The waning days of Summer Standard. Fall set spoiler season is in full swing. People are brewing for the new format that’s just a few short weeks from arriving. People have sold off their cards that are rotating out. This is the time to strike.

The closing weeks of a format before a big rotation are a great opportunity to catch people napping. Many who are still playing are either being lazy with boring old decks, or going really out there with weird new brews. No deck has really established itself at the top of the Standard metagame since Magic Origins. Not even the Pro Tour could solidify the format. The card pool is as deep as it gets, and deeper than it will ever be again. Traditionally Red decks have been at their best when the format is deepest, giving them the most redundant burn spells and aggressive creatures to attack with. Never again will we have a Standard format with two full blocks (one of which had two large sets) and two full core sets. Don’t let this last opportunity pass you by! It’s time to Get Schwifty!

The window to take advantage of this deck is closing fast, but there are some fundamentals of card evaluation and deckbuilding to be learned here too. The genesis of this deck came from three distinct experiences. The first was my experience playing against White Weenie and Heroic decks as far back as late RtR/Theros Standard. What I learned then was the power of [card]Gods Willing[/card]. It feels like we’ve gotten these one-mana protection effects forever, but something about Scry 1 made this version better than the rest, save [card]Brave the Elements[/card]. Removal has steadily been getting more expensive, so the more your opponent spends to target your creature, the more of a tempo blow-out it is.

The second was when Khans Standard was young and Rabble Red decks were everywhere. [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card] was obviously good, but what really impressed me was the ability to crack for five on turn two with [card]Titan’s Strength[/card] and [card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card]. Again, because removal has gotten more expensive, it was very difficult to interact with this. I also was impressed by the power of playing [card]Akroan Crusader[/card] and [card]Hammerhand[/card] on the same turn, netting 3 power (plus any prowess) and neutralizing a blocker. This would also make five damage on turn 2 with a Swiftspear.

I didn’t put it all together though until I was listening to Patrick Chapin talk about UR Delver in Modern with [card]Treasure Cruise[/card]. He was talking about how “Costs One Mana” was like a special ability in and of itself, especially when playing with prowess. Costing only one mana was especially strong on cards that scry or draw a card, because they let you smooth your draws and play fewer lands. I went to Gatherer to see what kind of analogous support Schwifty had in Standard and found that the only one-mana spells with “draw a card” on them were [card]Defiant Strike[/card] and [card]Dragon Mantle[/card]. I also remembered that Gods’ Willing and Titan’s Strength had scry 1 for one mana. They weren’t [card]Thought Scour[/card] and [card]Serum Visions[/card], but this was Standard, and that was a good start. Chapin also talked about how that type of card let you get away with very few lands and I was sold.

I rolled through some FNMs and fell in the finals of Fate Reforged Game Day, just missing out on that sweet sweet alternate Ugin art playmat. The deck beat three-color decks whose manabases tend to hurt them a little too much, either in damage or tempo by entering the battlefield tapped. I also had a leg up on mono-red decks with [card]Seeker of the Way[/card]. [card]Gods Willing[/card] and [card]Favored Hoplite[/card] were also pretty good against them. Things got even better after Dragons of Tarkir when the format shifted dramatically to favor three-color control, Abzan and Mono/Atarka-red.

Then Magic Origins came along. I’d had a rotating two-drop slot since I built the deck. It started as [card]Lightning Strike[/card]. I’d tried [card]Dragon Fodder[/card] and even Twin Bolt there, but [card]Abbot of Keral Keep[/card] was the perfect card for the deck. It immediately slotted in and the deck immediately leveled up, securing me two byes for GP Quebec.

