Hi, I’ve (23m) been suffering from dysthymia for over 6 years. I got officially diagnosed around 9 months ago after years of begging my family that I need help for my mental health. This illness have been slowly killing me and taking over my life.

I’ve lost all drive to do pretty much anything in my life. I’m constantly tired, worried, down, and hopeless. It has slowly but surely gotten worse over the past 6 years, like watching a car crash in slow motion but being too weak to stop it/get out of the way.

I can’t take living like this anymore. This illness has ruined my career, my personal relationship, and general outlook about the future. Nobody around me really cares, they are waiting for me to “snap out of it” and return to the me before all this. I’m extremely tired of being called lazy, unambitious, and ungrateful while I struggle to even get out of the bed every morning. I hate that I’m a burden and disappointment to my family and the people around me.

Mental health is not something that is taken seriously or perceived sympathetically in my family and immediate circle. It is mostly seen as a hinderance to success or an excuse to be lazy and being a failure. I can’t take it anymore. I’ve cried and struggled alone at night for too much. When I try to share this with the people around me, they would listen for a couple hours and then tell me that I need to “snap out of it” and “stop making excuses”. I don’t know what to do.

Is there a cure or treatment for dysthymia? If there is, please let me know how and where I can get it. I don’t think I can get through to 2027 if I don’t find something to fight this.

In the history of Mono-red decks, there is perhaps no deck as influential as Sligh, which pioneered the concept of the mana curve. 

Every drop of mana left unused on your opponent’s end step represents lost mana advantage. 

Mana as a Finite Resource

Over the course of the game, each player gains access to a finite number of mana, dictated by the number of turns before a player loses and the amount of land drops each player hits. For example: Assuming that both players hit their land drop perfectly, both players would have access to a total of 10 mana by turn 4. 

The prototypical red deck contains 18-20 mountains and 40-42 lightning bolts

For the prototypical red deck, every mana left unused, for one reason or another, represents 3 damages undealt to the opponent. When both players within a match are playing the prototypical red deck, whoever resolves their 7th lightning bolt will surely be the winner. In other words:

The player who can successfully convert their 7th mana into damage wins the game.

Gassing out: Why Card Advantage Still Matters

Just like mana, each player has access to a finite number of cards over the course of the game. By turn 4, the prototypical red deck would have access to 10-11 total cards. In a perfect curve out, the player would have had access to 3 mountains and 7-8 bolts which is just about the right amount of bolts to deal 21 damage and win the game. Every additional mountain drawn within these 10-11 cards represent 1 less bolt and 3 less damage dealt to the opponent by turn 4.

Of course, games of Pauper are not just played by two players playing identical decks of mountains and lightning bolts. Red decks within the format must account for lifegain and counterspells as they aim to kill the opponent ASAP. In my personal observation, mono-red decks usually lose when they can no longer effectively convert their available mana into damage. Typically, this happens due to losing out on board, card, and early life advantages against midrange, combo, and control decks as the turn count gets higher. The weakness of the prototypical red deck is rather obvious: it does not build persistent boards or card advantages.

Besides Madness builds, Reckless Impulse remains as the premier source of mono-red’s card advantage.

Let’s say that the mono-red player has run out of cards in their hand, having failed in resolving their 7th bolt in the face of counterspells. On their 5th turn, they draw a [[reckless impulse]], immediately playing it to reveal two lightning bolts. The player promptly casts their lightning bolts, dealing 6 damages to close the game.

Using an impulse to access two bolts effectively doubles the mana cost of each bolt, turning them into [[lightning strike]]. Would you rather be the player with a lightning bolt or two lightning strikes? The answer of course depends on the stage of the game: the former is infinitely better in T1, while the latter is definitively better on T5 when the opponent has <7 life and you have 4+ mountains in play.

All this is to illustrate the idea that for the red deck, curving out can mean seeking card/board advantage if it means gaining access to more damage.

