Creature (15)
Land (23)
Sideboard
Instant (8)
Planeswalker (3)
Creature (4)
Hi all,
I have never been a fan of red decks. I've always been a player who enjoys tempo strategies and awkward prison decks. Weird choices, but they've served me well. After brewing around in Pioneer for awhile, I've had the itch to build a red deck that attacks from a slightly different angle than most red decks.
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell is an interesting card. In the right shell, Torbran is extremely powerful and can overtake a game immediately. There are many ways to build around him. You can brew a "Big Red" strategy that focus on going above with Chandra, Torch of Defiance , Glorybringer , Stormbreath Dragon and other big red creatures. Burn will always be efficient, because your Wild Slash that dealt 2 damage to your opponents now deals 4 damage. Your burn deck generally doesn't want to tap out for a 4 mana creature that doesn't have an enter-the-battlefield trigger, so that may not be the best shell. Lastly, there is the aggressive strategy that has a ton of small, efficient creatures that Torbran turns into efficient beaters. With Torbran out, your 1 power creatures are effectively 3 power. This means that Cavalcade of Calamity is quite the effective card with Torbran out. As you can see, there are quite a few ways you can build around Torbran, and even more I didn't mention.
I would like to build in a slightly different direction here that allows Torbran to also do damage when he enters the battlefield, which is where Impact Tremors enters. Impact Tremors is a card that functions very similarly to Cavalcade, with the upside of not having to attack with our creatures to get the ping out of them. We simply get that initial ping when they enter, thus we can abuse this in a lot of ways.
So, now that we know the game plan, let's take a look at the list and break down why we chose those cards for our deck!
TORBRAN TREMORS
Creatures
Instants & Sorceries
Planeswalkers
Enchantments & Lands
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21 Mountain
Sideboard
GAMEPLAN
Our game plan is very simple. We want to play an Impact Tremors and begin to ping our opponent with our token generators until we can power out a Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and get an explosive finish. To get this done, we have a slew of token spells, creatures which churn out tokens each turn and a variety of burn spells to go to our opponent's face or to their blockers. We want to abuse the interaction between Torbran and Impact Tremors as much as we can, so finding this combo is imperative to our game. If we can't find the combo or even either piece of the puzzle, plan B is to beat our opponent up with our tokens or chump until we can find our combo.
DECK TECH
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell & Impact Tremors
First and foremost, let's talk about our most important cards, Torbran and Impact Tremors. With Impact Tremors out, each creature that enters the battlefield pings our opponent for 1, which is already pretty solid in a token deck. Add in Torbran, and each of your creatures entering the battlefield now does 3. Do you like playing Lightning Bolt ? Now each token you creature is a Bolt to your opponent's face. Torbran turns all of our 1 power creatures into a Bolt, and turns each creature entering the battlefield into a Bolt. Wild Slash deals 4, Lightning Strike deals 5. Solid combo, 10/10 would recommend.
Dragon Fodder & Hordeling Outcast
Now that we have discussed our important pieces, let's discuss what spells we are going to use to abuse them. The best red token spells in Pioneer that we have are Dragon Fodder and Hordeling Outburst as far as I am aware. Goblin Gathering also exists but this spell fluctuates too much for my liking. Plus, by the time we cast 2-3 of these, I'd like my opponent to be dead. Hordeling Outburst just feels better to me overall, so we will stick with those two. With Tremors out, Fodder deals 2, Outburst deals 3. With Torbran & Tremors out, Fodder deals 4, Outburst deals 5. Not to mention these are no longer 1/1's, they are effectively all 3/1's with Torbran out. Stay alive and chump block with them or go on the offensive and attack, the choice is yours.
Goblin Insigator, Goblin Rabblemaster & Legion Warboss
In addition to our token spells, all of our creatures minus Torbran also create tokens the turn they enter the battlefield (but most importantly, they are all Goblins). We have Goblin Instigator , Goblin Rabblemaster , and Legion Warboss . These cards not only synergize well with Tremors and Torbran, but they also build off one another. Warboss and Rabblemaster create a token each turn they are alive, and Instigator is another Dragon Fodder . These goblin tokens that we have been creating also pump up Rabblemaster if we choose to attack with him, so they all work together very well as part of our game plan.
