It's Really Nothing New

I think I'm done with Ready to Die. Last weekend I went through four different versions of the deck and made a stinkface at all of them, so I'm going to go for the most consistent build, and call it finished.

It's not crazy good, but I think it's in a consistent spot and will do what I need it to do. Tier 2? Sure. Effective for it's power level? Yeah, I think so.

3 Mirari

4 Impact Tremors

2 Second Harvest

8 Mountain
4 Gruul Turf
9 Forest
1 Westvale Abbey/1 Ormendahl, Profane Prince
1 Dwarven Mine

3 Tibalt, Rakish Instigator

4 Chatter of the Squirrel
3 Overrun
3 Rampant Growth
2 Acorn Harvest
4 Dragon Fodder
4 Firebolt
3 Make Mischief
2 Assault // Battery

 Sideboard
3 Fresh Meat
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Veil of Summer
3 Sundering Growth
3 Overmaster

In order to give Ready to Die a little more consistent reach, I went up to four Impact Tremors. Yes, they fight for position with Dragon Fodder, but if Dragon Fodder now reads: "Create 2 1/1s and do 2 damage to each opponent-you may only play this card on turn three or later", well I figure that's a pretty good trade.

Second Harvest can function as an 'oops I win' spell under these circumstances, and in a pinch just pop my tokens from three to six creatures, making Overrun a legitimate finishing threat. Attacking with three 4/4s isn't as good as attacking with six. It's just math. Plus, it opens up the possibility of just flipping Westvale Abby.

So I'm leaving for now; this deck might've been stronger in W/G or W/G/R but it also would've been very, very different. I think it's in fine shape and I'm glad I stuck to my thematic guns. 

It's Just A Thing We Like

It wasn't until Tyler saw Ready to Die that a "Eureka" moment hit.

"What about Tilonalli's Summoner?"

For obvious reasons, I had been focused on non-creature ways to make tokens. Mirari's usefulness declines with every creature I play. But this is a pretty solid add, I think, at least as just a couple cards. It'll be useful at any stage of the game, by itself or with an Impact Tremors out. It might give me another win condition, in the same way Fresh Meat would-and it would combo well with Fresh Meat, should I use the mana wisely.

Unfortunately, things haven't been playing out as kindly.The trouble with Tilonalli's Summoner is twofold: first it represents a huge target for removal. This is the opposite of all my other creatures: they don't matter, so your removal is all dumb. But with the Summoner taking a spotlight, now there is a focus.

Which wouldn't be a huge problem except for the second thing: There isn't a backup to the Summoner. I've put eggs in a basket that has a bottom that's too thin, and when it breaks I am finding myself without enough pressure to make a convincing game come together.

I got to spend time playing this deck last weekend and it honestly gave me so many issues. I'm just realizing it now, but there is another problem with the Summoner and it's one of the hidden cost of playing it.

Mirari effectively gives all my spells kicker. The Summoner does the same thing when it attacks. But both of them are asking for me to use all of my mana, every time. There is no point in attacking with the Summoner and holding mana back so I can cast a Dragon Fodder, right? Similarly, there's no point in attacking with the Summoner if I can't make creatures, because I want to cast Dragon Fodder and copy it with Mirari.

And because the theme of the deck centers around being able to use Mirari, I need to hold to the theme, and let the Summoner go. This opens up some space-but where do I go with that space?

When in doubt, always look for cards that say 'draw a card'. There are some intriguing possibilities here, including Lace with Moonglove, Ignorant Bliss, and Merchant of the Vale. Lace With Moonglove is probably my best option, since it can be used offensively and defensively and copying that spell seems like all upside. I'd definitely like to give it a go.

It's Really Nothing New

I went with Atarka's Command instead of the Cavalcade of Calamity. It seemed like a good idea, since it can be copied with Mirari. But with only two copies of a spell, it really needs to be a game changer when it shows up on my hand.

And the Command is good, but it isn't game changing.

Playing Caitlin, she suggested perhaps that more devil token making cards could be added. Having cards that pop for damage when they die is pretty good value. The drawback: they're expensive. Getting two 1/1s for four mana isn't a great rate, even if they do pop for damage on death. At least Make Mischief does a point of damage to any target while giving me a 1/1.

One card I played around with was Second Harvest.With only two copies, it wouldn't show up too often, but once the board had moved to a stalemate, a Second Harvest could help me go wide.

The drawback: if I didn't have any tokens, Second Harvest did nothing. That ended up happening at least once-but to be fair, there was the time where I duplicated four tokens and next turn had the Overrun.

When I played this against Fuz, he approved, nothing that the first time I played Overrun with a bunch of tokens, he laughed. That's a good sign, too.

More data is needed, but I want to contrast Second Harvest with Fresh Meat, a card I've had in the sideboard. Why double my tokens when I can effectively replace them (doubling them in a different way) with bigger critturs?

It's those last two slots, though. If I can figure out what's good there, then I think this deck is worth keeping. It'll be a solid tier 2 deck that can have some fun and pull out the occasional win, and I'm not sure there's a better deck in a different color, at least with this concept. Adding White, for example, brings this deck in a very different direction or stretches the manabase considerably. Good thing to keep in mind though, if I need to stick with 1/1 creatures, since White tends to knock off larger ones better than Red does.

