Turbo Red - Top 50 Mythic

Hadn't Arena Laddered since WWu in March so I had to start from Bronze 4 like a pleb.

40-8 with the first deck I picked up. Trying to turbo the rest of the climb so I can fully verify results and blog in time for other people to care.

Ferocidon is really good yo.

— Ari Lax (@armlx) September 8, 2019

This entire run took me around 85 matches, with a 75% win rate.

Since my deck was 18 Land Mono-Red, each match took me 5-10 minutes.

Turbo to blog post successful. 

Credit for this list goes to wordy333 on Magic Online, who Top 8ed a recent PTQ with it. I've changed 2 cards since that first list, and I've come to the conclusion that maybe I should change a 3rd. Maybe.

4 Fanatical Firebrand (RIX) 101
4 Ghitu Lavarunner (DAR) 127
4 Scorch Spitter (M20) 159
4 Viashino Pyromancer (M19) 166
3 Rampaging Ferocidon (XLN) 154
3 Goblin Chainwhirler (DAR) 129
4 Light Up the Stage (RNA) 107
4 Shock (M19) 156

4 Lightning Strike (XLN) 149

4 Skewer the Critics (RNA) 115
4 Wizard's Lightning (DAR) 152
18 Mountain (XLN) 273

1 Mountain (XLN) 273
1 Rampaging Ferocidon (XLN) 154
2 Act of Treason (M19) 127
3 Fry (M20) 140
4 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
3 Risk Factor (GRN) 113
1 Goblin Chainwhirler (DAR) 129

The Play Philosophy of Fire

For those who haven't been following Magic content since the Myspace era, The Philosophy of Fire is the concept for your strategy being centered around converting each card you draw directly into damage.

That's the entire goal of this deck. 

That doesn't mean you toss spells around irresponsibly. You need to maximize the damage you deal per card, and also aim to not sequence in a way that sticks you with cards in hand. Get the most attacks from your creatures, play your Spectacle cards or Wizard's Lightnings right before they risk being non-Spectacled, do the math on when burn is better as removal.

Good thing I'm here to tell you how to do that.

Tips and Tricks

As much as I hype Rampaging Ferocidon, I'm fairly sure Scorch Spitter is the card that makes this deck possible. The other 1 drops we have seen in Red decks for a while aren't enough to support an 18 land curve, you needed another card for the redundancy to operate off only 2 lands.

But often your hand has multiple one drops. Which do you lead on of Ghitu Lavarunner, Scorch Spitter, and Fanatical Firebrand?

In general, Scorch Spitter > Fanatical Firebrand > Ghitu Lavarunner.

Scorch Spitter first is obvious. It's two damage per attack, doesn't have haste.

Fanatical Firebrand beats out Ghitu Lavarunner largely because it sequences better into Light Up the Stage. If your Turn 2 is Light Up the Stage, then land drop after seeing the flips, then your other 1 drop you would rather get the haste damage off Fanatical Firebrand than play it after combat and your 2nd land. Ghitu Lavarunner will just have haste for immediate damage later anyways.

Ghitu Lavarunner is the most conditional lead off. If you want to block a 1 power creature against other Red decks or Vampires, you can play the 1/2. It also can make sense if you want to Wizard's Lightning on Turn 2, but can't lean on playing the Ghitu Lavarunner that turn. This comes up most if you have 1 land on the draw against Wildgrowth Walker.

I still don't know if I'm playing this card correctly, but it's felt better as I got better at timing it.

You are aiming to cast Light up the Stage when you have access to two mana after and your next plays don't diminish in damage if delayed. 

I try not to fire off Light Up the Stage on Turn 2 unless I kept a 1 lander trying to Light into a 2nd land. Too often you hit multiple cards you can't cast. Or worse, you have a 3 drop in hand you really wanted to cast and suddenly script yourself out of max Rampaging Ferocidon value. The 3 drop thing is usually the biggest gate on Light Up the Stage, why give yourself more cards to cast next turn when you have the thing you want already?

On the subject of 1 land hands, my keeps are fast and loose. Raw card density matters so much to this deck. 1 land with a 1 drop and a Light Up the Stage is a keep. 1 land with 2 one drops is a keep.

4 lands is when you start thinking about a 6 card hand, especially if there isn't a good aggro curve involved.

Not having a 1 or 2 drop creature is more of an issue than lands. Occasionally you can keep a hand with a couple lands, some burn, and 3 drops, but it's matchup specific. Twelve of your spells are gated by Spectacle or a Wizard, and that usually means controlling a creature to cast them effectively.

