Primer: R/w/x Aggro

[Pedros]

Tested: Satyr Nix smith is good in sb vs uw control. Imo run 4 in sb.

[Pedros]

Btw doesnt you think Exava makes both halves of flame-wreathed phoenix good? 3/3 haste that comes back and 5/5 haste are both fine options.

Disscuss.

Potential decklist of rakdos air:

4 chandra phoenix
4 herald of tormemt
4 exava
4 flame wrentched phoenix
4 dragons
2 chandra
13 removals
25 landa

[Pedros]

Or jusdt desecration demon over exava and make it all big flyers or all haste flyers.

[Elricity]

What are people thought on Mogis, God of Slaughter when it comes to Rwb burn? I like him, but I struggle to come to terms which running a card which will NEVER be activated - he is good in the slow grind games though.

For the RW I'm really trying to find that 'special' creature which I can run with my Chandra's Phoenix and Stormbreath Dragon, I'm going with Rakdos Cackler but I wish we had a another creatures to go along with it (if only Satyr Nyx-Smith was a 3-1).

I think I'll try 2x Spark Trooper MD, having haste and being a hybrid card really acts in its favor - I was planning on Good old Bones, but its seems like trooper is just better most of the time.

Two problems with Mogis in Rwb burn. How do you get the mana base to have
a chance of casting it? Throwing in 4 temple of malice in brings you to 12 mandatory tap lands and 4 shocks and then you're still forced to scry dig for your 8 black sources.

Two, against most decks, I don't think the punisher decision really affects them enough. The deck has better answers vs control that doesn't get blanked by assemble or elspeth and aggro can afford the 2 life race. If you wall up behind reckoners, that may do it vs creature decks until they find a way to remove reckoner.

He really strikes me as a rakdos aggro finisher.

[LaZerBurn]

@Pedros - yes FWP has excellent synergy with Exava - if i play Rb in any form I'll be running them together. As far as a dedicated RbSkies deck goes I like CP, Exava, FWP and SBD with Chandra and removal. I'm not sure if more fliers are better than Cackler and/or Jester though, your curve is pretty horrible otherwise and you're very slow Vs control.

[magicdownunder]

@Pedros: You should test your RbSkies list, it seems interesting.

@Elricity: Manabase isn't an issue, but I do agree that Mogis is a tad weak - though I'll still vouch for him vs Control (2 damage per turn is huge vs Control).

[deck=MDU's Big Burn - Draft 1]Lands 25
9 Mountain
4 Mutavault
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph

Creatures 12
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Other Spells 09
4 Chained to the Rocks
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Assemble the Legion

Burns 14
4 Lightning Strike
4 Warleader's Helix
3 Magma Jet
3 Shock

Sideboard 15
1 Assemble the Legion
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Last Breath
2 Boros Charm
2 Glare of Heresy
3 Skullcrack
4 Boros Reckoner[/deck]

Standard Elimination (Event 6684734)
Standard Elimination R1 Big Burn vs BW Control Event 6684734
Standard Elimination R2 Big Burn vs Rw Burn Event 6684734
Standard Elimination R3 Split

I'll be trying:

[deck=MDU's Big Burn - Draft 2]Lands 25
9 Mountain
4 Mutavault
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph

Creatures 14
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Boros Reckoner

Other Spells 06
4 Chained to the Rocks
2 Chandra, Pyromaster

Burns 15
4 Lightning Strike
4 Warleader's Helix
4 Magma Jet
3 Shock

Sideboard 15
1 Assemble the Legion
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Last Breath
2 Boros Charm
2 Glare of Heresy
4 Skullcrack
2 Boros Reckoner[/deck]

Tonight .

[Valdarith]

Okay, this may seem like it's coming from waaaaaaay out in left field, but I think this could actually be something with some tuning.

[deck]
Creatures (12)
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Oracle of Bones
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells (22)
3 Mizzium Mortars
4 Turn / Burn
4 Lightning Strike
2 Catch / Release
4 Warleader's Helix
2 Thoughtflare
3 Blast of Genius

Lands (26)
3 Mutavault
4 Steam Vents
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Island
9 Mountain
[/deck]

[LP, of the Fires]

probably terrible.

Looks really fun to play. Magma jet seems like a necessity no? Probably over blast.

[Elricity]

Blast is in there to abuse the split cards' CMC.

