The Deck

This is my Torbran, Thane of Red Fell group slug combo deck where my plan is to slow the game down with various damaging or hate effects to primarily fry everyone to the crisp or secondarily combo out with Experimental Frenzy if our group sluggers are continuously interacted with. Going group slug makes the most sense to me since the enchantments can sustain my damage output continuously throughout the game without expanding too much of my resources and can ensure that the game ends quickly. The damage really adds up over time especially with Torbran in play which makes every decision extremely painful and difficult for my opponents. Lightning Bolt doing five points of damage feels so damn good!

Group Slug

Group slug strategy usually involves Rakdos colors with popular commanders like Kaervek the Merciless and Mogis, God of Slaughter at the helm. This strategy is basically when stax and group hug had a lovechild where hurting everyone equally while maintaining an advantage is the name of the game. Torbran, Thane of Red Fell is the perfect commander for a group slug strategy as he amplifies the damage inflicted on opponents, creating an advantage for me over my opponents to be able to outlast them due to the lesser damage I'm taking over the course of the game.

Let's Suffer Together

If you love stax strategies but want a new refreshing way to play it or if your playgroup absolutely hates stax strategies, this deck is perfect for you. Stax strategies unfortunately are pretty much frowned upon in regular commander outside of cEDH but group slug seems to be more accepted as players are still able to cast their spells and do whatever they want at the expanse of taking some damage. Many group slug decks actually prolong the game as the damage dealt isn't impactful enough but Torbran brings this strategy to the next level by enhancing the damage dealt significantly. This deck scales surprisingly well with the power level of the playgroup. For example, a leaner/faster deck will often suffer more than a casual/slower deck with group sluggers like Pyrostatic Pillar/Spellshock in play. Combo decks will find it really difficult to go off since many of the group sluggers interact really well with various aspect of the combo process.

Starting a Fire

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell's ability requires a red source to get the bonus damage and also doesn't stack that well with damage doublers because our opponents get to chose which effect applies first. Damage pingers and X burn spells are essentially more effective with Torbran in play. The primary way the deck dish out continuous pain is via enchantments like Manabarbs while also having planeswalkers and creatures join the fray for more damage output.

Burning Inquiry

The core strategy of this deck is group slug, making every decision more painful for my opponents to make than we do. Unfortunately, not every game will go as planned in the world of commander due to the popularity of blue and green which can easily deal with our troublesome permanents. A repeatable Reclamation Sage or an overloaded Cyclonic Rift can really hurt us but we do have a couple of cards that can mitigate this. In the event that we cannot finish out the game with the group sluggers due to a ton of interactions from our opponents, we will be pivoting to our secondary gameplan of comboing out with Experimental Frenzy.

Fiery Synergies

Group Slug

Burning out my opponents from the group sluggers is my primary win condition and is surprisingly effective with Torbran, Thane of Red Fell out. Damage from cards like Spellshock and Sulfuric Vortex adds up very quickly when Torbran amplifies their damage output. Cards like Jaya, Venerated Firemage and Embermaw Hellion makes the already painful group sluggers even worse for my opponents and hasten their demise.

Experimental Frenzy

This Experimental Frenzy combo is my secondary win condition if group slug doesn't get the job done. It usually takes a while to assemble and in most games my opponents usually are already super dead before even needing to come to this. Since there are some group sluggers in this deck that makes it harder for me to pull this off, it usually takes a couple of turns to get rid of them first. Cards like Enchanter's Bane/Chaos Warp are great cards to remove our own group sluggers like Spellshock/Pyrostatic Pillar/Eidolon of the Great Revel that is interfering with our ability to go off.

This combo is basically a mono-red version of the Future Sight combo commonly played in commander where Experimental Frenzy (instead of Future Sight) draws the entire deck with Sensei's Divining Top and Helm of Awakening. This combo allows me to draw my entire deck by activating SDT to draw a card and put it back on top of library, cast SDT for free, and repeat ad nauseaum. This will net me a card and a storm count for every loop performed. It's a pretty cool combo to pull off and nobody expects it at all:

Assuming I have 3 opponents with 120 lives total and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell in play, as long as I have at least 40 cards in my deck, I should be able to kill the entire table with Grape Shot. Without Torbran, I just need to play Land's Edge to be able to discard my hand (with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to reset the loop) continuously after drawing my deck. This loop will eventually kill the table as each land discarded will deal 2 damage to an opponent.

Emblems

With all of the boardwipes in the deck to clear the field of any creatures, it is entirely possible to win with any of my planeswalkers' emblems too. Notable game-ending emblems are as follows:

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PLEASE UPVOTE FOR MORE BURN!!!

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Revision 32 See all

(3 years ago)

-1 Fiery Emancipation maybe
-1 Swiftfoot Boots main
Top Ranked
Date added 5 years
Last updated 3 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

10 - 0 Mythic Rares

37 - 0 Rares

18 - 0 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.94
Tokens Elemental 3/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Emblem Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Folders My EDH Brews, Cool ideas, Great Ideas, Thematic, Interesting Ideas, Cool Ideas, Fun/Strong, My Active EDH Decks, want to try, Decks to try
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