[Primer] PyroRed

[Helios]

Foil Seismic Stomps cost 1 less mana. Proven fact.

[F.I.A]

Fought a devotion Red in a 2-man queue. In fact, twice.
First match
Game 1 - I was able to overwhelm him with quantity and quality
Game 2 - Maybe I got cocky, but I had been keeping Chandra in hand when I was in situation that I could have put her down. End of the match, I got myself outnumbered by Reckoners (I don't have any, yet)
Game 3 - Karma being a biatch. I was drawing mountains while he drew gases.

0-1

Second match
Game 1 - I was at 2 lands (And 1 at the end) for whole game, but by having streams of burns and playing my cards right, I was able to score a few 2-1s and made it through
Game 2 - This time the role was reversed. By the time he drew his 3rd land for a reckoner, I stole it away with a board of Ashleys and Chandra.

1-1

Lesson(s) learned today
- Whenever you have the chance to drop Chandra (With some defense), do it.
In mirror matches like these, having her around is like gaining 5 life as your opponent will need to get rid of her to prevent you from getting more CA. That Lightning Strike would be spent on her instead of you, preventing that Phoenix from rearing its head from the grave.

[Narcasus]

Sin collector makes me cry every time i see it hit the board.

Just played B/W/G Game 1, i win by getting underneath, finishing him off the turn after be plays blood baron.

Since on on the draw in game 2, i tried to side into a more controlish deck. I took out all the one drops and some shocks and fire and brought in mortars, Traitorous Instinct, Skullcracks and Reckoners.

I ended up having to mull to 4 after getting 6 land hand to start and zero landers down to 4. Wasnt much of a game.

Game 3, i figured on the draw ill go back more agro. I took out reckoners and skullcracks and a shock to put my one drops in, still giving me answers to baron with mortars.

I end up out agroing him, killing off his ghost council with ash zealot and lightning strike and mortaring his baron.

What are your guys thoughts on the sideboard? is reckoner wrong when they have black kill spells? Spells i saw over the game were
abrupt decay, sin collector, ghost council, baron, smiter in the last game, centaur, voice which i just pretended didn't exist for the most part. and devour flesh.

Also, the more i play, the more amazing the pheonix seems to be, i swear it wins the games 70% of the time for me.

[Elricity]

Sounds like you made the same mistake I did trying to control Junk.

You just have to go under them to have a chance in mono red. Reckoner is bad vs B/x for just that reason because it doesn't attack until turn 4 and doesn't get card advantage in that matchup. I think the answer is to take out shock, bring in hammers and traitorous instinct. Bringing in mortars is a trap. You really want to race them and burn out their life total before their fatties kill you. His has enough lifegain that you probably need skullcrack in place of magma jet. Jet's great and all but you don't want the game going long enough where the scry actually helps you.

[zemanjaski]

If only someone, somewhere had written a matchup guide that specifically said not to do what you tried to do...alas!

[Aodh]

What are the win rates against aggro/midrange/control? I know it depends on your and their build, but anyone have a general answer?

[Elricity]

If only someone, somewhere had written a matchup guide that specifically said not to do what you tried to do...alas!

I swear it wasn't up last night!

[zemanjaski]

It's more about player skill I would contend. The deck requires a huge amount of decision making, so if you're better than you opponent you'll have a big edge. If you're both equal, I would say:

Mono Red Mirrors ~ 55%
GW(b) ~ 45%
Big Red ~ 35%
UWx ~ 65%
Black X Control ~ 55%
RG Ramp ~ 50%

With the exact numbers varying on account of your respective sideboardibg plans.

[Jack]

Z, would you mind putting up your general sideboarding plans for each archetype in the matchup guide? My deck is probably the same 75 cards as you now, unless you're still only playing 2 Traitorous Instinct in the board now.
Specific questions for everyone to consider (and hopefully provide me with a good answer)
Do you bring in Skullcrack vs. g/w aggro to answer their Unflinching Courage, or is this generally a bad idea, since the lifegain on the card isn't what makes it so good against you?
Is Annihilating Fire or Shock the better spell vs. blue-based control? What about black-based control/midrange or green midrange?
Do you board in Mizzium Mortars for black-based control/midrange? Also, if you're playing 3 Traitorous Instincts, what card do you only board out 1 of? What card do we cut one of in the green-based midrange matchup?

Also, I think that G/W and Junk should have separate sections in the matchup
guide. The popular variant of G/W is a big, stupid aggro deck, whereas Junk is almost always a midrange deck, playing a few aggressively costed creatures and a lot of removal. Naya Midrange (by some sources, a more popular deck than Junk) seems much closer to G/W aggro.

