I guess my concern with leaning into trying to use life as a resource as mono red is that I don't have it all the time. I did add a bunch of sources of it but I won't always have it and if I put in some of these cards its also going to put more emphasis on opponents removing my commander than they already do. I was more using it as a defensive layer as I have almost no blockers in my deck so chip damage and aristocrat tactics can normally be harder for a red deck to continue to survive. I did consider a few other things like
Well of Lost Dreams but I just didn't feel like I could consistently enough set that kind of stuff up. I did include
Cosmos Elixir though which might be a mistake but I figured I would at least put it in for testing before making that assumption as I do want more draw outlets.
Treasonous Ogre could still be quite reasonable I do have a hard time because it will sit in your hand until you are ready to sort of all in a turn. Its nice though that its a 4 mana card that can generate 10+ mana fairly easily but I also think in a lot of cases it has a similar result to
Mana Geyser. The ogre relies on your life still being high where as the Geyser requires opponents to tap their lands.
Staff of Compleation - my thoughts on the consistency of getting the lifegain are still a thing here but its an interesting card from that perspective so I am adding it to my
Danitha, Benalia's Hope as both ramp and draw where I do think I have the consistency to pull it off.
Urza's Saga - Yea thats probably fair.
I did a little poking around, ordering of cards, and assembly based on what I had on hand and I came up with some changes I wanted to try out. I was starting to view this idea as a little bit more of a combo deck in that I want commander + some artifact / enchantment payoff + spells and all of that takes some draw and ramp to assemble so with that I thought the different filter + treasure cards helped assemble nicely.
DECK CHANGES:
- Crater's Claws → Furious Rise Claws being a sorcery and X spell are both reasons I am sort of so so even with it increasing base damage by 2 due to our commander. I want a few more draw engines in here.
- Tundra Fumarole → Demon Bolt I thought a bit more about Tundra Fumarole and I realized I wasn't quite so keen on it. The timing and colorless mana make it hard to take advantage of a big play before it and the colorless mana it makes are hard to chain more burn spells with. I like that I can foretell the bolt and still cast it on an opponents turn right behind fortelling it for essentially its mana cost in one turn but I can also save it as a cheap hard hitting spell for later if I want.
- Bottle-Cap Blast → Big Score I wanted to cut a few more spells to add the filter and treasure cards. The treasures can help me push for big turns so I get some ramp and card selection with these and they also copy really well with a few things that I have that can copy spells.
- Earth Tremor → Unexpected Windfall I wanted to cut a few more spells to add the filter and treasure cards. The treasures can help me push for big turns so I get some ramp and card selection with these and they also copy really well with a few things that I have that can copy spells.
- Unholy Heat → Pirate's Pillage I wanted to cut a few more spells to add the filter and treasure cards. The treasures can help me push for big turns so I get some ramp and card selection with these and they also copy really well with a few things that I have that can copy spells.
- Soul Sear → Inspired Tinkering I like the tinkering as a card advantage play that comes with some ramp. It seems like something that I could copy well and it just seems like a solid card all in all.
- Fire Prophecy → Flick a Coin cutting some of my slightly more expensive burn and I like Flick a Coin for its all around treasure / cantrip effect that would copy well and just grease some other effects.
- Shivan Fire → Voltage Surge I think I would be happier sacing an artifact than paying 4 extra mana for this effect. Both can be rough but in a situation where I am pushing for a win sacing a mana rock isn't a big deal and I just added some treasure to the deck that could still work for the 4 damage as removal.
- Seismic Strike → Sweltering Suns I wanted another sweeper kind of effect and I like that the 3 damage stuff doesn't kill my commander but clean up the board fairly well. I also love the cycling option of sweltering.
- Resurrection Orb → Mana Crypt I felt like I had a little too much on the lifelink equipment and I was between cutting the orb or Batterbone but in the end kept the living weapon because I liked its equipped status of pumping and giving vigilance plus giving me a body at 2 mana to use in a chump block. It also saved me some $$$ as the living weapon costs almost nothing and the other was a $5 card.
- 1 Snow-Covered Mountain → Cavern of Souls Its a commander centric deck so it seems fair to invest a cavern to keep the commander alive slightly more often.
- 1 Snow-Covered Mountain → Tower of the Magistrate tower can disable indestructible or protection from red equipment. It can slow down voltron decks cheaply given its activation cost is low.
- 1 Snow-Covered Mountain → Urza's Saga opens a little more equipment tutoring for lifelink or tutoring for cheap ramp.
I still have over 20 burn target spells so I think I am still ok on consistencies. I don't want to let that get too low before testing the deck out but ideally if I could find a few more draw engines I could see cutting a few more burn spells for actual draw I am just not sure how excited I am about running something like
Endless Atlas. I will see if I can come up with some additional good draw outlets.
Zacama