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
With the addition of M20, we also have a unique Chandra planeswalker that really helps this deck as well. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame is a token generator and she also rebuys us any of our token generator spells that we've already cast with her -2 ability, essentially giving them all flash back. She is very powerful with Impact Tremors and Torbran, and definitely warrants a spot in our deck.
Wild Slash, Lightning Strike & Stoke the Flames
Creatures just aren't cutting it? Let's deal damage to their face! We play a variety of burn spells such as Wild Slash , Lightning Strike , and Stoke the Flames . I am unsure of how many of each copy to play right now, so I have opted for 4 Slash, 3 Strike, and 2 Stoke. While Stoke is definitely the most powerful spell, it is also the most conditional spell of the bunch. If we don't have any tokens to convoke, it's a 4 mana burn spell and that's not what we're looking for. We want cheap interaction, thus Slash & Strike take precedence over Stoke in my opinion. As noted before, Chandra buys us these spells back from the yard if we have the mana available, making them twice as deadly.
Sideboard
Like all sideboards, this will fluctuate to your local game store or whatever tournament you are playing in. I generally like to have a board that doesn't dilute the game plan too much, so I stay pretty basic with my card choices.
Searing Blood comes in instead of Strike against creature heavy decks. I like that it burns the creature and face, so it's a definite include.
Smash to Smithereens is an absolute house against artifact decks. I have a few artifact players in my store, so I never leave home without them. If you aren't expecting artifacts, tune this to how you see fit.
Goblin Chainwhirler is a goblin, wipes our opponents tokens off the face of the earth, and is amazing with Torbran. I like playing him over other sweepers such as Anger of the Gods , even if they deal more damage, because he doesn't wipe our board and can go to the face.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance comes in against control and midrange decks that we need to get some extra burn damage in. Chandra is amazing against control heavy decks that board out counters and small removal spells and bring in sweepers against us. Her ultimate will win you the game.
Voila! That is our deck! If you love playing red decks and want to try something a little off the beaten path, then a deck like this is right up your alley. I've had so much fun playing this deck over the past week that I couldn't help but make a deck tech for it. Like most decks I play, I do not believe this is the best deck in the meta or anywhere near it. I believe this deck is good and is competitive, but I do not see this deck winning you a Pro Tour or a GP. This deck is definitely extremely fun and will take your opponent by surprise, so take that for what it's worth.
Before we end our little tech here, I would like to talk about cutting the budget of the deck down for our budget players. By no means do you have to play Chandra, Torch of Defiance , Ramunap Ruins , or Wild Slash at all. These are the most flexible and expensive cards in the deck and can easily be replaced.
Cut Slash for Shock , as they are essentially the same card and the upside of Slash will very rarely, if ever be present in this deck.
Ramunap Ruins can be two extra mountains. Save yourself some money!
Lastly, Chandra can be replaced by anything you want. I like Tibalt, Rakish Instigator against lifegain decks, go bigger with Siege-Gang Commander and fling your gobbos at your opponent and also ping with Tremors, or even play Glorybringer for some old Standard fun and exert for 6, swing for 6 with Torbran out. Your options are limitless, and making the cuts I talked about can save you $60-80 depending on the prices of the cards at the time.
And that is it, friends! Thank you for taking the time to read through this giant epilogue of me rambling about Magic cards. As usual, please let me know what you think of the deck and what you would change, what you like and didn't like, and any criticism at all in regards to the deck or the formatting used. I always need more feedback on what to do better!
'til next time!
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Revision 1 See all
(4 years ago)
| +2 | Chandra, Acolyte of Flame | main |
| -1 | Hordeling Outburst | main |
| -1 | Mountain | main |
| Date added | 4 years |
| Last updated | 4 years |
| Legality | This deck is Pioneer legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 0 - 3 Mythic Rares 13 - 4 Rares 11 - 4 Uncommons 15 - 4 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.51 |
| Tokens | Elemental 1/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Goblin 1/1 R |
| Folders | Bookmarks |
| Votes | |
| Ignored suggestions | |
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