Red Persecution Complex

NWO tries to keep burn from being a viable strategy as much as possible and some of blue's best cards were originally going to be red (Force of Will, Snapcaster Mage).

But apart from that, I don't think WotC is actively out to get red, the issue stems from red relying entirely on early game cards and with wotc pushing the dumb "exile top card of library, you may play it until end of turn" when red usually doesnt doesnt care and wants to tap out each turn until turn 4 to ensure quick victory.

I don't play much magic, but blue and black have been my go-to colors for ages. I can't speak for red players, but I do know that blue always seems to get some neat stuff in each set whereas red always seems focused on brute force which doesn't lend itself well to high-level play. Maybe I just don't play enough red to know better. I will attempt to remedy this as soon as I can be bothered.

>>54712128
>NWO tries to keep burn from being a viable strategy as much as possible
Monored just obliterated the japan pro tour in standard.

>>54712154
RDW isnt burn, dingus. Compare modern burn lists where they run maybe 12 creatures at best to majority of RDW decks

>>54711987
I don't think they're pushing Blue. Blue utility cards like counters and bounces are getting more expensive while having Scry tacked on.

White is the color that feels the most pushed lately.

In the end, it's mostly a factor of Wizards trying to slow the game down for standard so that it's decides by turn 5 or 6 instead of turn 4. The problem is that they apparently still don't know how to make good high-cost red cards, so they just make shitty 1 and 2 drops and hope it sorts itself out.

>>54712128
>Force of Will
WotC simply repurposed the image of a red barbarian, they weren't going to give a straight counterspell to red
>Snapcaster
Super wrong, snappy is an invitational card that was suppoded to be a land that could counter spells
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/arcana/saga-snapcaster-mage-2011-10-24

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>>54711987
>Huuuuur Red can't have nice things !
>the best deck in standard right now is Monor Red.
>Burn always was a high tier deck in Modern

>>54711987
But Charizard is everyone's favorite pokemon and noone cares about Blastoise.

>>54712331
>Snapcaster/
That was the original submission. WotC kept having to make Tiago resubmit new designs because he's a turbo-autist and only wanted to make gamebreaking blue cards.

He's why we don't get Invitational cards anymore.

>>54711987

Red is in the problem position of being used to having cards that were honestly too good for their cost back in the day.

Red is sad it doesn't get toys as good as Lightning Bolt anymore, not wanting to admit that Lightning Bolt honestly never should have been printed for its cost because it was too good.

On top of that, WOTC wants to slow the game down, so haste creatures are generally not as good.

The things that Red wants to be good at are, in recent years, really dangerous. If they are allowed to be good, they dominate. If they are not allowed to be good, Red has little else to bring to the table.

That last part is the real problem. Red desperately needs a gimmick it can have that it can be comfortable in without being in such a binary 'totally unstoppable' vs 'totally shit' split.

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>>54712564
A 4 mana semiuncounterable counterspell wouldn't have been gamebreaking, even with the added value of being a land.
It would have been way worse than snappy at the very least.

>>54712640
>Red desperately needs a gimmick it can have that it can be comfortable in without being in such a binary 'totally unstoppable' vs 'totally shit' split.
Land destruction?

>>54712640
The problem is that Lightning Bolt is too good, but Shock isn't quite good enough. Red's in that awkward position where the game isn't granular enough for it to hit the sweet spot of a perfectly balanced single-R Instant burn spell.

>>54712711
Land destruction makes Timmy feel bad, so it can't be that

>>54712733
Easy :

Instant - R - Deal 2 damage to target creature or Player. Landfall : Deal 3 damage to target creature or player instead.

Bam, it's basically an instant speed shock and most of the time a sorcery speed Bolt.

>>54712711

Ew, no. That's the exact same problem. If the land destruction is really awful, it will never get played. If its good enough to play, its absolutely punishing and takes the other player out of the game. Welcome to turn 7, aren't you glad you still have 2 lands? hur hur hur

The only thing I can see working is a 'I sac a land, destroy target land' spell. You both lose land, but you get to pick which land you sac (in a monored deck, it likely doesn't matter) and in return you can target anything scary like a max of Ith or even just blow up their best colorfixing in a multi color deck.

Its not flawless, but its the only kind of land destruction I can think of that wouldn't be godawful to have in a meta.

>>54713028
fuck timmy

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>>54713063
We already have that and it isn't that good

>>54713028
Land destruction makes everyone feel bad.

Which is why most people don't run land destruction.

