Very In-Depth BS Red Deckbuilding Primer | Post-Forbidden July 2020

It's been uh... half a year since I started this blog. And no blogposts since I made it.

Good one, Chang.

Finally got off my lazy ass and decided to type something up for once.

I've recently reached Legend rank, using a wide array of BS Red decks to climb the ladder. I've done a bunch of experimenting to get an edge while climbing, and I feel quite confident about my knowledge of the deck to make an extensive primer for others who are building the deck as well.

That's enough of an introduction. Let's get to it.

Main Core

What exactly is mandatory in the deck is definitely up for debate, but in my opinion the core of the deck consists of:

3 Dan Bashin Lv. 1
2 Dan - The Clash King
1 The CannonDragon Bal-Gunner
1 The GunDragon Phoenix-Cannon
1 The BeastArmor MegaBison
3 Chameleopus
3 Ankillersaurus
3 The StarHornBeast Unigaunt
3 The Wanderer Lolo (Please Ignore I Only Have 2)
3 The ThunderEmperorDragon Siegwurm
3 The Supernova Dragon Siegwurm Nova

Level-Up Dan and Siegwurm Nova together provide a majority of the deck's threat, with Chameleopus, Ankillersaurus, and Unigaunt providing the base of your early game, giving you ramp, early pressure, and card advantage respectively. Lolo and Siegwurm-4 give you added consistency of reaching Dan Level 3, with a handful of other matchup-specific benefits.

Bal-Gunner and Phoenix-Cannon add to your already powerful board control, the latter of which also giving you force destruction, and MegaBison protects your threats from destruction, making them much harder to answer. Clash King gives you more Card Battlers for Unigaunt, as well as a nice little powerboost and Charge effect to sneak in some more damage.

The core is very flexible. Level-Up Dan, Unigaunt, and Siegwurm Nova are the only cards I feel are absolutely necessary at 3. Feel free to toy around with it! Add in more copies of the Braves depending on what kind of decks you like to answer, or remove some copies of other cards to make room for other tech you want to fit in. Tweak it til you like it.

Force Choice

This deck is one of the few that is flexible enough to arguably utilize every single force option, so I'll try to keep this as brief as I can. I'll be omitting the obvious reasons to run most of these forces, and focus moreso on Red BS specific applications.

Chiron gives access to arguably the most hated card in the game: Golem Summoning, as well as the much less hated but still incredibly potent Golem Mobilization. Both provide insane amounts of damage output and field presence, tokens having the additional benefit of adding to your Cost Reduction, allowing you to play your high-cost threats much faster than you otherwise would.

The downside is Chiron doesn't have as much of an impact aside from the aforementioned Golem cards, leading it to becoming a pretty dead asset if you don't see either. It also causes you to start with a significantly lower life total, as well as opening you up to Phoenix-Cannon in the mirror, making you much more vulnerable compared to other Force options.

The most potent option available, by far, but also a very risky one. I personally think it's a shame that Golem Summoning is such a powerful card, because it somewhat invalidates other options available, as you'll see in a moment.

Cyclops is commonly partnered with Chiron, to give you a starting 6 life rather than 5. Gives the added benefit of making your Golem Tokens a smidge harder to block, but you're mostly using it for the starting 6 life more than anything.

I am not a fan. At all. Please do not run Cyclops.

Ouroboros can be used in a manner similar to Cyclops, giving you more starting life to work with, but Ouroboros provides the deck with a lot more than just some extra life.

The deck has a lot of forceblocking and on-attack triggers, and Ouroboros allows you to use them freely without having to worry about keeping blockers up. It also has disgusting synergy with Dan Level 3, whose ability works when it wins as an Attacker or Defender. Attack with DL3 on your turn, Ouroboros puts it back into the active state, and now DL3 is able to remove two of your opponent's minions on their turn if they decide to attack.

My personal favorite Force for BS Red, paired with Phoenix.

Sphynx isn't the most useful Force for BS Red, since its threats are all high-cost, but if you really hate Purple, I'm not gonna judge you for slapping this on.

Phoenix gives access to Swoop minions that help you continue to establish board dominance and ramp, like Machinist of Augma, Rita, and Alex. Very valuable, even outside of giving you mana for removal.

