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Source: Atharva's Decklists & Strategies Thread

So this is what I currently run for Rakdos

[1v1] "Starter"
A library for the Rakdos 2015 deck (Just Borrowing)
60 Cards. 36 nonlands (18 creatures, 18 spells). 24 Lands (11 9; 4 other).
Land
-- 4x Rakdos Guildgate
cost  
-- 4x Goblin Arsonist
-- 4x Shock
cost  
-- 2x Bloodghast
-- 4x fling
cost  
-- 4x Bloodflow Connoisseur
-- 3x Corpse Blockade
-- 4x Act of Treason
-- 2x Anger of the Gods
cost  
-- 4x Portent of Betrayal
cost  
-- 1x Shadowborn Demon
-- 1x Stormbreath Dragon
cost  
-- 1x Inferno Titan
-- 2x Charmbreaker Devils

Idea of this deck is clear: burn their little dudes, take control, use and sacrifice their big dudes, finish up with one of your 5-6 mana bombs (I just took what I can, I like inferno the most, and the demon is ok).

-- be careful about bloodghast&arsonist with anger of the gods - it exiles.
-- I disliked quest of the gravelord - when it is activated, I already have the mana to cast one of my finishers.
-- Rockslide elemental - on the 3rd turn I rather play my sacrifice outlet, and on the 4th turn start stealing creatures.
-- Corpse blockade is the replacement of bloodflow - I chose it over devouring swarm because it does better job removing little pesks, doesn't die to anger of the gods, and doesn't have double cost.
-- Portent of betrayal scry is quite nice - helps you find your finisher, or the missing piece for the borrow&sacrifice combo.

thoughts?

This is just critiquing.

This deck relies on powerful creatures that your opponent has out, preferably 3-5 mana bombs or more. The other creatures you have are generally mediocre to bad even with a sac outlet in play. I notice that both of your main cards "uptap" said creature so might you be able to build around that assuming your opponent doesn't have a guy out? What about some more effective removal spells in B?

Rakdos is open

I'm fairly certain until we get a bunch of expansions, every Rakdos deck is going to have a steal/sacrifice theme if you don't have preemies, so here we go.

0 (0): None

1 (4): 4x Dead Weight

2 (4): 2x Bloodghast, 2x Fling

3 (17): 2x Agent of the Fates, 2x Bloodflow Connoisseur, 4x Corpse Blockade, 2x Devouring Swarm, 4x Act of Treason, 3x Augur Spree

4 (4): Portent of Betrayal

5 (5): 1x Shadowborn Demon, 2x Indulgent Tormentor, 1x Stormbreath Dragon, 1x Burning Anger

6+ (1): 1x Inferno Titan

Lands (25): 13x Swamp, 8x Mountain, 4x Rakdos Guildgate

- 10 total sacrifice outlets, with 2 Connoisseurs, 2 Swarms, 4 Blockades, and 2 Flings. The reason to not max out on Fling is that if you steal and then Fling to the dome, you're 2-for-1ing yourself (though you effectively gave that creature double-strike if unimpeded) if you don't win the game on the spot, and if you have a situation where you can steal, hit and then Fling the creature at a different creature, that's still just 2-for-2. I split the Connoisseurs and Swarms the way I did because Connoisseurs really don't pressure your opponent at all for at least a few turns, but are better with Bloodghasts. The Swarms at least put a little bit of pressure on your opponent

- A singleton Burning Anger because it's obviously insane with Agent of the Fates (the creature deals the damage, not the aura itself) and Corpse Blockade if you have some fodder to feed it

- If you're running Rakdos, I don't really feel the need for any burn spells, which is why I went with Dead Weight over Shock. At least the Weight still pulls its weight in the late game by shrinking a creature it can't kill, unlike Shock.

- The 3x Augur Sprees can be Tribute to Hunger or Assassinate depending on your preference. I'm going with the Sprees over the other 2 because most times it should kill most things that an Assassinate would but at instant speed and without taking a hit in the first place (and it targets unlike the Tribute). Also, I haven't yet, but I want to live the dream of Augur'ing something that'll live through it, hit, and Fling

- You could probably build a better Rakdos control deck with the premiums, but I don't think you can really better the steal/sacrifice sub-theme with any of the cards there (but on the flipside, you could probably construct a shell where something like Anger of the Gods would shine, unlike here, where it would be terrible.

I want rakdos to be good but this looks like the best it can offer atm so im not too impressed. i suppose the act of treason and portant of betrayal with the sacs and flings are going to make this a fun nifty deck but just seems like too many ways for it to go wrong. Agent of the fates doesnt seem like it would do work here? i suppose a deathtouch creature and an outlet of being able to taeget him with the few spells you have to make your opponent sac is fine but seem wasted and what other choices are there really. But the only way it can go from here is up with the xpacs no?

i would swap out Agent of the fatesand Burning angerfor Suffer the Past X3 The opponents grave is going to be filled with creatures that you sacced and flung and what better than to add salt to the wound.

Its taking too long for the game to get here. Anyways, here is theory craft deck, may be I can give it a go once I have all the cards for it.

