Dies to Removal

Here's another bit of random deckness. This one's another attempt to smooth out the Dos Rakis/Dos Packis deck some.
While looking at things for a more midrangey or controlly build, I stumbled across rakdos keyrune, and I liked the idea of using her here to try and smooth colors a bit, and also as another beater/good blocker vs aggro.

[deck]Dos Rakis[/deck]

I decided to have 3 ultimate price main instead
of 2 ultimate price 1 dreadbore as a bit of a prediction thing. Mono-u just won the scg open, so I expect a bit of an increase. It's also instant-speed, so...

I just wrote out a huge summary of my time at a SCG Super IQ with this list then my window timed out.....
[deck] Rakdos Aggro[/deck]

I guess i'll summarize my findings. I faced: Selesnya Aggro, Rakdos Midrange, Orzhov Midrange, Black Devotion, Azorius Control, Azorius Control, Orzhov Midrange. I was expecting more aggro decks (hence my 2 anger of the gods); either W/x or R/x variants but didn’t see any. From the matchups vs black decks / control
decks I am happy to report: Erebos is a beast and basically ends the game for them if he resolves around turn 4. I drew cards off him several times and preventing lifegain halted several deck’s plans to stabilize.

Doom blades were obviously useless in all but one of my matches, and even against selesnya I feel it might have been too much. I might go down to 2 doom blade and put in another erebos or a skull crack to improve our match vs control. Anger of the gods was also OK, and possibly unnecessary, I expect voice of resurgence to make a comeback in the next few weeks, and it might come back in then, otherwise I will turn them into skullcracks (note: the damage prevention text turns off blood baron’s pro-black damage prevention- exava can straight kill it)

Otherwise the land was fine; I was able to cast most of my hand on time or reasonably close to it. It will get even better when we have the Temples of Slaughter, but for now it was fine. I might have mulliganed ~3 times the whole day. I went 4-3
and finished 26-39th due to several mistakes on my part. This was my first big competitive REL event, so there is some learning curve and getting used to that sort of event.

There was some cool tech in an azorius control list I played (codex shredder, divination), and the Orzhov lists were mostly MonoBlack splashing Last Breath, Blood Baron, Obzedat (not good game 1). Overall though I am quite happy with the list, I will make the few changes I mentioned to the SB, which are mostly reactions to the meta I saw.

So I took my BRw list to a fairly casual event and went 4-0 without a single game loss. Mana problems only came up twice when I couldn't get a white source for a Boros Charm to the dome but still managed to pull through to win. I beat Mono B, MUD, Boros Devo, and UW Control. The changes I made were the 3 Thoughseizes for 3 Toil//Trouble.

- Mono B couldn't do much when Doom Blade and Ultimate Price whiffed against Spike Jester and Shred-Freak. Post board he brought in some Pharika's Cures, but Exava hit the board and chaining his Desecration Demon sealed the game.
- MUD didn't know what I was doing until it was too late the first game. In the second game two Marauders in a row got my guys through before he stabilized with a MoW. However, I had a Lightning Strike and Boros Charm in hand to finish him off.
- Boros Devo was the hardest game to win. His version wasn't running one drops, so a Tormented Hero with Madcap got
away with two attacks before getting hit with Mortars. He got me down to 1 with him at 4, and he made the mistake of tapping out. I managed to top deck Exava for the win. The second game wasn't much of a problem since I SBed in all my removals.
- UW Control went exactly how I thought it would. I unloaded all hasty creatures and held back on turn four expecting a Verdict, and I was right. Boros Charm saves my guys and the look on my opponent's face was priceless since he thought the Temple of Triumph I played was just for scry and not an actual splash. Game two he managed to get two Fiendslayers out, but the damage had been done when I hit him with Trouble and played an Erebos before hand. He got hit with a D-Sphere, but with two Necromancers on the field and Lightning Strikes in my hand, he couldn't recover afterward.

