I don't hate red as a whole,I just hate this red aggro/burn deck that I'm sure by now everyone has played a million times. There's not reason to describe in detail because you all know what I'm talking about.
1- it's a cookie cutter deck, down to the exact configuration. If you use this deck, congratulations! You copied someone else's idea! 90% of the skill involved is deck construction, you just completely took that out of the equation, because you have no soul, no originality, and no creativity.
2- the deck is a completely brain dead, one dimensional powerhouse. It can kill you by turn 3 or 4, kill all of your early creatures, and by the time you get bigger ones you're already dead.
3- no amount of life gain or creature control will stop the train. Red should not have better and faster card draw than blue. Risk factor is broken. Sure you can eat 4 damage, but the problem is that you're already taking a lot of direct damage anyway and most of the time can't afford the damage. So red basically gets a 3 mana-3 card draw with jump start. cheaper and more card draw than chemister's insight, one of blues best card draws. With so much cheap direct damage combined with awesome card draw, this deck is unstoppable. Or that red creature that gets +1's for casting red spells, and then dumping the counters for mana, for more cheap burn and card draw.
4- I have not come up with a single deck idea that can beat this. Nothing can weather the early storm, nothing, nada. Believe me when I tell you that I have dumped a ton of money into MTG arena and have over 10 different decks full of rares and mythics. Nothing can beat it. It's just flat out too fast.
5- 50% (at least) of the players I play online use this deck, to a tee. Need I say more? This deck is completely taking all the fun out, to the point where I will concede on turn 1 if I realize that they're playing this deck. What's the point in even trying? It's just a waste of time.
6-Red needs nerfs. Red didn't used to have so many cheap burn cards as they do now. I'm an old school magic player
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Well, I agree that Risk Factor is strange since it is a red thing that plays a blue role. But I honestly don't think the archetype is that unbeatable, and I find control matchups much more boring and frustrating. And red aggro is there to destroy these control decks. There is a variety of archetypes in the format in order to create a certain balance between them.
UBRGrixis Shard: Grixis believes in a bold and impassioned search for satisfaction, perfection, and self expression. Those of Grixis colors have an eagerness to break the status quo and remake things in their own image. They disregard tradition and conventional approval, seeing them as unnecessary to achieve their goals, the well behaved rarely make history. Blue wants perfection. Black wants power. Red wants freedom.
UBRGrixis Shard: Grixis believes in a bold and impassioned search for satisfaction, perfection, and self expression. Those of Grixis colors have an eagerness to break the status quo and remake things in their own image. They disregard tradition and conventional approval, seeing them as unnecessary to achieve their goals, the well behaved rarely make history. Blue wants perfection. Black wants power. Red wants freedom.
Get good really mono red is nowhere close to last year power level (remember hazoret, chandra and that silly 4/4 flying haste flametongue kavru ?). Weenie white crushes RDW so hard so does esper control and mono blue aggro. I can agree on the brainless part but not one of your other points are valid i'm sorry, even the burn part is so wrong : chain lightning, lightning bolt, flameblast are cards that will never see the light of standard again. While i can agree that a standard without a valid burn strategy would be a refreshing move because mono red has been tier 1 for far too long, some players refuses to play anything else so wizards needs to delivers to them as well.
I don't hate red as a whole,I just hate this red aggro/burn deck that I'm sure by now everyone has played a million times. There's not reason to describe in detail because you all know what I'm talking about.
1- it's a cookie cutter deck, down to the exact configuration. If you use this deck, congratulations! You copied someone else's idea! 90% of the skill involved is deck construction, you just completely took that out of the equation, because you have no soul, no originality, and no creativity.
2- the deck is a completely brain dead, one dimensional powerhouse. It can kill you by turn 3 or 4, kill all of your early creatures, and by the time you get bigger ones you're already dead.
3- no amount of life gain or creature control will stop the train. Red should not have better and faster card draw than blue. Risk factor is broken. Sure you can eat 4 damage, but the problem is that you're already taking a lot of direct damage anyway and most of the time can't afford the damage. So red basically gets a 3 mana-3 card draw with jump start. cheaper and more card draw than chemister's insight, one of blues best card draws. With so much cheap direct damage combined with awesome card draw, this deck is unstoppable. Or that red creature that gets +1's for casting red spells, and then dumping the counters for mana, for more cheap burn and card draw.
4- I have not come up with a single deck idea that can beat this. Nothing can weather the early storm, nothing, nada. Believe me when I tell you that I have dumped a ton of money into MTG arena and have over 10 different decks full of rares and mythics. Nothing can beat it. It's just flat out too fast.
5- 50% (at least) of the players I play online use this deck, to a tee. Need I say more? This deck is completely taking all the fun out, to the point where I will concede on turn 1 if I realize that they're playing this deck. What's the point in even trying? It's just a waste of time.