From my experience with other high land control decks, my temptation is to say it needs some earlier on curve card draw or filtering to keep it from running out of gas. Magma jet, izzet charm, or quicken being my biggest guess. Personally, I lean towards quicken since you can 2 for 1 with Catch and sandbag mortars or late game EoT blast.

I get that the deck is built around oracle of bones but once your opponent figures out the gimmick, they're going to auto tribute and leave you with dead cards. Plus you have to actually draw one which, without early card draw, is only about 56%.

[Valdarith]

I'm thinking maybe Divination for early card draw but Quicken could be a thing too. I prefer Divination for raw CA on curve. A lot of times Quicken just does nothing but cantrip, but sweet Catch interaction is neat.

[MattT]

Btw doesnt you think Exava makes both halves of flame-wreathed phoenix good? 3/3 haste that comes back and 5/5 haste are both fine options.

Disscuss.

Potential decklist of rakdos air:

4 chandra phoenix
4 herald of tormemt
4 exava
4 flame wrentched phoenix
4 dragons
2 chandra
13 removals
25 landa

I´d vote all fliers just as you suggested, cutting the Exavas and 1 Dragon, so you get away with 24 land. Leaving 15 fliers either recursive or hitting like trucks.

Tinkering with the idéa I´d say 3 Chandras for ca and the increased synergy an all fliers force gets from the Falter effect. It´d be a 1 tops 2 threats deck forcing an answer and incremently getting advantage by Chandra and recursion.

Shell:
15 creatures
~12 Removal
24 Land
n~9 other stuff

It somehow looks like there´s space to experiment with. A mix of more removal, scry, draw or something unexplored.

[Pedros]

@Pedros: You should test your RbSkies list, it seems interesting.

Which one you like more, full skies or some land force in Jesters/Exavas?

@Matt

Yeah, something unexplored. What do you think about discard in this slower shell? Will help vs UW.

[Elricity]

I'm thinking maybe Divination for early card draw but Quicken could be a thing too. I prefer Divination for raw CA on curve. A lot of times Quicken just does nothing but cantrip, but sweet Catch interaction is neat.

I almost said divination but the deck looks awfully squishy so far to be tapping out turn 3. I haven't tested though so I could be wrong. Magma jet or izzet charm filter and defend but I'm assuming the deck needs to keep making land drops and cast its spells too, greedy bastards.

I would at least consider quicken sideboard in some number vs aggro though. Personally, I think dropping the thoughflares and 1-2 blast is the easy cut. An oracle powered catch //release is more devastating early than a 5-9 damage bolt + draw 2 in this
cycle anyway.

[Valdarith]

It could be correct to just drop the Catch / Release and Blast of Genius altogether and play Magma Jet and more Thoughtflare. That would reduce any weakness the deck may have to aggro and streamline the strategy a bit.

I like Oracle here because I really like a 5/3 haste four 4cmc. I also like a 3/1 haste for 4cmc that lets me cast a spell for free. Turn / Burn, Warleader's Helix, and Thoughtflare are all great things to be casting for 0.

[Elricity]

Could. I know I have to keep my inner Johnny locked in the basement.

Still, catch is a powerful card. Release is a 3-4 for 2 that's going to hit every deck that runs gods, weapons and planeswalkers which right now is...everything but Rx aggro. I can imagine a number of board states where that shuts your opponent down. A resolved fused spell should be lethal 90% of the time, no?

I think Blast is going to be bad compared to C/R because it doesn't swing the game as far but Blast is much better than thoughtflare if both are 0 CMC.

[Elricity]

Been playing around with counterflux sideboard, not sure if i'm sold yet. Catch has been decent, and i got to Oracle it on turn 4 a couple times. I lost my oracle, he lost a planes walker and two lands. Dragon for the finish next turn. Blast has been eh. I wanted catch instead of blast every time.

[MattT]

@Pedros: You should test your RbSkies list, it seems interesting.

@Matt

Yeah, something unexplored. What do you think about discard in this slower shell? Will help vs UW.

That is a good idéa. Discard is the ultimate generalised answer, so it sounds like a good fit.

