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Have you ever lost on turn two to Leyline of Resonance? Do you too also despise the feeling of having your opponent sacrifice their Cacophony Scamp after targeting it twice with Turn Inside Out? I have, and I say enough is enough!
With Duskmourn's release Mono-Red (technically Rakdos with Callous Sell-Sword) has taken the format by storm and has proven to be dominating the best of one queues.
Mono-Red | Standard| Roman Fusco
- Creatures (20)
- 4 Cacophony Scamp
- 4 Monastery Swiftspear
- 4 Callous Sell-Sword
- 4 Heartfire Hero
- 4 Slickshot Show-off
- Instants (19)
- 4 Turn Inside Out
- 4 Might of the Meek
- 4 Monstrous Rage
- 4 Felonious Rage
- 3 Shock
- Enchantments (4)
- 4 Leyline of Resonance
- Lands (17)
- 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
- 13 Mountain
This deck can win as early as turn two (yes you read that right, ever been double-Leylined?), and while that constitutes a banning in my personal opinion, until we get word from WotC that's just the format we're dealt with.
While giving my opinion on the matter while on a phone call with sensei and notable Pre-Modern enjoyer Mike Flores, he stopped me in my tracks. "Here's the deck," Flores started:
- 4 Elspeth's Smite.
- 4 Not On My Watch.
- 4 Horned Loch-Whale.
- 48 other cards.
Did Flores really just solve it that fast? I scrambled over to my computer, opened Discord and hastily built the list with his supervision. Here's what we came up with:
Azorius Control| Standard| Mike Flores
- Creatures (4)
- 4 Horned Loch-Whale
- Instants (24)
- 4 Elspeth's Smite
- 4 Three Steps Ahead
- 4 Not on My Watch
- 4 Deduce
- 4 No More Lies
- 4 Spellgyre
- Enchantments (3)
- 3 Temporary Lockdown
- Sorceries (4)
- 4 Sunfall
- Planeswalkers (1)
- 1 Jace, the Perfected Mind
Let me tell you, I haven't experienced joy before like I did when I Not On My Watch'd an opponent's super buffed up Cacophony Scamp and watching them promptly concede. Let's talk about some of the key card choices here.
The Removal Suite
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The big thing here is all of your spot removal, you have crazy outs against any Red aggro deck, but you also get to take out annoying threats for good like Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal and Atraxa, Grand Unifier.
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This deck is designed to stop the Callous Sell-Sword + Cacophony Scamp/Heartfire Hero combo from the Mono-Red Leyline of Resonance deck dead in its tracks. Elspeth's Smite, Not on My Watch, and Horned Loch-Whale all remove Mono-Red's threats, especially after they've been buffed by Monstrous Rage or Turn Inside Out. Since we don't have Get Lost, we aren't destroying these creatures, meaning they won't get their death trigger or any subsequent trigger from Turn Inside Out.
While this deck has a lot of cheap removal, you still can rely on Temporary Lockdown and Sunfall to clear larger boards, especially in other random matchups like Mono-Black Midrange or Golgari Midrange where you need ways of clearing larger threats, like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. While this deck is tuned for the faster decks on Arena's Best of One ladder, you still want some outs against the other decks of the format.
Countermagic and Card Draw
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While you have lots of ways to insulate yourself from attacking creatures, once you sweep up your opponents board or wait for them to find a creature, you want to have some way of protecting yourself while drawing ahead. While I initially opted to have Farsight Ritual in the deck, Flores correctly chose Spellgyre instead. I wasn't all that impressed with Spellgyre initially, I had replaced it in my previous store championship-winning deck for Farsight Ritual, but with less tokens to Bargain the option for a counterspell is way more relevant.
I also really appreciate that having four copies of Spellgyre alongside a playset of Three Steps Ahead gives you great countermagic options against decks that aren't Mono-Red. It's important you have ways to counter cards like Squirming Emergence and Urabrask's Forge.
Ways to Win the Game
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Another aspect about this deck that I really like is that your removal spells are your win-cons! Horned Loch-Whale is a house in a number of matchups, as it can't be Cut Down'd or dealt with easily once it lands against Mono-Red. Whale, combined with Three Steps Ahead can lead to some pretty swift turn arounds, so you don't have to waste slots in your deck for other win conditions besides your lands like Restless Anchorage and Fountainport.
The Jace, the Perfected Mind is more of a flex-slot you can tune based on your card preferences. I know Flores doesn't like this card but I've played a lot of games against the Squirming Emergence deck where a Jace would have milled them for exactsies. Plus I also like having an alternate win-con in my back pocket in case the game goes long for whatever reason.
Tips and Tricks
From our playtesting, here are some incredibly useful tips and tricks to know when piloting this deck:
-Be careful when you tap out for Temporary Lockdown, as you don't want to get one-shotted by a haste creature + pump spells
-Be cautious how you sequence Horned Loch-Whale, as your opponent can kill their own creature in response to Lagoon Breach, putting your Whale directly into the graveyard by doing so.
-When you have free reign to use Fountainport and don't need chump blockers, opt on making Treasure tokens so you don't damage your life total. This can give you mana in specific instances like using all three modes of Three Steps Ahead
-Use your instant-speed removal to take their permission out of their hand and then cast Sunfall to sweep up their board (All War is Deception!)
-Horned Loch-Whale is actually a pretty fast win condition. You can pair this card nicely with No More Lies, as your opponent will have to tap more mana to try and target it with removal spells. Also be mindful you can just Three Steps Ahead to copy your Whale to bash in for twelve in one turn.
Other Thoughts
While this deck is crushing Mono-Red, it still can lose pretty hard to a resolved Urabrask's Forge if you don't have any countermagic. I've thought about the flex slot being an Exorcise, or The Eternal Wanderer for this reason, as we don't really have a flexible enough removal spell for this card.
As far as a Best of Three sideboard goes Flores' current iteration has these cards in it:
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Change the Equation is a nice counterspell to bring in vs Urabrask's Forge and at least isn't as mana-intensive as Three Steps Ahead or No More Lies. Boon-Bringer Valkyrie is also another Forge-stopper. Jace and Destroy Evil are great for any Domain-esque matchups. I'd also consider Rest in Peace for Abhorrent Oculus decks as it shuts down Oculus, Haughty Djinn, and their Helping Hands. RiP also is great against any random Squirming Emergence decks too.
I hope you find absolute joy in watching your Mono-Red opponents dc after you blow them out with a casual Not on My Watch. This deck is truly a blast to play and is the perfect way to adapt to the current meta on MTG Arena.
-Roman Fusco