6-Red needs nerfs. Red didn't used to have so many cheap burn cards as they do now. I'm an old school magic player
1. So? Lots of decks in constructed formats are very streamlined. What does that have to do with soul and why does it matter?
2. How is it braindead? Probably simpler to play than decks that require a more extensive knowledge of the metagame, sure. But again, so? Every deck doesn't need to have a thousand decisions during a game and take 40 minutes per match. Everything is relative, is it also bad to play anything other than legacy lands, ad nauseam or some weird controlly vintage deck? Other decks are much simpler than them so therefore you shouldn't play them?
3. Yes it will. And risk factor doesn't draw as many cards as insight.
4. Then how about you surrender a bit of your "soul, originality, and cretivity" and look around taking help from others?
5. You seem to be talkng about arena. bo1? If you need to grind out wins the speed with which a deck wins is a big factor, of course fast aggro is gonna be preferred.
6. You are old school and don't think RDW has been an archetype since pretty much forever? The deck is far from the best deck around so why does it need a nerf? Wouldn't it make more sense to nerf the strongest deck if nerfing was an option?
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6. You are old school and don't think RDW has been an archetype since pretty much forever?
It has and it hasn't. The original mono red deck in this vein was Sligh, played by Paul Sligh, and it was a janky mess due to the deckbuilding restrictions at the time but it pioneered the concept of the mana curve. Fast forward to the original Mirrodin era and that's when you have the first modern-ish incarnation of "Red Deck Wins" where the deck has so many avenues to bypass defenses (blocking, counters due to activated abilities, etc) that the red deck "just wins." Notably the difference between Sligh and RDW is that Sligh wants to burn away potential blockers and RDW tends to place less emphasis on preserving its board.
Then you have variants like Big Red (which has been a thing since forever because Mana Flare + Fireball was tech in the early to mid 90s), Ponza (red control), Goblins, and of course, Burn. The main addition Burn brings to the table is the sheer amount of redundancy it has, substituting threat quality (each individual Bolt only ever deals 3 damage) for threat density (you've got a lot more Bolts than they have business spells).
Burn, traditionally, is actually highly skill intensive and only gets even more skill intensive after sideboarding, so it sounds like Arena's BO1 is the problem rather than red per se. This could just as well be white weenie or green stompy and the problem would be the same.
6. You are old school and don't think RDW has been an archetype since pretty much forever?
It has and it hasn't. The original mono red deck in this vein was Sligh, played by Paul Sligh, and it was a janky mess due to the deckbuilding restrictions at the time but it pioneered the concept of the mana curve. Fast forward to the original Mirrodin era and that's when you have the first modern-ish incarnation of "Red Deck Wins" where the deck has so many avenues to bypass defenses (blocking, counters due to activated abilities, etc) that the red deck "just wins." Notably the difference between Sligh and RDW is that Sligh wants to burn away potential blockers and RDW tends to place less emphasis on preserving its board.
Then you have variants like Big Red (which has been a thing since forever because Mana Flare + Fireball was tech in the early to mid 90s), Ponza (red control), Goblins, and of course, Burn. The main addition Burn brings to the table is the sheer amount of redundancy it has, substituting threat quality (each individual Bolt only ever deals 3 damage) for threat density (you've got a lot more Bolts than they have business spells).
Burn, traditionally, is actually highly skill intensive and only gets even more skill intensive after sideboarding, so it sounds like Arena's BO1 is the problem rather than red per se. This could just as well be white weenie or green stompy and the problem would be the same.
YEaeh, RDW was poor wording on my part. I should probably have written something like low curve aggro decks have been a thing for very long
Thanks for the history lesson by the way, it was interesting! (I also realize this could be interpreted as sarcasm, it wasn't. You made a well written post )
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Mono Red is a strange deck in the sense that it has both speed and innevitability.
To beat mono red you need:
1) Turn 1-3 interactions. You need to either remove their creatures (best thing you can do), counter/discard the 3+ damage spells or play blockers who can survive burn. Playing ramp, hand fix, card draw or creatures that will just soak up burn spells will put you in great disadvantage.
2) This is the tricky part. As old magic player you may be stuck with the idea that if you can drop your forth or fifth land you are in advantage vs. mono red because monored is aggro and they only play cmc 1-3 cards.
This is not true in many cases however. This time monored has up to 8 draw spells and 4 of then cost just 1 mana. This gives monored enough gas to cast multiple spells in the midgame. So monored actually have a better turn 4-5 then the average deck.
Also, its a burn deck. Monored will quickly fall behind in the battlefield but if you cant win quickly enough they will eventually burn you.
To deal with this you need to either be fast enough to win when monored falls behind. Or take the innevitability out of red's hand by countering enough burn spells or gaining life.
Monored is not hard to beat (its actually very easy if you dont care about the control mu). You just have to respect it moreso if you are playing arena.
It will be more productive if you post one deck specifically and we can help tune it to arena meta.
