Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

[Barbed Blightning]

BIG RED

1. What is it?

Big Red is a mono-red sneak attack deck focused around mana-ramp, bomb-enablers and elements of a stompy deck. Where Big Red lacks the counterspells and flexibility of cards like Intuition and Show & Tell found in its cousins, it makes up for with the resilience of its manabase, the speed at which it can churn out a win and the one-sided-ness of its enablers.

2. Core Cards & Decklist

The List:


7 Mountain
2 Karakas
4 Sandstone Needle
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors

1 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Seething Song

4 Sneak Attack
3 Through the Breach
3 Pyromancy

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Blightsteel Colossus
2 Griselbrand
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

4 Inferno Titan
1 Reforge the Soul

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Blood Moon

Sideboard:

1 Through the Breach
1 Pyromancy
1 Pulverize
3 Defense Grid
3 Chaos Warp
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Faerie Macabre



Sneak Attack: is, as seen in SneakShow, a very efficient means of hurling huge monsters at your opponent.

Through the Breach: same as above, but it's splice ability can also be relevant, as you can also splice it onto another Through the Breach.

Pyromancy: turns your titantic creatures into direct damage, to either finish off an opponent when a breach has been used, a Sneak Attack disabled, or combat inhibited (Peacekeeper, Ensnaring Bridge).

Reforge the Soul: either as a Miracle or hardcast, RtS provides Big Red som mid-to-late game gas to finish off an opponent left at 5, or even as a means of disrupting an opponent's hand. It's flexibility and power warrant at least one slot.

Ramp (Sandstone Needle, Seething Song, Shimian Spirit Guide): All get around Chalice 0-2. Spirit Guide (and Petal, which serves as the "fifth copy") help create explosive starts with the Sol lands (City and Tomb), or help mountain hands get a Chalice @ 1 out.



Stompy: Chalice is almost always set at 1, so Mr. Blightsteel can do his thing through a Swords to Plowshares. Chalice also provides the fringe benefit of making the deck's Storm matchup better. Trinisphere and Blood Moon are other obvious choices, and can be added/subtracted/rearranged to suit the metagame.

Karakas: It hates naturally against other S&T decks, but also takes out Gaddock Teeg/Thalia long enough to break into a win. Karakas also allows us to save a creature before they're sacrificed to the delayed trigger of Sneak Attack and Through the Breach

"Titans": While there are multiple possible "bombs" to sneak into play, those who made this list have a reason behind them.

-Blightsteel gives an automatic kill if he connects, and Emrakul provides his suite of pluses.

-Griselbrand similarly offers raw card advantage which, without cantrips, the deck needs.

-Inferno Titan is hard cast, usually as a deterrent against tribal and weenie decks like Goblins, Death & Taxes and Maverick.

-Ulamog is the awkward child of the lot, but his cost actually makes him castable in the deck, and he can blow up a Humility or other problematic permanent on his way in.

In fact, aside from Griselbrand, each creature in Big Red can be cast of rituals and the ramp lands, making it more sustainable into the long game, even after its enablers are gone.


Sideboard

Leyline/Faerie Macabre: Though six hate pieces seems excessive, Iona, Shield of Emeria is the bane of this deck. Six yard hate pieces also makes the dredge matchup stellar.

Defense Grid: brought in against blue decks, it makes counterspells essentially impossible against you, and provides decent insurance against an inconvenient Terminus.

Chaos Warp: Acts a pseudo-vindicate, and can be used to "save" your Titan from exile (and has the potential to bring in another huge creature).

Pulverize: Used in random matchups, such as MUD or Affinity.

The extra Pyromancy and Through the Breach come in against control decks (where uncounterable threats are needed) and aggro decks (where more enablers are required) respectively.

3. & 4. Matchups/Tournaments Results

To be added at a later date


Thanks for reading!

[Zirath]

Wurmcoil has popped up in the list a number of times. It competes with Inferno Titan since the two cards play different roles but fulfill a similar position.

[igri_is_a_bk]

Blightsteel Colossus is not very good, from my experience. Any blocker at all means you have to draw two to win. And for a two-card combo, that would be pretty bad if all you get is one creature destroyed on their side (like when they block). Wouldn't...

