I know, I know. For many it’s not cool but despite playing with a variety of decks and having fun for sheer consistency and increasingly having to play better I cannot overlook my mono red. Although it’s still not packed with what would be a pro tour standard deck with the current build with singletons for most of the iconic cards like Hazoret, Phoenix and new addition chainwhirler it is always fun to play. Despite the mirror against chainwhirler I still think Firebrand is often the star of the deck. He can be a bit like perilous myr back in the Magic Duels days before he got the ban hammer.

Any other fans out there! And I do so wish Barney was able to play Arena and show us how rdw should really be played!

SD

Haven and Cucho are excellent red mages. They can help you out I’m sure!

Cheers Barney! I know both those guys are great and already helping. One thing that just struck me in sideboard mode is rather than try and add more of the same do I try and sideboard into Rakdos which although it means at least 4 slots to mana, adding in card draw, hand destruction and exile effects may be way to go. Are replacements like Bomat for firebrand worth the risk for unlicensed disintegration activation as duel removal and burn. I already run heart and fleetwheel in main so already have some artefacts to play with. It may be too much a transformation but value cards like vraska’s Contempt may make sense but currently few dual lands make that probably a bad idea. So is there any good answers in a mono red sideboard that don’t compromise the fast and lowish curve nature of mono red. SD

Edit: primarily v control. Red sweepers are a good answer for token decks which in general mono red does not worry about especially if running multiple copies of chainwhirler. UW and to an extent UB control can punish mono red with no good answers.

Red answers to control are Hazoret and Phoenix, if you dont have dual lands then I suggest sticking to red for consistency, Firebrands are great but the first pieces you need to grab in that deck are playsets of Khenra and Ahn-Crop Crasher those are the bread and butter of the deck and you wanna have them in your opening hand.
Bomat and rigging runner are great in the low end.
And of course 3 Chandras is a good number in constructed
Edit: check this guide it was written before KLD and AER arrived to Arena but it shows a comprehensive way to build that deck card by card. guide

Thanks Cucho, made some tweaks based on this and bringing the curve down a little. I adjusted down to 22 lands now ( I was running 24 with a slightly higher curve). It can still be annoying the number of times I still get flood. Mana screw is never really an issue with the lo curve and right mulligan. SD

Running 24 lands in RDW and curve out to Hazoret is not great without Ramunap Ruins... those lands allowed you to flood freely and ping for lethal with your mana base... oh man I will miss this deserts after rotation

I often find that the strongest card vs control is Bomat Courier. Especially against UB who often seek to trade 1 for 1 (and have contempt for hazoret/pheonix) then look to gain advantage with card draw/scarab later. If you can dump your hand while damaging them and then draw 4-6 cards it's often just too much for them to handle. Quite often players will prioritise killing the courier, which they probably should, but that means they're not killing the threat you've played that turn so you're getting extra damage.

Playing a courier on turn 1 is huge. It's not great against chainwhirler though, so the question becomes how many couriers vs how many soul scar.

Happy birthday SD!!

Cheers Barney! I had a blast! SD

Things remain the same! Whilst I do now have a decent variety of decks in main themes e.g. BU control with Scarab God and Bolas Grixis Dragon deck the number of times you run into red or Rakdos aggro means you need a fast deck for consistency and grind. Created a different more haste centric mono R which does well enough but not as consistent as the original. In this build also trying out some G anti chant hate with Naturalize fuelled via Aether Hub mana and the haste build runs HOD whilst seemingly an odd choice in the deck is a good sweeper with haste creatures following a rebuild normally working well. A still common issue reported by others is land flood. Running just 22 lands it’s surprising how often I run into flood - ie 5 to 6 straight land draws normally mid match from around turn 4 but at times it can happen after my turn 3. Normally with lo curve have action anyway on those early turns but running into control decks you know you are in trouble if you start to flood in an aggro based deck. SD