What was the last good RED card printed?

[Julian23]

According to that definition, we would have to go with Pact of the Titan then. lol.

As mentioned earlier, red as a color just doesn't have what it takes to carry a deck in Legacy. It's by design just too volatile. R&D could (should?) of course change that but I doubt they're really interested in whether all colors are well represented in Legacy.

[Redshift]

Wizards has a lot of work to do to get red to be even close to the other colors. Some of the suggestions in this thread have been awesome. Not sure anyone from Wizards will see any of this but it sure would be cool if they did.

[Fossil4182]

You're argument makes no sense because they can print cards in other colors that don't warp Standard but have an impact on Legacy. Green Sun's Zenith, Mental Misstep, Vendillion Clique, and Tombstalker all see play but did very little in Standard.

First of all, if you're going to challenge my assertions, try answering the specific warrants I provide. Like when I argue that designing new Red cards that impact Legacy is very difficult because of the risk it poses to Standard (See quote below). All of the cards you're citing (which range all the way back to the Time Spiral Block) only further illustrates my point that its difficult to design new Red cards that can be legal in Standard without warping it and still impact Legacy. Your argument never answer any of my warrants or provides warrants of your own, your assertions only claim the opposite of what I claim without support, and your example only further illustrate my point.

Goblin Guide, Warren Instigator and Goblin Chieftain are the only ones that see play in decks that are Tier 1.5 or higher. However, even the decks that sport those cards are probably not Tier 1.5 decks currently; I'm trying to given them the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument. From a design standpoint, Red cards are probably the most dangerous ones to design if the intention is to have them impact older formats. If WotC were to print aggressive and/or red cards that would be competitive in Legacy, it would likely be overly powerful in Standard. As a case and point, Mental Misstep "worked" in this sense because it has had a huge (albeit negative) impact on Legacy while not being overly powerful in Standard. Additionally, given the philosophical basis for the color, there isn't a lot of design space to do new things with the color without just upping the power level of existing concepts. IE, if Red were to get more powerful cards, it would either get better burn spells, or cheaper faster creatures (which still get Misstep'd). The other only other ways I could see Red expanding back into a competitive color is if better "hate" spells were printed; but that still probably relegates the color to sideboard status in Blue decks.

_____________

Lightning Bolt and Lavamancer do define Legacy. NO RUG and Zoo both play them heavily. And most of the Zoo lists that have been placing well recently are running Guide as well. Hardly limited play. I mentioned Fetchlands because they make Lavamancer significantly better.

Again, Grim Lavamancer and Lightning Bolt are "REPRINTS". So even if they do "define" Legacy, they aren't relevant to the question being discussed here. As an aside, those cards are probably at best, very relevant, but not format defining. If you want to continue that discussion, open a thread on here with the assertion that Grim Lavamancer and Lightning Bolt are "format" defining cards and why they're the cards everyone needs to keep in mind when designing they're decks. Furthermore, even if Goblin Guide is showing up Zoo decks, its not a card defines the format in anyway close to the way Mental Misstep does, or for that matter, any of the other cards you mention (Green Sun's Zenith, Vendillion Clique, and Tombstalker). The cards you mention are probably archetype defining for their use in Zoo. However, Zoo was a format defining archetype prior to the printing of Goblin Guide and Bolt and Grim Lavamancer have been around since the inception of Legacy so I fail to see how this contributes to this discussion. NO RUG recent ascension probably has more to do with the printing of Mental Misstep than Grim Lavamancer or Lightning Bolt as evidence by the fact this deck only really began to shine post the printing of Misstep.

[Malchar]

They could always print good red cards in supplementary sets that aren't legal in standard, like what they did for the commander decks. This is how imperial recruiter got into legacy without ever being in standard.