The Well-rounded Red Deck

Sligh’s concept of converting every drop of available mana into damage remains important for mono-red decks. After all, card and board advantages can only win games when they lead to the opponent’s life point being depleted to zero before yours. The weakness of the prototypical red deck is well-established, while the weakness of utilizing too many pure card advantages is in diminishing the amount of damage dealt per mana spent.

Each and every card in the red deck that aren’t bolts must lead to either damage, card advantage, or board advantage. The brewer’s discretion and playtesting is crucial here as the red deck rarely wants to draw into either too many pure card advantage cards or none at all. To note, the discussion thus far has only discussed converting cards into damage within the context of burn. Of course, creatures and artifacts can provide damage, usually through attacking and equipping.

If [[lightning bolt]] embodies the concept of converting card and mana into damage, then [[clockwork percussionist]] embodies the well-rounded red deck. For 1 mana, you get a 1/1 artifact creature with haste that becomes half of a [[reckless impulse]] upon death. This creature can:
Deal 1 immediate attack damage upon entry

1. Deal 1 repeatable attack damage every turn it’s left on board
2. Be an enabler for [[galvanic blast]] and [[goblin tomb-raider]], which substantially improves the damage dealt by both cards
3. Be a chump blocker
4. Provide card advantage upon death. This effect remains the most important part of the card as it leads to the opponent avoiding killing the percussionist, allowing the percussionist to continuously provide damage advantages through points 1-3 above. A T1 percussionist which remains alive for at least three turns is oftentimes superior to a T1 bolt to the face.

In closing, this post was made to simply share my perspective into the intricacies within constructing the deck in pauper. Although I am by no means an expert within the format, I hope that these posts can inspire some discussions and provide some insights for future new pauper bolt slingers who happen to come across these posts!

On the play, I play a great furnace…
Tapping it for 1 red, casting Goblin Tomb-Raider…
Attacking for 2, response?

The ideal mono-red deck contains 18-20 mountains and 40-42 Lightning Bolts.

Ever since I watched Rhystic Studies’ YouTube video on Red Deck Wins, I became fascinated by the red deck. Thus, it became my deck of choice as I jump into pauper. In this post, I would like to share my thoughts on the mono-red decks of 60-card constructed through the lens of a new pauper player.

Mono red decks generally have 1 goal: deal 20 damages ASAP. No other cards embody this philosophy better than the humble [[lightning bolt]]. The prototypical red deck plays only mountains and lightning bolts. The ideal game for this mono-red player looks like this:

T1: Mountain, bolt (3 cumulative damage)
T2: Mountain, bolt, bolt (9 cumulative damage)
T3: Mountain, bolt, bolt, bolt (18 cumulative damage)
T4: bolt, GG (21 cumulative damage)

Of course, this isn’t what most mono-red games in pauper look like. After all, the opponent can counter your bolts, you may get flooded/screwed, and you can’t play 40 lightning bolts (although, you can play 16 copies by maxing out lightning bolts, [[Chain lightning]], [[Rift Bolt]], and [[Lava spike]]). Thus, mono-red decks in pauper have to be constructed differently. We are going to look at the two big red decks of pauper: Mono-red madness (redness) and Mono-red Rally.

Mono-red madness:

In mono-red madness, you gain access to a unique copy of the bolt: [[fiery temper]]. If you discard it, it can be cast as a bolt. Combined with rummage cards (draw 2, discard 1), you can continuously refill your hand whilst dealing damage to the opponent. Let’s compare this to casting outright bolts:

Madness: [[Grab the prize]], discard and cast fiery temper (5 damage, 3 mana, net 0 cards)
Bolts only: cast 3 Lightning bolts (9 damage, 3 mana, net -3 cards)

Relative to the prototypical red deck, mono-red madness essentially trades 4 damage for a +3 in card advantage. Ask yourself this: Would you play a card that says <0 mana cost, discard two cards from your hand: deal 4 damage to target creature or opponent>? You may recognize the similarity with [[fireblast]] which is sometimes played at 1-2 copies to close out games. Similarly, this hypothetical card would ONLY be played when the opponent is at 4 life as the card disadvantage is too massive otherwise.

