Old School MTG: Revisiting Mono-Red Atog

I'm going to make this simple for you: I want you to hit me as hard as you can.

It's July. That means it's time for something hot. How about Fireballs and Lightning Bolts?

Earlier this year, I played a red Atog deck with Urza lands but I didn't like how it all worked out. So, I decided to try a version with no Urza lands to more reliably cast the red spells off Mountains. There's still an unfair amount of ramp in this build, so the artifact beatdown squad still shows up to the party early. Which is nice.

I'm not getting many games in, but I did have the chance to play a few casual games with Ben at a LGS in the next town over. We invited the local Old School group from Portland and someone even showed up!

Nick (Left), Ben (Right)

Ben, super-pumped about his hand as he faces down the alien.

I did not dish out any Shivan beats (boo), but I did get to drop some Atog bombs. There's nothing quite like swinging with two aliens and watching the other guy try to figure out how to block to not die to a big board sacrifice.

What I keep coming back to is just how much better Workshops would make these decks. I'm just a simple guy, I guess. With the dual lands put up on the shelf, I'm jamming mono-colored decks that lean heavily on artifacts. A land that taps for three artifact-only many every turn would be fantastic. Who knew!?

The Horde is putting on another tournament within driving distance. It's scheduled for late in August. I'm not sure what deck I'm going to bring, but it's almost certainly going to be jam-packed with artifacts. I'm considering something with a transformational sideboard. Stay spicy.