Ascension Review - Red
by Rand, the Most Sednezer'd
Alissa, Fire Moon Martyr - To this day I’m not sure if this is properly worded, but the idea is obvious. Besides being an efficient creature - a First Striking Lightning Elemental, more or less - she can significantly boost your whole army if your opponent manages to kill her. I haven’t seen her played, but a 4/1 First Striking Haster for 4 mana isn’t a bad deal. ****
Asterion’s Rage - Anti-artifact, which can be powerful in an Ioun-rich environment. But not as good as something like, say, Resonance. **
Blistering Desert - A nice defensive card (!) against weenie decks, could be used in red slow or control decks to try to hold back the ground war. Throws off opponent’s math a bit, likely slowing their assault by a few turns. The blocking effect may be even more influential, effectively giving red creatures an extra point of power if blocked. Worth a try. ****
Bursting Faultline - if you have 6 mana, it’s a Rain of Salt. Past that, it’s super efficient landkill. A must for any landkill strategy. ****
Chaotic Apparition - Mana efficient and with a useful ability. Not really subtle or anything, but a solid creature. ***
Chomper, Goblin Warlord - This guy used to pump himself, and thus became one of our first erratas. Nearly requisite for any Goblin deck. I mean, just LOOK at the bonus! Obviously not very useful outside of a Goblin deck. ***** in Goblin deck, ** otherwise
Chomper’s Assault - Hmm... somebody should try to build a Fires deck with this... Obviously an updated Fervor, slightly better. ****
Destructive Glee - A supplement to a landkill strategy. Nice to have on something when a Bursting Faultline goes off. Still, likely not worth the effort. A good way to get rid of excess lands, consider it more of an expensive, Raze engine than a creature pumper. **
Devastating Blast - Very similar to a white Onslaught card, though this leaves enchantments while that leaves lands. This one is more of a boardsweeper, though you can leave some combo-bits in play afterwards. It’s a Jokulhaups for one less, though you can still regenerate (another tidbit you can use to your advantage), and it even cycles. Let me put it this way: *****
Dragon’s Roar - Trumpet Blast +. Yawn. Yes, can make your creatures do crazy amounts of damage if you have 5 mana to spare a turn, or even more if you have a lot more. This is a fairly straightforward card, you don’t need me to explain it to you. ***
Electromancy - A nice card advantage kill spell. Can be painful to use, but is quite mana efficient. ****
Famine - I loathe this card. I know it can be abused - Zazdor has a rather infamous deck (combining this with Plate Tectonics) using it. A very annoying deck that makes all of your lands slowly disappear. Grr. Once it goes off, make sure not to play any more lands unless you REALLY need them. Sigh. **
Fire Moon - an obscure but efficient non-basic land hoser, important in a non-basic heavy environment such as ours. ****
Fire Rain - A really big Steam Blast with Buyback to boot. Nice for keeping the creature population under control. ****
Firesand Jackal - A very nice card for a sligh strategy. ****
Focused Rage - A bit to, well, focused, I think. Can get some extra damage in, but also paints a huge target on whatever creature you use it on, just ASKING for burn. I’d rather use Dragon’s Roar. **
Forceblast - A good killspell and useful antiblue, though not enough to win the game or even really turn the tide against Draw-go. Still, efficient burn. ****
Furor - Really depends on the situation. Can be anything from an overcosted poke to an obscene combat trick. A less versatile, but more subtle Arc Lightning. Usually, its is quite good, though there will be times when it isn’t all that much use. ****
Goblin Archer - A reason to want to go second. Either super efficient card advantage early game or just utterly stupid. A dead card surprisingly often, but still worth a slot or two. ***
Goblin Architect - Um, yeah. Actually useful with stuff like Mountainfist or certain other effects, but usually just silly. **
Goblin Barbarian - A good addition to Sligh, as enchantments usually don’t see much play, especially early game. ***
Goblin Merchant - Slow, but slightly abusable. Often ends up stealing an Ioun after a bad combat bout. ***
Goblin Queen - Multiples pump themselves, which is good, and +2/+0 is a nice bonus, but just be sure not to play her in a mirror match! **
Hack and Slash - If you know that all your lands are going to explode soon, a nice way to turn them into something useful, though the cost and the speed make it hard to abuse in such a way. Possibly useful to create a large army quickly, but risky. ***
Hopping Sparks - A strange twist on Hermetic Study. A useful card in sealed, provided you have a big enough creature to support it. Not so useful in constructed. **
Igneous Elemental - A 4/4 for 5 isn’t precisely a bad deal, and it does leave a big rock to block attacks after it dies. Still, there are more efficient fatties and defensive cards, so this gets ignored most of the time. ***
