Red Orange Glow

 

Alright, I've been working on Inferno for months. I think I just have to set this one down. 

I love this deck: I think it's a lot of fun and can rebound itself back into games where things are going badly. But I've also taken it as far as I can, without doing some regular testing and play. 

1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Akroma's Memorial

4 Magda, Brazen Outlaw
4 Dwarven Recruiter
4 Dwarven Bloodboiler
3 Depala, Pilot Exemplar
4 Dwarven Grunt
1 Plundering Barbarian
1 Bogardan Hellkite

4 Spikefield Hazard/4 Spikefield Cave
4 Sejiri Shelter/4 Sejiri Glacier
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Incinerate
2 Sudden Breakthrough

11 Mountain
4 Plateau
4 Sacred Foundry

 Sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
3 Dwarven Miner
1 Platinum Emperion
4 Rest in Peace
3 Red Elemental Blast

The Sideboard is a definite work in progress. The Dwarven Miners seem like a cute trick, until you're blowing up a new land every turn and getting treasure for it. Obviously, it's narrow and probably weak but I'm OK with it. The Platinum Emperion is there because some decks just fold to that card. I have a feeling there are other cards that might fit this bill, but I haven't come across them yet. 

Perhaps not surprising but a bummer for me was that there just wasn't a dragon I could find that I felt would take over the game from the Sideboard.

I did go with Bogardan Hellkite over Torbran, and what this came down to for me was that having a 5/5 flyer with a great ETB ability that I could search up, was stronger than a card that just boosted my damage overall. So far it hasn't come up-the Goblin Charbelcher or Akroma's Memorial plan are still the primary win conditions. But a Hellkite for the midgame? Not bad.

Now, obviously, further tuning would mean that Incinerate would be Lighting Bolt, and it might be worth it to try and find space for a Universal Automaton. For now, though, and with the dwarves printed and available Treasure generators, I'm happy with this. 

Spreads Like Wildfire

"This deck is fast!" Fuz tells me. Which felt weird; Inferno doesn't seem fast to me! But this may be because the deck plays out differently depending on what is available to me and the matchup. 

Heck, I've even gone into a grinder of a game against Matt, using repeated activations of Goblin Charlbelcher to try and win. I didn't...but I did almost 200 damage, so it wasn't for lack of trying.

I feel like this deck is in an interesting space, since the concept has a solid skeleton but just is in the 'how to get the details right' mode. 

I don't want to set this aside but I'm also not sure how to take it further. I've tried adding acceleration, via Simian Spirit Guide but that didn't really give me a more explosive start.

One card that has been really useful is Sudden Breakthrough: it's a great surprise during combat and it helps the Magda plan. I've been impressed at how solid it is, turning combat into something favorable. 

I've started testing Goldspan Dragon in place of Torbran: it's searchable, and it adds to the Treasure plan. I'm not 100% on board with it yet, because it doesn't just win the game; if I spin out an Akroma's Memorial I've created an imbalance that favors me. 

I need Goldspan Dragon to do something similar and I'm not sure it does that-but it doesn't suck.

It Tastes Like Burning

What I'm discovering is that Inferno doesn't want to play like a typical aggro deck. What I've also experienced is that having a turn one play is important to getting this deck off the ground.

It's a little surprising to learn, after over twenty years of playing Magic but: having a turn one play really puts decks ahead of ones that don't. 

Inferno has been undergoing a few different iterations but finally I just felt that I needed something to do on turn one and after removing Dwarven Grunt, it's back in. Mountainwalk was far more useful than I had thought-especially against any U/R decks that are almost certainly running Steam Vents or Volcanic Island. 

To my surprise, attacking can become disadvantageous pretty quickly so having the occasional unblockable creature to continue to generate Treasure tokens and keep pressure on is good. I'm also reeeeeeally trying to find a way to add in Universal Automaton but the margins are getting tight.

I've also been trying to learn to play around games where Magda doesn't appear and learning how to utilize my tools. There isn't any card draw in Inferno (yet), so figuring out when to burn a Dwarven Recruiter, just to search for a helpful card is something I'm trying to learn.

One thing that Adventures from the Forgotten Realms did give me was Plundering Barbarian. I'm testing it as a one-of silver bullet. However, if I don't need it, I can still generate a Treasure token, so there's value either way.

In addition, I'm learning to work out when to burn Treasure tokens for mana. Inferno, at least from a bird's eye view, seems really tight on mana-even though there are 27 cards that will produce mana. Choosing when to play a card as a land or save the instant is a mental exercise. 

What I've also found is that the Seven Dwarves, as thematic as they are, just don't do the work I want. If I could consistently have two on the board that would be solid but even then, vanilla 3/3s aren't that exciting and the deck is crowded at that mana value. 

AND, with all of that, I need more ways to make Treasure tokens. Magda could use some jumpstarting! Even if I don't have a Dwarven Recruiter, I can still spin out an Akroma's Memorial and that is usually a lot for an opponent to deal with.  

The trick there is that making Treasure tokens isn't easy-or dwarven, sometimes. Ragavan would be a fine addition-but the monkey costs $70. That's gonna be a no. 

Goldspan Dragon is tempting, but way off the curve. Gadrak the Crown Scourge also tempting but the method it generates Treasures doesn't contribute well to Inferno's game plan, plus the restriction on attacking means it's going to be useless if I bring out something. 

I've been thinking about a dragon as a silver bullet too: Drakuseth, Maw of Flames is definitely a card that could turn games around. But nothing is leaping out yet as a good fit.

Strawberry Swirl

"So, you've decided to add White to your deck..." It feels a little strange but if I'm going to mess with the manabase, let's pick the best cards. 

