[Deck] Red Death

[AnwarA101]

Red Death is an aggressive deck based around heavy disruption in the early game that prevents your opponent from accomplishing their strategy, while attacking them with devastating creatures that can quickly close the game if left unchecked, ala classic Suicide Black. In an innovation over the old Suicide Black model, the deck also utilizes burn spells that are used to finish off a faltering or recovering opponent or to remove early blockers and threats.

Red Death attacks the central resources of most decks in the format by destroying their hand and manabase. The deck can also destroy an opponent’s creatures with it's burn spells, or turn them into additional reach to finish off an opponent. When this strategy works optimally, the opponent is left trying to recover their resources while being beaten by quick, undercosted and deadly threats.

The deck wins by accelerating it's own gameplan while delaying the opponents, through undercosted creatures, strategy-disrupting spells and fast mana. This allows for the quick death of an opponent that has no time to find answers.

The deck’s hyper-aggressive approach to disruption and creatures often leads it to have very little of its own cards in hand and if its threats are answered it can be tough to kill an opponent in the late game. While the late game may not be a preferred position for Red Death it is by no means unwinnable. Any creatures or burn drawn in the late game can finish off an opponent that has just barely survived the intial assault.

This deck is continuation of the Suicide Black archetype that has existed for some time in Magic. The term “Suicide” references black creatures that, while being very powerful, also have almost suicidal drawbacks associated with them. This deck is called Red Death because it is a Suicide Black that incorporated Red burn spells as a key component of its disruption. The name Red Death is a shortened reference to the short story, “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allen Poe. While Suicide Black decks have existed for a long time many of the key elements of this deck are based on a primer written by Edward “Legend” Paltzik which can be found here and Part2.

Red Death

//Disruption
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole

//Creatures
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Nantuko Shade
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Rotting Giant
1 Wretched Anurid

//Removal and Reach
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning

//Mana and Lands
7 Swamp
3 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual

//Sideboard
3 Jitte
3 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Engineered Plague
1 Darkblast
4 Dystopia


Other key resources for understanding this deck are available –

The Red Death Primer
Retired Red Death thread
Suicide Black thread
Tournament Report by Anwar Ahmad from The Mana Leak Open 2
Tournament Report by Zohar Bhagat from Duel for Duals 3
Tournament Report by Eric Darland at a side event at Nationals

This deck has generated many questions and many of them are part of a heated discussion such as –

Should the deck run the 4th Chain Lightning over Wretched Anurid?

Is Wretched Anurid too much of a liability to be run in a modern Legacy metagame?

Should the deck sideboard Cabal Therapy?

Does it need Tormod’s Crypt in the sideboard?

Does it play enough creatures?

Is Null Rod a possible sideboard card to fight storm combo as well as equipment based decks and Affinity?

Is the 4th Wasteland better than the 18th black source?

Is the Land configuration optimal between Badlands and fetchalnds?

Is this deck a serious contender at the upcoming Grand Prix in Columbus?