Sometimes you join the Evil Empire, and that’s just how life is. Normally in this space I bring you an innovative deck that can make the run to Mythic, proven by the fact I have done so myself over the past month. For June, however, I joined the dark side. I made Mythic playing The Fun Police, your standard monored aggro deck for Magic Arena.
I should clarify: as a Magic player I have two, diametrically opposed poles I’m drawn towards when building decks. One is “Howling Mine mode,” where I recur my deck’s contents, try to prevent my opponent from interacting, and win a game 45 minutes after we started playing. The other is, “Goblin Mode,” which is beating down as quickly as possible. After all, there’s no wrong questions, just wrong answers.
(Side note: if you’re not familiar with that quote, here’s a history lesson. The godfather of beatdown red is a man named David Price who developed Jay Schneider and company’s Sligh deck to focus on winning as fast as possible instead of controlling the pace of play. This was in an era where red cards were “bad,” [ask Siri to lookup “Ironclaw Orcs” for you] but Dave realized a 1/1 for 1 can attack 20 times to kill an opponent. The reverse is not true: said opponent can have all the Swords to Plowshares and Wraths of God in the world, but if they don’t have them by that 20th turn, they’re dead while their cards can’t harm you in any fashion. Also, you probably need to read The Philosophy of Fire, easily a Top 5 Magic article.)
I started off June in Howling Mine mode, including, at one point, trying to figure out in which Arena formats I could literally play Howling Mine. Inevitably I found myself losing, over and over again, to The Fun Police. Because we’re at the end of a set cycle, waiting for the next set to arrive, I’ve played through a lot of the creative options I’ve brainstormed to beat the format as it currently exists. While I could certainly have shifted to my Monogreen beatdown deck, biased towards Obstinate Baloth and other lifegain creatures maindeck, I wanted to try something new. Playing The Fun Police myself was a new experience that would serve to make me better at beating The Fun Police later. So that’s what I did.
Why Does Arena Favor Playing Aggro Red?
The secret to moving up in Ranked play on Arena is that reps matter more than playskill or deck choice. That’s not to say those other things don’t matter, just that getting games in is more consequential. Coincidentally, playing more Magic also happens to align with improving at playing Magic, making you better at the play and deck choice part. One way to play more games is to make sure your games end quickly. One way to do that is to play red.
The moral of the story is that in ranked play, the nature of Arena tends to push players into playing aggressive strategies if they’re solving for “getting to Mythic quickly.” One of the best is often red which is why you see so much of it, particularly in the best of one queues. It’s a real life “Give a Mouse a Cookie:” if you’re a player who wants to be Mythic, you’re going to play ranked. If you’re playing ranked to get to mythic, you’re going to want to jam a lot of games. If you’re going to want to jam a lot of games, you’ll want to play a deck that wins or loses quickly. If you’re going to play a deck that wins or loses quickly, you’re going to play a lot of red. (Someone give me my Caldecott medal!)
My Decklist
I like to think I’m big enough to admit when I’m wrong, and I was wrong plenty going through the month of June with this deck. One glaring mistake? I glossed over Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance. If you’re going to play this deck, cut a Mountain and play one copy. I also started with Chandra, Dressed to Kill in the maindeck. Eventually she moved to the sideboard, and now I don’t have her in the deck at all. She’s fine, but the format doesn’t need her right now. Here’s what I was playing to cross the finish line to make Mythic in Best of 3 Standard Constructed.
Deck
4 Play with Fire (MID) 154
20 Mountain (SLD) 66
4 Lightning Strike (DMU) 137
4 Monastery Swiftspear (BRO) 144
4 Kumano Faces Kakkazan (NEO) 152
4 Feldon, Ronom Excavator (BRO) 135
4 Phoenix Chick (DMU) 140
4 Bloodthirsty Adversary (MID) 129
4 Invasion of Regatha (MOM) 148
1 Urabrask's Forge (ONE) 153
3 Mishra's Foundry (BRO) 265
4 Invasion of Tarkir (MOM) 149
Sideboard
4 Bloody Betrayal (VOW) 147
3 Lithomantic Barrage (MOM) 152
4 Nahiri's Warcrafting (MOM) 155
3 Urabrask's Forge (ONE) 153
1 Lithomantic Barrage (MOM) 152
How to Play This Deck
Listen, I’m copying everyone’s homework here. Read The Philosophy of Fire article I linked at the top of this piece (fine, I’ll link it again). By the end of my quest to reach Mythic, which I reached June 11thish, I was refusing to sideboard more than 4 cards in because the game plan of “Go fast” was so brutally efficient anytime I boarded more than that my deck became too dilute and I wound up losing. Here are some things I learned:
- When in doubt, don’t sideboard in/out more than 4 cards. The maindeck plan is pretty good.
