Hey
 

Right, well, I'm pretty much new to Magic, though my bro gave me a big box of his old Magic cards. Mostly revised edition and Fallen Empires. Some of my friends are Magic players, so I decided to build up against them. I thought since I had ancient cards that they'd be really powerful and all, but as it turns out, in short, I was whooped. My friend that I play against most generally plays with a green deck of creatures. Powerful creatures. Powerful abilities. And powerful enchantments and artifacts, like the Loxodon Warhammer on Cytoplast Root-Kin. He gets his guys out quick with sped up mana, and lots of. First deck I made was a G/Bla and another color...though I don't remember. I was aiming for powerful creatures and spells. The latest deck, which I barely managed to win a round with, is a red and black deck I tried to focus on quick damage to get him down before he brought out his power. If you could help out with that needs to go and what I should get, that'd be awesome. Thanks!

 

Cards: 69                     * means I have more in stock

Creatures: 17

1   Black Knight*

3   Brassclaw Orcs*

1   Earth Elemental*

1   Fire Elemental*

1   Gray Ogre*

1   Hill Giant*

1   Hurloon Minotaur*

1   Hypnotic Specter*

1   Keldon Warlord*

2   Mons’s Goblin Raiders*

1   Orcish Spy*

1   Roc of Kher Ridges

1   Sengir Vampire*

1   Wall of Stone*

 

Artifacts: 4

1   Black Vise

1   Jandor’s Saddlebags

1   Sol Ring

1   The Rack

 

Enchants: 10

1   Fear*

1   Goblin War Drums*

2   Paralyze*

1   Tourach’s Chant*

3   Unholy Strength*

2   Weakness*

 

Sorceries: 7

2   Demonic Tutor

2   Goblin Grenade*

2   Hymn to Tourach*

1   Raise Dead*

 

Instants: 9

4   Lightning Bolt

2   Shatter*

3   Terror*

 

Lands: 22

1    Badlands

11  Mountain

10  Swamp

Well, I'd be more than happy to help you out with your deck and with beating your more experienced friends.  And when you finally do, you can take all the credit-- the fact that I helped can be our little secret.  But before I begin this fix, I feel obligated to tell you that many of these cards (particularly Badlands) have been out of print for quite some time, are highly collectible, and would fetch an impressive price on the secondary market.  I'm no stockbroker, so I won't get into unfamiliar territory here, but I just thought I should point it out if you were so inclined (or if any of my readers were wondering why they didn't recognize any of these names).  I had to look up several of the cards on Gatherer myself-- I just started playing during Odyssey block.
Now, on to real business, so to speak.  You've got lots of good cards-- very good cards-- and quite a few lackluster ones as well.  And since you're over 60 cards anyway, let's run down the list and pick out the duds.

Earth Elemental-- Compare Earth Elemental to his sister, Fire Elemental for a minute.  Both cost the same, but Fire has an extra point of power while Earth has an extra point of toughness.  And let me in on a little secret-- when it comes to damage in Magic, three is the Magic number.  Most burn spells do three damage.  Three power on a creature is fairly common.  Creatures with a toughness of four are notoriously hard to kill with one shot.  Therefore, there is very little that will kill Fire Elemental that won't kill her brother.  And that extra point of power is pretty important-- it can mean the difference between killing the opponent in four turns or five turns, and every extra turn you give your opponent gives them a chance to draw a way to win.
Gray Ogre-- The going rate for a 2/2 with no abilities is two mana.  Compare this to Brassclaw Orcs.  Then consider how often you'll be blocking with it.
Hill Giant-- Once again, a vanilla (no abilities) creature in Red should have power at least equal to its converted mana cost, or else it's just not good enough for your purposes.
Hurloon Minotaur-- And again....
Mons's Goblin Raiders-- These guys have power equal to their mana cost, but they're still too small to make a difference.
Black Vise/The Rack-- While these cards can be powerful, they need to be a real focus of the deck.  One copy each means it's fairly easy for the opponent to play around the restrictions, and you probably won't draw them anyway.
Fear--Fear was okay in it's time, I suppose, but these days it's been made obsolete.  There was a creature enchantment in Scourge that gave +1/+0 and fear for 1B, and could bring itself back from the graveyard.
Tourach's Chant-- What if your opponent isn't playing Green?  Then this is completely useless.  if you know your opponent is playing Green, then add this card before the start of the game.  Otherwise it shouldn't be in here.
Goblin Grenade-- For Goblin Grenade to be a good card, you need about a third of your deck to be Goblins, at least.  You only had two, and they were lousy.  They're gone, and so is this.
Alright, that's twelve cards I've dropped, so you're down to 57 cards.  What should you add in?  A better question is, what shouldn't you?  All these cards you've got are great, like too good to be reprinted good.  I seriously am jealous of you.  And going by the asteisks you've been kind enough to provide me with, I can tell you to fill those three extra slots with more copies of any of the following:

Black Knight
Hypnotic Specter
Goblin War Drums
Paralyze
Hymn to Tourach
Terror
Orcish Spy

Actually, with cards of that caliber, you could probably just add copies of all of those to have the full 4 of each.  You'd be well over 60 cards and thus your odds of drawing any of card you need would be reduced, but when all your spells are this good, so what?
A note about Orcish Spy: Magic is a game of information.  You don't know what's in your opponent's hand and he doesn't know what's in yours, so controlling information is a powerful advantage.  Having said that, Orcish Spy is easily the worst of the best here.  Add copies of the other cards before adding Orcish Spy.  And if you get above 60 cards, don't go any higher for Orcish Spy.  I almost want to cut it, but since its effect is so rare for Red, I won't.
That pretty much covers you for now.  The last piece of advice I can give, is to invest in a set of card sleeves to keep your vintage cards in good condition.  And have fun!

~BMoor