Also, green devotion decks seem to be popping up. From what I have gathered, we hope for Phoenix and Pyro game 1, and game 2 we side out our 1-drops and 2-3 of either Ash Zealot, Annihilating Fire, Shock or Magma Jet (undecided on this. I like Shock for its 1cmc, and I like Magma Jet because it helps us find our best cards) for Mortars, Reckoner and Traitorous Instinct. You cannot go under this deck unless they get very bad draws. Your SB cards are very good, especially Reckoner. Pyro can buy us enough time to find a way to win if you play your cards right.

[zemanjaski]

I don't like giving definite sideboard plans because then people wrote follow them and don't think for themselves; or I get "what about X?" questions. I try to produce content in a way that promotes skill development in the long term, to equip you guys for making difficult decisions under pressure, rather than just spoon feeding info that's only applicable for a few weeks tops.

Having said that, I've laid out my thematic sideboard plans in this thread.

RE: GW. You've correctly identified that life gain isn't the relevant part of the card, so Skullcrack doesn't do anything; you need to dominate the board state and Skullcrack doesn't help there.

RE: UW control. I like Shock because its easier to rebuy my Phoenix with. I can also kill my own Phoenix with Shock if need be (eg: to stop a detention sphere from grabbing 2, so I can rebuy it as well). Annihilating Fires is just less flexible.

RE: I
would only bring in Mortars if they have Blood Baron of Vizkopa. Usually ill be sonething like -4 Shock, -2 Annihilating Fires; +3 Mortars and +3 Traitorous Instinct.

RE: Green devotion I haven't completely ironed out my strategy. I've tried -4 Cackler, -4 Firedrinker, -2 Magma Jet (doesnt kill enough) for +4 Mortars, +4 Reckoner, +2 Instinct.

[DerWille]

Time to live up to shame, I went to Wednesday night Magic last night. I went 2-2 for the night.

Round 1 vs Simic Counters (Win, 2-0)
- This is that one deck with the Master Biomancer and counter shifting and whatever. The dude was stoned as fuck and didn't believe me when I told him that Mizzium Mortars does 4 damage to target creature. Anyway, this was easy.

Round 2 vs Monored (Loss, 0-2)
- Urgh this one irks me. He outplayed me. That's all there was. I wasn't aggressive at the right times. Game 1 he used Madcap Skills on a Rakdos Cackler when I was tapped out then burned me for 6. The second game he burned me down from 12 health. He top decked a Lightning Strike when I was maybe 1 turn from winning.

[b:
2fsuj2vx]Round 3 vs G/W Aggro (Loss, 0-2)[/b]
- He wins with Unflinching Courage on a Boon Satyr. I could have stopped his life gain, but I was stuck on 3 land with Lightning Strike and Magma Jet in hand. I couldn't kill the damned thing. He's able to come back from like 6 life. Game 2, he gets a huge board presence drawing multiple Voice of Resurgences. At 5 land, I use a Mizzium Mortars to take out a voice token and something else. Next turn I draw my 6th land. Lesson of this game: THOU SHALL NOT WASTE MIZZIUM MORTARS. Lesson learned. I might have been able to win that one if I could have wiped his board when he 2 untapped mana (he ran rootborn defenses). I was really frustrated after this match.

Round 4 vs Buddy's Mono-Green (Win, 2-
0)
- His deck putters hard, but more importantly, I think I learned how to beat his [card]Ranger's Guile[/card]. [card]Ranger's Guile[/card] beats me because I end up wasting a turn and resources trying to kill something and he stalls out the board when I'm in aggro mode. I think that's what people call a tempo play because he can clog up the board before I'm set up. Anyway, I beat [card]Ranger's Guile[/card] by using two burn spells. Shock+ Magma Jet, Ash Zealot + Shock-> Lightning Strike, stuff like that. Even when I use two burn spells, I went 2 cards for 2 cards, but that isn't the right measure. His deck is far more reliant on creatures than mine. With that in mind, he didn't just 2 cards. He lost 2 cards and a did nothing for a turn.

The second match against
him I drew 3 Young Pyromancers by turn 2. I only played 2 during the game and that was enough to completely take over. I had an endless stream of chump blockers and I could force damage through without filling up the graveyard with Scavenging Ooze targets.

