Although red might seem like a creature color, its actually a spell color, with the least amount of creatures just after blue. Right now there’s 24 red creatures in the cube, so I can’t add very many. Probably six, which would leave me with 30. That sound about right. I want some removal and a few sweet red cards in the way only red can be sweet.

Creatures

The curve is currently 3 / 4 / 8 / 6 / 3, which seems kind of high for red, but I’m happy with that, because at least its different from most cubes. I would like to smooth the curve somewhat, though, and because of that, I’ll put in new creatures thusly: 1 / 3 / 0 / 0 / 1 / 1, if I can find appropriate creatures. The problem is that this high curve might leave the color quite weak against the gods, but as you can always combine colors, this shouldn’t be a problem.

What we can do for red is to give it some more devotion to activate its god. That should balance things out.

[scryfall]Firedrinker Satyr[/scryfall] is my choice for the extra one-drop. Its cheap, its efficient and though its very poor blocker, that’s not what you want to do with it anyway.

[scryfall]Ash Zealot[/scryfall] is an excellent sideboard option against certain cards in the cube, so I’ll put that in. Its pretty efficient otherwise as well and if it doesn’t make maindeck, its probably because of the double red requirement.

[scryfall]Dragon Whisperer[/scryfall] has the devotion, but its also great if the game drags for a long time. Pumping out dragons will end the game quickly.

For the third slot, I’m considering [scryfall]Goblin Wardriver[/scryfall], [scryfall]Gore-House Chainwalker[/scryfall], [scryfall]Jeering Instigator[/scryfall], [scryfall]Kiln Fiend[/scryfall], [scryfall]Lightning Mauler[/scryfall], [scryfall]Mardu Scout[/scryfall], and [scryfall]Mogis’s Warhound[/scryfall]. All are pretty aggressive choices. I would like to use [scryfall]Kiln Fiend[/scryfall], but that would mean that I need to put more tricks into the cube to support the strategy. So, I’ll just do that. I won’t make the theme too big, just something you might want to do if you happen to be in the right colors and see an opening.

For the five-drop, I’ll put in [scryfall]Goblin Dark-Dwellers[/scryfall], unless the world has finally woken up to how great this card is (and thus it might be outside the budget).

For the six-drop, I’ll use [scryfall]Soul of Shandalar[/scryfall].

Removal

I should probably look this up first, but I feel the cube has enough 4-powered creatures to support [scryfall]Crater’s Claws[/scryfall], so that’s in.

I’ll also put in [scryfall]Incinerate[/scryfall], because its not strictly worse than [scryfall]Lightning Bolt[/scryfall], but it is strictly better than [scryfall]Lightning Strike[/scryfall]. There isn’t much regeneration, but there is some.

[scryfall]Roast[/scryfall] is good, efficient removal.

[scryfall]Boiling Earth[/scryfall] is a nice sideboard option, which might even make the mainboard.

[scryfall]Fall of the Hammer[/scryfall] has some nice synergies with certain heroic cards, but it can also deal a lot of damage for two mana. Especially nice with [scryfall]Kiln Fiend[/scryfall].

[scryfall]Exquisite Firecraft[/scryfall] is sadly sorcery-speed, but I still like it.

I was thinking [scryfall]Boulder Salvo[/scryfall] would be a nice card, with the surge cost being a fun mechanic, but instead I’m going to be boring and use [scryfall]Flame Slash[/scryfall].

Lastly, [scryfall]Hammer of Bogardan[/scryfall] is good at stopping stalls.

Others

There’s room for five more cards. A couple of tricks, I feel, are needed since I did put in the [scryfall]Kiln Fiend[/scryfall], which leaves me with just a few fun red cards.

First trick is [scryfall]Assault Strobe[/scryfall], since its just so efficient a trick.

The second trick is probably [scryfall]Brute Force[/scryfall]. Feels kind of cheating, because its so efficient by today’s standards, but I don’t want to put anything more expensive into the cube either. And its not as if anyone is going to have multiples, either.

For the Jennies out there, I’m putting in [scryfall]Braid of Fire[/scryfall]. Now, I don’t know how you can abuse it in this cube, but a good Jennie will figure it out.

The other two are going to be [scryfall]Twinflame[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Volcanic Vision[/scryfall]. Not too difficult to use, but at least require some planning. Okay, I wussied out here a bit. Something like [scryfall]Possibility Storm[/scryfall] would have been more like it.