Earlier today I built a mono red aggro deck for brawl. It was gross, but not in a good way. More gross as in we forgot the bag of potatoes were in the back of the cupboard for the last 6 months kinda gross. My discovery was the early game creatures were just too thin to provide enough sensible alternatives in brawl. The positive I took away from the deck is that a mono red midrange deck is totally possible.
My thoughts going in:
my midrange cards will be very strong.
my low costing permanents will mainly be support for the midrange.
*removal and card draw is going to be very scarce to come by, so I may have to get creative with these two elements.
(A) First thing I'm going to look at is possible commanders. It's Chandra, Torch of Defiance. The long search is over. A toolbox is exactly what you want your commander to be. I can essentially tutor up card draw, removal, or ramp by casting my commander.
1) Chandra, Torch of Defiance. (4) Commander
(B) Since removal is going to be the key issue with the deck I'm going to address it first. Best to get the pain over with out of the gate. I would like to have approzimately 10 spot removal sources that can take out creatures. I'm looking at playing two sweepers as of now.
*After sizing up the options my thoughts are to look to utilize as many ETB's as possible, paired with low costing non-creature options.
Options from permanents:
2) Glorybringer. (5)
*best place to start.
3) Skysovereign, Consul Flagship. (5)
*hits for 3, which is enough for many targets to be picked off. It also is recurring damage every time it attacks which is the real power of the card.
4) Heart-Piercer Manticore. (4)
*requires that you sacrifice a creature, but it is "may" ability. It also serves as flexible removal when you really need it.
Low costed non-creature options:
5) Abrade. (2)
*one of our best utility spells that should always find a target.
6) Reckless Rage. (1)
*requires that we have a creature, but 4 damage for 1cmc is a great output especially at instant speed.
7) Mutiny. (1)
requires the opponent have two creatures, which if they don't you are probably in decent shape anyway in brawl.
the low cmc makes it a strong brawl card, however there are times where it doesn't line up or you cannot get the creature you need to.
8) Spark of Creativity. (1)
*you either kill a creature or play a card in most cases. There is a chance that you whiff, but not likely if you play the card at the proper time.
9) Fight with Fire. (3)
*3cmc at sorcery speed is a lot to pay, but there is just not a quality red removal spell in this format that guarantees it gets the job done.
10) Fling. (2)
*Fling gets the nod simply because it can be removal in a pinch, but can also finish off games making it less of a dead draw than many of the alternatives.
Sweepers:
11) Sweltering Suns. (3)
*takes care of all the small creatures running around while missing the key portion of our own threats.
12) Hour of Devastation. (5)
*fries most the threats in the format, including many of our own. This is meant to be a panic switch for when things have gotten away from us.
(C) After piecing together some form of removal suite, my next thought is to address the other weakness in the deck: card draw. I want to add somewhere around 4 options that produce multiple turns of card draw (to go along with Chandra).
13) Vance's Blasting Cannons. (4)
allows us to see a card a turn. Not the same as card draw, but it is a dig a turn and clears unwanted lands off the top of the deck in the midgame.
it will eventually flip to provide both mana or direct damage.
14) Karn Scion of Urza. (4)
*lets us get the lesser of two cards for a few turns, but then provides the opportunity to draw into gas.
15) Azor's Gateway. (2)
*great card filtering with late game ramp applications.
16) Treasure Map. (2)
*scrying that turns into ramp.
(D) The next thing I'd like to address within the deck is mana acceleration. I want to get into the midrange meat of the deck as fast as possible. It would also be nice to have these options serve a double purpose where possible.
17) Wily Goblin. (2)
*a nice little creature to create a treasure token early on off an ETB.
18) Skirk Prospector. (2)
*a nice little turn 1 creature that helps out with ramp a couple turns later.
19) Cultivator's Caravan. (3)
*not as important as in multi-color decks, however it ramps just the same and has a secondary function.
20) Renegade Map. (1)
*nice turn 1 play that has no cost afterwards.
21) Hazoret's Monument. (3)
*Creature ramp that also pays off with card filtering.
(E) Now I'd like to look at a few more cards that I can play in the early turns or that have very low casting cost to help out the decks curve.
22) Dire Fleet Daredevil. (2)
*not a turn two play, however this helps out with the decks lack of removal as it allows us to turn our opponents used removal against them. It also has tons of other possibilities.
23) Bloodlust Inciter. (1)
*giving creatures haste is a great advantage for this deck.
