Card/Deck Red Two Drops

Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
In reevaluating my red two drop section - which had been ignored and gone stale recently - I figured I should take thorough stock of everything red has to offer. To help me organize my thoughts, I roughly grouped all the relevant red creatures into three broad tiers, and ordered cards within the tiers.

Tell me, as bluntly as you can:
  • Did I miss anything
  • Where I'm wrong, as far as grouping / ordering
Excellent


Very Good


Passable
 
K

kevthewalker

These seem more niche, but I have seen them in cubes before. Just throwing them in, just on the off chance you missed 'em.



Bloodseeker and Fiend being better than the other two, of course.
 
Goldenpineapple

Goldenpineapple

Personally I wouldn't put war marshal alongside the other 'very good' cards. It's always been clunky- you either don't pay echo and get a half-delayed dragon fodder / krenko's command or you do and paid an extra mana for a hordeling outburst. I understand that it can be real cute and spew out tokens with some flickering/recursion but in a vacuum list I don't rank it highly at all.

Some other stuff:



I realize a few of these are pretty niche, but I think they're all worth at least looking at.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
remember when the higher power cubes hardly had any options at this CMC so had to run cards like Kargan Dragonlord?

I've been disappointed with War-Name Aspirant for reasons unbeknownst and think Keldon Marauders is just bad for all the typical platitudes about aggro not being burn in Cube
 
Suicufnoc

Suicufnoc

Yeah, not a fan of Keldon Marauders. I'd put about half of the creatures from the Very Good and Passable section's over it I think.

Rough Order of the ones from the first post:

Young Pyromancer
Stormblood Berserker
Borderland Marauder
Gore-House Chainwalker
Hellspark Elemental
Plated Geopede
Mogg War Marshal
Lightning Mauler
War-Name Aspirant
Firefist Striker
Ash Zealot
Keldon Marauders
Torch Fiend
Kargan Dragonlord
Generator Servant
Eidolon of the Great Revel
Ember Hauler
Mogg Flunkies

edit: fixed geopede.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Plated Geopede is better than that. The only one I'm running that you didn't mention is viashino slaughtermaster. He actually gets activated in my cube! and the new card drawy guy looks cool.
humbledefector.jpg
 
Suicufnoc

Suicufnoc

Is it enough to just have really good fixing for Slaughtermaster to be good? I think I'll put him in next time I try the aura package

I think Defector is garbage.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Viashino Slaughtermaster is definitely playable with pump and Arena Athlete are playable with heroic support, but probably isn't where 95% of cubes want to be. Fireslinger is a stone cold classic, though it runs at a different angle then the aggro dudes. I'm not sure ember hauler and mogg flunkie are really passable, a 3/3 isn't that special that I want to take a terrible drawback to get it. Muckwader is also a guaranteed 3 power and that's worth a lot.

I also agree that Keldon Marauders is mediocre, but I will defend War Marshal as being very good: all those cute things he can do add up. Plated Geopede is also way good in fetch-rich environments.

Up: Geoopede
Down: Marauders
Out: Flunkie, Ember Hauler
In "Good": Fireslinger, Altac Bloodseeker
In Passable: Viashino Slaughtermaster, Crimson Muckwader and Mogis Warhound if you want to sort them here.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
What are your experiences with Frazzled Editor? I ran hum for all the years I've had a cube, and I personally have no problem with a red pro-everything bear. But one of two things usually happens: we get fuzzy about counting flavor text or reminder text, or someone complains that he's completely busted. So I took him out.
 
D

DreamPaint

I played Kruin Striker for a while and it was fine but it really needed a second point of toughness. I also agree with what CML said. I have really been hating War-Name Aspirant and i'm pretty sure it should just be Gore-House Chainwalker again. I also always hated Keldon Mauraders. It's not even a creature, it's just face burn and if it ever gets blanked by something like a token or even incidental lifegain you are at a huge disadvantage. On the other hand, Altac Bloodseeker is a card i've been pleased with. There is a lot of cool stuff you can do with it and its ceiling is high. Follow-ups like Electrolyze make memorable moments that are powerful and fun. Oh, and I overloaded a Mizzium Mortars with her once too.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
You guys are probably right on Keldon Marauders. I think I have an unnatural bias towards him, but like his brethren Hellspark Elemental, he leans a little more on the burn side of the spectrum than the creature side. On a related note - how do you guys feel about Goblin Guide? He's a guy that's always felt like Lava Spike to me, despite the fact that he doesn't disappear of his own accord.

I haven't had a lot of success with Plated Geopede, for much the same reasons that the only person that's gotten Steppe Lynx to work is Jason. As I've noted at various points, even with twenty fetches in 360, it's hard to assemble more than four fetches total if drafters know what they're doing. Geopede is, to my mind, a bit worse than the cat, and isn't really something I'm looking to cube. But it sounds like some of you have had more luck with him, so I could just be biased the other way.

