MTG: Standard, Hyper Aggressive Red

Hey it's been a while since I wrote something, I just haven't had a whole lot to talk about.  With Pro Tour Qualifiers coming up for me in January I figured now is the best time to start practicing up on standard.  I've decided for the near future I'm going to focus strictly on playing aggressive decks in Standard since I feel it's a big whole in my skill set and it's something I'll have to rely on if I ever qualify for the Pro Tour since odds are I won't be on a team and will have to rely on my 75 beating my opponents instead of play skill.

I started with red lists posted by Tom Ross here.  I found the deck super fun to play, it's not often you get to 3-1 tournaments repeatedly with low powered draft picks.  As sweet as it was attacking for 5 with Akroan Crusader and Titan's Strength eventually I cut the heroic elements and tried to make the deck as consistent as I could.  This is where my tweaks and play have brought me currently . . .

Standard:  Hyper Mono Red Aggro

18 Lands
18 Mountains (so much cleaner than a Modern mana base)

30 Attacking Creatures
  15 One Drops
3 Legion Loyalist
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler

  15 Two Drops (I wanted to keep the hit % on Burning-Tree Emissary as high as I could)
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Gore-House Chainwalker
4 Firefist Striker
3 Goblin Shortcutter (a key play on turn 3-4 that lets you get them into suicide attack range)

12 Burn & Pump
4 Lightning Strike
2 Skullcrack (an experiment right now, it's useful vs Grey Merchant, a blocking Master of Waves, Brave the Elements, Sphinx's Rev, and occasionally a lava spike is all you need)
2 Dynacharge (might be a relic from playing Akoran Crusader, but I keep hoping to draw it in lots of games and has rarely under preformed)
4 Rubblebelt Maaka (The extra toughness lets any attacker punch through a Nightveil Spectre or Frostburn Weird)

15 Sideboard
3 Mizzium Mortars (mostly for Mono U Devotion)
2 Electrickery (for the the mirrors, might not be needed)
1 Dynacharge (needed vs Jace AoT)
1 Legion Loyalist (for Master of Waves)
2 Skullcrack
1 Mountain
3 Chandra's Phoenix (vs all the removal that gets boarded in)
2 Seismic Stomp (apparently it's necessary to beat RG Devotion)

The reason I've stuck with this deck instead of some type of Boros deck is it's positive Mono Black Devotion match up.  You're able to get under their removal consistently and punish them for playing expensive cards like Hero's Downfall, Desecration Demon, Underworld Connections, etc.  In order to keep the match up positive in the face of all the removal (Nausea! shudder) they'll be boarding in I board out a lot of the x/1 creatures and bring in Skullcracks and Chandra's Phoenix.  It's been pretty successful for me so far.

That's it for this post, if there's an interest (or if I just feel like it) I'll write about the popular match ups, a rough sideboard guide, and some explanations on card choices.  If I feel ambitious I might tackle the math behind the proper numbers of Lands and Burning-Tree Emissary hits required to make the deck purr.

Also I just posted a updated build of my game Patient 9, you can play it in your browser here and read about it here.  If you could give it a try that'd make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

If you've got any questions comment or email me, till next time!