Did a crazy meme jank deck take off? Unsuprisingly, no. It was never going to do anything. Red is too fast, Fires is too fast, Reclamation out-tempos it, and Azorius control will never let you set up your tools unless you have an absolute God draw.

It was one of those "look at these silly things I can do" deck that is dependent on your opponent not actively trying to win ASAP.

Well yeah, but then which deck isn't monored favored against if it's on the play?

Is Experimental Frenzy actually good post-board? Elsepth Conquers Death is a clean answer to it.

The only jank I've managed to reliably get off is a couple over 20 tokens from Finale of Glory via Nyxbloom Ancient. I did 32 once.
The only reason that was even doable was that I have the op concentrating on a boggled up Druid instead of the jank. Lotus they see coming I'm sure. Finale notsomuch.

What are you going to put in its place that ECD cant also take care of?

Not sure if this has a chance, but when we exclude permanents that cost 3+, people could go back to Risk Factor. There was a time when this was deemed the 3rd best option for card advantage, losing to Frenzy and the Chandra that drew cards. Both of those die to ECD though.

All 4 RDW decks in magic world championship just ran LUTS and Robber of the Rich main board for card advantage. 3 of the 4 had some number of Frenzys and Chandras in sideboard (1F/2C, 1F/2C, and 3F/0C).

I don’t think Frenzy is as good in this version of RDW as it used to be. Before you had a bunch of cheap face burn you could rip off in a turn but there’s more 3 and 4 mana spells in this standard’s version. Before just chainwhirler at 3cmc and everything else 1 or 2 mana (or 3cmc with 2 mana wizard/spectacle discount). Now you have Torbran, Anax, and Embercleaves creating drag. And now Frienzied turns have less face burn, so you’re frienzying board dumps more often then 9 damage for lethal off the top.

Card still has value but I can see why MWC players relegated it to sideboard or omitted altogether in this version of RDW

ECD will answer most other things, but most other things will also have an ETB effect - e.g. Torbran might let you attack that turn, Chandra Acolyte of Flame would attack for 2 already (more if Calvacade is on the battlefield), Tibalt would also have made a 1/1 ... Frenzy is good if you can untap with it, but it takes a lot of lands for it to be good "ETB".

Both Andrea Mengucci and Seth Manfield said Experimental Frenzy is only good in the mirror now, and even then it's not that good, because you can tap out for Frenzy and die to Embercleave.

Anyone know how good 5C Niv Mizzet is in this meta? It seems to have largely disappeared, not sure why, since Jeskai Cavaliers is still around implying the decks of last meta are competitive.

I saw an interesting fires PWs the other day, 5C Niv is non existent IME.

5 colour Niv is the greediest deck out there, as long as you pretend RDW doesn't exist it'll outgrind anything

5c Niv was never meta. except for brawl.

Ugh, can't find a deck I like:

- Jeskai Fires is nice in the sense that it has a strong proactive plan, but it's vulnerable to removal on its namesake enchantment, and many decks right now are running Elspeth Conquers Death. It's also pretty bad at stopping the opponent's gameplan, usually no matter what it is (e.g. against the UW Thassa blink deck), unless it kills them first.
- Monored is too dice-roll dependent.
- UW control just acquired Temur Clover as an unwinnable matchup.
- Not interested in Cat Food + Temur Clover (they don't feel like my style of deck).
- For some time I thought UW Thassa blink was the deck for me, since it looked really sweet when I saw it on stream. However when I tried playing it, it felt underpowered. Charming Prince and Fblthp, the Lost aren't cards you want in a constructed deck, but they're necessary for the deck to function. Result, if you don't draw the pieces, you're playing a terrible game. Granted if you assemble Agent of Treachery + Thassa you're probably winning. That's one big bright spot for the deck; the other is the Thassa + Elite Guardmage combo is very strong, and Thassa + Prince/Fblthp is great value every turn too.

Still have to try Temur Reclamation & Bant goodstuff. Monored seems to have gotten rather less popular, maybe it's time for Temur Reclamation to shine; however it's still a deck very impeded by Narset & Teferi, and those are frustrating cards to lose to. Bant maybe? A part of me also wants to cast Casualties of War, I wonder what the best shell for that card is.

Also lol @ all the top decks running 26+ lands. I've even seen 28. Hah.

Azorious blink sound interesting got a pile?