Orthrus - Opens up a very aggressive cheese playstyle alongside Charge givers like Kenneth, Clash King, and Jain. It's definitely more of a meme deck, but I will not lie that it's absolutely hilarious when it works.

Pegasus - BS Red is a deck that uses Boost a lot, obviously, so being able to have more freedom with your Movement in that regard is pretty huge. There's a lot of smaller synergies that you can discover for yourself when you play the deck, and is definitely a shoe-in for my second favorite Not-Phoenix force for the deck.

Minotaur and Chimera, as the most niche of the Forces, are mostly useless options for BS Red, and don't really have any place in most standard lists. Feel free to make and share a list that uses them effectively, though! Would be a real treat to see some.

Threat Options

First up's my favorite: BigDipper Sieg-Apollodragon. He is by far the most reliable, flexible, and consistently potent option. He will never fail you.

Unless you brick three copies. But.

He provides a sizable body, Brave tutor, ramp, card draw, and force aggression. A bunch of tools, all in one package. In almost every situation, there will be use for BigDipper. I love this card, and I think it's one of the best designed and well balanced cards to come out of Forbidden. Unfortunately he doesn't shine as much in Chiron decks, because the deck has a much stricter curve and has less opportunity to play him out. Either way, still an amazing card and definitely recommend him as your first consideration for other threat options.

On the other end of the spectrum, Duskurse is an absolutely disgusting option in Chiron decks. With how efficiently they can fill up board with Golem Summoning and Golem Mobilization, it's not uncommon at all to see Duskurse played for no cost early on in the game. An 800/2 statline for free when your opponent already has to worry about four other tokens you also got for an incredibly unfair rate is very annoying to answer. In addition he's a Dragon, which lets him be a very cost-efficient sac target for Siegwurm Nova, as well as a cheap 2 Charge damage with Clash King. Card fits in so well into Chiron decks that he might as well be a BS card himself.

The last of our Neutral-Colored threats is Grand-Sagitto-Nova, providing an incredibly powerful effect, albeit on an unwieldy body. Because he quite literally cannot be played without Cost Reduction, he'll almost never be a card that swings a game by himself if your board's cleared out. In addition, having to swing at the opponent's life mandates that you reserve a charge gifter for him.

As far as threats go, he's arguably underwhelming compared to the amount of work you need to do to make him function, but he does provide you with a tool that you won't get anywhere else: high burn damage, putting your opponent on a death timer where they'll eventually get burned out by Grand Nova if they don't actively keep your board cleared. It's especially good against BS White, whose prison-esque gameplan is thwarted by Grand Nova's mass burn, which they can't really stop.

His smaller but much less clunky brother is Dragonic Taurus. He provides a much less impressive one damage ping whenever he's blocked, but at a much more flexible cost and usability window. You don't need to give him Charge, you don't need to have a full board to make him even playable. He's just a cost-efficient 700/2 body that forces blocks and deals some cheeky burn damage. Still is one of my go-to threat options across multiple variants of my BS Red decks.

A threat option that's a little less go-to for me is Sagitto-Apollodragon. Not to say he's not a bad card; he's an absolute champ at clearing opponent's boards. With a Bal-Gunner and MegaBison slapped on top of him, he becomes a 1200/4 body that destroys up to three of your opponent's monsters every time he attacks, while also being incredibly hard to deal with due to MegaBison's destruction invulnerability.

His issue is that without Pegasus he takes two turns to get to full power, on top of requiring two Brave minions to do so. He might hog your Brave boosts, or you might not see enough Braves to get him rolling. A lot can go wrong with Sagitto-Apollodragon, and like Grand-Sagitto it's rare for him to swing games by himself.

He's incredibly satisfying to use, though, and one of the most fun and powerful haymakers available for the deck. Just make sure to be aware of his downsides when you use him, planning and building accordingly.

But is he the most satisfying to use? Oh no no no. That award goes to the absolute most chaddest lad.  The biggest of chonkers.

He strikes fear into all that gaze on his intimidating countenance. He is a godawful topdeck. He is a janky mess that requires so much investment in one turn and messes you up in three different directions if he doesn't kill. But oh boy is he fun.

