Mono Red Burn with Squee, Goblin Nabob

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 4 years ago

Burn can be a difficult archtype to play in EDH, but this deck takes up the challange - and does it surprisingly well. The deck owes much credit to d0su's list back at salvation, but I don't think he arrived here yet and our lists are still somewhat different, so I might aswell make my own list now. We've discussed plenty of cards over the years and it's getting harder and harder to make cuts, but recent sets have actually been giving some nice additions. The deck was build in some sort of a challange I put to myself, wanting to make a monocolored control deck in each color (also have a monobrown) - this is hands down the most fun of them to play. It's all about explosive and stylish plays that surprises most, sometimes even myself. Without further ado, here's the list:

Decklist

Approximate Total Cost:

People looks at me weird when I pull out Squee, but he's such a workhorse, making red's looters into pure cardadvantage. The playstyle is rather straight forward. Ramp as much as you can, while going through your deck. Then when you got a critical amount of mana, play something big to burn the table.

Recently I had some quite rememorable games. One of them against a Rakdos reanimator, that had been dumping a whole pile of creatures to his grave, and then casts Rise of the Dark Realms. I had Fork in hand and one of the things I got to do was sac a Kokusho with a Disciple of Bolas.

Bonus Round is a stupid card! In one game I hadn't done much besides playing lands. Sat on Price of Progress, Bonus Round, Mana Geyser and some do-nothing cards. A Ghired deck was going out of hand and would win next turn if someone didn't wipe. So I drew into Increasing Vengeance. I cast Bonus Round, then Geyser to get much more mana then needed, Price of Progress x2, copy both with Vengeance, making 4 more Prices, flashbacking Vengeance for alot more copies. I didn't realize the deck to do this, until I drew that Increasing Vengeance. I could only cast 13 copies of Progress though, since I had Valakut out and was on 27 life. But the others died terribly.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 4 years ago

Mjmirobelli wrote: ↑
4 years ago
I'm so glad that you found this post! Thank you for all of the advice over the years while I lurked on MTGSalvation. This is the first time I've posted a deck since the days of EssentialMagic in like 2005.

I typically keep 15 Commander decks at a time. My first deck was Ashling the Pilgrim, and I still think about remaking her, eventually I tried changing it to Akroma, Angel of Fury and Lovisa Coldeyes. Squee, Goblin Nabob has been one of constant decks since I saw your posts a few years ago. Most of the others come and go although a few others have managed to carve out permanent spots for themselves in my deck rotation.

You noticed a couple of the cards from my last round of changes, none of which have been tested yet due to quarantine:

Drownyard Temple → Fabled Passage
Snow-Covered Mountain → Prismatic Vista
Final Fortune → Last Chance
Outpost Siege → Underworld Breach
Vance's Blasting Cannons → Dockside Extortionist
Blood Moon → Brass's Bounty

I changed Final Fortune for Last Chance because it should work better with Recoup since Last Chance is a sorcery. The sorcery speed is the same reason that I didn't consider Thrill of Possibility for this deck. Is it worth reconsidering? I never used the ability of Drownyard Temple to return it to my hand, so I decided to try switching it out. I honestly didn't even think of Thawing Glaciers, I'll definitely have to give that a look. I'm really looking forward to trying out Underworld Breach.

I like your inclusion of Buried Ruin. Has that worked out well for you?

I didn't realize that you had your deck posted over here too, thanks for sharing. What would be proper etiquette, should I move my deck list under your post and we could discuss there?

Last Chance is definitely better for that reason alone. There's not much reason to cast that effect at instant speed anyways, since you wouldn't get two turns if you cast it at an opponents eot.

About Thrill, I don't think there's any reason not to play it over Tormenting Voice, since it's only Recoup that wouldn't be able to hit it, and I properly wouldn't ever hit a looter with Recoup anyways.

Drownyard Temple doesn't return to your hand, it comes into play. I just another sacfodder when you don't have Squee, one that ramps also.

