Thundering Raiju is back with Frenzy contending for the title of the most dangerous creature in a red aggro deck.

Introduction

This is a mono-red aggro deck using Thundering Raiju as the top-end creature. I felt that current mono-red aggro decks needed more top-end punch to be competitive, and Raiju is easily the best 4 mana creature available for red decks. Witchstalker Frenzy is a new addition to the deck from Wilds of Eldraine. The deck works fine in both Bo1 and Bo3, since it has 24 lands, which is considered good enough for Bo3, and the relatively high land count also helps you to cast Thundering Raiju on turn 4 with a greater chance (on the play 63.18 % / on the draw 72.59 %).

Format

• The deck is for the Standard format, as of October 2023, with Wilds of Eldraine being the last legal set.
• The deck should be Tier 1 caliber.
• The deck can be played in both Bo1 and Bo3.
• The deck is pretty fast, and thus it's suitable for quickly grinding a large number of wins in the MTG Arena ladder.

Source

This is my own brew, but I used a popular mono red-aggro deck from February 2023 as a starting point:

• Arne Huschenbeth's showcase video for a mono-red aggro deck in February 2023

Price

The deck is pretty cheap to craft, having only 4 mythic rares and 17 rares. The deck is also easy to get to Bo3, since the sideboard has no rares and mythic rares.

MTG Arena

If you buy 1 mythic rare wildcard bundle (4 mythic rare wildcards) for $19.99 and 4 rare wildcard bundles (16 rare wildcards) for $9.99 each, and then add the cost of 1 rare wildcard to the sum ($2.50), the total price to craft the deck is $62.45.

Additionally, you need some common wildcards and some uncommon wildcards, but they are usually plenty if you have played MTG Arena for a while. They also cannot be bought with money.

Strategy

The deck is easy to pilot. You cast your creatures and remove the opponent's creatures and try to deal 20 damage as fast as possible. Final points of damage can be dealt by burn spells, such as Play with Fire and Lightning Strike.

Witchstalker Frenzy

You may want to save your Witchstalker Frenzy for Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, if the opponent is playing her. Frenzy is also great that it is an instant and its mana cost gets also reduced by the number of your opponents' attacking creatures. Therefore, you can also cast it on your opponents' turn after they have attacked with their creatures. As an instant, it's also great for killing troublesome man-lands before they can block.

As a downside, Witchstalker Frenzy cannot be cast by Bloodthirsty Adversary, because it costs 4 mana.

Mishra's Foundry

Mishra's Foundry helps with board wipes, since lands are not killed by sweepers, such as Sunfall.

Sideboarding

The sideboard cards are meant to be used as follows:

• End the Festivities — Good against token decks.
• Lithomantic Barrage — Against blue and white creatures, such as Raffine, the Scheming Seer and Haughty Djinn. The nice thing about this card is that it is uncounterable, wherefore you don't need to pay Raffine's ward cost.
• Strangle — Good against decks with many creatures with toughness 3 or less.
• Abrade — Artifact removal. It can be sided in against Agatha's Soul Cauldron, for example.
• Obliterating Bolt — Good against creatures with a death trigger, such as Ao, the Dawn Sky, or creatures that come back from the grave, such as Dennick, Pious Apprentice // Dennick, Pious Apparition.
• Furnace Punisher — Good against control decks, such as Bant Control or Esper Control, which have very few basic lands. You can side out all copies of Witchstalker Frenzy for Furnace Punishers.
• Witchstalker Frenzy — A fourth copy of the spell against decks with 4 copies of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or other high-toughness must-kill threats.

When I picked the sideboard cards, I did not include any rares or mythic rares, so that the sideboard would be inexpensive to craft. And anyways, I could fill the sideboard with good cards without any rares or mythic rares.

Mana Base Statistics

• Total of 24 lands
• 20 lands produce red mana
• 4 lands produce colorless mana

Starting Hand Probabilities

Bo3 (No Hand Smoothing)

• At least two lands: 85.73 %
• 2–5 lands: 84.39 %
• At least 1 red mana: 95.17 %
• At least 2 red mana: 75.30 %

Bo1 (Hand Smoothing)

Ranked Queue (Best of 2 Hands)

Hand smoothing in the ranked queue takes the best of 2 different starting hands (of 2 different deck shuffles).

• 2–5 lands: 97.56 % (approximately)

Play Queue (Best of 3 Hands)

Hand smoothing in the play queue takes the best of 3 different starting hands (of 3 different deck shuffles).

• 2–5 lands: 99.62 % (approximately)

Best Hand Land Count

There should be often 2–4 lands in the starting hand, because:

• The average land count in a random starting hand is 2.80.
• The average mana value of the spells in the deck is 2.11.
• The highest mana value among the spells in the deck is 4.

Land Probabilities

Probabilities are for on the play / on the draw.

Land Count

2-Land Starting Hand

• At least 3 lands by turn 3: 66.26 % / 80.81 %
• At least 4 lands by turn 4: 37.14 % / 55.48 %
• At least 5 lands by turn 5: 18.80 % / 33.77 %

3-Land Starting Hand

• At least 4 lands by turn 4: 78.83 % / 87.72 %
• At least 5 lands by turn 5: 52.15 % / 66.67 %

4-Land Starting Hand

• At least 5 lands by turn 5: 86.03 % / 91.73 %

Any Starting Hand

• At least 4 lands by turn 4: 63.18 % / 72.59 %

Color Count

1-Red-Mana Starting Hand

• At least 2 red mana by turn 2: 35.85 % / 59.29 %
• At least 2 red mana by turn 3: 59.29 % / 74.46 %
  
• At least 2 red mana by turn 4: 74.46 % / 84.16 %
• At least 3 red mana by turn 3: 12.41 % / 28.96 %

2-Red-Mana Starting Hand

• At least 3 red mana by turn 3: 56.82 % / 72.06 %

Spell Statistics

Starting Hand Probabilities

• At least one Kumano Faces Kakkazan // Etching of Kumano: 39.95 %

Creature Probabilities

Probabilities are for on the play / on the draw.

Any Starting Hand

• At least one 2-mana creature by turn 2: 65.36 % / 70.02 %
• At least one 1 or 2-mana creature by turn 2: 87.71 % / 90.78 %
• At least one 3-mana creature by turn 3: 48.75 % / 52.77 %
• At least one 4-mana creature by turn 4: 52.77 % / 56.55 %

Starting Hand with No 1 or 2-Mana Creatures

• At least one 1 or 2-mana creature by turn 2: 24.53 % / 43.40 %

Change Log

• 18th Oct 2023 — Added 1 Mishra's Foundry. Removed 1 Phoenix Chick.