Killing an opponent with Infinite Gai-Asura Works might be the most toxic and disrespectful way to secure a win with BS Red. Give him Charge, slap a boost on him, and just watch him go to town on your opponent's face. You get to draw a bunch of cards with BalGunner, or you can stop your opponent from destroying or resting him with MegaBison. He's just a blast to use.

To anyone who's completed the BS Quests, obvious synergy with Shaina.

Don't recommend him whatsoever if you're aiming to win games, but if you just wanna run a single anime copy, it wouldn't hurt all that much. Friend of mine's used his anime copy to steal some games.

Interaction

Unfortunately (Or thankfully, depending on who you ask), Red has some of the weakest interaction in the game, tied with Blue and Yellow. However, just like both of those other colors, its removal is incredibly efficient and reliable, in exchange for its lack of potency.

The two most standout removal options in the color are Megaton Hammer and Sagita Flame, both 4-Cost spells that deal BP damage that lasts for the turn. Very cheap and efficient at getting rid of smaller threats, but struggle to help deal with larger problems without the assistance of your bigger boardclears. As long as you're smart with them, they should be reliable enough to get you through the day.

As far as more Spell-based interaction, the only ones really worth discussing are Fire Rain, Cremation, and Gravity Stream.

Fire Rain's a lot less consistent in BS Red decks compared to Evoker decks, which run much more BP damage to utilize Fire Rain, but it's the only real spell-based hard removal the color has at the moment, so still worth some consideration.

Cremation's a 5-Cost Megaton Hammer that does less damage, but has the benefit of being permanent damage, letting you shave down some power on an opponent's threat on their turn before clearing it all out with Siegwurm Nova or Dan Level 3. It's a surprisingly neat and underrated card, and though I wouldn't say it's something that you should go out of your way to start shoving into your decks, it's worth your consideration.

Gravity Stream's only really for Chiron decks, but it's a pretty decent tool for its cost. Just like Cremation, the damage is permanent, so using it to shave off just the right amount of power you need from your opponent's minions is pretty nice to have. Personally not a huge fan of the card, because I really hate having it become an essentially dead card once Chiron and/or Phoenix is removed, but it's still a solid tool if you're willing to take that risk.

Monster-based interaction's pretty simple, the options being Machinist of Augma and Rita - The Divine Shot. Machinist functions very similarly to Sagita Flame, with a few small benefits to make up for its 5-Cost instead of 4, most notably being a 400/2 body as well as having the 200 BP damage be permanent. Rita's a somewhat self-explanatory card, and a very powerful staple that I'm sure a lot of people playing Zenonzard have fallen in love with.

Run as much interaction as you feel necessary. Cry because you have no way to answer Andoros Level 2 on Opponent's Turn 3. Moving on.

Filling Up The Rest Of The Space

For any Phoenix BS Red deck (Read: Every single BS Red deck), I cannot recommend Alex enough. The ramp he provides at Flash speed is incredible, allowing you to have some absolutely nasty curves, Dan Level 3 on Turn 3 being a notable one. He speeds up the deck significantly, and even gives you a blocker to boot if you need it. It was hard for me to not include him in the core of the deck, but I decided to keep the core fairly simple and streamlined. Definitely one of the best picks to round out your deck.

The only other card I had a hard time figuring out whether I wanted to include it in the core or not was Yashium. This card provides a lot for the deck that you wouldn't get without it. Simple trash recursion means reusing Unigaunts for value, Lolos for tutoring, Bladras for Siegwurm Nova fodder, hell even reusing Siegwurm Nova himself. He can also be boosted by Bal-Gunner, making him annoying as piss to deal with during the early game. He's a fantastic and flexible card that's, in my opinion, useful throughout the entire match.

In addition, because he Switches with Zodiac Deities, Yashium also has really fun synergy with Dragonic Taurus, essentially letting you loop Tauruses late game to slowly burn your opponent to death. A very flexible card that offers something the deck doesn't have otherwise. I refrained from including him in the core, because I know multiple strong BS Red players who opt out of it for space and find consistent success with the deck without it, but I personally highly recommend it in the deck.

Onto more preference-based techs.

