Fear not! Fear not! This is not the mono red you know and hate! This is a combo deck! I was playing historic on MTG Arena and saw a couple UR phoenix decks that just didn't seem to get the job done, and I wondered: "Is there a better way of going about this?" Well, after over 200 games of testing and over 5 distinct, discarded decklists, I present to you, my very favorite of my brews: Historic Mono Red Phoenix.
There are a lot of moving parts in this deck, and a lot of subtle synergies. The most important thing to know is what to discard with the full 11 filtering cards, and jumpstarted maximize velocity. Fist, prioritize discarding arclight phoenixes and ox of agonas. They do better for us in the graveyard, and only very rarely are cast from hand. Next, drop those lands. Unless you are very low on lands, discard those if you can, even if you'll be missing a land drop before land 5. This deck runs 20 lands, you'll draw more with the filtering spells, and nothing ends a spell train like a full hand of lands. Next, discard shock and soul scar mage. These cards are certainly good but not our best spells when going off. A soul scar or two is good on the field a turn before you go off, or same turn if you can give it haste with maximize velocity, but not turn of going off, and shock is mostly interactive and you don't/can't care too much about what you're opponent is doing with this deck. Lastly, you drop other discarding spells, or cantrips if you have to. These are key spells to going off, and you'd rather not discard them if you don't have to. What going off looks like: getting a huge spell train of filtering spells and cantrips with a constant mana source provided by one or more steam kins -OR- getting a bunch of phoenixes in the graveyard and getting them all back for free during combat -OR- having a bunch of huge soul scar mages and an ox of agonas, but most likely, a combination of all three! Depending on your luck and what your opponent is playing, going off usually happens from turn 3 to 6. Some notes about the game: your creatures often have first strike and/or trample from our cantrips. Make sure to get down your steam kins early, full spell trains require them! Blocked steam kins can make for sneaky lethal! You can drain their mana to activate a previously unavailable castle embereth. Don't exile maximize velocity escaping your ox of agonas! If you do, you won't be able to jumpstart it, and usually, you want to jumpstart it on to the aforementioned ox! Don't keep hands with a bunch of phoenixes unless you have a way to discard most or all of them! Don't be afraid to shock your own phoenix if its going to be exiled! Shock is not as valuable as a 3/2 flier that can return often! This deck obviously whiffs sometimes, and you're stuck playing bad mono red, but the consistency is good. If you want a fun, cheap, and semi-competitive historic deck, this could be the right choice for you.