The knock against the way I play magic is that I seem to reliably win ~60% of games on Arena while not snagging as many trophies as that sort of win-rate would suggest. I don’t know if this is due to hitting singles instead of swinging for the fences or just variance or maybe it’s not a problem and I’m on rate. Regardless, it’s a pretty good feeling when I land two trophies in one day.

About a week ago, Chord of Calls did a really interesting podcast episode on the existence of a ‘mono-red’ deck in the format. All those derpy, aggressive cards that get stonewalled by the sagas aren’t that great, unless you get ALL of them and obliterate your opponent in five turns.

bo1 trophy

Five Songshapers is a pretty neat deal. Though rares and mythic uncommons don’t hurt either. The Experimental Synthesizers are there to provide triggers as well as some additional card draws. This deck was a little unusual in that it had 17 lands (they run smooth at 15 lands and a curve stopping at 3) but it was worth it for the additional blue. The Network Disruptors, usually only really at home in a UB ninjutsu deck, were great here. Not on turn one, but instead being part of a double-spell turn that removed a blocker for 4/2 Songshapers to just get into the red zone. Fun aggressive deck with good cards. For the record: creating a clone of an Unstoppable Ogre, removing a blocker, triggering Songshapers AND THEN attacking with a 4/1 that was born to die anyway is a pretty good feeling.

bo3 trophy

Pretty similar looking deck! The mono-red portion was cut, as you can tell by the lack of 1-drops. But I found some good substitutes:

The Automatons can get out of hand in a hurry and can frequently grow fast enough to get out of range of damage-based removal. There was one match that was cutting things close against a Mirror Breaker saga but overall it was smooth sailing.

It might be time to just admit to myself that I’m a red mage, interested in the shortest route between A & B. But I still have depths: most recent draft (games pending) I went for the P1p1…