Incandescence - Trampleball! No need to debate whether you deal a ridiculous amount of damage to your opponent or their biggest creature! Smacketh them both at once! I like this card. Not at ALL subtle, effectively a one time slap upside the head, which is perfectly in flavor for red. ****
Inside Fire - Hey look, a finisher. A very good finisher. Oh, you are at 8 life? I’ll just sacrifice all my stuff to kill you. No, that isn’t really fair. Sorry. ****** (more than 5 means we have a problem)
Iron Cyclops - It’s big, it’s fat, and it’s paralyzed. Right. ***
Knights of the Scarlet Star - Works in a ridiculously aggressive, commit everything strategy, but works very well in it. In a deck that lives on the edge of its mana curve and attacks in full force every turn, this can really shine. Just be careful, it can hurt you rather quickly if you hold back even slightly.****
Knowledge Bargai - The most efficient card drawing Red should ever see. Not nearly as good as Wheel of Fortune, but then again it would have been stupid to have printed something that is. ****
Lava Rain - Like Earthquake, but more expensive and not as effective. It does hit flyers, though, and any board sweeping effect is good, but still, not as good. ***
Lightning - This would be so broken in standard WotC today. Is still good in HGML. 3 damage for 2 is efficient, and in the slight chance that isn’t useful, you can cycle it. *****
Lightning Bug - it Pyroclasm’s when it dies, but otherwise it’s a 3 mana waste of space. Might be fun to have multiples, creating a huge explosion. Still, not very good most of the time. **
Magma Golem - Wow, we predicted temporary mana boosts moving to red! We are smart! Actually, I don’t know where the heck this bloody thing came from, but it is an efficient creature and the mana can be useful. ***
Mana Burst - It’s a less splashable Mana Flare. I suggested adding the ability to add a mana sink that had a minor negative effect, simply revealing your hand, and somebody added all sorts of stupid stuff to make that rather silly. ***
Mask of Blood - Eh, not bad so far as Enchant Creatures go. On an evasion creature, you can give your opponent a nice headache. ***
Memory Fire - This is VERY good in a landkill deck, can deal ludicrous amounts of damage. Otherwise, not very playable. ****
Mountainfist - A very odd card. Against Red, or any opponent you’ve managed to give a mountain somehow, whether it be Goblin Architect or Plate Tectonics, this is uber-efficient. Otherwise, it’s a silly wall. ***
Ogre Mystic - Hey, doesn’t hurt you as much as an Orcish Artillery, and that saw some play. Worth a shot at least. ***
Orcish Mercenaries - Cheap, but not very reliable. Still, the ability to tie down enemy resources is not to be disregarded. ***
Ornate Minotaur - Bah. **
Phoenix Fledgling - a fun card to recur. Think of it as a Rukh Egg that can do something before it dies. A bit expensive, but I can see it being used. ***
Pinch of Sulfur - A slow, hard to use, and undependable way to kill lots of lands in theory. That’s too many modifiers for my liking. **
Resonate - Killer against Iouns, useful against Artifact decks in general (which are prevalent in HGML). A must have sideboard card for red in this environment. ***
Scintillating Dragon - I think the special ability was supposed to go the other way around, but as it is this is a huge flier for six mana with a rather pointless ability. ****
Shattering Charm - Two decent abilities and one that might even be usable on occasion, an efficient card and a good alternative to Shatter.
Sidewinder - I’d rather have Fire Moon, but this could be useful in fast decks. Conceivably. **
Spiked Stones - A harder to use Earthquake, that does barely any damage to players. But it’s an INSTANT. *****
Sulphalith - *. The most useful of the Alith abilities. Still stupid.
Surgical Precision - Drop down a fattie, wreak some havoc for a turn. I can see this being comboed with creatures with Comes-into-play (or leaves play, for that matter) effects, or some recursion spell, but hasn’t happened yet. An abusable card that has been sadly ignored. ***
Tinoe Hydra - A hyrda which can grow in the classical Hydra sense. Nifty, especially as it documents Jewel’s first appearance, but still, 5 mana better give you a lot in a 3/3 body. **
Touch of Insanity - Put it on one of Red’s few fliers, and maybe you have something. Otherwise, it just paints a target on one of your creatures. Much easier ways to kill lands there are. Reason there is not for Yoda to speak like I am. **
Unstable Strength - Yeah, it bounces, but +2/+2 is a hefty bonus, and the bouncing lets you put it on the creature that it does the most use on. ****
Volcanic Wall - A strange wall, but a good defensive card that can pull off some odd combat stunts. ***
Willful Dragon - 5 mana for a 7/7, with super Firebreath. However - and this is a big however - it has echo AND can be forced out of attacking by a Diabolic Edict effect. The latter is actually somewhat useful, thinning opposing armies. A scary thing to face. ****
In all, Red suffers because most of its cards are decidedly unsubtle or just plain mediocre - the other colors can run in circles around it in AS.
Stay tuned for Green!