When should you kill a blocker, outside of the obvious case of something like Wildgrowth Walker?

Think about it from how much damage the attacker deals. 

Obvious one: They have a 1/1. You have Scorch Spitter and Shock. Shock deals 2. The attack deals 2. If you Shock the blocker, you get that Shock of damage immediately and more later if you attack more.

Less obvious: Same on Turn 2, but you have Viashino Pyromancer. What is your alternate play, and what is your Turn 3 play? If you are playing Rampaging Ferocidon Turn 3 and have another 1 drop to go with Shock, kill it now. If your Turn 3 looks more like some burn spells, get the extra body down.

Even less obvious: You have Ghitu Lavarunner and Lightning Strike. They have a 2/1 Merfolk Branchwalker. The attack is only 2 damage, the spell is 3 damage, and they may or may not have a blocker to follow up.

How much burn do you have relative to their life total? If it's 1-2 points away from lethal that's an easy top deck. 3 is unfavored but not horrible odds. 4 means you need multiple spells. The further you are, the better killing a blocker is since they might fail to block more times and let you get more damage.

Do you need to leave up the burn as removal for a bigger issue, like Wildgrowth Walker?

Is there some clear end game they are likely hitting soon that bricks Ghitu Lavarunner forever?

Do you want them to use removal on Lavarunner so you can stick Rampaging Ferocidon?

If the board is more complicated, does this bring them from 2 to 1 blocker so you get more repeat attacks even if you are throwing something away in combat?

I can't list all the angles to consider here, but hopefully this gets some of the right wheels turning.

Sideboarding Basics

-Don't cut small creatures unless something is horribly skewed.

-Trim Shock if it doesn't kill creatures.

-Often Rampaging Ferocidon or Goblin Chainwhirler does nothing. Cut them when that happens.

-Trim Skewer the Critics when you want more removal as it's hard to use it to clear a blocker.

-Act of Treason won't show up in the sideboard guide. You want it 5% of the time, but that 5% is Gruul or Dinosaurs that are close matchups where the card is 3 mana auto-win.

-The last slot debate is 4th Fry over the Mountain or 3rd Risk Factor.

-Similar to my Azorious Aggro primer, I'm going to describe a lot of matchups in medium ways. Just remember that a lot of this is prefaced by "the games they get to participate in", and you just dunk on them a reasonable percent of the time. While this deck is 55% in games your opponent stands a chance, it's +10-15% because they literally died before casting spells.

-My details here are going to be less specific than those for the Azorius Aggro deck. Your plays end up way more fluid based on exact life total numbers and cards in game, so it's hard to preempt a ton of play patterns. The ones you can are largely "GO FACE", which isn't as nuanced as white creature sequencing and lineups.

Matchup - Esper 

Of the major matchups, Esper is definitely the worst but still winnable. Their life gain cards (Oath of Kaya, Basilica Bell-Haunt) are huge issues. 

Sideboarding:

-1 Shock

-2 Goblin Chainwhirler

+1 Rampaging Ferocidon

+2 Risk Factor

Risk Factor is generally good, but drawing multiples is a huge risk against Narset, Parter of Veils. Goblin Chainwhirler isn't amazing, but sometimes it clearing a Teferi that bounced a creature is great. Almost no one plays Hero of Precinct One anymore making Shock dead.

-Don't attack planeswalkers if they control Oath of Kaya. I've made this mistake.

-If you Shock your own creature in response to Oath of Kaya's trigger targeting it, that stops the gain 3 making Shock into Lightning Bolt.

-You can only really play around Legion's End with Shock your own duplicate. Accept that you get got sometimes.

-If you can deal 2 to a 3 loyalty Narset, that is usually worth it. Dealing 3 is closer.

Matchup - Kethis

This matchup is favorable but loseable. They still have some of the problematic elements of Esper and a fast kill, but your burn as disruption is a huge deal and they draw a bunch of nonsense non-interaction every game.

Sideboarding:

-1 Shock

-3 Rampaging Ferocidon

+3 Fry

+1 Goblin Chainwhirler 

Ferocidon doesn't have much life gain to stop and just gets bounced by Teferi if they care about it in a combo setup. Fry is absolutely your best card as instant interaction. The Goblin Chainwhirler-Shock swap is kinda whatever, but Goblin Chainwhirler free rolls Fblthps.

-Kill their Diligent Excavator on the spot. Plan your burn to be able to do this, such as the previously mentioned Ghitu Lavarunner plus Wizard's Lightning starts.

Matchup - Any Ramp Deck

You are massively favored. By far the most common matchup I faced up the ladder and I think I lost twice.

