R/W Aggro Luis Salvatto 1st Place at Miscellaneous on 1/25/2015 (Standard)

On the other side of the country, Luis Salvatto took down the Sunday Super Series with a more traditional take on R/W Aggro. Like Danny Goldstein, Luis used Valorous Stance as a split card that could kill a big opposing creature or save his own. He also played Outpost Siege, though in his sideboard rather than in his maindeck.

I would expect this version of R/W Aggro to be the more likely one to show up in future events, not necessarily because it's stronger, but because it has more cards that people traditionally understand as being powerful. While Brimaz doesn't have as high a power ceiling as Monastery Mentor, the lion king is going to be more consistently good, especially in a world of Lightning Strikes, Magma Jets, and Wild Slashes.

Interestingly, Luis eschewed the more popular Wingmate Roc as his five-drop in favor of Stormbreath Dragon. While Roc may be a stronger card in attrition-based matchups, Stormbreath is certainly the more aggressive option. It also happens to be extremely powerful in the mirror match as well as against Abzan, which leads me to wonder why it hasn't been seeing more play in R/W before.

The most interesting thing about Luis's deck to me is actually the inclusion of two copies of Peak Eruption in the sideboard. I'd actually strongly considered playing some of them in G/R Aggro myself simply because it's such a blowout against opposing Chained to the Rocks, not only freeing your creature but also dealing three damage and setting your opponent back a land. It's actually not terribly uncommon for a R/W player to only have a single Mountain in play too, so sometimes you may actually get the opportunity to kill multiple copies of Chained to the Rocks with a single card. Peak Eruption is certainly a card to keep in mind if R/W decks continue to be popular, as I would expect to happen after their success last weekend.