[deck]
Creatures
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Pain Seer
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Xathrid Necromancer
1 Tymaret, the Murder King
Spells
1 Barrage of Expendables
2 Dreadbore
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
4 Shock
4 Thoughtseize
2 Ultimate Price
Lands
4 Blood Crypt
1 Rakdos Guildgate
4 Temple of Malice
9 Mountain
4 Swamp
[/deck]
Here is Zemanjanski's write-up of the deck:
I think this deck has a lot of promise. When I look at the decklist, I see a bunch of small synergies that can add up, very similarly as to how PyroRed could generate all kinds of virtual advantage with it's small synergies and either keep control opponents from grinding them out, or grind out opposing creature decks. Furthermore, this deck looks like a blast to play. Here are my immediate thoughts onThis is my latest creation for BNG, and I will try to explain all the choices and intricacies. It is by no means finished or perfect; but the core concept is really strong and the deck is very skill rewarding (and I would contend, flexible and adaptable enough to make work in the format).
Let's start by considering the format as it was BEFORE BNG. We have Mono B Devotion, Mono U Devotion and UW
Control as the best decks. These decks beat traditional red aggro in the following ways:
- Mono B: actually doesn't. Had traditionally had trouble with swarm decks. Particularly weak to Young Pyromancer and Chandra's Phoenix which are well positioned against the traditional composition of their deck. The problems arise when they have a Turn 3 Spectre and you don't have a Lightning Strike; or multiple Desecration Demons. Pack Rat isn't very scary; 3 mana to make a Rat that trades 1-for-1 with your 1 or 2 mana removal is to your advantage and otherwise they're a deck that tries to trade cards except you've got a lower curve and run more spells, so you have a natural card advantage that they can only make up through Underworld Connections (-2 cards though) which costs them life. The Rakdos Suicide deck is well positioned against this deck because all of your creatures are good against removal and you have a lot more answers to their problematic cards (Nightveil Specter and Desecration Demon) than even
the RW Pyromancer shell.
- Mono U Devotion. This is the deck that forced Red based aggro out of the format; almost entirely on the strength on maindecking 16 hate cards (Frostburn Weird, Nightveil Specter, Master of Waves and Tidebinder Mage). These cards would wall your beaters, generating effective card advantage for them, then power out devotion for huge Master of Waves that would then kill you. You'll notice that there are no 1 drops in my list (in the maindeck anyway); this substantially weaks cards like Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mage; who's main value in the matchup is shutting down your 1 drops. You've also got more removal and interaction than a normal red deck, which positions your better against their key cards. Basically, you're already pre-sideboarded for this match, and while I don't think it would be favourable, it should be reasonable, which is a huge step forward.
- UW Control. At some point, this matchup became problematic, mostly due to the inclusion of 4x Last Breath. That
gave their deck enough early interaction to survive and power out a Jace or large Revelation. Your cards were all good, but you just weren;t quite interactive enough. RB interacts with this strategy much better than RW; Thoughtseize and Dreadbore are extremely powerful against their strategy, and the sacrifice effects help protect your key cards from effects like Azorius Charm, Last Breath and Detention Sphere. Post board Rb usually has a substantial advantage because your proactive cards answer their reactive ones at a substantial mana advantage.
Post BNG, these matchups don't change too much. Mono U and UW don't change at all. Mono B gets Bile Blight and Drown in Sorrow (boo and booooo!). That's unfortunate, but look at the creature base. Firstly, we're not running a LOT of creatures (like a BTE deck would) so you're not going to be extending into them too badly. Secondly, all of the creatures are resilient to removal. Necromancer affects all of your humans (Pain Seer and Young Pyromancer) greatly
reducing the power of these cards; Phoenix can be rebought. Thoughtseize can proactively protect your board. The sacrifice effects can fizzle a Bile Blight.
While its impossible to say what other archetypes will be popular in BNG, I do believe, for all the reasons already discussed in this thread, that Rb can combat them. Green Monsters? Terrors. White Weenie? Young Pyromancer and removal etc.
Happy to hear feedback. This is a pretty basic write-up that doesn't cover a lot of the small synergies, so if you have any questions or can think of any other sweet additions, get at me.
the deck thus far; I'm very interested to hear what you guys have to say and to see how far we can take this.
Tymaret, the Murder King
I think this card is actually the nuts. With Young Pyromancer Tokens, Xathrid Necromancer, and Chandra's Phoenix recursion, I see turns where you clock someone for more damage than we know what to do with. Plays like Swing Phoenix, sac Phoenix, burn you hit our opponent for seven damage and cost us one card. Tymaret also makes our opponent's removal deal 2 damage to them (provided we leave up the mana), which is certainly relevant. I'm curious as to what your guys' thoughts are on upping the number of this guy in the maindeck and how many feel appropriate between the main and the board.
New Meta, New Splash
I don't know about you guys, but I tried to make my RW list work at Standard last week, and it was rough. People at my LGS are Timmy as they get, and courser of Kruphix
accompanied by a host of fatties is not what RW wants to see. It's hard to beat through fatty after fatty + courser when we lean so hard on Chained to the Rocks. This leads me to the conclusion that a black splash is the way to go, as evidenced by the fact that I made this post. What I'm trying to get around to saying here is, should we be running more terror effects? I like Thoughtseize a lot, but I think our control matchup is already reasonable. I think perhaps we should be running more black removal to take care of the fatties parading around our stores.
Chandra, Pyromaster
I think this card might deserve a couple slots for more recursion on Phoenix and more Tymaret sacs, plus the synergy with Young Pyromancer and Burn was very evident last season.
Here's a very preliminary deck list based on my thoughts so far, but what I really want to see is what you guys think and the results of this forum's playtesting.
[deck]
Creatures
n4 Pain Seer
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Xathrid Necromancer
2 Tymaret, the Murder King
Spells
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
2 Shock
3 Dreadbore
2 Ultimate Price
2 Thoughtseize
Planeswalkers
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
Lands
4 Temple of Malice
4 Blood Crypt
1 Rakdos Guildgate
3 Swamp
9 Mountain
2 Mutavault
Sideboard
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dreadbore
2 Doom Blade
2 Skullcrack
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Barrage of Expendables
2 Mogis, God of Slaughter
2 Duress
[/deck]
Control 