Life gain doesnt stop burn? Since when? Red dumps its hand very quickly. If you throw off its clock by gaining life, you'll beat it more often than not. That's why BO1 answers to it have included decks like Esper Acuity, GW Midrange, etc.
Regarding Risk Factor, its better than its predecessor Browbeat, but its less good than Experimental Frenzy. Typically cards that give your opponents options are just bad.
Regarding the amount of Red you see online, a lot of that is because Arena has brought a lot of new players to the game. As such, they typically gravitate to the decks that are more straight forward while they learn. To Teia's point, red is more skill intensive than most give it credit for. That said, its also the easiest to blindly pilot because sometimes it just wins on its own
Between here and reddit, there's so many posts about "I've been playing MtG for so long, I hate _____ decks!" Quite honestly I'm surprised it's not another Esper control rant.
1. Literally every top deck can count as a cookie cutter net deck. It's not unique to just red decks. There's no problem in playing good decks, because against other good players, you better know how to pilot the deck.
2. That's how aggro decks work if they have a good hand. Mono Blue and WW can do the same if they have a good start. Control with a good starting hand can also shut down aggro to ensure they'll probably not win.
3. Wildgrowth Walker decks beat them. Selesnya decks beat them. Any combo with B or W can beat them with the amount of removal and playable lifegain cards beat them. Burn decks run out of steam quickly if they don't get you down to the danger zone. Every color has something that can be backbreaking to them such as Moment of Craving, Knight of Autumn, Absorb, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Lyra Dawnbringer, etc.
4. Funny, yesterday when I went through some Bo1 matches and noticed a high amount of red decks so I switched over the Selesnya Angels and didn't drop a single game against red. No deck is unbeatable, RDW is especially beatable if you play a deck to counter it compared to something like control.
5. You're playing Bo1, where aggro is king because once a sideboard is involved, they just lose. RDW isn't even a top deck in the meta right now because of that reason. Just look at the meta competitive breakdown: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper
People like to play fast games to get their dailies so it's an expected choice to play red because either they win or lose fast.
6. They don't need any nerfs because as I said, it's not a good deck. It's really laughable to say as an "old school" MtG player that you think burn spells is better now compared to the past when it's not.
Burn, traditionally, is actually highly skill intensive and only gets even more skill intensive after sideboarding, so it sounds like Arena's BO1 is the problem rather than red per se. This could just as well be white weenie or green stompy and the problem would be the same.
This. I'm historically a red player in tournament Magic and after sideboarding, red is usually a nightmare to play with, very much an uphill battle. What you're saying doesn't only count for Burn.
Anyways, let's talk Arena standard BO1. The thing about red burn/RDW is that if you make a single mistake, you're usually dead. Red needs to instantly figure out whether they're playing a control role (vs WW or the mirror) whether they should play like Zoo (vs control decks) or whether they should just suicide race (vs Stompy or Drakes). VS some decks like U aggro, you should figure out very fast whether to suicide or control depending on what they manage to draw/drop, whose starting turn it is, etc.
Decks that play longer games have a slightly higher threshold of mistakes. Atm I both play red and Golgari and I have primary experience as to how different the decks play. After I've played my daily wins through, I usually relax with Golgari because it's by far less stressful, and one time screwing up because I'm tired doesn't necessarily mean game over.
Anyways, point by point:
1. Deck construction is skill intensive, but it isn't abnormal for pro players to pilot decks other people built for them. Sligh is the classic example here, as it was actually built by another guy, but the pilot got the deck named after him. If you try out red you'll figure out that you need to do perfect sequencing or you lose. And goldfish sequencing will have you lose games, as each individual matchup needs a different sequence, and some matchups are even board state dependent. Each deck has its easy sides. Control doesn't require much of a brain to counter a two drop and can usually do whatever it wants after a certain amount of land drops, while each turn with red is maximize-or-lose. Also, deck construction is only one part of Magic. Some people don't like it, and you're not to decide what part of the game they should practice or enjoy. Lazy red deckbuilding shouldn't win anyways btw. You will only get proper wins adopting to the meta. For example, if Arena has a lot of red, red players should maximize the mirror rather than do cookie cutter decks. The Standard card pool actually has a few different options for red atm that do the same thing but with different efficiency depending on the matchup.
2. Red is almost always the check for Standard speed, meaning that you can't spend your first three turns doing nonsense. Also, red's removal isn't as good as you think it is.
3. You're wrong here. Red vs WW with lifegain is actually super punishing for red, and maindeck Revitalizes and Deafening Clarions are everywhere atm, which are a huge issue for red.
4. Tbh you're probably not good enough as a deck creator to build a tuned deck if you don't think any archetype can match red atm. Try to netdeck a bit of the current Standard, at least look into the archetypes, if you want to beat the field. You'll get a feel for it eventually.
