Everything I Know About Mono-Red Prowess In Modern

One of the most resonant memories of my 2019 coverage year was tracking life totals in a backup feature match. Future Star City Games Players’ Champion Oliver Tomajko was playing Simic Urza, and had just dropped a game to Mono-Red Prowess. Oliver opened up the second game with a Turn 2 Oko, Thief of Crowns, and I remember thinking, “If Oliver picks a mode at random each turn his opponent is 0% to win this game.” He won both sideboard games very easily.

It is easy to compartmentalize Oko, Thief of Crowns as a generational outlier and something that hindered pre-existing decks more or less the same way, but the truth was that some decks got it way worse than others. It is possible that no deck was negatively impacted more than Mono-Red Prowess. The deck is about creatures with text boxes alongside Lava Spikes, and perhaps no card in Magic’s history is equipped to fight that sort of thing as well as Oko. Mono-Red Prowess quickly subsided in representation once Oko achieved the ubiquity that eventually got it banned.

The banning of Oko should have represented something of a hard reset on the metagame, with plenty of old contenders getting an opportunity to shine. Anecdotally, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Some of that is the appeal of Amulet Titan and Dimir Whirza strategies, but I would also attribute some of it to people not going back in time a little bit.

I’ve been playing a lot of Mono-Red Prowess on Magic Online and chatting in the DMs with fellow aficionado Ryan Overturf. Were I playing in Regionals this weekend, I would play Mono-Red Prowess and I give the following decklist a hearty recommendation.

Mono-Red Prowess strives to toggle between two extremes: fast and bursty kills that can overwhelm blockers and removal, and playing a deep game backed up by a plethora of card drawing. Most of the cards play in the first camp – the cheap creatures and burn spells, with the cantrips subsidizing the Prowess threats. Light Up the Stage and Bedlam Reveler provide most of the staying power, but those cards facilitate some of the fast draws, too.

From a top-level view, the most important tactical thing is to identify what your draw facilitates and what matters in your matchup. Do you cycle your Manamorphose on the second turn looking to spike a Kiln Fiend, or do you save it in hopes of putting together a more explosive turn down the line with multiple Prowess threats? Do you pre-combat your Lava Dart / Light Up the Stage for a bonus to your Swiftspear, or slow-play your cards a bit to squeeze more out of them? Most matchups in Modern are transparent enough early enough if it’s about speed versus staying power, but it’s important not to be overly deterministic in your lines.

Bedlam Reveler has gotten worse post-Faithless Looting, both because you fuel it less quickly and drawing the second copy of Bedlam Reveler has gotten so much more painful. I’ve experimented with fewer than three copies, but I found it too critical to the Thoughtseize / Fatal Push matchups, the mirror, and a couple of other places. It’s just too often the only card you want to draw, and it’s rare to feel the pain of having one dead Reveler in your hand (either you’re tight on mana and have other things to do, or you’re flooding out and the value over replacement of Reveler versus some crappy Bolt or creature doesn’t matter very much.)

Bonecrusher Giant is an attempt to hedge in the “speed versus staying power” balance. It’s not the most explosive card, but it plays all right along with your fast prowess draws. It doesn’t grind as well as Bedlam Reveler, but it’s another thing your opponent has to kill and their Fatal Pushes are already taxed on handling your cheap threats. There’s some overlap here with Burst Lightning (cheap interaction with some glimmer of staying power, though their points are distributed quite differently) and I would buy any distribution from 4-1 to 4-1 the other way, but I’ve been happy with three Bonecrushers so far.

Kiln Fiend is there to help with Amulet Titan and basically any deck that doesn’t have removal. I tried the full four, but at some point you’re cutting spells, and the card is pretty weak in a bunch of matchups and in multiples. I’ve encountered lists with Runaway Steam-Kin and it has struck me as the floor of Kiln Fiend without anything approaching the ceiling. The deck doesn’t have any ongoing mana sink like Experimental Frenzy, so I think you’re sacrificing some number of Turn 3 and Turn 4 kills in exchange for some nebulous efficiency in games where you’re already favored.

