Hey, It's been a while, But I made a red deck and I think it's quite good. It's been doing alright in long term games and can pull out a win pretty nice, but the problem is, a lot of times I get screwed on my mountains, and I should add more, and It also relies too heavily on combos, like multiple seething songs in a turn to play a searing wind, unless I get lucky and get my urzatron out quickly. So anyways, I'm trying to turn it into a super fast deck, turn 4 or 5 win. Do you think you can help? I've seen what you can do and I know that if there's anyone who can help, it's you. I'm trying to get it to atleast match the speed of affinity, which is about a turn 4-5 victory almost every time. Do you think you can help me? This deck is "Capable" of winning on turn 6 I believe, But very rarely does that happen, especially when It doesn't last passed turn 5. So I don't know if I should take out all creatures and make it straight burn, or what, But I don't care what changes need to be made, I know i've got a good start, But I just want to be able to make it A LOT quicker.

 

Deck List:

Land:

Mountain x10
Urza's Mine x4
Urza's Powerplant x4
Urza's Tower x4


Creatures:

Shivan Dragon 4x
Two-Headed Dragon 2x


Enchantment/Artifact:


Loxodon Warhammer 3x
Gratuitous Violence 2x


Spells:

Seething Song 4x
Searing Wind 4x
Shock 4x
Lavaburst 4x
Lightning Bolt 4x
Volcanic Hammer 4x
Blaze 3x

Total: 60 Cards

I hope you can help me out as soon as possible, I appreciate your time and I hope to hear from you soon.

 

Thanks

 

-Michael

 

A victory on Turn 4-5 is a tall order, especially against Affinity.  But it can be done, and I’ll do my best to help you make it happen.  First of all, it seems obvious that this isn’t a fast deck.  It’s a deck that wants to use its small burn, Shock and Volcanic Hammer, to keep the opponent’s board free of threatening creatures, so that you can survive long enough to build up mana and be able to cast large burn and dragons to kill the opponent in a few massive blows.  This is a fine strategy, but it will not stop Affinity.  My advice, since you also mention having trouble getting enough Mountains, is to drop the Urzatron and replace it with 11 Mountains, then drop anything you think you’ll have trouble casting(All the Dragons, Searing Wind, Lavaburst, Blaze).  I know you’ve had success with the urzatron in Tooth and Nail, but this is a bit different because you don’t have Sylvan Scrying to help you out here.  Also, drop Gratuitous Violence.  You don’t have enough creatures for it to make a difference even with the Dragons.

Now, to stop Affinity, you have to recognize where its true power lies: in its ability to play artifacts essentially for free.  Most notably the artfact lands.  Its next weapon is Disciple of the Vault, which rewards it for sacrificing its artifacts(which it does quite often).  With 4 Lightning Bolts and 4 Shocks, I’d say you’re already capable of dispatching the Disciple before his ability grows too painful.  Now you just need some way of dealing with artifacts.  I’m surprised that youdon’t have any artifact-destruction spells in this deck, especially considering how many good ones Red has, so I’m recommending a new one: Shattering Spree.  It only costs R to destroy an artifact, so if you play second, you can use it to destroy your opponent’s first land, thus disrupting his first few plays more that you realize(every artifact land is like two mana for an Affinity player).  Better then that even, is that Shattering Spree has the new ability Replicate, which means you can pay its mana cost any number of additional times to make that many copies of the spell.  If you make it to turn six, you could pay RRRRRR to destroy six artifacts with only one Shattering Spree.  In essence, spells with replicate are like spells with an X in their mana cost; they can adjust to your need and mana supply.  Especially good for this deck, since we took out all the expensive spells but left in Seething Song.

Why did I leave in Seething Song you ask?  Because I know of a combo with it that can win you the game on turn 3.

Turn 2: Play Izzet guildmage

Turn 3:Play Seething Song for RRRRR.  Use RRR to play Lava Spike, splicing on Desperate Ritual.  The Spike-Ritual goes on the stack, and you respond to it by using the other RR from the Song to play the Desperate ritual itself, gaining RRR.  After the Ritual resolves but before the Spike-Ritual resolves, use the RRR from the Ritual to play Izzet Guildmage’s ability, creating a copy of the Spike-Ritual.  The copy resolves, dealing 3 damage to target player and giving you RRR.  Use that RRR to use the Guildmage’s ability again, creating another Spike-Ritual copy.  You can keep doing this as many times as you want, dealing as much damage as you need to as many players as you want.  It’s a little tricky, and the odds of getting all the cards you need by turn 3 are......less than 100%, but it’s worth it.

Also, to assist you in your need for plenty of mana, try Wild Cantor.  It’s a 1/1 for R (or G) that can be sacrificed for a mana of any color.  And to help you survive in the late game, try Djinn Illuminatus.  There aren’t too many red spells with replicate, but the Djinn grants it to all instant and sorcery spells you play.  With a Djinn Illuminatus in play, Shock becomes like a half-price Blaze: five red mana gets you 10 damage, eight red mana gets you 16 damage, etc.  Only trouble is that the Djinn costs seven mana itself.  But with Seething Song and Desperate Ritual, that’s not really a big deal.  Okay, so what have I done to the decklist so far?

-12 Urza lands

-4 Shivan dragon

-2 Two-Headed dragon

-2 Gratuitous Violence

-4 searing Wind

-4 Lava Burst

-3 Blaze

 

+11 Mountain

+4 Shattering Spree

+4 Izzet Guildmage

+4 Lava Spike

+4 Desperate Ritual

+2 Wild Cantor

+2 Djinn Illuminatus

 

Well, I took out 31 cards, and added 31 cards.  I’d say that’s a good place to stop.  The deck now looks a bit like this:

Creatures:

4 Izzet Guildmage

2 Wild Cantor

2 Djinn Illuminatus

 

Other Spells:

3 Loxodon Warhammer

4 Seething Song

4 Desperate Ritual

4 Shock

4 Lighning Bolt

4 Volcanic Hammer

4 Shattering Spree

4 Lava Spike

 

Land:

21 Mountain

 

Those Loxodon Warhammer look a bit out of place, but I’ll let you be the judge on if they stay or go, and what feels right in their place.  So, this deck should be faster, it should almost always be able to get a few Mountains in the first few turns for Shock, and against Affinity it has a four card combo that can deal infinite damage on turn 3, a spell that can take out artifacts, plus four more spells that deal 3 damage for R.

Many many players have tried to defeat Affinity, players with more experience playing against it, and failed.  I can’t guarantee anything, but I’ve done the best I can.  Good luck!