Exodus, SS&B. Part 4: Red, Surviving the Firestorm

Exodus: Signed, Sealed & Broken Part 4 Red - Surviving the Firestorm

Looking at the quality of the cards, Red got hosed. The Sligh and SRB decks picked up a few possible cards, but I'm not sure any of them are going to make it into the top decks, although two of them look strong. Red gets a strong Land Destruction theme, but Red's real problem is that its two big themes, its new LD and its burn both are much less important and much easier to deal with in the new environment.

There isn't as much to say about red as there is about blue, black or white. The cards are less interesting and less powerful. The two decks built are Semismic Assault, and Spellshock.

Anarchist, 4R, 2/2, When it comes into play, relearn a sorcery. Weak Five mana is just too much, even if it is a free creature. And without the option to get an instant, which is what most red decks really want to do, this isn't worth it. Pass on this one.

Cinder Crawler, 1R, 1/1, Firebreathing if blocked. Weak A sealed deck card, and not even a very good one at that.

Dizzying Gaze, R, Enchant Creature, R: Enchanted creature deals 1 to target creature with flying Weak It normally doesn't do anything, and when it does it shouldn't do much more than an efficient job on one creature before the enchanted creature bites the dust. Unless you want to have fun with a certain green enchantment (you figure this one out), forget it. Even then, I'd pass.

Fighting Chance, R, Instant, Flip a coin for each blocker. If you succeed, they don't deal damage. Weak I hate to say this Herb, but do you know what? That's silly! I think someone at WotC just thought this would be funny; not only is it require blocking, half the time it doesn't work. No thanks.

Flowstone Flood, 3R, Sorcery, Buyback - 3 life, discard at random. Destroy target land. Average The cost of the buyback is just too high. Life you can spare, but you should never discard at random for something like that. And land is just too easy to get nowadays.

Furnace Brood, 3R, 3/3, R:Target creature cannot regenerate this turn. Weak Another overcosted creature. We should be free of this sort of thing by now.

Keeper of the Flame, RR, 1\2, RT: Deal 2 damage to target opponent, but only if he's ahead on life. Average This shouldn't happen, but it is a good reason to buyback the land destruction. Fundamentally the weakest of the Keepers, which are a strong cycle.

Mage il-Vec, 2R, 2/2, T,Discard at random: Deal 1 damage. Weak Fireslinger is a good card for red, because you pay in life. This is a bad card for red, because you pay in cards. Red has uses for its lands - Rathi Dragon, Fireblast. The rest of its cards are burn, and not to be wasted on such small effects, or creatures.

Maniacal Rage, 1R, 2/2, Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and cannot block. Average I'd say weak, but Giant Strength worked out, and this card is stronger for monored because of the ability to counter walls and other blockers. Plus, the casting cost is slightly lower. I mean, what red creatures really block anyway?

Mogg Assassin, 2R, 2/1, T:Flip. If you win, destroy target creature an opponent controls. Otherwise, destroy target creature of that opponent's choice. Weak What I want to know is what silly idea prevented this card from destroying your own creatures. At a CC of three, opposing creatures don't get that much harder to cast, so the flip isn't that worthwhile. And the Assassin is easy to kill before he can be flipped.

Monstrous Hound, 3R, 4/4, Cannot attack or block unless you have more land than opponent. Weak This was the promo card for the prerelease, and isn't good enough to justify the restriction. It would take 8 LD to make this effect reliable, and even then you'd have to worry about Harrow, counters, the new land tax, Sacred Ground, Armageddon, etc. Just use Lava Hounds; if you can't stand the heat, get out of the burn deck.

Oath of Mages, 1R, Enchantment, Each player deals 1 on their upkeep to opponent if opponent has more life. Weak Of all the Oaths, this is the one that will backfire the most. What are you going to do, constantly damage yourself? It doesn't make sense, and 1 damage a turn for 2 mana isn't that spectacular anyway.

Ogre Shaman, 3RR, 3/3, Has Stormbind built in. Weak Five mana for a creature gets you a Sliver Queen, or at least an Orgg. This is one mana too many, no matter how much fun you had with Stormbind in the good old days.