---
Random thought - I'm thinking that Annihilating Fire is strictly superior to Flames of the Firebrand just because it's an instant. This deck seems to thrive on instant speed burn tricks to gain huge advantages. Exiling Voice of Resurgence and [card]Chandra's Phoenix[/card] is just icing compared to the instant speed shenanigans this deck likes to pull (maybe a better explanation is that instant speed lets you better use your mana each turn).

[zemanjaski]

Yeah after playing with it for two days I'm sold on Annihilating Fire. As always, LP with the brilliant insights.

I think those matches will be a good learning experience for you; you're seeing how complex a lot of the decision trees are and you'll be better equipped in the future. Magic is a tough game.

[Jack]

Z, I'm not you. You're the reason the majority of new guys came to DTR, while I'm just the guy who made this thread. You're probably right that if you wrote a SB guide for each matchup, people would take everything as law and not ask questions. If I wrote a guide, people would follow it, but still take everything with a grain of salt.

Here's my general SB guide as of now (written for my own good as much as everyone else's):
Using this SB
[deck]
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Mizzium Mortars
3 Traitorous Instinct (really wish we still had Traitorous Blood, but we're stuck with this and two printings of Act of Treason)
2 Hammer of Purphoros
2 Skullcrack
[/deck]

Red Aggro mirror
- all 1-drops
+ Reckoners and Mortars

G/W Aggro
- all 1 drops
+ Reckoners and Mortars

Junk Midrange
-6 Lightning Strike/Magma Jet. If I see any 5 toughness creatures, I'll leave in two Lightning Strike. If not, I want Magma
Jet.
+4 Mortars +2 Traitorous Instinct (both more for tempo purposes than to create blowouts)

Naya Midrange
- all 1 drops, -3 Magma Jet
+ 4 Mizzium Mortars, +4 Reckoner, +3 Traitorous Instinct

G/R Monsters
- all 1 drops (it's hard to out-speed something that ramps into a fatty on turn 3), -4 Magma Jet/Annihilating Fire (anyone care to weigh in here?)
+4 Mizzium Mortars +4 Reckoner +3 Traitorous Instinct +1 Hammer of Purphoros

Black (Orzhov, Rakdos, Dega) Midrange/Control
-2 Annihilating Fire, -4 Shock
+3 Traitorous Instinct, +3 Mizzium Mortars (if I see Blood Baron). I try to squeeze in a Hammer or two if I can find an appropriate card to cut.

Big Boros
- all 1 drops, -2 Annihilating Fire,
+ 4 Mortars, +3 Traitorous Instinct, +2 Hammer of Purphoros, +1 Skullcrack
As an aside, this deck doesn't even show up on the website Dax provided as the best representation of the metagame, so I don't know how much I should worry about this one.

Azorious Control
-2 Shock, -2 Annihilating
Fire
+2 Skullcrack, +2 Hammer of Purphoros
Damn, Zealous Conscripts would be so fucking fun to have here.

Esper Control
-2 Shock, -2 Annihilating Fire
+2 Skullcrack, +2 Hammer of Purphoros
Damn, Zealous Conscripts would be so fucking fun to have here.

[Chma]

I just 3-1'd my first attended Theros daily with a straight rip of a list zemanjaski posted a few pages back.
I made some bad misplays and I'm not a great player in general or pilot of this deck, but hells I can feel the potential in this, and I'd like to think my improvement as well.
There seems to be some decks tailored pretty specifically for aggro right now, but luckily I didn't stonewall into boros lifeburn.

---

[deck]
Creatures
4 Ash Zealot
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Young Pyromancer

Planeswalkers
3 Chandra, Pyromaster

Sorceries
2 Flames of the Firebrand

Instants
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock

Lands
20 Mountain
3 Mutavault

Sideboard
2 Act of Treason
4 Boros Reckoner
2
Hammer of Purphoros
4 Mizzium Mortars
3 Skullcrack[/deck]

A quick sum up:

Match 1: Dega midrange. 2-1
Tough match-up in my opinion. Managed to pull it out somehow. Lots of burn to the face. This is a bit iffy since it was several hours ago by now.

Match 2: Dega midrange again 0-2 (I think)
This was rough. One game I overextended into anger with no other real threats in hand. The other I 2-for-1 myself with 2 lightning strikes on his Desecration demon as a desperate all-in on him blanking for a couple turns, only to have him untap and play another.