Final thoughts, I would love to have someone else try and test my list or make some changes. Strange to say either I got lucky today or there is some serious potential here. Boros Charm
in this deck is just plain nuts and I feel like it's worth the splash for it.

@TBuzzsaw
whats the extra guildgate for in the sb?
have you thought of any tweaks to it post-event?
any thoughts on rakdos' return, slaughter games in sb? probably not slaughter games if most of your matches end by turn 4~5

So I took my BRw list to a fairly casual event and went 4-0 without a single game loss. Mana problems only came up twice when I couldn't get a white source for a Boros Charm to the dome but still managed to pull through to win. I beat Mono B, MUD, Boros Devo, and UW Control. The changes I made were the 3 Thoughseizes for 3 Toil//Trouble.

- Mono B couldn't do much when Doom Blade and Ultimate Price whiffed against Spike Jester and Shred-Freak. Post board he brought in some Pharika's Cures, but Exava hit the board and chaining his Desecration Demon sealed the game.
- MUD didn't know what I was doing until it was too late the first game. In the second game two Marauders in a row got my guys through before he stabilized with a MoW. However, I had a Lightning Strike and Boros Charm in hand to finish him off.
- Boros Devo was the hardest game to win. His version wasn't running one drops,
so a Tormented Hero with Madcap got away with two attacks before getting hit with Mortars. He got me down to 1 with him at 4, and he made the mistake of tapping out. I managed to top deck Exava for the win. The second game wasn't much of a problem since I SBed in all my removals.
- UW Control went exactly how I thought it would. I unloaded all hasty creatures and held back on turn four expecting a Verdict, and I was right. Boros Charm saves my guys and the look on my opponent's face was priceless since he thought the Temple of Triumph I played was just for scry and not an actual splash. Game two he managed to get two Fiendslayers out, but the damage had been done when I hit him with Trouble and played an Erebos before hand. He got hit with a D-Sphere, but with two Necromancers on the field and Lightning Strikes in my hand, he couldn't recover afterward.

Final thoughts, I would love to have someone else try and test my list or make some changes. Strange to say either I got lucky today or there is some
serious potential here. Boros Charm in this deck is just plain nuts and I feel like it's worth the splash for it.

So this crazy idea came to me in a casual conversation with another player.

[deck]
Creatures
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Tormented Hero
4 Rakdos Shred-Freak
4 Spike Jester
4 Mogis's Marauder
3 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch

Spells
3 Madcap Skills
3 Boros Charm
4 Lightning Strike
2 Ultimate Price

Lands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Godless Shrine
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Swamp
4 Mountain
1 Temple of Triumph
1 Temple of Silence
1 Rakdos Guildgate

Sideboard
2 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Dreadbore
2 Doom Blade
2 Dark Betrayal
1 Rakdos Guildgate
3 Chained to the Rocks
3 Thoughtseize[/deck]

Basicly this is something about 3 color agro deck I was talking about. You only have 21
lands, however you have as many colored sources as we have in 25 lands Dos Packis. And you only have 3 tap lands while we had 4-6.

I would try to overload on Humans subtheme if possible, as it makes Necromancer good.
As for 1 drops you need around 14 sources untapped on turn 1 to cast the reliablty. Only 10 for Hero.

Will try to work on it if I have time this week before I settle for list for Championships on MTGO.

@Googims: The extra guildgate is for Erebos.

@ Pedro: I was missing an extra swamp in the list since I accidentally left out an extra card. Again, the mana base is a work in progress and I'm welcome to ideas and changes. I want more humans and the only one I can think of that can fit in is Thrill-Kill Assassin (maybe Ash Zealot if the mana base allows it?)

Yeah I even dont like playing only 21 lands. IT seems too greedy.

