Why mono-red is better than white weenie

I started my Magic playing career as a Red mage, so I have a special love for little red men and burn spells. They get there far more often than most players are willing to admit, even if you need a little help from Lady Luck along the way. This article today will discuss the primary limitation placed on aggro decks during design – The Wrath of God Conundrum.

Wrath of God¹ is the most important card for you to consider when you are designing an aggro deck. So why is a card that you will rarely, if ever, play in your deck the most important card for you to think about during design? The answer is tempo², the center of the aggro vs. control match-up. Within the context of the aggro vs. control match-up, Wrath of God is one of the strongest possible tempo plays, and thus must be respected.

Wrath of God is such a strong play against aggro because of the way the aggro vs. control match-up operates. Neither player starts with any tempo. The goal of the aggro deck is to seize as large an early tempo advantage as possible, then allow it to atrophy while attacking the control player's life total. If the aggro player loses all his acquired tempo, the control player will stabilize, and his more cards (being more powerful) will take over the game. Wrath of God is capable of taking away all the aggro player's tempo in one fell swoop. This is why it must be respected.

So, what do we do about Wrath of God? We can't control whether an opponent has it, or is even playing it. What we can control is how well our deck is designed to combat it. There are two steps toward combating the Wrath of God Conundrum:

1. Make the opponent need to have Wrath of God
2. Blunt the effectiveness of Wrath of God

The first point means that by the time Wrath of God becomes a possible play, you must have established a strong enough position where the opponent needs to have Wrath of God relatively soon, if not immediately. The flip side of this is "if you don't have Wrath of God, you lose." The second point relates to how you design your deck to function after Wrath of God happens.

We'll start with (1). If you don't accomplish (1) then you leave your opponent the opportunity to make a sequence of smaller, tempo-positive plays to stabilize, and thus make it more difficult for you to win the game. Thus, your first goal should be to try to force your opponent into a position where they need Wrath. In other words, you need to put them in such a bad position that they need that strong of a play as their hopes to recover.

So, how do you go about accomplishing that? There are two main ways. The first is to simply seize that much tempo in the first three turns, before your opponent has access to Wrath of God. The second is to extend your tempo-seizing window by disrupting your opponent's ability to cast Wrath of God successfully. The former is the easier approach.³

If you are looking to seize tempo in the first three turns, the most logical time to start is your first turn. This is why aggro decks live and die by their one drops. Without a strong one-drop to seize tempo on that critical first turn, it becomes much more difficult to force Wrath of God. Look at all the great aggro decks in history, and you will find that they contain some of the scariest one-drops of their era. Jackal Pup, Kird Ape, Savannah Lions, Rogue Elephant, Goblin Guide, and Steppe Lynx are all part of a long lineage of one mana creatures that put a significant amount of pressure on the guy sitting across the table from them.

Of course, just having a one-drop is not enough. You must be able to follow it up with a play on turn two, and another on turn three. This is the genesis of the concept of a mana curve, and the first real aggro deck, Sligh, whose progeny can be found from the floor of dorm rooms all the way up to the top tables of the Pro Tour. A mana curve ensures that you make the maximal use of your mana every turn, consistently hitting plays in the early turns, allowing you to pressure your opponent to maximum effect.

For example, if you open with Goblin Guide followed by Plated Geopede, then fetchland + Staggershock, you have dealt your opponent 13 damage (with two more coming off of the upcoming rebound), leaving your opponent with effectively just 5 precious life points, meaning when he untaps for turn 4 he likely has to deal with both your creatures. A sweeper here seems likely. Even so, if your deck is properly designed, your opponent is probably losing that game.

Every good aggro deck ever built has had one-drops to play (and normally has more than one). Note that mono-red only became viable in our current metagame with the printing of Goblin Guide (arguably the best one-drop ever printed for red decks), thus giving the red deck an excellent one-drop to utilize.

You can, of course, also disrupt your opponent's ability to cast Wrath of God, which gains you tempo, typically through extra combat phases. There are two main avenues to accomplish this – discard and land destruction. Discard can attack not only the sweeper itself, but also your opponent's mana (delaying the sweeper by a turn via taking Mind Stone, for example). Land destruction obviously delays the spell by negating your opponent's land drop, essentially buying you an extra combat phase while making a one for one trade.

So, now we reach point (2) from above, blunting the effectiveness of Wrath of God. This means one of the following:

1. Blunting the tempo loss that occurs from Wrath of God.
2. Being able to reload and apply pressure immediately on your opponent.
3. Punishing your opponent for tapping out.