Interesting points about Altac Bloodseeker and Fireslinger; I hadn't considered those at all.

I think I'm going to disqualify Crimson Muckwader for not really being mono-red, much in the same way Kird Ape isn't either, and Mogis's Warhound for being more of a three drop. But feel free to post your own groupings; mine is just my own take.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Just wanted to emphasize eric's point here: Hellspark Elemental and Keldon Marauders are much much closer to volcanic hammer than they are to Gore-House Chainwalker, so plan accordingly.

Viashino Slaughtermaster is sweet, and the difference between him and fencing ace is real. A+, would recommend. Consider adding some vidid-esque lands or more city of brass, but he's a sweet synergy based 2 drop a la Ajani's Pridemate, Gather the Townsfolk, or Seeker of the Way.

Mogg War Marshal is about the only echo card I can stand, and he's a sweet arc lightning sometimes with goblin bombardment in play. He's a bit akward with no synergy, so he may go soon.

Ash Zealot is actually really nice, and with gravecrawler running around the "bolt you for flashing something back" is more than just flavor text. I think you're really underestimating her eric.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Ash Zealot is a more than fine woman, but {R}{R} cards have a very high bar to cross, much like {W}{W} bears do. They're hard to cast on-curve, unless you're mono-red or near it. I find that cards like this tend to perform better in constructed, where you can have a really sweet manabase, than in cube, where as an aggro deck you have to cobble together a bunch of mismatched duals and pray it all works.

Lately, my stance has been that cubes only have room for roughly one two-mana CC creature in each colour - maybe more if you're above 360 - so Ash Zealot has to compete with all the other RR cards on the list above for only one slot.

Yeah, Gather the Townsfolk is pretty lousy unless you're running multiple Champions, and even then it's questionable. I mean, nobody ever really clamoured for Dragon Fodder...
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Eric Chan said:
Ash Zealot is a more than fine woman, but {R}{R} cards have a very high bar to cross, much like {W}{W} bears do. They're hard to cast on-curve, unless you're mono-red or near it. I find that cards like this tend to perform better in constructed, where you can have a really sweet manabase, than in cube, where as an aggro deck you have to cobble together a bunch of mismatched duals and pray it all works.

Lately, my stance has been that cubes only have room for roughly one two-mana CC creature in each colour - maybe more if you're above 360 - so Ash Zealot has to compete with all the other RR cards on the list above for only one slot.

Yeah, Gather the Townsfolk is pretty lousy unless you're running multiple Champions, and even then it's questionable. I mean, nobody ever really clamoured for Dragon Fodder...
Click to expand...

I never found all the CC bears that had to cast. Harder than their compatriots, but not so horribly crippling. In terms of mathing out the difference in our environments, I've got 55/450 nonbasic fixing, and about 13 red 2 drops. I can't actually access your cubetutor at the moment to find out those numbers on your end to compare though :p http://magiccards.info/query?q=t:"creature"+mana=rr&v=scan&s=cname Thats her competition though, and I think shes miles better than blood knight or eidilon of the great revel. I know you liked Kargan Dragonlord a lot, but I never found him to be that great.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I think Eidolon of the Great Revel is the best and funniest RR drop in my opinion. That damage adds up fast, and you're not the deck worried about damaging yourself. When I moved to my 3-color cube I cut all CC drops though, so no more Eidolon for me :(

Edit: Actually, I have one CC drop left, but Bloodghast has workarounds.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Chris Taylor said:
I never found all the CC bears that had to cast. Harder than their compatriots, but not so horribly crippling.
Click to expand...
It's really hard to do t1 Champion of the Parish into t2 Ash Zealot... but not nearly as difficult to do t1 Champion, t2 Keldon Marauders. I mean, sure, if your curve is t1 Goblin Guide, t2 Ash Zealot, t3 Chandra's Phoenix, and your manabase consists of 11 Mountains, that's one thing. But for the most part, I feel that you want to seed the two drops in your cube such that people in both R/x aggro and X/r aggro have a fighting chance of casting them on curve.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Eric Chan said:
It's really hard to do t1 Champion of the Parish into t2 Ash Zealot... but not nearly as difficult to do t1 Champion, t2 Keldon Marauders. I mean, sure, if your curve is t1 Goblin Guide, t2 Ash Zealot, t3 Chandra's Phoenix, and your manabase consists of 11 Mountains, that's one thing. But for the most part, I feel that you want to seed the two drops in your cube such that people in both R/x aggro and X/r aggro have a fighting chance of casting them on curve.
Click to expand...

Agreed, that's exactly how I approach it. Now all I can draft absurd 4-color aggro decks that piss people off for being draftable.
 
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