Against the Odds: Teaching Arena Zoomers about Chrome Mox (and also Blood Moon)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Against the Odds! This week, we're handing out some more life lessons to Arena Zoomers, this time about Chrome Mox and also a little bit of Blood Moon! Chrome Mox is an absurd Magic card, and it's coming to Arena for the first time in Aetherdrift as a special guest. As soon as I saw the reprint, I knew that we'd have to try to bring Mono-Red Prison to Timeless. Mono-Red Prison is my all-time favorite deck, but sadly, it died in Modern with Simian Spirit Guide. But Chrome Mox is a much better Simian Spirit Guide, to the point that it's actually banned in Modern! Our goal today is simple: play Chalice of the Void on Turn 1 with the help of Chrome Mox and Blood Moon on Turn 2 to hopefully lock our opponent out of playing Magic. If our opponent doesn't scoop to the lock, we have Goblin Charbelcher as our finisher, which takes advantage of our sneaky all-MDFC mana base, which also is great with Chrome Mox since MDFCs are lands that we can exile to imprint! How busted is Chrome Mox? Can Mono-Red Prison work in Timeless? Let's get to the video and find out!
Against the Odds: Mono-Red Prison
Wrap-Up
Record-wise, Mono-Red Prison was great! We went 11-5 with the deck for a very nice 69% win rate. Chrome Mox is a huge, huge deal for the deck. The difference between playing a Blood Moon on Turn 2 versus Turn 3, or Chalice of the Void on Turn 1 versus Turn 2, is massive. While pitching a card Chrome Mox might seem like a big drawback, it doesn't really matter in reality since we've got The One Ring, Seasoned Pyromancer, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker to help refill our hand.
As far as our two key lock pieces, both did work, although I think Chalice of the Void had a bigger impact overall. We had multiple matchups where a Turn 1 Chalice of the Void more or less beat our opponent by itself, and we didn't have many matchups where it was bad (outside of the hilarious Blue Moon match where our opponent was also playing Chalice and we ended up with Chalices on 0, 1, and 2 in Game 1 before taking them out during sideboarding since, if our opponent's playing Chalice of the Void, they probably won't be too disrupted by it). Meanwhile, Blood Moon picked up some free wins and is great in some matches, although it's a bit more hit or miss, in part because other people are playing Chrome Mox, which gives decks a win to make the mana they need even if all their non-basics are Mountains.
The rest of the deck is more or less self-explanatory—some removal, card draw, and Strike It Rich for more fast mana—with the exception of Goblin Charbelcher. I didn't start out with Belcher as the finisher in the deck. Traditionally, I've used planeswalkers in Modern Mono-Red Prison—various Chandras, Koth of the Hammer, Karn, the Great Creator, and stuff like that. But I ran into a problem: Timeless is a super-fast format. While our lock pieces are great at slowing down opponents, they don't last forever, and the onus is still on us to close out the game before our opponent breaks out of the lock. As I was building the deck, I started searching for MDFCs to work with Chrome Mox but quickly realized that we could easily play an all-MDFC mana base, which in turn would let us have Goblin Charbelcher as a finisher to close out the game quickly post-lock. The plan worked incredibly well. The extra mana from Chrome Mox helps us get up to seven mana to play and win with Goblin Charbelcher all in one turn, and Irencrag Feat gives us the possibility of a super-fast combo kill (technically as early as Turn 2, although this is unlikely in practice). Having a combo finish also gives us a chance to win just about any game, no matter how far behind we might be (see: our match against the Vampire deck with Turn 1 Vein Ripper).
So, should you play Mono-Red Prison in Timeless? I think the answer is yes! The deck felt strong, made opponents miserable, taught some Arena Zoomers a few lessons, and even posted a 69% win rate! What more could you want?
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