5. This here I agree is an issue. The thing is that Arena rewards are based per-game so the quicker games you play with a reasonable winrate, the more you get to buy more packs. I don't have time to play 35 40 minute matches of Teferi mirrors a week to get my boosters and gold, but I want my boosters and gold. I don't even have the time to play each week, usually playing every third week. And I need my wildcards and gold. So I play red for the first five dailies. Red isn't even the best deck to play atm, but the speed adds up in rewards. I think many people are in the same situation.
6. Uh, red's burn is definitely powered down relative to older sets. Red's creatures are better but so are its opponents'. So yea.
One of the biggest problems that red presents in current standard is the "accidental" maindeck hate cards.
Stuff like Chainwhirler hurts all the 1/1 tokens , not because red wants to specifically beat the token decks, but because its simply good in general.
Removal like Lava Coil just hits the 4 toughness creatures and as a bonus also exiles creatures.
Stuff like that gives the deck a lot more legs than it would get if it needed some proper adjustments in deckbuilding.
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Overall, red decks present something like 24-30 damage worth of fodder from their hands , and if you can negate some of them, or hit back with a lifelink creature, the race is much more open already.
If you can simply shock a creature right away, that saves you like 4+ life, kill another creature, and you gained virtually 10 life doing that.
If you dont kill anything and eat damage till turn 4+ , your removal wont save you as they can simply kill you with burn ; simply said, you play into exactly what they do best, and you fail to establish a game plan that prevents them from doing what they want to do.
Decks already use cards that are specifically good against red aggro decks to get out of reach of burn spells and stone wall them, if you can keep a creature alive against a burn removal spell, they wasted the damage, the card and you are likely ahead quickly.
A single Dive Down from a blue deck can turn the tide of a game. A single mass removal that cleans the board can be enough to remove all their steam, and the moment they are on their back, you can close the game.
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If an opponent plays cards wrong or plays into terrible trades of cards or simply mismanages their own life points, they give the red deck more and more bonus points that they shouldnt get against a capable opponent.
Risk factor in particular is a card that only shines when the opponent is already at a really low life total (<10) , but even then they almost always want to take 4 damage, as the +3 cards will most likely deal more damage than that (and letting them draw lands gives you more breathing room).
You never ever want them to draw 3 cards from the first Risk factor and then take the 4 damage from the jump start ; thats the worst possible move you can do, and you simply dig your own grave doing that.
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All said and done, Mono Red isnt a BAD deck in standard and has enough strong cards to be a threat regardless of what you do with your deck.
But like always, if you want to beat Mono Red, you have to first understand what Mono Red is actually trying to do that wins against you, and shift your own plan accordingly.
Are you serious? Look red is and has always been the fundamental clock in whatever format it's legal in.
Damage is cumulative, meaning the "inevitability" factor is greater for your classic burn deck than every other deck.
Rather than cry about it, let me just say the burn deck is the first step of deck tier you have to be able to overcome.
It's the first and primary barrier. Like others have stated, you cant spend the first three turns doing junk.
No I haven't played arena. You got me there. But I've been playing magic since 1994, and since that time, understanding why your deck loses to burn means to move from the beginner to the intermediate levels of magic. Magic is and basically always has been the same. Bless its heart.
Burn decks are built to be weak to card advantage. Once they blow their load, they're basically top decking. Sometimes decks with simple life gain could defeat it.
Burn decks are fast, but combo is generally faster. The classic meta is Aggro beats Control, Control beats Combo, Combo beats aggro.
If your combo loses to Aggro, its not that combo now sucks, its that perhaps the combo you built is a little too fragile.
Burn decks exhibit a kind of tempo. If you disrupt their tempo, you can really disrupt their strategy. Beating the clock means that burn now has to address your threats, which changes your game.
There is a reason why "dies to bolt" was a meme a few years ago. The meta defining burn magic indeed meant that creatures with 3 toughness or less would in the meta be removed by a single burn spell. On the other hand, if burn is spending two cards to remove one of your threats, they're going to lose in the long run. The kicker is though, burn is only going to respond to your threats if you can kill them faster.
Disruption or Card discard disrupts the tempo of burn decks as well. Dont go for things like thoughtseize though.
Finally if you really want to know the weaknesses of the deck, go play it yourself.
1. Its called a "deck to beat" for a reason.
2. Same argument applies to other fast decks.
3. You can actually slow it down to stabilize, for example Kor Firewalker.
4. MTGA, I see, well just pilot an orzhov lifegain deck and focus on stabilizing than beating it.
5. Because its just cheap to build with wildcards, tix, or whatever your regional equivalent is.
6. I too am of the old skool, but nerfs just lead to pack filler trash later and nobody needs that.
(I have not read all the responses just some of them) Some clarifications:
1-I have not played magic in over ten years and have only recently picked up Arena in the last 6 months. If people are referring to cards in the last few sets they might as well be talking chinese to me.
2-I refuse to use someone else's deck. My whole thing with magic is coming up with something no one else has done. It may not be the best deck in the world but it's mine and it's original, a concept that escapes some people.
