Budget Magic: $60 (14-Rare) Big Red | Bloomburrow Standard
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! Today, we kick off our exploration of Bloomburrow Standard with a unique take on Mono-Red: Big Red! When I think about red decks in Standard, I mostly think of super-aggressive decks full of one- and two-drops and backed by the best cheap burn in the format. But our deck today is going in the opposite direction. Instead of flooding the board with cheap creatures, we are trying to ramp into four-drops and five-drops like Sunspine Lynx, Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest, and Tyrant of Kher Ridges, which deal huge amounts of damage with their enters-the-battlefield triggers while also adding massive bodies to the battlefield. Cards like Brazen Collector, Charming Scoundrel, and Grabby Giant fill our early turns, each ramping us into our big finishers as fast as possible! How good is Sunspine Lynx and Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest in Bloomburrow Standard? Is going big the best way to build Mono-Red on a budget in Bloomburrow? Let's get to the video and find out!
Budget Magic: Big Red
Wrap-Up
Overall, we won right about 50% of the time with the deck. (I'm not sure about the exact rate since we played on early-access day with a free account from Wizards, and my tracker doesn't work on early-access day.) But that's fine since the record isn't especially important on early-access day anyway since people are mostly trying out the new cards. What I look for on early-access day is how the deck (and more specifically, the new cards) felt. In general, Big Red felt solid.
Sunspine Lynx—the main reason I build the deck—felt great. In the right matchups (against decks playing a bunch of non-basics, which includes pretty much all three-plus-color decks and some two-color decks), it's a legit, game-ending bomb. But just as importantly, even when it's at its worst (against mono-color decks), it's still fine as an above-the-curve 5/4 for four. I fully expect the card to have a major impact on Bloomburrow Standard, whether it sees much play or not—just its presence in the format should scare people out of being too greedy with their mana bases.
Our new Bird Dragon Dragonhawk was even more impressive. Its enters-the-battlefield and attack trigger is super strong, and unlike Sunspine Lynx, it doesn't really care about the matchup. The two cards together are great ways to close out games out of nowhere with a massive burst of damage to our opponent's face.
The last big new card in the deck was Brazen Collector, and it was the Bloomburrow card I was least sure about in the deck. While it is technically a two-drop that can ramp us into our four- and five-drops a turn earlier, I wasn't sure that it, as a 2/1, would be able to attack often enough to be worth it. In practice though, it was solid, but for a reason I didn't really expect: Bloomburrow is super aggro, and being a 2/1 first strike made Brazen Collector an oddly good blocker. Plus, even if we don't have a good attack, we can always chump attack to ramp into a Lynx or Dragonhawk if necessary.
All in all, I think that Big Red seems like a solid budget deck for Bloomburrow Standard. If you're looking for a cheap deck to play and like red but are tired of the super-aggro beatdown plan, give Big Red a shot! 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.
