CASUAL FRIDAYS #142: The Ruby Hall Of Fame

Red in multiplayer – just like red in any format – is all about big tradeoffs. There’s very little subtle about the color, and its rankings, when put next to any other color’s, reflect that.

First of all, the top three cards are stronger than just about any other of the four colors (black’s high trio rate a smidge stronger). And no color has the”gorilla” impact of red – even though it typically misses enchantments, it hits just about everything else with alarming regularity. Add in a fair sprinkling of powerful instants for a strong”spider” showing, and you’ve got the makings of a great Hall.

Where red hiccups is in its longevity. You’ll see this as the other colors roll out, but a 3.1 overall for the”cockroach” element is just miserable. Even its repeatable effects, like Sneak Attack, work against its long-term interests as you dump your hand into your graveyard. And while red can threaten massive retaliation, it typically does so by sacking or destroying the permanent in question – see Cinder Elemental or Bloodfire Colossus.

As a result, red’s Hall does not go very deep, even though it gains nine solid cards across Judgment and Onslaught. It cannot fill its Top Ten with cards rated 4.0 or higher, and has the highest total of cards below 3.0 (nine). Card disadvantage is a bitch.

Further digging – and I’m looking at Onslaught here – may give red a few more good cards as our understanding of them develops. I just played with Tephraderm for the first time, and man is that thing a stick. That’s the kind of longevity that red desperately needs more of – Retromancer was always too easy to kill, and you couldn’t target it yourself with benevolent effects without taking a hit. Dragon Roost and Aggravated Assault rated 4 for cockroach – that means that the ability repeat is expensive to pull off and can generally happen once a turn – but that’s still a decent rating, and it’s all too rare in previous earth-shattering red cards.

Those cards might include Pandemonium and Furnace of Rath. These have far more repeatable effects – anytime anything deals damage, or anytime a creature comes into play – and if the benefit wasn’t symmetrical, you’d see 7s or 8s in the cockroach column. But cockroach isn’t just about whether it can happen lots of times – it’s about having an ability happen lots of times that contributes to your resilience. Having every other player smack you for double damage each time they cast fat doesn’t exactly increase your life span. Therefore, that rating is adjusted down for those cards.

Just about every color has at least one highly-ranked card that I’ve either ignored or forgotten for five successive versions of the Hall. In green, it was Dual Nature. Here, it’s Shivan Hellkite. This has a lot to do with the fact that I couldn’t really get this Hall’s head around its key animal element – cockroach – until a few months ago. (Coming up with animal elements is not as easy as it may sound! You can’t just go down to a farm, tip a cow, and tell yourself,”Gee, that reminds me of that time I played Mudhole with the gang.” You have to craft an image, and preferably cross over phyla, or at least families, so that readers don’t mix up, say, porcupines and groundhogs. That’s where the Hall almost went, folks – spiny rodents and non-spiny rodents. Then I remembered that I didn’t have a fetish for such things, like some people.) (Ahem – The Ferrett)

One short but interesting thread that weaves through the Hall is the presence of cards that affect the game based on seating order. Thieves’ Auction, Thundermare, and now Insurrection all tap enough permanents to be a major worry for whoever sits immediately to your right. The player to your left, of course, untaps far earlier and will likely get the same kind of free hit you likely enjoyed on your turn. I would have ticked the”plankton” up on these cards because of this benefit – but of course, it gets ticked back down by what you’re doing to the others. (Thieves’ Auction still ends up at 4 because everyone gets to participate in the auction and get completely new permanents, which is just good fun, if lengthy.)

This is a good color for highlighting both how slick the”similar cards” function can be, and how frustrating. Gratuitous Violence (better cockroach and rattlesnake than the Furnace, worse everything else) and Skirk Fire Marshall, two excellent Onslaught multiplayer cards, are the highlights I have in mind.

Let’s focus on the Fire Marshall a moment: I want to find a place for this, believe me. But the bottom line is, it’s too similar to Bloodfire Colossus. If I list both, then cards like Insurrection that truly do something different end up getting ranked, oh, 30^th, and then other worthy cards don’t even get mentioned. So the”similar cards” box is a good thing. That said, it’s a shame that I couldn’t highlight this card on the list itself. It’s more difficult to work than the Colossus, almost by definition forces you to sack four creatures, and can’t really surprise anyone who’s smarter than a literate toad. But it deals ten damage. Ten damage! So in honor of this little gem, I’ll spend a bit more narrative explaining some of the tricks this thing can do.

(Speaking of which. I did a quick Skirk combo suggestion on magicthegathering.com recently, and readers wrote in outrage that I didn’t think of their particular favorite combo.”Why did you IGNORE X?””How could you FORGET Y?””What’s your BEEF AGAINST Z?” Cripes. Encyclopedias don’t make for very interesting reading. I clip stuff – often intentionally, sometimes unconsciously – because I’d rather my readers actually read and remember one or two combos than scan over and forget three dozen. I hope that makes sense to people; but even if it doesn’t, you’re plumb out of luck. Pick up a pen and write your own column, and then you can write down the entirety of your genius yourself. Fair enough?)