- Speaking of which, the best draw you can have goes T1 Kumano Faces Kakkazan, T2 two-drop that’s a 3/3 thanks to Kumano, T3 more creatures plus attacking with your 3/3 and the Kumano as a 2/2, T4 finish them with Burn. I rarely mulligan T1 Kumano.
- It’s almost always wrong to attack something other than your opponent. Sometimes a planeswalker needs to die (but again, rarely!), and against the mirror match you attack your Battles. The rest of the time you focus your lasers on the opponent and ignore everything else; it’s all noise if the opponent is dead.
- When choosing between two-drops, jam Feldon and bash. You want him to die most frequently for several reasons: you get to draw cards when he takes damage, and because he’s a legend so multiples get stuck in your hand. (Aside: Feldon is a microcosm of my deckbuilding duality as his Cane is the OG win condition from my Turbo Stasis days back in Middle School, while the man himself is now my Goblin Mode win condition. Wild!)
- Invasion of Regatha will sometimes ding an X/1, and sometimes finish off something that blocked one of your creatures but didn’t take lethal. More often, however, you’ll ping your own Feldon because doing so nets you a free card draw. Neat!
- Phoenix Chick can return from the graveyard. I know, I know, we all know that, it says it on the card. However, I promise you after playing this for a few weeks, you are going to forget about that, and it is going to catch you off guard when it triggers leading to a situation that could have gone better if you had prepared properly. Phoenix Chick? More like Phoenix CHECK if you’re attacking with three or more creatures amirite?
- 2WW up from your opponent is the bane of Standard right now. OH DO YOU HAVE THE WANDERING EMPEROR? How ORIGINAL. Listen, I get it I’m still playing Shocks at 40 but everyone knows you’re going to cast Emperor during combat. That’s why, as a red mage, we remember it’s right to hold the Kumano Faces Kakkazan until after combat to kill the planeswalker for free. It’s not always right to do that, but be aware of the play.
- Sometimes you want to upkeep-cast Play With Fire to scry for a land or a threat, so remember to set stops.
- Mishra’s Foundry can pump another Mishra’s Foundry, but only if the activated creature version is attacking. Sometimes it’s right to leave the pump and not use it because you’re playing a game of chicken with Cut Down. It locks in 2 damage because you can counter it by pumping in response if they use it, but if you act first they get to blow you out. In that situation it’s better to get the 2 damage.
- Brian Kowal once said, paraphrasing, “If you’re playing red and your opponent wins at 1 life, you messed up.” That’s still true.
Bonus Decklist
Getting to Mythic meant playing NOT Mythic for most of the month. Then I crossed the threshold, and when you do that your world changes. It’s like an entirely different Standard format split between People Who Don’t Care and are jamming goofball stuff that’s absolutely whackadoo (this is usually me at this stage) or Very Serious Magic Players who are playing whatever The Best Serious Tournament Deck is (it always features blue). So that means I’m now playing a different red deck at Mythic then I did getting to Mythic. I genuinely believe this version is worse in Diamond or below, but better than the first version once you’ve reached Mythic. Here’s the list:
Deck
4 Play with Fire (MID) 154
19 Mountain (SLD) 66
4 Lightning Strike (DMU) 137
4 Monastery Swiftspear (BRO) 144
4 Kumano Faces Kakkazan (NEO) 152
4 Feldon, Ronom Excavator (BRO) 135
4 Phoenix Chick (DMU) 140
4 Bloodthirsty Adversary (MID) 129
4 Invasion of Regatha (MOM) 148
4 Urabrask's Forge (ONE) 153
3 Mishra's Foundry (BRO) 265
1 Invasion of Tarkir (MOM) 149
1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance (NEO) 276
Sideboard
4 Bloody Betrayal (VOW) 147
3 Lithomantic Barrage (MOM) 152
4 Nahiri's Warcrafting (MOM) 155
3 Invasion of Tarkir (MOM) 149
1 Lithomantic Barrage (MOM) 152
In Conclusion…
I’ll see y’all next month when I’m back on my Turbo Fog grind bullshit. Now I need to go look at spoilers for Lord of the Rings; Tom Bombadil has to do some wacky nonsense to make games go long. He sure as shit made the books drag on!
