lol; reminder to self. Check the store when you come back. Was sitting with what were obviously free boosters added since I last played with IXL and RIX.

Anyway usual story re decks playing and little headway. Anyway on my last post re Aggro (and I guess there is not really a decent build) I looked at a Duels Aggro build from Master Beast that relied on menace as much as haste in Rakdos.

So put together this build, the removal keeps it reasonably able to hold its own against mid range. Can be a war of attrition unless running into the next Hexproof toys. Despite the mana screw, connection an Istring a few wins together at a time.

Here is the build as it currently stands (pre the opening of all those packs).

Rakdos Ravager

1 x Fathom Fleet Captain
2 x Kitesail Freebooter
3 x Goblin Trailblazer
2 x Dire Fleet Captain
1 x Reaver Ambush
4 x Vanquish the weak
3 x Voracious Vampire
2 x Bombard
2 x Rampaging Ferocidon
1 x Repeating Barrage
2 x Dire Fleet Interloper
3 x Fathom Fleet Cutthroat
2 x Impale
1 x Sanctum Seeker
3 x Vampire Revenant
2 x Vraska’s Contempt
1 x Dire Fleet Ravager
1 x Burning Sun’s Avatar

4 x Cinder Barren
2 x Dragonskull Summit
12 x Swamp
6 x Mountain

Let's see if I can do this from memory:
Poison Pirates
4 x Daring Buccaneer
4 x Fanatical Firebrand
3 x Grasping Scoundrel
3 x Rigging Runner
1 x Skulduggery
3 x March of the Drowned
4 x Fathom Fleet Captain
4 x Dire Fleet Poisoner
4 x Lightning Strike
4 x Ruin Raider (can also split 2-2 with Forerunner)
2 x Rekindling Phoenix
2 x Vraska's Contempt
4 x Dragonskull Summit
2 x Unclaimed Territory
8 x Swamp
8 x Mountain

So, I updated my Goglari deck with some white to make it more versatile, here it is:

6 x Forest
4 x Carnage Tyrant
3 x Vraska's Contempt
4 x Foul Orchard
7 x Swamp
4 x Treasure Map
4 x Dire Fleet Poisoner
2 x Vraska, Relic Seeker
4 x Ixalan's Binding
1 x Sunpetal Grove
2 x Plains
3 x Forsaken Sanctuary
2 x Tranquil Expanse
4 x Ravenous Chupacabra
2 x Twilight Prophet
4 x Ripjaw Raptor
1 x Settle the Wreckage
1 x Slaughter the Strong
2 x Arguel's Blood Fast


I'm still undecided if I should add 2 Moment of Cravings instead of the Arguel's Blood Fast but ABF just wins games against control and I can survive aggro quite well. If I would have a 2nd Settle the Wreckage I'd add it in pleace of one of the Ravenous Chupacabras.

If you're facing a lot of aggro you can switch out Ripjaw Raptor for Moment of Craving (and adjust mana base). But overall I think that the deck is fine like it is.

No Golden Demise seems like a miss, and since you're splashing white Profane Procession would fit nicely. How much are you getting out of those Twilight Prophets?

That depends. Sometimes they do win me games, sometumes they just take one for the team.

Yeah, procession might be nice, but:
1) do I really need more creature removal with a high price on top? I could play it instead of 1-2 chupacabra.
2) I don't have any procession :-/ (hey, but I have 4x World Shaper ;-) )

Why would I need golden demise with so much spot removal and slaughter and settle for the big creafures?
I also considered Vona's Hunger but I don't have any to test :-(

I will test the procession if I finally get one. But my priority targets for my rare wilscards for now are vraska's contempt and settle the wreckage.

Nice list. I will try out later. Will probably have a few blank slots but can try and get close. SD

EDIT: I did try. Apart from the 4 Dire Fleet Poisioners and a second Rekindling Phoenix I had or redeemed most of the rest. It had a decent start but it was against a life gain deck so pretty anti Aggro so ran out of legs but took a while.

Having more luck with the other Rakdos build but did upgrade it to add the 1 Rekindling Phoenix which fits well. The other thing and I recognised a while back in earlier games but the Kitesail Freebooter especially as an early play can be pretty valuable re knowing opponents hand even if all land / creatures. More often than not stealing a decent early spell that can typically result in them spending a removal spell to retrieve the card. All in as an early play at 2 mana the card does appear to have a lot of value and the 1/2 body in the air is pretty good even without the hand info and the potential steal to boot.

Hey guys. After you get your decks finalized feel free to post them in the Constructed sticky thread.

Hey Devil, any chance we get a proper constructed sub-forum after the NDA is lifted? Would be nice to see some life being breathed back into the NGA Magic forums...

Seems like Stasis is still active so I don't see why not. I'm a little distracted right now and am wondering if I will even get any games in the next few days or be here much. My friend and drummer for my band had a heart attack Tuesday night and didn't make it. Funeral and stuff AND a show booked for Saturday night so we are trying out new drummers.

Sorry to hear it Devil

And the beat goes on..

Sorry that happened, best of luck and my condolences to his friends and family.

Do we know yet if, once the game launches, Arena will be full standard sets? I ask, because I know (full disclosure) that there will be some resistance here against creating a new sub for the sake of discussing standard decks, when we’ve already got one.

Bottom line, I need to know what you guys want though, so that I can communicate it up to the higher up mods. We want this site to be the home of Arena once it gets underway.

It's kind of hard right now to get a lock on what is exactly going to happen. The NDA is lifted but it's still a closed beta with Standard Constructed as the only format so I think we're fine for now. Draft will be added later and hopefully other formats as well but we may still have a way to go on that.
I think we are fine as we are now, and with maybe adding another sticky or two as needed.
When the game opens up completely I think would be the time to address and decide on adding any subforums or just using the existing ones.
Thanks for keeping an eye out.
This by the way is only my opinion and I sure as hell don't run the place.

Thanks for showing interest Stasis. This is going to be an important thing to « get right » as we would love NGA to be the premier place for great discussion

I would strongly suggest launching a barebones area that we can build with feedback and each iteration will become better and better. But I think if you’re late to the party then we’re finished. We need to get ahead of this and I want this place to be THE place which attracts the top players. If you have the top p’ayers, you have everything cuz everyone comes here for them

So very true.

I think that the Discord channel is far ahead on the curve on this, they have been actively engaging the arena users and they even got the devs to log in and answer direct questions, suggestion and just be there… the problem with discord is that the conversations are so volatile that much of it is missed in a sea of conversations… last time I logged they have somewhere between 250-400 online users so imagine 25 off them talking at once… the forum layout is far better system to stay on topic and make better more paused interactions it also offers the chance to resume topics and Barney´s necromancy acts very well known to anyone here.
The easiest way to engage players is to have unified and well organized forums so people can find what they are looking with out much effort.

That's the biggest bitch about Discord. It's hard to hold a coherent conversation. That's why we will work to make this place once again THE place to come for Arena but I really don't think it's time to make major changes until it's at least in open beta, although it can be argued that an extra 100,000 invites were sent out for closed.
You know, maybe it is time to address new/existing subforums.

Well since NDA dropped maybe we can make this place alive again and have an actual deck subform?

Stasis???
Discord is hopping. This place can again.
???

Nice RB monsters there Squider!
Meow.