Mono Red
When all else fails, just burn it all down!
This past PPTQ season, I was on Mono-Red for the majority of it. True, they banned Ramunap Ruins and Rampaging Ferocidon, but it was still a powerhouse of a deck for one important reason – Temur Energy, and more importantly Whirler Virtuoso, was dead. I think any red mage knows that Mono-Red will be powered down as the result of the banning. Without Ramunap Ruins, you lose out on reach and it makes it more difficult getting in that last bit of damage. Still, our worst matchup was Temur Energy because it was very hard to attack through Whirler Virtuoso and Rogue Refiner because it was basically a 2-for-1 each time.
Typical Ramunap Red Deck
| Creatures (21) 2 Ahn-Crop Crasher 4 Bomat Courier 4 Earthshaker Khenra 3 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider 4 Rampaging Ferocidon 4 Hazoret the Fervent Spells (15) 3 Soul-Scar Mage 4 Abrade 4 Lightning Strike 4 Shock | Lands (24) 14 Mountain 4 Ramunap Ruins 2 Scavenger Grounds 4 Sunscorched Desert |
Typical Temur Energy Deck
| Creatures (21) 4 Longtusk Cub 4 Servant of the Conduit 4 Rogue Refiner 4 Whirler Virtuoso 3 Bristling Hydra 2 The Scarab God Planeswalkers (2) 2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance Spells (12) 4 Attune with Aether 4 Harnessed Lightning 3 Abrade 1 Essence Scatter | Lands (25) 4 Spirebluff Canal 4 Botanical Sanctum 4 Aether Hub 2 Mountain 2 Forest 1 Island 1 Swamp 2 Sheltered Thicket 3 Rootbound Crag 2 Vraska, Relic Seeker |
You might be thinking, “But Whirler Virtuoso is still around. Isn’t Mono-Red still at a disadvantage?” It’s not. With the banning of Attune with Aether and Rogue Refiner, Temur Energy players just don’t have that much free energy to go around. What I’ve noticed is that they may only get 1 or 2 activation of Virtuoso because there is just not enough energy. It sucks for us to still deal with thopters, but it isn’t back-breaking. Furthermore, if you’re playing correctly, you can usually just kill Virtuoso as its energy trigger is on the stack and then they might not be able to make any babies at all. Before, when Rogue Refiner was giving free energy and a card AND acting as a blocker, it was too much for Mono-Red. Now, without Rogue Refiner (and Attune), Virtuoso got a lot less scary.
What has gotten stronger against Mono-Red is any black-based deck with the addition Moment of Craving. Previously, all the Bx decks were decent against Mono-Red because of Fatal Push. With Moment of Craving, it’s on a whole other level. There was Essence Extraction, but being able to play Moment a whole turn earlier is much better. It’s also less restrictive than Essence because Essence requires double black mana.
I knew black would be stronger, but with Temur going down, I decided to go with Mono-Red for the season. I was able to go to last season’s RPTQ because of Mono-Red and I also did well there. Thus, I figured I’d at least give the same deck a try first. Overall, it performed quite well. In the beginning, there were Energy players who tried to change over to playing Grixis Energy. But without Attune, there were many chances for those players to miss a land drop or have a land come into play tapped, which I was able to exploit with Mono-Red. I may not have had Ramunap Ruins, but the reach of Hazoret and continued dominance of Chandra, Torch of Defiance was enough to carry the deck through. Here’s a look at what I was running through most of the season.
My Mono-Red Deck Version
| Creatures (24) 4 Bomat Courier 1 Fanatical Firebrand 4 Soul-Scar Mage 4 Earthshaker Khenra 3 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider 4 Anh-Crop Crasher 4 Hazoret the Fervent Spells (12) 2 Shock 4 Abrade 2 Invigorated Rampage 4 Lightning Strike Planeswalkers (2) 2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance | Lands (22) 16 Mountain 2 Scavenger Grounds 4 Sunscorched Desert |
It turns out it was the right call for the beginning of the season. Most people didn’t expect that Mono-Red is still alive. As expected, the new string of Energy decks just weren’t strong enough. I had a match against a pretty good opponent who just couldn’t find the lands he needed to stop my assault in time. A couple timely removals of Whirler Virtuoso was enough to give me the win. Aside from Energy being weak, new experimental decks just haven’t tuned their decks correctly to fight Mono-Red. There were many decks with The Scarab God, which was probably the best creature in the format right now, but those decks didn’t maindeck enough Moment of Cravings to give themselves an advantage.
Towards the middle and end of the season, the meta has changed again and many UBx decks popped up because people realized maindecking Fatal Pushes and Moment of Cravings offered a significant advantage. That’s when the Mono-Red deck didn’t do well anymore. It was at this point that I was on a downswing. Still, I wasn’t too upset about this PPTQ season. I made 3 Top-8s and was in the final for one of them. Also, a teammate of mine won and we’re still going to the RPTQ in Malaysia in June. As an aggro player, this Mono-Red deck will go up there with Goblins from the Tarkir period as one of my loves, but I think it might be time for the deck to die.
We’ll find out next season.
