We’re almost at the end of the preview season for Innistrad: Crimson Vow. There’s some very cool new cards that are making their way into Standard! One thing that I like to do when a new set comes out is try to see if we can build a couple of my favorite flavors of decks in a few different formats. The first one is Mono White Death and Taxes, which got one very key tool, and had some existing tools. The other deck is Big Red, and that’s what we’ll be taking a look at today.
What is Big Red?
Big Red is a lesser known archetype that involves playing higher mana cost red creatures, and a bunch of removal at the lower end of the curve. It often falls short due to the lack of draw power and it’s often fair play style. That being said, I think that with the tools we have now and some very important cards from Crimson Vow, this deck could be a solid contender midrange deck. Let’s take a look first at a first pass for the deck.
Our New Cards
The two new cards so far from Crimson Vow that are really helping to enable our deck is
Chandra, Dressed to Kill
Chandra, Dressed to Kill
+1: Add {R}. Chandra deals 1 damage to up to one target player or planeswalker.
+1: Exile the top card of your library. If it's red, you may cast it this turn.
−7: Exile the top five cards of your library. You may cast red spells from among them this turn. You get an emblem with "Whenever you cast a red spell, this emblem deals X damage to any target, where X is the amount of mana spent to cast that spell."
and
Abrade
Abrade
Choose one —
• Abrade deals 3 damage to target creature.
• Destroy target artifact.
. Chandra is really nice since she comes down at 3 mana, and we should be able to keep the board clean in the early turns, so she should be safe. From there she can help ramp us into our 5 drop plays on the following turn which is where the “big” starts to pick up. Additionally, she offers us some extra card selection by letting us play the top card of our library.
Abrade is an awesome reprint in the set. This offers us a reliable 3 damage removal spell, while also giving us additional utility to deal with problematic artifacts, namely
Esika’s Chariot
Esika’s Chariot
When Esika's Chariot enters, create two 2/2 green Cat creature tokens.
Whenever Esika's Chariot attacks, create a token that's a copy of target token you control.
Crew 4
and
Maul of the Skyclaves
Maul of the Skyclaves
When this Equipment enters, attach it to target creature you control.
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has flying and first strike.(It deals combat damage before creatures without first strike.)
Equip {2}{W}{W}
.
Removal
We have 3 very powerful pieces of spot removal in our deck in
Frost Bite
Frost Bite
Frost Bite deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If you control three or more snow permanents, it deals 3 damage instead.
,
Cathartic Pyre
Cathartic Pyre
Choose one —
• Cathartic Pyre deals 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker.
• Discard up to two cards, then draw that many cards.
, and
Dragon’s Fire
Dragon’s Fire
As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may reveal a Dragon card from your hand or choose a Dragon you control.
Dragon's Fire deals 3 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If you revealed a Dragon card or chose a Dragon as you cast this spell, Dragon's Fire deals damage equal to the power of that card or creature instead.
. We’re playing all snow basic lands, so Frost Bite is often
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to any target.
. Cathartic Pyre is another 3 damage spell, but also offers some looting, which is crucial in our deck. Lastly Dragon’s Fire just makes a ton of sense since all of our top end is Dragons, and we can often deal with larger threats with this.
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Threats
Our threat base is really just the best red threats in the format. We have
Reckless Stormseeker
Reckless Stormseeker
At the beginning of combat on your turn, target creature you control gets +1/+0 and gains haste until end of turn.
Daybound (If a player casts no spells during their own turn, it becomes night next turn.)
which can accelerate our damage output dramatically by giving a creature haste and +1/+0.
Moonveil Regent
Moonveil Regent
Flying
Whenever you cast a spell, you may discard your hand. If you do, draw a card for each of that spell's colors.
When this creature dies, it deals X damage to any target, where X is the number of colors among permanents you control.
offers us some additional draw potential while also being a big flyer and some small amounts of damage.
Goldspan Dragon
Goldspan Dragon
Flying, haste
Whenever this creature attacks or becomes the target of a spell, create a Treasure token.
Treasures you control have "{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add two mana of any one color."
is still a Standard all star of a card and it makes total sense to include it here. We round the package out with a couple
Inferno of the Star Mounts
Inferno of the Star Mounts
This spell can't be countered.
Flying, haste
{R}: Inferno of the Star Mounts gets +1/+0 until end of turn. When its power becomes 20 this way, it deals 20 damage to any target.
as our big, bad, uncounterable boss monster.
READ MORE: The 10 Best Magic: the Gathering Infinite Combos in Commander
Other Considerations
There’s a few different considerations for different cards for the deck.
Unexpected Windfall
Unexpected Windfall
As an additional cost to cast this spell, discard a card.
Draw two cards and create two Treasure tokens. (They're artifacts with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.")
could replace Moonveil Regent at 4 mana. It provides us ramp and card draw which is a great combination.
Burning Hands
Burning Hands
Burning Hands deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If that permanent is green, Burning Hands deals 6 damage instead.
is going to move between the main and side depending on how prevalent Mono Green is in the format.
Magic Missile
Magic Missile
This spell can't be countered.
Magic Missile deals 3 damage divided as you choose among one, two, or three targets.
most likely will be a sideboard card for decks like Mono White.
Sunstreak Phoenix
Sunstreak Phoenix
Flying
If it's neither day nor night, it becomes day as this creature enters.
Whenever day becomes night or night becomes day, you may pay {1}{R}. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
is a strong recursive threat and we can trigger the day night cycle pretty easily since we have a ton of cheap spells.
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While we will have to wait and see just how strong the deck is, it looks pretty decent on paper. What are your thoughts on this? Any changes you’d make to the deck? Let us know in the comments!
Innistrad: Crimson Vow releases on Magic Arena and Magic Online on November 11th, and in paper on November 19th. Make sure that you check out our Preview Gallery to stay up to date with all the new cards as they come out. You can also preorder Crimson Vow products here.