I think I'm settling into a decent tier 2 deck; I can pull some wins out with it, and it'll be a good 'almost getting there' deck that doesn't use up a lot of weird resources but does have some punch.

We'll Take On Anyone

It was in the next series of games that I realized I had forgotten to take into account one thing: Planeswalkers.

1/1s versus Oko, Thief of Crowns is not going to cut it. That card is so cheap and does so much, that a turn two Tarmogoyf followed by an Oko is tough to deal with, no matter how many tokens I get on board.

So what does this mean?

First, it means Oko is a terrible card. We knew that, but it bears repeating.

The second thing is: I'm not sure what the future holds for Ready To Die now. I was never under any illusions that this deck was going to be a serious contender, but the disparity in power level is fairly significant. I understand why: RtD wants to ignore what the opponent does, getting enough chip damage in via 1/1s in the early game, direct damage where it can, and close a midgame with either chained Mirari spells or an Overrun.

I think it does the first part pretty well. But the drawback to Mirari was on full display in the Oko matchup, where spending 5 mana to do something that didn't alter the board state was the waste of a turn.

What I'm not certain of at this point is: Do I fix this with a sideboard-Red Elemental Blast, Choke, etc? Do I give up? Do I tweak the deck? At what point is this not fun?

It occurs to me that perhaps I'm approaching this the wrong way: what if my dead cards are Impact Tremors and Cavalcade of Calamity?  I already know what the central theme of the deck is: Mirari makes extra spells.

Impact Tremors and Cavalcade of Calamity are the only two spells in the deck that Mirari cannot bolster and do not have an immediate impact on the board. Perhaps it's just better to run some awesome spells and double up on them.

Of the two spells in question, Impact Tremors works better, since creatures don't have to live long for them to do damage. So that's the spell I'll be looking to cut, and hoping to find some good instants or sorceries to replace it with.

We Made A Sacrifice

Let's go over the changes first:

I cut all the artifacts except for Mirari, then cut Mystic Melting, Pyrotechnics, Hull Breach, Bestial Menace and Collective Unconscious.

I added another Rampant Growth, four copies of Dragon Fodder, two Impact Tremors and three Cavalcade of Calamity. I also added a third copy of Overrun, because this deck needs a way to close games out, and most of my token generation made 1/1s.

I went looking into Planeswalkers that might generate tokens in these colors, and Garruk was too expensive but Tibalt, Rakish Instigator fell right in line.

I have to say, the revamp of Ready To Die went pretty well in the first outing. It runs much lower to the ground, with plays on turns one and two coming pretty regularly. This meant I could get early pressure in, while keeping pressure on in later turns via flashback, or by landing a Mirari and then on subsequent turns easily paying to duplicate my spells.

Well, most of them. Roar of the Wurm is a card I feel really torn on: Seven mana is a lot, even with the Rampant Growths to help me get there. Even cutting down to two copies, I couldn't play them when I wanted to.

So what to do?

One piece of advice I got from Noah was: More Tibalt. So I'll run 3 of those. I also went hunting for lands that do something with tokens and it turns out there are two: Dwarven Mine and Westvale Abbey. Now, Westvale Abbey is definitely on the 'glory of cool things' list but I figure one copy won't hurt. I've also put in a couple Make Mischief, although that may just be too cool and need to be something else.

Finally, and this I'm proud of, I added in a couple copies of Assault/Battery. More direct damage or a 3/3 token as needed? That seems like a perfect fit, even if I'm using it more for damage than anything else.

Ready To Die

So, Ready to Die (named after the Andrew WK song) was something I built after getting SUPER HYPED by Wizards and the associated press at the time about Mirari. I wasn't the only one at the time: I remember pre-orders for the card on eBay for $60. Oh, to be new to Magic again...

The Mirari sucked. It cost 5 mana and then it did things, which you had to pay more mana for. That's a terrible card for 60 card Magic.I just didn't know it at the time, and by golly I was going to build that deck!

Let's check this:

4 Catalyst Stone
3 Mirari
2 Eldrazi Monument

1 Mystic Melting

8 Mountain
4 Gruul Turf
11 Forest

2 Pyrotechnics
4 Firebolt
4 Chatter of the Squirrel
4 Roar of the Wurm
2 Hull Breach
2 Overrun
3 Rampant Growth
2 Acorn Harvest
2 Bestial Menace
2 Collective Unconscious

Now, it's entirely possible that I should dismantle this entirely, put Miraris in various Commander decks, and call it a day. My first inclination was to include this in "The Retired" series.

But I had an idea: What if I leaned into the token making aspect and used cards like Cavalcade of Calamity and Raid Bombardment to improve the damage they could do, while Impact Tremors would give me more bang for the buck.

Mirari can stay: being able to copy my token making spells isn't a bad idea and since I've got a clear idea of where to take this, I'm interested in doing so!

If it doesn't work out and isn't fun, I'm more than willing to set it aside.