I've been watching a lot of PleasantKenobi lately, and if you know him, you know he loves Death & Taxes. This got me thinking though, can Mono-Red Taxes be a thing? Well it turns out, I think, the answer is yes.
The main goal of a Taxes deck is to make your opponent (and you if necessary... symmetry is fair... right?) pay a little extra to play their cards. So I set out to find Mono-Red cards that did just that.
The first card that came to mind was, of course, Manabarbs. To an unaltered board, once it hits there is only 20 mana available to each player before they die. Combine this with
Stoneshaker Shaman
and they either have to sacrifice a land each turn, or burn them selves for damage equal to their land count. Added bonus,
Stoneshaker Shaman
on the board will more than likely get your opponent to tap out before their end step, so they can't do instant speed shenanigans.
Another instant include was Blood Moon. In the modern format, most players mana base is nonbasic lands. So Blood Moon can more often than not completely cripple your opponents deck.
At this point I was looking for cards similar to Manabarbs, and found
Zo-Zu the Punisher
,
Akki Blizzard-Herder
, and Crack the Earth.
Zo-Zu the Punisher
turning everyone's land drops into shocks puts a short clock on the game, and Crack the Earth early game can be just straight up land destruction, and later get rid of a creature.
Akki Blizzard-Herder
can stop opponents from attacking all together if they are short on mana.
Now I may have stolen this next idea from Rogue Deckbuilder. The
Hollow One
strat is why chaos is in the deck name. Play a Cathartic Reunion or a
Burning Inquiry
for some card draw, and hopefully have some
Hollow One
s in hand to cast for free or 1. They also can be ditched early game if you don't have the mana or pieces to get it out. Another bonus,
Burning Inquiry
on an early turn could potentially destroy an opponents hand. Think about ripping all their lands from their hand, or one of the cards they kept the hand for. And if they mulligan? Feels bad man.
Vexing Devil is interesting, because it makes your opponent pay for your creature. More often then not, it will die to fatal push, but that's still a payment for the card. So a Win.
You might be wondering why
Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
is in the deck. His -4 late game can deal 4-7 damage when your opponent could be stuck with cards in hand because of Manabarbs, Blood Moon, or
Zo-Zu the Punisher
.
Leave your criticism below, and give some tips. I'm very new to modern, and don't know the format too well. Thanks!
