Turning Sparks to Flame
Anthony covers his initial thoughts on the first real intriguing spoiler that we got for #MTGONE, Koth, Fire of Resistance.
With Phyrexia: All Will Be One spoilers nearly compleated, those who enjoy a good brew are already off to the races building with the new cards. Some people are trying to make Toxic or Oil counters work, others are trying to figure out the best way to build Hammer Time in Pioneer and Explorer, while some more still are figuring out how to do the most amount of damage possible in a game of Magic using just three cards.
As usual though, I am not one of those people. I’m honestly pretty unenthused by most of the cards in this set, but there is one that caught my eye, and it was one of the very first cards we saw from the new set.
I’m interested in playing Fire of Resistance“].
Yes, Koth makes his long awaited return to Magic and his card is… Certainly a card. Most of what I’ve seen from people online is that he’s bad, and he very well might be. Since day one of spoilers though, I haven’t gotten the idea out of my head.
Confession time: Red toward the bottom of the list of my favorite colors in Magic, right alongside Green. I will play either color at times, but overall I tend to lean toward decks in the Esper colors. I also was not playing Magic the first time Koth was around, so I really have no reason to be attached to this card, and yet, here we are.
I think the most intriguing thing about the new Koth to me is that he has a pretty obvious home. While it isn’t a tiered deck, it’s a deck I think a lot of people enjoy – Big Red. What is effectively Mono Red Midrange and what I’m going to call “Chewing Gum” or “Gumball” (I haven’t made up my mind yet) has been a strategy I’ve seen theorycrafted before and people have tried it out, but the incentive never really felt there for me. The incentive to try this, at least in Pioneer and Explorer, now exists because of Koth.
So I’m going to present a few brews I’ve come up with centered around the new Koth and the different directions I think you can take it in. I don’t know if I’ll end up trying all of these or only a couple, but I do know I will try out Koth in some capacity.
SNOW KOTH
Snow koth
5 mythic
41 rare
8 uncommon
6 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Planeswalkers (7)
Creatures (4)
Sorceries (9)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (25)
60 Cards
$159.4
Sideboard
15 Cards
$44.25
When Koth was first spoiled, this is where my head first went. I don’t know why Snow was the first thing I was drawn to here, but I’m under the impression that Frostbite is a pretty good card. It’s less so now that we have Fiery Impulse, but Frostbite has the upside of hitting Planeswalkers as well, so it’s a trade off. You also get to play just some broken red cards like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Bonecrusher Giant, which will help carry any deck to the promised land, right?
With Koth demanding a critical mass of Mountains, I felt like Dwarven Mine could be a somewhat cute inclusion, but at the end of the day it may not be impactful enough. You do have a pretty powerful creature-land suite in Den of the Bugbear and Faceless Haven though, which is one of the more interesting parts of the deck. I built this list as soon as I saw Koth, and while I don’t know that it’s powerful enough on its own to compete, it’s still interesting to experiment with how the new card interacts with existing strategies.
KOTH SPELLSLINGER
Koth Spellslinger
4 mythic
20 rare
13 uncommon
23 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (14)
Lands (24)
60 Cards
$68.58
Sideboard
13 Cards
$21.25
One other card from ONE that has lived rent free in my head is Capricious Hellraiser, which while certainly not a strong card is one that i’m going to be forcing right alongside my other pet card of Smoldering Egg. Outside of those dubious inclusions, I think this version of the deck seems pretty interesting. There’s a strong Spells-Matter theme, which lets you stall with Young Pyromancer while Koth provides the mana to fuel the strategy along the way. Admittedly, Koth may not fit as snuggly into this list as some other options like splashing for Third Path Iconoclast, but the concept of a Mono-Red spells deck was too interesting to pass up. This one is probably a little too lost in the sauce, but there might be some kind of shell that works here if you cut the pair of my dear mediocre dragon cards.
KOTH RAMP
Big Koth Mk1
4 mythic
29 rare
7 uncommon
20 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Sorceries (17)
Lands (21)
60 Cards
$95.48
Sideboard
15 Cards
$50.89
Big Koth Mk2
2 mythic
34 rare
7 uncommon
17 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Sorceries (11)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (21)
60 Cards
$190.96
Sideboard
14 Cards
$59.86
The last two ideas I have are going to look pretty similar so I’m going to talk about them in tandem. I think this direction is actually the most promising of the lists featured here so far. The basic idea here is that you can ramp out a four mana Planeswalker on turn three with the help of the old Cleansing Wildfire and Darksteel Citadel synergy, which effectively functions as a cantripping Rampant Growth. Any planeswalker entering play ahead of schedule is very strong, and Koth is no exception. You can start generating card advantage more quickly, and get to your ultimate a turn sooner, which is certain to win any game that goes late. The main question is, what is your back up plan for the times that Koth isn’t in hand on turn four?
My first iteration was to treat the rest of the deck like an older version of the Big Red lists, jamming in a couple of copies of the first super-star Red Planeswalker, Chandra, Torch of Defiance. The plan with the higher upside though, is the one that pairs Koth with Karn and uses the additional mana you get from Cleansing Wildfire and the guaranteed lands you get from Koth to help turbo out some artifacts from your sideboard. This is the other list I am most interested in playing, as the combination of a high potential for explosive plays and the varied win conditions that don’t rely solely on Koth are a big draw. Both lists feature the Indestructible land package of Darksteel Citadel and Cascading Cataracts, which is also why each list has a Golos, Tireless Pilgrim in – Just for that dash of extra added spice. Also, shoutout to Gleeful Demolition for slotting in nicely here, as a Shatter in the worst case and a one mana army in the best. The little pieces of tech like this are very neat, and something that appeal to me as a player.
Not Featured: MONO RED DEVOTION
I’m not a fan of Nykthos, shrine to nyx personally. I didn’t buy EA2, I don’t want to craft Nykthos, and more importantly I don’t think Koth is actually good in a shell that needs a ton of devotion. I’m sure that a shell for it exists, but without a strong payoff or impactful enabler like Boros Reckoner I don’t think that the deck has all of the pieces it needs to succeed. Fanatic of Mogis is alright, but not enough to carry an entire archetype as we have seen in Pioneer. Maybe someday though.
CONCLUSION
As is normally the case for decks I build, I’m not going to sit here and pretend this is actually the deck that solves the Explorer meta, that’s not the point of this article series. In fact, out of GW Artifacts, UW Soldiers, and these various Koth decks, I’m less sure now about these Koth decks than I was about the other two at the time. The point is to explore our options in the format, and to point out some of the key differences in the cards that we’re lacking between Explorer and Pioneer.
For what it’s worth, I think that the upsides of diving into this archetype and card are certainly there too. For as much as Koth is being discounted and dumped on, I think he could actually surprise people. The big issue is that he’s only really going to work in a deck that’s focused on his abilities, and if he doesn’t work or the deck can’t get off the ground then he’s not really going to show up anywhere else. For as popular a strategy as Big Red is, I think he’s at least worth trying out to see what fire Koth has left.
