GR Aggro

Red/Aggro could be seen at many major tournaments and even small ones and I was wondering what such a deck can do. I was convinced that such a deck should terribly die to any deck that behaves more like a control. The truth is that such decks are rare to be seen. I sleeved a certain version of this deck. I played 22 lands, 8 mana dorks, 3 swords (added two Feast and Famine, one main board, one in side board for mirror and annoying decks like zombies and what not), two metamorphs and Garruks. The rest is pretty much the same as many run (Huntmasters, Wolfir Avengers, Silverheart, S. Geists etc).

I played with this deck against mirror and humans and that was fine. After that I played against Miracle control and all I could was cry^_^. I can't even imagine playing against something that would be killing my mana dorks. Anyway I decided to test the deck during next type 2 tournament.

In the first round I played against a deck that was build against decks like RG Aggro and Delver and I knew that I can't do anything to win. We played few games more and I actually managed to win one against this weird but really funny looking Birthing Pod (and well the deck works and it won local WCQ). So here's another deck that can easily overrun this deck and quite easily. Anyway what I found is that Huntmaster alone can win the game. But I need to deal with my opponents first.

In the second round I played against monoblue Architect deck. I was quite afraid of Wurmcoil Engines but I always had Garruk in my hand to deal with them. I tried to keep Garruk on the table as long as possible and eventually tutored Silverheart to beat my opponent. I've done the same in game two. The deck did not show any explosive start or anything really aggro...But Garruk won me both games.

In the last round I played against UB Zombies. I was utterly crushed in the first game. I spend my three turns playing birds of paradise or llanowar elves and my opponent had mortarpods prepared for them. Add Gravecrawler and another zombie to it and that means no chance of me having anything with toughness one in play. In the second game my opponent got mana screwed and even though he had what to play I killed him. My opening hand wasn't any good but it had lands and Sword of Feast and Famine. In the third game I had to deal with 2 gravecrawlers, ghoul lady and several Messengers. It did not look good but Huntmaster was capable of keeping me alive at 2 life, later 4 life. Eventually I managed to have more creatures on the board even though I still couldn't attack as the opponent would have killed me back. Then Liliana of the Veil came into play and let me discard my last card and I was saving for Huntmaster (Green Sun's Zenith). The card I top decked though was way better - Hellrider. I was capable to produce over 20 damage with alpha strike. This won me the game.

After those three rounds I don't really feel convinced about the deck. I did not play against delver or humans so hard to say. Probably at a bigger tournament this deck would play against more decks it was meant to play against. I'm probably not well suited for this deck.