4 x Rakdos Guildgate
8 x Swamp
6 x Mountain
4 x Deviant Glee
4 x Goblin Arsonist
4 x Shock
4 x Goblin Bushwhacker
4 x Child of Night
4 x Bloodcrazed Neonate
3 x Tormented Hero
4 x Satyr Hoplite
4 x Furor of the Bitten
2 x Agent of the Fates
4 x Pharika's Chosen
2 x Bloodghast

Blood Frenzy

4 x Rakdos Guildgate
12 x Swamp
8 x Mountain

4 x Satyr Hoplite
3 x Tormented Hero
2 x Hot Soup
3 x Ulcerate
3 x Coordinated Assault
3 x Undying Evil
4 x Bloodcrazed Neonate
2 x Bloodghast
2 x Agent of the Fates
3 x Rakish Heir
2 x Ogre Battledriver
2 x Indulgent Tormentor
2 x Wrecking Ogre
1 x Shadowborn Demon


A fast Rakdos deck, but with midrange options. Many of your creatures act as removal to increase the creature count.

Some cards have low synergy, like Undying Evil with the vampires. Hot Soup is here to mainly help your vampires to accumulate counters, but it can be substituted for another Undying Evil and Coordinated Assault.

Shock is other card to be considered.

Advantage: Premium free.

I would replace your Undying Evil with Deviant Glee or Furor of the Bitten
It has zero synergy in your decklist (due to most of your creatures gaining +1/+1 tokens one way or the other)

Let me rephrase your statement to make it 100% right. "It has zero synergy with most of the creatures in your decklist." Then, yes, I agree. Actually it has zero synergy with half the deck and a good use with the other half (actually a little less), and from this half a real synergy with only six creatures; but the important thing to consider is that the half that it has synergy is the half that the player want to use it onto. The other half, the half that it has zero synergy, is just cannon fodder.

On other other hand, replacing it for your suggestions would be awesome if the intention is to turn it into an aggro deck. In this case, I recommend cutting all the mana cost creatures too and some lands for Act of Treason or Shock.

With all this creature stealing I have to wonder why no one is playing Blasting Station.

Ha, if I see a lot of creature stealing in the meta I will probably look at it a little more.

Edit: Nevermind, I see what you are saying. Saccing stolen creatures *duh*. Yeah, that would work really well.

I thought about making a creature stealing/sacrifice deck a while ago but I felt it was too dependent on card combos and more important, on your opponent constantly supplying creatures. If either of those pieces fell out of place you basically have a sub-par deck.

ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ THE RIOT ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ

It's too bad the red/black pool is lacking a lot of Unleash and Haste options. It's a weirdly less aggressive Rakdos. Also very reliant on enchantments. Seems to combo-y to work for me until we get more expansions, which is a shame, because I usually find red/black aggro insanely strong.

I agree, I'm surprised at the lack of Haste for as well.

I was working on a silly little combo around Cunning Sparkmage pinging people with deathtouch provided by Paragon of Open Graves. Unfortunately I misread paragon so that died a death. Guess I can do it with Cruel Sadist though. Hmm. If she is wearing Illusionist's Bracers could I ping and kill two guys at once using that? Probably entirely inefficient but hey still fun.

Yeah, you could nuke two dudes with this. Pretty expensive, slow, and hard to protect, though.

There was a cute Standard deck during Innistrad/RtR that combined Nightshade Peddler with Izzet Staticaster to do something similar.

@Harbinger: "I thought about making a creature stealing/sacrifice deck a while ago but I felt it was too dependent on card combos and more important, on your opponent constantly supplying creatures. If either of those pieces fell out of place you basically have a sub-par deck.

You still have plenty of other removal if you can't find a sac outlet (or an Agent) for your Treason effects. Also, have you found a deck in the 2015 card pool that can beat you without creatures? Even the mythical mill deck still relies on Hedron Crab and Doorkeeper to do most of the heavy lifting. If your opponent isn't supplying you with creatures to kill or steal/sac, I'd say you're in a pretty good spot.

@TruStag: Realize that Agent of the Fates also combos with your 8x Treason effects, though in this case you using them as expensive sorcery speed edicts. But if a build is going to run that many Treason effects, you want to tailor your deck to take advantage of them as best you can. 2 Agents are better than adding 2 more Bloodflows or Swarms. You can try your 3x Suffer the Past swap, but you're losing on 3 ways to affect the board for the very occasional opportunity to disrupt a graveyard strategy and/or fling a little bit of damage to the dome. I can assure you that if you're casting multiple Suffers in a game the 2nd one is usually going to be pretty middling (or your 1st one was).

ahh yes you have convinced me, I guess you wouldn't want multiples of something like that. and agent of fates is a great card in general. thanks for the info.

One silly interaction I've noticed with Act of Treason and Portent of Betrayal is that if you jack something with an Inferno Fist on it (and they don't/can't shoot it off before you steal it), the Inferno Fist will fall off since the other player still owns the aura and it is not enchanting a creature that they control.

Who knows, losing that 2 damage may actually screw up somebody's math and cost them the game.