Sideboard Options

Whoa! Sorry everyone; in my hurry to get to the Thanksgiving holiday, I forgot to mention there wouldn't be posts for a little bit. Sorry about that: Let's get back to the normal stuff, getting back to the Magic decks and I hope everyone had a safe holiday!

In the playtests, Red Alert has generally been doing what red decks do; come from behind surprise burn is not uncommon! But being overwhelmed is not unexpected, either.

Removing a Dire Fleet Daredevil became something that was necessary: I want that card on turn three at the soonest, since I cannot cast a spell without the mana to do so. Four clogs up my hand, three seems right-but there's a space now. What to do?

It turns out there is another Chandra that fits the theme: Chandra, Fire Artisan and this was suggested to me by by buddy Tyler. I do not own any copies of that Chandra so...what to do until I get some?

Enter: Torbran, Thane of Red Fell. It's costed for a mono-red deck and it takes everything I have and makes it better. That will totally do until I get some Fire Artisans!

Except...the testing showed Torbran is pretty dang good. Since it boosts any red source I have, that means that my creatures get this impact immediately. If Torbran sticks for a turn, every spell I have does more damage, too. I loved seeing it and opponents did not. He's only appeared in two games, but each game he arrived, I was happy.

I may have to make an rule for cards like this-the Hexdrinker rule. "If my opponents hate seeing the card, I should keep running that card."

I also made a sideboard for Red Alert:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Blood Moon
4 Satyr Firedrinker
3 Pyroblast
3 Smash to Smithereens

I relegated the Firedrinker to the sideboard because I still think it's worth testing. The Crypt might help with any graveyard focused decks-and there are a lot of those, and Blood Moon should help stall anything that wants to use more than two colors.

Pyroblast is just good against blue and Smash to Smithereens fits in theme by doing damage and destroying an artifact. Abrade was suggested and while the card is more versatile, it doesn't mesh with the themes as well.

So here we go!