The last time I played in Regionals, I ran Mono-Red Aggro in Mirrodin / Champions Standard. There were versions of the deck that included eight maindeck Stone Rains, but the version I played hoped simply to kill people as quickly as possible, using the well-known lineup of Slith Firewalker, Zo-Zu the Punisher, and Arc-Slogger. It turns out that things don’t have to be all that different this time around. We may no longer have the ability to start the game off with a first-turn Slith and a second-turn Sword of Fire and Ice into an attack for six damage and a card, but we can still do frightening things. There isn’t much out there these days scarier than a Kird Ape followed by a 3/3 Scab-Clan Mauler.
The thing that is most interesting to me about Red/Green Aggro is how customizable the deck is. I played with the Grand Prix: Kyoto Top 8 version on Magic Online for a few days, eventually realizing that the deck’s pilot expected to play two days of control matchups. It would produce draws that, while they absolutely crushed U/x Tron decks, would lose spectacularly against other R/G Aggro and Boros decks. It also had the ability to race Dragonstorm’s turn 4 kill, if it was on the play, but often fell half a turn short.
For reference, the Kyoto list was:
4 Giant Solifuge
3 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Kird Ape
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Scab-Clan Mauler
2 Burning-Tree Shaman
2 Scorched Rusalka
4 Char
2 Stonewood Invocation
3 Rift Bolt
3 Seal of Fire
3 Call of the Herd
6 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Karplusan Forest
4 Stomping Ground
1 Pendelhaven
1 Skarrg, the Rage Pits
Sideboard
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Krosan Grip
3 Sulfur Elemental
4 Blood Moon
1 Gaea’s Anthem
1 Call of the Herd
2 Moldervine Cloak
There are multiple card choices in this decklist that only make sense when you’re expecting to run into U/x Tron and Angelfire all day long. Tin Street Hooligan can be backbreaking when he shows up and takes out a Signet on turn 2, but he is very lackluster as a simple 2/1 when your opponent is casting Call of the Herd, Knight of the Holy Nimbus, or even Seething Song. Similarly, Giant Solifuge hammers in for multiple unimpeded attacks after a cleanup Wrath of God, and yet clearly underperforms when he deals three damage and trades for your opponent’s now-irrelevant Llanowar Elves.
Of course, the deck is not simply dead in the water against aggro opponents. Cards like Burning-Tree Shaman, Call of the Herd, and Seal of Fire give you tools to fight against aggressive decks on the other side of the table, while being generally good cards against many decks. Still, if you plan on navigating a Regionals filled with small creatures, it may be time to replace the x/1s with better cards. I know that I expect a ton of aggro decks at my Regionals, so I’m looking to get rid of the Hooligans and bench the Solifuges.
Perhaps Future Sight can fill the void? Unfortunately, Future Sight was not too kind to R/G Aggro. There are plenty of good Red and Green cards in Future Sight, but not very many of them are fast or hard-hitting enough to warrant inclusion.
Magus of the Moon – This card was a huge deal to most tournament players who read the spoiler. At the beginning, most people thought that this would be better than Blood Moon because of the fact that you could attack with it. Later, most people in that camp decided that the fact that the Magus could attack also meant that it could die to many more things. The truly unfortunate part, though, is that decks like U/R Tron are often bringing in cards like Volcanic Hammer or Pyroclasm, and the Magus makes sure that they can cast their answer to him. Still, the effect is powerful, and having four Blood Moons and four man-Moons in your sideboard can win you many games.
Molten Disaster – A Hellbent Demonfire usually means that when you have the mana, your opponent dies. A Kickered Disaster, though, always means that when you have the mana, your opponent dies. While you don’t have to have zero other cards in your hand to pull of the uncounterable kill, you do need to have an extra two mana to use. The fact that matching a Char takes seven mana means that this card will likely not make the cut.
Riftsweeper – There are a handful of Suspend cards out there that are very frightening for R/G Aggro. Perhaps the most important one is Lotus Bloom, which often implies a fourth-turn combo kill from Dragonstorm. Riftsweeper gives you a 2/2 body at the same time it denies your opponent three mana and a Storm copy. There are also other cards with Suspend that you’ll play against, from Riftwing Cloudskate to Greater Gargadon to Aeon Chronicler. Sure, sometimes Riftsweeper will be a vanilla 2/2 for two, but sometimes Tin Street Hooligan was a vanilla 2/1 for two.
Other notable cards from Future Sight include Heartwood Storyteller and Storm Entity. While I think that these cards may be worth consideration, I don’t think that they will make the cut, even when they are at their best.
