At my last FNM I played Valakut expecting a good mix of both control and aggro decks to be present. Well, I was DEAD wrong. Of all the people who showed up (probably 20-30 people) there were 3 control decks, yeah that is what I just said. My maindeck was tuned to beat control because Valakut has the worst game 2 against control that winning game 1 becomes extremely important. I was playing a list that was not too different from the one I posted a little while ago. But, it did have some changes (I'll talk about Valakut in more detail in a later post) but I'm here today to talk about the Aggro decks in the format.
The are two main archetypes for Aggro at the moment. There is Vampires and Kuldotha Red. If you are really up to date then maybe you have seen the Black-Blue Vampires list that came out of Paris. I like the idea of the deck because it has the fast Vampire shell that runs a few counterspells (Unified Will not Mana Leak) and has Go for the Throat. The deck also has the ability to morph from an aggro deck to an aggro control-deck. The deck also doesn't run Creeping Tarpit because the designers felt it was too slow. I don't have a list for you, but I will have one within a day or two so check back if you are interested.
Kuldotha Red in the form that I listed last week was just not pulling its weight. Yeah, the deck is insanely powerful and can kill you on turns 2-3. But when it didn't it just sucked. I mean it SUCKED. When playing against it with Valakut I was able to Pryoclasm on turn 2. Drop my 3rd mountain turn 3 with no green mana or ramp to speak of. Then play Koth on turn 4 with a top decked Verdant Catacombs and after Slagstorm-ing away a Signal Pest and a Memnite I just used Koth to beat him down (my opponent was forced to Lightning Bolt Koth to prevent his ultimate from going off).
How does Kuldotha Red overcome this problem? The answer that Gerry T. came up with was to splash another color. I think the consenus is that the best splash would be for black. This gives you access to Dark Tutelage. Ryan at Casual MTG Creations spoke about this in detail on his blog. Here is the list he came up with:
4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Goblin Bushwacker
4x Signal Pest
2x Goblin Wardriver
4x Kuldotha Rebirth
3x Devastating Summons
2x Dark Tutalege
3x Raid Bombardment
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Chimeric Mass
2x Jinxed Idol
1x Flayer Husk
4x Mox Opal
3x Dragonskull Summit
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Contested Warzone
8x Mountain
I like this deck. It is indeed much more resilent to sweepers than most K-Red decks. But, there is a definite trade off. This deck will not win on turns 2-3 as often as other K-red decks because of the increased number of 3 drops. There is definitely nothing wrong with the drops in the deck. They all have a specific purpose for why they are there and each card accomplishes that. In my opinion though the speed trade off is too significant. The ability to get "free wins" against some decks is part of the attraction of K-Red. If I was to redo my list here is what it would like:
4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Goblin Bushwacker
4x Signal Pest
4x Goblin Wardriver
4x Mox Opal
4x Kuldotha Rebirth
4x Devastating Summons
2x Dark Tutalege
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Chimeric Mass
2x Jinxed Idol
1x Flayer Husk
3x Dragonskull Summit
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Contested Warzone
8x Mountain
Card Choices:
Because Goblin Guide was cut from the deck (cause it just is not good, if you don't believe me build it and try it out) I wanted to make sure we have a constant stream of threats to place on board. That is why I upped the number of Goblin Wardriver from 2 to 4. He is just a boss in this deck and gives everyone a power up whereas a card like Goblin Chieftain only helps out goblins. Jinxed Idol was moved into the main to help you matchup against control. I kept 2 Lightning Bolt because they are needed to help deal with Vampire Knighthawk and can combine with another creature if you have to kill cards like Perimeter Captain which Ryan has noted as sideboard in U/W builds like his Snape Anew deck. The reason I didn't include Raid Bombardment in the main deck is because that the card doesn't do anything by itself. Yes, if you have 5 attackers then it can add up. That's a big if. And if I am going to be playing a deck like this I don't want the "if factor" to be associated with a 3 drop because it is too mana intensive for it to not do anything. I think there is still an "if factor" associated with Dark Tutelage because you could still not draw anything relevant (i.e. lands) but then you were most likely dead if you had the Raid Bombardment in that position too. Also, I want the full set of Warzones in the deck. I saw one version with the Warzones and one with out and I am telling you that they make a huge difference. It like the difference between a Bitterblossom hand with Faeries and hand with out Bitterblossom. You can surely still "get there" but you would be a lot happier if you had the card in your hand. There is one less land in this version than the other. This was done so that you have more room to play impact spells. This might not be correct with the two main deck Tutelage if you have only two lands and no active Mox and can't cast Tutelage. But I am confident it shouldn't be too much of a problem, if any.
My reccomendation for this deck is build it. Try it out. Do a SWOT analysis ( identify the Strengths, Weakness, Opporunities and Threats) then tune the deck to your personal liking keeping the recommendations in mind.
(For those who are Combo or Control Players look for my post about the Tezzeret decks in a few days!)
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