Challenger Deck 2020: Cavalcade Charge Upgrade

So you bought the red Challenger Deck and now you want to make it better. Our Cavalcade Charge Upgrade Guide is here to help you.

We’re upgrading all four of Challenger Decks of 2020. For each of them there will be a budget upgrade and a full upgrade. You can then decide which one will work best with your collection.

Challenger Deck 2020 MTG Cavalcade Charge Upgrades
Click on the deck to check its price

Cavalcade Charge Decklist

Creature (27)
Fervent Champion
Scorch Spitter
Tin Street Dodger
Rimrock Knight
Runaway Steam-Kin
Bonecrusher Giant
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

Planeswalker (3)
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame

Sorcery (4)
Light Up the Stage

Artifact (1)
Embercleave

Enchantment (4)
Cavalcade of Calamity

Land (21)
Castle Embereth
18 Mountain
Sideboard (15)
Satyr's Cunning
Shock
Slaying Fire
Tibalt, Rakish Instigator
Experimental Frenzy

Cavalcade Charge Budget Upgrade

Calvacade Charge is actually a pretty good budget deck already. If you want to stay on budget, you don’t want to abandon the Cavalcade of Calamity plan. Consequently, there comes a whole package of one-powered creatures that you must have. Chandra, Acolyte of Flame also works well with it so, we’re not removing her.

You can experiment with Grim Initiate over Tin Street Dodger, as there might be some matchups where it is better. For example if your opponent is playing tons of removal and you want some staying power.

You should add a fourth Castle Embereth – either swap or for a Mountain or a Rimrock Knight. Honestly, that’s pretty much it – as far as the main deck is concerned.

Upgrading Sideboard

There are, however, plenty of changes that can be done to the Sideboard.

Satyr’s Cunning should be removed in favor of Anax, Hardened in the Forge. He gives you protection against mass removal (like Shatter the Sky). The Satyr tokens work well with Cavalcade. You probably want a full playset – removing a copy of Experimental Frenzy will give you enough space for the fourth one.

Cavalcade Charge Budget Upgrade Anax Hardened in the Forge

With Anax being so good, you can expect him to show up in the mirror matches. That’s why you want an access to Lava Coil. It exiles Anax, and leaves them with zero tokens. All three copies of Slaying Fire and one Tibalt, Rakish Instigator will have to go to make room for Lava Coils.

With these changes – all of them being pretty budget friendly, we’ve come to something like this:

Creature (26)
Fervent Champion
Scorch Spitter
Tin Street Dodger
Rimrock Knight
Runaway Steam-Kin
Bonecrusher Giant
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

Planeswalker (3)
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame

Sorcery (4)
Light Up the Stage

Artifact (1)
Embercleave

Enchantment (4)
Cavalcade of Calamity

Land (22)
Castle Embereth
18 Mountain
Sideboard (15)
Shock
Lava Coil
Anax, Hardened in the Forge
Tibalt, Rakish Instigator
Experimental Frenzy

  • Cards added – main deck: 1
  • Cards added – sideboard: 8
  • Total: 9

The changes are minor, but if you’re playing Best-of-Three, you’ll see some improvement in post-sideboard games.

Cavalcade Charge Upgrade – Full

Your best bet for full upgrade is just to copy Seth Manfield’s decklist. He played it at the Magic World Championship and took third place with it. Let’s take a look at the decklist first and then talk about the differences between Cavalcade Charge and Manfield’s list.

Creature (31)
Fervent Champion
Scorch Spitter
Rimrock Knight
Robber of the Rich
Runaway Steam-Kin
Anax, Hardened in the Forge
Bonecrusher Giant
Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

Sorcery (4)
Light Up the Stage

Artifact (3)
Embercleave

Land (22)
Castle Embereth
18 Mountain
Sideboard (15)
Redcap Melee
Lava Coil
Unchained Berserker
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
Tibalt, Rakish Instigator
Experimental Frenzy

  • Cards added – main deck: 11
  • Cards added – sideboard: 11
  • Total: 22

As you can see, Seth doesn’t like the Cavalcade plan. This way he doesn’t need to play weak one-powered creatures like Tin Street Dodger. Instead he plays creatures that are powerful on their own, such as Robber of the Rich.

Cavalcade Charge Upgrade Robber of the Rich

Besides Robin Hood, there’s also enough space for Anax, Hardened in the Forge in the main deck now. Anax works beautifully with Embercleave. Seth played three copies of this powerful equipment. This combination of cards often enables turn 4 kills, even through an opposing blocker.

If you want to learn the ins and outs of the deck, you should watch some matches from World Championship. (mono red deck in action around 2:15:00)

With this upgrades Cavalcade Charge has somewhat unfit name. Nevertheless, now it becomes a true Tier 1 deck – you can easily expect it to win even the biggest Standard tournaments.

Charging On

That’s all about Cavalcade Charge Upgrade. Your deck should start picking up wins anytime now! If you’re planning on upgrading the deck yourself, you might want to read our Deckbuilding Guide.

If you don’t have Cavalcade Charge deck yet, you can order one on Amazon. Not sure if this red deck is the one for you? You can check other Challenger Decks of 2020 here.

Until next time, may you always top deck Embercleave right when you need it.

2 thoughts on “Challenger Deck 2020: Cavalcade Charge Upgrade”

    • Most of the money in the full upgrade is tied to Embercleave and Robber of the Rich. It’s probably around fifty bucks or so.

      Reply

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