I really like Thawing Glaciers. It will consistenly make your land drops, and when you get excess lands, you might have Terrain Generator.

Buried Ruin is a nice tech. I only had Scrap Mastery to return my aftifacts (before Underworld Breach got here), and they tend to get blown up, so having the ability to return a doubler so you can make a blownout turn, is worth the nonbasic slot for me.

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 4 years ago

Continuing the conversation here sounds good. I'll post my deck list into this three so that I can keep track of it and have it for easy reference during discussion.

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 4 years ago

Here's my deck list from the other thread. I'm already thinking about a couple of updates based on your deck list and our conversation. Once I have a chance to think through them I'll post the suggested changes here.

Decklist

COMMANDER

1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

CREATURE

1 Burnished Hart
1 Dire Fleet Daredevil
1 Dockside Extortionist
1 Mogg Maniac
1 Runehorn Hellkite
1 Stuffy Doll
1 Solemn Simulacrum

ARTIFACT

1 Anvil of Bogardan
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Caged Sun
1 Chrome Mox
1 Endless Atlas
1 Expedition Map
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Primal Amulet
1 Pyromancer's Goggles
1 Ruby Medallion
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble

ENCHANTMENT

1 Dictate of the Twin Gods
1 Furnace of Rath
1 Repercussion
1 Underworld Breach

INSTANT

1 Arcbound
1 Chaos Warp
1 Comet Storm
1 Final Fortune
1 Impact Resonance
1 Increasing Vengeance
1 Inferno
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Price of Progress
1 Skred
1 Thrill of Possibility

LAND

1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Buried Ruin
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Spinerock Knoll
1 Terrain Generator
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
28 Snow-Covered Mountain

Approximate Total Cost:

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 4 years ago

I built the deck online and have been running through some test hands.

I've decided to change out Fabled Passage and Prismatic Vista. I like your suggestion for Thawing Glaciers and Buried Ruin.

How has All is Dust performed for you? I have a copy but never thought about running it here.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 4 years ago

All is Dust is great. I never have a large boardpressence, and they mostly consist of artifacts anyway, so I don't suffer much from it. It also deals with problematic enchantments.

Played two games last night on cockatrice. The one was terrible (never getting any lands), but the other was a great Squee experience. Turn 2, I ditched Drownyard Temple, ramped it turn 3, played Solemn t4. Very nice start. In the next couple of turns, I draw into Valakut, Burnished Hart and Wayfarer's Bauble.
But I was facing a monowhite agro deck, that got me down to 12 and would kill me if he got another turn. So on my turn I draw into Past in Flames and is like "YES!", then play Last Chance. I had had Bonus Round for the longwst time, but nothing to do with it. But now I have no hesitation to play Control of the Court, which draws me into Lightning Bolt.
Next turn I get Pyromancer's Goggles, play it and cast Bonus Round off of it. Cast Past, play Insult // Injury from the grave, then Bolt from hand and from grave, copying it a bunch of times with Reiterate. 9 Bolts that each dealt 24 damage was enough to end the game.
Think I could even have dealt more, if I also played Bonus Round from the grave, but well. still a stylish win

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

My group is getting together this coming Thursday to play. I plan to run this deck at least once. What I'lol be running is almost identical to my list above except I have not yet been able to pick up Dockside Extortionist and Thawing Glaciers.

I'll let you know how it goes.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 3 years ago

Cool! Looking forward to hear some reports. Good luck and have fun

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

The good news is that I got my new sleeves for the deck (the old ones were getting a bit beat up) and managed to score a Dockside Extortionist for my games tomorrow. Bad news is that looking through my deck I realized that I never got around to picking up Last Chance to replace Final Fortune.

I made some updates to my list above.

