Light 'Em Up

I like where this ended. While Red Alert isn't a multiplayer deck by any means, it still performed well in those circumstances.

Similarly, I played against Fuz's GW Dinos and GW Enchantress decks and Red Alert did well there, too.

My favorite play got to happen: with two Auratogs on his side and a Satyr Firedancer on mine, I was able to use a Searing Blaze to bin both of them. 3 targets, 9 damage total? That's pretty good.

One curiosity was that I frequently found myself with too many lands-Chandra's +1 trigger often revealed a land, and in games when I lost, 10+ lands were involved-in exile, in play, in hand.

23 lands is not and overabundance of lands, though.

Cards on the table (so to speak) I'm worried about cutting a land for even something as cheap as another Mogg Fanatic because of the powerful four-drops in Red Alert.

On turn four, I really want to drop a Chandra, Torch of Defiance or Torbran and that means reliably having enough mana to do so, every time. It's fine to hit a land on the first activation of Chandra, since I'm frequently tapped out. But to do that when I have mana untapped feels like I'm missing an opportunity.

However. In matches against Noah, playing a reanimator deck, (yay, Worldgorger Dragon!) the mana flooding continued and I told him I what I was concerned about. He countered that I seemed to have enough card draw to make it work.

So here goes: a full four copies of Bonecrusher Giant, because the value on this card is bananas, and cut one Smoldering Crater.

3 Guttersnipe
3 Dire Fleet Daredevil
3 Bedlam Reveler
2 Mogg Fanatic
1 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
4 Satyr Firedancer
4 Bonecrusher Giant

2 Burst Lightning
3 Chandra's Pyrohelix
3 Searing Blaze

19 Mountain
3 Smoldering Crater

4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

2 Chain Lightning
4 Light Up the Stage

15 Sideboard
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
2 Blood Moon
3 Pyroblast
3 Smash to Smithereens
3 Skullcrack

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After the last few tweaks, I feel as though Red Alert is in a good position. I used the sideboard a little but I think I need more practice sideboarding. That's understandable, since I just started doing it, so sideboarding will be a new skill.

The maindeck, though, that's in a pretty good spot. Satyr Firedancer keeps shining, and the uses of Dire Fleet Daredevil have continued to surprise me.

The big weak link? Seems to be Samut's Sprint. I wanted to use this card for the creature boost and the scry but...well, I'm sure everyone knew that a change was needed here. I need something that does damage: Damage is always better than not-damage, right? If it drew a card, that might be useful but I've started poking around with something that might be just as good: Bonecrusher Giant.

The converted mana cost for Stomp is just two and the spell can be cast as an instant, which means that I can almost certainly cover that cost if I reveal it off a Light Up The Stage. The added value of getting a cheap creature I can cast to increase my threat count when I have the mana up-if, say, Chandra or Light Up The Stage fail to forward my board state-is a big deal.

The testing so far? It's working. In multiplayer games (where is not, admittedly, where Red Alert shines) both Matt and Caitlin agreed that Bonecrusher Giant was an improvement. Plus, the effect of Stomp gives me an out against certain protection strategies, which wasn't something I foresaw but was very glad to note when Swans of Bryn Argoll hit the table.

Lessons From The Sideboard

Because I didn't want to give up on Satyr Firedancer, it went into the sideboard. You may remember my dreams and hopes from last week.

Fortunately, testing seemed to bear me out! I played against Fuz's zombie deck-which is always a good barometer for how solid a deck I play is, as his zombie deck is quite resilient-and I felt good about the performance.

In games 2 and 3, I swapped out Dire Fleet Daredevil for the Firedancers, not having seen any instants or sorceries.

That was a mistake, because he had Nameless Inversion to take my creatures out, and the Daredevil would've given me the opportunity to exile that spell.

The card that really didn't do anything? Abbot of Keral Keep.

Which highlights a specific problem I'm having: Curving out appropriately. The Abbot can get me a land, but it can also just whiff. Either way, I can't play it until turn three. So now that card is questionable.

You know what totally hit the Hexdrinker Rule? Satyr Firedancer. It drew a kill spell as soon as Fuz could find one to play. Because you know what's awesome? Using a Searing Blaze to kill two creatures and do three damage to your opponent. I have to admit, after my first rounds of testing, I wasn't sure that the Firedancer was all I thought it to be but the latest matches really worked!

So maybe the Abbot should be in the sideboard and come in for the control matchups? I can use the extra card advantage and damage in those matches, as needed. Since matches with creatures are more common than those without, that's my plan for the future.

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!

Klaxions

I took out the Kari Zev cards because the creature didn't seem aggressive enough and the Expertise would, in the case of the Abbot and the Daredevil, leave me with needing mana to pay for whatever they do, after already paying 3 mana.

It's possible I'm wrong about Kari Zev as a creature: Menace is a relevant ability and could mean getting a point of damage in on attacks that otherwise wouldn't happen, allowing me to take advantage of Light Up The Stage. However, I wanted to try another card to help clear pathways to my opponent, Satyr Firedancer.

This didn't work out as much as I wanted it too and a couple days after the fact, I'm thinking it was because of the matchups: Jason decided to treat me to a night of "all mill, no creature" decks, which, yes: Satyr Firedancer isn't going to do much against, and a RB reanimator deck and again, direct damage isn't as helpful as I'd like it to be against Griselbrand.

While Jason's decks are part of my metagame, though, they are not all of the metagame and most of my opponents use smaller creatures to get where they're going. At the very least, Satyr Firedancer seems like excellent sideboard material. I'd like to try them against some other opponents though, to see if they'll be useful in non-reanimator/mill matches.

Red Alert

Red has been an issue for WotC for a while; the color was either too narrow at what it did (direct damage), or unfun (land destruction, randomized cards).

One way they appear to be looking to solve Red's place in Magic is by having players get effects 'blind'. That is: sure, you can draw three cards if you're willing to discard two, but you won't know what you're going to get. Want to play the top card of your library? Fine-but we're not going to help you figure out if that's a good thing before you do it.

It is out of this concept, Red Alert was created, named after the Transformer.

3 Guttersnipe
4 Dire Fleet Daredevil
3 Bedlam Reveler
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
1 Kari Zev, Skyship Raider

3 Samut's Sprint
3 Searing Spear
2 Burst Lightning
3 Chandra's Pyrohelix

19 Mountain
4 Smoldering Crater

4 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

1 Kari Zev's Expertise
2 Chain Lightning
4 Light Up the Stage

I've been pretty excited about this concept! Trying to play free things off the top of the deck to gain card advantage may not seem like much but the randomization of the effect interests me, plus it's a chance to use Bedlam Reveler and who can resist that?

After that, there's a suite of cheap burn spells to help me use Light Up The Stage's Spectacle ability, with the bonus of possibly being able to play them off of a Chandra, Torch of Defiance activation or Abbot of Keral Keep's enter the battlefield trigger. The Prowess on Bedlam Reveler and Abbot encourage me to play my spells, so my hand might empty pretty fast. Getting to use the top of my library as an added "card in hand" could be powerful.

Guttersnipe is just a solid card in a deck with eighteen instants and sorceries and should steal wins for me.

Dire Fleet Daredevil might look weird and it does only fit the theme in a roundabout way. I am getting to play with the instants and sorceries my opponent has used! But who knows what they'll play? I think it's a powerful card and an opportunity to use my opponent's resources against them. I expect Path to Exile, Brainstorm, and Fatal Push, cards Red generally does not have access to. So why not take my opponent's? Still, it's a risk.

I'm looking forward to where this one takes me; I don't know that this part of Red's color pie has been explored much.