"I lead my horde to the northwest. I won't return until the ice wizards fall and their fiendish contraptions are crushed!"
Lovisa Coldeyes is a Coldsnap legendary creature that works as a lord for three different tribes: Barbarians, Berserkers and Warriors. She gives them a considerable +2/+2 boost and also gives them Haste, which is very important for a beatdown deck.
Most people argue that Red is the most narrow and challenging color to play in Commander. Red doesn't have a wide variety of answers, as it deals mainly with artifacts and small creatures. Most of its popular spot removal and burn-spells are virtually useless since they are too small to deal with most Commander behemoths. As a result, we have to focus on a creature-heavy build and a strong supportive array of combat manipulation spells and abilities to help us out for the win.
As a lord, Lovisa Coldeyes is pretty impressive. You could say she is half Urabrask the Hidden and half Elesh-Norn, Grand Cenobite, all for an accesible General cost of 5 mana. The strategy is simple: play cheap, cost-effective Barbarians, Warriors and Berserkers while backing up with supportive combat manipulation magic.
Also, remember that in Commander it almost always best to have your supportive abilities on creatures.
Creatures
Of the three tribes that Lovisa enables, Warriors is the most abundant and useful, so the bulk of our host will be warrior creatures. First, let's take a look at all the creatures with abilities that in one way or another affect combat:
These two give First Strike and Trample to our creatures. The Archetype of Aggression is specially disruptive for Green.
Ogre Geargrabber can steal Lightning Greaves, Nim Deathmantle, Swords, Jittes and any other usual equipment in Commander matches. Godo tutors for our own Lightning Greaves, Deathrender or Onsidian Battle-Axe. If Lovisa in in play, he gets haste and untaps your host for another combat phase.
These two manipulate blocking in very unique and fun ways!
Cyclops Gladiator is amazing when Lovisa is in play. He becomes 6/6, meaning he can take on most commander behemoths, AND receives haste. He is our spot removal on legs.
Stealing creatures from your opponents is always for, especially if it is a Stuffy Doll or Guard Gomazoa. Vulshok Battlemaster does the same for equipments.
The oracle states that Tahngarth is a Minotaur Warrior. He is one of our greatest assets for Lovisa's forces. He can participate in battle as a 6/6 and, since he has vigilance, he can then tap to fight any surviving creature or new menace as soon as it enters the battlefield. Tahngarth is one of our most useful combat manipulators.
The oracle also says that Laccolith Warrior is a Beast Warrior creature. His ability is a little different from 'fight' since the creature it damages doesn't fight back! In other words, even is Laccolith warrior is chump blocked by a token, it gets to destroy a bigger creature by fighting it without the risk of getting a hit back from it!
The Host
Now we are going to see our main attacking forces.
These three are evasive and can deal combat damage directly, given the right combat conditions. Academy Raider gives you some delving in the process.
Ignition Team can become ridiculously big, even to survive Blasphemous Act. Ogre Battledriver basically does the same as Lovisa for a limited time and without the toughness boost.
Our four giant creatures are probably our most fearsome damage-dealers! Note that you can use your smaller creatures to tap for Impelled Giant's effect.
Taurean Mauler can grow fast for a small cost. Also, it is every creature type, so he gets the boosts from Lovisa Coldeyes and Sunrise Sovereign. Mimic Vat gives us access to enemy creatures with different effects from our deck. We can also abuse our Godo triggers with it. Battle criers are also a good target for Mimic Vat.
Finally, the battle cry enablers are useful alongside other creatures.
Supportive Creatures
We have a couple of other creatures that give us utility, besides combat damage and manipulation.
Bloodshot Trainee is 4/5 when Lovisa is in play, meaning that he becomes a Flame Slash on legs to sort out most problematic critters. As for Purphoros, he is indestructible, gigantic and deals continuos damage to ALL of our opponents every time a creatures enters the battlefield under our control. He can also give Lovisa's host a little global boost for three mana. This last effect is very helpful for Cyclops Gladiator and Tahngarth when they fight. Double strikers are also very welcome.
Kamahl Bro' too.
Power Boost
Since we are very concerned about combat damage and battle manipulation, we need to have the best Red can offer to help our winter host.
These two basically double the damage output of our entire army. Gratuitous Violence is specially good with Cyclops Gladiator and Tahngarth since it doubles the damage they inflict when fighting. Rage Reflection doesn't work the same way, but it does give us the 'first strike advantage' during battle.
Coat of Arms and Shared Animosity are great when we have many creatures in play. The red enchantment is not as great as the artifact, but at least it won't represent a threat when opposing a token deck.
Finally, Dolmen Gate is the greatest friend a red deck can have. It is cheap and completely ignores the toughness of your creatures when in combat.
Removal
Red specializes in artifact removal and Global annihilation.
