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Red is known as the color for players who aren’t actually interested in playingMagic: The Gatheringat all. Really, they’re just here to achieve victory as quickly as possible. Jokes aside, red is the most aggressive color in the Magic color pie and, historically, the best color for going solo.
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The mono-red archetype is a deck build as old as Magic itself and is made up of cards that are only interested in dealing damage to your opponent’s life total as quickly as possible. Consequently, red has built somewhat of a reputation as being the favorite color of novice Magic players who are uncapable of winning by more strategic means. However, as we’ll see today, red is a much more nuanced color than many players give it credit for.
Red’s Philosophy
As a color,red embodies emotion, passion, adventure, and freedom. More than anything, red is concerned with fulfilling its own desires as quickly as possible. If the fulfillment of these desires causes chaos or goes against established norms, then that’s all the better.
Red is all about living in the moment and not worrying about future consequences. Fittingly, the playstyle of many red decks embodies these sentiments as red mages often dump their entire hand onto the board as early as the first five turns in a game.
As mentioned above, red is alsothe fastest color in Magicand often featurescards that are incredibly effective in the early turns of a game but fail to keep up the later a game goes on. Win or lose, red is notorious for playing games of Magic lightning fast as well as taking the driver’s seat from the get go. No other color plays cards on turn one as commonly as red.
Primary Mechanics
Red’s most important mechanics includequick, aggressive creatures,damage-based removal, and artifact and land destruction. Below is a list that mentions all of red’s mechanics alongside brief descriptions of how they work.
Description
Haste
A keyword that allows a creature to attack the turn it enters the battlefield.
Direct Damage (Burn)
Damaging spells that can be targeted at an opponent’s life total. Often useful as removal as well.
Spells that can destroy an opponent’s lands.
Impulse Drawing
Exile cards from the top of your library. you may play them until either the end of this turn or the end of the next turn depending.
Firebreathing
A creature ability that allows you to pay red mana in exchange for a temporary power increase.
Effects that target a random permanent, player, or card.
Temporary Mana Ramp
Additional mana production that only lasts until the end of a single turn.
First Strike
A keyword that allows a creature to deal damage before other creatures without first strike.
Double Strike
A keyword that allows a creature to deal damage before other creatures without first strike, then deal their damage again.
Effects that destroy or remove artifacts.
Rummaging
Discarding a card beforedrawing a cardfrom the top of your library.
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Key Creature Types
Every color has two creature types that are especially important to them. These are known as their characteristic and iconic creature types. For red, the characteristic creature type isGoblinsand the iconic creature type isDragons.
Characteristic creaturesare the creature type that sees the most printings at every rarity whileiconic creaturesare primarily printed at rare and mythic rare. Iconic creatures are also the creature type that best exhibits the philosophy of their given color.
Characteristic Creature Type: Goblin
Speaking to red’s reputation as the best color for going solo,Goblins are actually the first creature typeused for the single creature type deck archetype. They are best known for their ability toquickly flood the board,make temporary mana through sacrificial effectssuch as Skirk Prospector,deal direct damage to opponents, and evenplay other Goblins from your library.
Goblin Chieftain, Goblin Warchief, and Goblin King are some of the best lords in the game. Goblin Lackey / Conspicuous Snoop / Muxus, Goblin Grandee / and Goblin Matron all have methods of bringing Goblins into play through alternative means. Lastly, Goblins like Dockside Extortionist, Goblin Chainwhirler, Legion Loyalist, and Goblin Mentor have all left deep impressions on Magic formats throughout the years with their unique and powerful effects.
Iconic Creature Type: Dragon
Debatablythe most popular creature typein all of Magic, Dragons exemplify red’s philosophy through their power, pride, speed, and arrogance. Just about every new Magic set released has one red Dragon printed at rare quality and always with a unique new effect.
Dragons are the only source of flying in redand, thanks to this keyword, make for a great curve topper in many red decks. They are also responsible for coining the"firebreathing"terminology of the creature’s ability topay red mana for a temporary power increase. Some of the most powerful Dragon cards printed in recent memory include Goldspan Dragon, Terror of the Peaks, Inferno of the Star Mounts, and Atsushi, The Blazing Sky.
