by Johnny Cycles, May 2nd, 2024

Hello! Welcome to the latest Dragons in Modern! This week we’re running our first ever Mono Red Dragons build featuring several new Outlaws of Thunder Junction cards. Similar to our latest Gruul Dragons deck, we’re playing Magda, the Hoardmaster alongside some of Modern’s best Treasure token generators to pump out some 4/4 hasty Scorpion Dragons!

Our top end is highlighted by the 2-card combo of Stingerback Terror and Terror of the Peaks, both of which are printed in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Our plan is to Plot Stingerback Terror until we’re close to empty handed, stick a Terror of the Peaks, and then burn our opponent out by casting the 7/7 for free. There’s a lot more to this deck than a simple Mono Red Dragons shell, however. Let’s take a look at the deck list before I get in to all the sweet ins and outs.

Decklist – Mono Red Dragons with Magda, the Hoardmaster

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (24)

4 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
4 Magda, the Hoardmaster
4 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
4 Stingerback Terror
4 Terror of the Peaks

Spells (8)

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Strike it Rich

Artifacts (2)

1 Lavaspur Boots
1 Shadowspear

Enchantments (4)

4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Lands (22)

2 Cavern of Souls
4 Field of Ruin
12 Mountain
4 Urza’s Saga

Sideboard (15)

3 Alpine Moon
1 Haywire Mite
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Hell to Pay
3 Roiling Vortex
3 Brotherhood’s End

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

Ours is a 3-pronged attack that allows us to play aggressive early while sandbagging our big finishers until after our opponent has exhausted their resources answering our first and second wave of threats. I’m going to start with our slower game plan, because it was the inspiration for this entire deck.

Stingerback Terror is one of those cards that is begging to be abused. Sure, its drawback is legit, but the Plot mechanic adds a powerful new angle of attack to what has more often than not been an unplayable text box (see Geralf’s Masterpiece, for example). Exiling it from our hand for 3 mana as early as turn 2 puts a storm cloud on our opponent’s horizon. They know it’s coming and have to decide between spending their answers addressing the board and our many other legitimate game-winning threats, or taking their beats in order to kill the 7/7 flying trampler later.

Of course, since we get to cast a plotted Stingerback Terror for free, we can force our opponent to answer the board before deploying one of our finishers.

But we’re not simply trying to beat face at a later date with our giant Dragon. We want to combo off with another must-answer big threat – Terror of the Peaks. The dream is to Plot a couple of copies of Stingerback Terror as we go about our business. Then, we resolve Terror of the Peaks and burn our opponent out when we cast Stingerback Terror for free, hopefully as a 7/7.

Our second angle of attack is to use Treasure tokens and Magda, the Hoardmaster to pump out 4/4 hasty Scorpion Dragons. In the process we get to play some of Modern’s best cards in Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. But that’s not all the Treasure generation we have. Strike It Rich gives us a turn 1 ramp spell that allows us to Plot a Stingerback Terror on turn 2.

We’re playing another Dragon that synergizes with all three angles of attack. For 4 mana, Atsushi, the Blazing Sky‘s stats are only considered respectable, rather than amazing, in a world of pushed cards. 4/4 flying and trample? Unheard of even 10 years ago. Today? No one outside of cyclesgaming.com is running this mythic from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.

But Atsushi, the Blazing Sky does far more than simply fill our Dragon and jank quota for Dragons in Modern. All that text under the two key words furthers our game plan in ways that put our opponent between the proverbial rock and hard spot. The Treasure tokens it makes upon death replaces itself if we have Magda, the Hoardmaster out. If we don’t have the Dwarf Beserker on the battlefield, the tokens also synergize beautifully with our third angle of attack, Urza’s Saga. We’ll get to that in a minute. If neither of these lines are in play for us, Atsushi replaces itself in the more traditional sense by giving us two cards to play until the end of our next turn.

As to our first game plan of burning our opponent out via Terror of the Peaks triggers, 4 damage for 4 mana is not the best rate. But considering our opponent has to answer it or die to the beats and that it replaces itself, Atsushi, the Blazing Sky is quite the card. And don’t underestimate the 4/4 as being weak in today’s Modern. Sure, there will be games where our opponent exiles it with Solitude or Leyline Binding. But it wasn’t so long ago that Modern was ruled by 4/4 trampling Rhinos. Sometimes an early beater like this with two types of evasion is enough to close out games.

I’ve been trying to make Atsushi, the Blazing Sky work for awhile now. I think I’ve finally found its home.

Our final line of attack is using our Treasure token production in conjunction with Urza’s Saga to pump out some truly huge Constructs. The power of Urza’s Saga needs no explanation, but the strategy got another boost with the printing of Lavaspur Boots in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Shadowspear is no longer the first target of an aggressive deck. Instead, Lavaspur Boots comes down and can give the Construct we just made haste, allowing us to swing in with both tokens. Ward is a nice touch and something Wizards needs to give more often to midrange creatures, as I discuss here.

Lavaspur Boots does far more than simply give our Construct haste, as anyone who’s played against it knows. It makes any of our later bombs that much more powerful. The threat of any of our resolved creatures suddenly gaining haste and ward puts another kind of pressure on our opponent. I’ve long eschewed playing Terror of the Peaks precisely because it lacks haste, unlike most 5-drop Dragons. Lavaspur Boots solves this problem.

It’s not all upside, of course. We have to play off curve to ensure our creatures can attack the turn they come into play, but we have enough early threats and Treasure tokens that this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

For instance, rather than play Atsushi, the Blazing Sky on curve, we can run out Bonecrusher Giant and equip it to swing in for 4. Then, assuming we make our land drops, we can do the same with Atsushi the following turn. What’s better than this line?

