17th at Connecticut 2011s with Red Deck!

So I was the highest placed 'burninator' in States this year. I knocked out 2 other RDW decks on the way to the top, the key being 4 Volshok Refugees and 8 ways to kill their copies of the red dread. I was 5-1 going in to the last round, and we had exactly 128 players... so we had 16 people in contention for Top 8. I lost to the man who eventually won the event. He ran W Humans, games 1 and 2 he went 'turn 1 Champion, turn 2 human /human/swing 3'... Game 1 involved a Angelic I couldn't answer, game 2 a Hero I also couldn't answer, and that was all she wrote.

Since then I've been tweaking the deck, and after running the numbers, I've come up with a list that I am pretty happy with. My biggest divergence from this is my lack of Grim Lavamancer: I would just rather have Spikeshot Elder, I feel Grim just sits around without enough graveyard cards to be effective half the time.

Here is the list I recommend: it is 5 cards off from what I ran at States. In light of recent events I'm planning to move from RDW to Primetime (Primieval Titan)... anything not blue makes me happy. :-)

• Main Deck
• 18 Mountain
• 4 Stromkirk Noble
• 4 Stormblood Berserker
• 4 Shrine of Burning Rage
• 4 Incinerate
• 3 Arc Trail
• 3 Brimstone Volley
• 3 Koth of the Hammer
• 3 Chandra's Phoenix
• 2 Hero of Oxid Ridge
• 3 Rootbound Crag
• 2 Spikeshot Elder
• 2 Grim Lavamancer
• 2 Volt Charge
• 1 Geistflame
• 1 Goblin Arsonist
• 1 Gut Shot
• Sideboard
• 4 Volshok Refugee
• 3 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Traitorous Blood
• 1 Arc Trail
• 1 Hero of Oxid Ridge
• 1 Perilous Myr
• 1 Manic Vandal
• 1 Manabarbs
• 2 Dismember

Koth comes out VS aggro generally, Hero VS control, mind your Arc Trail/Incinerate ratio depending on the creature quantity and sizes coming at you, and make sure to pull in off color killers VS the mirror (and arguably VS poison for Crusader). Barbs is basically only for Wolf Run.

Good luck slinging spells!