Potential Humans:

Cartel Aristocrat
FireFist Striker
Frontline Medic
Gore-House Chainwalker
Rix-Maadi Guildmage
Sin Collector
Thrill-Kill
Young Pyromancer
Master of Diversion - dont laugh, this guy seems good

Other potentially good cards:

Tymaret - prevents exile on necromancer
Boros Reckoner - only 2 lands doesnt cast it, it might be good sb slot.
Assemble the legion - good splashed to SB wincon for mono black
Gift of orzhova - for agro deck
Glare of Heresy - sb card
Profit Loss - good vs most agro decks
Orzhov Charm - solid removal
Wear Tear

Also last Premier event 9th place:

4 Blood Crypt
10 Mountain
3 Mutavault
4 Rakdos Guildgate
3 Swamp

4 Chandra's Phoenix
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
3 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Firefist Striker
n1 Hellhole Flailer
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Spike Jester
3 Stormbreath Dragon

2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Dreadbore
4 Lightning Strike
2 Ultimate Price

Sideboard
3 Dark Betrayal
3 Doom Blade
3 Mizzium Mortars
2 Peak Eruption
2 Skullcrack
2 Toil // Trouble

As we can see more agressive with more creatures version of our deck. Note no Pack Rats, but with more 1 drops. Also much less removal than we have.

I completely forgot about Chainwalker. A single Tymaret might do wonders.

I was wary about adding white creatures since white is only a splash. I would absolutely love to add Assemble, but it seems to be too slow for this deck and I would rather just use Stormbreath.

It is just sb option to combat specific matchups. Dragon is good vs UW, while Assemble is good against mono black. They are not for the same matchups.

Also I dont understand why you are red heavier than black heavier. You have more black creatures than red one, that means you should have got more black mana.

Also this might be only my style of play, but I dont like Madcap skills. It is bad against everything to be honest.

What would you cut to make space for more 2 drops?

I agree in single Tymaret. Singleton Hellhole flailer might also be good (it is quite good vs specter, and 4/3 attacker is quite hard to kill in combat)

Madcap is there for decks with little to no removal like GR Devotion where I can sneak in 10 damage before they bring out more blockers and bigger creatures. It gets sided out a lot the majority of the time though. If anything they can be the first things to go for more creatures.

Madcap skills works well with Heroic. Agent of the Fates is looking for an excuse to join a deck and Madcap is a a possible one. You´ll get an Edict effect out of it I have him and Nighthowler on the backburner as the starting cogs of a possible Black splash something human heroic deck.

Honestly with Pain Seer in the card pool it's likely that going heavy black with a red splash is best. You get Madcap Skills, Dreadbore, Spike Jester, and some burn in red and play Rakdos Cackler, Tormented Hero, Pain Seer, and Agent of the Fates. The rest is just filler.

I'll save discussion of that deck for when the full spoiler is released though. We have no idea what else is coming so it's not worthy of discussion at this point.

+1

3 Exava, 3 Phoenix for that super hot 4-drop slot.

We have such a huge range of good creatures in the 4 area with exava, phoenix, and demon, and then dragon at 5, that I think a midrangey build could hold weight.
Pain seer could accompany rat at the 2 range, and act as additional support.

B/r human aggro might be better, but I like the idea of it.

Derpy quick build:
[deck]Dos Rakis Midrange-y[/deck]
I've also toyed with -1 land, -1 ultimate price, +2 rakdos keyrune
-shrugs-

I don't think you want the new Phoenix in RB. What red-heavy Rakdos really has going for it right now is haste. By playing the new Phoenix alongside Exava you're basically pushing Chandra out of the deck too, making Chandra's Phoenix worse. Phoenix fits better in mono-red and RW which don't have a good four drop currently.

Fate brings up a good point though it should be noted that RB zombies showed us it's entirely fine to play upwards of 7 4 drops+4 5 drops in a deck if your cards are powerful enough.

We should wait for more spoilers before we post random brews, or make a new thread with BNG cards.