Match 3: AIR or DevoRed 2-0
I'm not sure what I faced here since all I saw was 1-drops, BTE's, firefist strikers and burn. Game 1 we remove each others early critters and I take it from there without much resistance due to some nice draws. Game 2 was ridiculously easy, he kept a hand with 2 firefists and burn, I kept a hand with ash Z, reckoner, magma jet and chandra. He scoops after shock-shock-magma jet'ing my chandra going
to 0 cards, while I still have half a grip and play a reckoner.

Match 4: Mono green 2-1
Weird match-up, couldn't tell who was the beatdown, and had some tough SB-decisions. Game 1 I lost to him having larger critters, and forcing me to some bad firedrinker blocks. Game 2 is one of my favorite games with this deck so far, and really shows the new lines you can take/chandra is awesome. I have a hand with only removal and chandra, I kill his 1-2-3-drops with burn and drop a chandra. He plays bow of nylea and a bunch of life-devotion centaurs. We make some trades, I draw a bunch of removal for his 2/2's and 3/3's and chip away with 2/2's while he gains 3 each turn. Eventually I get to behold my side get absolutely flooded with shit from chandras 0-ability, putting the mono-green "horde" to shame. Needless to say, it was beautiful.
Game 3 He gets pretty badly flooded and doesn't draw anything with a larger butt than 3, while I play 3 reckoners and a couple mutavaults. I don't even have time
to slam my chandra.


I don't have anything new to bring here, consider this a nod of great appreciation and approval for all the great, informative and inspiring stuff that you all post here. I'm enjoying this deck more the more I play it. At first I shy'd away from it in favor of DevoRed, and Dega anti-aggro, but oh the shit this deck allows you to pull and/or forces you to do (my time-record today was 5 minutes left on the clock). I would probably not have played this deck anymore if it wasn't for a few specific, very inspiring, posts I've read recently.

Also, Hi, f1rst post, I came from MTGS, flame on.

[Elricity]

@Freedom

Giving up your one drops feels weaker in GW unless you are on the draw because you can get damage through with Chandra/Traitorous. On the draw, I could see cutting cackler, maybe. Depends on their curve I suppose.

Cutting one drops vs big boros I'm sure is death. They're not blocking early most likely so get some board presence fast. You can't survive long so cut the mortars because you're ignoring their creatures (boros charm) even more than B/x. Skullcrack is the better choice if they even hint at warleader's helix since it's active turn 4. Boros reckoner is the only creature I'd kill and save that for when your board is empty. You might actually want to drop young pyromancer for this one, honestly. It's too slow for what you're doing and it's never going to give you more than a single token. -2 fire, -4 pyro, +6 skullcrack/traitorous/hammer.

[zemanjaski]

Welcome to the community redbro, glad you liked the deck

There's a matchup guide I've written in this subforum that nigh be useful to you.

[Jack]

@Freedom

Giving up your one drops feels weaker in GW unless you are on the draw because you can get damage through with Chandra/Traitorous. On the draw, I could see cutting cackler, maybe. Depends on their curve I suppose.

Cutting one drops vs big boros I'm sure is death. They're not blocking early most likely so get some board presence fast. You can't survive long so cut the mortars because you're ignoring their creatures (boros charm) even more than B/x. Skullcrack is the better choice if they even hint at warleader's helix since it's active turn 4. Boros reckoner is the only creature I'd kill and save that for when your board is empty. You might actually want to drop young pyromancer for this one, honestly. It's too slow for what you're doing and its never going to give you more than a single token. -2 fire, -4 pyro, +6 skullcrack/traitorous/hammer.

Thanks man. Completely disagree on keeping one drops for G/W, as they have a number of creatures that they can lay down early and just wall you. My plan against this deck is to make the game go long and win through 1 or more Chandra's Phoenix going above them. Our late game is much better than theirs.

[zemanjaski]

Yeah if they have any 2 drop your one drops are horrific in my experience. I just try to survive the middle game to overload a mortars or find and resolve Chandra.

[F.I.A]

After a few painful encounters with Mono Green (Sporting hunters and ooze) and Big Red (Member swallower and Reckoner), I got this nagging feeling of "Damn, if only these weirds were Red Bulls" . So I bothered myself to trade away a few cards and got two Reckoners of mine (9.1 tix each. Urph) and used Shock instead of Spark Jolt (I didn't draw any to make the difference, but I suppose I want the deck to be at its optimum potential before further testing those jolts.)

