Quote Originally Posted by VonDoom View Post
I changed Black to Red just some weeks ago.
And i top4ed in the first (really small) tourney (34 ppl) I partecipated.

Your list seems tough, but I think too radical.
Probably you win g1 against merfolks, zoo, creatures in generally
But probably you lose g1 in mirror matches and against WStax, having no more time to play g3.
You don't recycle nothing, no CoTW, no Ruins

Landstill is good because we have 50-50 against quite everyone, i think you are 70-30 against aggros and 30-70 against the rest.

But I like a lot your sb strategy
22 lands are too few imho, and 6 fetches are too many!!!!

Against ANT you've 9 dead cards, +3 "maybesometimesuseful" cards in mainboard
In g2, you have maximum 6 cards to side in
There should be 23 lands. I'll probably cut a FoF for an Academy Ruins.

Admittedly, this deck is skewed to beat aggro, but Zoo and Merfolk are among the most played decks right now. With this build, I don't see how I lose to them. Also, Goblins is going to rise in popularity with Warren Instigator. Whether the new Goblins decks will actually be good or not is yet to be seen, but I anticipate them in higher numbers.

So, what matchups are going to be worse? Sure, the landstill mirror won't be great. However, Landstill isn't that widely played, and I'd rather make that matchup worse than continue to lose to the most played decks. Wstax barely exists at all and that deck is pretty terrible anyways. Ichorid is always bad, but Relics in the board plus EE, Humility, and Firespout should make it at least winnable. I guess the real question comes down to if this list can beat countertop. With the minimal testing I have done, I still deem that matchup to be favorable with this list. EE deals with their entire deck, Spell Snare helps a lot, FoF wins in the mid/late game, and sticking an Elspeth or Humility is an auto-win. Firespout isn't great, but the ability to bring in Pyroblasts is pretty nice.

The black splash is probably stronger in a more balanced metagame. The versatility of Vindicate is certainly useful. However, with aggro dominating the format, black just seems ineffective.

What's your red list like? How is your board strategy different than mine?