3-I usually get to mythic tier after it resets within a few days. I know how to play magic, but it's not about winning at all costs. If it was, I have all the cards needed for that red burn deck but I refuse because to me it's like stealing someone's intellectual property.
4-A few people have suggested white weenie lifegain. I actually have a knight deck like that exactly. It kills many decks very quickly, but still loses to red burn because they just burn all the creatures and keep the train going with runaway steam kin and risk factor.
5-Gate decks are a joke. Seriously? Okay I will admit that when I first encountered this deck I thought It was OP, but then I figured that one out pretty quick. As a matter of fact I would even rate it as one of the worst cookie cutter decks that I've faced. Gate decks are way too slow for red burn.
6-I just wanted to make a point that I do, in fact, win most of my games. Most decks aren't too much of a problem. Mono Red burn is the only one that makes me rage because I never get a chance to do anything. Red having cheap burn alone isn't the problem, it's always been that way since 1994. The problem now In my honest opinion is that red has draw cards on par with blue, or arguably better because of the cheapness.
On a side note unrelated to the topic, I feel like green is kinda meh these days. Good as a support color but as a mono? Not so sure.
I deck I am using the most right now is your standard, classic blue/white control. The concept is nothing new but no one has a deck like mine. It's based around miriari Conjecture with tons of instants and sorcerys with counters, card draw,deck-out, sweeping spells and life gain. I ran into into a blue/red miriari conjecture deck and it gave me the inspiration. Out of all the decks I've made, this one has the most consistent wins. But then again, blue/white has always classically been a nasty combo.
Plainswalkers are new to me, and to be honest, I think they're a little unbalanced as a whole. I don't think you should be allowed to have more than 1 plainswalker in play at one time, but that's just my opinion.
The game as a whole got a lot more complicated from many years ago. There are too many synergies and triggers. Triggers in particular annoy me because I'm constantly clicking the resolve/resolve all button.
I've not memorized the names of all the current cards, but I remember what they do, so if you're replying to me listing various card names, either send a link to a picture or just tell me what it does.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to brew your own decks. But, Arena isnt the same as kitchen table magic and that seems to be where some of the disconnect lies. There is an established Standard meta on Arena just like in competitive paper magic and those are the decks anything you brew is going to have to contend with. Every deck is gonna have its bad matchups....there's no getting around that. You either have to accept the bad matchup or go back to the drawing board
no shame in piloting a net deck just to understand how it works. Can't get better at deckbuilding if you bias yourself to homebrew mentality.
I play monoG stomp and grixis drakes in BO1, it ain't easy against red, especially big red, but have to re-evaluate, get better, and build in better interaction against that deck.
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1- it's a cookie cutter deck, down to the exact configuration. If you use this deck, congratulations! You copied someone else's idea! 90% of the skill involved is deck construction, you just completely took that out of the equation, because you have no soul, no originality, and no creativity.
2- the deck is a completely brain dead, one dimensional powerhouse. It can kill you by turn 3 or 4, kill all of your early creatures, and by the time you get bigger ones you're already dead.
3- no amount of life gain or creature control will stop the train. Red should not have better and faster card draw than blue. Risk factor is broken. Sure you can eat 4 damage, but the problem is that you're already taking a lot of direct damage anyway and most of the time can't afford the damage. So red basically gets a 3 mana-3 card draw with jump start. cheaper and more card draw than chemister's insight, one of blues best card draws. With so much cheap direct damage combined with awesome card draw, this deck is unstoppable. Or that red creature that gets +1's for casting red spells, and then dumping the counters for mana, for more cheap burn and card draw.
4- I have not come up with a single deck idea that can beat this. Nothing can weather the early storm, nothing, nada. Believe me when I tell you that I have dumped a ton of money into MTG arena and have over 10 different decks full of rares and mythics. Nothing can beat it. It's just flat out too fast.
5- 50% (at least) of the players I play online use this deck, to a tee. Need I say more? This deck is completely taking all the fun out, to the point where I will concede on turn 1 if I realize that they're playing this deck. What's the point in even trying? It's just a waste of time.
6-Red needs nerfs. Red didn't used to have so many cheap burn cards as they do now. I'm an old school magic player
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Seriously though, wrong forum.
Black and Green is currently a bit weakish.
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Indeed. Mono White is currently more powerful than Mono Red, in my opinion.
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UBR Grixis Shard: Grixis believes in a bold and impassioned search for satisfaction, perfection, and self expression. Those of Grixis colors have an eagerness to break the status quo and remake things in their own image. They disregard tradition and conventional approval, seeing them as unnecessary to achieve their goals, the well behaved rarely make history. Blue wants perfection. Black wants power. Red wants freedom.
1. So? Lots of decks in constructed formats are very streamlined. What does that have to do with soul and why does it matter?