They need to tweak their current red mechanic about exiling cards until end of turn. It should give the option to play the card or shock a player or creature if you choose not to cast it, otherwise early game its lost value.

bomat courier is actually a good implementation of the exile thing though, more like it would be fine too.

How about cheap dragons? Like really cheap

>>54713028
>>54713063
>>54712711
>>54712640

>Red LD

It always was a recurrent theme of Red but Black and "Colorless" do a better job at it. Red also does some other form of mana fuckery with shit like temporary ramp (Desperate Ritual, Pyrethic Ritual) or land screwing (Blood Moon, Power Surge). I would like to see more of these gimmick exploited in the future for red.

>>54713215
Do wyverns belong to any other color? I know blue has drakes.

Blue doesn't get the best stuff BUT Blue does have rather a monopoly on several areas (Which give it that impression to newer players). Other colours than red can get (situational) direct damage for example. A counterspell outside of Blue is exceptionally rare on the other hand for example.

Since blue's stuff is so unique to blue, they often price it very conservatively so that it's not 'You must play blue to access needed tools'. That however often results in 'Blue does unique but not very useful things' with counterspells that are unplayed due to being too expensive or card draw that gets left in the binders. It would likely do both blue and other colours some good to open up that stuff to being Secondary in more colours so that the pure blue versions can be priced more aggressively.

>>54713215
Cheap dragons with kicker costs that make each opponent sacrifices 4 lands

>>54713215
Same problem, at 1-2 CMC you're either getting a dragon that's hot garbage or waaaay too good

>>54713215
If you make the Dragons on the power level of Goblin Guide or Swiftspear then maybe.

>>54713869

>R - 1/2 Prowess, Flying.

Gud enought ?

What pisses me off is the 'wacky random' stuff. Like, we all know that rares get pushed, rares generally make up the big powerful cards of a colour. But every so often Red, and only Red, gets a rare slot used up by a card that's actively, completely worthless. Because they don't want people in tournaments randomly swapping around cards or whatever, so they make sure it costs 7 or 8 mana and does nothing useful. But hey. Red is about chaos, so we really want fucking Goblin Kaboomist and Scrambleverse and Guild Feud and shit clogging up our rare slots while Torrential Gearhulk and Gideon dance around mocking us, right?

>>54712395
Modern is hardly affected by current design philosophies.

>>54712656
Holy shit you are a dumbass.
It's a LAND. That part isn't "extra value" that part means that it is practically free to put into a deck.

>>54712733
Or just have Lightning Strike be the norm, because that card is perfectly reasonable.

>>54713215
Dragon Hatchling and Slumbering Dragon are cards that cost 1R and R respectively. The latter has no immediate value and thus "dies to removal".
Thunderbreak Regent, Archwing Dragon, and Avaricious Dragon all cost 2RR.

>>54713893
That's not a dragon. Why would you make a tiny card like that a dragon? That's stupid.

>>54713147
>otherwise early game its lost value.
actually i believe it was in roigins there was a 1 2 prowess exile and cast until eot. People often played them turn 3, it can be made to work very easily in early game if your deck is made for early game.

>>54713950
Nahiri, Fatal Push and Swiftspear say otherwhise.

>>54711987
Red is continually a cheap-as-fuck deck to build and so simple a 4 year old could pilot it to victory. It is also more often than not a tier 1 deck that warps the meta around it like a black hole of shit-tier gameplay.

people who only play one color should be fed into a wood chipper.

>>54712640
I think a afflict would be a cool mechanic for red to trademark, either take damage or take damage with positives, it's thematic, and matches the firey theme, singing blockers etc...

>>54713063
Yea, cus making your opponent unable to play is bad when red does it, but making your opponent unable to play because of control is fair...

>>54714347
There's a difference between being able to cast spells and being totally without options because you can't even cast what you're holding because of LD.

>>54714302
I mean any toning down of burn they do isn't going to get rid of lightning bolt in modern. What's there is there for good outside of bans.

>>54714395
>can't cast my 4-5 cost because a 2-3 cost counter... And game becomes 100% luck based...
I am not arguing that is sucks both ways, but I still think control gets away with a lot of shit that is bad when others do it.

>>54712395
Red is only good now because of all the bannings

>>54714458
Red is good because 8 legal sets....

>>54714451
Yeah but after a counterspell the game goes on as normal. You still have access to mana for future plays.
Focused land destruction is sending your opponent back in time.

>>54713893
So just strictly better Swiftspear? That's never going to happen.

