Working the Problem with Marty: Red's Resurgence WRITTEN BY Martin Zacques

For a while now Red has been a poor choice for Standard, relegated to a support role in decks like Mono-White Humans or grudgingly played for access to one or two powerful cards, such as Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Chandra, Flamecaller or Radiant Flames. But Eldritch Moon brought us a bounty of burn spells, and we're seeing Red mages back at the top tables and taking down MTGO leagues.

Pedro Carvalho led the charge at the Pro-Tour with his innovative UR Thermo-Thing deck, which has been a prominent part of the online meta since the event. However, we've also seen Black-Red and Mono-Red brews taking down competitive Leagues online, despite a field full of powerful Bant and Emerge decks. While Bant is still overwhelmingly the Big Bad of Standard, if you're playing competitively you'll surely run into a fair share of Red decks. So in this week's Working the Problem, I want to take a look at some of the key cards and interactions defining Red's role in EMN Standard.





Thermo-Alchemist



Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh never got as much love as it felt like she deserved. That's not a comment on Pia and Kiran Nalaar's parenting, but a reflection of the fact that she was too costly and conditional to be a great card. Strip away the fancy flip-planeswalker shenanigans, cut her to two CMC, and you've got a reliable little archetype on a stick in the shape of Thermo-Alchemist.

Along with Fevered Visions, this card is really the core of the Thermo-Thing deck. Its ability to push through damage even when you have to aim your burn spells at opposing creatures, and even to serve as a decent blocker against early creatures, means that this two mana 0/3 is often going to represent a six- or eight-point life swing all on its own. Pair that with a copy or two of Fevered Visions providing card advantage and steady damage and you've got real inevitability.

On its own, Thermo-Alchemist dies to any of the common removal in Standard, and it does get run over by any mid-ranged creature. But unless you can pressure your UR opponent faster than they can pressure you, this guy will hang around and chip away at life totals for a long while. Early-game powerhouses like Lambholt Pacifist do double duty against cards like this by making your opponent play on their turn to avoid the transform trigger and beating down to force an ahead-of-schedule chump-block.

Since its chief impact comes from landing early and continually pinging for damage, Alchemist also makes a great target for Spell Queller if they're forced to play it off-curve. At a minimum, you inflict a serious tempo hit by delaying its arrival, and Alchemist becomes less impactful the later in the game it arrives.





Bedlam Reveler





While Bedlam Reveler's real home may eventually be found in Modern, where filling the yard with zero and one-mana cost spells can let us cheat it out obscenely early, it can do serious work in Standard as well. It has moved in and out of maindecks and sideboards in various Thermo-Thing builds, but its real home might be in the super-aggressive RB shell piloted to a 5-0 finish online by Medvedev. In the early game this deck fills up its yard with Instants and sorceries while extracting value from cheap creatures like Insolent Neonate and Thermo-Alchemist. Once its hand is getting dry, it throws out a Bedlam Reveler along with a Madness spell or two and draws three more cards. When you've already been pounding your opponent's face with Alms of the Vein and Fiery Temper, a 3/4 with Prowess represents a must-kill threat.

Like all Prowess creatures, Bedlam Reveler can be a little soft to instant-speed interactions which can catch it out mid-pump. It also gets pre-emptively hosed by Day's Undoing, formerly a fringe card, but now seeing increasing play in Sideboards as tech against Delirium and Emrakul decks. Of course, it's up to you whether giving your opponent back a graveyard full of burn spells and then having them draw seven is better or worse than dealing with a resolved Bedlam Reveler.



Collective Defiance and Incendiary Flow



While one of these cards is far more versatile than the other, they both share an important feature: they can do three damage to the face. There's no need for your opponent to have a creature in play like there is for Draconic Roar, and each card has its own upsides. Exiling the target of Incendiary Flow isn't quite as relevant as it was when Hangarback Walker reigned supreme, however it still handles a Prized Amalgam rather efficiently,or takes away a reanimation target for Ojutai's Command. The upside on Collective Defiance is substantially bigger, with the ability to burn a creature and your opponent for four mana being the most common use. However, you can also use it to pitch and refill your hand or force your opponent to toss that Emrakul they've been waiting to cast.

