"br0ken" and "potentially tier one" don't belong in the same paragraph. If it's br0ken, then it's tier one for sure. WHICH IS IT?!

I'm really happy if you actually pulled off a decent Guttersnipe build. I love that card.

I said "pretty broken" not "completely broken".

Hakeem, have you considered Fling? That card can do some serious damage with a pumped Kiln Fiend and plays nicely with Act of Treason as well.

EDIT: I see that you did, I would suggest giving that card a test run. Was money on my build, I basically built the same deck when the game came out.

I considered it for the Act of Treason slot because of how good it is with Kiln Fiend, but generally if I have a Kiln Fiend pumped up then I'm able to get through with it because of the unblockability, bounce, and removal. It feels win-more to me and it's dead without a pumped Fiend or a massive Rabblemaster, so I think Act of Treason is better on more boards.

That's why you don't run the full set of them. Its also useful when someone lets you "waste" your spells thinking they can just destroy it during the attack phase.

I get it, I just don't think it's quite good enough to make the cut. I tend not to try and "go off" unless I know that it's safe anway.

T2 Kiln Fiend
T3 Guttersnipe
T4 Artful Dodge on Fiend (18), flashback Artful Dodge on 'Snipe (16), Shock the Dome (12), swing for 12 unblockable (0).

Pretty.

Granted, this line has been available since the game's release, but it was fun to pull it off myself.

Next from Hakeem: a totally new cool mono-red deck with a lot of Goblins that run you over!

I didn't claim innovation here, just that this was my take on the spell-heavy Kiln Fiend archetype.


For what it's worth, Banefire and Hellspark Elemental are key cards.

I have been running Hakeem's version of the Kiln Fiend/Guttersnipe burn deck most of the day and it is a monster. I feel like it would struggle with life gain decks, but unfortunately I haven't run into any to test. The hellspark elemental really helps apply early pressure for those surprise turn 4 and 5 wins out of no where. I really wanted to have a critique of a few card choices to spice up this post, but I really haven't found anything I would really change.

Most of these decks go with a full 4 copies of Artful dodge, however I think you found the sweet spot with 3. I haven't found myself short when I needed one or flooded with them when I didn't.

All in all it's a great deck.

Now please brew a steal and sac deck that doesn't run out of cards too quickly

For real.

Get on it Sensei

You probably mean the B/R variety, because Jeskai steal and sac has a lot of draw in it.

I remember Stevo posting a Rakdos steal/sac deck that looked good because he was playing Devouring Swarm. He was also running Scavenger Drake, though, so I could be wrong.

The problem with most decks I've faced, and why I think they're bad, is because they load up on three-mana 1/1s and eight steal effects. It looks good until you realize that your opponent actually gets to interact with you and that your deck is super-slow, dies to removal, and is full of dead draws.

If you're going to steal/sac, you need to present a serious clock or you need to get tricky with Cloudshift.

So.. you gonna show us the way or not? A Hakeem flavored Steal/Sac.. made for Spikes, by a Spike.

Hell.. I'd settle for a Rakdos list that didn't suck.

I can try to Spike a creature-theft deck but I can't make a good enough Rakdos deck; it's just not there. The problem I find with the Rakdos lists is that the sacrifice outlets are all too easy to interact with. I think a Boros deck with Cloudshift and Blasting Station is the proper way to go if you want to Spike the archetype. I'll cobble together a list.

Hi All, My first post.

Thanks for all the great advice here. I've learned a lot about deck building and also how to improve my play.

I'm playing DOTP on an iPad. and loving the ability to build my own decks. I favour control and and have been having a ball trying variations of Hakeem's Grixis Control and Abzan Lifegain. Thank you Hakeem, I've learned a lot from your posts discussing the card choices.

Here's my challenge. The main guy I play against runs a white/green weenie deck with lots of weenies, Rhox Faithmender, Lone Missionary, and Beast master Ascension.

I hate Weenies!

The only deck that I've tried that has a winning record against him has been Hakeem's "Izzet Burn". But unless I get a good draw I am still toast. I need to sneak a pumped up Kiln Fiend through with an artful dodge, because usually there are too many token blockers in the way.

I've modified the decklist slightly to tune it specifically to beat this weenie deck. Adding Anger of the Gods, Fling and Inferno Titan, and adjusting the mana base slightly.

I'm looking for advice please on playing and beating weenie decks in particular (maybe there is a thread on this topic?) but also for specific advice on tuning this deck further.



Thanks in advance for your help.

Nish

Scavenger Drake (and its close relative, Rockslide Elemental) are important to Sac/Steal decks because as you say, you need to diversify outside the main theme. As you're either going to be killing a lot of things yourself, or you're going to have your own enablers killed in order to stop you doing that, you need something that generates value out of all this dying and provides an additional threat.

