By: Ben Adler

Ben Adler — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 01:45:05 +0000

I have played Mono-Red Phoenix, similar to the Aaron Sanford build with 17 mountains, but 3 Steam Kin and 2 main deck Blood Moons (often a game winner, but easy enough to loot away if it is a dead draw) and a 2/2 Swiftspear/Soulscar split. The deck does pretty well, went 5-3 at a GP and won a local 32 person tournament. I only play in paper, but it has had a winning record at every event I have entered.
I was excited to see Light Up the Stage and thought it had some real potential. I found this article two weeks ago and built your deck to try it out. In testing it, I feel like I still win more games as a Phoenix deck than a Hollow One deck. I have twice had the perfect golem exile with Burning Inquiry in hand, so it can be cool. I already play with a fair amount of inconsistency, so adding a bit more wasn’t too hard. I also tried just making space for fitting 3 Light Ups into my own deck, and it seems to be a slight improvement. I think your deck is stronger against interactive decks than mine, but weaker against Aggro-combo (though inquiry can mess up some of those combos). Steam Kin is a “test for removal” and if they don’t have removal, it really does run away with the game.
Maybe it was just the matches I played, but I disagreed with mainboarding Lavamancer, and swapped it to the sideboard for the other Reveler. I was always happy to see the Reveler, and often wished the Lavamancer was another one, and I like the deck better with more gas. As frustrating as discarding a Hollow One and keeping a Phoenix is, the opposite is a lot of fun. I will be playing the deck this week (with some differences to the sideboard to accommodate my local meta). Have you given this deck any more consideration in the last few weeks? Anything you found that works a bit better?

Comments on: Places, Everyone: Spectacle in Hollow Phoenix

By: Ben Adler