If we’ve plotted a Stingerback Terror, we suddenly only need a single mana to haste up a potential 7/7 flying trampler.

I’m sure others have said it before me, but Lavaspur Boots may just be the most impactful card in Modern from Outlaws of Thunder Junction.

Taking the Urza’s Saga route early can lead to some quick victories, but with the addition of Lavaspur Boots it also supercharges our other threats. Once our opponent has spent precious resources answering the army we made from just a single land, we can deploy the threats we’ve been holding on to while making said army, give them haste, and keep the fun going.

And I haven’t even touched on the shenanigans we can get up to with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. If left unchecked, we get to double the fun of any of our midrange cards.

A final line of attack is a familiar one to Mono Red players. We burn them out. We play 20 points of burn between Lightning Bolt and Stomp. One or two hits from Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer or a fetch-Shock from our opponent can often be enough to put us within striking distance if we end up with a burn-heavy hand.

Practice Matches

Match 1 vs. Tron

An early scoop by our opponent after winning game 1. Our deck definitely feels too slow before sideboarding to keep up with Tron, especially when they’re on natural Tron with 7 cards in hand.

Practice Match 2 vs. Dimir Control

A super long game 1. Our deck kept up for a long time. Too bad our opponent scooped after winning the first one. I’d be curious to see if we have enough grinding power to get the win.

Practice Match 3 vs. Living End

This time opponent scoops the match after we won game 1. Ah well…it’s the free zone.

Practice Match 4 vs. Tron…again

This was actually our third match against Tron. Our second Tron opponent scooped it all up after we got to game 2 and our sideboard cards started slowing them down. This opponent, however, stuck it out and it was quite a fun match.

Practice Match 5 vs. Temur Murktide

A fun match with a lot of decision points. If I could do it all over again, I would’ve blocked that Ragavan…

Practice Match 6 vs. Dimir Faeries

What a brew our opponent was playing. It looks fun, janky, and super synergistic! Shout out to justeundoigt!

Practice Match 7 vs. Hardened Scales

Shout out to CanarielCh00F! Very friendly opponent, who played their deck very well! Fun games!

Practice Match 8 vs. Dimir Mill

I love Mill… It’s an archetype that’s gotten some serious new toys the last few years. Can our midrange deck close out a game fast enough?

Practice Match 9 vs. Mono Black (sort of)

Another interesting match against a friendly opponent. Shout out to TobyWang for being so chill about all those Ragavan hits in game 1!

Practice Match 10 vs. Scapeshift

A match-up that feels super tough for our midrange strategy. Can we cobble together enough hate pieces alongside action to steal the win? Or will our opponent Wish their way to victory?

Practice Match Record: 4-6 

Technically, we beat Tron a third time, but I didn’t post that video.

Conclusion

Wow, what a fun deck! It speaks to my janky Dragon-loving heart just how much I loved playing this build. Our record is about what we expect for a deck running Terror of the Peaks and Atsushi, the Blazing Sky in Modern. However, we didn’t play many games that didn’t feel competitive. Dimir Control was a super long and grindy one and our Temur Murktide opponent managed to close out both games with a timely Murktide Regent, but even in those losses, our deck felt like it could’ve just as easily won. We have game against some of the best decks in Modern.

Of course, playing cards like Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, and Urza’s Saga does that.

But it wasn’t just those Modern staples that got us victories. Stingerback Terror was a legitimate finisher and threat, while even Terror of the Peaks at 5 mana won us some games. We also got to combo off with the two as planned to seal a match win! Bonecrusher Giant continues to impress me with its flexibility and power, even if it did get countered by Spell Snare in one game, which was kind of awkward.

Strike It Rich may be the sneaky MVP of the deck. It turns out a Mono Red deck that does a decent impression of Green ramp is pretty powerful. Again and again we used the early Treasure tokens from this sorcery to cast a turn 2 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. Probably more frequently, Strike It Rich allowed us to do more than one thing in a turn that kept us in games. We even lived our dream of using the Treasure tokens to pump up Constructs for the win. Even just the added bonus of Flashback meant we were advancing our board on turns where otherwise we didn’t have much to do.

Those are the winners of this deck. What about the losers?

Sigh…Magda, the Hoardmaster never got to do her thing. And it’s not really her fault. The times we had Treasure tokens, we wanted them for something more powerful and immediate, even when the Dwarf Berserker was in hand. We didn’t make a single Scorpion Dragon token in all of our matches. More often than not, she was a good target for our opponent’s removal spells. This is not nothing, of course, but it’s not the dream we were hoping to live.

Atsushi, the Blazing Sky was also somewhat disappointing. And, again, not through any fault of the card. When we had it and cast it, it was very impressive. We just didn’t see it in action enough, either because we were winning or losing already. I’m not ready to cut the Dragon Spirit from this deck, but I do think we can go down a copy to make room for an extra land or something else.

The Future for Magda, the Hoardmaster and Mono Red Dragons in Modern

Where do we go from here? Well, as far as Magda is concerned, I want to keep trying her in my Gruul deck. I think there’s a lot of potential for her alongside Goldvein Hydra. I’m also curious to try her out in a Rakdos shell that more consistently targets our opponent and their permanents. I wonder if she’d shine more slotted in my Outlaw Aristocrat deck. She doesn’t synergize with the outlaw theme or Vial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier, but I can see her functioning as another potential late game threat to go alongside Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin.

Perhaps what has me most excited, though, is how well Mono Red Dragons played without her. If you take into account how often she did nothing while we still were competitive in most of our games, it makes you think there’s something to this Big Red Dragons archetype worth exploring more. Let me know in the comments or via email how you’d proceed with the deck!

As always, thanks for reading and watching! It’s an exciting time to be a janky Dragons player!