Strengths
Over the years, the mono-red archetype has developed a reputation as a sort of litmus test for other decks to perform against. In other words,if a deck is incapable of beating mono-red, you shouldn’t be playing it. That being said, the speed that mono-red performs at is by no means easy to beat.
Speed
As previously mentioned, red’s primary strength comes from its ability to reduce an opponent’s life total to zero incredibly fast. This is thanks tothe combination of a high concentration of creatures with the haste keyword alongside direct damage spells that can target opponents' life totals.
Dumping your entire hand onto the battlefield in the first four or five turns in the game ultimately strands high mana value cards in an opponent’s hand, making them entirely useless. Furthermore, it allows you to take full advantage of moments when an opponent stumbles by either not having enough early game plays or failing to hit their lands drops. An opponent who finds themself in one of these situations against red is almost certain to lose.
Aggression
Hand in hand with red’s speed comes the strength ofplacing opponents on the backfoot. Red is almost always the aggressor in a given matchup, and this in itself is a strength as it oftenforces your opponent to make suboptimal plays just to stay alive. For example, they may be forced to chump block your creatures so that their life total doesn’t go to zero.
It also gives you time to draw additional cards from your deck that can close out a game such as burn spells and evasive creatures like Dragons. One more benefit of being the aggressor in a matchup is thatopponents are often forced to use their removal on your smaller, quicker creatures to preserve their life total. This paves the way for your big finishers to hit the battlefield and go unanswered.
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Weaknesses
More so than any other color, red’s weaknesses are directly tied to its strengths. Seeing as red draws power from making the opponent worry about their remaining life points,lifegain is incredibly good against us. Additionally,cards that can take advantage of the fact that we’ve put our entire hand onto the battlefield, such asboard wipes, can be completely disastrous. Red is so susceptible to these effects that sideboarding as a whole can also be considered a serious weakness of the color.
Lifegain
While lifegain is typically a rather useless effect as it does nothing to advance a player’s game state, it’s actually a direct counter to red-based strategies. Lifegain is the antithesis of burn spells and the haste keyword as it effectively negates the benefit these cards provide (pressuring the opponent’s life total).
Thankfully, lifegain is usually an effect that decks only have access to after sideboarding. That being said,there are some meta cards that have lifegain as a side effect which can make life very difficult for red decks. Recent examples include Graveyard Trespasser, Sheoldred, The Apocalypse, and Dennick, Pious Apprentice.
Board Wipes
The problem with placing all of your creatures onto the battlefield is thatthey immediately become susceptible to mass removal. Like lifegain, this usually isn’t an effect that’s seen in the mainboards of most decks, however, control decks in particular are often forced to maindeck board wipes just so that they have a chance against aggressive strategies before sidedboarding.
If you suspect an opponent has a board wipe in hand,there are ways to play around it to some extent. This primarily involves waiting to cast creatures from your hand until after your opponent has used their board wipe.
Unfortunately, an opponent who also hasspot removalin hand can just use their spot removal instead of their board wipe, making it a lose-lose situation.
Sideboarding
Red is many times stronger in the first game of a match than the ones that follow. Additionally, red is much better on the play than on the draw as going first exacerbates the speed of your deck. As red has become the litmus test for decks to perform against, nearly all intermediate players have a suite of cards in their sideboard to deal with aggressive strategies.
Consequently,it becomes much more difficult for red to win after sideboarding. Some red players try to adapt to this weakness by using a transformative sideboard that involves bringing all 15 cards of your sideboard into your deck, changing your deck’s playstylefrom aggressive to midrange.
While this strategy isn’t typically recommended, it is a potential answer to red’s overwhelming weakness to sideboarding in metas where sideboarding is particulary good against red. Additionally,it forces opponents to make a coin flip in game three on their sideboarding choicesas you could choose to take your transformative sideboard out and return to your deck’s initial aggressive gameplan.