Sideboarding:

-3 Goblin Chainwhirler

-1 Shock

+3 Risk Factor

+1 Rampaging Ferocidon 

(Note: Wilderness Reclamation-Nexus of Fate is a different sideboard plan, Rampaging Ferocidon is bad, multiple Risk Factors are bad, just max out on Goblin Chainwhirlers and jam)

-Time your Rampaging Ferocidon well. On curve it's a good threat, but if you are already clocking them and have it in hand often have a window to cast it after they would Time Wipe on curve but before Field of the Dead triggers.

-The reason these matchups are easy is they lack interaction for your early attackers. Your best hands involve multiple fast creatures.

Matchup - Mono Red

Shockingly skill intensive. Think a lot about how you position against Goblin Chainwhirler and how your plays line up with their open mana. You actually beat Experimental Frenzy by just turboing through it. If they stabilize, have 4 lands, and cast it yea that's good, but often they have the wrong land count, a blank Frenzy instead of an early play, something that just lines up wrong and you go under them.

Sideboarding (draw):

-1 Rampaging Ferocidon

-1 Skewer the Critics

-1 Scorch Spitter

+1 Goblin Chainwhirler

+2 Lava Coil

Sideboarding (play):

-2 Skewer the Critics

+1 Mountain

+1 Goblin Chainwhirler

Only 2 Lava Coils come in because they can be a liability in multiples when your plan is racing Experimental Frenzy. The extra Mountain slightly balances out having seven 3 drops that you really need to hit on time on the play. 

-Don't waste removal on x/1s if you are going to Goblin Chainwhirler them.

-Don't run multiple x/1s out until it's clear you aren't getting Chainwhirlered.

-Kill their creatures unless they are in lethal burn range.

Matchup - Feather

The Feather matchup is close. I've won more than I've lost, but I've lost in fairly definitive ways. This is another removal centric matchup, so don't keep non-interactive Skewer the Critics and creature hands on the draw.

Sideboarding:

-1 Shock

-4 Skewer the Critics*

-1 Goblin Chainwhirler

+4 Lava Coil

+1 Rampaging Ferocidon

+1 Fry

Skewer being awkward to sequence as interaction is a deal breaker. Fry not killing Legion Warboss or Dreadhorde Arcanist is a deal breaker, even if it does hit Gideon Blackblade. The 1 Fry I'm trying here is a hedge against that, and I'm not even sure it's better than the last Skewer the Critics. Goblin Chainwhirler is staying in largely because you need to kill them with continuing beats as you hit their creatures, the ability only matters against Legion Warboss tokens.

-Their Gods Willings are fairly telegraphed. Don't run whole turns into them.

Matchup - Vampires

Another matchup where I've won more than I've lost, but I'm convinced this is bad. They have so many cards that you struggle to beat. The more recent lists without Sanctum Seeker are a bit easier, since that card both immediately gains life and clocks super fast.

Sideboard:

-4 Scorch Spitter

-3 Skewer the Critics

+4 Lava Coil

+1 Rampaging Ferocidon

+1 Goblin Chainwhirler
+1 Mountain

These jerks play so many 1 mana 1/2s. How can your 1 mana 1/1 that needs to attack compete? At least Fanatical Firebrand can team up with Goblin Chainwhirler to kill stuff. The Mountain is a must have with eight 3 drop creatures. Fry doesn't kill most of their stuff, don't bother with it.

-You are really incentivized to have them enter Turn 3 with no creature or you having a kill spell up to mitigate Sorin. If they have to -3 Sorin you can easily mop it up and win, especially if Champion is just a 4/4 cantrip.
-Save Lava Coil for the x/4s if possible. Vona is a giant pain if you don't have it, a joke if you do.

-Similar to Red mirrors, try to max value Goblin Chainwhirler and not kill x/1s if you can. Sometimes you die to Sorin, but sometimes you need to get greedy.

-Fanatical Firebrand messes up Adanto Vanguard big time with pings in response to the activation. They can sometimes pay 4 life to keep it around, they can basically never pay 8.

Core Set 2020 Cards I Draft More Than You Do

I've been drafting a lot of Core Set 2020 on Arena, trying to rack up Wild Cards for Throne of Eldraine  release. I have felt the things I like doing in the format are fairly disjointed from public discussion of it, as evidenced by writing about how I really enjoyed drafting White a couple weeks ago. Rather having unique specific archetype maps to follow, I think I'm following fairly different principles.