Some of the major highlights in 2-man:
VS Esper Control
Game 1 - He knew he couldn't Jace +1 to deal with Firedrinker Satyr with manasinks, so he FoF'd each of his Jace twice and got Azo-charm with each. After resolving two sphinx, he played an Aetherling and it's pretty
much game from there.
Game 2 - With me on the play this time, I beat the sense out of him even before he could untap with all four lands.
Game 3 - All was fine, until he dropped a Fiendslayer Paladin. I traded one with Ashley, only to have another came down. My hammer came too late to matter, as he had three of those at the end of the game.

VS Maze End (Hur...)
Game 1 - It was a game? I didn't know. He spent the turns playing out land and put out a Ral Zarek.
Game 2 - I flooded out, while he didn't get a single green mana source (According to him, there's supposed to be 14). A lone Mutavault carried me.

VS Rakdos Midrange (Sporting Stormbreath Dragon, Desecration Demon & Ember Swallower)
Game 1 - Sometimes,
even with the CA goodness Chandra gives, it's just not enough. I'd been 0'ing for turns to get resources to keep a demon at bay, while my ground was walled by a Rakdos Keyrune. By the time I 0'd a Lightning Strike to deal with the keyrune, he killed off my Mutavault in the same combat phase and landed another demon next turn. I conceded when there was three demons in play.
Game 2 - This was funny. He got screwed, and my double Mutavault won me the game.
Game 3 - A game where both of us didn't get more than 3 lands. He had a lone Mutavault, but he knew better that I had a hand chock full of removals. I played a Reckoner which he proceeded to mortar, netting a 4 damage upstairs. By the time his life was 10, I grabbed the booster by throwing a combo of Lightning Strike+Shock for two turns.

nLesson(s) learned
- Fiendslayer Paladin. This guy is as bad as Red Bull is for our ground units. If it actually caught up, we might start to deal with these in control match-ups.
- I think I've been converted to Traitorous Instinct as well. Usually, when it isn't lethal, the opponent won't block the creature, so the +2/+0 gives an extra reach. Best effect when used on opposing Red Bull
- Gawd, stop playing Solitaire in my Magic!

Current decklist:
[deck]4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Ash Zealot
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra's Phoenix

Spells
4 Shock
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
2 Flames of the Firebrand
3 Chandra, best card in standard

Lands
20 Mountain
3 Mutavault

Sideboard
2 Frostburn Weird
2 Boros Reckoner
2 Traitorous Instinct
3 Skullcrack
2 Hammer of Purphoros
4 Mizzium Mortars[/deck]

[Narcasus]

Went 3-0 in a daily and split that last match. Not really much to add from yesterday, i faced a do nothing mono black deck, a u/w agro that seemed bad and u/w control that didnt draw a god hand so died quickly. I really didn't get a challenge from today's daily

[zemanjaski]

Why do I have to be at work??

[Narcasus]

Why do I have to be at work??

You need money to play magic obviously

[zemanjaski]

I need money to pay for other stuff. I'm MODO infinite thankfully.

[F.I.A]

Why do I have to be at work??

It's what we thinking men need to do. Workers by day, warriors by night, y'know?

[DerWille]

Yeah after playing with it for two days I'm sold on Annihilating Fire. As always, LP with the brilliant insights.

I think those matches will be a good learning experience for you; you're seeing how complex a lot of the decision trees are and you'll be better equipped in the future. Magic is a tough game.

Thanks, I decided to play this deck instead of Red Devotion because hopefully, it would make me a better player for it.

Do you have a suggestion for replacing Reckoner #4 in the sideboard? I only have 3 and I've been filling the slot with [card]Pyromancer's Gauntlet[/card], but there's probably a better card for its slot. Maybe 1 of Frostburn Weird? Maybe [card]
Annihilating Fire[/card] #3?

[LP, of the Fires]

Fire # 3 or Flames of the Firebrand. Fire is broadly more applicable in more matchups, flames nets the random 2 and 3 for ones. I THINK I'm convinced exiling Chandra's phoenix and Voice is basically a 2-for-1.

[F.I.A]

Hmm, if we are indeed getting more and more mirror matches, it's indeed a nice idea to get the Annihilating Fire for the Phoenix. While sometimes it's good to 2-1 with Flames targeting Firefist Striker and Burning-Tree Emissary, it's much better to get rid of the opposing phoenix to control the air. (Not to mention you can just throw a 1/1 at a FFS.)

Edit: And I have been finding myself saving Flames as a 3-mana 3 damage on Red Bull most of the time. Maybe I should try burn them to cinders in next session.

[zemanjaski]

Phoenix and Reckoner are the two best mirror cards; so exiling their Phoenix is huge.

