Card/Deck Blue-Red Spells-a-Turn

[snailking]

Alternately, Blue-Red Multi-Spells, maybe Blue-Red Spell Velocity, something like that.

TL;DR: Trying to take Blue-Red Spells beyond counting the instances of "instant and sorcery" on your cards.

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Hi, Riptide Lab! Long time lurker, first-time (and ideally many-more-time) poster.

In putting together my most recent cube overhaul (I'll hopefully have my own blog up about this soon), I came upon the curious case of a once-noble archetype that may have suffered a bit in recent years: Blue-Red.

The typical home for the pair in cube environments has been, of course, Spells!

When drafting up my archetypes, I've realised that this colour combination is... a bit lonely. It's difficult to bleed the archetype into other colours. After the evergreening of the Prowess mechanic and some spell-dudes, white occasionally gets a look-in, but that's about it.

Perhaps the whole "instant or sorcery" deal is a bit tired - perhaps we can make Spells! about, well, any spell.

A card I've always liked, but never been amazed by, is this guy:


Jori En fills a weird little void - he doesn't care what spells you're casting or what their type-line is - he just wants you to cast a few a turn and he'll reward you with some value here and there. I've eventually been forced to cull him, but before doing so, I issued myself a challenge: can we make this little Merfolk Wizard into his own archetype?

Down the rabbit hole we go!

Question 1: How can we sustain casting multiple spells a turn as often as possible?
Retrace cards:


Alright... bit of a dull offering. Flame Jab's okay I guess. How about...

Cascade cards:


A bit... goodstuff-y? I've never been a huge fan of Cascade in limited environments, as it places some awkward constraints on deckbuilding (you don't want to cascade into Miscalculation, but you sure do love having Miscalculation in your deck) and can be a bit variance-y. Through its lifetime, its chief purpose has been to abuse a subsection of...

Suspend cards:


Possibly a bit much for a low-power environment. How about...



A little bit more to chew on here, perhaps. Some of these are likely kicking around in our cubes already, and some might be nice tie-ins to other archetypes (Fungal Behemoth to +1/+1 counters, Veiling Oddity to saboteurs/ninjas, Search for Tomorrow to ramp, Roiling Horror to the BW syphon decks).

The cycle of "re-suspenders" (Arc Blade, Reality Strobe, Chronomantic Escape, Festering March, Cyclical Evolution and Epochrasite) can help set up a little engine to keep Jori En chugging over a few turns. It may be a push, but the "suspend-tension" cards (Nihilith, Deep-Sea Kraken, Curse of the Cabal, et al) offer a bit of spice to gameplay. Maybe we're onto something?

Rebound cards:


The younger cousin of suspend doesn't have much for us, however. Back to the bin:

Flashback cards:


We aren't necessarily looking to play both halves on the one turn, but we'll often enter the midgame with a few of these lying around in the graveyard. As we roll on, a lot of the otherwise-marginal spells get a little more attractive if you staple "draw a card" to them. How about the new breed of flashback?

Jump-Start cards:


A few winners here, too. Some perfectly serviceable removal/card-draw spells, and the jump-start mechanic folds nicely into the cycling or discard-for-value decks usually finding homes in the BUG colours.

How about some nutty stuff:


I've been pleasantly surprised that Frantic Search isn't completed cooked in a low-power-level environment, but Treachery is jolly horrid.

The tried and true:


Yup, cheap cantrips. Fairly uninspired, but certainly let us fit in that second spell in a turn.

Red 'card advantage' spells:


These let us cast the second spell without already needing it in hand (this may quell some frustrations I can imagine playing the deck), and a few already have safe spots in cubes.

Question 2: Aren't we putting the cart before the horse a bit here?
I'm getting ahead of myself. Isn't this just a whole pile-a-junk if we don't have Jori En in play? What else is going to pay us off for casting multiple spells a turn? Hmm...



I can see these being reasonable anchors for the archetype, despite the dreaded "instant or sorcery" on some. We definitely need some more. Let's chuck in a smattering of speculative picks:



+ 'fair-storm' spells (dangerous territory, I know)
+ most of the "...number of instant or sorcery spells..."-type cards already paying off the UR player

These are all on the cusp of playable. It's really a shame that the Surge spells were all a bit shit.

I guess this is where I'm falling down. Jori En may not be enough to pull to a budding drafter into this potential archetype, and the rest might not be enough either.