The 1.01 plan could be something like:

Turn
1 Discard
2 Removal/Discard
3 Removal/Small Phoenix
4 Big Phoenix/D.Demon
5 SBD
6 Stay in beatdown mode

The main issue is that it´s all 1 for 1 answers and the ca revolves around Chandra and Phoenix recursion. Can it be
improved by Sweepers, Read the Bones, Underground Connection or something else?

[Valdarith]

Been playing around with counterflux sideboard, not sure if i'm sold yet. Catch has been decent, and i got to Oracle it on turn 4 a couple times. I lost my oracle, he lost a planes walker and two lands. Dragon for the finish next turn. Blast has been eh. I wanted catch instead of blast every time.

I'm not big on counterspells in this deck because I feel like we want to play more of a proactive, tapout strategy. What cards are we really worried about resolving that we can't deal with postboard? There are a lot more proactive cards we can side in than the mana-intensive Counterflux.

Blast of Genius may just be too high on the curve to really want. I like the synergy with Chandra's Phoenix though. Draw three, pitch Phoenix, deal three, get
Phoenix back? Would you pay six mana to draw three and deal three damage? Three damage is worth 2cmc in this meta. Draw three is worth about 5cmc, so in that situation it is a little more value than usual for Standard. Beyond that or pitching a fuse card to it, the card just may be too cute. It could just be better in a Grixis shell where you run Toil / Trouble, Breaking / Entering, and Exava.

[Valdarith]

[deck]
Creatures (12)
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Oracle of Bones
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells (22)
3 Mizzium Mortars
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
4 Turn / Burn
4 Warleader's Helix
3 Thoughtflare

Lands (26)
3 Mutavault
4 Steam Vents
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Izzet Guildgate
1 Island
9 Mountain
[/deck]

[Elricity]

Been playing around with counterflux sideboard, not sure if i'm sold yet. Catch has been decent, and i got to Oracle it on turn 4 a couple times. I lost my oracle, he lost a planes walker and two lands. Dragon for the finish next turn. Blast has been eh. I wanted catch instead of blast every time.

I'm not big on counterspells in this deck because I feel like we want to play more of a proactive, tapout strategy. What cards are we really worried about resolving that we can't deal with postboard? There are a lot more proactive cards we can side in than the mana-intensive Counterflux.

nBlast of Genius may just be too high on the curve to really want. I like the synergy with Chandra's Phoenix though. Draw three, pitch Phoenix, deal three, get Phoenix back? Would you pay six mana to draw three and deal three damage? Three damage is worth 2cmc in this meta. Draw three is worth about 5cmc, so in that situation it is a little more value than usual for Standard. Beyond that or pitching a fuse card to it, the card just may be too cute. It could just be better in a Grixis shell where you run Toil / Trouble, Breaking / Entering, and Exava.

Playing with Counterflux last night, I agree. Skullcrack would have been a better fit.

Six mana draw three deal three is, in my opinion, awful at sorcery speed. If Blast were an instant, it would be quite different. The other big problem was I saw Oracle about what I expected, roughly half the time. The big spell hands got clunky quick.

Catch // Release however, won me games and was reasonable to cast without Oracle of Bones. If it
helps, remember that with Release, they must sacrifice as much as possible. They can't be cute and sacrifice a god to count as an enchantment and a creature if they have other creatures and no other enchantments.

The deck felt a bit slow so what about spellheart chimera? I may be pushing it more aggressive than you preferred.

For card draw, I still preferred divination over anything else but sorcery sucked. Against the midrange decks, having a solid turn 3 play was nice when their board hadn't developed. That said, if I'm jamming in Chimera, I think I want to try Steam Augury over thoughtflare. It has the potential of netting more cards and I doubt I'm digging for specific answers. I'm not sure what the right number of spells are for Chimera to work.

Magma jet was only ok so I'd rather leave it sideboard. I really wanted the actual card draw to keep hitting land drops and I rarely wanted to pull out a different burn spell for it.

Including very slapdash
sideboard. Haven't really put any thought of what to pull out to put things in.

