THE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

 
Sometimes players don't know what deck to bring, especially when a big event, like a PTQ or a Regional Championships comes up. The decision is an easy one if you ask me.
 
For the confused, undecided, or simply unskilled,
 
JUST
 
PLAY
 
...
 
Read the article, will you?
 
I recently did an interview with a newbie player about his choice to run a certain deck from his very debut in tournament Magic to a successful showing at last year's "random" Regionals:
 
BPFlores: So, I see that you were among the many "inexperienced" players to do well at Regionals and qualify for US Nationals 1998.
 
newbie?: Yep.
 
BPFlores: How did it feel, to make the top 8 and everything?
 
newbie?: It was okay.
 
BPFlores: What were the primary factors in your success, do you think?
 
newbie?: Well, these other guys had these decks I didn't really understand, but I just went "Mountain, Jackal Pup" on the first turn. Actually, it was "Mountain, Mogg Fanatic" sometimes, but you get the idea. Then I would attack with Mogg Flunkies at some point and it pretty much worked for me. Drawing Fireblast that is.
 
BPFlores: Thanks. (tks)
 
So anyway, red is some good. As Jamie reminds us, it is not since 1996 and the single-minded player devotion to Necropotence has there been such a dominant deck.
 
Red is strong for a couple of reasons:
 
1. You don't have to be very good to win with red. Your version of red can often be suboptimal, even mediocre, and you will still win a lot of games due to the redundancy of the cards and the ability to draw fire. You can play with stuff that wrecks your own mana curve and it doesn't matter, the opponent will die half the time anyway.
 
2. If, on the other hand, you are a "good" player playing red, it will serve you in a proportionately greater fashion. (That means that good players will win even more with red than bad players, who will nonetheless win an awful lot).
 
3. Everybody gets manascrewed some times. Red likes it when that happens.
 
4. Red doesn't ask for anything and it doesn't make any excuses. White says "if I get Priest + en-Kor, you can't win." It claims "if I get Paladin + Pariah, you can't win." Black says "if I start Swamp, Ritual, Erg Raiders, Unholy Strength, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?"
 
Well red doesn't care about drawing 2- or 3-card combinations, especially when one of them requires a card where there is only one copy in the deck. Red just says "if I get Mountain and any other card in my deck, you can't win."
 
It's wrong a lot.
 
But more often, old red is rubbing its elbow at the end of the match, while handing the opponent the business card of a good facial plastic surgeon, even against decks with "better" creatures and "unbreakable" defensive measures.
 
5. Sometimes red just says "oops, I won." Like just before this current Type II format... any game where it drew 2 Fireblasts. Like when the opponent got out a Paladin en-Vec, but the red player with 7 no-duplicate cards in hand successfully Scrolled it anyway on his discard (and then went Balls to the wall on his own turn). Like a thousand other stories involving "Mountain." Ah red.
 
6. You can take away lots of red's best cards... first Lightning Bolt... currently Fireblast... but the deck is so redundant, that it doesn't matter. Arc Lightning and Shower of Sparks to the rescue!
 
7. Every deck sweats bullets against red in the big game. For reals. You might have exceptional statistics in playtest, but come that critical round of Swiss...
 
Here are some stories that I've collected.
 
STORY ONE
 
This is how good red is...
 
I was at a PTQ in Columbus reviewing old decks with Adrian "the Corrupter" Sullivan of Wisconsin, Pat Chapin of a map drawn in the back of his hair, and some other playas. We were flipping through old deck-maps and I asked Adrian if he had the horrible U/G deck he played in 1997 REGIONALS with Yavimaya Ancients. (In all fairness, Adrian is the papa of U/G control construction even if I think his 1997 deck was a pile). He started to tirade because his deck supposedly went 80+% against Blitz (for some reason they call red/Sligh "blitz" in the midwest). None of us believed it. All of a sudden some other dude I don't know from Adrian's midwest/Chicago area flew over the tables at us, tirading back. Dude starts screaming that no deck beats blitz more than 80% of the time because sometimes you get manascrewed.
 
