This idea was influenced a great deal by Piotr Glogowski's submitted deck for the 2020 Magic World Championship. I have spent the better part of a month with this deck playing through Standard Events in MTG: Arena, and I have had consistent 5+ win runs, with a handful of 7-0s. That isn't to say, "play this deck and you will win every Event you participate in," but hopefully showcases the possible return that you can get from this deck in not only gold and ICRs, but playability and your own personal enjoyment as well.

Though this deck was inspired by Glogowski's deck, there are some very key differences between this deck and his. First and foremost, this deck, as it currently stands, is meant to be played in the BO1 format, and its primary focus is to offer a good matchup against the current RDW meta (which, guess what? In standard events, there are A LOT of RDW decks). Secondly, as you may notice, this deck also doesn't have a direct solution to counter/discard decks. Fret not! We will cover that momentarily.

What does this deck want to do?

LANDS

Before we begin the rundown of the deck, let's talk about our land situation for a second.  In the ideal scenario, you would definitely want to have 4 copies of Fabled Passage, Blood Crypt, Stomping Ground and Overgrown Tomb, then run 2 Castle Locthwain, 3 Forest, 2 Swamp, and 1Mountain bringing you to 24 total lands. However, I know most of you may not exactly have all copies of the high-tier lands. Therefore, substitute out whatever you don't have and keep on rolling!

Castle Locthwain is probably the most controversial land because it can massively screw up the early game potential if you have no Swamps in hand. However, this can be a life-saver against discard or control decks in the mid to late game. If you feel you won't need them, feel free to substitute for 2 Swamps

If you are unable to acquire the dual lands, substitute them out however you would like, but do try to get 4 copies of Fabled Passage as it has great synergy with other cards in the deck.

EARLY GAME

This deck aims to make use of early game synergies with our core cards Witch's Oven, Cauldron Familiar, Gilded Goose, and Trail of Crumbs. These cards are our baseline for generating value to ourselves by giving us a well-developed board presence, and the option to be felxible with any given matchup. You don't even have to have all four of those cards at the same time! Any combination of them will surely make the opponent sweat (and, in some instances, waste valuable removal on stuff you can just regenerate anyway). Witch's Oven and Cauldron Familiar are pretty key for generating constant pings with Trail of Crumbs but even if you have, say for instance, a Gilded Goose thrown out on the battlefield on turn 1, you can follow up with Trail of Crumbs on turn 2 and (hopefully) guarantee at least one trigger on the trail before the goose gets destroyed, which happens quite a bit with the current meta.

Quick Tip! Unless there is a good reason to do so, you will usually want to keep your Cauldron Familiars in the grave at the resolution of the opponent's end step. This will enable Trail of Crumbs and Mayhem Devil (coming up) to perform to their maximum potential on your following turns.

MID GAME

Transitioning into mid game, you should hopefully a variety of cards in hand to be able to keep the threat level high against the opponent. This is where you will look to cast some of your removal with Mayhem Devil, Vraska, Golgari Queen, or Murderous Rider. By this point, if your matchup is RDW, you will have some very strong answers to their otherwise frail creatures.

But you are not in the clear just yet. We all know how annoying an Embercleave drop is, especially on a creature with scalable or massively buffed power like Anax, Hardened in the Forge. This is where you have to assess the situation to figure out the most optimal way to use your triggers or play your hand. Say, for example, your opponent has 3 untapped Mountains and 3 creatures who are untapped before their combat phase begins, there is a very high likelihood that they have Embercleave in hand. You don't want them to cast that. Ever.

If you have Mayhem Devil, Witch's Oven, Cauldron Familiar, out on the battlefield, you can prevent an Embercleave drop a few different ways. The standard solution is to wait until your opponent wishes to pass to the combat phase. Immediately before they enter the combat phase, though, you will want to use your activated abilities on Cauldron Familiar and Witch's Oven to allow Mayhem Devil to lay waste to the opponent's creatures. Look to take out a creature with a toughness of 1 (like Fervent Champion or Scorch Spitter) and you will have prevented an Embercleave drop for the turn. This also allows you to set Cauldron Familiar as a blocker before sacrificing it via your Witch's Oven or Woe Strider should the opponent declare attackers.

These can be very challenging decisions to make when paired up against aggro decks, but trust in your cards and resolve your triggers appropriately and you will likely survive to the late game.

LATE GAME

When in a matchup against an aggressive deck, I consider late game to begin sometime around turns 5 and 6, whereas with other matchups perhaps it's turns 6+. Nevertheless, if you have made it to this point, congratulations!

When paired up against RDW, if your opponent has a wide board, Massacre Girl will most often end the match, as you will have completely annihilated their entire gameplan. If you are unlucky enough to not draw her after turns spent searching through your deck, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King is a very good alternative. By this point, you should have multiple sacrificial outlets to beef up Korvold and get some pretty nice card draw, keeping in mind that you may also have Mayhem Devil, Cauldron Familiar, Witch's Oven, and Trail of Crumbs still out on the battlefield.

In a matchup versus a deck that is focused more on mid or late game tactics, you should still be able to get enough value out of the aforementioned cards to bring the game to a close.

Great, it can hold its own versus Mono Red Aggro, but what about control decks?

I have had my fair share of annoyances with Simic Flash, Esper Control, Jeskai Fires, Temur Adventures, you name it. It is no easy task to come out on top against a control deck, especially if you aren't able to kill them quickly enough before they get their key cards down. However, I have found that with this deck, we still stand a very good chance of beating these decks (the hardest of which, being Simic Flash).

These decks like to take the slow and steady approach to winning the game. With the exception of Jeskai Fires, they typically run a decent amount of counter spells. This makes getting our key cards out as quickly as possible our utmost priority. If you can correctly identify which deck you are up against, you can determine what your best value-generating card is and get that down. Typically, it is Trail of Crumbs into a pre-existing Cauldron Familiar or Witch's Oven on turn 2.

Control decks can be quite the annoyance to play against, but time your moves appropriately and you CAN beat them.

All-in-all, this deck is a fun one to play, and should be considered heavily if playing against the RDW meta. Best of luck, and may you drink sweet mono red tears!