Peebles Primers – Red Deck Wins and Shadowmoor, by Benjami... http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?

Article=15738

Peebles Primers – Red Deck Wins and Shadowmoor

by Benjamin Peebles-Mundy

Unfortunately for residents of Pittsburgh, the “City” Champs Final was held
about three hundred miles away from home, and thus I do not have visions
of U.S. Nationals dancing through my head right now. However, I am very
much looking forward to StarCityGames.com’s mega weekend, even if I’ll
probably wind up playing the same deck I’ve been playing for months now.

Usually, an event like this would draw all of the die-hard Magic players from
CMU, but the weekend unfortunately falls directly in the middle of our final
examination period, and so certain parties are making things difficult for the
rest of us. Specifically, the person with whom I prepared for the last 5k
claims that he won’t go unless we find a decent Red/x Aggro deck for him to
play on the big weekend.

That seems like an easy enough problem to solve.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the part of the question that will be the hardest to
answer is going to be which colors the deck runs. Obviously it’s going to
have Red in it, but it could easily splash Green, Black, or both, or even run
as a straight one-color deck. I kept my mind open when poring over the
spoiler, but you’ll see that I started with Black and Green cards as
possibilities before settling on a Mono-Red approach to the deck.

So, without further ado, I’d like to jump into my thoughts on the new cards in
Shadowmoor, and what they have to offer Red Deck Wins in Standard.

New Creatures

Tattermunge Maniac – It is a given that whatever deck we wind up with, this

guy will be included. Two power for one mana in Red is far more than I’ve
come to expect, and I think that his drawback is just not worth worrying
about. However, it does mean that you’re going to want to have plenty of
burn spells to back him up. If you can do that, though, he’ll quickly turn into
four, six, or more damage. I mention him first because of the path that this
leads us down; we can build the deck with efficient creatures backed by
burn spells intended mostly to allow them through our opponent’s defenses.

Ashenmoor Liege – This is essentially the Maniac’s big brother. He’s going
to hit the opponent extremely hard, but his glass jaw means that you have

1 of 5 4/16/2008 9:35 AM
Peebles Primers – Red Deck Wins and Shadowmoor, by Benjami... http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15738

to be sure that your burn is going to be up to task at clearing the way for
him. It might be that in a world of Bitterblossoms and Imperious Perfects,
this is simply too much to ask. It might also be that if you ever get two of
these guys into play, you automatically win (less likely). While this fellow
didn’t end up making the final cut, he was one of the first cards I looked at,
and one that I’m sure I’ll be back to.

Tattermunge Duo – If you’re clearing the way for your little men by throwing
Shocks around like they were nothing, then the Duo is built just for you.
When you Tarfire your opponent’s Pestermite, not only are you going to get
your Maniac through for another two points, you’re going to pump the Duo
up to a fairly impressive 3/4. If the various (Black/)Green decks stay
popular, you’ll also love the feeling you get when you play a pre-combat
Boggart Ram-Gang and get to send in for an unblockable three points.

Boggart Ram-Gang – Speaking of this man, we’ve come to another one of

my favorite spoiled cards. We already had a relatively powerful 3/3 for three
in Countryside Crusher, but the Ram-Gang has Haste, which is huge. The
damage you can deal with a simple opening like Tattermunge Maniac,
Keldon Marauders, Boggart Ram-Gang is astounding, and if you happen to
pull off an unmolested eight-point attack on the third turn, you’re almost
certainly going to win. Even when things aren’t going quite so swimmingly,
giving your three-drop Haste means quite a lot when he might otherwise
meet an untimely demise at the hands of Shriekmaw or similar.

I want to take a second here to look at the mana costs of the cards I’m
planning on playing with. While Tattermunge Maniac and Boggart
Ram-Gang are forgiving about whether I’m casting spells with Mountains or
Forests, they’re not so much fans of casting spells with Mutavaults. I’m also
almost certainly going to wind up with Flame Javelin in my deck, so
colorless lands become even less appealing.

