of them and I have none.

[zemanjaski]

@ MDU; yeah it's probably right. The article is really written from a Mono Red perspective.

@ FIA; it's always contextual, but killing a Phoenix isn't bad; yes they can rebuy it, but that means forgoing killing one if your guys, so there isn't zero opportunity cost. Depends on a lot of factors.

[amcfvieira]

Great article! Thanks a lot for share your perspective.
Quick question, against Red Devotion, do you try to kill as soon as possible the Boros Reckoner or want to use the mana as most efficient as you can?

[Elricity]

Depends if you can safely kill your opponent around it. Typically you want to kill it on sight on an empty board.