Deck Building 101: Black Red Sligh for Standard

It's 2:52am. My supervisor still hasn't informed me on the status of my new client, whether I'll start working for him or not. I'm still waiting for the go signal. Maybe out of boredom and sleepiness that I have decided to write a new post for my blog with a topic, of course, about Magic: the Gathering TCG which my friend and officemate Amy branded as "geek" stuff. Lol... I don't blame her. Obviously, I know a lot of you aren't familiar with the game but I'm trying my best to write it as simple and as understandable as possible. I guess I just can't satisfy everybody. *sigh*

Keep the fire burning

Going back, I don't know what's the reason why this deck keeps on popping into my mind so I decided that this will be my topic for today. Red decks in our local community get bashed always as the Kithkins are dominating the tournaments. As what I've noticed with the kithkin deck, they are very resilient to mass removal. You've just Firespouted their one and two drops and here you are again facing a trio of Spirits or a giant ranger with his kithkin buddies. They can even play around counterspells as you have to deal with their early beaters first, forcing you to tap out and giving them an opportunity to sneak in their bomb spells.

But after seeing this build in a Magic-League trial tournament, which got a record of 4-1, I thought this might be the answer against the little white men. Here's the list for reference.

RDW by infernuz
Record: 4-1-0
Maindeck
2 Unwilling Recruit
4 Incinerate
4 Blightning
3 Puncture Blast
4 Lash Out
4 Flame Javelin

4 Heartlash Cinder
2 Stigma Lasher
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Tattermunge Maniac
4 Figure of Destiny

4 Auntie's Hovel
4 Graven Cairns
13 Mountain

Sideboard
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Shriekmaw
2 Vexing Shusher
4 Demigod of Revenge
1 Stigma Lasher
3 Dragon's Claw

The key card here is Blightning, a black-red gold card that do two things, deal 3 damage to your opponent and force them to discard two cards from their hand. A pretty decent spell for a common card. I like the list but I want to go through other possible components and card choices to improve it.

I know kithkin is weak against hand disruption (unless they're running Wilt-leaf Lieges) so I looked up for other discard spells. The only option I got worth adding is Thoughtseize but I think it'll be sitting in the sideboard. My next concern now is how to improve the beaters, my creatures. The Tattermunge Maniac is good, but he's just not my type especially in the later turns. The same with Heartlash Cinder, although he can eat huge chunks of life if combined with correct creatures in the early turns. My plan is to tune the deck into a type that can keep up in late game but maintains the aggressiveness in the early turns. My possible addition for the beaters would be Ashenmoor Gougers, Inner-Flame Acolytes, Spark Elementals and Stigma Lashers.

For the burn spells, I'll stick to maybe a total of sixteen to eighteen burners. Puncture Blast is out of the list and the other extra burn will be replaced either by a critter or an increase in the land count. My initial list would look like this:

BR Sligh by Mark Ian Alloso
Maindeck
4 Ashenmoor Gouger
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Figure of Destiny
4 Spark Elemental
4 Stigma Lasher

4 Blightning
4 Flame Javelin
4 Incinerate
4 Shock
2 Shard Volley

4 Graven Cairns
4 Sulfurous Springs
14 Mountain

As for the sideboard, I'm still brainstorming on it as it will depend upon our local metagame, which is full of aggro decks as based on our latest tournament. I've chosen Sulfurous Springs over Auntie's Hovel coz the "comes into play tapped" effect is a huge factor in shifting the gameplay of the deck.

I'll be doing some playtest online this afternoon or maybe with my card pool buddy once I get to complete the actual deck. I'll just post the match results, other related info and possibly a final decklist once it is done. Also, feel free to copy and playtest the deck. Maybe we can share info on its improvement. Just a leave a comment.

Till next time and thanks for reading peeps...