[deck]
Creatures [14]
4 Chandra's Phoenix
2 Spellheart Chimera
4 Oracle of Bones
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells [20]
4 Lightning Strike
4 Turn // Burn
4 Warleader's Helix
4 Steam Augury
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Catch // Release

Lands [26]
3 Mutavault
4 Steam Vents
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Temple of Enlightenment
8 Mountain
1 Island
2 Izzet Guildgate

Sideboard
4 Skullcrack
1 Catch // Release
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Spellheart Chimera
2 Thoughtflare
4 Magma Jet
[/deck]

[Valdarith]

I want Spellheart Chimera to work but it has some issues:

1) No haste. This deck wants spells that impact the board immediately and Chimera doesn't do this.
2) Dies to pretty much every removal spell commonly played in the format. Bile Blight, Lightning Strike, Plummet out of the board.
3) Trades with most creatures late in the game plus trample damage but is outright terrible early on.

If you play Chimera, you definitely want Steam Augury, but I tested Steam Augury a lot early in the season and found I just preferred to run more Thoughtflare and Divination. There's very little in UR that cares about the graveyard except for Chimera and Phoenix and paying one less mana than Thoughtflare was never worth it to me. In the end, Thoughtflare gave me more quality cards whereas Steam Augury was always reducing my quality.

[Elricity]

Ah, that's a shame on both fronts.

Oracle was always good so the core seems right.

I'll try out your build and see how it's going. I really wanted the card draw earlier on curve but maybe lowering the curve of the spells around it will fix that problem.

Given any thought to the sideboard yet? Skullcrack/searing blood are easy includes. Catch is still a strictly better Act of Treason unless you think this deck doesn't need that kind of effect.

[Valdarith]

Chained to the Rocks, Skullcrack, Catch / Release, Assemble the Legion, Wear / Tear all auto-includes.

[Elricity]

Every time I try wear // tear, I'm disappointed.

[Valdarith]

With Courser being introduced and Detention Sphere sure to see more play it's much more alluring.

[Valdarith]

[deck]
Sideboard (15)
3 Chained to the Rocks
2 Searing Blood
4 Skullcrack
2 Satyr Nyx-Smith
1 Wear / Tear
2 Catch / Release
1 Assemble the Legion
[/deck]

[LP, of the Fires]

This DEFINITELY needs to be moved to developing.

[Elricity]

Meh. It has dragons, phoenixes, burn, and is R/w/x. Didn't DTR already go over this argument two months ago with pyro red?

I admit that blue is probably the wrong color to splash ultimately but I could see a R/x deck using Oracle of Bones well. G/r monsters is the only card I can think of that solidly blanks it. Everything else has to devote a card to it or risk you throwing a broken spell at them.

[Valdarith]

Well, he has a point. It's a bit of a different philosophy since it's running Oracle which pushes you to run more powerful spells.

I wouldn't mind moving the discussion to my URx midrange thread since that's basically what this is.

[Elricity]

He does but all the red decks are going to powerful spells; the question is between some mix of 4-5 CMC spells such as Chandra, helix, dragons, exava, assemble, etc. Still, I agree in the sense it looks a lot less likely to be great so for now, yeah, let's move it over.

[magicdownunder]

I usually try to be more diplomatic then this, but the Ru list is horrible list being bad for "cute" sake.

IMO the curve is just much too high, your win-con is banked on a punish card so anyone with half a mind would just pay tribute and it pretty much does nothing while aggro or discard builds take it apart.

Much like Rg, Ru belongs in the Devolving section, don't turn this into a Sally thread.

Last time

---

[deck=MDU's Big Burn - Draft 1]Lands 25
9 Mountain
4 Mutavault
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Silence
4 Temple of Triumph

Creatures 12
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Other Spells 09
4 Chained to the Rocks
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Assemble the Legion

Burns 14
4 Lightning Strike
4 Warleader's Helix
3 Magma Jet
3 Shock

Sideboard 15
1 Assemble the Legion
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Last Breath
2
Boros Charm
2 Glare of Heresy
3 Skullcrack
4 Boros Reckoner[/deck]

Standard Elimination (Event 6684734)
Standard Elimination R1 Big Burn vs BW Control Event 6684734
Standard Elimination R2 Big Burn vs Rw Burn Event 6684734
Standard Elimination R3 Split

Standard Elimination (Event 6698320)
Standard Elimination R1 Big Burn vs BR Control Event 6698320
Standard Elimination R2 Big Burn vs Bg Devotion Event 6698320
Standard Elimination R3 Split

Like last time this will be the last video of the week, more will come on the following Monday (this time, mainly brews with a focus on Black).

I plan on exploring Small Rwb Burn soon (the typical Angry Phoenix list), with some small changes to improve the UW Control MU.