There are a few major avenues of accomplishing these objectives. They are:

1. Card Advantage
2. Haste
3. Burn

Let's examine each of these avenues, starting with Card Advantage. Card Advantage creatures like Ranger of Eos are an excellent way of fighting Wrath of God because they allow you to reload while putting a relevant body on the table. A 3-power creature when your opponent is at 10 represents a 4 turn clock, exactly the same as if you had a 5 power creature and your opponent was at 20. Thus, the immediate gain is a relevant clock, and the ability provides you with additional creatures to continue pressuring your opponent, even if he deals with the first creature. Your opponent will usually get an opportunity to untap and respond to your threats, but that response will be less effective because of your card advantage guy.

Hell's Thunder/Hellspark Elemental are also lesser examples of this principle in action. You use them early and unearth gives you the ability to "rebuy" your spell later in the game, getting additional utility out of the card you invested. Thus Card Advantage enables you to fight the Wrath player after he has Wrathed, allowing you to put down a second, maybe even a third wave of pressuring creatures, essentially re-executing your strategy with the only differences being both of you having more mana, and the Wrath player having a lower life total.

Haste is probably the single most effective means of interacting with Wrath of God. It accomplishes all three of the objectives when dealing with sweepers. By playing something like Goblin Guide post-Wrath or Devastating Summons-Bushwacker post-Wrath, you punish your opponent for dropping their pants for one turn by taking a huge bite out of their life total, leaving around threats that they have to deal with next turn as well. This immediately applies pressure to your opponent, while blunting the tempo loss from Wrath, as you have already re-established pressure without even giving your opponent the opportunity to untap.

Now we come to burn. Of course, we have spells like Lightning Bolt and Staggershock in this category, but creatures like Hell's Thunder and Ball Lightning also fall into the category of "burn." They are essentially direct damage spells that have the downside of also being creatures. This means that they are easier to deal with, but that also means they typically represent more damage per card than your typical burn spell, a trade-off that has frequently proved itself worthwhile.⁴

So how does burn interact with Wrath of God? Burn forces the Wrath player to Wrath earlier, because his life total is effectively lower. If you are holding two Lightning Bolt, the Wrath player has to play like he starts the game at 14 instead of 20. This is hugely relevant due to the creatures you will deploy to attack in the early game. The Wrath player has less life that he can effectively trade for small tempo gains, and therefore must use his trump card earlier. By forcing your opponent to Wrath on your terms, you are minimizing the potential damage from Wrath of God.

Post-Wrath, burn serves as a finisher. It allows you to present an alternative angle of attack that is more difficult to defend against, allowing you to finish off your opponent before he can kill you. He may have stabilized on the board, but if his life total is too low, your opponent is still liable to get burned out before he is actually able to win the game.

If you have followed me this far, you can probably already see why red is the premier color for aggressive decks. Haste, land destruction and burn are all core red effects, and red will get the occasional card advantage spell as well. Add that to a strong set of early drops (which red also normally has), and you have a solid base for an aggressive deck. White frequently lacks these elements, but almost invariably has stronger creatures, which is why it is a decent, but not great aggressive option.

As an illustration, let's examine the current Standard card pool.

Red:

1-drops: Goblin Guide, Devastating Summons

2-drops: Plated Geopede, Kiln Fiend, Kargan Dragonlord, Goblin Bushwacker

3-drops: None

4-drops: Obsidian Fireheart

5-drops: Siege-Gang Commander

White:

1-drops: Steppe Lynx, Student of Warfare, Elite Vanguard, Hada Freeblade

2-drops: Kor Skyfisher, White Knight, Knight of the White Orchid, Kor Firewalker, Stoneforge Mystic, Kazandu Blademaster

3-drops: Transcendent Master, Kor Hookmaster, Kabira Evangel

4-drops: Ranger of Eos, Talus Paladin

5-drops: Baneslayer Angel

In addition, White has Honor of the Pure to strengthen its creature assault.

It is clear from this that White has a FAR superior creature base from which to operate. It is clearly stronger in the 1, 3, and 4, and 5-drop slots, and while the 2-drop slot is slightly weaker, white has many more viable options than red. White also has good spells like Path to Exile, Brave the Elements, Emerge Unscathed, Harm's Way, and Oblivion Ring.

So why is mono-red a relevant deck while white weenie is not?

Because of the Wrath of God Conundrum.