All of my views on Core Set 2020 Draft revolve around a few things:

• Past Winged Words there isn't a big card draw spell or a Salvager of Secrets.
• Murder, Pacifism, Chandra's Outrage, Sleep Paralysis, and Rabid Bite all exist at common, plus a bunch more removal.
• Most creatures don't have dynamic text, they are whatever size they are and don't have weird evasion. Even the synergies are isolated and smaller.
• Creatures scale up at a reasonable clip, but the curve up is smooth.

Going backwards from that list, here's the implications.

• You can't aggro people out, because creatures get obsoleted quickly, but there also isn't a point where creatures eclipse double blocks.
• Your creatures are largely just bashing into each other and trading at their presented rates.
• Even if you do make something massive or jump the curve with an aura, your opponent can readily answer it.
• There isn't an easily setup for a control deck where you overwhelm your opponent on cards.

Most games you and your opponent have access to similar amounts of removal, similar amounts of every creature sizing up the curve, and your goal is to force trades in such a way that you end up with a 6 drop and they don't, or such that your leftovers force lethal damage through.

With that intro, here are the cards I see myself liking way more than other people in Core Set 2020 Draft as a result of thinking of the format this way.

White:

I had some kind words for Inspiring Captain last blog post, and I've only gotten more excited by the card since then.

I had an Orzhov deck where I started with 2 Inspiring Captains maindeck and 2 in the sideboard. By the end of the draft I was just playing all 4, casting Soul Salvage for multiples, and wondering what the actual number I would play is.

Within this concept of everything kinda being static sizes, Inspiring Captain breaks that open. Your opponent's options when Inspiring Captain hits the battlefield are take a bunch of damage, or trade down for worse creatures. The reason Inspiring Captain stacks so well in multiples is that while they may be able to take one hit or trade down a once to balance life and card quality as resources, the next time they are going to be forced to make a bad choice.

And each time you cast Inspiring Captain you are still adding a 3/3 to your battlefield at an acceptable rate. That's also why it stacks so well. If you Inspiring Captain and they trade off, the next turn still looks like you are pushing through real damage.

Inspiring Charge, the instant, doesn't have this progressive upside and is way worse in a format without tons of good multiple body cards to leverage the +2 power. While Raise the Alarm and Ferocious Pup exist, they are really mediocre when you don't draw the enhancement effects. This distinction is important, I'm just curving out Moorland Inquisitor into Steadfast Sentry and getting excited to Inspiring Captain and jam in on Turn 4, Turn 5.

As of now, I think Inspiring Captain is the 2nd best White common behind Pacifism. It's worse than the "good removal" tier of commons, but once you start hitting the "solid creatures" section with Audacious Thief, Silverback Shaman, and more I think Captain fits right in with that bunch.

Blue: 

I'm not gonna lie, I'm not really sure what Blue is doing super well in this format. It has the most powerful common in Cloudkin Seer and the Arena infamous Reknown Weaponsmith plus Heart-piecer Bow setup, but the individual Blue commons don't play well on this "every card trades and you want them all to be solid per card rates" axis. Typically in these kind of formats Blue wins by breaking the card parity or having Essence Scatter type universal answers, and it can't really do either that well.

Frilled Sea Serpent at least tries to play on the exchange axis. The 4/6 size is both good against the multiple common 5/4s at the top of other high ends (Silverback Shaman and Fire Elemental) and a bit hard to double block, but importantly this is a card that plays both the aggressive and defensive sides of the late game well. If you are behind, 4/6 is going to block hard. If you are ahead, a 4/6 attacks fine and the unblockable ability threatens to close out.

Why is this important? There isn't a defined control end game in this format if you don't have Scholar of the Ages or Moldervine Reclamation, and sometimes even if you do have those in your deck you don't draw them. Building a defensive deck means you end up in board stalls where no one is advantaged your opponent might just draw kill spell plus flier first. Obviously Frilled Sea Serpent breaks those stalls slowly open, but the plan I described of getting ahead and using it as a way to close the gap on pressure is crucial. If the game plays out such that you can be aggressive, you really want your cards to be able to let you extract the life total value while you can because the format doesn't give a ton of other ways to generate tangible value of any kind.

You can't play too many 6 drops in a Draft deck, but if I had 1-2 Frilled Sea Serpents in a Blue deck I would be reasonably happy about that outcome.

Black: 

Fathom Fleet Cutthroat is the reverse Inspiring Captain. It still has the damage or trade down choice, it's just after the fact and tends to result in attrition rather than beatdown.

