Human Frailty

I've spent a considerable amount of time during RTR playing GW Aggro and Mono Red. GW Aggro hits hard, Mono Red hits fast. I liken them in my head to a sledge hammer and a dagger, respectively.

Early in the RTR season I played around with some Mono Red variants, and wanted to swap out certain cards for others, but being newly back on the scene I didn't trust my instincts. I'd keep going with what I had, only to read an article by one of the more famous brewers the following week that mirrored my thought process. Good for the confidence, bad for the win record.

Now, I'm going to throw caution to the wind and lay out what I think is a pretty decent plan for the start of the Gatecrash constructed season.

I started with Mono Red and thought, "how can I Boros this up?" My beginning deck list looked something like this:

3 Reckless Waif
4 Stromkirk Noble
4 Vexing Devil
4 Ash Zealot
3 Lightning Mauler
4 Pyreheart Wolf
4 Hellrider
2 Thundermaw Hellkite

4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear

3 Hellion Crucible
21 Mountain

(This was taken from an old file, and may not reflect the actual contents of my Mono Red at this moment, but you get the idea.)

I've never really been happy with the one-drops in Mono Red, and I've always wanted a Humans deck but haven't been able to get there, so I decided to give it a whirl. If this is going to be a Boros deck, Champion of the Parish seems like an obvious one-drop to start things off. I looked at the human options for red, and Somberwald Vigilante, Stonewright, Reckless Waif are just not exciting to me. I've seen Stonewright in a lot of lists, and played him a time or two, but I just wasn't feeling it, so instead I looked elsewhere.

My eye fell upon the new Gatecrash dude, Boros Elite, just about the same time Conley Woods declared the card worthless for constructed. I thought I saw potential, so I hesitantly dropped him in the list. The big problem with Boros Elite, as Conley saw it, was that he wouldn't turn into a 3/3 until about turn 4, and I agree that would be worthless. But what if we could activate him on turn 2?

That's when I came to the best card, one which is really the core of this deck, and one which I've been eyeballing since it was spoiled: Burning-Tree Emissary. This is a bear that replaces its own casting cost. How might that be abused? Well, we already have Lightning Mauler, so what if on turn 2 we could cast Burning-Tree Emissary and use the mana he generates for Lightning Mauler? We could then pair the two and swing with the Boros Elite for 7 damage. And the really cool part is being able to drop as many Emissaries as we want to, chaining them up for an explosive turn 2.

Moving into my 3-drops, Frontline Medic is of course one of the cards that everyone's talking about, so I figured he was a shoo-in to replace Pyreheart Wolf. He offers potential counterspell ability, he's three times the size, and instead of restricting blocks he just allows the team to crash headlong into them. His major issue is needing a Lightning Mauler to get into the fight on turn 3, which would require some careful hand management, but I think he's worthwhile even with that.

I also like Skyknight Legionnaire for the 3-drop slot, because he's hasted, flying, and still whacking out 2 damage. The cool thing about both my 3-drops thus far is that their casting cost allows for more stacking of Burning-Tree Emissary in case the draws happen to fall that way.

Finally, I cut the Thundermaw Hellkite and left the Hellrider, tossed in some Boros Charm and removal, then tried out some test draws. The major issue I ran into was that even with Sacred Foundry in the mix, I couldn't reliably chain turn 1 into turn 2, and a lot of times my Emissary stack wound up without a "cap", meaning the final two mana were wasted. The cool things I saw were the potential for turn 3 kills on the "god hand": Champion into Emissary x2 + Mauler, into Charm.

Going back to the drawing board, I looked around for other Emissary caps by searching for 2-drop Humans that cast for green or red in Decked Builder. That brought up a couple of tasty fellas, Mayor of Avabruck and Hamlet Captain. I generally dislike the werewolves due to their unpredictable nature, though Mayor does spawn tokens and that's pretty awesome, but this deck likes to cast multiple spells per turn with Emissary, so I wasn't sure that was a good idea. I'm provisionally going with Hamlet Captain.

And this is where I made another cool discovery: worrying about having Captains stranded in my hand for lack of mana, I decided to swap out the 4 Plains for 4 Temple Garden. Suddenly my turn 1 into turn 2 problems disappeared, since Emissary casts equally well off green as red. I also dropped in the only 2 copies of Cavern of Souls that I own, for 10 sources of turn-1 white that could also power Emissaries in turn 2. Seems good!

I also decided to live dangerously and dumped my removal for one of my all-time favorite cards: Thatcher Revolt. A turn 3 revolt pumps Champion like crazy, enables Boros Elite to get his beats in, and helps get around defenders. If the game goes to turn 5, Thatcher Revolt turns Hellrider into a freakin' monster. I toyed briefly with using Infernal Plunge for a potential turn 2 Hellrider by sacrificing an Emissary, but the combo just felt fragile and the Plunge seemed to wind up stranded in my hand a lot.

Finally, I couldn't resist dropping in a Wild Beastmaster "for value", as the cool kids say. Only time and testing will tell how the 3-drop slot will shake out, but I think it's looking like a good first cut.

After all that, my final first draft (is that even a thing?) decklist looks like this:

4 Boros Elite
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
3 Hamlet Captain
4 Lightning Mauler
2 Frontline Medic
2 Skyknight Legionnaire
1 Wild Beastmaster
4 Hellrider

4 Boros Charm
4 Thatcher Revolt

2 Cavern of Souls
4 Clifftop Retreat
10 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple Garden

This deck is insanely explosive out of the gate, and is easily capable of killing on turn 4, with a few different ways to get there on turn 3. If you can get your opponent to around 10 - 13 health by the end of turn 3, a turn 4 Hellrider tends to make up the difference.

I think the two biggest cards to worry about are Blind Obedience and Loxodon Smiter, both of which can ruin my day starting turn 2. Arrows of Justice and Erase can both respond to those, so I chucked them in the sideboard. I also like the idea of chaining Emissary into a Bloodrushed Ghor-Clan Rampager, but he would probably be competing with Hellrider for a slot (or maybe Thatcher Revolt), and without more testing he's a sideboard card. I'm not sure how to make the final arrangement yet, but I'm pretty happy with what I've got so far:

3 Arrows of Justice
3 Erase
2 Frontline Medic
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Skullcrack
1 Skyknight Legionnaire

I don't know how well it's going to work, but it seems good, and I'm certainly going to give it a try assuming I can gather the Gatecrash cards. Feel free to offer suggestions in the comments or by tweeting me @smacketybap.