Red deck wins. It’s by far the most frustrating (for opponents) but the easiest way to cheese the competition in Magic: The Gathering whether the format is Standard, Modern, or Pioneer. It’s also one of the most affordable, making Mono Red decks a lovely sight for players a bit light on the pockets. In fact, a good winning Mono Red deck can cost as little as $100 in Modern.
Building your own Mono Red deck is easy enough. Some might even say that the deck itself plays on autopilot and you don’t need to do much but for that to happen and unfold while your opponent scrambles to put out the flames, you need to be meticulous with deck-building. Mono Red decks need to be min-maxed more than usual to have consistent win rates, and here’s how to achieve that mentality, go make Chandra Nalaar proud.
10 Focus On Winning Fast
Blitzing your enemy before they could set up that winning combo or control the battlefield is the typical play for Mono-Red decks. Any other strategic or tactical variation just doesn’t work as well as the typical Red Deck Wins composition. At least, that’s how it is right now for Modern and Standard.
Modern, most especially, has quick games that end in single-digit turns or just a few minutes and this is where Mono Red can shine. Focusing to do damage each turn– even on turn 1, if possible, is mandatory if you have a Mono Red deck. Consider that when putting in the cards. Each one of them (minus the lands) must have the capability to do damage whether they’re Instants, Sorceries, or Creatures.
9 Bear In Mind Strategic Concessions
There is, however, one glaring weakness for the best Mono Red decks; if they haven’t won by turn 4 or 5, then they start losing. By that point in the match, Red decks have already probably run out of gas or cards at hand and thus have minimal means of damaging the opponent apart from topdecking.
That’s why including cards like Light Up The Stage (maybe on the sideboard) is always a welcome solution if you’re emptying your hand too quickly as a Mono Red player. Still, the priority is still to win by turn 3, 4, or 5 so conceding one of the best-of-three games if that doesn’t happen is a viable option to get your footing back up in the next game. Chances are, you’re luckier that time.
8 Haste, Haste, and Haste
Unless you want a Mono Red burn, most Mono Red decks have to rely on creatures. Besides, Burn decks are usually a combination of Red and White, not just the former. With that out of the way, creatures with Haste are paramount to keeping pressure as early as turn 1.
Monastery Swiftspear or Goblin Guide can make the opponent panic early on. Golbin Guide is also underrated as it lets you see your opponent’s topdeck so you can plan ahead or hold off on some attacks depending on the card. One of the newest additions to the Red Deck Wins Haste pool is the Wayward Guide-Beast and it’s a good way to annoy your enemy by denying him some lands.
7 Prowess Is Also Nice
Apart from Red Deck Wins, another great Mono Red deck setup is centered around Prowess where creatures snowball up with buffs the more noncreature spells you cast. Again, Monastery Swiftspear is the champion in this category as it can easily become a temporary 4/4 creature by turn 2 or 3.
Soul Scar Mage is also another Prowess creature that works well in the aforementioned type of Mono Red Deck. On the off-chance that you don’t draw them, then at least you can go down the burn route with some of the Mono Red deck staples…
6 Consider The Red Deck Staples
So which noncreature spells are the most sought-after for Mono Red? Pretty much any red Sorcery, Instant, or even Enchantment that deals 2-3 damage and only costs 1 mana. These cards do most of the heavy-lifting in most Mono Red decks.
Modern menaces such as Lightning Bolt and Lava Spike are pretty much the cards in question. Skewer the Critics and Rift Bolt are also strong contenders and sometimes get included. In Standard, players have to make do with Shock or just 2-damage spells.
5 Small Attrition Damage Is Best
Sure, 1, 2, or 3 damage every turn doesn’t look as threatening as a huge green psuedo-T-Rex or the colorless nonsense of Eldrazi creatures but any player who underestimates Mono Red’s attrition damage tends to lose early. That also includes you, never underestimate small red damage.
So don’t be on the fence about adding creatures like Eidolon of the Great Revel or Leyline of Combustion (on the sideboard). These small damage procs are an investment and before you know it, the opponent is down to single-digits… unless they have a lifegain deck but those aren’t that common anyway and for such cases, Skullcrack or Tibalt, Rakish Instigator work wonders.
4 Ignore High-Cost Cards
But what about those awesome red dragons in MTG that cost 6-7 mana and can end the game after two turns? It’s best to ignore those if you’re going Mono Red; leave the stompy and hulking creatures to green decks. Dragons and other high-cost red creatures are simply too slow.
For one, you won’t get to bring them out until turn 4, 5, or 6 maybe even later. That is assuming you get a consistent draw of one land card each turn. Time building up that mana could have been better spent whittling down at the opponent’s health incrementally. Besides, big creatures can easily get punted back to the hand or deck or even to exile. Such is the state of Modern.
3 Keep Your Curve Low But Varied Enough
The reason why Mono Red decks are so fast? Because they like to keep their mana demands conservative. Most cards cost just 1 mana and are easily played on turn 1. In fact, if they wanted, Mono Red players can keep a deck that has no mana curve and stays flat at just 1-mana.
However, there’s this pesky control card called Chalice of the Void and it will ruin any low-mana-cost deck. So making your choices varied by including 2-mana cards or even 3-mana makes the deck more resilient against “unfair” control attempts.
2 Go Easy On The Mana Base
The beauty in Mono Red decks is that the mana curve is low enough to disregard the most common deck-building woe in Magic: The Gathering: land. Most decks keep around 22 to 24 lands, that’s more than a third of the deck already. Mono Red decks only need around 18 to 19. Some risky lads even manage at 17 lands.
This frees up space for more important cards in a Mono Red deck. After all, you need all the damage you can get in an opening hand. You can also include some card draw in the space freed up by shaving off a few Mountains to make the deck less reliant on luck.
1 When All Else Fails, Blood Moon
Who says Red Decks can’t do a bit of control? One plague of a red card that Wizards of the Coast introduced which favored Mono Red players even more is a wretched enchantment called Blood Moon and it makes all non-basic lands into, well, Mountains.
It just so happens that most decks in MTG that uses more than one color love to skip the basic lands. This is one of the best options a Mono Red player has against control or fancy midrange decks. It’s best to keep it in the sideboard first though, unless you want to make real-life enemies or compel more people to succumb to Mono Red for cheap victories.
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