Into the Roil exiles indestructible golems and bothersome equipment. Shattering Pulse is recursive at a steep buyback cost. Manic Vandal is artifact removal with a tribal body that benefits from Lovisa's boon.
Chaos Warp is the red spot removal of excellence because it can remove Generals off the field and send then to their owner's deck. Aftershock gives us options like some kind of mono-colored charm.
Chain Reaction and Blasphemous Act are our two main board swipes. Alpha Brawl can clear an opponent's battlefield. Ruination is amazing for a mono-colored deck. Lovisa's mana base is almost completely composed of Mountains. This means that Ruination will wipe most of our opponent's lands while we keep our board position.
Equipment
Red can take advantage of a couple of key equipments to boost speed and sneak-in costly creatures.
Lightning Greaves and Obsidian Battle-Axe basically do the same thing: they give haste to our host when Lovisa is not around. We are specifically using these because they can be equipped without spending mana. Godo can tutor for Lightning Greaves and automatically equip it for an extra combat phase!
Infiltration Lens is basically your only means of card advantage in the entire deck. It works well with an aggressive red build like this, so you may want to equip it on any gigantic creature that you want to go through or into anything that you predict a chump-block on.
Deathrender is in this deck to sneak-in the costly giants that we may have problems with casting early on. Also, a more subtle advantage of this weapon is that it gives us a quick means of recovery after a board swipe, immediately putting us ahead by one creature ready to attack during our following turn.
Control
Mono-red Commander can have some pretty interesting controlling elements and we are taking advantage of them here!
Since our mana base is very simple, we can take full advantage of an oppresive Blood Moon early in the game. This little enchantment can delay a tri-colored Commander deck a great deal. Five-colored decks just lose to it.
Stranglehold shuts down a lot of Blue and Green mechanics and Leyline of Punishment shuts down any white shenanigans.
Wild Ricochet is the de-facto red copy spell since it both copies and redirects the original spell. This is an amazing way of turning spot removal back into your opponents... twice! Insurrection is a winning condition in its own right and can steal games single-handedly.
Mana Acceleration
Mana Acceleration is always welcome in any Commander deck. Lovisa needs speed in order to enable the beatdown.
Caged Sun and Gauntlet of Power are our main sources of extra mana. However, they come in later during the mid-game.
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A smaller option is Extraplanar Lens. However, it exiles one of your own lands and gives advantage to any other player using Snow-Covered Mountains. To counter this inconvenience, you may use Snow-Covered Mountains as your mana base. Your opponent's Mountains won't produce extra mana from Extraplanar Lens since they have a different name from Snow-Covered Mountains.
Thran Dynamo and Sol Ring are cost-effective and accessible.
Ruby Medallion lowers the cost of our deck by one colorless mana. Expedition Map has become a popular land fetch in Commander because it lets you search for any key non-basic land card. In our case, we want to search either for Cavern of Souls or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, our two most important lands in this deck:
Mana Base
For a mono-colored deck, our mana base is pretty simple. You need the usual Reliquary Tower and Buried Ruin plus the Kamigawa legendary land of your color identity:
Here is a sample deck list for your reference:
General:
1x Lovisa Coldeyes
Deck:
1x Academy Raider
1x Aftershock
1x Alpha Brawl
1x Archetype of Aggression
1x Balduvian Warlord
1x Kamahl, Pit Fighter
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Blood Moon
1x Bloodmark Mentor
1x Bloodshot Trainee
1x Boldwyr Intimidator
1x Borderland Behemoth
1x Buried Ruin
1x Caged Sun
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Chain Reaction
1x Chaos Warp
1x Coat of Arms
1x Cyclops Gladiator
1x Deathrender
1x Dolmen Gate
1x Expedition Map
1x Extraplanar Lens
1x Falkenrath Marauders
1x Gauntlet of Power
1x Goblin Wardriver
1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
1x Gratuitous Violence
1x Hamletback Goliath
1x Ignition Team
1x Impelled Giant
1x Insurrection
1x Into the Core
1x Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
1x Kuldotha Ringleader
1x Laccolith Warrior
1x Leyline of Punishment
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Infiltration Lens
1x Manic Vandal
1x Markov Blademaster
1x Mimic Vat
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Obsidian Battle-Axe
1x Ogre Battledriver
1x Ogre Geargrabber
1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
1x Rage Reflection
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Ruby Medallion
1x Ruination
1x Shared Animosity
1x Shattering Pulse
1x Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
35x Snow-Covered Mountain
1x Sol Ring
1x Stormblood Berserker
1x Stranglehold
1x Sunrise Sovereign
1x Tahngarth, Talruum Hero
1x Taurean Mauler
1x Vulshok Battlemaster
1x Wild Ricochet
1x Wrecking Ogre
1x Zealous Conscript
Lead the winter host to victory!