2. How is it braindead? Probably simpler to play than decks that require a more extensive knowledge of the metagame, sure. But again, so? Every deck doesn't need to have a thousand decisions during a game and take 40 minutes per match. Everything is relative, is it also bad to play anything other than legacy lands, ad nauseam or some weird controlly vintage deck? Other decks are much simpler than them so therefore you shouldn't play them?
3. Yes it will. And risk factor doesn't draw as many cards as insight.
4. Then how about you surrender a bit of your "soul, originality, and cretivity" and look around taking help from others?
5. You seem to be talkng about arena. bo1? If you need to grind out wins the speed with which a deck wins is a big factor, of course fast aggro is gonna be preferred.
6. You are old school and don't think RDW has been an archetype since pretty much forever? The deck is far from the best deck around so why does it need a nerf? Wouldn't it make more sense to nerf the strongest deck if nerfing was an option?
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It has and it hasn't. The original mono red deck in this vein was Sligh, played by Paul Sligh, and it was a janky mess due to the deckbuilding restrictions at the time but it pioneered the concept of the mana curve. Fast forward to the original Mirrodin era and that's when you have the first modern-ish incarnation of "Red Deck Wins" where the deck has so many avenues to bypass defenses (blocking, counters due to activated abilities, etc) that the red deck "just wins." Notably the difference between Sligh and RDW is that Sligh wants to burn away potential blockers and RDW tends to place less emphasis on preserving its board.
Then you have variants like Big Red (which has been a thing since forever because Mana Flare + Fireball was tech in the early to mid 90s), Ponza (red control), Goblins, and of course, Burn. The main addition Burn brings to the table is the sheer amount of redundancy it has, substituting threat quality (each individual Bolt only ever deals 3 damage) for threat density (you've got a lot more Bolts than they have business spells).
Burn, traditionally, is actually highly skill intensive and only gets even more skill intensive after sideboarding, so it sounds like Arena's BO1 is the problem rather than red per se. This could just as well be white weenie or green stompy and the problem would be the same.
YEaeh, RDW was poor wording on my part. I should probably have written something like low curve aggro decks have been a thing for very long
Thanks for the history lesson by the way, it was interesting! (I also realize this could be interpreted as sarcasm, it wasn't. You made a well written post )
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Rules Advisor
To beat mono red you need:
1) Turn 1-3 interactions. You need to either remove their creatures (best thing you can do), counter/discard the 3+ damage spells or play blockers who can survive burn. Playing ramp, hand fix, card draw or creatures that will just soak up burn spells will put you in great disadvantage.
2) This is the tricky part. As old magic player you may be stuck with the idea that if you can drop your forth or fifth land you are in advantage vs. mono red because monored is aggro and they only play cmc 1-3 cards.
This is not true in many cases however. This time monored has up to 8 draw spells and 4 of then cost just 1 mana. This gives monored enough gas to cast multiple spells in the midgame. So monored actually have a better turn 4-5 then the average deck.
Also, its a burn deck. Monored will quickly fall behind in the battlefield but if you cant win quickly enough they will eventually burn you.
To deal with this you need to either be fast enough to win when monored falls behind. Or take the innevitability out of red's hand by countering enough burn spells or gaining life.
Monored is not hard to beat (its actually very easy if you dont care about the control mu). You just have to respect it moreso if you are playing arena.
It will be more productive if you post one deck specifically and we can help tune it to arena meta.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Regarding Risk Factor, its better than its predecessor Browbeat, but its less good than Experimental Frenzy. Typically cards that give your opponents options are just bad.
Regarding the amount of Red you see online, a lot of that is because Arena has brought a lot of new players to the game. As such, they typically gravitate to the decks that are more straight forward while they learn. To Teia's point, red is more skill intensive than most give it credit for. That said, its also the easiest to blindly pilot because sometimes it just wins on its own
1. Literally every top deck can count as a cookie cutter net deck. It's not unique to just red decks. There's no problem in playing good decks, because against other good players, you better know how to pilot the deck.
2. That's how aggro decks work if they have a good hand. Mono Blue and WW can do the same if they have a good start. Control with a good starting hand can also shut down aggro to ensure they'll probably not win.
3. Wildgrowth Walker decks beat them. Selesnya decks beat them. Any combo with B or W can beat them with the amount of removal and playable lifegain cards beat them. Burn decks run out of steam quickly if they don't get you down to the danger zone. Every color has something that can be backbreaking to them such as Moment of Craving, Knight of Autumn, Absorb, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Lyra Dawnbringer, etc.
4. Funny, yesterday when I went through some Bo1 matches and noticed a high amount of red decks so I switched over the Selesnya Angels and didn't drop a single game against red. No deck is unbeatable, RDW is especially beatable if you play a deck to counter it compared to something like control.
5. You're playing Bo1, where aggro is king because once a sideboard is involved, they just lose. RDW isn't even a top deck in the meta right now because of that reason. Just look at the meta competitive breakdown: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#paper
People like to play fast games to get their dailies so it's an expected choice to play red because either they win or lose fast.