24) Harsh Mentor. (2)
*it has the potential to do a lot of incidental damage against many of the best cards in the format. At worst it is a vanilla 2/2 that you probably discard or scry away.
(F) Before adding the true meat of the deck, I first want to look at adding a few cards that provide an opportunity to blowout our opponent.
25) Insult // Injury. (3/3)
insult is an amazing finisher. Having each source deal double the damage this turn is so flexible in a deck with direct damage and imposing creatures. The implications for direct damage are endless: doubling up our sweepers, spot removal, Chandra's +1.
having injury sitting in your graveyard is just an insurance policy that if you get close to finishing the opponent, you have those last few points of damage tucked away.
26) Jaya Ballard. (5)
*I'm not playing a lot of overpowered instants and sorceries to play this to full effect, however the card filtering alone makes her powerful.
27) Combat Celebrant. (3)
*when it goes off things can get ugly.
(G) Now I'm just looking to add creatures that punish the opponent in the midgame.
28) Rekindling Phoenix. (4)
*recursion in a format that struggles to exile.
29) Rampaging Ferocidon. (3)
*I'm not going to be gaining life and opponents will likely be running high amounts of creatures. Having menace is a nice bonus.
30) Combustible Gearhulk. (6)
*They will always have to give you the cards, otherwise you are likely in a world of trouble anyways. If they roll the dice, then they are likely getting hit with a lot of damage.
31) Verix Bladewing. (4/7)
*4/4 flyer on curve, but if you can kick it then you are getting great value.
32) Keldon Overseer. (3/6)
*a 3 powered haste creature can be useful at times, but playing this for 6cmc can be a solid wincon.
33) Hazoret, the Fervant. (4)
it is not likely Hazoret gets to attack on turn 4, but even if you play it with haste on turn 5 or 6 it is still a lot for an opponent to deal with late in a game.
Hazoret gives you inevitability...if Hazoret is left on the battlefield for multiple turns you can just discard your way to a win.
34) Etali, Primal Storm. (6)
*I went back and forth between this and Sunbird's Invocation. Etali is a creature (a very big one) and that is why is wins out. It is true that Invocation is hard to remove, but it is also slow with no guarantee's of what it will hit off the top. Etali may hit multiple cards so the payoff is potentially bigger, and if it whiffs at least there is still a 6/6 attacking.
Change
Out-
I am dropping Jaya Ballard, as she cannot apply pressure to the opponent since she cannot attack and her ability to help cast instant/sorcery spells is wasted in this deck. I want my bombs to directly apply pressure to my opponent.
I am also cutting Vance's Blasting Cannons. The card draw is slow working and it is not as likely to flip in this deck as it would in an aggro deck.
In-
Neheb, the Eternal. (5)
- decent stats at 4/6 and even if it is blocked the opponent will still lose 3 life.
*the bonus mana can turn out to be huge in a midrange deck of this type, and since you do not need to attack to get the effect direct damage from Chandra, Flagship, Manticore, Hazoret, Fling will produce mana in the second main phase.
Cathartic Reunion. (2)
*a fantastic way to fix a hand early in the game or to reload late and dump cards that have been rendered dead or outclassed.
(H) I have one slot remaining. I feel 25 lands is enough for the curve of this deck, especially when we are playing 6 early turn accelerators, plus additional midgame mana creators. So here is my flex slot, where I may try out various cards.
35) The Flame of Keld. (2)
low costing enchantment that is much better served to be played once our hand is depleted. On its second turn it will grab us two cards and on it's third it provides us with a very versatile wincon as it doubles all red damage we inflict that turn.
this card pairs nicely with Combat Celebrant, Insult, Neheb, Manticore, Hzoret, Fling, Gearhulk, Chandra, and any other number of direct damage spells.
(I) Lands. Pretty simple. Playing Ramunap Ruins, Field of Ruin, 23 Mountains.
Final Thoughts
The deck has weaknesses, but I like it overall. It will struggle to remove the formats biggest creatures, however it will deal with others just fine.
Our threats are real threats and they are hard to remove.
The deck does a lot of incidental damage that adds up over the course of a game, which cuts down on the amount of damage we need to inflict through attacking.
We also have a few sneaky blowout plays that can come out of nowhere to overwhelm an opponent.
*My favorite part is that it is mono-colored, which gives us a major leg up on multi-colored decks abilities to cast spells and cuts down on our mulligans.
Best of all, the deck is fun to play.
