I've been following the spoilers for Kaldheim for about a month now and every card that gets leaked gets me more and more excited for this release. I've had a lot of fun theorycrafting in preparation for the new set and this one I love especially much. Generally mono red doesn't run a midrange style but it's been given all the perfect tools to do so with some really fun plays that can easily end the game on their own. Can't wait for the new set to drop so I can realize I'm nowhere near able to build this one and spend the next month trying until I hopefully get a version of it I can play.
The Combos
Fiery Emancipation + Toralf, God of Fury + Volcanic Salvo
- This one is going to be a ton of fun and considering the pieces only have to sit on the board for 1-2 turns it's actually pretty safe in a Bo1 and because it's not the main win condition it's fine for your opponents to sideboard against it, making this Bo3 viable as well. The combo itself is rather straightforward, Fiery Emancipation will have Volcanic Salvo do 18 damage to each of 2 targets, and you will likely have some spillover for Toralf to catch. Ideally you burn 2 weenies to have Toralf find 2 instances of 17 damage to redirect at your opponent's face. 34 face damage sounds pretty nice, but of course Toralf is a new source of damage so Emancipation triggers a second time and it's actually 102. Take that mono white!
Calamity Bearer + Quakebringer + Surtland Flinger
- originally I was going to make Giants as their own deck but there's a lot of room for them here and the key giants are all red so why not just slip em in? Quakebringer laughs at MTGA's mono white meta while also offering 5 power, which will come in handy in a bit. We get some other fun new toys in the form of Surtland Flinger and Calamity Bearer, which will allow you to fling giants for 4x damage. You can of course choose to fling bonecrusher as well but it's not quite a OHKO... until you remember that you still have Fiery Emancipation in your deck and that Calamity Bearer isn't a legendary. Kaldheim is going to be overrun by giants and we're going to be first in line to profit.
The Mana
Mono red isn't exactly known for scaling up well and playing a lot of expensive cards, but at the same time it's not bad at doing so when it tries. Burn cards like Fire Prophecy can not only stall the board but also help you cycle for your key players, and Irencrag Feat is a cheeky turn 4 Emancipation. Bonecrusher both burns and becomes an efficient body, and most of your key players fill your midrange curve quite comfortably.
The Sideboard
We have quite a short list for the sideboard, and that's because we generally don't need to change a lot to play for our win conditions. Against a more aggressive mono red as well as mono white, cycling, warrior and some others we bring Storm's Wrath to clear off their early setup, against control we have Robber of the Rich and Tibalt's Trickery (which I would only recommend using if they're countering a card that can win you the game with whatever you've already got or they're dropping a win con on the board that you can't allow to resolve) and against flying decks like Azorius fliers or Dimir Rogues you have Gadrak, who probably won't get to attack but will still be a hefty wall that can absorb most if not all of your opponent's pressure. You could even choose to mainboard him if you're not a fan of Leyline Tyrant, I just do it this way since Leyline can let me save mana for my combos even if I get screwed on 4 mana while also being a decent flying threat that will end a few games on its own.
Thank you for taking some time to appreciate my mad ravings, one of these days I'll make something good but in the meantime at least it's kinda fun, right? Catch you in a few weeks for the release where I build around an infinite combo that's coming with the new set!