[Valdarith]

To be honest I don't think any list here will be a top tier deck after BNG anyway, but that's neither here nor there.

[Valdarith]

That wasn't a dig by the way, MDU. You've been doing a good job carrying the torch for a deck that you can call yours. I just don't like it's position in the post BNG metagame.

[windstrider]

That wasn't a dig by the way, MDU. You've been doing a good job carrying the torch for a deck that you can call yours. I just don't like it's position in the post BNG metagame.

There's also the very real probability that the dominant decks -- B devotion, U devotion, UW Control -- will begin to focus more on each other, leaving room open for more rogue brews like MDU's to take them from angles they aren't expecting.

[Valdarith]

Honestly I don't even think mono blue will be tier one after a few weeks. The other decks got better upgrades and I think Gr Monsters will take a more prominent role in the meta and hate out blue.

[Valdarith]

It's worth noting that red becomes a lot better if that happens though.

[DriftingLifted]

Gonna be waiting around a couple weeks until Standard starts to shape again before I set a deck. Still using the R/W style with Dragons, Chains, and burn cards, but it didn't get many upgrades if at all from BotG. Been experimenting and brewing around with R/B or Dega, been trying ways to utilise Rakdos's Return since it's a card I like playing and seems powerful with the decks moving towards midrange. Things seem to be pointing towards playing a base black deck with red or red/white splash though...

That being said, I still really like the play style of the R/w, and if there's another viable 'aggro-control' feel deck that's base red in BNG, I'll hop right on. With R/G devotion moving up and if Mono U gets hated out, I actually like the position it's in. I don't find a huge amount of trouble with the R/G decks except on a
crazy Xenegos god draw. And Mono U was always my weakest match-up. The early aggro plan against black takes a beating from Bile Blight though and that's probably still the deck to beat.

I'll be patient. Playing paper, it's expensive to try and shell out for a new mana base and a fresh deck. Hopefully base R/W still has possibilities, perhaps all burn.

[magicdownunder]

You maybe interested in Rb since its quite easy too convert a Aggro-Control shell (it slaughters Green and has a decent to strong MU vs Control and Bx) it struggle a little vs Whip.deck though due to lack of exile effects.

I think Rw will still exist in the format however it will lean more towards the 'Almost' or 'Burn' brews, for the first week at least when BB and Drown will see play traditional Boros Aggro will be near unplayable (though I believe Drown will see less play as Standard evolves). I'm currently working on a fair number of different brews which I'm testing in a competitive environment, tonight I'll try making a transformation list based on Mezzel (one of the most successful grinders) Angry Phoenix build.

[poppa_f]

I can see where Val is coming from, I did feel a bit disillusioned when the new black sweepers were initially spoiled, as I like playing fast beatdown decks, and that strategy is definitely going to be weaker now. That said, I disagree that R/x is no longer tier 1. My gut feel is that R/b is the best choice for fast beatdown going forwards, running thoughtseize as a pre-emptive solution to sweepers. As far as R/w is concerned, MDU's lists have been shifting more towards control/burn anyway and I like the other directions it can go as well (all-in on tokens or just play bigger creatures in the B/x match-up).

My LGS standard night always allows proxies for the first few weeks after a new block, so I'll experiment with some of these builds and report back here. First attempt will be with a variant of the Brimaz deck I mentioned a few days ago (mainly because I just want to play Brimaz )

[Pedros]

Brad Nelsons build from SCG:

Creatures (11)

4 Chandra's Phoenix 3 Young Pyromancer 4 Satyr Firedancer

Lands (23)

9 Mountain 3 Mutavault 4 Sacred Foundry 1 Temple of Malice 2 Temple of Silence 4 Temple of Triumph

Spells (26)

4 Boros Charm 4 Lightning Strike 4 Magma Jet 4 Searing Blood 4 Shock 3 Skullcrack 3 Warleader's Helix Sideboard

Sb:

4 Firedrinker Satyr 2 Oracle of Bones 1 Young Pyromancer 3 Chained to the Rocks 1 Skullcrack 1 Mizzium Mortars 3 Toil

He said it worked good vs everything except of uw control. Possible Satyr nix smith? He also have oracle and toil trouble package vs that deck. Both 5/3 haste and 3/1 + helix or FUSED toil trouble seems good vs this deck.