So, I made a Red Deck.

I know, I know; surprise, surprise!

It's very, very good. Unsurprisingly, I am enthusiastic to talk about it today! And yet, I hear you have some questions.

Here go:

The Top 8 Questions on playing Historic Red Deck.

1. So What's the Story with this Red Deck?
2. What's the deal with the lands?
3. Why are there no Lightning Strikes?
4. Hold up! When do you side in Risk Factor?
5. What are the other sideboarding strategies and packages?
6. Is that Heartfire Immolator I see?
7. Is this the most focused Red Deck you can make?
8. So what is "The One Guaranteed Way to Win More Games in Historic" anyway?

So, What's the Story with this Red Deck?

As you might remember, I made my first Mythic last month, largely on the back of Green (and Green-Blue) Standard decks.

Well despite the leg up you get from previous Mythic, I started this month very slow. I wouldn't say terri-bad or anything, but two weeks into August and I was still bouncing around Platinum 3 and Platinum 4.

It's less that I didn't understand the format; it's that I did understand the format but I was badly out of wildcards. The banning of Teferi, Time Raveler and Wilderness Reclamation changed the decks you can play in Standard... Or more importantly, changed the decks you can't play.

I had every kind of Green midrange deck, but when everyone is playing the highest value cards in Sultai -- including Eliminate for your awesome Baneslayer Angels and Casualties of War for when you spread the battlefield with The Great Henge AND a big Planeswalker AND a Questing Beast AND you have Castle Garenbrig in play or whatever... It's just not a good scene for a chap who's invested all his wildcards in every manner of Green deck.

A little frustrated, and a little unenthusiastic about Standard this month, I found myself brainstorming Historic with my friend Roman Fusco. Roman had qualified for an invitation-only Historic event and we set to drawing our usual battle lines.

Brian David-Marshall had separately mentioned a card he liked from the crazy new Amonkhet set, and I got to this beauty:

Historic Red Deck | Historic | Michael Flores

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Fanatical Firebrand
• 4 Bonecrusher Giant
• 4 Ghitu Lavarunner
• 4 Goblin Chainwhirler
• 4 Heartfire Immolator
• 4 Viashino Pyromancer

• Instants (8)
• 4 Shock
• 4 Wizard's Lightning

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Light Up the Stage
• 4 Skewer the Critics

• Lands (22)
• 16 Mountain
• 2 Sunscorched Desert
• 4 Ramunap Ruins

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Soul-Guide Lantern
• 4 Gempalm Incinerator
• 4 Risk Factor
• 2 Experimental Frenzy
• 1 Sunscorched Desert

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This Red Deck is kind of a tour of Standard's greatest hits.

It has a lot of the favorites from Red's heyday around the printing of Return to Ravnica - complete with a boatload of conditional Lightning Bolts - but receives tons of upgrades. While not quite a Modern deck, I do believe it's a good deal more cohesive than the average Historic deck.

We start with some good, hasty, catalyzers in Fanatical Firebrand and Ghitu Lavarunner, which can set up the eight pack of Spectacles. It's in particular useful for turning on Light Up the Stage turn two when you've only drawn one land.

There is a Wizard sub-theme with Ghitu Lavarunner, Viashino Pyromancer, and newcomer Heartfire Immolator, so Wizard's Lightning is consistently closer to Lightning Bolt than Carbonize.

Plus, it's got this pap:

... Which is a hell of a thing. Not only on card power, but contextually in a format where other folks can be packing Llanowar Elves, Cauldron Familiar, or Skirk Prospector.

What's the deal with the lands?

I assume you're asking about the Sunscorched Deserts?

No, no, you're right... They don't make Goblin Chainwhirler. So why play them main deck? Or even more than that, why add a third to the sideboard?

There is precedent, I think, for twenty-land Standard decks that play Goblin Chainwhirler. This deck has twenty sources of Red between sixteen Mountains and four Ramunap Ruins. The Sunscorched Deserts are therefore kinda sorta on the bonus... They don't "detract" from our ability to play Goblin Chainwhirler even if they don't help cast our best creature.

Sunscorched Desert is awesome in a different way, though.

Remember when I said this was kind of a tour of Standard's greatest hits? Well, Standard never had this combo:

Or this one:

In this deck, Sunscorched Desert can be very Dark Ritual-like. It saves 2 mana for a Spectacle and can tap for mana itself. If you flip over Bonecrusher Giant, Heartfire Immolator, or anything else with a colorless casting cost, it can actually help you out (even though it does kind of negate the "play lands off the top of my deck" aspect of Light Up the Stage.

Why are there no Lightning Strikes?

Don't get me wrong: Lightning Strike is awesome in some formats. If I thought there were an appropriate number of Gobin Chainwhirlers in the metagame (even with the Field of the Dead ban, there aren't), I might consider it. But think about it this way... Does anyone even catch a whiff of a Lightning Strike in Modern?

We'll play Lava Spike - the Lightning Strike that can't strike creatures - because it costs one. Some maniacs play Shard Volley - the Lightning Strike that really charges you for your one mana discount - for the same reason. Rift Bolts and Skewer the Critics cost three half the time, but we'll bend over backwards to play them in Modern, and even Legacy!

But no Lightning Strikes.

But do you know what does get played at two?

This card is arguably even better in Historic than it is in Modern... And it's fantastic in Modern. Besides the fact that there are any number of two toughness creatures eligible to have their bones crushed - your Gilded Goose, the front side of a Woe Strider - the card is about the best thing you can draw in any fair matchup that you think will go longer than six turns.