>>54715006
Swiftspear isn't even that good(or cute), that card is wildly overrated

>>54711987
I don't know how people have this mentality. We can build decks out of straight red cards, reliably, every format. And that means? Red sucks?

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>>54711987
Hey this
>>54715465
Personally I think green is the shaft color. Across all format we have Mono Red, Blue, White and Black in some form.
Mono Green? Laughable. Green gets some powerful tools (CollectC and Tarmogoyf obviously) yes. But these end up being tools to help augment other colors because they are able to use them better.
Can't even truly claim elves because we have more than a few variants that splash other colors.

>>54715544
It's because green is the "creature color" but since creatures have become so important to the game white, red, blue, and black also get incredible creatures. And while green just has fat things or some value things, WUBR creatures get to have powerful and interesting effects that match their colors, even if they don't win on size, which makes them better.

>>54711987
nah red is fine where it is, good support color that pairs well with most if not all other colors like 90% of the time. i would definitely argue that white is the color WotC loves the most currently though and is actively trying to make blue weaker than it really should be

>>54711987
>they love U and always give it the best stuff

I stick by this because I constantly see blue stealing from white.

>>54715465
this, mono red i also the cheapest deck by far in every format

>>54712656
Nigga there is a reason we don't see interesting lands anymore. Its because they are way above the curve in power level. Denying channel would have been busted as fuck. Producing blue mana is not very difficult any deck can do it. It would allow every deck to have counter spells with almost no investment. Fuck it didn't even come into play tapped so it doesn't even disrupt your curve.

>>54712733
Or they could just you know bring up the rest of the games power level to the point bolt is balanced.

>>54713147
Or make it so red can cast things in exile. Tweek that effect to exile off the top of your deck then play anything of yours that's exiled.

>>54713260
>A counter spell outside of Blue is exceptionally rare on the other hand for example.

This still triggers me. I remember when they said white was going to get all tax based counters. Then they went "Well we couldn't think of a way to make it so blue has interesting counters so were giving them back the tax based counters.

>>54712395
This. Red wins is standard and always a solid option.

>>54713028
I love land blasters.

Destroy land is so cheap and many cards give you solid options.

>>54715956
There is a red card that does this. They exist.

>>54711987
It's true and anyone trying to deny it is a fucking islandboy

>>54713063
Armageddon reprint when?

>>54715900
Sounds degenerate and stupid.

>>54711987
Kind of, i just don't see why they think blue is favored instead of something like green.

Not Land Destruction RR
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant land an opponent controls
Whenever enchanted land becomes tapped, you may draw a card.

>>54715544
This, I find it hard to find what green does outside of ramp that makes it worth solo running. Green gets amazing cards, but coherently can't function on it's own as well as it should on paper. Ramp >meaty creatures > combat tricks. I feel it needs more than that when creatures are so staple now...

>>54712395
>best deck in Standard is RDW
RDW should always be a solid option in any given standard season. It hasn't been a thing since Atarka Red two years ago. Now it's just doing what it always did: be just good enough to dominate the first major tournament in a Standard season before the meta adjusts and settled down. Also, I've played the deck. It is in no way "good", but merely, "close enough"

>>54711987
faggot blue lost its primary color identity in counters being completely worthless shit as well as draw gone to shit, stop bitching you lot still have burn.

>>54711987
>red is always the worst
>RDW best deck in standard and burn is part of the high tier metagame in modern
>they love blue and blue always gets the best stuff
>standard hasn't had a meta blue deck in over a year
>when blue is played it is only ever a splash color for 1 or 2 cards and sideboard stuff only
>modern is dominated by green red and black decks with grixis shadow only using blue for their cantrips and nothing else

while I don't think Wotc loves red they sure as shit don't like blue
blue is probably the single most hated on color for the last 2 years or so and has gotten 0 love in that time period
meanwhile green continues to be the golden child that gets everything and steals everything it can from the color pie slowly turning into better blue
literally all green needs now is a counterspell and it has stolen all of blues mechanics

Burn is the best mechanic in Magic. The other colors may get more interesting stuff but interesting doesn't win you the game.

>>54714593
I.e. Goes "normal" until control can flash gearhulk and win.

>>54722178
Outside of the cancer that is energy, we never have decent green based decks, hell, BG-1 counters is a gimmick deck that scorpion god shit on thanks to having a big bad.
When was the last mono green deck?
Green is stuck in limbo taking from every pie because its identity is beefy creatures and pump. And the other slices can do that while trading beef for useful effects...

