Dies to Removal

I think you're confused as to why there's a curve in the deck? There's a curve because good deckbuilding demands that your deck can efficiently curve out. It also just randomly happens that the best red and white cards in the format are at 1-4 CMC. I didn't come up with some grand scheme to be a rogue deck builder and play a strange deck with strange win conditions. The point of the deck was to play the best cards in the colors and be able to adapt to any gamestate. It does both of those things. The reason I designed it originally is because I HATED playing R/x lists that simply lost to certain roadblock cards. I also hated the feeling that the game was out of my control, and relied solely on the opening 7 cards for the most part. This deck is really resilient and I'd like to think that it does an excellent job of "going bigger," which is something that other R/x lists simply don't do.

I haven't been
playing much Magic recently, my life has been pretty busy. (Ham challenge paired with having to care for my family has kept me busy.) I do want to do some videos with the list, but I have a pretty lame laptop that can't record things without lagging out horribly so if somebody else wants to playtest AGAINST me and record I'd be more than happy, but until that presents itself I'm afraid that's out of the realm of possibility for me.

Do you tend to sandbag most of your cards and play the reactive role ( until you know what you are playing against). Or do you trend to play threats and put pressure then force your opponent to react. Then adjust accordingly. This is all assuming you don't know your matchup yet. As against aggro you play the control role, and against midrange and control you take the the aggresor role and have the resilience to hang into the late game?

Do you tend to sandbag most of your cards and play the reactive role ( until you know what you are playing against). Or do you trend to play threats and put pressure then force your opponent to react. Then adjust accordingly. This is all assuming you don't know your matchup yet. As against aggro you play the control role, and against midrange and control you take the the aggresor role and have the resilience to hang into the late game?

This is hard to answer "correctly," but I'll try.

I tend to do both of those things, and it weighs heavily on the opening seven cards I'm dealt. For instance, if I have a hand that's something like 3 colored lands, Boros Reckoner, Nearheath Pilgrim, a Stonewright, and a Stromkirk Noble, I just jam
the cards down as quickly as possible. (Likely playing Nearheath over Stonewright to threaten the combo.) If I'm dealt a reactive hand I'll wait and see what I'm up against for the most part. A reactive hand is something along the lines of Restoration Angel, 3ish lands and a few lower drops.

Most hands against an unknown opponent, you want to have one of these three things: A Stonewright, a Slayers' Stronghold, or a Boros Charm. Every other card is basically icing on the cake. These are almost always the most relevant cards you can have in your arsenal against an unknown opponent because they provide you with the two most important things - a way to win and a way to stabilize.

excellent. gave me just enough so that i can fill in the blanks with more practice with the deck.

Also sticking with the "flash" sub theme of the deck, have you given any thought to Magmaquake over Rolling Temblor.

I ran Magmaquake in the original list's sideboard but it's just not as good as Bonfire of the Damned. Rolling Temblor is my flex slot where I try out random cards.

I've been having success playing Bonfire in the Rolling Temblor slot. I'm not able to redirect off my own Reckoners the way you can with Temblor, but it's been a blowout card time and again.

Still playing this list Alex? How is it doing in the infancy of this new meta?

Unfortunately I haven't been able to play ANY Magic for a little over a month now. I've been seeing a girl and working my ass off trying to get my bank account to a point where I can spend a year or so traveling on the PTQ circuit. Thinking Theros or the following set will be my goal.

I think I'm going to rebuild this list, having a good Jund matchup seems like a legitimate reason to start playing the deck again, and Fiendslayer Paladin seems like some real technology in that matchup too.

You think Imposing Sovereign has a place in this list? It's quite the removal magnet and hoses midrange if not dealt with.

Would you play Heliod in this deck? I'm not sure whether to go red or white heavy for this deck, only when Theros gets fully spoiled. I just feel that there's a lot of potential in this deck come rotation.

That's a whole new deck come rotation, you lose most of the cards that made this deck tick to begin with. (Stonewright, Restoration Angel, Midnight Haunting, Slayers' Stronghold...)