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2809433

It's sweet when it gets going, problem is when it doesn't get going (or even if it gets going but it isn't enough to win).

I haven't played for a while, but that was similar to what I played, more creatures though with a higher curve (This was before Red really exploded and the deck felt too slow) It was a fun deck

One card that was surprisingly good was Deputy of detention. It helped take care of other permanents and tokens. Thassa can also sometimes get value by either using it to wipe tokens or if they replay a legendary to relock down their legendary. Of course it dies to removal, but you can get some interesting tricks like using time wipe to permanently remove a creature that is locked down. Not saying this is a great card, but in a deck where you are using Charming Prince already.....

IMO, the deck needs a good ETB 2 mana card that has some impact on the board. Or Reflector Mage. That would work pretty well.

Edit: the post inspired me so I broke out the deck again (Hadn't played in about a month) and went 5-1 with it BO1. Lost to a RDW Cavalcade, beat 3 RDW regular flavors, 1 UW control and Mono green. I was down in Gold level, so take the streak with a grain of salt, but it is a fun deck. I lowered the curve a bit and added 4 Alseid of Life's Bounty, and they seemed to work well. Lifegain vs Red and creature protection vs the rest. Also give Cavalier of dawn a target.

The matchup vs. RDW seems pretty even to me - if you stabilize you've got plenty of tools to put the game out of reach, but RDW is very capable of forcing a sweep-or-die situation and it's not easy to answer Anax/Torbran (except with ECD but that's more expensive than those two cards). Granted, it might be different in BO3 (which I'm not really playing) since you get to board Devout Decree and Aether Gust. I can't believe in Alseid. What are you trying to protect? It's not a good card to blink with Thassa either, and it's only blocking Scorch Spitter & Rimrock Knight out of the red deck.

Jeskai Fires with Fae of Wishes might be my deck of choice for BO1 now - it seems to fix the problems with answering the opponent's gameplan. I'm also running ECD instead of some of the top-end, it's a good card after all, possibly the most important one from THB.

I almost built it a few times but then I either didn't want to spend so many mythics or had something else to play. Jeskai lacks my two favorite colors so there's probably a reason..


Yeah, it's okay for the Bo1 queue when you don't have time but want to get something done. I said it before, I don't want RDW to be a t1 deck for it's already the fastest and gets it's (Arena) meta share from that alone.


I was even thinking of trying the dark side when there was no middle ground. Thankfully Aaron Gertler showed up and delivered a successor to my previous favorite deck (GRN Golgari -> Krasis -> Dreadhorde midrange - that was the last time I played Bo3). But I don't agree on this being unwinnable from the UW side. It does feel quite bad to lose to it after an eternity, but then you can't really mess with Dream Trawler. You may have already won when it comes down - which is no argument, but when you haven't, you need to wish for one of the silver bullets without getting any part countered.

Thassa + Agent sounds like a meme to me. You lose to it when their stars align.

There was a Sultai shell with Casualties in one of AGs videos, but iirc that was a smaller midrange deck, ergo not where you want to be.

edit: Could've been pretty much this. I just wonder why there's no Liliana to hedge against Dream Trawler. Should be unplayable in Bo1 due to RDW but I might try it in Bo3.

I get this, and I am not saying it is "the answer" or anything. I just threw it in to lower the curve and so far it has done what I wanted, buy time. As far as what it protects, it keeps the Cavaliers and Guard in play. The main thing though is it allows for lots of trucks, and even the potential for tricks tends to slow down the opponent. They target a creature with Bone crusher? Fizzle it. They attack with Embercleave? Zero the damage. They want to exile your Thassa? Nope. You need to get in the last few points?

Again, I am NOT saying this is some great card, but out of the one drops I have tried to speed up the deck a bit, this has been a pleasant surprise.

I plated a bit more last night and it dropped to a more reasonable win rate of about 60% (and I expect that to go down as I go up in rank.) but it is just fun to play. I get a few Nice! comments when playing, like using the White Cavalier to nuke 2 of their permanents with Thassa, and next turn killing their Tokens with Deputy.

I agree though, no deck that is top tier is very interesting to me, so I am playing other stuff now for the most part.

What's the interaction when a creature blocking a red creature wielding Embercleave gets pro red? Creature doesn't take damage, sure (unless Stomp), but what about Trample?

trample works as if the creature didn't have protection, same as Indestructible