Poobi and Erika gives you another costless Dragon for Siegwurm Nova to eat. However, the combo eats up a lot of space you might not be willing to make, and occasionally forcing yourself to take a turn to put Poobi into base or moving Erika back to base can slow you down a turn. Ultimately I found the downsides to be too much for me to use the pair, but there is value to be had if you don't mind the slight clunkiness. I have tried a single copy of Poobi without Erika to a fair bit of success, so do feel free to try that out as well.

A bit of a more controversial pick are Kenneth and Fury, both of the Wizard Evokers from Forbidden. Fury gives you two Golem tokens while Kenneth gives you Charge and some neat removal. They both provide pretty neat benefits to the deck, but just like Poobi playing them instead of a Card Battler or Brave can potentially slow you down a turn. Definitely options to keep in mind, though.

If you want more Charge outside of the Base Minion department, Jain - Sorceress of Blazefires gives the ability to all of your Dragons, enabling some really cheesy OTKs. Chiron-Pegasus BS Red is incredibly common, and at 5 starting life it makes it even easier to steal wins with her. Also has the side-effect of pulling removal away from your bigger threats, for obvious reasons. Obviously being 3-Cost and being a non-BS card can make curving a little awkward, and she does little to help you outside of enabling those cheeky OTKs, but I've died to Jain too many times to disregard her as a valid option.

Huge fan of Leogulus when I have the space. Massive value machine. Solid removal on-entry, on top of both chaining and being a valid target for Braves makes him an incredibly solid mini-threat while you build up towards your actual threats. Bal-Gunner + Leogulus equating to two minions killed, two cards drawn, on top of a 2 DP attack is a lot of value for its cost.

Sawblade Golem's a pretty popular choice, and there's little to hate on it for. Gets you 300/2 in stats for an affordable cost that doesn't usually mess with your curve. If you like playing very aggressive and having a lot of minions on the board fast, Sawblade's definitely for you. Personally think other options take precedence over Sawblade, though.

If you like playing gacha games, feel free to run a copy or two of Starry Draw for giggles. Otherwise? Please don't use this card. Please.

I toyed around with Scarlet Knight of Crimson in some Pegasus variants for an insane amount of draw power. It's one of my more interesting variants and really lets Sagitto-Apollodragon shine if you're into that.

There's another really spicy option I want to cover, but I think I'll save it for a Deck Showcase later down the line, so look forward to that.

Meta Hate

You hate Purple? I know I sure do! Pack 2-3 copies of MegaBison and your Purple matches will be easy breezy!

Seriously. MegaBison makes the matchup infinitely more bearable, and with two copies of MegaBison sometimes completely one-sided. With how popular Purple is at the moment, definitely think it's worth doing so. I've been playing with 2 MegaBison for the past three weeks and I've been a very content little pea.

Miss Tay Ken is pretty handy in this meta. Lots of powerful high-cost threats like Siegwurm Nova, Dan Level 3, Belphegor, Barone Level 3, Gran Woden, Treeman, etc. With how well the deck can handle small-cost threats, having an option to handle large ones en masse is very helpful.

With the exception of Green and Yellow, there's at least one threatening Dragon in basically every matchup, which makes Manticore a really solid pick. Helps patch up the deck's weakness of lacking hard removal for higher-cost threats in a pretty potent manner. It's caught me off-guard a number of times and definitely a hate tech I recommend.

In Closing

BS Red is a deck with so much depth and diversity when it comes to deckbuilding, with a potential playstyle for almost anyone wanting to pick it up. It can do everything from being a bum aggro deck to being a long-term control deck to everything in-between depending on your deckbuilding choices. I really hope something's done about Golem Summoning soon, so that the deck can be celebrated for its diverse deckbuilding, not condemned for being the Golem Summoning Phoenix Cannoning sack of bullshit that the Chiron build currently is.

I hope this blogpost helped BS Red players to learn something new, and helped everyone else see the wealth of potential and diversity possible with the deck if you take Golem Summoning out of the equation. Maybe you'll even give Golem Summoningless decks a shot and find yourself enjoying the game way more. I certainly did.

Hope to keep up these blogposts in the future, and that this isn't a one-time thing. Lots I want to write about. If you wanna respond to anything on this blogpost, feel free to contact me on Discord (Changu#5063) or Twitter (@RantheJoker).

Til next time.

#ChangStrats