It definitely has one thing going for it besides the theme. Extirpate will not harm you. I hate that card.
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The black cards are used to combat a friend of mine. He uses the combo of Swans of Byrn Argoll and Pariah to deck me if I keep in blue. I don't get the counterspells and card drawing but it is worth the switch. Also if you like red then use Roar of the Crowd and maybe a few others instead of the black or blue.
Blowfly infestation along with flourishing defenses, bloom tender and quill spike equals infinite mana and a creature that will be huge and -1-1 counters to blow up anything people put in front of you and everytime you send a creature to the graveyard FD will give you a 1/1 token. So that you don't kill your tokens stack the defenses first then blowfly. Blowfly will pop all your tokens at once then defenses will bring them back. I was at a tourney a little while back and saw someone do that.
If you are trying to make your opponent discard and manipulate their library why no Hypnotic Specter? I like the deck, pretty solid. Also think of using Liliana Vess and Jace Beleren, they combo really well together and would fit pretty good with this deck.
Ya you shouldn't need to gain life with this deck. If you do then your probably not going to win. I have used Heedless One in the deck a few times. Straight up you probably don't need her but in a 2 or more free for all definitely put her in cause I have ran over two people at once with her. I use promenades to get about 20-30 tokens, drop harbinger, pull out Heedless and triger Arch Druid to draw it then play and equip to axe.
I have a friend that uses a deck extremely similar to this one. One question for you, why no frogtosser banneret? Makes everything cheaper and it has haste.
Oh yeah just thought of a great card here. Titan's Revenge. Better version of fireball since if your opponent counters it you can get it back in your hand. I love clash!
This is definitely old school in feel and not much will really stop it now except for counterspell and control decks just like back then. Of course mana flare helps your opponeent so horde decks can still overwhelm you if they get going fast enough. You will have to watch out for shroud too because that will shut down all direct damage. All in all it is a solid old time red deck though.
If anyone would like to expand any ideas on the sideboard I would be more than welcome to add to it. Obviously the axe is used to play and swing with Nath right away and Heedless One is nice but I have found that too often by turn five I either have all their land and have just used overrun or I have so many tokens I dont need either of them. I would like to make this type 2 legal as well so suggestions on what I should use on the cards that aren't are definitely welcome.
The only problem you will have here are destruction spells that don't target. One primeval light and all your enchantments go bye because you not your enchantments are it's target. After playing that one damnation and all your creatures are gone. I haven't really thought of what you can do to combat that. Short of someone getting rid of your enchantments I think your deck is pretty solid against anything.