Subject: Straight red musings
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 23:06:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Dxfiler@aol.com
To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com

Pop quiz hotshot; It's 15 minutes before the start of the T2 tourney and you
don't have a deck ready.  What do you build?
Why the answer to that one is easy; You make a straight red deck. :-)
  No, i'm serious.  It has been proving throughout the history of magic that
when in doubt, GO RED.  Now, perhaps players tend to flock to the red side
based on it's sheer offense.  Or maybe players who desire board control build
red decks due to the fact that red can destroy ANY permanent, with the
exception of enchantments (which disks can easily blow up).  If that isn't
enough to convince you about the ups of red...how can you explain the
phenomenon that we have all come to know and love as sligh?  Sligh- easy
enough for newcomers to play, and good enough for scrubs that don't have a
deck made right before a tourney can make do decent with (I fit in the scrub
category :-)
     In my eyes, there are three types of mono-red decks:
1)  The nuke deck.  The title says it all.  If you make this type of red
deck, your deck is aimed right at your opponent.  This deck takes advantage
of the fact that your opponent only has 20 life.  The only thing that seems
to phase a straight-foward nuke deck is falcon/armor with <cringes> Gerrard's
wisdom's.
Sample of a nuke deck:
23 mountains
3 quicksands/wasteslands depending on the play enviroment
4 fireblast
4 incinerate
4 kindle
4 thunderbolt
3 viashino sandstalkers
4 ball lightnings
1 furnace of rath
4 kaervek's torch
3 hammer of bogardan
2 ruby medallions

2) The Delayed Death deck.  Similar to the Nuke deck with the supply of many
of the same burn spells...but different in the fact that this deck tries to
establish board control first, and then go in for the kill.  Many of the
offensive spells that were in the Nuke deck (B. Lightnings, Furnace, ETC.) ,
are replaced with spells geared towards control, such as After shock, those
nifty little disks, and aether flashes
Delayed Death deck sample:
23 mountains
4 quicksands
4 incinerate
4 nev's disks
4 fireblast
4 aether flash
3 thunderbolt
4 kindle
3 earthquake
3 wildfire emissaries
2 rathi dragons
2 aftershock
1 heart of bogardan

3) The Sligh deck.  For those of you who still don't know what sligh is
(shame on you :-) , the sligh deck has a moderate creature base with
efficient direct damage spells as backup.  With sligh you can: A) swarm the
opponent (a popular choice :)  B)  Do bits and pieces of damage to the
opponent (you hit em with many different DD sources) or C) Aim for control
and then kill (see the above-mentioned Delayed death deck)
Sample of a Sligh deck:
21 mountains
2 quicksand or wasteland (it all depends on the enviroment)
4 fireblast
4 incinerate
4 kindle
3 Thundrebolt
4 mogg fanatic
3 Fireslingers (these babies kick ass when compared to the inferior Jackal
pups :)
2 nev's disk
4 ball lightnings
3 viashino sandstalkers
2 goblin vandals
2 keeper of kookus
2 suq ata lancers

Some controversy on what red cards to use:

Sandstalker versus Ball lightnings- Ok. This has long been a controversy
among players.  Based on the various tourneys that I have entered with the
two...in almost every single scenario, the Sandstalker proved superior
compared to Mr. Lightning.  Face it- the ability of the stalker returning to
your hand at the end of any turn is just too good to pass up.  Thus, 8 damage
is better than 6.

Jackal Pup versus Fireslinger- A new rivalry, but I have already been
convinced that fireslingers are god (hail them :)  Or, at least when compared
to pups they are.  The slingers are faster Tim's (and better than Tim's in
the early to mid-game) .  This little slinger can take out every popular
weenie in the current standard enviroment (this fact has angered my friends
and prompted them to call my fireslinger's dungslingers.  Heehee :)

Thunderbolt versus Kindle- I'm still testing these two out against eachother.
 So far, the thunderbolt have proven to be more useful, but kindle's are
brand new.

  Well, I hope you enjoyed those mono-red musings and I hope I didn't bore
you to death. :-(  I think I'll go now.

           - Dave Feinstein