One key to this card is that Black has multiple lower cost common creatures your opponents really want to block: Blood Burgler and Audacious Thief. Bladebrand also exists, but your opponent might be OK trading for that if it means you don't develop your battlefield. Black's access to Soul Salvage at common is also extremely important here to both extend the profitability of trading and threaten Fathom Fleet Cutthroat deeper into games just because the card is in your graveyard. Good opponents will play around the card a bit, but there's only so much room to do that. Plus, often if they do play around it the 2/2s I mentioned have already extracted extra value before you play a normal 3/3.

Now is probably a good time to talk about how 3/3 is just a solid body size in this format. Almost nothing below five mana beats a 3/3 in combat, and very few things hit the 6 power threshold so 3/3s threaten profitable double blocks.  '

You might notice a lot of my discussion centers around 2/2s and 3/3s brawling. Heart-Piercer Bow is a real constraining factor on the Arena metagame, and both forcing your opponent to need multiples for it to do anything and not giving them time to find those are huge. Heart-Piercer Bow decks are generally lacking on quality creatures, so really that matchup is almost always the time where you are put to the test about your deck being able to play the aggressor well.

I'm less excited about Fathom Fleet Cutthroat than Inspiring Captain because it is worse in multiples, but it's on the good side of the playable filler line.

Red: 

Fire Elemental has some bad card inertia. It was not great in Dominaria and not great in Core Set 2019.

A couple things changed in Core Set 2020, and now Fire Elemental is solidly in the same good top end filler camp as Frilled Sea Serpent. The biggest and most obvious is the Elemental subtype. There aren't even a ton of Elemental payoffs, but just the interaction with Chandra's Firecat allowing a Turn 4 Fire Elemental is a game changer.

Fire Elemental also layers well with Lavakin Brawler, even ignore the Elemental type upside. While I did talk about how double blocking a 5/4 with 3/3s happens, there are only so many times that can happen because people only have so many 3/3s. 5/4 sizing pushes 2-for-1s on more common double blocks involving 2/2s. Lavakin Brawler into Fire Elemental often means both creatures are 5/4s and you can just push your opponent out of the game with beefy attacks.

The fifth power on Fire Elemental also gives Red a little more range. All the Red removal is size capped, and having some of your general sizing push above Chandra's Outrage's 4 damage can help a Red deck continue to operate through some larger threats or a boosted creature. I like Reduce to Ashes a bit more than everyone else for a similar reason.

As with Frilled Sea Serpent you can't play a ton of five drops, but if my Red deck has 1-2 Fire Elementals there I'm absolutely fine with that.

Green: 

Green gets  a double dip here because these two cards are tied to each other.

Season of Growth would be really bad in a lot of other formats (Eyes Everywhere in Ravnica Allegiance was mediocre). In this format is one of the better green plans. Season of Growth is one of the few cards that actually offers a long term engine, not making your cards better on average but just scrying lands away and giving you more spells over time. The card draw on target is largely a bonus and I wouldn't go out of my way to play a ton of combat tricks to support it. Rabid Bite is the exciting way to trigger that ability, Growth Cycle is not.

But I would play Feral Invocation regardless, and it's presence as another already good common way to draw cards with Season of Growth is a huge upside for that uncommon.

One shot pump spells in Core Set 2020 are rather unexciting. Too often the best spot for them over a game is saving a 2/2 or a 3/3 in combat, and at the end of the game spending 2 mana and a card to conditionally make another replacement level dork is not worth it. The times you get to win a fight of two big things or break open a double block are just rare.

But Feral Invocation is different. When you fire off Feral Invocation in one of these small ball fights you end up with something big that your opponent has to answer. Even if they kill your 4/4 or 5/5 later, you end up having killed their creature on curve and forcing a good removal spell out of their hand while probably getting in another good attack or two.

Season of Growth is as good a first pick as some of the second string removal like Shock, and Feral Invocation is solidly in the good playables camp below that.

Artifact: 

It should be no shock that if my premise is forcing stuff to trade up is good, equipment overperforms in Core Set 2020. Marauder's Axe solidly pushes creatures up a tier and a half, letting 2/2s attack into 3/3s and 5/4s, letting 3/3s break up simple double blocks, and letting fliers clock extremely fast. Red also lets you pull some fun tricks with Goblin Smuggler and moving the Axe around to push through extra unblockable damage.

My Simic, Dimir, and Golgari decks largely aren't trying to play this game of ensuring they can draw a 2/2 on Turn 10 and still attack with it, but anything with White or Red is. There's diminishing returns on multiple equipment since you can't have a Spear pick up a Sword, but I usually want to have 1 Marauder Axe in my White or Red decks.