6. They don't need any nerfs because as I said, it's not a good deck. It's really laughable to say as an "old school" MtG player that you think burn spells is better now compared to the past when it's not.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
This. I'm historically a red player in tournament Magic and after sideboarding, red is usually a nightmare to play with, very much an uphill battle. What you're saying doesn't only count for Burn.
Anyways, let's talk Arena standard BO1. The thing about red burn/RDW is that if you make a single mistake, you're usually dead. Red needs to instantly figure out whether they're playing a control role (vs WW or the mirror) whether they should play like Zoo (vs control decks) or whether they should just suicide race (vs Stompy or Drakes). VS some decks like U aggro, you should figure out very fast whether to suicide or control depending on what they manage to draw/drop, whose starting turn it is, etc.
Decks that play longer games have a slightly higher threshold of mistakes. Atm I both play red and Golgari and I have primary experience as to how different the decks play. After I've played my daily wins through, I usually relax with Golgari because it's by far less stressful, and one time screwing up because I'm tired doesn't necessarily mean game over.
Anyways, point by point:
1. Deck construction is skill intensive, but it isn't abnormal for pro players to pilot decks other people built for them. Sligh is the classic example here, as it was actually built by another guy, but the pilot got the deck named after him. If you try out red you'll figure out that you need to do perfect sequencing or you lose. And goldfish sequencing will have you lose games, as each individual matchup needs a different sequence, and some matchups are even board state dependent. Each deck has its easy sides. Control doesn't require much of a brain to counter a two drop and can usually do whatever it wants after a certain amount of land drops, while each turn with red is maximize-or-lose. Also, deck construction is only one part of Magic. Some people don't like it, and you're not to decide what part of the game they should practice or enjoy. Lazy red deckbuilding shouldn't win anyways btw. You will only get proper wins adopting to the meta. For example, if Arena has a lot of red, red players should maximize the mirror rather than do cookie cutter decks. The Standard card pool actually has a few different options for red atm that do the same thing but with different efficiency depending on the matchup.
2. Red is almost always the check for Standard speed, meaning that you can't spend your first three turns doing nonsense. Also, red's removal isn't as good as you think it is.
3. You're wrong here. Red vs WW with lifegain is actually super punishing for red, and maindeck Revitalizes and Deafening Clarions are everywhere atm, which are a huge issue for red.
4. Tbh you're probably not good enough as a deck creator to build a tuned deck if you don't think any archetype can match red atm. Try to netdeck a bit of the current Standard, at least look into the archetypes, if you want to beat the field. You'll get a feel for it eventually.
5. This here I agree is an issue. The thing is that Arena rewards are based per-game so the quicker games you play with a reasonable winrate, the more you get to buy more packs. I don't have time to play 35 40 minute matches of Teferi mirrors a week to get my boosters and gold, but I want my boosters and gold. I don't even have the time to play each week, usually playing every third week. And I need my wildcards and gold. So I play red for the first five dailies. Red isn't even the best deck to play atm, but the speed adds up in rewards. I think many people are in the same situation.
6. Uh, red's burn is definitely powered down relative to older sets. Red's creatures are better but so are its opponents'. So yea.
Stuff like Chainwhirler hurts all the 1/1 tokens , not because red wants to specifically beat the token decks, but because its simply good in general.
Removal like Lava Coil just hits the 4 toughness creatures and as a bonus also exiles creatures.
Stuff like that gives the deck a lot more legs than it would get if it needed some proper adjustments in deckbuilding.
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Overall, red decks present something like 24-30 damage worth of fodder from their hands , and if you can negate some of them, or hit back with a lifelink creature, the race is much more open already.
If you can simply shock a creature right away, that saves you like 4+ life, kill another creature, and you gained virtually 10 life doing that.
If you dont kill anything and eat damage till turn 4+ , your removal wont save you as they can simply kill you with burn ; simply said, you play into exactly what they do best, and you fail to establish a game plan that prevents them from doing what they want to do.
Decks already use cards that are specifically good against red aggro decks to get out of reach of burn spells and stone wall them, if you can keep a creature alive against a burn removal spell, they wasted the damage, the card and you are likely ahead quickly.
A single Dive Down from a blue deck can turn the tide of a game. A single mass removal that cleans the board can be enough to remove all their steam, and the moment they are on their back, you can close the game.
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If an opponent plays cards wrong or plays into terrible trades of cards or simply mismanages their own life points, they give the red deck more and more bonus points that they shouldnt get against a capable opponent.
Risk factor in particular is a card that only shines when the opponent is already at a really low life total (<10) , but even then they almost always want to take 4 damage, as the +3 cards will most likely deal more damage than that (and letting them draw lands gives you more breathing room).