>>54723566
It's wasn't that much cancer

>>54716001

It's a bit of an annoyance as it keeps the design space for counterspells/most stack interaction very narrow.

>>54721975
>RDW should always be a solid option in any given standard season
>but not mono white
>not mono green
>not mono blue
>not mono black
>no, it must only be mono red that is always viable

>>54711987
Red's design is too focussed on early game because wizards are shit at design and can't figure out how to make lategame red work, so red rarely gets interesting cards. In addition to this burn used to be (too) good so red constantly gets downgrades to previous cards, which while a good idea for balance reasons rubs salt in that wound.

Basically wotc needs to figure out ways to give red some decent control options and do it more often. Red gets really awesome stuff like wheel effects, insurrection effects and redirection/copying but wizards prints them too rarely for them to be viable (and gives red nothing to actually stall/wheel into late game)

red deck wins is definitely a powerful archetype and a healthy one for the game imo but wizards are too afraid to give red access to anything else so while the color is viable it's not interesting in the long term because eventually turning haste creatures sideways and burning face gets boring.

tl;dr red needs lategame control cards to be interesting to advanced platers and wizards don't make them viable or often enough.

>>54725564
They already moved all forms of mana denial into red they just haven't printed any cards for it yet. Rhystic study is now a red effect.

red is good in legacy.
red is good in modern.
red is good in standard.
red is good in pauper.
red's identity being bad in edh doesn't reflect its powerlevel in other contexts.

>>54712449
i care

>>54724314
Hey, here's a free land dig and energy for 1... Meanwhile most land digs require a mana to cast and crack...
Energy had too much without checks for it, and even now, and is still is crazy thanks to its power push.

>>54711987
>they love U and always give it the best stuff
According to MaRo there's truth to that: Someone focusing on the manipulation of magic itself (ic)/information advantage(ooc) should probably win a magic duel.

>>54712128
>NWO tries to keep burn from being a viable strategy
>implying NWO isn't strictly about complexity
>implying the strategy of "three to the dome all day erry" is too complex

>>54712711
Land destructions not a great idea, but a few decent spells to destroy annoying non-basic lands might work.
I'd keep land destruction on the back burner.

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>>54712395
See, this is where my thinking is that Red gets cool things for burn and RDW only, and that's frustrating.
What about shit like Inferno Titan? It's cool as hell and very good. But we don't get Inferno Titans anymore when we get cool shit, we get Tyrant of Valakut or utter trash like Imminent Doom.
So I don't whine as much that Wizards is LITERALLY SHITTING ON RED as much as I do that all the really neat stuff Red gets is just more hasty, low-cmc creatures.

>>54713147
>t should give the option to play the card or shock a player or creature if you choose not to cast it
That is what the most recent Chandra's +1 ability does, and I agree. I think we could see more of that.

>>54715006
>better evasion in exchange for lack of haste
>strictly better
Stop saying "strictly better" for everything, you stupid fuck!

>>54716325
I think for the most part of this discussion, we're talking about things they ought to do more. If "a red card does it" that means it's not something that red cards do often, when the meaning of "make it so red can cast things in exile" is clearly "this is something red ought to be able to do more"

>>54721618
I actually really like this, but it's irritating to say that it doesn't feel very red in terms of philosophy. No idea how I'd tweak it, though.

>>54722178
>>54722001
>>when blue is played it is only ever a splash color for 1 or 2 cards and sideboard stuff only
Oh, fucking please. U in standard U/R control is absolutely not a "sideboard thing" with Glimmer of Genius and Torrential Gearhulks shooting out your ass with counterspells from the yard.

>>54732228
Make it related to something like exploiting his land as well. Continuous pillaging or something like that.

>>54732228
Browbeat though.

>>54733303
Browbeat is "take damage or let me draw cards." The land denial one feels a lot more insidious than that -- which bugs me, because I'd rather not typecast Red as "the color that does damage." That's what's frustrating about it.

>>54733202
Well, you can really only sort of "pillage" something once, is the thing. Once it's pillaged you can't just keep doing that. It's sort of a destructive process. But that might still be a promising concept to work from, top-down style:
>Occupation, RR
>Enchantment -- Aura
>Enchant land.
>Whenever enchanted land becomes tapped, its controller sacrifices it. You draw a card.
This kind of thing could work as a kind of "soft" land destruction, because the person whose lands are getting destroyed at least has SOME control over the thing: they can still tap the land for mana if they really need it, but there's a cost attached to it that can be tied to a kind of hostage-situation type thing that feels appropriate for Red.

