I realized I have not contributed a lot to the community latter with actual Magic discussion, so I decided to share this list I'm working for some time now. I am looking to discuss the list, so feel free to suggest or criticize, whatever comes to your mind. I'll post the list and then add some random comments about it.
Anti-Hero3 x
Tormented Hero4 x
Satyr Hoplite2 x
Ulcerate4 x
Undying Evil3 x
Coordinated Assault4 x
Shock4 x
Child of Night3 x
Goblin Shortcutter4 x
Kiln Fiend2 x
Agent of the Fates4 x
Phyrexian Rager2 x
Cutthroat Maneuver9 x
Swamp9 x
Mountain4 x
Rakdos Guildgate- I saw some movement in the Orzhov thread about a Heroic deck in those colors. I started my work with this list before looking over there, but I still like BR for the Heroic deck. Black is necessary, since it gives 2 good Heroic creatures. I like Red because it makes the deck much faster, gives the deck excelent removal with
Shock and
Coordinated Assault is broken.
- Actually, Assault was the card that sparked the idea of the deck. It's so good I even included
Cutthroat Maneuver, a bad card, in the deck, just to give redundancy (Manuever is actually a really big blowout every time you manage to cast it, though).
-
Tormented Hero triggers really matter. Target it as often as possible. The deck has ok reach for an aggro deck if you remember about this.
-
Shock and
Ulcerate are very good at clearing blockers.The life loss only matter in aggro matchups, and those are the matchups this deck is supposed to shine (It's very fast and excellent in creature combat)
-
Goblin Shortcutter was the most recent addition, replacing
Bloodcrazed Neonate. Neonate felt more like a SB card for control matchups. The goblin helps with midrange decks (the bane of your existence), while still having a passable body.
- I see a lot of people taking the steal/sac route for Rakdos (which I tried, but found rather clunky), which already makes this deck kind of Uncommon. Still, when I thought more people would be trying a similar deck, my bet was that the "innovation" I brought to the table was the
Kiln Fiend technology (I'm not sure if it really is. If someone was doing something similar, please say so. I want to discuss it
). Fiend here is basically a Heroic creature, but better. It's awesome with your 2 best enablers (Assault and
Undying Evil), grows even if you're just clearing blockers, and people respect it's activations a lot. It also gives you very explosive turns, when you just kill someone out of nowhere. Great card in the deck.
-
Phyrexian Rager looks bad, but you need to get the extra gas, and the body never hurts.
-
Agent of the Fates is clunky, but a necessary evil. It can take over games all by itself. You have to live with the fact that it makes your mana worse, which brings us to the next point.
- The mana is shaky. I tried first with no guildgates, but hitting double black on turn 3 was hard, and I couldn't skew it too much because a lot of my early games is Red. I change to 4 gates and it improved. Gates are kind of 1-drops that I don't want to see multiples, so maybe cutting one is the right thing. I'm not going to 21 lands, though. It's not worth it.
- Thinking about ways to improve the manabase, I thought about
Bloodghast. Replacing a pair of Red 2-drops for him would let me replace some Mountains with Swamps. He's good at putting pressure, makes late land draws better, and it's very easy to activate his Haste here. Problem is, I feel I would have to cut the Fiends to acomodate him, and I think I would lose a lot of power with that. Thoughts?
- The deck is good at punishing your opponent for bad draws. You get a lot of free wins with this. Aggro and Control are good matchups, unless the aggro deck is some kind of token build, which, unfortunately, is somewhat popular right now. Midrange is a problem, but the matchup improved with the Goblin.
- Again, I encourage everyone to chime in about the deck. It's a work in progress, and I really think it has potential, even if the environment is not exactly perfect for it right now.