Big Red Politics (EDH / Commander)

Do you like sitting back and letting your opponents fight each other? Do you like playing politics and pulling the strings of what people are doing? Do you like control but don't like blue? Do you like to see people get got by things they don't expect? Do you like playing big spells and making impactful plays? Do you like your turns to be relatively short?

Then do I have the deck for you!

This is my personal favorite deck, if you said yes to all of the above questions then this would probably pique your interest. As a personal note about my meta, the decks are incredibly varied from relatively casual players who just have altered precon EDH decks to 75% decks that use quite a bit of tutors, disruption, and combos that go off on turn 6 or so. This deck is certainly more on the casual end and requires a lot of durdling around; the goal of this deck is not to win, but to have fun by making big plays and enabling opponents to do stupid things. This is a relatively slow deck, and for the first half of a game you'll probably just be sitting back ramping and letting people doing their thing and occasionally tapping diaochan. If you get focused on by an aggressive deck, there's not much you but take it in the early game or ask for help to be payed back with favors down the line. The deck does interesting stuff with lots of mana, but making infinite mana to just win the game is not the end goal even though it's possible in the deck, which is why I don't have tutors in the deck. The combo pieces of Reiterate + Mana Geyser are not a consistent way of making infinite mana because they also play other functions in the deck for when I don't go infinite.

Now let's get down to why this deck is a riot.

getting got, the red counterspell

People always think of blue as the king of stack manipulation, I won't dispute that but red has a few tricks up it's sleeve as well. Everyone always forgets about the red counterspell: Fork effects; of course, you can always use them to double up on your own spells or maybe use someone else's, but it's a great safety net against counterspells as you can counter their counter or copy your spell so the copy resolves first. And never forget, if someone goes infinite killing them in response with a copy of their own spell exiles the original copy from the stack; Wild Ricochet an infinite mana Blue Sun's Zenith to save myself and kill two other players or playing Price of Progress and copying it so it kills the caster of some game winning card while it's still on the stack feels amazing.

While not a large part of the deck, these instant speed effects play an important role of giving us stack manipulation.

Roll the wheel for card draw
I've stuffed as much card draw and wheels that I could in mono-red that wasn't horribly inefficient as that's the best way to draw cards. Aside from wheels, I have a few pieces of card draw that lets multiple people draw, definitely use these for political leverage; If someone is digging for something ask them if they need a card from Temple Bell. The name of the game is that you are in control of the card draw with the wheels and symmetric draws even though it helps everyone.

Wheels:

Wheel of Fortune

Reforge the Soul

Magus of the Wheel

Chandra, Flamecaller

Pseudo-Symmetric card draw:

Temple Bell

Humble Defector

And of course we have a bit of impulsive draw with Chandra, Torch of Defiance. I love that Wizards is printing more impulsive draw cards for red as a way to get card advantage, but not exactly the best for this dick as a lot of the cards here are such high CMC that we generally want to keep as they have high impact like Insurrection or a card we generally want at all times in our hand like Reiterate.

The Planeswalker threat
I personally hate planeswalkers, but this deck has them pulling double duty as mana ramp and card draw which is essential for any EDH deck, and being mono-color I need every bit of ramp and card draw I can get. Karn Liberated on the other hand is my enchantment removal with extra upside. Let's dig a bit deeper on the planeswalkers:

Koth of the Hammer: I've talked about him before under the ramp section and he's amazing as a ritual as we will often have lots of mountains from all the ramp we do. Even better is that if he survives, he can also ramp by uncapping a mountain with his + ability. Don't be afraid to throw him out to just use his + ability a few times to try and ultimate, but his main utility is as a ritual.

Chandra, Torch of Defiance: This has quickly become my favorite mono-red planeswalker, it gives us mana, it impulsively draws, in a pinch it can act as removal; It slices, it dices, it walks the dog, this planeswalker has absolutely everything we want.

Chandra, Flamecaller: highly underrated card, you'll probably only ever use it for it's 0 ability of wheeling for one additional card. Card advantage is a rare thing in red and this also comes with the ability to possibly dome someone for 6 with elementals or do a small board wipe.

Karn Liberated: Literally just Scour from Existence with pseudo rebound in this deck. If you want to cut something for budget, this would be the place to start, he's my enchantment or land removal that can hit another if he doesn't die.

Big Mana for Big things

There are quite a few mana rocks in here, but aside from that I try to put in as much land ramp and search as possible since you want to be hitting your land drops each turn. oftentimes I will be matching a green player in mana because of how much ramp there is in this deck.

Payoffs

Now that we have lots of mana, let's do something with it!

Any 6+ CMC card in the deck is a payoff really, but let's go over some specific inclusions in the deck.

Bearer of the Heavens: Bearer of the heavens is always a riot when I drop it. It makes people double take when they realize it destroys ALL permanents including their lands. It holds the board hostage unless they have an exile or counter effect. Dissuades people from coming my way or I pop it with diaochan or a Trading Post

Colossus of Akros:This card perfectly encapsulates this deck, it sits back and blocks, but it has the potential 20/20 trampler making people sweat. It's indestructible making it basically not worth targeting for diaochan's ability and does not paint a target on my head until I have too much mana.

Malignus:This card is a big threat when it comes down, a 20/20 on turn 4 or 5 is scary. More than once people have forgotten about it's damage being unpreventable. Don't be afraid to just give up on this though as it is in the end just a big beater. In politics you have to force someone to look down the barrel of a gun to do what you want and this is exactly that, a threat to back up my political assertations

Soul of New Phyrexia :This is one of the biggest reasons why we want so much mana. Makes Diaochan much more potent as all of your targets are unprofitable as they can become indestructible. It also saves your board from wipes, and combos perfectly with Bearer of the Heavens above.

Batterskull:The name of the game for creatures is bad diaochan targets that are also impactful, and boy is batter skull impactful, give any of my big fatties lifelink and vig or just use as a recurring blocker.

Walking Ballista:this slot used to be for Kumano, Master Yamabushi, still testing this one out. Either way it is a big mana sink for direct damage to opponents or their stuff. If you ever get infinite mana, this or a big devil's play wins you the game.

Insurrection: Simple to understand, usually wins the game on the spot, or at least kills someone.