In my inaugural post here on NGA I'd like to bow down to my new Haven_pt Overlord for building the "El Loco", even with 50% SOI the deck was so much fun I just had to open my wallet and buy the rest of Innistrad, it also set alight my long dead love for aggro decks, basically turning me into a degenerate. Too bad the deck travelled to Egypt but I guess I can still have fun with the older brew for a while. At any pace it really makes me wonder whether the new version is actually better, judging by the sheer number of 4+ cards, I think the beauty of Mono Red is to deal massive amounts of damage early and close with haste or a burn spell.

I am proud to announce the return of El Loco!

I put this deck together to test some possible new additions to the El Loco beatdown philosophy and wow...
It went 8-2 on the ladder (1 loss was mostly due to a really stupid misclick on my part and the other was a mulligan to 4, that I nearly won)

I'll do a card by card analysis, even though this isn't really a final build yet:
El Loco RDW 4.0

Creature(21)
2x Bomat Courier (early hitter and card advantage. Great for drawing removal away from bigger threats. Don't be afraid to ditch your hand if your holding crap or it will net you more cards than you currently have)
2x Insolent Neonate (A prime 1-drop in a madness build, the more mid-range version of El Loco ran out of room for a full set)
1x Flameblade Adept (competes with the neonate and Glory seeker, who didn't make the cut. The deck has enough Discard to make it do work)
2x Scourge Wolf (Here's a card people have forgotten. 2cc 2/2 with first strike is good by itself, double-strike which is very attainable with all the Discard is sweet. Has already won me a couple of games, especially with Insult)
2x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider (another removal lightning rod, that nearly always gets some damage in. You gotta love the monkey... Beware caravans)
3x Ahn-Crop Crasher (So much better than I expected. Great for killing walkers who try to protect themselves with tokens and getting menace damage in.
2x Lathnu Hellion (just like a Firecraft that hits twice. When youropponent uses removal on it, you know he's in trouble)
1x Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh (mono-red... Draw out that removal or ping-flip ftw. Only flipped her once in the 10 games, but it was fairly easy)
2x Impetuous Devils (how I missed the Devils... Nothing like a 6/1 trampler to lower that lifetotal)
1x Akoum Firebird (with all the haste in the deck, current into the birdies on T4 puts you into a very good place)
1x Hazoret the Fervent (hasn't shown up much, but she's indestructable... Dithching cards shouldn't be too hard)
2x Glorybringer (Glorybringer isn't good. Its a f@cking monster. With all the must remove threats the deck plays, he sticks around much longer than you'd believe. And the exert is really interesting, because your opponent usually refrains from killing it when it doesn't untap, only to come to regretting it later... Also a card opponents don't really expect in RDW)

Instant(6)
2x Lightning Axe (got to have something that kills Skysovereign. I've been wrecked too many times by the flying boat to not respect it. Really good with a temper)
4x Fiery Temper (Copter's best friend. Kept a hand with 3 tempers, Insult and 3 lands. I was playing against boros humans. Poor sod...)

Sorcery(6)
3x Distemper of the Blood (not a stellar card, but effective and great madness value. One game I had Glorybringer on the board, I cast Insult and Distemper on the Glorybringer... He was at 13 life. He went to 1, Injury did the coup-de-grace next turn.)
2x Exquisite Firecraft (another forgotten golden oldie... Uncounterable... Never forget)
1x Collective Defiance (still good even though its outclassed by Unlicensed Disintegration, but this is mono-red)

Split(1)
1x Insult (Has worked great so far, but I wouldn't play more than a singleton)

Artifact(4)
2x Key to the City (key to the card advantage)
2x Smuggler's Copter (The most Common T2 play in Duels)

Land(22) (I used to Dread seeing more than 4 lands with precious el loco builds. Not anymore)
18x Mountain
3x Looming Spires (0cc pump? Extra damage? First strike? Sign me up!)
1x Sunscorched Desert (why not? The negate impact is minimize and its an extra uncounterable point of damage that may just win you the game or least put you that little bit closer to winning)

To view this deck go to: https://www.magicduelshelper.com/deckli ... 92170e7a29

Created using Magic Duels Helper: http://www.magicduelshelper.com

I'm currently testing an Avacyn's Judgment for a Distemper. I'd really like to put a Bloodmad vamp or 2 in there. They're really nasty in the el loco Extreme build and work really well with the keys and crashers.

Enjoy!

I took this deck (with Avacyn's Judgment instead of Distemper) for a spin on the ladder and won two games. Both games were against the same guy who was running an unusual Mardu deck that had Bomat Courier + Kambal + Gisela (?). This is not enough to make concrete comments on most of the cards, but my impressions are that it's quite scattered. Why the singleton Flameblade Adept for example instead of more Insolent Neonates? Other thoughts:

I think Glorybringer with 22 lands is too ambitious. The card is great, but in my games it also wound up getting discarded (for Copter, etc) more often than not since I'd be a long way from casting them. I'd avoid running 5-drops with anything less than 24 lands.

Scourge Wolf is unusual but has been effective. I was kinda expecting to see Abbot of Keral Keep here as the standard RDW card advantage creature, but you do have few instants and sorceries.

Insult // Injury has been quite strong. Doubling the power of all your creatures is formidable, with auxiliary benefits of blocking lifelink and two points worth of burn later in the game. I would consider two. If, e.g., you get to attack with an unblocked Copter, Insult is at least a 3-point burn spell, not much worse than Exquisite Firecraft.

I like Collective Defiance better than Exquisite Firecraft in this build (it's also a card I have more experience with), but didn't play against counterspells.

Lathnu Hellion might be too aggressive. The deck is aggressive, but not that aggressive. If you were an 18-land RDW deck then yeah, but if your curve is going up to stable and strong creatures like Glorybringer and Hazoret, it might not be worth it. Kinda like Mardu Vehicles running Lathnu Hellion. Impetous Devils is in the same mould as Lathnu Hellion, but it will at least take down a creature with it.

PS Keep making these decks so each time I have to do "cast red spells" quests, I can netdeck

I don't know the card pool well enough, or at all really, but has anyone come up with a decent mono red control deck? I'm looking for something like Born of Flame from D13.