We should wait for more spoilers before we post random brews, or make a new thread with BNG cards.

Your level-headed approach can go die in a fire.

[deck]Creatures: 28
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Ash Zealot
4 Spike Jester
3 Chandra's Phoenix
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
3 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
3 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells: 8
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet

Lands: 24
[/deck]

Fate brings up a good point though it should be noted that RB zombies showed us it's entirely fine to play upwards of 7 4 drops+4 5 drops in a deck if your cards are powerful enough.

This is true, but the new Phoenix is no Falkenrath Aristocrat, and value aggro cards like Gravecrawler and Geralf's Messenger are absent in this format. Chandra's Phoenix is the closest thing we have to true value, but it can be mana intensive and requires us to run a certain kind of spell to get value out of it.

The new Phoenix belongs in a flier list. Between it, Chandra's Phoenix, and Stormbreath Dragon you would have four fliers occupying the 3, 4, and 5 cmc slot. That's a hell of a curve.

We should wait for more spoilers before we post random brews, or make a new thread with BNG cards.

Your level-headed approach can go die in a fire.

[deck]Creatures: 28
4 Firedrinker Satyr
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Ash Zealot
4 Spike Jester
3 Chandra's Phoenix
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
3 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
3 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells: 8
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet

Lands: 24
[/deck]

You're a beautiful man.

Val; suck eggs. NOTHING in this format is close to falkenrath aristocrat. I'm just pointing out that having a deck of mono-haste guys is powerful,
especially now that your hasty dudes are actually good cards instead of rakdos shred freaks.

You're preaching to the choir on that one. Hell, look at the list in the primer. Haste.dec. I'm not saying the idea isn't viable.

I'm just being a bitch. Love you Val

I knew you were, that's why I didn't take it personally.

Love you too.

I honestly like the phoenix a lot here, it synergizes a lot with exava.

My main thing is that R/b now has huge threat density, probably the best. (Green has big stuff too though, so) Exava, both phoenixes, demon(maybe), and dragon are all super powerful.

That's why I put forward the idea of running more taplands, eschewing 1-drops, and just dropping huge guy after huge guy in the midgame.

I honestly like the phoenix a lot here, it synergizes a lot with exava.

My main thing is that R/b now has huge threat density, probably the best. (Green has big stuff too though, so) Exava, both phoenixes, demon(maybe), and dragon are all super powerful.

That's why I put forward the idea of running more taplands, eschewing 1-drops, and just dropping huge guy after huge guy in the midgame.

Hell, it could be viable. You'd probably want to run Shock maindeck to stand a chance against aggro, or you could just go balls to the wall and run Anger of the Gods.

For all we know, Jund could be a thing again...

having Ash Zealot and Spike Jester in a deck together is like a wet dream come true

It's awesome for sure. Having a full suite of haste creatures is really hard for other decks to deal with, especially UW. It really screws with their gameplan.

+1

What would you play Zem in meta similar to mtgo:

28% Mono B / BG /BW
11% Mono U
9% RW Devo
9% Esper Human Midrange

I have hard time chosing deck for champs. Stock Big Rw MDU and the others are championing? Some kind of YP$ version? TBuzzsaw Br / Brw agro? Your Pyro Rats? RW Tokens I won my invitation? Any other deck?

I have unlimited card pool, however very limited time right now. Need help from really experienced meta breaker red mage.

@TBuzzsaw

Any updates on your BRw humans?

Selfie Walter White seems really good in that meta.

@TBuzzsaw

Any updates on your BRw humans?

Sorry, I was going to test the deck out at an event today but I was swamped with a mountain of errands. I've been hasty to get more play testing done, but I'm only human and too tired to go out.

Given the new black "infest", do we need to rethink our strategy or can we just power through it with big late game?

Given the new black "infest", do we need to rethink our strategy or can we just power through it with big late game?

