Mono-Red Hollow Aggro (Modern)

Just wanted to share this fun brew that I've been testing. It's been putting up consistent, positive results in the Modern queues. Inspired by the success of Ramunap Red in standard, I figured "could we do something like this in modern?" The answer seems to be "not really?" So, I ended up going in a slightly different direction (still featuring the ruins), combining modern's cheapest draw/discard spells with Standard's best, newest discard matters/hellbent-ish creatures.

Flameblade Adept
This new 1-drop might look unimpressive but it becomes beastly with Inquiry/Looting. I have won many game simply with two Adepts on the board, Looting/Flashback Looting, to pump both by +4/+0, swinging for 10. Remember that these little adepts have menace, which turns out to be really relevant against the creature-narrow decks in the format like Abzan Midrange and Death's Shadow.
Hollow One
This is the deck's namesake and for good reason. It's either a 1 mana 4/4 (after a looting) or a FREE 4/4 after an Inquiry. It can't be killed by a single bolt or a Fatal Push. Etched Champion can't attack through it. It enables your Phoenixes (as we will discuss next) It's all around excellent. Also, Hollow One cycles, with is useful if you get stuck with a hand lacking discard or you need an instant-speed +1/+0 pump on your adept.
Flamewake Phoenix
This is the card that graduated this deck from a decent curiosity to a consistent winner. With Hollow One, Bloodrage, and Lupine all triggering its ferocious, explosive lines are incredibly common such as looting discarding Phoenix, play Hollow One for a single mana, return Phoenix from graveyard. I've even seen a Turn 2, burning inquiry discarding phoneix, hollow one for free, return phoenix.
Bloodrage Brawler
Brawler is like Hollow Ones 5-8, with a minor synergy on its discard clause. Unlike Hollow One, Brawler is dead to bolt and push, but its discard enables your madness spells, bin phoenixes, and helps to turn your Lupines on. Even so, as a 2-mana 4/3 it does work.
Lupine Prototype
I've been trying to make this card work since I saw it and this deck serves it nicely. We only play 3 because, even with lots of discard, it's activation clause is steep. However, as a later-game 2-mana 5/5, it's an important closer. It can eat Tasigur, Thought-Knot, and almost all of the midrange creatures. Also, it bricks Etched Champions, in affinity-heavy metas.
Burning Inquiry
This is perhaps the most controversial card in the deck, but I've only had good experience with it. It acts as a +3/+0 for your adepts, makes Hollow Ones free, and often, if played on the 3/4th turn, really frustrates your opponent's hand. Though the effect is symmetrical and random, this deck is rather resilient to discard, with phoenixes that can come out of the graveyard, madness spells, and a singleton aftermath effect in Insult/Injury.
Faithless Looting
This does all the things inquiry does, just a little worst (+2/+0 for adepts, 1-mana Hollow Ones). However, it can flashback and its effect is not random. Looting makes this deck very consistent, binning land when we are flooded and clearing out phoenixes and redundant discard/draw spells.
Bolt
x4. Red Deck. Next
Lightning Axe/Temper
5 damage kills most of the things in Modern. Its discard is actually a benefit for firing off Tempers, binning Phoenixes, and making Hollow One cheaper. Temper is almost-card advantage/parity in a deck so heavy in discard. It still feels great to hit a looting into a temper for two mana, two cards, discard one, draw two, bolt.
Insult/Injury
Just experimenting here. It's nice to have a 3-mana bolt that can be cast from the graveyard. I've cast Insult only once but it was on a 2 Adept board with no blockers: Burning Inquiry into Injury for 16 damage.
Sideboard
We have 4 Shattering Sprees to take advantage of being mono-red to feast on Affinity and blow up any other troublesome artifacts. Avacyn's Judgements and Nahiri's Wrath are nice madness targets/enablers against go-wide and aggro decks like Elves or Goblins. Wrath also doubles as a fantastic planeswalker killer in superfriends decks. Sudden Shock can kill a small Death's Shadow, a Bogle or an Infect creature. Molten Rain against Tron and Scapeshift. Reveler for cheap card advantage against control
Matchups
Affinity: In five matches against affinity, I've only lost one with this deck. Not only can we out-race a moderate or slow start against affinity, we play 4 shattering sprees in the board and have many large creatures that can brick their medium-size ground creatures. Additionally with 11 burn spells in the main deck and an additional 7 more to optionally sideboard into, we can eliminate their early targets easily.
Scapeshift: I've gone 50/50 against scapeshift. We can often kill on turn 4/5 which, except against the fastest scapeshift starts is usually quick enough. Their angers don't kill our Lupines or our Hollow Ones but they are rough on our Phoenix plan. If we hit our Molten Rains, like any other deck, we can often keep them off scapeshift long enough to win, but that's not always easy. This a matchup where Burning Inquiry often acts like a weird thoughtseize. If we wait long enough to play it (turn 3/4) we have a good chance of hitting either Scapeshift or some other piece of the combo. That said, it's still a tough matchup on a slow start.
Grixis Shadow: I've only played this deck thrice, winning twice and losing once. We don't have much that consistently kill their Shadow, but our recurring creatures and burn endanger their always-low life total. Adept is great in this matchup as, often, our 4/x's eat their removal, setting up a late game Looting/Flashback Looting for a surprise 5 damage with menace. I'd like to have something more in the sideboard for this matchup but haven't found the right card.
Tron: Being fast and playing molten rains is a great, classic solution to Tron. I haven't lost to Tron yet (either Eldrazi or classic flavors) but I've only played two matches of each. This deck even won through a double Karn, owing to its burn and evasive Adepts and Phoenixes. Thought-Knot is somewhat weak against us as well (madness + graveyard recursion) and All Is Dust/Ugin misses our two biggest creatures. Here we have another fun Burning Inquiry interaction which can often hit their third Tron piece on turn 3.
Gifts/Storm: This deck is weakness unless we start fast. We don't really have any relevant interaction other than hoping to go faster than they do. I'd love some suggestions on making this match-up stronger. I've lost 2/2 of these matches.
Burn: 50/50. It's a race. We can have very explosive starts with turn-2 Hollow Ones and Brawlers.
Lantern Control: Here our sideboard strategy against Affinity really helps. Also, their discard powers up our graveyard/phoenix. I like to side in the Revelers here and hope for the best. I've won both games I've played against Lantern Control.
Conclusions
I need to test this deck against more control decks, against which I'm sure it can be weak when it can't go under. I need to put in more games with the deck in general, but it's been such a fun experiment, I just had to share. I'd love suggestions on how to make some of the weaker matchups stronger and any other feedback. Hope you enjoyed!