Theme Deck Review Compendium: Tempest “Flames of Rath”

Flames of Rath

A red deck with a little splash of white which wants to attack in with creatures and then finish off the opponent with fire.

Official Product information webpage (archived)

“Flames of Rath” follows a tried-and-true theme:Burn, baby, burn. The deck contains a wide variety of direct damage such as Searing Touch, Kindle, Rolling Thunder, and Lightning Blast. It also employs several anti-creature cards such as Tahngarth’s Rage and Blood Frenzy, which can destroy a creature in the right circumstances while also providing an offensive threat.
Tempest contains a number of enchantments and artifacts that could create a problem for this deck. A splash of white for Disenchant provides some defense against this possibility.

Official description from the Player’s Guide booklet insert. Transcribed by Basic Magic.

Screen of the decklist on wizards.com circa 2007

Interactive decklist with card images available at https://mtg.wtf/deck/tmp/the-flames-of-rath

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Fireslinger by Jeff Reitz

This is lightning, not fire? And what’s with the spiders?

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Advanced Decklist

The booklet which came in the box gave an example upgraded version of each deck.

3 Ball Lightning
2 Disenchant
4 Dwarven Ruins
2 Earthquake
2 Fireball
3 Fireblast
2 Furnace of Rath
3 Gemstone Mine
2 Hammer of Bogardan
4 Incinerate
2 Jokulhaups
4 Kindle
2 Lightning Elemental
12 Mountain
2 Reflecting Pool
1 Repentance
2 Scabland
4 Steel Golem
1 Thran Tome
2 Thunderbolt
1 Undiscovered Paradise

1 Boil
2 Disenchant
2 Divine Offering
2 Earthquake
2 Havoc
1 Jester's Cap
1 Phyrexian Furnace
4 Pyroblast

This list can also be found here, showing the correct (ie most recent as of printing) versions of the cards.

I’ve always wanted to assemble at least one or two of these advanced decklists but haven’t known which ones to go for. This is a strong contender I think.

edit: I now have been supplied scans of the guide which I have compiled here.

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Lightning Blast by Richard Thomas

No flames here either.

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Reviews

Basic Magic

Theme Decks of Tempest

Your opponent casts a Pincher Beetles that you can’t kill. Then a Ranger-en-Vec. They’re at 15, they have an Anoint in hand. You were never ahead, and now any chance of victory is slipping away. You Rolling Thunder them for 4. They play a Krakilin for 5. You take a big hit, then Lightning Blast and Kindle for a total of 7. You untap and draw a Rolling Thunder. Good game. Flames of Rath is a deck of highs and lows, that wins and loses with coin flips, topdecks, and direct damage.

Beats and Skies

Beat and Skies does a bracket: Pool 1, Week 4. Round 1: decks 25 to 32.

While on the surface it looks like a classic Sligh AKA Burn deck of the time – a deck archetype which is pretty synonymous with Tempest as a whole – it’s actually a bit “bigger”. It’s got the full 4 Mogg Fanatics as you’d expect, as well as 3 Fireslinger which was another staple of red decks. The 5 mana Flowstone Salamander, on the other hand, was not something being played in tournaments.

nuANCED review: Flames of Rath

I’ve heard from people playing at the time that the first thing they, or their mates, did when they brought this deck was to ditch the white splash all together. Also that this deck consequently became the terror of many a school playground. I can believe it.

Cubic Creativity

Budget Deckbuilding: The Flames of Rath

I certainly like “The Flames of Rath” since it was a pleasant surprise in form of good deckbuilding with an interesting strategy and lots of potential directions to go into.

Ertai’s Lament

Tempest: Flames of Rath Review (Part 1 of 2)

Flames of Rath is an intriguing hybrid of different archetypes, including one that you wouldn’t normally expect to see much of: Red stompy. Usually Green decks or those with an element of board-stall will have a bulge in the curve at the four-drop spot, but neither the dominany Red or supplementary White offer anything in the way of acceleration. How, then, does it expect you to get to that point where the deck optimises? In a nutshell: early aggression.

Tempest: Flames of Rath Review (Part 2 of 2)

Hits: Fantastic and consistent burn package; good rare selection- Magmasaur a bit clunky but the other two (Furnace of Rath, Soltari Guerrillas) are sheer bliss when they resolve

Misses: Dreadful congestion at the four-drop and no ramp can make for some frustrating gameplay experiences as well as compromise opening hand quality

OVERALL SCORE: 3.90/5.00

Final Trade

Tempest Flames of Rath Preconstructed Deck

Jay Kirkman

A Fly in Amber: The Theme Decks of Tempest

It’s also noteworthy that the deck carries four copies of Kindle. This is a subtle difference between the Theme Deck and the Intro Pack. If a Theme Deck needed four copies of a card, it often would give it to you.

M:tG Precon Decon

Tempest Part 2: Flames of Rath

Viewers comments:

I agree that this could have definitely been mono red. Splashing white for a couple Disenchants when there is so much firebreathing in the deck doesn’t seem worth it, although Soltari Guerillas is neat. Also surprised the Sligh all-star Jackal Pup wasn’t in here, I’d gladly take a few of those instead of stuff like Squee’s Toy and Wild Wurm. Best card is hands down the Furnace of Rath. Responsible for more outstanding victories and self-inflicted deaths than any other card in Tempest

@PrinceOfGeists

A heavy fire breathing component to the deck and they decided to weaken this by adding in plains? Especially weird in that two of the other decks in the set are white, too. Though in the designer’s defence those disenchants are probably doing some pretty heavy work in this deck: there’s a lot of Enchantments snd Arrifacts which will otherwise just shut down the deck. Ensnaring Bridge and Propaganda from the Stronghold precons spring to mind.

@ReubenAotearoa

The Duelist

Straight From The Start

Extremely straightforward, “Flames of Rath” controls the game hy being quick enough in its damage dealing that your opponent is too busy trying to survive to do much else.

I’ve collated/transcribed this article here.

Troll and Toad

Customer review (link)

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Very good deck for begginers. Lacks major *umph* required for tournament play but yet an all around good deck

Kurt Donald Cobain

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Blood Frenzy by Paolo Parente (box art)

More sword than fire, though I guess it hints at it with the orange background at least.

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Unboxing Videos

Doctor Alzheimers Academia Magica

Magic Vintage Schätze 118: SPECIAL MTG THEMENDECKS & TEMPEST (1997) FLAMES OF RATH

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Bit mixed here for this one.

Edit 27/11/23: added in my “reviews” for completeness.

Edit 03/05/24: adding link to booklet scans and formatting.