The other side of this is that certain cards that might be quite good, such as
the newer version of Sygg, just aren’t that easy to support without hurting
our ability to cast our various RRR three-drops. Yes, Graven Cairns does
exist, but it’s hard for me to justify a BB splash off just those four lands. This
same problem comes up elsewhere, so I’m going to limit myself to “Red”
cards at this point. I’ll come back to this later, but I think that the first pass
should be made with our restrictive mana costs in mind.

Ashenmoor Gouger – The other Red card in the HHH-cost cycle,

Ashenmoor Gouger is really quite large. His problem is not that he’s bad, as
I quite like him, it’s that his competition is so good. For approximately the
same cost, I could get a Countryside Crusher, so the built-in +1/+1 is going
to have to prove itself better than the Giant’s ability to grow out of hand and
to regulate your draws. I think that the Gouger has a lot of potential, and if I
knew I’d be playing Ashenmoor Liege, he would be a slam dunk, but for
now he’s just a “maybe” for me.

Demigod of Revenge – When I look at this card, the main thing I see is the
converted mana cost of five. If I’m trying to make a deck with a 2/1 for R
and burn spells work, I don’t think I’ll find a way to get the Demigod to work

2 of 5 4/16/2008 9:35 AM
Peebles Primers – Red Deck Wins and Shadowmoor, by Benjami... http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15738

too. I envision either running a relatively low land count, in which case I’d
expect him to be stranded in my hand quite a lot, or running Countryside
Crusher, who might artificially create the same situation. It might be that this
guy is just so good that I need to run him, but I think that he’ll stay on the
sidelines for the first pass.

Fulminator Mage – I see two problems with the Mage. First, he’s a 2/2 for
three, when I could easily be getting a 3/3 (or better) with great abilities for
the same cost. Second, I think that manabases might wind up looking a lot
less attractive for him, as people try to fit HHHHH-cost cards into their
decks. Tom’s article yesterday featured a deck that included twenty-five
basic lands, and I would not be surprised to see a lot of those pop up soon.

Cultbrand Witch – Like the Ashenmoor Liege, this is a creature that I’d
really like to play, but that I just can’t seem to figure out how to fit it in. Two
power for two mana isn’t necessarily that exciting, but it’s fine, and the
ability to just fire more damage out there whenever I have spare mana is
very attractive. Unfortunately, as always, I think that the non-Red activation
cost is going to be too hard to support, and so this one ends up on the
sidelines.

Vexing Shusher – I saved the Shusher for last because of just how great I
think he is. As spoiled, we’re looking at an uncounterable Grizzly Bear that
can protect all of your burn spells. I don’t think that there is going to be a
deck that relies solely on counterspells to defend itself, but it’s not at all
unreasonable to think that you might find yourself up against a deck that
can stabilize at a life total in the single digits, and that slowrolling a Shusher
until you can unleash a lethal swath of burn could easily win you the game.

All in all, I think that the most promising new creatures are Tattermunge
Maniac, Vexing Shusher, and Boggart Ram-Gang. They can easily team up
with old favorites like Mogg Fanatic, Keldon Marauders, and Countryside
Crusher to form an extremely formidable offense. As I mentioned earlier,
many of the Black/Red (and sometimes Black/Blue) cards are extremely
appealing to me, but I simply don’t think I can make the mana work for
them. I’d love to be proven wrong.

New Spells

Flame Javelin – One of my all-time favorite Magic Online decks to play was
a Red/White Aggro deck that my clan built immediately following the
release of Ravnica. The draw to that deck was the fact that your (only
alright) creatures were backed up by two three-drop burn spells that could
deal four damage. With Char and Flames of the Blood Hand no longer
appearing in Standard, the best that we could do has been Incinerate, but
now we can go back to the old days with Flame Javelin. Since things
appear to be shaping up as Mono-Red, the RRR cost isn’t going to be a
problem at all, and in return we get a wonderfully clean four-point burn spell.