But yea, the above post and the self-quoted portion are pretty accurate. The example I keep thinking of is cards like force of will and swords to plowshares. They're only as good as the strongest threats that they stop in the format. Conversely, red isn't a defensive color, so it actually has to be able to produce threats, rather than neutralize them. If they made really strong threats in standard, it would be a broken format without equally powerful removal. Unfortunately, it seems like keeping standard rather balanced is Wizards' top priority, which means that legacy is generally going to stay the way that it is for quite a while.

I already talked about blue and white. It seems like green and black get to abuse the graveyard mechanic in order to get their power. Just look at tarmogoyf, knight of the reliquary, entomb, dredge, and stuff like that. Cards like these are easy to add to any standard set as long as they don't overload the graveyard theme and make them too powerful. Of course, red has nothing to do with the graveyard, so there's really no opportunity here.

Blood moon is the most iconic red card for legacy in my opinion ever since dragon stompy went on its rampage. The card still strikes fear into the eyes of anyone playing a multicolored deck. Nonbasic hate, or just land hate in general has always been a key component of red decks. It's also perfect for printing strong legacy cards since nonbasic hate is much more lethal in older formats. Unfortunately, we'll never get any more good red cards of this type since Wizards has flat out said that they don't like denying people land. Yet apparently it's ok for blue to deny people spells, and white to deny people creatures, artifacts, and enchantments. This is really quite insane. I play with a lot of really casual players, and the only archetype that they routinely fear is the "blue deck with a lot of counterspells", never the "land destruction deck" or even any red deck for that matter.

Black got its own expansion: Torment. Green and white countered with Judgement, and blue was always the best to begin with. It's time for red to get its fair share.

[Chubu!]

Originally posted by Octopusman

Stigma Lasher was almost there. I wish it had haste and pro white or something.

Agree completely. What hurt Lasher the most, IMO, was that it had to connect in order to get its hate online.

I loved the idea Gheizen64 suggested for Zo-Zu's Apprentice. I'd also like to see Manabarbs get some legs, and come down for 3cmc. In general I'm for red creatures with hate; keep pressure on via combat damage while simultaneously punishing one's opponent for developing his or her own board position. Take a cue from white, and use RR in the casting cost of cards that shouldn't be easily splashable.

[Amon Amarth]

@Fossil4182: I apologize. Let me start over. There are certain mechanics that can't be pushed. For example, I can not imagine them ever printing a color shifted Sinkhole or Dark Ritual in Red. Or a Bolt that deals 4 damage instead of 3. Some of Red's mechanics are "maxed out" so to speak (I'm not even certain that these cards would help especially since most rituals are historically combo cards).

Red, however, does have some holes that can be filled. Red has very weak 2 drops. There is no Red equivalent to Goyf, SFM, Bob or even something like Watchwolf. I believe it was Mike Flores has "often described Magic as a game of two-drops." and:

"In recent years, particular Magic formats (especially Standard formats) have become more and more narrowly defined by the two-drops of the day, and those particular two-drops have done more and more, especially considering their meager mana costs; R&D has deployed Grizzly Bears updates like Wild Mongrel that get all of a single block's mechanics rolling, plus end up being important mile markers in Standard—and even Extended—for years (or at least "year") past their initial Block Constructed windows."

I think that is a good place to start. Legacy, and Magic in general, has become more creature-oriented in the past few years, allowing Red to compete on more equal footing here would be a great idea. I would think it would make sense because Red is allied with Green which is the most creature-centric color. Kargan Dragonlord is a pretty good two-drop although it's far cry from even Coralhelm Commander.

Another interesting option would be to give Red a new piece of the color pie. Red could use a modicum of disruption or even looting. I remember hearing about them possibly moving looting to Red during the last GDS. Even the name sounds Red-ish. It would allow Red decks to compete with other colors in the late game by turning dead draws into gas. I think these are all reasonable suggestions.

[Phoenix Ignition]

What kind of looting? I mean they got burning inquiry but I hope that's not all they were talking about.