[InflatablePie]

I'm on the 2 traitourous instinct, 1 foil seismic stomp plan.

On his cell phone, out of boredom, t'was a real slow night at work
Thinking about Magic, "That new Chandra's such a jerk.
One week she was 10.50, now she's tripled up in price!
Z got his set for 36, heh, wouldn't that be nice?"

He zoned out as he browsed the boards, unsure of what to play
He thought he had made up his mind... for the fifth time today
"Maybe I'll play some blue-red, or try out Frank's BUG Midrange..."
But as he glanced over a post he felt a feeling strange

This deck had been considered, or at least one version had
He had done
some solo testing and it didn't seem that bad
But why did this post set him off, of all the reasons why?
Somehow it had convinced him just to give this deck a try

He finished up his shift, biked home, and jumped back on the site
He could afford this deck... yeah, his budget would be all right
It'd cost him a chunk of money, but so would the other decks
He'd just get bored of those ones and have nothing to play next

He opened up his binder, flipped to the foil page
Deciding for the fifteenth time: he should be a red mage.
Didn't think he'd ever use this card, this was some sort of sign
He would run this deck on Game Day, "That playmat will soon be mine."

He would win with foil Seismic Stomp, in all it's janky glory...
Went back to his laptop and wrote up this rhyming story
Memorized some matchups, now to test some before bed.
'cause FNM's tomorrow and Pie's running PyroRed.

[LP, of the Fires]

-->

[zemanjaski]

Bravo sir.

Bravo indeed.

FYI Dega is apparently 90% vs. red post board, according to Sally. Fwiw I'm 12-2 (6-0). Flippin' LOL.

[F.I.A]

Ey, Zem. What do you think about control siding in Fiendslayer Paladin against us? I've been thinking about cutting out two Skullcrack for two more Hammer to make sure I draw one postboard.

[zemanjaski]

Four Hammer is too much IMO.

I don't really have an opinion on it; it's good against us and there isn't an easy way to deal with it. It makes their wraths worse and it's bad against Chandra and Chandra's Phoenix.

It's just ok. I don't think it's particularly good.

[LP, of the Fires]

Dega is slightly favorable for them game 1 depending on there list(friends deck was playing tons of cheap burn based removal). Game 2, You act of treason there desecration demon and they have the sads.

[F.I.A]

Tell me about that. The last few times I've played against Dega, they were too busy playing their scry lands.

And I actually made their demon better by stealing them into 8/6 flier.

[warwizard87]

I'm on the 2 traitourous instinct, 1 foil seismic stomp plan.

On his cell phone, out of boredom, t'was a real slow night at work
Thinking about Magic, "That new Chandra's such a jerk.
One week she was 10.50, now she's tripled up in price!
Z got his set for 36, heh, wouldn't that be nice?"

He zoned out as he browsed the boards, unsure of what to play
He thought he had made up his mind... for the fifth time today
"Maybe I'll play some blue-red, or try out
Frank's BUG Midrange..."
But as he glanced over a post he felt a feeling strange

This deck had been considered, or at least one version had
He had done some solo testing and it didn't seem that bad
But why did this post set him off, of all the reasons why?
Somehow it had convinced him just to give this deck a try

He finished up his shift, biked home, and jumped back on the site
He could afford this deck... yeah, his budget would be all right
It'd cost him a chunk of money, but so would the other decks
He'd just get bored of those ones and have nothing to play next

He opened up his binder, flipped to the foil page
Deciding for the fifteenth time: he should be a red mage.
Didn't think he'd ever use this card, this was some sort of sign
He would run this deck on Game Day, "That playmat will soon be mine."

He would win with foil Seismic Stomp, in all it's janky glory...
Went back to his laptop and wrote up this rhyming story
nMemorized some matchups, now to test some before bed.
'cause FNM's tomorrow and Pie's running PyroRed.

I now have a new hero.

[RedNihilist]

I see people winning.

[warwizard87]

w00t well I will be getting the last cards I need on sunday, annihilating fires and traitorous instincts. lol who need to track those cards down....this guy =/

[dpaine88]

Yea I just dug through about 2000 RtR cads to dig out the Fires and Instincts haha. Everything else is in my Red Mage binder.

To the dude with the rhyme, that was off the hook!!! Welcome to the the clan!

[lorddax]

My way of dealing with fiendslayer is cast EOT shock on reckoner redirect to fiendslayer. Slayer is protection from red or black spells not pro red. Yeah it does involve two cards but its still a 1 for 1.