In its core engine, Madness improves upon the prototypical red deck by solving card disadvantage. Although [[guttersnipe]], and [[Kessig flamebreather]] also play VERY important roles in mono-red madness, they would function just the same if slotted into the prototypical red deck.

All this make may make it seem like mono-red madness is a strict improvement over the prototypical red deck. However, there are ONLY 4 total copies of fiery temper in the format. If fiery temper is not on hand, casting a rummage spell simply becomes a “pay 2 mana and discard a card, draw two cards and deal two damage” at best. This is a much worse proposition than the previous comparison.

Of course, mono-red madness also have the infamous [[sneaky snacker]] and [[lava dart]] to supplement its strategy while guttersnipes and flamebreather amplify the damage dealt from rummaging, flashbacks, and madness triggers.

As initially presented, the prototypical all-bolts mono-red deck can win in T4 unanswered. Given the following scenario, which player would you rather be?

Both players have 4 mountains in play
Player 1’s hand: Guttersnipe, grab the prize, fiery temper, sneaky snacker
Player 2’s hand: 4 Lightning bolts

The answer of course depends on the remaining amount of life your opponent has. If they have at less than 13 life left, there is a case to be made that the player with 4 bolts are in the better position, despite tapping out and going -4. The prototypical red player should thus focus on getting the opponent’s life as low as possible by turn 3. This brings us to the other most prominent mono-red deck in pauper currently:

Mono-red Rally

To me, mono-red rally embodies the philosophy behind Red Deck Wins better than madness. The ideal first two turns of rally may roughly look like:

T1: [[Great Furnace]], [[Goblin Tomb-raider]] attacks (2 cumulative damage)
T2: Mountain, [[Burnt-Tree Emissary]], [[Rally at the hornburg]] attack (8 cumulative damage]]
T3: [[Goblin bushwacker]] kicked, attack (20 cumulative damage GG)

Of course, this is the ideal UNINTERACTED scenario with an opening hand and draws from magical christmasland. An ideal game of mono-red rally actually outspeeds a deck with 40 bolts. The trade-off here is clear as the prototypical red deck is (1) more consistent and (2) uninteractable outside of counterspells.

Since the main advantage of rally is speed, your opening hand is a lot more sensitive to less-than-ideal draws. Every mulligan that a red deck does is akin to losing 3 damage to face. Unlike a control deck which can afford to take its time to stabilize and establish their win condition, the red deck needs every point of damage they can get in the early game.

The more robust your deck’s opening hand is, the more likely it is that your red deck can kill your opponent before they can kill you. In the prototypical red deck with 40 bolts, the only bad draw is your 4th mountain. Meanwhile, not opening a burning-tree emissary, good threats, and haste enablers, the red rally deck cannot perform very well. Every mulligan you take could’ve represented 3 extra damage.

Closing

This post is not meant for arguing that mono-red madness or mono-red rally are bad by any means. They are both amazing decks that have earned their spot in the meta. The discussion in this post is very much simplified but is done so to simply explore the idea of playing more bolts.

In the future, I would love to further discuss the mono-red decks of pauper through the lens of the original Red Deck: Sligh. This post is simply meant for fostering healthy discussion, sharing my ideas, and hopefully inspire a budding pauper player to pick up a red deck and brew their own take on it.

All You Need is 7 Lightning Bolts to win the game.
Play more Lightning Bolts.
Play more Chain Lightnings.
Play more Rift Bolts.
Play more Lava Spikes.
Play more Galvanic blasts.

… I tap one mountain and cast lightning bolt, response?

I’m relatively new to pauper and mono-red decks have been a personal favorite in magic’s constructed formats. In particular, this discussion stemmed from my attempt to build a pauper deck inspired by both the original sligh mono-red deck and the infamous ramunap red. I have been thinking about how the different two-drops in Mono-Red shape the rest of the deck in pauper.