4 Emrakul
3 Ulamog
4 Griselbrand

...be a better creature package? I think so.

And the one Blood Moon looks like it should be TtB to me, especially game one.

[xdavisx]

oh wow, i just found this thread. i saw this/you're(?) list earlier this year from one of the jupiter events and i thought it was dope. i sleeved up a similar version, but never got a chance to play it. so it stayed on the shelf for months until about 2 months ago. i wanted a different deck to play at some scg events and said "fuck it" I'm gonna roll with it. i top'd 64 a couple events and almost nabbed a top 32.

if anyone replies/interested i'll post more.

i'll add that this deck has led to some of the funnest games of legacy i've ever played

[-Spooky-]

I feel like Inferno Titan is sub par. This is my list. I feel like Hellcarver Demon can do a lot more for you than the titan. A lot of this feeling is probably just preference though.



http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=985849

[xdavisx]

have you resolved inferno titan in legacy? there is no better feeling. being able to hard cast the titan i think makes it a better choice over the demon.

[hessenbob]

Any new updates to the deck list?

[Koby]

Any new updates to the deck list?

Trinisphere is better maindeck than Blood Moon right now. My friend 5-0, 10-0'd a room filled with S&T and Elf decks to win first place. Seems legit.

[hdeck12]

I'm pretty happy with the most recent list I posted. The few updates I made are...
Koth into the main in place of 1 pyromancy, they're both good against control but are also both worthless in multiples.
Titan from the board into the main for Warp. Warp is best used as an answer to hate cards, shouldn't be necessary game 1.
Karakas in the main out for a red fetch, not being able to legend rule others makes it worse.
1 pyroclasm and the hole from koth in the board both became chalice of the voids.
Karakas in the board will become either a moon, titan, or some spicy tech (like word of seizing, which is not optimal, but so much fun)...still not sure. Might even try new Chandra.

[Darkenslight]

I'm pretty happy with the most recent list I posted. The few updates I made are...
Koth into the main in place of 1 pyromancy, they're both good against control but are also both worthless in multiples.
Titan from the board into the main for Warp. Warp is best used as an answer to hate cards, shouldn't be necessary game 1.
Karakas in the main out for a red fetch, not being able to legend rule others makes it worse.
1 pyroclasm and the hole from koth in the board both became chalice of the voids.
Karakas in the board will become either a moon, titan, or some spicy tech (like word of seizing, which is not optimal, but so much fun)...still not sure. Might even try new Chandra.

I'd argue for Cryoclasm if you had more draw.

[Koby]

This is what I'm currently rocking:

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Worldspine Worm
3 Griselbrand
3 Inferno Titan
4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Sneak Attack
4 Through the Breach
2 Pyromancy
1 Chaos Warp

4 Sensei’s Divining Top

3 Trinisphere
4 Seething Song
1 Lotus Petal

5 Mountain
5 fetchland
4 Sandstone Needle
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

Changed from my past list:
-4 Blood Moon (to the sideboard)
+3 Trinisphere (from the sideboard)
-1 Faithless Looting (hardly been used or relevant, too low impact)
+1 Chaos Warp (experimenting with it, let's see how this will work out)
+1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard is full on Chalice mode, with some added Pyroclasm to deal with DRS. Blood Moon seems to me like a catch all, and REB/Pyro to deal with SNT decks.

[kingtk3]

Good luck and tell us how it'll go!

[hdeck12]

Good Luck Davis...I wanna hear a sweet Word of Seizing story (and of course results) when you get back!

[xdavisx]

mos def i'll post some results. quick thought, is defense grid and trinisphere overkill in the sideboard? trinisphere does pretty much the same thing as defense grid. any suggestions for a replacement?

[hdeck12]

Not off the top of my head, but even though they do sorta the same thing, I use them for different matchups. Spheres for Unfair Decks, Grids for Fair decks. Sphere is more about stopping the opponent from killing us, Grid is about stopping the opponent from stopping us. REB is a good sub for grid. You just have to side out your chalices when they come in.

[kingtk3]

I've never splashed white but I tell you that leyline should be 4 or 0: better to maximize the chalice, which protect against discards too.
Then I'll swap one sandstone for one ancient tomb in order to maximize the opportunity of having 2 mana on turn one (which is good for defense grid too).

