This is in reply to a post I saw on the forum here:

http://www.pojo.biz/board/showthread.php?t=919564

"Blue Red Deck. Please tell me how to make this deck better.

Creatures:
Red:
1-Earth Servant
1-Ember Hauler
1-Manic Vandal
1-Arc Runner
2-Goblin Shortcutter
1-Fire Servent
1-Ancient Hellkite
2-Goblin Bushwhacker
2-Gobline Balloon Brigade
1-Mordant Dragon

Blue:
1-Voyager Drake

Instant:
Red:
3-Lightning Bolt
1-Heat Ray
1-Pyretic Ritual
1-Searing Blaze
1-Chandra's Outrage

Blue:
1-Redirect
1-Dispel
1-Cancel
2-Unsummon
3-Mana Leak
2-Negate
1-Diminish

Sorcery:
Red:
1-Act of Treason

Blue:
1-Preordain
1-Sleep
1-Call to Mind

Enchantments:
Blue:
2-Mind Control

Artifact:
1Everflowing Chalice

Lands:
15-Mountains
13-Islands
1-Dread Statuary
1-Terramorphic Expanse

Planeswalker:
1-Chandra Nalaar

Thank You.

slyro007

-----------------------

slyro007,

You didn't provide much to go on in your post here on the forums as far as where you wanted this deck to go or what your focus is here but while looking over it 2 cards stuck out to me. Act of Treason and Mind Control. These aren't usually cards that would see lots of play but the fact you have blue and red and included both of those cards spoke to me of some unsaid desire to take your opponents creatures and use them for your own purposes. To that end I decided to try and come up with a deck based around that very idea.

The first thing we need for this type of deck is ways to gain control of your opponent's creatures. Act of Treason and Mind Control can both stay and to that we can also add Mark of Mutiny and Conquering Manticore. The manticore gives you the same ability as the others on top of a flying 5/5 body for 6 and should make a fun finisher in this deck. Mark of mutiny is basically Act of Treason 5-8.

Well, now that we have ways to get control of their creatures what do we do with them? Well, the obvious answer is bash them in the face with their own guy but what then? What if the guy lives past his traitorous attack? You don't really want to just hand his guy back to him so that he can swing right back at you with it. Hey, how about while we control his critter let's sacrifice it for our own gain! How delightfully devious. So now that we know what we want to do we just need ways to do it.

Looking through the various sacrifice effects we can use in our colors the first two I will suggest are Carnage Altar & Culling Dais. I think we should include both but I'm not sure how many of each one. The dais allows you to sacrifice any creature you get control of at no cost but in order to draw the cards you need to sacrifice it. The altar on the other hand nets you a card and sticks around after each sacrifice but costs 3 to use. You'll need to do some play testing to figure this out but I'd say no more than 3-4 copies between the two.

On top of those the other card I found in our colors is Magmaw. It costs 5 but gives us a 4/4 body and for 1 colorless gives us another sacrifice outlet for our stolen creatures. So you can steal his biggest blocker, swing in with both, then sacrifice his own creature for an additional point of damage, good times! Lastly there is Fling which will let you sac his own guy to deal damage equal to it's power wherever you want it (after you smack him up with his own dude of course).

So we have our plan in place however it requires time and mana so we'll need to get some controllish elements going for you to be able to get to use all this fun stuff. For mana I like the everflowing chalice though you could also look at possibly putting Prophetic Prism in there which drops on turn 2, nets you a card, and provides a mana of any color. Since we mentioned card drawing here, I'd suggest getting some more copies of Preordain as well since it will help you find and draw the pieces you need.

Also we could go with Sea Gate Oracle which again helps you filter and draw needed cards and also provides a blocker. It also has the really important 3 toughness that will let you run 4 Pyroclasms in order to sweep the table of all those pesky early drops any aggro decks will try against you. I'd also suggest getting the fourth lightning bolt because well... it's lightning bolt. Also Arc Trail would probably be good as it could let you tag 2 creatures for the price of 1.

Some counterspells would likely be good as well to prevent any shenangians or hard to deal with creatures coming online before you're ready to steal and sacrifice. Mana Leak and Cancel fill those slots nicely. Since I haven't mentioned it yet you can also keep Chandra if you're able to fit it in just because she's good so why not, again, if you can fit it. Also a second Dread Statuary would be nice for additional punching power. So putting this together let's see what we end up with:

8 Creatures

4x Sea Gate Oracle
2x Magmaw
2x Conquering Manticore

5 Artifacts

2x Everflowing Chalice
2x Culling Dais
1x Carnage Altar

23 Spells

4x Act of Treason
3x Mark of Mutiny
3x Preordain
4x Pyroclasm
3x Mana Leak
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Mind Control

24 Lands (Including 2 Dread Statuary)

Sideboard:

1x Mark of Mutiny
1x Preordain
1x Mana Leak
1x Culling Dais
4x Arc Trail
2x Cancel
1x Conquering Manticore
4x Fling

So there you go we now have a deck based around Act of Treason. How well this will work... I have no idea really since I just found a subtheme in your list of cards and ran with it but if it does work it should be really fun. If you try this out and make it work I'd really like to hear about it. So e-mail me at take3pass@gmail.com with your stories.

-Dolf