UnNamed1 · Post by **UnNamed1** » 3 years ago

Mjmirobelli wrote: ↑
3 years ago
The good news is that I got my new sleeves for the deck (the old ones were getting a bit beat up) and managed to score a Dockside Extortionist for my games tomorrow. Bad news is that looking through my deck I realized that I never got around to picking up Last Chance to replace Final Fortune.

I made some updates to my list above.

So I might be missing something obvious, but why Last Chance over Final Fortune? They have the same effects that I see, same CMC, only difference is the one you are wanting to put in is a sorcery over an instant?

Am I missing something here...

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

Recoup can be used as another way to cast Last Chance from the graveyard, whereas only Mizzix's Mastery and Past in Flames can cast Final Fortune from the graveyard.

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

We played 4 games, I used Squee, Goblin Nabob for our final game. My opponents were running Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, Omnath, Locus of Rage, and Ghave, Guru of Spores.

I was star struck by getting Gemstone Caverns in my opening hand (when going 3rd out of 4 players) and kept an otherwise unplayable hand. I couldn't get Squee, Goblin Nabob into the graveyard. I finally drew Gamble and used it to get Dockside Extortionist - I had 5 cards in hand and Dockside Extortionist ended up being the random card that I discarded. No one at the table played an instant or sorcery, so the Dire Fleet Daredevil in my hand was worthless. Omnath, Locus of Rage ended up winning pretty easily.

Honestly, that was one of my worst performances ever with the deck so I'm just going to throw the experience out since it was mostly caused by my play mistake at the start of the game. The only thing valuable that I took away from the game was a tremendous amount of skepticism about continuing to include Runehorn Hellkite - I almost never want to see that card and have only ever used it from the graveyard maybe once. Runehorn Hellkite is on the chopping block.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 3 years ago

Oh man, that sounds like a horrible game. Better luck next time!

I can understand cutting Runehorn Hellkite. There seems to be a lot of hopes to jump through, it has to go to the grave and even then 6 mana for a wheel is a tad much. Only good thing is, that it can be used instant-speed.

I havn't played with Dire Fleet Daredevil. I like him in theory, getting to occasionally copy a Demonic Tutor will be great, or even to use a Disenchant on a problematic enchantment, but yeah, there will be games where he does nothing. I have a copy in a flicker deck, and I think he'll be better when you can make use of him multiple times. In Squee, I rather use Fork. It can be copied from your grave, and enable some great end-turns. When Dire Fleet Daredevil ends in your grave, he'll proberly stay there for the rest of the game. Kinda the same reason I don't won't to shell out for Dockside Extortionist. He's good for sure, but it's a one time boost anyway so Mana Geyser or Brass's Bounty might be just as good.

What is the reason to play Gemstone Caverns? As much as I like to ramp in this deck, you'll pay with rescources and the Caverns won't tap for extra with your doublers. Is it really that good to have 2 mana open turn 1? You'll proberly be down to 4 cards the first turn.

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

Gemstone Caverns, in my mind at least, was for the potential to have that kind of fast start. I had 3 Gemstone Caverns from back in the day and wanted to work them into some of my EDH decks, that was the first time it's ability was relevant in this deck. I may leave it in to check out if it comes up again and works any better or may take it out for Thawing Glaciers when I get that card.

I see your point about Dire Fleet Daredevil and am going to look at Reverberate in that spot since I don't have Fork at the moment. Dockside Extortionist on the other hand is too good to cut, even though your point is valid as my last game demonstrated.

No official deck updates yet as I don't want to overreact too strongly to one poor performance out of scores of solid ones, but Runehorn Hellkite, Dire Fleet Daredevil, and Gemstone Caverns are all potential removals. I'm going to give it some thought between now and my game next Thursday.