Onslaught, R, Enchantment, When you successfully cast a creature spell, tap target creature. Weak Another blocking card. Haven't we seen enough of them? Also cripples you if your opponent has no creatures.

Pandemonium, 3R, Enchantment, Whenever a creature comes into play, its controller may deal damage equal to that creature's power to target creature or player. Watch List A very, very good and splashable card. Ball Lightning now does 12, Viashino 8 a turn. Combine this with Recurring Nightmare and black recursion for huge amounts of damage, or with Alluran and Man-'o-War for an instant kill. Dangerous stuff!

Paroxysm, 1R, Enchant Creature, reveal controller's top card on upkeep. Kill creature if land, +3/+3 if not. Weak You HAVE to know what your top card is all the time to make this work, which makes this conditional aside from being a creature enchantment, plus it doesn't take effect on your opponent's turn or on the turn cast. Worse than both Giant Strength and Maniacal Rage. However, can be used to kill walls, but that's not very efficient.

Price of Progress, 1R, Instant, 2 damage to each player for each nonbasic land that player controls. Strong Finally, a good red card! This can do devastating damage to many decks, and will do at least 4 to most nonmonocolor decks. Plus, it's an instant. This gives us another reason to go mono. At least, its an excellent SB card.

Raging Goblin, R, 1/1, unaffected by summoning sickness. Average A decent creature, but not as good as Mogg Fanatic or Jackal Pup, except in the Hatred deck.

Ravenous Baboons, 3R, 2/2, When it comes into play, destroy target nonbasic land. Strong A very good effect, and the price is right. Could help make the LD deck reasonable, but could be uncastable against a mono deck if you have a color other than red in yours.

Reckless Ogre, 3R, 3/2, Gets +3/+0 if it attacks alone Average Four mana and too easy to kill, but 6/2 isn't bad. I just don't see this in any competitive deck.

Sabretooth Wyvern, 4R, 3/2, Flying, First Strike Weak This card is overcosted. Just because it's a red flyer doesn't mean you should be willing to pay an arm and a leg.

Scalding Salamander, 2R, 2/1, 0:Deals 1 to each creature opponent controls without flying if Salamander attacks. Average Against some decks, this could be wonderful. Attack with it, wipe out 3 creatures, get through for 2. But it doesn't kill Birds of Paradise and is pretty easy to kill. An early draft pick, of course.

Semismic Assault, RRR, Enchantment, you can discard lands for 2 damage each. Strong Let's fix a decent double-edged sword by removing the other edge! Wait, that's not a good idea. This is now a strong card, but playing multiples is probably not a good idea unless you're going for the kill, especially with Necrologia?!: (Note that this deck can kill turn 1: 3 Petal, Ritual, Land, Seismic Assault, Necro, Necro for 19, kill)

This deck does one and only one thing: Necro/Assault. Covered by Abeyance if you can. Then Necro and discard for the kill. It has 30 lands so that a Necro for 16 will yield 8 lands, combined with 2 in your hand. The deck is VERY straightforward, but could be very effective.

Shattering Pulse, 1R, Instant, Buyback 3. Destroy target artifact Strong This is a good way to balance Shatter, which almost cost only R in Tempest. Being an instant makes it good.

Sonic Burst, 1R, Discard: Deal 4 damage. Strong This is 2 mana for 4 damage, at 2 damage a card, making the cost worthwhile in the right situation. And that situation is frequent in SRB.

Spellshock, 2R, Enchantment, Deals 2 mana to the caster of every successful spell. Strong If you can take it, maybe he can't. This is going to do 2 damage at least, probably 6 or more unless it gets a Disenchant. Either way, its job is done.

Summary of Red: Red is now even better at doing direct damage (and good at LD). Life gaining is much stronger now, and locks are easier. Red can be played by itself in two ways: For burn, as in SRB, or control, as in Sligh. SRB is even more of a coin flip than ever, and it got better. Sligh is feeling the pain; it got nothing worthwhile. Note, however, that red can survive on a few broken burn spells. Visions was a good set for red, and would have been if Fireblast was the only red card in it. A new SRB might look like:

New name: No brain, no thought, no problem.

Next will be Green, as always the forgotten color, then the artifacts and the one (not so good) land. Finally, I'll wrap up Exodus and preview the new Rath, Type II and Extended environments.