Anyway, the combos:

• Goblin Marshall – (in best whiny preteen girl voice – Sheldon, a little help?)“That’s all I ever hear – Marshall, Marshall, Marshall!” The echo-marshall can either supply four goblin tokens of its own, or if you have enough goblins before it dies, let it leave two in its wake so you’re closer to the next activation of the new lord.


• Mogg Maniac – this was well-explored with Bloodfire Colossus, but now instead of 12 damage to one unlucky soul, you are doing the complete circuit of 20. As mediocre as goblins may be in multiplayer (and please, people, be honest with yourselves as you write in protest!), this combination should be nearly mandatory for any group that enjoys Emperor format.


• Glarecaster – the beauty of this is that activating it once handles both packets of damage – the packet going to the Glarecaster, and the packet going to you (see Onslaught FAQ). So you get an extra twenty damage to deal to (alas, only) one particularly deserving target. Who said white can’t do overkill?


• Goblin Warrens – yes, everything goblin-ish combos well with Goblin Warrens. That’s because, see, it makes goblins. Impressed? Yes, I am that freaking brilliant.


• Vitalize – This may be more interesting, since (a) you have to splash another color and (b) you have to use the stack well. You have only one opening – right after you activate the ability. You should not pass priority (because if no one else responds to the activation, you’ve lost your window… But if you’re a big risktaker or can definitively predict a response, feel free to wait). Furthermore, you do not wait for damage to”go on the stack” (because only combat damage goes on the stack – and if that confuses you, consider that Shock as a spell goes on the stack and can be countered or prevented when cast, but upon resolution the two points of damage doesn’t use the stack again, right?… Same thing here). You tap your five happy goblins and then you say,”before passing priority, I cast Vitalize. Then, before passing priority, I tap them again for another ten.” Of course, at that point you still don’t pass priority, because you have some clever life-gaining trick that’s going to save your own butt before you take twenty damage yourself, right? I thought so.


• Goblin Mason/Goblin Gardener – or make up your own graveyard effect. Of course, for the Mason to be really good, you’d have to be taking down a */11 wall, but we won’t go there.


• Goblin Ringleader/Goblin Recruiter. Most goblin aficionados have already come to love this combination. With the Skirk Fire Marshall offing your own troops, this may be the most ready two-card combo to find you more.


• Goblin Medics – Now, come on, this is pretty funny, right?


• Reverent Mantra – An intriguing possibility. See also Bubble Matrix. If your point is player damage, and not creature damage, then this is the path for you. And wouldn’t you know it, your goblins stick around for another tap next turn.


• Soul Net – Not entirely exciting, but not entirely stupid, either.

I think that’s enough for a card that isn’t even ranked! There are many more combinations, and my previous grumbling aside, I’m always happy to hear about them.

Before we go on to red’s suggested staple cards, a quick tie between Radiate and Biorhythm – I really like what these two cards do for their respective colors. Wizards finally took the”number of creatures” aspect that never really amounted to much in green multiplayer and added a game-altering condition to it. This, after they took the”everyone pays” aspect of red and found a way to make it stretch beyond its normal identity – now red can hit enchantments, force discard, bounce permanents, etc. These are creative cards. They push the envelope for players of all stripes, and demonstrate what happens if you take the time to be original. They also tell me what I already know – Wizards R&D is far smarter than the vast majority of Internet pundits gives them credit for – and also, that there really was no excuse for Battle of Wits. (No, I’ll never really let that go, I suppose!)

Staple This

As I did with green (and will do for every color), I would like to give readers a sense of context for the spectacular cards I’ve listed above. The cards that often do most of the heavy lifting are, of course, not as flashy. But they get you through the early game – in assault decks, they remove the obstacles that rise up to block you in the first few turns; and in control decks, they provide the space you need to set up your path. They are nearly all (nine out of ten) common or uncommon. In no particular order:

• Lightning Bolt and all of its variants, including the inferior but more available Shock,


• Mogg Fanatic, still perhaps the best goblin ever printed (and the email begins…),


• Flowstone Wall, an oft-forgotten Nemesis common with excellent blocking capability,


• Flametongue Kavu, who will probably be the best four-mana creature red sees for many a year,


• Pyroclasm, which along with Steam Blast should keep the board weenie-free,


• Rolling Thunder, the X finisher of choice for the discerning (and poor!) burn mage,


• Viashino Sandscout, who looks like he needs a specialized deck but really doesn’t,


• Wall of Diffusion, especially if you run with a crowd that still enjoys shadow,


• Suq’ata Lancer, one of the best grey ogres ever, and


• (The rare) Shivan Dragon, which has remained an excellent six-mana value over all these years.

Let me clear about one thing – most group veterans don’t do monochrome of any kind (beyond the occasional squirrel deck), but red is perhaps the riskiest color of all to go solo on. The blend of traditional card disadvantage and its inability to handle enchantments conventionally are a real burden at most kitchen tables. So combine it with another color if you can – but for heaven’s sake, stay away from red-black unless you are trying to prove a very serious and very unlikely point!

More on that in the next section of the Hall.

Peace,

Anthony Alongi

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