Little Red AKA
Red Deck LosesThis is the deck I used today at a local Type 2 tournament. I picked the names for it to mock the names of the more prominent, Tier-1 red decks.
Artifacts:
4x
Chrome Mox4x
Conjurer's Bauble2x
Sensei's Divining TopCreatures:
4x
Battle-Mad Ronin4x
Ronin Houndmaster4x
Slith Firewalker3x
Zo-Zu the PunisherSpells:
4x
Magma Jet4x
Molten Rain4x
Shrapnel Blast4x
Stone Rain4x
Yamabushi's FlameLands:
4x
Great Furnace14x
MountainSideboard:
4x
Hearth Kami3x
Pulse of the Forge4x
Pyrite Spellbomb4x
ShatterWhat does it do: Ideally, you whittle down your opponent using cheap red weenies while using land destruction to disrupt their tempo and burn spells to eliminate their creatures or take out those last few points of life they have left. Chrome Mox offers mana accleration that allows for a turn 1 Slith followed up by a turn 2 Molten Rain, Stone Rain or Zo-Zu. The mana-curve tops out at 3, meaning you can get away with maybe 3-5 land per game. Conjurer's Bauble, Magma Jet, and Sensei's Divining Top allow for limited card advantage/deck manipulation and Magma Jet doubles as creature kill/burn. The Baubles, Tops, Moxen and Furnaces provide fodder for Shrapnel Blast.
As far as your forces are concerned, your creatures are all small, but cheap and can be very effective if you can get a small swarm going. Don't underestimate your Battle-Mad Ronin, either... most people are extremely reluctant to trade a 3/3 or bigger for a 1/1 that pumps when it's blocked (or if it blocks on your opponent's turn after you cast it). I won more than one game today because I kept pecking away with 1-2 Battle-Mad Ronin that my opponents didn't want to waste blockers or elimination on.
As far as your spells go, try to save your Molten Rains for non-basic lands if you can. In Type 2, two of the most powerful decks in the format, Tooth & Nail and Ravager Affinity have plenty of juicy targets for a turn 2 Molten Rain. And believe me, even if you only slow 'em down with it by 1 turn, Tooth & Nail decks hate losing Urzatron pieces to Molten Rains. However, don't be afraid to use your Stone Rains if that's all that's coming up. You want to deny them their mana as often as possible and if Zo-Zu's on the board, it's gonna make it all the more painful to have to regain that lost ground.
As far as sideboarding is concerned, there's not really much here... this was actually originally just a casual play deck that I decided to run in the tournament today instead of my affinity deck. The Hearth Kami and Shatter go in against affinity, Pyrite Spellbomb goes in to clear out weenies and possibly add more card advantage if you need it, and Pulse of the Forge is, in theory, there for a match against mono-red.
Here was my results:
Round 1
Opponent - Tooth & Nail
Lost 1-2. (L-W-L). No sideboarding between matches. The deck does surprisingly well against Tooth without needing to sideboard. Ironically, my opponent actually dropped 4 Oxidizes from his main deck because none of my artifacts came out first game. And I could've actually won the third game if I'd blasted my opponent with a Magma Jet that I'd used on an Eternal Witness. Ah well, hindsight 20/20, yadda yadda yadda.
Round 2
Opponent - Mono-red
Lost 0-2. (L-L). Basically, anything I could do, he could do better. Lots of burn was tossed back and forth, creatures died horrible, fiery deaths, and I got toasted nice and crispy. Pulse of the Forge got sided in during my second game, but didn't help too much, as I was mana-screwed.
Round 3
Opponent - Ravager Affinity
Won 2-1. (L-W-W). This was the turning point for me in the tournament. After the first game, I sideded in my Kami and my Shatters... and then proceeded to soundly swarm my opponent with sliths and loud angry men with swords. Only saw one of my sideboard cards, a Shatter, once, and even then, the only thing it was used for was imprint fodder for a Chrome Mox so I could Molten Rain my opponent's only land on the board.
Round 4
Opponent - Mono-green stompy?
Won 2-0. (W-W). Truthfully, I'm not really sure what this guy was trying to play. This was so easy it was actually kinda sad... both games, my opponent was horrendously mana-screwed, even after mulliganing. Turn 1 forests followed up by BoPs were easily eliminated with LD and burn. Sakura-Tribe Elders showed up every now and then to chump block and search for lands, but that did more harm than good, as my opponent tended to block the Battle-Mad Ronins instead of Zo-Zu, thus taking 4 each turn when he could've gotten away with only 1.
Round 5
Opponent - Mono-red burn.
Won 2-0. (W-W). This kid puzzled me. First game, he got me down to 12 life with direct damage spells before he suddenly hit a snag in his deck... kept drawing lands and mana acceleration spells like Desperate Ritual and Seething Song. My horde of loud, angry men with swords and my slith easily overpowered him, along with a bit of return burn from me. Second game, he actually managed to do a respectable amount to me again... actually got me down to just 1 life before his deck ran out of steam. Too bad for him the goal is to deal 20 damage, not 19. The only creatures I ever saw him play were Slith Firewalkers, and even then, he only got out 1 per game, swung for 1 with 'em, and then promptly lost 'em to my burn arsenal. I looked over his deck afterwards... almost entirely burn spells, mana-accel spells, and mountains. The only creatures in his deck were 4 Slith and 2 Arc-Sloggers. Weird.
Overall: placed 7th out of 18 participants.
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