It is not a combo with Ghitu Lavarunner, but it is a combo with Heartfire Immolator. Keep it tight.

Hold up! When do you side in Risk Factor?

The most typical situation is a straight swap for Goblin Chainwhirler at the three.

There are a lot of matchups where Goblin Chainwhirler under-performs. Most control decks; Field decks (up until, like, the day I wrote this article); and even many Red Deck quasi-mirrors. Risk Factor is an awesome swap in a lot of those matchups.

It's not "really" a straight swap, though. I'll usually cut down to 20 lands, but side in the third Sunscorched Desert if I'm siding out Gobin Chainwhirler, unless I'm siding in Experimental Frenzy (in which case I'll go up to 23).

Some folks will try to interact with your creatures with cards like Languish or Heartless Act. Keeping Chainwhirler in your deck validates their game plan. Siding in Risk Factor on the other hand, doesn't just shift the heads up in to a favorable position for you, it gives you the opportunity to discard non-hasty creatures mid-game that would otherwise themselves validate removal as a proxy for life gain.

What are the other sideboarding strategies and packages?

Let me give you an example of a full swap for a deck that up until, earlier today, was the most important matchup in Historic:

• -2 Bonecrusher Giant
• -4 Goblin Chainwhirler
• -3 Mountain
• +4 Soul-Guide Lantern
• +4 Risk Factor
• +1 Sunscorched Desert

Against Field decks, you want Soul-Guide Lantern. It gets you a Prowess trigger and, while no one really wants to play against Uro, is one of the least painful ways to interact with that Titan of Nature's Wrath.

Risk Factor for Goblin Chainwhirler, as above; and you keep 20 lands but up the action a little bit.

A card that many don't consider siding out is Viashino Pyromancer. While the Viashino Wizard is an excellent card, it doesn't matchup very well against decks that play a lot of 1/1s or thereabouts. Llanowar Elves decks, Goblins, etc.

Those decks tend to be very good at soaking up damage with their cardboard, so the non-interactive part on Viashino Pyromancer does the same but it means less; and the body is just going to trade with their garbage-y 1/1.

You will often side this card out against decks when bringing in your Experimental Frenzies to grind and whenever you side in one or more Gempalm Incinerators. Earlier this week I sided in one Gempalm Incinerator against a White Weenie deck just because I was bringing in the two Frenzies and extra land, and I thought the off chance I could get a two-for-one against one of their 1/1 or 2/1 creatures was a better option than having a random 2/1 in my deck that was just going to be out-classed on the battlefield.

Example White Weenie swaps:

• -4 Viashino Pyromancer
• +2 Experimental Frenzy
• +1 Gempalm Incinerator
• +1 Sunscorched Desert

Incinerators are obviously mostly there for Goblins.

Frenzies can either play to grind against creature decks - especially small and medium sized creature decks - or to try to overwhelm anyone playing interactively. I've kind of cooled on siding in Frenzy in the latter cases, because it can so easily be trumped by Aether Gust or Grafdigger's Cage.

Is that Heartfire Immolator I see?

Great eye!

Yes, the not-popular-in-Standard Draft Staple is actually one of this deck's best cards. I have consistently been pleasantly surprised at how much offense they can put up. Having one on the battlefield is excellent defense against certain kinds of strategies (for example Transmogrify). Off the top of my head, I can't think of a matchup where you want it out... It converts to damage at a high rate, even against Control, but is best against creatures.

Is this the most focused Red Deck you can make?

Nope!

But it's a good one, still.

Here is the deck that Roman likes:

Historic Red | Historic | Roman Fusco

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Ghitu Lavarunner
• 4 Heartfire Immolator
• 4 Soul-Scar Mage
• 4 Viashino Pyromancer

• Instants (12)
• 4 Lightning Strike
• 4 Shock
• 4 Wizard's Lightning

• Sorceries (12)
• 4 Light Up the Stage
• 4 Pillar of Flame
• 4 Skewer the Critics

• Lands (20)
• 16 Mountain
• 4 Ramunap Ruins

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Sunscorched Desert
• 2 Grim Lavamancer
• 2 Redcap Melee
• 2 Bonecrusher Giant
• 3 Goblin Chainwhirler
• 1 Rampaging Ferocidon
• 2 Hazoret the Fervent
• 1 Jegantha, the Wellspring

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Soul-Scar Mage is an awesome card, and offers a good redundancy on both the hasty Ghitu Lavarunner and the skillful Heartfire Immolator.

Roman's build has a more consistent Wizard's Lightning, and higher likelihood of having a play on turn one. I think that it loses some of the grinding ability of my build; and I've already expressed my thoughts on Bonecrusher Giant this article.

So what is "The One Guaranteed Way to Win More Games in Historic" anyway?

When you're grinding through Diamond, every win counts.

I tore through Platinum with maybe a two total losses with this Red Deck, but Diamond is two or three times as difficult to obtain. Part of the problem is that stronger opponents make games closer, so one point might matter more than it would have in, say, Gold.

Here is a really typical play:

The intent is clear: Pay for Viashino Pyromancer; leave up the second Mountain to exploit the Spectacle on Skewer the Critics.

If you auto-tap this on MTGA, it will invariably leave up the Ramunap Ruins. Invariably!

I'm sure I lost at least three matches last week on auto-tapping leaving up the Ruins, costing me one point of life. It's really easy to fall into that pattern, so you have to un-learn how you've probably been playing Arena forever. It's really not intuitive, but it will definitely reward you.

You simply can't use the auto-tap feature if you are casting colorless but have a Ruins in play. So that's your tip: You'll probably beat me through Diamond now!

LOVE

MIKE