>>54733508
How about a card that just taps some amount of opponents lands and prevents them from untapping next turn. It takes away resources from them and gives you tempo, but it doesnt permanently slow them down

>>54733898
That's considered a blue effect... Hell I'm pretty sure that was in Tarkir, so its still considered that. The Sacrafice makes more sense flavorfully. The card draw on Occupation may be a bit much but I could get behind the idea of it. What can be more red... then forcing someone to make a Red choice? To sac something they may need later for something NOW.

>>54733898
>>54733944
Well, that's what they've actually been doing in Red more recently in the actual game. Chandra's Revolution and Stensia Innkeeper both tap & hold lands.

>>54711987
Red players are the biggest babies in magic, if they aren't number one they bitch and moan about being underrepresented

>>54733978
Fair enough. Might want to give us a version of that at 3CMC though, 1RR might make it a wonderful addition to any aggro deck and give options for Mid-Range/Late if you notice your enemy doesn't have much of a certain mana type...

>>54711987

Red has always been one of the best all-round colours in MTG.

We bitch about blue, but its utility is mostly as a secondary colour.

Red works better than blue for mono decks, and is still a pretty solid splash colour whereas Blue is a fantastic splash colour that you're usually better off not mono-ing.

>>54713063

What about something that turns the opponents lands into Mountains. Fluff it as burning the land, leaving it charred.
Opponent still has some useable mana, as long as they have other lands, but it blocks/delays the upper end of the mana curve

>>54733944
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=426918&part=Rubble
is red and just printed, but
>3 mana to not untap 3 lands
It's not even playable if it doesn't cost a card

>>54734171
That's weird. I must be more out of the MtG loop then I thought. Granted, I'd say its not the same since its not something you can JUST DO, which works well from a balancing perspective. You have to play reduce first or get it out of hand etc...

but yeah no. I don't understand why this card isn't being used more. Maybe it just doesn't have the right shell yet?

>>54734351
>I don't understand why this card isn't being used more
Because it's shit
The rubble effect is a win-more effect that also doesn't make you win more much, it's only usable lategame (or you timewalk yourself) and by then the opponent will probably have enough lands

>>54734144
We call it blood moon.

>>54735913
Or Magus of the Moon

>>54713061
That's really fucking good

>>54713028
>>54713063
>>54713217
They're messing around with freezing lands

>>54716001
I thought that they were going to test it but ended with stuff like Thaila.

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>>54712640
I really wish they'd revisit the Obsidian Fireheart style abilties.
I think its a interesting take on red burn and it would be amazing to give your opponent multiple upkeep damage triggers.

>>54736727
This card is the best. Super flavorful, super functional. It is spice incarnate.

>>54738452
Wish its effect was a little cheaper tho

>>54740503
Hell I'd love its effect just on a sorcery.

>>54712147
Mono red is like 25% of the current standard meta. Also, brute force is like 100% of the meta, it certainly lends itself to high level play. Ramunap red is ridiculous rn

>>54711987
Blue hasnt had good shit since cruise and dig. Problem is that is hard to balance blue without breaking it.

Reds problem comes from the design philosophy of it only caring about the early game. They can only print so many good cheap red spells without breaking red in older formats. If designers explored other of reds characteristics like creativity and passion instead of hurr durr anger, we would see more more variety in red cards.

>>54711987
The power levels of colors are practically always the same if we look at the whole card pool, instead of just standard environment. Blue>Black>Red>Green>White.

NWO cares to push creatures that are more and more powerful and spells that are less and less powerful, burn relies mostly on spells - que your problem. Even in current standard, Red is doing outstandingly well, it just isn't your "throw deal 3 damage spells at face".

>>54736727
my favorite flavor text on any card

>>54732081
I don't understand it, red loves 1, 2 and 3 drops... But imminent doom is bad...
Ramunap ruins was seen as the worst land and look how that turned out...

>>54747386
>3 drop enchantment that costs a card and does nothing the turn it comes down
>under certain conditions you can get it to hit your opponent for 3, maybe 6 by casting certain spells at what might not be good times to cast them
It's bad. I admit I slept on Ramunap Ruins, but the fact is that it's a good card because it's a land, and lands are often more powerful than people expect because they don't cost anything to put into your deck. But Imminent Doom is bad, and I'm pretty confident in that assessment.

>>54712449
Fuck your couch, Blastoise is the best

>>54747696
The best is actually venasaur