“I looked to the future, it made me cry
But it seems too hard to tell you why…
And I just hope that you can forgive us
But everything must go”
– Manic Street Preachers, “Everything Must Go”
Reasons to be uncheerful:
- Japanese Nationals. In what is, by common consensus, the tournament featuring the best players in the world, the Red Deck won in the final. Or, rather, it would have won if the same rules had applied as in every other tournament ever. But in an example of life imitating the color wheel, the Blue Deck managed to rewind time, use illusion, knowledge and trickery to gain an advantage and defeat the Red Deck. Video replays, indeed.
- Ravnica: City of Guilds – I know most people are really excited about getting a new set and not having to play with Mirrodin cards, but (like Jamie) I remember about what happens during blocks which push playing more than one color. During Invasion Block Constructed, I spent a miserable summer with not only Blue but also White cards in my Red deck and had to play a Ponza deck in the National and European Championships for the first and last time.
- Speaking of Mirrodin, farewell to Slith Firewalker, Arc-Slogger, Shrapnel Blast, Forge[/author]“]Pulse of the [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author], Molten Rain, Jinxed Choker, Blinkmoth Nexus, Magma Jet, Sword of Fire and Ice, Chrome Mox…
- Kamigawa Block Constructed and the battle between multi-color Gifts decks and Mono-Blue Control. Oh, yeah, and White Weenie, Blue/Green beatdown and bad Black decks. Who could fail to be enthused by the prospect of this transferring to Standard for the Autumn? (!)
- “Boros Deck Wins” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Red Deck Wins”
Anyway, enough whining, it’s time to prepare for this future. But before we do this, it’s important to learn the lessons of the Constructed season which has just passed, and to understand the Rules of the Red Deck.
Rule One: Ponza only has a good matchup against itself, and then only when going first
Believe it or not, when Skullclamp was banned, people thought that Ponza would be one of the best decks. This Constructed season has shown just how bad Ponza is.
Consider this. Not one but two of the top decks require three different kinds of non-basic land to be in play to operate effectively. As well as Stone Rain, a Ponza deck has a strictly better version in Molten Rain, as well as other options including Sowing Salt. With Chrome Mox, it is possible to start destroying land on the second turn, and Slith Firewalker offers a two-drop that will kill an opponent on its own in six turns if left unimpeded. Thoughts of Ruin offers the most efficient way of destroying lots of lands for years and years. And Zo-zu the Punisher not only hurts players who need to make land drops, but also attacks for two. Put simply, it would not be possible to design a better opportunity for Ponza decks to flourish.
And, well, they didn’t. As the Constructed season progressed, Stone Rain and Sowing Salt dropped out of successful Red decks and were replaced with cards like Frostling, Shrapnel Blast and Jinxed Choker. Molten Rain continued to be used, though sometimes only in the sideboard, and not as part of a land destruction strategy but more for a bit of disruption and a bit of damage.
While land destruction decks can occasionally catch people out when they haven’t quite built their decks with enough land, land destruction as a central strategy is essentially one rung up from the Punisher mechanic from Torment.
Rule Two: The mana curve still matters
The mana curve is an old way of building Red Decks, devised by Jay Schneider. The idea behind it is to try to make sure that every turn the Red Deck uses all of its mana on casting spells. This was back in the Magic dark ages where trying to win by casting Ernham Djinn on the fourth turn and attacking with it was thought not only reasonable, but top notch tech.
The mana curve divides a deck up as follows:
1 mana slot: 9-13
2 mana slot: 6-8
3 mana slot: 3-5
4 mana slot: 1-3
X spell (fireball, etc.): 1-3
One-shot Artifact/LD: 2-5
One-shot Direct Damage (Bolts, Incinerates, etc.): 8-10
Utility land (Mishra, Strip, etc.) 4-8
Red Mana Land 15-18
Now back at the Philadelphia Last Chance Qualifier, the Red Deck played with 22 land, 4 Chrome Mox and 4 Seething Song, to be able to play 4 Arc-Slogger and 1 Kumano, just about as far from the idea of the mana curve as it is possible to get.
But more recently, something interesting happened:
Tomohiro Kaji, 7-0 Japanese Nationals
1 mana slot: 4 Genju of the Spires, 4 Frostling
2 mana slot: 4 Hearth Kami, 4 Slith Firewalker
3 mana slot: 4 Jinxed Choker, 3 Zo-zu, the Punisher
One-shot land destruction: 4 Molten Rain
One-shot Direct Damage: 4 Magma Jet, 4 Shrapnel Blast
Utility land: 4 Blinkmoth Nexus
Red mana land: 17 Mountain
(and 4 Chrome Mox)
Now this doesn’t quite follow the mana curve. The existence of Chrome Mox alters the mathematics about which balance of cards is needed to be able to fully use all of a deck’s mana each turn, as it offers the ability to play a two-mana spell on turn 1 and so on, and Genju of the Spires is not exactly a conventional one-drop. But I do think it is interesting how close Kaji’s Red Deck ended up to a template for designing Red Decks invented nine years ago. When designing for the future, there are worse places to start than trying to build a Red Deck according to the principles of the mana curve.