More grindy Midrange-Aggro:

[deck]
Creatures: 25
4 Pack Rat
4 Pain Seer
4 Chandra's Phoenix
4 Boros Reckoner
3 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
2 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
4 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells: 10
4 Lightning Strike
3 Rakdos's Return
3 Chandra, Pyromaster

Lands: 25
4 Blood Crypt
4 Godless Shrine
4 Temple of Malice
2 Rakdos Guildgate
4 Mutavault
7 Mountain
[/deck]

Is it good?

But it probably doesn't give a shit about Infest.

And Pain Seer is appropriately painful.

If Drown in Sorrow becomes a big enough thing (and I think it will) we can approach it two different ways:

1) Play a more midrange list like redthrist is suggesting. We would need all of our cards to be good individually. Ash Zealot, Pack Rat, Boros Reckoner, new Phoenix, Chandra, Stormbreath Dragon, etc.

2) Play an even more aggressive list with a lower curve and skewed heavily toward black. This seems counterintuitive at first, but then you realize that going heavy black gives you Thoughtseize and Duress which allows you to pluck that Drown in Sorrow out of their hand before they can cast it. It seems funny that we should go heavy black to beat black, but it's true.

One indirect effect that Drown in Sorrow will have is that we won't care as much about playing two-toughness guys over one-toughness guys now that Shrivel will be replaced. Both die to Sorrow so it's a wash except against mono blue.

Selective attention, friends? ;P
redthirst isn't the only one who put forward midrange.

The main difference is that his has boros reckoner, which I didn't put in my list. I think it's a good idea though, but I also don't agree with a full 4 of the pain seer. I put 2 in, cause I think it'd be cool to see, but it can hurt us too badly because of our higher curve.
[deck]Rakdos Midrangey[/deck]

I split up the mainboard spells into a lot of 2-ofs, so there's an answer to everything.
UP lets us hit MoW, Dreadbore lets us hit planeswalkers, mortars lets us hit BBV. That's a lot of the problem creatures.

Reckoner actually solves some of the issues I was forseeing against small aggro, and also helps the curveout.

Thoughts?

Maybe I'm alone here but I don't really feel like I am able to assemble that much of a board presence against Mono Black to really worry about the -2/-2 to all creatures. Most of the time my haste creatures are removed after swinging once and my matchups involve lots of trading removal back and forth and burning them. Mono Black's biggest worries currently are the mirror and control matchups and Drown in Sorrow doesn't really do too much in either of those. Seems good against mono blue for killing devotion, BTE chaining devo lists, faster aggro lists (white weenie, Boss Sligh).

The BR Midrange lists are interesting though

I was just commenting on redthirst's because it was the post directly above mine.

This deck doesn't want Pain Seer. You need to play more inherently powerful cards that that. All of them should affect the board state immediately.

I don't like Whip.

I want to see Spike Jester in the deck. As it is now your deck durdles too much on turns one and two.

Ideally you should have eight burn spells for Phoenix recursion plus your two Chandra.

You also probably want 25 land since the 3 and 4 cmc slot is a bit cramped and you definitely want to hit 4 land on turn 4 90% of the time.

Your mana base also needs work to cast Boros Reckoner on turn three reliably. Temple of Silence would be nice to have a black source that can cast Reckoner since you aren't really doing a lot on turns one and two with this deck.

From frank lepore

[deck]4 Lightning Strike
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Dreadbore

4 Deathbellow Raider
4 Ragemonger
4 Rageblood Shaman
4 Boros Reckoner
4 Fanatic of Mogis
4 Kragma Warcaller
3 Mogis, God of Slaughter

4 Blood Crypt
4 Temple of Malice
3 Mutavault
9 Mountain
4 Swamp[/deck]

It sucks.

[deck]Rakdos Midrange[/deck]

You could even run this now if you wanted to. Just swap Flame-Wreathed Phoenix for Boros Reckoner, add BW temples, and swap the RB Temples for Guildgates.