Here’s what the deck looks like today:

18 Land Boros – Jeff Good

[deck]
[Creatures]
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Favored Hoplite
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Seeker of the Way
4 Abbot of Keral Keep
[/creatures]
[Spells]
4 Magma Spray
4 Titans’ Strength
4 Gods’ Willing
4 Defiant Strike
4 Dragon Mantle
2 Hammerhand
[/spells]
[Lands]
4 Mana Confluence
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Temple of Triumph
4 Mountain
2 Plains
[/lands]
[Sideboard]
4 Valorous Stance
4 Revoke Existence
3 Searing Blood
2 Hammerhand
2 Scouring Sands
[/sideboard]
[/deck]

It’s a tight, efficient package that converts cards into damage at a high rate and a very rapid pace. It doesn’t have quite the same reach as a burn-heavy red deck, but [card]Gods Willing[/card] can still win games that look out of reach just by making a creature unblockable.

This isn’t your typical Red burn deck. There actually isn’t any burn that goes to the face in the main deck. I used to play [card]Wild Slash[/card], but I found over time that I was targeting my own heroic guys more often than my opponent’s. [card]Hangarback Walker[/card] is both ubiquitous enough and problematic enough to warrant [card]Magma Spray[/card] in the main plus Revokes in the side.

The plan of attack is pretty straightforward: Play a one-drop, then turn your spells into power and damage before your opponent can interact effectively. You don’t typically play around sweepers, rather you try to race them. The only cards you tend to hold are [card]Gods Willing[/card] and Abbot, which is typically one of the last cards out of your hand. You usually play [card]Hammerhand[/card] pretty aggressively, but sometimes you’ll hold back to be able to haste up a creature after a sweeper, or to keep [card]Hornet Nest[/card] from ruining your day. I personally prefer to put [card]Hammerhand[/card] on [card]Akroan Crusader[/card] since it’s pretty vulnerable on its own. [card]Abbot of Keral Keep[/card] flipping and casting a [card]Hammerhand[/card] is just the best feeling in the world.

Mulligans:

Mulligan any hand without a 1-drop creature and any hand with more than three lands. Single Temple hands generally have to go too. I have won a game off a single Plains hand, but it also had two [card]Favored Hoplite[/card] and two [card]Defiant Strike[/card]. Against a deck with more two-mana removal I might ship a hand with only one or two creatures too. Otherwise, the scry and cantrips should keep you in business pretty well. One of the advantages of this deck is that it can keep a lot of hands. I’ve had opponents start reshuffling with a sigh of “I just can’t risk that two-lander” while looking at a two-lander of my own that was perfect.

Threats:

I’ll spare the full SWOT since I’ve got a lot of experience with the deck and can tell you that your hardest match ups are two color decks like GW and UW Heroic. Their mana-bases don’t kill them or slow them down much and they tend to be more aggressive, putting out reasonable blockers much earlier than anyone else. Heroic isn’t actually a bad match up overall but if they can get off two [card]Ordeal of Heliod[/card] that’s a little too much life to fight through. Abzan can beat you in a similar way when they draw three [card]Siege Rhino[/card]s, but they generally have to draw multiple Rhinos and probably follow up with an Elspeth. In general their mana will do them in one game out of three.

Similar Decks:

There was a “RW Heroic” deck that finished 12th in the Standard IQ in Cincinnati, but it’s not as tuned or focused as this list is. It has too many two-drops and cards that neither scry nor draw a card. Just don’t play that version. I’ve considered all those cards and have good reasons for not playing them. It also only has one Abbot. What’s up with that?

Paul Rietlz played “White-Red Prowess” in the Standard Super League which is a lot closer. It still plays 20 lands and more two-drops than my version, but at least it’s got four Abbots. I’m not one to question Rietzl when it comes to playing Boros, but there’s some one-ofs that feel like hedges/guesses more than tuned numbers. I’m not on board with [card]Temur Battle Rage[/card] either. I can see the appeal of casting it after a [card]Titan’s Strength[/card], but it feels weak in almost any other situation otherwise. It’s also missing [card]Akroan Crusader[/card], which I’ve found critical to give the deck an ability to go wide and dodge edicts.

If you want to catch people off guard and punish them for playing greedy mana bases, then this is the deck for you. If you have any questions about playing the deck, feel free to comment here or tweet at me.

Jeff Good
@LowGuppy
Cohost of Not Another Magic Podcast and occasional writer both here and on CardConfidants.com