“O to be a dragon…of silkworm size or immense…” – Marianne Moore

I don’t own any dual lands. I’m also not new to Old School as i’m sure you know. Anyone that plays with me often has probably noticed I play mono colored decks about 90% of the time. Or maybe 95% of the time. Actually at this point, probably 100% of the time. Will I ever own dual lands? Maybe someday. But at this point I’m just watching the prices slowly rise higher and higher. As they rise, I desire them less and less. I have some Cities of Brass if I really want more colors. That being said, I bought some Blood Moons over the summer and have felt obligated to put them to use. I sort of struggled with coming up with a deck idea to use them in. Eventually, I did come up with an idea. I call it Dragon Flare. And here it is to light up your ass on a cold winter night.

The Deck

The point of the deck is probably pretty clear. You defend with the Rukh Eggs, burn things with Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings, and get some Mana Flares out and fire away with a Dragon Whelp or Fireball. I don’t remember exactly how I thought of the premise of the deck. Maybe in the shower or on a long drive. However it was, I thought it was perfect for a fun janky deck.

Just a week before Christmas day, the New England crew met up to jam some games before the Christmas noose tightened up too much. I brought along my Dragon Flare deck to test it out. At this time, however, the deck was a bit different. I had four Firebreathing and four Mons’s Goblin Raiders in place of the Rukhs and the Stone Rains. How did it perform? Surprisingly well. It was a meetup so everyone was playing brews like I was, but I won the majority of the games I played.

I went home thinking I was on to something. I thought for sure that when I played Mana Flare, opponents would be dropping Serras, Forces of Nature, Lords of the Pit, and Mahamoti Djinns left and right and knock me right out. It didn’t happen though.

I was hoping Firebreathing wouldn’t have been quite as useless as it was. Overall, every time I drew it I thought crap because it is crap. I don’t even really love the art. Judging from the picture above, it doesn’t look like it was crap the whole time though. Looks like I was able to add on four extra damage points.

A couple weeks ago we had another meet up at the usual place, Granfanally’s. I brought the deck along with me again with the new changes to see how it would work out this time. I won most of the games I played again. Our meet ups, like I mentioned before, are primarily brew testing for us so no one usually plays any top tier decks. Still though, a brew against another brew can be judged accordingly. One could say it is a victorious brew. A brew not to be reckoned with. A brew high in alcohol content. Or mana content rather.

This more recent meet up had me play an opponent who had Lords of the Pit and my Mana Flares fueled it. He was able to get two of them out in one game. I was able to block with Dragon Whelps and pump them up to kills the Lords. I took a some damage and sacrificed some baby dragons but it worked out. I think that was a game I got a Fireball out.

Playing with Mana Flare can make your mana pool numbers confusing. I almost want to use counters to keep track of things. It can be even more complicated when playing with mana burn, as we do. For the most part I never have more than one or two extra unused mana which I can just put into a Dragon Whelp. I also don’t usually cast Mana Flare unless I have a Dragon Whelp out or in my hand. Otherwise I’m afraid of fueling my opponent’s big creatures with nothing for me.

As far as the deck list goes. I’m still experimenting with it. I feel like at least one Shivan should be in the deck but it’s really hard to fit everything in that I want in. The Stone Rains have won me games but have also been dead draws. I also keep going back and forth with the Earthquake but it works well with Rukh Eggs and I almost want to add a second one. The Fireballs have been good. Good enough that it probably warrants four of them. I don’t know, the deck is pretty fun as it is though. For the next match, however, I’m switching out the Stone Rains and subbing in some Dragon Engines. It just works so well with the theme. They may end up having a permanent place.

There it is. A pretty fun mono red jank deck. This is what I’ll primarily be playing with this winter I think.

Thanks for reading!