Extraplanar Lens and Thawing Glaciers will go into the deck when I get them.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 3 years ago

I don't think Gemstone Caverns is worth the effort IMHO. Like, take my last game. I did next to nothing the whole game. I had kept a hand of Bonus Round, Recoup and Increasing Vengeance. I draw into Thawing Glaciers, which gives me a steady flow of mana. Then I draw into Tormenting Voice, which draws me into Mana Geyser and Wheel of Fortune. I have 8 cards in hand, ditch the Wheel. Next turn I play Geyser to make a bunch of mana, I can play Caged Sun with and still have mana to loot a couple of times and ramp with Burnished Hart. The turn after that I resolved Mizzix's Mastery. And then I won. Played Bonus Round, copied it (which I forgot, but even then it all worked out fine - Bonus Round is such an insane card!) Played six copies of Mana Geyser (which should have been 9) which all made 21 mana. Proceed to looting and find your wincon. Mana wasn't much of a issue here, so I'm not even sure I would have won earlier with Caverns.

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

We only had time to play 3 games this week so unfortunately I did not play Squee, Goblin Nabob among them. I did however make some changes to the deck based upon some of our conversations:

Snow-Covered Mountain → Myriad Landscape
Prismatic Vista → Burnished Hart
Gemstone Caverns → Armillary Sphere
Firestorm → Lightning Bolt

I always feel a little behind so I added in the ramp cards, I think 39 lands was too many so I cut that down to my standard 37 count, and I've only ever used Firestorm to good effect once.

Next changes that I'm eyeing up are adding Extraplanar Lens and Thawing Glaciers while potentially replacing Dire Fleet Daredevil with a more typical spell copier.

I will play this deck this week.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 3 years ago

I think you'll be overall happy with those changes. I have a standart of 36 lands, also in this build, and even though I also run Maze of Ith, it's very rare that I end up mana-screwed. Committing a few cardslots to artifact based ramp, will help on this. Also Hart and Sphere is good value, and it's a good feeling when you get them back with Scrap Mastery or by saccing Squee to Trading Post.

I never even considered Firestorm myself, even thouhg d0su back at salvation spoke very highly of it. To me it always seemed way to clunky to use, both needing enough targets and cards in hand (and you most likely wanted to Wheel afterwards, needing another specific card). Good old Lightning Bolt still wins games when you've casted a Bonus Round first

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

Much better game this week, I faced Phenax, God of Deception [/card], Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath [/card], and Maelstrom Wanderer.

None of the new cards came into play, my biggest plays of the game were Shenanigans a couple of times to get some opponents mana rocks, casting an early Furnace of Rath, and using Gamble to tutor for Dockside Extortionist - netting 6 treasure tokens with it.

I was maximum of two turns away from going off and winning (a lot of components were in my graveyard already) when the Phenax, God of Deception [/card] player comboed off with Eater of the Dead and Bloodchief Ascension.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 3 years ago

Good to hear.

I'm very interested in how Shenanigans preformed? It havn't come up in any of the games since I've added it. I like that fills the grave, but I'm a bit concerned that dregde for one isn't doing much on it's own. But still, it can just sit in the grave 'till you need to use it. Right now, I think I have 4 sources that can remove artifacts, besides Fork, and I wonder if it's too many. Shenanigans might be the worst of them, but I guess I have a flex-spot here for new releases.

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

I liked the ability to recur Shenanigans without paying any extra mana to do so, it was useful since a couple of players were getting fast starts via mana rocks. That being said, it was the first time I've really ever used it. So I can't really say one way or the other yet. I might like Shenanigans better in theory than in practice, I guess time will tell.

I'm excited to try Fiery Emancipation and (to a much lesser extent) Chandra's Incinerator from M21.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 3 years ago

Holy moly Fiery Emancipation! This is a card I can get behind. I've also had an eye on Double Vision, but I'm not too sure about it. Think it's worth testing though.

Chandra's Incinerator I don't really care for much. That it doesn't hit players is a big minus imo. I don't play that many creatures anyway, and don't really care much about other creatures either. When they become a problem, I rather deal with all of them a the same time anyway.

MeowZeDung · Post by **MeowZeDung** » 3 years ago

I'm wanting to throw together a mono-red list in the near future, and I've been weighing my options between one of the squees, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, Zada, Hedron Grinder, and Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame.