The cards I’ve chosen (with one exception) to discuss typically function as a core piece within the various pauper mono red strategies and all reward casting cheap spells or developing an aggressive board. There are two main axes of consideration: explosiveness and resilience. The latter of which particular considers that pauper is both a lava-dart and lighting bolt format.

Kessig Flamebreather
Flamebreather offers the most reliable reach because its damage ignores blockers and does not require attacking. The 1/3 body is also relatively resilient, being very vulnerable to bolts. However, the card is fairly slow: it needs several subsequent spells before the initial two-mana investment becomes worthwhile. Flamebreather functions best when dropped in T3 onwards with a noncreature spell on hand. This card forms the core of burn strategies, both classic and madness.

Kiln Fiend
Kiln Fiend has by far the highest ceiling and can turn a few cheap spells into a lethal combat step almost immediately, forming the core of the older Blitz strategy. The downside is that it is by far the most fragile and heavily dependent on drawing the right mixture of threats and spells. It’s a glass cannon which can be hard countered by chump blockers and most removal spells, including two lava darts and non-metalcraft galvanic blasts.

Goblin Bushwhacker (kicked)
Bushwhacker is technically a one-drop, but functionally competes for the two-mana slot. It provides immediate damage and is the core of rally decks. Notably, the bushwhacker itself is fragile but can’t be effectively hampered by removal spells due to it’s main value being the kicked ETB pump. Arguably, bushwhacker trades some of kiln fiend’s explosiveness for having less hard counters. Bushwhacker also requires more set-up than the previous two cards to be effective, working best with burnt-tree emissary or an already wide board.

Dwarven Forge-Chanter
Forge-Chanter is what inspired this discussion. To me the card provides the greatest degree of resilience but it doesn’t see much play if at all. It sits between these extremes: less explosive than Kiln Fiend, less inevitable than Flamebreather, and less immediate than Bushwhacker. In exchange, it has a resilient 1/3 body, grows from every noncreature spell, and can convert excess bolts into additional power and toughness, allowing it to function as both an early attacker and a scalable threat without requiring the deck to go completely all-in. Notably, prowess functions really well into both instant/sorcery and artifact focused strategies. Furthermore, it can dodge a bolt by activating prowess once and kill a tolarian terror by triggering prowess once using a lightning bolt on the terror.

To me, forge-chanter seems like a really strong option, comparable to the remaining options. It’s resilience makes it especially notable, being able to play a role closer to that of Hazoret in the bygone days of ramunap red. Why does it see so much less play than the other options?

I was hoping that more experienced players can give me some more insight on card evaluation here, thanks!

[[Kessig flamebreather]] [[kiln fiend]] [[goblin bushwacker]] [[dwarven forge-chanter]] [[Hazoret the Fervent]]

I’m looking for blunt feedback before buying the remaining cards and taking this list to an LGS event:
https://moxfield.com/decks/1Dh2M-qkn0qMfffdLDBoCQ

The deck is inspired by RDW and madness/rally builds! T1 is similar to Rally but the deck switches the standard rally package for straight burn (bolt, spike, etc) to hedge against deck that can sweep the board easily. [[Demand answers]] are inspired by madness decks along with lava darts and fiery temper. The other discard outlet is the blood tokens off epicure. The sideboard is very budget hence the exclusion of blasts since the main deck itself already reaches €65+.

I know Rally and Madness are more established, but I’d love to get some feedback before checking out my cart and bring this list to my LGS’ weekly pauper tournament!

Commander player dipping into Pauper with my first brew: https://moxfield.com/decks/iHqjWLvW9UOlieLwWXQ9rw.

I’m trying to blend the Terror shell with a heavier burn plan, but I’d like to know if I’m just making a worse version of both. The deck idea came from terror naturally benefitting from burn dropping instants and sorceries into the graveyard, while burn can benefit from blue counterspells against lifegain. The sideboard is mostly still filled with placeholder cards currently.

Looking for general feedback and tips! I’m looking to play in LGS where it’s somewhat competitive!