My build is essentially a Goblin deck in the early game, a Sac/Steal deck in the mid game, and a beatdown deck in the late game (if it lasts that long) You can't Shock my Bloodflow Connoisseur if I can eat a Krenko's Command in response to take it out of range, which is only further growing the Drakes and Rockslide Elementals as parallel threats, with Steals clearing the path for them for large amounts of damage regardless of whether I can sacrifice the steal or not.

Most people just throw in 8 Sac creatures and 8 Steal effects, then pad out the deck in Rakdos colours without really thinking of how anything else interacts with this core, which is where they fall down. Boros Steal would work to a degree, but you have to realise you now only have 4 cards that combo with steal effects in Cloudshift, and they not only require additional mana, but can be disrupted by counters or bounce, wheras Sacs cannot be responded to. Cloudshift also has no other use, so will be often a dead card.

Sure, you can also pad out the Cloudshifts with Blasting Stations and Flings, but then they make your strategy a lot more inconsistent as they all do very different things to each other, whereas 8/10 straight Sac effects make for more more consistent draws.

I'm not saying the Rakdos version is amazing or anything, far from it - I only run it because I find it fun, but it is a lot more intelligent and reliable than it's given credit for, mainly because most people online make poor additions on top of the 16 card core and then make frequent misplays with that too because they fundamentally don't really understand how or why the rest of the deck should or does work - they just copied the core off someone online because they though it looked cool without even considering how to make the rest of the deck intelligently support it.

The Boros deck has been pretty good, actually, but it needs more playtesting before I can tune the numbers any better. In that deck the Treasons are more like burn spell finishers because the deck goes wide and has a ton of reach. The stealing in that deck is more of a subtheme than anything, to be honest, so five copies has been fine.

You're right that Cloudshift has the potential to be a dead draw but the upside is very high and it can be used as a counterspell of sorts to protect Mentors, Rabblemasters, etc. so I'm usually always happy to see one.

As far as the Rakdos decks, I remember yours being the best that I had seen because of the Swarms and Rabblemasters to generate pressure, but I still don't like Rockslide Elemental and Scavenger Drake because they're just too slow. There is possibly nothing better in the pool, though, black is especially devoid of many decent 1-3CMC creatures.

We should probably take this discussion into the relevant threads (Boros or Rakdos) from here, though.

Not claiming any innovation here either, but have been winning incredibly consistently with this version of a Kiln Fiend deck:



Protect your Kiln Fiend: Earlier posts by Hakeem and TheTrueStag suggested including protection in Kiln Fiend decks, but I didn't see any posts with a build that actually included them (without straying away from the main theme a little as well and including additional wincons like Stormbreath and Inferno Titan). This deck uses Negate, Voyage's End and Void Snare if needed to protect your Fiend from removal. The *key* is not to play your Fiend until you can protect it with one of those cards, which means you probably aren't playing your Fiend until T4, but are using that time to set up.

4x Artful Dodge: I saw a lot of earlier posts criticizing the use of 4x Artful Dodge in Fiend decks. I see why Hakeem only runs 3x in his "burn" deck, but the advantage of Artful Dodge in this deck is just as much its flashback capability to pump your Fiend and/or set off your Guttersnipe an extra time for only one Island. I'm running 4x Artful Dodge not so much for the ability to make the Fiend unblockable (which is great but doesn't need 4x), but for the ability to pump the fiend 8x with only one Island each time.

Think Twice: Ditto the above.

Take a Mulligan: The biggest weakness of the deck is that you basically need to draw a Kiln Fiend or a Guttersnipe in the first 5 turns if you are going to win *and* you need to be able to protect it from getting removed (or you need to draw another one quick). If you pay attention to your opponent's mana usage and save some protection spells in your hand, this is surprisingly not a problem as often as you would think, particularly given the draw capabilities of this deck. That said, you want to be drawing a Fiend or Snipe in your starting hand if possible. The curve on this deck is extremely low so you can usually afford to risk it to try to get one of those two cards to start your hand. This deck can hold out with only 2 mana and win with only 3-4.

Scroll Thief: This seems like an overlooked card generally that is great for both draw and board presence (3 toughness means it can't be removed with cards like Shock, Blasting Station, Dead Weight, etc.). However, not sure if I need 3 of them or if another card might be better. Would welcome any suggestions.

I don't like Scroll Thief in this deck because there are much better 3 cost creatures to choose from. I would swap them out for Rabblemasters. They can get big enough to fling for the win and work great with artful dodge.