There's no color more synonymous with damage-based removal in Magic: The Gathering than red. More than that, red is the color best known for aggressive creatures, artifact destruction, direct damage (burn), and big Dragons.
It might be said that red mages are less interested in playing actual games of Magic and more interested in simply achieving victory by the quickest means possible. After all, it's not unusual for red decks to win games in the first four or five turns. In the best cases, they claim victory by turn three. All of this being said, let's take a look at some of the tools that make red a force to be reckoned with.
10 Smash To Smithereens
One of the more appealing parts of the red color pie is its notorious use of low rarity cards for lethal results. Smash to Smithereens is one such card, coming in at common rarity. This artifact removal spell is common in the sideboards of Modern and Legacy Burn decks as it allows red mages to interact with artifact strategies while still furthering their own game plan.
In the right matchup, this is essentially a Lightning Strike on steroids, as it allows you to both destroy an artifact and lower an opponent's life total at the same time. Who needs to spend money on Magic cards when you can just sleeve up a red deck?
9 Skullcrack
This classic burn spell sees play in both Modern and Commander thanks to its ability to negate opposing life gain. There's nothing more backbreaking for a red deck than when an opponent suddenly gains a decent chunk of life.
Thankfully, Skullcrack can prevent life gain at instant speed, blanking opposing life gain for an entire turn. While a single turn might not seem like a lot of time, burn decks are so fast that it's often all you need to close out a game.
8 Roiling Vortex
Speaking of preventing life gain, this enchantment allows you to repeatedly do just that for the small price of one red mana. In addition, Vortex continues to deal damage to players each upkeep, slowly chipping away at their life totals.
While this damage also hits you, there won't be many cases where that becomes relevant, as red decks are faster than the large majority of the competition. Lastly, Roiling Vortex provides some protection against decks trying to cheat on their card's casting costs by threatening to deal a whopping five damage to any enemy who fails to spend mana when casting a spell.
7 Lightning Strike
Perhaps the most recognizable spell on this list, Lightning Strike is known far and wide as the Standard red mage staple. Standard metas in which Lightning Strike exists often include a competitive red deck of some kind thanks to this spell's ability to double as both removal and pressure on an opponent's life total.
In fact, this card is so ubiquitous that creatures are often evaluated based on whether or not they can survive being dealt three damage. Due to the existence of this spell, creatures with four toughness are considered much more durable than those with three or fewer. Lightning Strike is so good that it has quite literally changed the way people think about Magic, and that's no small feat.
6 Eidolon Of The Great Revel
Once a key player in Modern Burn strategies, Eidolon of the Great Revel still sees play in Pioneer and Legacy Burn decks. Like Roiling Vortex, Eidolon has the drawback that it damages you as well as your opponents. However, it does more good than harm, especially considering it can attack for two every turn on top of its ability.
The repeated damage Eidolon provides can quickly add up, often forcing opponents to remove Eidolon before furthering their own game plans. This is a great benefit as it delays opposing strategies. Furthermore, even when targeted by removal, Eidolon will almost certainly deal two damage to the opponent for casting the removal spell.
5 Searing Blaze
A strictly better Lightning Strike as long as you've played a land this turn, Searing Blaze allows you to remove an opposing creature while still maintaining pressure on the opponent's life total. This card is the definition of a 2-for-1, and it does it all for the low price of simply hitting your land drop.
Unfortunately, red decks often play fewer lands than most to ensure they draw more cheap spells. As a result, there are cases where you can find yourself without a land in hand to trigger your Searing Blaze. Thankfully, the existence of fetchlands largely mitigates this risk. Whenever this does happen, though, the card feels very underpowered.
4 Braid Of Fire
This cheeky enchantment is a favorite of Commander players seeking to cheat out extra mana. Though it's worded quite strangely, Braid's function adds an increasing amount of red mana to your mana pool at the beginning of each of your upkeeps.
The amount of mana added to your pool is equal to the number of age counters on Braid of Fire. Notably, this mana must be spent before going to your draw step, or else it empties from your pool. However, the mana can be spent on activated abilities of cards in play as well as instants. You can also speed up the amount of mana Braid provides by increasing its counters through alternative means such as proliferate.
3 Price Of Progress
Price is a Legacy staple capable of dealing absurd amounts of damage for the low cost of two mana. This burn spell punishes opponents severely for playing anything other than basic lands, dealing two damage to them per nonbasic land they control.
In other words, Price deals six damage to opponents who have three nonbasics in play, eight damage to opponents who have four nonbasics in play, and so on. Considering most decks playing nonbasic lands in Legacy play no basics at all, Price regularly deals at least six damage. That's more than a quarter of an opponent's life total for two mana. Burn, baby, burn.
2 Burning Wish
Yet another Legacy favorite, Burning Wish is a key card for enabling combo decks such as Storm, Gamble, Ad Nauseam, and Doomsday. The ability to find a card outside of the game is important for combo decks as it allows them to get around hand and library discard effects like Surgical Extraction.
These effects can stop a combo deck in its tracks by eliminating a key card from your library. Luckily, Burning Wish allows you to find a copy of the card from the safety of outside of your library.
1 Dockside Extortionist
Regarded by many players as a mistake, Dockside Extortionist has quickly made a reputation as a Commander staple for any Commander player using red. Put another way, competitive Commander players who want to play red need a copy of Dockside Extortionist in their decklist.
This Goblin Pirate's enter the battlefield trigger is simply that good at ramping your mana. Commander is home to a huge number of artifacts and enchantments. When you've got three other players casting cards, it's not uncommon for Extortionist to produce upwards of five treasure tokens. That's a boatload of free mana, no pun intended.