Cube Masters Series | Building the Cube | Red

[wv]

 Philosophy of Red

  

Burn, break, beat - that's red! Red serves as the foundation for aggro strategies, while providing the strongest set of permanent removal cards (lands, artifacts and permanents). In a vacuum, red is the weakest colour in Cube, as 'burn' isn't as powerful as say, 'counterspells' (unless in large numbers).

  

However, red does offer a vast variety of answers to problematic permanents, which helps to indirectly increase the colour's power level.

  

Strengths

Direct Damage

Low costed beaters

Land, artifact and permanent destruction

 

Weaknesses

Creatures with low power

Lack of card advantage

UPDATED 22 FEBRUARY

Red (47)

1cc

Chain Lightning

Lightning Bolt

Firebolt

Genju of Spires

Grim Lavamancer

Mogg Fanatic

Jackal Pup

Goblin Guide

Spikeshot Elder

Greater Gargadon

Gorilla Shaman

2cc

Incinerate

Searing Blaze

Smash to Smitherines

Plated Geopede

Blood Knight

Kargan Dragonlord

Hellspark Elemental

Ember Hauler

Keldon Marauders

Hearth Kami

Dwarvin Blastminer

3cc

Staggershock

Char

Slagstorm

Pillage

Sulphuric Vortex

Keldon Vandals

Sulfur Elemental

Hell's Thunder

4cc

Koth of the Hammer

Sneak Attack

Flametongue Kavu

Avalanche Riders

Rakhdos Pit Dragon

Hero of Oxid Ridge

5cc

Kumano, Master Yamabushi

Word of Siezing

Chandra Nalaar

Siege-Gang Commander

6cc+

Fireblast

Wildfire

Inferno Titan

Hellkite Charger

CCx

Starstorm

Comet Storm

Fault Line

[Kieran Symington]

I'm thinking you may want to add some more red creatures and maybe run a few less spells. Just off the top of my head, I think you should definately add Imperial Recruiter, since he rules!

[Tom Reeve]

Ok, a few thoughts - Seems like an excess of burn and LD, a very small number of really quite slow cards, and some redundant stuff that I'm not sure necessarily wants to be. I guess really I'm asking, what kind of red decks do you actually want to be possible in your cube? For example, Jokulhaups, Bogardan Hellkite, Sneak Attack, Wheel of Fortune don't seem to fit in all that well. You've said in Black that you don't plan for Reanimator to be a significant strategy, which honestly probably leaves Sneak Attack out in the cold - Sneak needs similar, or even more high-cost high-impact creatures to really be worth using. Wheel of Fortune I guess you're just envisioning as a mechanism for a burn-heavy deck to reload? But I worry that other decks are going to tend to do a lot more with the cards than the red deck will, and it'll probably mainly end up splashed into some crazy combo/control hybrid.

 

As for specific cards I'm not keen on, Rolling Thunder is kind of blah without a lot of fast mana or a very specific opponent, Beacon of Destruction and Red Sun's Zenith can probably be collapsed to a single card (probably the more efficient and instant-speed Beacon unless you care about the exiling part), I don't think in a number of years of playing Cubes that have included it that I have ever rebought a Hammer of Bogardan. Maybe it happened at some point and I forgot about it? Fissure is really expensive. Aftershock is at least a little more flexible, but still on the slow/expensive side.

 

Avalanche Riders is a little on the expensive/inefficient side, particularly in a small, powered cube with only at most a couple of Karoos. LD and single-shot mana denial in general are somewhat devalued in a small high-powered cube. Which is a problem if the red deck that a lot of your red cards are pushing towards is Ponza.

 

As for what you could put in... I would probably add Smash to Smithereens over one of the slower artifact-removal spells, some more durable threats like Arc Slogger or Kumano, Master Yamabushi. Could you encourage some kind of Wildfire/Artifact strategy rather than Ponza maybe? (With cards like Covetous Dragon, Goblin Welder, Wildfire and/or the Portal equivalents, maybe Kuldotha Phoenix.) Either that or have the split be between burn/weenie Red that bleeds into Naya/Boros and similar aggro (the Goblin Guides, cheap burn spells etc) and Big Red (the X-spells, artifact mana, Arc Sloggers and so on) that can for example crossover with green for more ramp and big dudes, or blue for more of a counterburn strategy with a few durable centerpiece creatures like Slogger or Keiga or Titans.

 

tl;dr I really don't like Ponza, and I especially don't like it in powered cubes. Big Red or Wildfire-style strategies seem a lot more interesting. There's definitely still a place for all the core cheap aggro cards. Speaking of which, Blood Knight is really good, and Charlie Grover can attest to the glorious multi-faceted power of Sulfur Elemental in cube >_>

[wv]

Thanks for your feedback Tom - it's amazing! 

 

I'm totally onboard for the Wildfire/Portal equivalents route, however I'm worried it's a bit too redundant? Do you think an Artifact focus would be less reduntant?

 

Re Ponza - if you take out the LD, how do players reasonably deal with broken lands like Library, Bazhaar, Academy ruins, Stronghold etc?

[wv]

Ok, here are my proposed changes to red:

 

IN

Blood Knight
Hearth Kami
Keldon Vandals
Sulfur Elemental
Crater Hellion
Arc-Slogger
Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Wildfire
Grab the Reigns

OUT

Hammer of Bogardan
Wheel of Fortune
Molten Rain
Fissure
Avalance Riders
Sneak Attack
Aftershock
Jokulhaups
Rolling Thunder

[Daniel Royde]

Magus of the moon?

[Thea Steele]

I'd definitely keep Avalanche Riders in. I think it's one of the best red cards- it can be devastating in an aggro deck- and you need a way to punish greedy manabases and to answer the utility lands. I'm not sure you have room, but you can also think about the other versions- Goblin Ruinblaster and Ravenous Baboons. It's also a card that has synergies in other colors- Recurring Nightmare, Flickerwisp, Reveillark...

 

Red is a hard section to build, I think- it's not as intrinsically broken as the colors and so you need to make it focused if you want it to be successful. I agree with Tom about Fissure and Beacon/Zenith, but I think Aftershock is worthwhile- it's a unique effect and resolves the problem of having to spend multiple burn spells on a single creature rather than your opponent's face. 

 

Some creatures that you might look at: Fire Imp (especially!), Goblin Patrol, Zo-Zu, Squee, Keldon Champ, Greater Gargadon. Zo-Zu especially is powerful, and Gargadon has some nice interactions. And wholehearted support for Hearth Kami, who is awesome all around. I suspect Kumano and Arc Slogger won't hold up (I don't think there is room in my 70 card section). The problem is that even in Rx control, the x is basically guaranteed to have better finishers. 

 

In spells: Smash to Smithereens is fantastic, and Searing Blaze has been good here as well. I'd probably fit in a Pyroclasm too if you want to support midrange or control in red. Fireblast also deserves a spot, probably- it'll often help you resolve a spell when you need to or do some unexpected damage.

 

What about Sulfuric Vortex? I think it's an extremely high pick in aggressive decks. It's a quick clock, stops problematic cards for red decks, and in general is a must-answer card.  

 

[Charlie Grover]

Rakdos-Pit dragon is underated and completely busted. Ask anyone I was drafting with yesterday :P. Searing blaze is super awesome as an aggro card. 

I think you should have 1 of hellkite charger or rorix to be a 6 mana finisher for Rx aggro or UR control. 

Genju of the spires is notably absent.

DONT cut sneak attack. The card is super awesome to play with and lets you do really fun things if you draft around it well. 

 

My X spells of choice are be Fault Line and Demonfire over RSZ and Comet Storm, but thats just personal opinion.