Smash to Smithereens – Many of the pre-Shadowmoor Standard decks that

were slow out of the gates, notably Reveillark, used artifact acceleration to
dig themselves out of that hole. Smash to Smithereens does double duty

3 of 5 4/16/2008 9:35 AM
Peebles Primers – Red Deck Wins and Shadowmoor, by Benjami... http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15738

against these opponents, Bolting them and getting rid of their accelerant.
It’s also a good sideboard answer to the increasingly-popular Dragon’s
Claw, as well as a way to clean up other random artifacts that you might run
into. Like Cryoclasm before it, I expect this Smash to be quite the
post-board beating against some decks.

Poison the Well – If we’re starting off with Smash to Smithereens and
following up with Cryoclasm, why not make sure we can clean up the mess
with Poison the Well? Off-hand, I think that this card just costs too much
mana for the impact that it has, but I think that, if you’re dead-set on
pursuing mana denial, you could do much worse than this card.

So, where does all of this get us?

Post-Shadowmoor Red Deck Wins

Benjamin Peebles-Mundy

4 Tattermunge Maniac
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Vexing Shusher
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Countryside Crusher

4 Shard Volley
4 Incinerate
4 Rift Bolt
4 Flame Javelin

20 Mountain

This is my second pass at the deck; the first run had Emberwilde Augur
instead of Keldon Marauders. I’ve really liked the Augur in the abstract for a
long time, and figured that I’d try him out, but he was not nearly as good as I
had hoped he would be. The first take also featured Ashenmoor Gouger
instead of Countryside Crusher, but his drawback was often relevant and
his small increase in size didn’t seem to make up for the fact that I would
draw lands in the turns after I played him.

It’s possible that certain card choices aren’t as optimal as they might
become. Rift Bolt is my least favorite of the burn spells, since it’s the
hardest one to resolve on any turn other than the second; perhaps it should
be Lash Out. You’ll also notice that I have twelve cards that cost three
mana in my deck, but only twenty lands. I didn’t find myself missing my third
land drop more than once or twice, so this seems to be okay, but I could
sympathize with someone who wanted to cut some of the expensive cards
for an extra land or two. Lastly, the lands are thoroughly unexciting. I found
myself wishing that I could fit some good non-basics in there, but with R,
RR, and RRR costs, I don’t think I can afford to run any colorless lands.
Similarly, I don’t think I can afford to run any lands that come into play
tapped, and so both Mutavault and Ghitu Encampment are out. Maybe I’m
just being paranoid, and maybe there’s a way to get these man-lands into

4 of 5 4/16/2008 9:35 AM
Peebles Primers – Red Deck Wins and Shadowmoor, by Benjami... http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/print.php?Article=15738

the deck, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

Regardless, I took this deck into the fray against the old top-dog, Blue/Black
Faeries, and a new Blue/Red Swans deck. Against Faeries, the deck won
every game that started with a creature on turns 1 and 2, but was very
much behind when it played only one creature in the first two turns. Perhaps
I should be running another one-drop, or maybe something like Tarmogoyf
instead of Boggart Ram-Gang. Either way, the deck felt extremely powerful,
and the results were promising.

The results against the Swans deck are not necessarily as relevant, since
the opposing deck was untested and just a quick brainstorm, but they did
show one thing very nicely. Either the game would be over extremely
quickly, as Tattermunge Maniac delivered a merciless beating, or it would
go very long, as the Swans deck’s burn and countermagic held the fort
against the assault. In these long games, it was not very difficult to
accumulate burn spells in-hand, building up my manabase to the point
where I could easily play Vexing Shusher and the follow him up with a
Javelin, two Incinerates, and a Shard Volley. This is probably harder to pull
off when you find yourself unable to convert Incinerate into Ancestral
Recall, but the fact remains that a lategame burn plan is very strong when
backed up by the Shusher.

I’m sure that the deck will continue to evolve beyond where it is right now.
I’d still love to find a way to play all those Black/Red cards I’ve left behind,
but the important thing is that it looks like I’ll have someone to share the
ride to Virginia with. After all, it seems very likely that we’ve got the next big
Red/x Aggro deck within our grasp.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me in the forums,
via email, or on AIM.

Benjamin Peebles-Mundy
ben at mundy dot net
SlickPeebles on AIM

5 of 5 4/16/2008 9:35 AM