Mainboard (60)
Creatures (17)
Instants (20)
Sorceries (4)
Lands (19)
Mono-Red Madness is a burn-and-tempo deck that kills you with a combination of direct damage spells like Lightning Bolt and Fiery Temper, evasive threats like Kessig Flamebreather and Guttersnipe, and card advantage from looting effects that trigger madness. Hydroblast is your best card in this matchup — it counters or destroys almost every relevant threat and spell they have, including Fireblast, Guttersnipe, and Lightning Bolt. Arms of Hadar gives you a sweeper to clean up their aggressive board of small creatures before Guttersnipe and Kessier Flamebreather generate too much damage, and Vampiric Link on one of your large threats like Tolarian Terror or Gurmag Angler can stabilize your life total quickly. Cut the card-draw sorcery Deep Analysis since you can't afford the life payment against burn, trim Spell Pierce (too narrow when they can pay), and remove situational tools like Abandon Attachments, Cast Down, and Unexpected Fangs — your fat blue creatures already outsize their creatures and you need the slots for the hate cards.
Grixis Affinity wins through artifact-fueled card advantage and fast threats like Myr Enforcer and Utrom Monitor, with Galvanic Blast as efficient removal that can also close out games. Hydroblast is your most impactful card here, countering or destroying Galvanic Blast and killing Krark-Clan Shaman before it wipes your board. Annul comes in to answer key artifacts like Ichor Wellspring, Nihil Spellbomb, and their artifact creatures at instant speed. Spell Pierce loses value in a matchup where the opponent is often tapping out on their own turn and generates significant mana through affinity, while Unexpected Fangs and one-off removal like Cast Down and Abandon Attachments are too slow or too narrow. Focus on countering their card draw and removal spells to keep Sneaky Snacker and Tolarian Terror in play and win the long game.
This is a mirror match centered on who can stick a threat and protect it while disrupting the opponent's graveyard setup. Nihil Spellbomb is critical — both Gurmag Angler and Tolarian Terror are fueled by the graveyard, and exiling their bin at the right moment can strand their threats or force them to tap out replaying enablers. Extract a Confession gives you additional interaction that pressures their hand and can pick apart their counterspell backup or upcoming threat. Annul is live against their Nihil Spellbombs and any Unexpected Fangs they bring in post-board, and can protect your own threats from being answered via artifact removal. Suffocating Fumes and Unexpected Fangs come out because sweeping 1/1s is largely irrelevant in a creature mirror of this type, and Spell Pierce loses value in a slower, more counterspell-heavy configuration where both players will be holding up mana.