My Beef With Red

For me, there's one piece of Magical Piece of the Color Pie I can't really stomach in EDH.

That Color is Red.

It's my opinion, and I don't mean to offend any Red players out there.

Honestly, I have beefs with other colors too. Like, why didn't they print Black artifact/enchantment removal in the Time Spiral block?

Getting a Black Naturalize is small potatoes when compared to the downright tragedy that is "Mountain" Magic.

I started following this EDH podcast called Commander Cast recently, and they had a good point to share here on the topic of Rojo.

In their debate, the guys at Commander Cast said that what makes Red good in EDH is Land Destruction. However, since Mass Land Destruction has always been sort of an EDH taboo in most playgroups, Red is put into a system in which it has no opportunity to really shine.

But does this really help? I'm not inclined to think so. To me, this makes the average mono-Red deck a very opportunistic deck, which, though entirely flavor-consistent, hardly seems like a challenge if you have to compete against luck and the solid tutelage in other decks.

Long story short, in EDH, RDW doesn't mean Red Deck Wins. It means Red Deck Won't.

Cause Red Deck "Won't" do anything very well. It can't get card advantage or board control. The mono-Red deck can't play a whole lot of disruption, and its burn spells are all but relevant at 40 life.

Even the red creatures leave a lot to be desired. Inferno Titan, Kiki-Jiki, and Godo seem to be about the only real red creatures that have any power- but they'll still fall victim to Doom Blade and Control Magic.

My point is that even green got Beast Within and Harmonize. Blue has the super-cheap Pongify and it's unlimited pool of card draw. So where's the Red love?

Red is a tough color made tougher because the cards that have to get played are all expensive, and yet still not half as effective as the cards in other colors. Off the top of my head, I think about Chaos Warp, Wheel of Fortune, and Gamble, which still don't offer card advantage.

Yet Red pretty much HAS to play them, because they don't have a whole lot to make the deck consistent enough to do something. Even then, you're probably still not going to disrupt your opponent enough to win.

It's obvious that Wizards is trying to find ways to make Red more relevant in EDH, with Tibalt and the anti-Looters like Mad Prophet and Rummaging Goblin. Yet it still isn't close.

Red needs value cards. In order for Red to find them now, it reaches into "Artifact-Land" to pull out Crucible of Worlds and Duplicant and other colorless things that can interact well with Goblin Welder, ultimately contributing to this sort of incestuous mono-Red deck that People can pretty much sniff out because of its lackluster card pool.

I know We are all creatures of habit, and sometimes we play a lot of the same card, so this could sound like I'm unjustly beating the Ginger of the Magic color pie.

The good thing about the staple cards we play in other colors is that they have the capacity to create different lines of play. Even if you are tutoring for similar things, like land in green, you are creating the opportunity to draw something better from your deck, and are therefore still creating card advantage.

Two cards that I like to play as an avid Green player are Eternal Witness and Fierce Empath, and I create many different targets for them within my decks.

Red can't doesn't really have any lateral movement. The cards are rigid and straightforward, even in a successfully assembled combo. Even then the deck has to be able to draw those cards without any regular card drawing engines that allow you to outdraw your opponent.

Perhaps the Goblin archetype might solve the consistency/card advantage problem, but it leads to two more issues. The first is that you're playing Goblins, so basically a bunch of 2-power dudes that no one is really going to care about after they drop their titan on turn 6.

The second is that you're one Wrath effect away from getting your board state destroyed, and you don't have a way to get them out of the bin short of shuffling your graveyard back into your library and starting all over.

So What Must Be Done To Fix This Problem?


#1 Fill in the Gaps

When I say "Fill In The Gaps" I mean that the Red card type manipulates resources in a very unique way. In fact, it's so unique that the actual themes (Land Destruction, Burn, Haste Dudes, Discard-to-Draw) don't really interact with each other, and they feel spread very thin versus some of the other colors.

So why not mix the strategies together?

I'd play an Instant in red that made me sacrifice a land to draw 3 cards.

I'd play a card that made me deal damage to each one of my creatures equal to the number of cards I drew.

I'd also play a spell that let me ramp into a bunch of Mountains I had to sacrifice at the end of my turn. Would also have to have Flashback- but I'd play it.


#2 There's No Such Thing As Red Power Creep

At least, not yet. Wizards got pretty close with Inferno Titan, which is the first legitimate Red card made since Kiki-Jiki.

Comparatively though, Red doesn't get any love from the design team as a strong mono color. Look at Terminate and Blightning and the new Dreadbore. Even Rakdos' Return. Mizzium Mortars is about the only spoiled card worth getting in Return to Ravnica thus far.

If they don't make the cards, Red can't be competitive.


#3 Red Tutelage.And Utilty

Specifically, the color doesn't need much.  It just needs some creative Tutelage and Utility to make it a little more stable of a color. It's not too much to ask for cards that allow the player to destroy other people's stuff without wrecking your own board state, isn't it?


Alright. I'm good.

Let me know what your thoughts are.

Peace, Love, Landdrops.

-UL