Rule Three: The rule of four, breaking of
Speaking of which, Richard Feldman recently wrote an article about how to decide whether to play with four or fewer copies of any particular card in your deck. It’s a good article and well worth reading. But when preparing for a new Constructed environment, the first thing to think about is which cards you want more than four of in your deck, and how to make it possible.
This is one of the most basic Red Deck ideas. Back when other people were trying to cram as many restricted cards as possible in their decks, Red mages were playing Incinerate as well as Lightning Bolt because although it isn’t as good, three damage is still three damage. Goblin Cadets might be [s]better[/s] not as good as Jackal Pup, but they are still a two power creature for one mana. This year, Yuki-Onna or Shatter sometimes supplement Hearth Kami to allow for more than four artifact removal spells where necessary, just as Hearth Kami joins Slith Firewalker to allow the Red Deck to have more than four two-mana creatures which can attack.
When looking through the spoiler lists, what matters is not just the all-star cards, the bomb rares and cards which are obviously above the usual power level, but the cards which can fill in for and supplement others. After all, when it attacks for two, one Goblin looks much like any other.
Rule Four: Know Your Enemy
I was reading the discussions in the forums about mono-Red in Kamigawa Block Constructed, and one interesting thing was how differently the deck got built if expecting to face White Weenie and Black Hand, or if expecting Gifts and Blue Control. The disappearance of Genju of the Spires from Red Decks in Standard and then their reappearance later in the season is directly in response to the changes in the other decks which are more prevalent.
Only occasionally during the past ten years has the Red deck been good enough to crush beatdown decks, control decks and combo decks without making special preparations to be stronger against some of those strategies and weaker against others. And Standard featuring 9th Edition, Kamigawa Block, and the Block which pushes playing more than one colour is not exactly a Golden Age for the Red Deck.
It is, of course, too early to speculate about what the post-Ravnica metagame might be like. But one early and encouraging observation is the proliferation of painlands, both in 9th Edition and in Ravnica. Painlands are good news for Red mages because they involve people assisting you in doing them twenty damage by dealing themselves damage in order to cast their spells. It seems a bit weird to me, but fair play for their helpfulness.
The other good thing about playing a Red deck at a time when the card pool is relatively weak is that people aren’t as prepared for you. At the moment, turn up to a Standard tournament and pretty much everyone has tested against the Red deck and has plans for how they are going to beat you. More often then not, you win anyway, but the pleasure cannot compare to that when you beat someone in the first game, and then they don’t even have anything in their sideboard that can help them.
As an aside, people often spend a lot of time trying to work out what the best deck is at any particular time. This is, in general, a waste of time. Since February, with a card pool which has not changed very much, claims have been made that Ponza, Mono Blue Control, Tooth and Nail, Blue Tron, Flores Red, Rats and even White Weenie are the best deck. Yet anyone who turned up to a tournament just focused on being able to beat any one of these decks would have got crushed. Just as in pre-rotation Extended, there are, and have been all summer, not one top deck but a selection of decks with a similar enough power level that success is decided by sideboard tweaks and playskill, rather than any particular deck having an across the board matchup advantage versus the field.
With the exception of Kamigawa Block, which had a much smaller card pool, we’ve been moving away from “Rock/Paper/Scissors” metagames, in which either Deck A beats Deck B beats Deck C, and Decks A, B and C are better than all the other decks, or there is one dominant deck, in which case the metagame becomes one of a dominant deck, decks designed specifically to beat the best deck, and decks which lose to the dominant deck but which beat the decks which are aiming at the best deck.
As Wizards get better at making cards, and also more active about banning cards to promote diversity of decks, the skill of being able to design decks to beat the dominant deck will become less relevant when compared to being able to construct a deck able to handle a variety of different kinds of matchup.
Or, to sum up, if your deck finishes below not just one but two copies of a White Weenie deck which can’t kill before turn 5, and in which a four-mana Winter Orb which dies to Shock is meant to be good, then by definition, your deck is not the best deck.
Rule Five: The Fear
I’ve talked about The Fear before. This is just to say that even people who suffer habitually from The Fear should recognize that there is a card called Pithing Needle which sorts out anything that you are scared of. I know it is an expensive rare card, but I hear that in some areas if you can prove that you suffer from The Fear, then your doctor will send you Pithing Needles on prescription as a cure. The only thing better than Pithing Needle is the knowledge that, more than ever, anyone who turns up with a deck tuned against the Red Deck is going to get slaughtered by everyone else. I’ve seen the people with their Paladins-en-Vec and their maindeck Worships play against the Gifts decks and the Mono Blue Control and its about the only time that watching the control deck is actually enjoyable.
Next time, I’ll have a look at these new Ravnica cards. But it’s important when looking to the future to remember the lessons of what has just past.
Take care
Dan
Further Reading
The History of Sligh, beginnings to June ’96
The Rule of Four – http://web.archive.org/web/20010111214500/thedojo.com/column2/col.991004mfl.shtml
How Red Decks Win – http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?id=2582
The Fear – http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/7104.html