Much Abrew: Mono-Red Proliferate Superfriends (Standard)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. During Phyrexia: All Will Be One spoiler season, I was pretty harsh on Koth, Fire of Resistance. Well, we're going all-in on building around Koth today, with the goal being to ultimate it in a single turn (with the help of a proliferate spell like Volt Charge or Staff of Compleation) and then burn our opponent out of the game as we play some Mountains. If Koth isn't enough, we can also use proliferate to rush the ultimate on Jaya, Fiery Negotiator or Chandra, Dressed to Kill, or just play an All Will Be One and burn our opponent out as we add counters to our permanents! Can a big mono-red proliferate deck work in Standard? Is Koth actually good? Let's get to the video and find out on today's Much Abrew About Nothing!
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Much Abrew: Mono-Red Proliferate Superfriends
Discussion
- Record-wise, I'm 5-3 with Mono-Red Proliferate Superfriends so far, good for a solid 63% match win percentage. While the deck does occasionally get run over by fast draws from aggro, it's actually surprisingly solid overall.
- Our deck's primary plan is simple: play planeswalkers like Koth, Fire of Resistance, Jaya, Fiery Negotiator, and Chandra, Dressed to Kill and try to ultimate them as quickly as possible by proliferating with Volt Charge and Staff of Compleation. While all of our planeswalkers are solid by themselves, offering card advantage, removal, and more, Koth, Fire of Resistance is actually the best of the bunch because it ultimates the fastest. Since Koth comes down with four loyalty and we can +2 it up to six loyalty, we only need a single proliferate, and we can ultimate Koth in a single turn, giving us a super-charged Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle emblem that should burn our opponent out of the game in short order as we make our land drops.
- While our planeswalkers are the big payoff, we also have some additional proliferate shenanigans, like adding counters to Blast Zone for removal, Tablet of Compleation for ramp and card draw, and just speeding through all of the lore counters of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.
- If we don't win the game with a planeswalker ultimate, we have a solid and synergistic backup plan in All Will Be One, which deals a ridiculous amount of damage as we play planeswalkers, Reckoner Bankbuster, or proliferate to add counters to our permanents. While All Will Be One will be a bit slow in some games, our opponent is in for a bad time if we ever manage to untap with it. It's really powerful.
- This deck's inspiration came from running into a couple of opponents on Arena who were looking to proliferate into Koth's ultimate. Those decks were playing Sardian Cliffstomper, which I tried in the deck, but I didn't it find all that impressive. We don't have any other creatures in the deck (although Fable of the Mirror-Breaker does work like a creature), which means Sardian Cliffstomper often died almost by default just because our opponent didn't really have anything else to spend their removal on. While the two-drop can get out of hand if it lives, playing more removal and Tablet of Compleation offers more consistency, especially since our current Standard is pretty removal heavy.
- While just a one-of, Light Up the Night is pretty sweet in the deck, to the point where it might be worth adding in another copy or two. While it isn't efficient removal in the early game because we have a bunch of high-loyalty planeswalkers, the flashback mode is a surprisingly legitimate threat to win the game. It also interacts really well with Jaya, Fiery Negotiator's ultimate since it can hit our opponent's face, unlike many of our spells, which only deal with creatures or planeswalkers.
- So, is Koth good, actually? I think the answer is yes... at least, in this deck. While Koth, Fire of Resistance can really only go into red-heavy decks since it cares so much about Mountains and is usually too slow for mono-red aggro decks, it is great in a more controlling mono-red deck like Mono-Red Proliferate Superfriends. While Koth isn't one of the strongest planeswalkers in Standard, it's not totally unplayable either, which I think means I was a bit too harsh on it during spoiler season. While only a few decks will be able to harness Koth's power, it will be really solid in those decks!
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.