As hdeck explains, blood moon is for the fair matchups while trinisphere is for the unfair decks: choose what to main accordingly to your meta but keep at least 3 of each between your 75.

[HansonWK]

If you are expecting lots of blue, cut the tops and fetches, a stifled fetch can lose games, but more importantly you want to up your hate cards. 4 chalice, 3 trinisphere, 3 blood moon. Blue will have a control will have a hard time if the last 2 resolve, combo will have a hard time if any resolve.

[xdavisx]

I didn't do so how in the legacy challenge. I went 3-3 then dropped cause it was like 11pm and there still were 2 rounds left. Matches I lost were to mulligans to oblivion and game loss for misregistering my deck and to fish.

Bright side is there was another big red player doing well! MiniReport will come soon.

[hdeck12]

@Davis: Weak sauce! Maybe next time you shouldn't mulligan and should just draw good cards from the start ;-)

@Megadeus: Well I guess it wouldn't be "Big Red" then would it. It's definitely an option. I guess the major difference is we're using early mana to lay lock pieces and go of early. The chant version wouldn't be doing anything with its early mana. If you play moon, it'll be difficult to get white, and even if you can afford a basic plains then you still shut off your sol lands while trying to reach an even higher threshold of 6 mana instead of 5. If you play 3 sphere, now you have to get to 8 mana in order to use chant. If you play chalice, then forget about chant. A splash reduces most of the synergy of the deck. I believe there could be some R/W version of sneak attack with E.Tutor/Silence/Blightsteel/STP, but it's an entirely different build than what we've been working on.

@CML: For starters kingtk is correct. IF you play leylines, it's 4 or 0.
1. Your manabase: Looks good, if you stick with tops and want the 6th fetch, you can drop the 4th sandstone. You could also cut the lotus petal for a fetch. However, that gives you one less chance to play your T1 moon which it sounds like you want to be doing as much as possible.
2. Maindeck Moon. Yeah it's sweet. However it's only 50/50 in stopping storm players and does pretty much nothing against "that dumb mono-U deck". If you're trying to beat the blue decks AND want to play top, defense grid will help. 4 maindeck moons is a lot when it can do nothing in some matchups. I recommend 3 in the main, and either a defense grid or a 3sphere.
3. I've given up on Koth. However if you end up with a 4 moon maindeck, he might be ok. I think 1 pyromancy/1 koth is a good split since they both fulfill the role of beating control and are both actually worthless in multiples. Without any way to protect him though he dies to almost any resolved creature.
4. I think 4 mountains is enough, but when you're trying to slam moon as many times as possible, cutting a sandstone might be better as it still comes in tapped under moon, and on the draw giving the opponent two uninterrupted turns is usually enough for them to stick a threat that can race a moon.
5. Discard. I never found discard to be too much of a problem with top in the deck. You have to go easy on mulligans against discard. If you know they're going to open on discard, you can keep worse hands because they'll be trying to disrupt you instead of pressure you. And given time, you can draw right out of it. If you are worried about it though, 4 leylines is a better plan than 2. Just don't expect them to stop storm. Too many times I've brought them in, and mulliganed to them only to see chain of vapors put it right back in my hand and have no way to cast it or brainstorm it away.
6. Grafdiggers cage. Pretty good card no matter how much you hate it. The fact that it covers two bases (grave/GSZ) as one card is hard to let go of. Karakas can do this too a little differently. The two real problems are Iona (grave) and Teeg (GSZ), both of which karakas can bounce. The cage keeps Craterhoof Behomoth from coming out turn two as well. If you cut the leylines for Warps then between warp/pyroclam/inferno titan you can handle teeg. The cage's could become more dedicated grave hate as tormods crypt(preferred) or relic of progenitus(acceptable).
7. Chaos warp: Could take the place of the two leylines.
GOOD LUCK and bring us back a report!
Bonus Advice: You can beat "that dumb mono-U" deck. Just be patient and mulligan to the necessary cards, you're NOT the aggressor in the matchup.

[CML]

A MILLION THANKS. Time to wake up and murder the world

do you get a game loss for offensive deck names