I see this as a spectrum between the traditional Spells! deck and full-blown Storm. I want to see if there exists a deck that can sustain a reasonable spell velocity (and benefit from it) without being all sorts of busted/poisony Storm nonsense and stomping all over the other archetypes.

Has anyone found this happy middle anywhere?

 

[Chris Taylor]

It's worth noting that this all works well with the other spells matter cards like kiln fiend for eg.

[WhyNotBoth.meme]

 

[snailking]

The more I run over the spells-matter cards (particularly the payoffs), the more I just can't see them fitting into any deck other than UR.

Stoopid spells messing with my draft tensions grumble grumble.

 

[dbs]

My cube is more-or-less entirely built around spell velocity. That means my views on this issue are warped because basically every color and every deck supports this archetype and therefore I end up with a very wide net of overlapping synergies. That being said I've still had to deal with de-poisoning certain specific sub-archetypes. My trick and major piece of advice is:

Think about the style of play, not keywords on cards.

Worrying about the storm keyword itself is a trap. Instead you should focus on figuring out what about the storm style of play makes it fun. Thinking about spell velocity like that, you end up wanting to get cards that fulfill each of the necessary parts of the play-style. I see those falling primarily into three categories: (1) replacement, (2) mana, (3) payoffs. No matter what colors you're in or what type of spell you're casting, a storm style deck needs to be able to replace its cards (keep getting more spells to cast whether through card draw or recursion), gain more mana to keep the spells flowing, and a way to turn all those cards, casts, and mana into a win. Depending on the power level of your cube you also need to determine how much of (1) and (2) you can do on one turn - that then gives you the info you need to balance (3).

I'm not going to layout a complete guide of every single card I know that falls into these categories. Recently in the "ETB Combo Archetype" thread I posted some thoughts on how spells-velocity could work for creature-oriented decks. This time, I'll give an example using artifacts (not because I think artifacts are the specific answer for U/R Spells, but just because artifact-casts-matter is pretty far away from what you've got so far). I just hope to give an example of how I go about constructing these decks across the board.

Spell-Velocity Artifacts
Replacement:


Mana:


Payoffs:


Notice that a majority of these cards don't really care about artifacts. Chromatic Star replaces itself whether you care about casting artifacts specifically or not. Second Sunrise works on creatures too. Helm of Awakening nets you mana in an instant/sorcery velocity deck or an artifact velocity deck. Psychic Corrosion works in any deck that draws cards, but with Sensei's Divining Top + Paradoxical Outcome, Second Sunrise + Chromatic Star, Vedalken Archmage etc you'll be drawing a lot of cards using your artifacts. Crypt Ghast is both a payoff and a mana source for any kind of spell velocity deck. Paradox Engine can get you more mana by untapping your mana rocks, but it can also get you replacement by untapping your Hanna, Ship's Navigator or Goblin Welder.

Furthermore, notice that Sunrise and Welder don't actually get you extra casts. This demonstrates possible branching paths you can take. For a Marionette Master deck you don't need the cast triggers themselves, so sunrise is fantastic. When using Monastery Mentor or Aetherflux Reservoir, you actively want the cast triggers, making something like Scrap Trawler or Archmage more desirable.

In fact, more generally, your specific choice of wincon/payoff can guide you to mix-and-match different styles of deck. If Monastery Mentor or Jeskai Ascendancy is your big payoff, then Seething Song and Frantic Search would fit perfectly into a deck that otherwise largely leverages artifact-velocity. If Aetherflux Reservoir is your artifact-velocity payoff then you can build a deck that focuses more on artifact creatures like Myr Retriever and throw in Soul Warden, and Shrine of Loyal Legions as an extra way to get to 50 life. This might naturally cause you to go into green for Fangren Marauder and Beast Whisperer (creatures count as spells too!). I think this is the key for making storm-style velocity decks non-poisonous. The players should be able to very flexibly mix-and-match directions. If the above archetype too narrowly focuses on artifacts then the drafting process will feel on-rails. If it effortlessly overlaps with instant/sorcery decks and creature decks then your drafters get an interesting puzzle to solve when determining exactly what mix they want to use.

Please report back as you continue to work on this archetype, whether it focuses on instant/sorceries, stays in U/R or goes somewhere else altogether. I look forward to hearing how it works out for you!