[Amon Amarth]

edit:dp

[Amon Amarth]

A red Merfolk Looter was what I was thinking of but sitting back and doing nothing isn't very Red. Something like a Looter il-kor would be more flavorful. Would that see play? I don't know. But it's a start. I don't expect a complete revamp over night.

[Cenarius]

The only way I could see red become more powerful in legacy is through multicolour cards. Period.

[Humphrey]

Red has the alternative casting cost for saccing mountains, maybe that can be explored further.

[Koby]

Red has the alternative casting cost for saccing mountains, maybe that can be explored further.

Fireblast
Thunderclap
Pulverize
Shard Volley
Devastating Summons
Tectonic Break

I fully support the reprint of Tectonic Break.

[Draener]

How about something like:

Reckless Looter (RR)

3/2
Discard a card: Draw a card and Reckless Looter gets -1/-1 until end of turn.

[Humphrey]

Rathi Dragon

I thought about something like this. Give it Hexproof or reduce to 1 land and your good to go.

[Amon Amarth]

Rathi Dragon would be awesome with Hexproof.

[Redshift]

Another interesting option would be to give Red a new piece of the color pie. Red could use a modicum of disruption or even looting. I remember hearing about them possibly moving looting to Red during the last GDS. Even the name sounds Red-ish. It would allow Red decks to compete with other colors in the late game by turning dead draws into gas. I think these are all reasonable suggestions.

100% agree with this. Looter effects are very red. They could make those types of effects red and expand on the 'welder' effects to allow red to perform shenanigans with artifacts. The whole idea of welding scrap into new weapons etc. is very red and has potential to be very strong too. Removing looting effect from blue and making those red as well as much of the artifact effects seem like it could work.

[Redshift]

Rathi Dragon

I thought about something like this. Give it Hexproof or reduce to 1 land and your good to go.

Hexproof is more or a blue/green thing IMO. Red could get a whole new ability that causes opponents who target red guys to take damage equal to their power of something. Like, go ahead and kill my guys but they're not going down without a fight :)

[Barook]

The only way I could see red become more powerful in legacy is through multicolour cards. Period.

I would love to see some good, new multicolored cards with red in it, especially for BR. I don't see why something like this couldn't be printed:

Mind Sear
Sorcery
Mind Sear deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
If an opponent was damaged this way, that player reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.

Flavorful design, fair casting cost, flexible and always useful.

Other than that, red needs better disruption against combo.

[TsumiBand]

The problem is that one of the main things that Red is supposed to embody is apparently 'chaos', which leaves a lot of its cards as being too unpredictable. Chaos Warp is probably the only card to come out of that mindset which even hints at competitive playability. All of the Fork variants and Warp Worlds in the world won't make the color any less "rofl" than it is.

Clearly its strength is in effects like Lightning Bolt and stuff like Price of Progress, or anything with the creature type "Goblin" on it. If land destruction hadn't been deemed 'unfun' by WotC maybe some really cool LD spells could be coming out of Red, but apparently that's no good. It's a tough nut to crack; Red and White have both historically had the problem of having "uninteresting" design space. Inasmuch as White's whole "weenies with neat abilities" thing tends to fail in the face of simply having bigger beats (Hatebears vs Tarmogoyf, par example), Red's chaotic mechanic is being executed in a way that is simply underpowered and non-competitive.

[Gheizen64]

Red chaotic mechanic could however be explored as to be just win-win. Simple example:

Chaotic Lightning R
Instant
Deal 3 damage to target creature or player then put the first card of your library into your graveyard. If it's a land, Chaotic Lightning deal 3 damage to you.
Sometimes it just come back


Voilà, conditional better lightning bolt. Using a coin is annoying and using this mechanic make the card better for Aggro decks (less lands) + has synergy with lavamancer/tombstalker/goyfs. Simple and efficient. Why Wizard never went there while we're seeing things like Flip cards is beyond me. Maybe before getting to useless revolutions for the sake of "new" fix what's old?