While I don’t believe that Future Sight changes the deck very much, I do think that you can re-build it to have a better chance in the usually overly aggro field that is Regionals. I think that what changes the deck is simply the way that you look at it. Card choices and quantities are all something that are very malleable, and this holds especially true for R/G Aggro. Green, all on its own, has enough powerful cards that MGA was able to run rampant for quite a while. Red has a massive number of burn spells right now, as well as a host of men that are ready to attack on turns 2 and 3.
The Kyoto list has a strange number of many cards. Two Stonewood Invocation? It was widely believed that Stonewood Invocation was the main reason that MGA was such a strong deck; with four Invocations and a squad of tiny men, control decks had to worry about dying to a 1/1 that suddenly became a 6/6 or even 10/10. Three Rift Bolt? Three damage for one mana that also gives you another route to a 3/3 Mauler sounds like a card I want to draw in every hand. I can understand two Burning-Tree Shamans, but I just think that the card is better than that and is worth at least three slots, and potentially even four.
There are also a handful of cards that are conspicuous in their absence. Might of Old Krosa is what gave MGA its lightning-quick speed, and it helped Zoo decks win in combat. R/G Aggro might not have the completely fail-safe Silhana Ledgewalker, but it does have a 3/3 Trampler for two, and making a 7/7 Trampler and then another creature, all on turn 3, sounds like a great deal to me. Timbermare is absolutely amazing against creature decks, especially when you have a backup plan to finish the game. In MGA, the backup plan is Scryb Ranger to untap your other fatty and swing for the gates. In R/G Aggro, the backup plan is to burn them out on the next turn if the five damage from the Timbermare isn’t enough.
Creatures (21)
Lands (22)
Spells (17)
Sideboard
This version of R/G Aggro aims to clean up the numbers a bit, while sacrificing some game against control strategies for better matchups against aggro strategies. The changes that I made to the deck are not very dramatic looking, but they do dramatically affect the way the games progress.
I made a one-for-one swap of Riftsweeper for Tin Street Hooligan. They are both vanilla two-drops that sometimes blow the opponent out of the water. The difference is that Riftsweeper’s blowout is against a much tougher matchup than Tin Street Hooligan’s, and also that Riftsweeper can’t be blocked and killed by a first-turn 1/1. In the pseudo-mirror, Riftsweeper isn’t stymied by the opponent’s Rusalkas or Elves.
I swapped in Timbermares for Solifuges. Both are hasted four-drops, but they do very different things. Solifuge is built both to top the curve and push as much damage through on turn 4, and to follow up a Wrath that the opponent was counting on to stabilize. Timbermare is there to attack for five, or for nine if you’re lucky enough to have drawn Might of Old Krosa. No amount of chumpblockers can stand in its way.
Speaking of Might of Old Krosa, I replaced Seal of Fire with the pump spell. Seal of Fire killed Birds and went to the face on turn 2 to Bloodthirst your Mauler. Might of Old Krosa does neither of these things; it simply kills players. The most frightening draws you can produce will start with a one-drop and some two-drops, and will end with Might of Old Krosa and Stonewood Invocation. You don’t even need Kird Ape + Mauler to kill people on turn 4 anymore.
The changes in numbers are almost all increases. There’s a fourth Rift Bolt, a third Burning-Tree Shaman, and a third Stonewood Invocation. To make room for these extra copies of cards, I cut Scorched Rusalka. I know how powerful Scorched Rusalka is, but I do not believe that running two of them makes any sense. If you think of it as a burn spell off the top in the late game, then it does three damage for four red mana in addition to killing your entire side. If you think of it as a one-drop, then it is unimpressive compared to both Kird Ape and Llanowar Elves. I also turned one Mountain into one Forest; the old deck had more Red mana symbols than Green mana symbols, while the new one has more Green mana symbols than Red mana symbols.
The sideboard was another place that I pumped the numbers. To make room for the cards I wanted, I cut the Sulfur Elementals. I don’t think that you need the +1/-1 ability against any deck you can expect to face at Regionals, so I look at Sulfur Elemental as an uncounterable instant-speed creature. That is, admittedly, an attractive package against control, though it is not without its weaknesses. Despite having Split Second, an opponent can still kill it before it swings. It also has two toughness, which is not good when U/R Tron decks are bringing in Pyroclasm. In exchange for the Elementals, the sideboard gained an extra Krosan Grip, an extra Tormod’s Crypt, and an extra “Blood Moon.” I also swapped the fourth Call of the Herd for the fourth Riftsweeper.
I believe that the newer version of R/G Aggro has a very good chance of doing well in Regionals. Future Sight has given you a better shot against Dragonstorm, while the rearrangements have given you a better shot against aggressive decks as a whole. Given how much I love attacking for a ton of damage, there’s a decent chance that I could end up playing this deck myself.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me in the forums, via email, or on AIM.
Benjamin Peebles-Mundy
ben at mundy dot net
SlickPeebles on AIM