Squee, Goblin Nabob is particularly intriguing to me because turning Thrill of Possibility, Burning Inquiry, Cathartic Reunion, Faithless Looting, etc. into raw card advantage seems absurdly fun.

My question for you is, what is your primary strategy for getting him to your hand or in the yard? A 3 mana 1/1 chump blocker is transparent to your opponents, and they may just not provide you with the opportunity to block. Skullclamp, Trading Post, and Claws of Gix are the obvious cards I noticed for getting the Squee engine going, but that's not very many. Do you find yourself bolting Squee a decent percentage of the time to get the ball rolling? Or is this deck just a burn deck that doesn't play squee some games?

I'm intrigued in any case. If I build it, my list will be sans Wheel of Fortune, Gauntlet of Might, etc. though. I imagine there's enough budget options for mono red burn at this point though.

rogerandover · Post by **rogerandover** » 3 years ago

Welcome Meow!

Glad to hear about your interest in Squee. Of the listed commander, I think they will all have pretty different playstyles. I think ISPathfinder have a cool build with New-Squee that all about storming out. Torbran works great with bleeder-effects, but will put a heavy target on your face (at least I tend to target Torbrans when I face them

). Zada I have zero experience with, but I heard it can be very effective. Chandra will be Chandra tribal? Seems like there's a decent number of Chandra-tribal decks out there.

To answer your question, I never bolted Squee. In a usual game, I will play Squee turn 3, if I'm not ramping with anything. He will act as a blocker or get blown up, if I need to take something out with Blasphemous Act. But yes, Skullclamp, Trading Post and Claws of Gix are the ones getting him into the yard, if none of the other methods work. Sometimes you run into gravehate, and that will be a problem. You'll have to depend on other players or Chaos Warp/All Is Dust. Luckily it doesn't happen that often. Squee in the bin, is this deck's bread and butter but I can work without. Looting through your deck, will just fill your grave for a massive turn when you're ready to go off.

You should be okay without the really expensive cards, but those are the best ones. Wheels are really good, as they dig deep, so I would suggest running a couple of them. Reforge the Soul is the second best, IMO, but Wheel of Fate should also be an option. I played Commune with Lava for a long time, and it's also pretty good. It was just a bit hard to play it correctly. You kinda want to play it on your turn, so how deep do you want to go and are you willing to let key pieces get exiled? Of the doublers, I don't think there's that many other options. The only one I don't play here, is Mana Flare, though I did have it in here for some time. Sometimes I'm still inclined to play it. It's a cheap way to double your mana, but I swapped it out since I would almost exclusively play it the turn going off, and since I couldn't recur it, it felt pretty bad to discard it early on. Now we also have Underworld Breach, which might justify it. Still, you can do without doublers. Mana Geyser is a bomb, Brass's Bounty could also be. I just don't want to play both.

End note, you need to try looting with Alhammarret's Archive. It feels so good drawing 8 and discard 3 random with Control of the Court

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

This deck is super explosive. I played on Thursday against Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Kaalia of the Vast. I did very little during the game and still almost won. I was going to Past in Flames to cast Bonus Round, Insult // Injury, and Inferno but the Sidisi, Brood Tyrant comboed off with Gempalm Polluter right before my turn.

I didn't play many spells during the game but used Gamble to get Dockside Extortionist, used Pyromancer's Goggles to double Cathartic Reunion, and was able to ramp Drownyard Temple out of my graveyard.

This deck is super explosive and resilient.

Mjmirobelli · Post by **Mjmirobelli** » 3 years ago

I finally got a copy of Extraplanar Lens for this deck! I'm pretty excited to try it out, especially since Gauntlet of Might will probably be forever out of my budget for this deck.

Have you thought about or tried either Breath of Darigaaz or Hour of Devastation? I don't currently run Starstorm but I am looking for another sweeper.

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