Dude was right.
 
STORY TWO
 
This is how good red is...
 
Picture this: Northeast Regionals 1998.
 
I and most of my hapless, Flores-informed, teammates are running the roguish TDC HEAT deck. Our testing shows that it ACTUALLY goes 96% v. Sligh in game 1. This is so huge that we do the unheard-of and sideboard NO cards against the most popular deck. Not even a Spike Feeder or anything.
 
Do I lose to Ted Kaplun playing Sligh? Yes.
 
Does Al Tran lose to, um, *Invasion Plans* Sligh? Yes.
 
Does Gangsta Lee lose to Ted Kaplun (later) even though he has 2 9/10 Lhurgoyfs in play and 15 life, and Kaplun's only "blocker" is an Ironclaw Orcs and he has only 2 life? You better freaking believe it. The next turn.
 
Why? Because when there is a Mountain across the table, you had better cross your fingers is why.
 
Don't know what to play? Just play... you know.
 
STORY THREE
 
This is how good red is...
 
Well-known #mtgpro op Kobi Wadfogel's Regionals 1998 deck started 3 Gerrard's Wisdom, 4 Hazerider Drake, and 4 Wall of Essence. He sideboarded both Hydroblast and Circle of Protection: Red.
 
Did he lose to red anyway? Dude, what is the point of this article?
 
So anyway, I am not trying to say that red is a mindless deck. In fact, I think playing it *well* is one of the hardest things to do in Magic. There are certainly a lot of players who think very precisely, tap their mana very carefully, and take very seriously the play of the red deck (Dave Price, especially comes to mind). Playing red in my experience is not stooping low, but an exercise in the elimination of 20 (and sometimes much more, of course) life as quickly and efficiently as possible with limited resources (particularly the intrinsicly poor economy of most direct damage) and in the face of "superior" cards. This is no mean task.
 
However, I *do* think that the undecided should pick up some Mountains because they don't *have* to play the best Magic to win with red. Red is excrutiatingly forgiving. Sometimes you get yourself into some awful position where the other player Scroll-locks you, you have nothing useful out, and he is about to kill you with Bad Moon weenies... then you draw your other Mountain and triple-Fireblast him.
 
Are there huge weaknesses to red? Of course.
 
Are there extremely bad matchups that it should rarely, if ever, win? You bet.
 
Do these make much of a difference? No. Every deck has bad matchups. Every deck fears *something*. Only one stares into the maw of the beastly Wall of Blossoms and slaps Goblin Cadets right on top of it, sneering.
 
Jason Opalka, the t2k, said it best. It doesn't matter how good you are, how much you practice, how much of a chumly you think the other guy is. First-turn Jackal Pup... and the game is even!
 
If there is a weakness to red, it might be respect. This dates back to the earliest tournament days of a boy called Sligh and his deck of random Dwarves, non-Mogg Goblins, and much-maligned Orcs. When you play the red deck, don't expect respect from across the table. I am pretty sure there has never been *less* respect for a deck that wins quite so much. At every constructed tournament out there someone is going to overhear "I *hope* I play Sligh all day!" I assure you... most of the time there are going to be red decks in the top 8, and not 4 copies of that guy's deck. The point is, if you aren't going to get props from your opponent, please give it to yourself.
 
Eric Taylor once said that a good red player respects his deck and he knows it is a good deck. He proudly taps 2 Mountains for Ironclaw Orcs instead of Black Knight or Soltari Priest or Wall of Blossoms. A good red player knows his deck is good and it is with confidence that he plays it that way. Whether or not you are a good red player or just an undecided carried-up catch-all, you should probably give yourself this as you throw down the best lands in Magic.
 
So anyway, if you don't know what to play, I suggest Stompy.
 
Mike "Bad Player" Flores
Cabal Rogue
Team Discovery Channel
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~altran/tdcmain.html

 
Comments and responses welcome at madmanpoet@yahoo.com