The most important thing both of these spells do, however, is give Red versatility. And not just because of their in-built upside, but because they go to the face efficiently. In a world where Planeswalkers start at three mana and keep getting cast every turn, every burn spell which can target an opponent or a creature is effectively a versatile, modal spell. More importantly, once you put a certain critical mass of these in a deck (Standard currently hosts four different burn spells which do three or more to a creature or player for three mana or less), and especially once you add in other synergies like the Thermo-Alchemists and Bedlam Revelers we've discussed above, you've got a strategy which presents the kind of incremental, repeated advantage capable of keeping up with massed Planeswalkers and efficient mid-ranged creatures.

When you're playing against these cards, the oft-overlooked first mode of Dromoka's Command is a particular boon (and Collective Defiance will instantly become twice as good once that card's ability to negate it and do something else in the bargain is gone from Standard). Lifegain, especially of the incidental and/or repeatable kind, is also important against these decks.

If your Burn opponent is heavy on creatures, then Blessed Alliance or Surge of Righteousness can both make reasonable sideboard cards – even if it just gains you four life and forces them to sacrifice their Bedlam Reveler, you've made a decent exchange. Cleric of the Forward Order is well-positioned against some of these decks, like the BR version listed above which is light on instants. Against UR Thermo-Thing, it's more vulnerable to an instant-speed Fiery Temper which can prevent the lifegain. Ojutai's Command is also well-positioned, even if it's just a ‘Gain 4 and Draw a card' effect. Similarly, big, swingy life-gain effects like Heron's Grace Champion could be effective answers in the right creature-heavy mid-range decks.





Hanweir Garrison





While it doesn't see as much play as the other cards we've seen above, two recent 5-0 league finishes for Garrison decks (from action_andy and Tombady) deserve some scrutiny. Both of these decks pair Garrison with plentiful Haste effects in order to maximize its chances of smashing in on an empty board and making some tokens. One goes big, playing the full playset of Hanweir Battlements, along with other midrange red cards like Thunderbreak Regent and Goblin Dark-Dwellers. This is a powerful attrition deck full of two-for-ones and incidental damage. Once it gets to five mana it can do things like Haste out a Regent to swing in for four in the air or recast an Exquisite Firecraft off of a Dark-Dwellers in order to blow a hole in your board or your life total.

The other deck takes the more typical Sligh approach, playing the best one-drops Red has to offer, along with Garrison and Dragon Fodder, with the plan to go wide and finish opponents off with Reckless Bushwhacker. We saw similar strategies leveraging Atarka's Command the last time Red was good in Standard, and with a transformational sideboard that lets the deck go big if it needs to, this looks like a versatile and potent strategy.

Ultimately, there are plenty of tools in Standard to deal with Hanweir Garrison, and most decks are already playing them. This limits how good the card will be for the moment. Obviously it's soft to Languish and Kozilek's Return, though it may not be as soft as you think. The old RG tokens deck could start fast and aggro you out, but it often won from nowhere later on when it had the mana to chain one of its token makers into a Bushwhacker and attack right away. I suspect that the better players of this deck will handle things similarly, pressuring you with Zurgo Bellstriker and Falkenrath Gorger. If you wipe the board, they'll then take the big swing all at once with a hasty Hanweir Garrison, or worse, a transformed [[Writhing Township]] dropped on turn six. This is where the Elder Deep-Fiend decks should come into their own with the ability to drop an instant Kozilek's Return and burn out even the most explosive turns a Garrison deck can take.



Weaver of Lightning





You won't see Weaver in many main-decks, but if you're a UW Spirits or mono-White player, get ready to see it, and hate it, post-board. A three-mana 1/4 with Reach isn't something to set the world alight, but it's exceptionally well-positioned against some of the format's most impactful small creatures. It blocks Savannah Lions all day, even with an anthem in play. More importantly, in a deck full of burn spells, it presents some really nasty problems. Your Rattlechains and Mausoleum Wanderer both struggle against an effect which forces through incidental damage even when spells are fizzled.

For the most part Humans can just play around this card if they know it's there, without having to do much in terms of fancy sideboarding. For Spirits, however, it's a real problem and a reason to bring in a few extra Anthem effects from the board against Red decks if you're not already playing them in your main.

Overall, Red has a lot of powerful new tools which players are still exploring. We've seen recent success for a whole slew of different Red decks, suggesting that builds are still being refined. Once we see the best of what Red has to offer I suspect that Standard will have some Tier 1 Red strategies to contend with again and with that a much healthier meta, including Burn, Ramp, Mid-range and Control decks.

Martin Zacques is a compulsive brewer who's always looking for new ideas to make his decks unique and competitive. In between work and raising a family, you can find him grinding at local FNMs and PPTQs around Scotland, UK or running his local board and tabletop games club.