There is not a lot of wiggle room on the spells. If you want more cycling you can play Warlord’s Fury (appreciably less powerful than Crash Through, especially with Kiln Fiend as part of the equation) or Mishra’s Bauble (not the most synergistic with other parts of the deck, plus the delay draw is painful for a deck with so many sorceries and creatures.) I don’t think you can toggle up the burn spells with Burst Lightning / Bonecrusher Giant being so modest to begin with, and so this part of the deck is pretty firm.

I like four Horizon lands. I could see playing a fifth but I’m deeply skeptical of any other number.

The Sideboard

One of my favorite elements of this deck is that you’re either playing for speed or staying power, so sideboarding is pretty easy and I feel like I’m making appreciable upgrades most of the time. A quick cheat sheet:

• I like bringing in Blood Moon even in matchups where it doesn’t represent a full lock. Many of the decks with many (but not 100%) nonbasics bias towards matchups where you want to grind, and so there’s often a lot of value to be extracted in a long game even if your opponent can sort of function. Jund and Burn are good examples of this.
  
• Dismember can come in for a lot of creature matchups. It used to be Flame Slash, and that card is broadly better against random creature decks, but Gurmag Angler and Tarmogoyf are specific challenges otherwise.
  
• I’m starting to dislike Dragon’s Claw in the mirror. People bring in a bunch of Abrades for that and Shrine of Burning Rage, and the games are more often determined by chaining Bedlam Revelers or an unanswered Shrine than squeezing out a bunch of life in a damage race. Once you’re there, I’m not sure it’s worth having just for Burn (which is not a good matchup, but also not the most popular). I’m starting to consider Ratchet Bomb – more anti-cheap creature, more anti-protection from red, more anti-Chalice, etc.

Sideboarding Guide

VS Amulet Titan

Out:

In:

All that matters is speed; the losing player usually dies with a bunch of stuff in their hand they didn’t have time to cast. The interaction here is unreliable but there isn’t a realistic card to answer Primeval Titan specifically, so you have to try to kill quickly and hope your answers line up the right way. Your good five-card hands are much better here than your modest sevens, so mulligan aggressively.

VS Dimir Whirza

Out:

In:

This matchup and Amulet Titan are emblematic of something to consider – when you’re sideboarding in a bunch of reaction that may not line up all the time, it’s okay to get away from Light Up the Stage a little bit. This configuration gives you a random haymaker in Shrine of Burning Rage and answers for artifacts and Urza, Lord High Artificer in particular.

VS Humans

Out:

In:

Manamorphose gets the cut here because you aren’t about explosive kills and it’s extremely bad against Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Blood Moon isn’t a knockout punch each time due to Aether Vial, but you have Abrade to answer that and it’s still extremely constricting even if they can sort of play through it. Kozilek’s Return plays well in general and answers Auriok Champion, which can be a hassle otherwise.

VS Grinding Breach

Out:

In:

This build is admittedly light on hate for the new hotness, but you can still produce a fast clock with a little bit of artifact hate, which can get you across the finish line a reasonable portion of the time. If you’re uncertain about Dragon’s Claw (the biggest question I have about this list, as mentioned before) and you want a little bit of hate for this matchup, I would recommend Tormod’s Crypt (cheap prowess trigger + good interaction) and/or Wear // Tear, which would also require swapping out all the Fiery Islets for Sunbaked Canyons (remember, you can launder through Manamorphose as well to produce white).

Almost all your matchups follow this pattern – cut some of the modest speed cards (Lava Spike, Kiln Fiend, etc.) when you’re looking to block, attrition, and grind, and cut the cards that provide staying power (Bedlam Reveler, Bonecrusher Giant, Light Up the Stage) when the games are about raw speed.

A last bit of advice: if you aren’t certain if you should bring a card in, don’t. Players generally bias towards oversideboarding anyway, and your fundamental gameplay is so powerful, so much of the time that the burden of proof is very high to deviate from it much.

As a last bit, this deck is extremely fun to play, with a good blend of nuance, tactical play, and absurd over-the-top explosion, so it’s a fun way to spend the afternoon regardless. I think Modern is in a pretty good spot right now and with Oko, Thief of Crowns no longer around I think Mono-Red Prowess is a solid choice for any upcoming Modern events, up to and including SCG Regionals this weekend.