Depala is a good card, but mana intensive. Still, a boost to the team coupled with the ability to pay to draw cards can be useful. Plus the ability triggers when she becomes tapped, which means I can trigger it via Dwarven Bloodboiler on an opponent's turn. 

The other thing I'm doing is utilizing the double-faced cards from Zendikar to access White mana, without having to use Plains. It also means that when I activate Charbelcher, I can show a Sejiri Shelter and not have it meet Charbelcher's land reveal. 

Toolcraft Exemplar, which I mentioned in my last post on this, doesn't seem like a great addition. Sure, it's a one drop that can get bigger but that ability won't trigger until turn 3, and that's under the best conditions. Again: this deck is doing something a little weird, so I need to keep it focused, so it can work even if the weird thing doesn't happen.

Plus, I don't have a lot of turn one ways to generate White mana. And once again, I'm confronted with a basic truth about some of the decks I play: I cannot afford to get weird just because I think it's cool. I have to build off of my already weird idea and fortify it. 

Despite that, I believe that having four Swords to Plowshares can justify the presence of White, too. So there aren't many cards but I'm hoping they'll be great contributors and open up my sideboard options.

Firestarter

Two matches in and things look really good. My opponents were impressed with the idea and I won both matches to boot. 

It didn't hurt that my opponents didn't know exactly what I was up to, but after game one it wasn't an edge, either. But I was able to use Magda, Brazen Outlaw to pull out either a Charbelcher or an Akroma's Memorial. So I know this works. 

Now, I got some suggestions and honestly, I felt like brushing them aside because I'm just trying to figure out if this works. Mucking around by trying to add prison cards (when this has an aggro base) or clear sideboard options like Blood Moon just wasn't what I wanted to do.

And then Matt suggested Depala, Pilot Exemplar. 

Gotta admit, that's a pretty cool idea. Plays into the aggressive nature of the deck and could refill my hand when my opponent takes out Magda-because they absolutely will. 

Adding white seems like a less awesome thing from a manabase perspective, but it would give me a better one drop in Toolcraft Exemplar. Those would be the only two cards to mess with, and with Plateaus and the treasure tokens from Magda, this idea could have legs. Plus, this gives me access to one of the best removal spells: Swords to Plowshares. 

Unfortunately, Adventures from the Forgotten Realms brought us nothing in terms of Dwarves. That's a pretty big fail, in my opinion. (It also brought us nothing regarding the Party mechanic and how do you miss on that?) 

However, there's another way that I've not been thinking of and it's possible that Universal Automaton is a good card for this deck.

The Roof Is On Fire

The first thing you need to know is: Goblin Recruiter is banned in Legacy. 

The reason it's banned is because years ago, people could hyperdrive out a Charbelcher, drop a Recruiter for cheap and then combo their opponent out. Boom, done. It was fast and it was nearly impossible to interact with, once the Recruiter had resolved.

Dwarven Recruiter has no such restrictions. 

So what if things looked...different.

1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Akroma's Memorial 

4 Magda, Brazen Outlaw
4 Dwarven Recruiter
4 Dwarven Miner
3 Dwarven Grunt
3 Bloodfire Dwarf
7 Seven Dwarves
1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
4 Dwarven Bloodboiler
1 Spark Mage 

4 Incinerate
4 Spikefield Hazard 

19 Mountain

Is it slower than the Goblin Recruiter deck? Yes, of course. But can it magically delicious out a win? Maybe!

Now, this clearly isn't the same kind of deck as the Dwarves and Taxes one I was inspired by-there isn't the same kind of board control. But what I'm hoping is that what it lacks there Inferno 2.0 can make up for in just killing the opponent. Having an aggro deck that can just fetch a Charbelcher, play Dwarven Recruiter and win the game is a sweet idea. 

(The second thing you need to know is that this post was written pre-Adventures in the Forgotten Realms was fully spoiled).

There is also a little metagaming going on as well: Since Kaladesh, there has been a marked increase in the number of dwarves being printed. Kaldheim reinforced the classic mythical tribe and with Adventures in the Forgotten Realms being a D&D inspired set, I am taking a guess that there will be more dwarves in the near future. 

This means that there's potentially better dwarves coming to replace...let's call them 'adequate' one drops like Dwarven Grunt, Spark Mage, or Bloodfire Dwarf. Those aren't terrible for what they are, with Bloodfire Dwarf in particular being useful against smaller rush decks but they aren't rockstars.

So I'm playing my odds a little bit, too, hoping that the next set will bring one drops that might improve the creature base.

Inferno

The blog hit 1,000 posts last week! Which is pretty cool. Thanks to everyone who has followed along. 

Here's an idea that never seemed to come together.

3 Goblin Charbelcher

4 Chartooth Cougar

2 Beacon of Destruction
4 Incinerate
4 Flame Burst
2 Violent Eruption
4 Scrap
2 Fault Line
4 Fated Conflagration
4 Spikefield Hazard

19 Mountain

1 Chandra, the Firebrand
3 Chandra, Heart of Fire

2 Flamebreak
2 Tormenting Voice

Charbelcher decks in Legacy have been glass cannoning their way through the format for a decade now, always fun but never really competitive. This was my take on it-more grindy and really never in the wheelhouse of Red's strengths.

Updating it could've been a thing-Red has a whole new way to dig through the library that just didn't exist when I first built this deck. Otherwise, what you have is a one-bun burn deck that was hoping to stall long enough to Charbelcher to a win. 

But I cannot tell you how many times I would have to activate Charbelcher in desperation to do all of two damage. That's just a bad use of mana. 

I was going to consider this deck as part of The Retired series, just a few days ago...but then I had some inspiration. 

And I'll show you where that took me on Thursday.