You never ever want them to draw 3 cards from the first Risk factor and then take the 4 damage from the jump start ; thats the worst possible move you can do, and you simply dig your own grave doing that.
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All said and done, Mono Red isnt a BAD deck in standard and has enough strong cards to be a threat regardless of what you do with your deck.
But like always, if you want to beat Mono Red, you have to first understand what Mono Red is actually trying to do that wins against you, and shift your own plan accordingly.
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Damage is cumulative, meaning the "inevitability" factor is greater for your classic burn deck than every other deck.
Rather than cry about it, let me just say the burn deck is the first step of deck tier you have to be able to overcome.
It's the first and primary barrier. Like others have stated, you cant spend the first three turns doing junk.
No I haven't played arena. You got me there. But I've been playing magic since 1994, and since that time, understanding why your deck loses to burn means to move from the beginner to the intermediate levels of magic. Magic is and basically always has been the same. Bless its heart.
Burn decks are built to be weak to card advantage. Once they blow their load, they're basically top decking. Sometimes decks with simple life gain could defeat it.
Burn decks are fast, but combo is generally faster. The classic meta is Aggro beats Control, Control beats Combo, Combo beats aggro.
If your combo loses to Aggro, its not that combo now sucks, its that perhaps the combo you built is a little too fragile.
Burn decks exhibit a kind of tempo. If you disrupt their tempo, you can really disrupt their strategy. Beating the clock means that burn now has to address your threats, which changes your game.
There is a reason why "dies to bolt" was a meme a few years ago. The meta defining burn magic indeed meant that creatures with 3 toughness or less would in the meta be removed by a single burn spell. On the other hand, if burn is spending two cards to remove one of your threats, they're going to lose in the long run. The kicker is though, burn is only going to respond to your threats if you can kill them faster.
Disruption or Card discard disrupts the tempo of burn decks as well. Dont go for things like thoughtseize though.
Finally if you really want to know the weaknesses of the deck, go play it yourself.
2. Same argument applies to other fast decks.
3. You can actually slow it down to stabilize, for example Kor Firewalker.
4. MTGA, I see, well just pilot an orzhov lifegain deck and focus on stabilizing than beating it.
5. Because its just cheap to build with wildcards, tix, or whatever your regional equivalent is.
6. I too am of the old skool, but nerfs just lead to pack filler trash later and nobody needs that.
1-I have not played magic in over ten years and have only recently picked up Arena in the last 6 months. If people are referring to cards in the last few sets they might as well be talking chinese to me.
2-I refuse to use someone else's deck. My whole thing with magic is coming up with something no one else has done. It may not be the best deck in the world but it's mine and it's original, a concept that escapes some people.
3-I usually get to mythic tier after it resets within a few days. I know how to play magic, but it's not about winning at all costs. If it was, I have all the cards needed for that red burn deck but I refuse because to me it's like stealing someone's intellectual property.
4-A few people have suggested white weenie lifegain. I actually have a knight deck like that exactly. It kills many decks very quickly, but still loses to red burn because they just burn all the creatures and keep the train going with runaway steam kin and risk factor.
5-Gate decks are a joke. Seriously? Okay I will admit that when I first encountered this deck I thought It was OP, but then I figured that one out pretty quick. As a matter of fact I would even rate it as one of the worst cookie cutter decks that I've faced. Gate decks are way too slow for red burn.
6-I just wanted to make a point that I do, in fact, win most of my games. Most decks aren't too much of a problem. Mono Red burn is the only one that makes me rage because I never get a chance to do anything. Red having cheap burn alone isn't the problem, it's always been that way since 1994. The problem now In my honest opinion is that red has draw cards on par with blue, or arguably better because of the cheapness.
On a side note unrelated to the topic, I feel like green is kinda meh these days. Good as a support color but as a mono? Not so sure.
I deck I am using the most right now is your standard, classic blue/white control. The concept is nothing new but no one has a deck like mine. It's based around miriari Conjecture with tons of instants and sorcerys with counters, card draw,deck-out, sweeping spells and life gain. I ran into into a blue/red miriari conjecture deck and it gave me the inspiration. Out of all the decks I've made, this one has the most consistent wins. But then again, blue/white has always classically been a nasty combo.
Plainswalkers are new to me, and to be honest, I think they're a little unbalanced as a whole. I don't think you should be allowed to have more than 1 plainswalker in play at one time, but that's just my opinion.
The game as a whole got a lot more complicated from many years ago. There are too many synergies and triggers. Triggers in particular annoy me because I'm constantly clicking the resolve/resolve all button.
I've not memorized the names of all the current cards, but I remember what they do, so if you're replying to me listing various card names, either send a link to a picture or just tell me what it does.
no shame in piloting a net deck just to understand how it works. Can't get better at deckbuilding if you bias yourself to homebrew mentality.
I play monoG stomp and grixis drakes in BO1, it ain't easy against red, especially big red, but have to re-evaluate, get better, and build in better interaction against that deck.
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