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La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 1:33 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

--- description ---
See this big demon get played fast and blow up opposing boards. Pulling out the big mana acceleration guns here for a massive, ugly Rakdos!
--- end description ---
Rakdos, the Defiler is just one of those cards that should be good. No really, he should be really, really good. But he just doesn’t have a place at six mana and two colors in standard. Until now.

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wood Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Kodama’s Reach
3 Seething Song
2 Rakdos the Defiler
4 Putrefy
4 Time of Need
3 Psychotic Fury
4 Shielding Plax
1 Ryusei, the Falling Star

4 Stomping Grounds
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Blood Crypt
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
7 Forest

Sideboard- 4 Naturalize
4 Umezawa’s Jitte
4 Last Gasp
3 Wear Away

Basically, the deck plays like it looks- there’s a lot of mana acceleration for the first two turns followed by turn three search or kill and a turn four bomb.

Birds of paradise- These are a staple in any three color deck with large bombs. Birds is the perfect way to pick up that extra mana of a color you needed to drop Rakdos.

Wood Elves- Wood Elves were made playable with the addition of dual lands. With the duals around, Wood Elves become a little bit better than Sakura-Tribe elder. With all the first turn acceleration, though, this will come out the same turn as elder, second turn, making it more useful. Plus, with the duals here you may take two or possibly four pain damage, and elves can chump out a swinging watchwolf.

Llanowar Elves- These elves join the party because playing turn one mana acceleration means playing wood elves or kodama’s reach turn two, which allows easy mana fixing for Rakdos.

Kodama’s Reach- Reaching for a mountain and a swamp means you are almost guaranteed the proper colors for Rakdos, the main power of the deck. Reach is especially good because you can grab two of the four lands you need. Usually at least one is in hand, so if you grab two with this you’ll only need one other source of red or black.

Seething Song- This is the only real way to dump out Rakdos on turn three. While it will give you a mana burn most likely, it’s a small price to have a 7/6 flying trampler down on turn three. Turn four then allows you to enchant with plax or fury etc. and swing for the nuke.

Rakdos, the Defiler- Rakdos may seem very suicidal, but he’s well worth it. Against heartbeat decks, they can pack up if he touches them- they’ll be running on usually two or three land and even with a heartbeat that can’t compare. Against Zoo, their board becomes easily controllable. Against wildfire, no matter if they’ve nuked or not, he’ll swing ftw. Rakdos is going to beat any non-agro deck by swinging once and any agro deck by swinging with double strike.

Putrefy- Because of versatility, putrefy is a dominating force. On turn three, you’ll usually have 5 mana available… and nothing to do with it. A putrefy in their biggest threat and a time of need do nicely to make sure you aren’t going to die and that you have a threat the next turn.

Time of Need- Many times you’ll have drawn one of your bombs in your starting hand. Since they are both legendary, you won’t want two of the same, and with so much mana, ToN will fetch them at little cost of speed.

Psychotic Fury- With Rakdos, this doubles their losses, making an insurmountable setback. That and it puts their life total down to six in just one turn and gives you back the card it burned.

Shielding Plax- Plax is great because a lot of times Rakdos can come back to haunt you against decks with putrefy or mortify. With those tools, a deck can make you sacrifice half your board with you own cards and lose nothing. But with plax, they’ll have to use their kill in response, as an insurance policy for not losing half your permanents. Also, as with psychotic fury, the draw a card is good in decks that use a fair amount of cards getting mana accelerators to avoid running out of gas.

Ryusei, the Falling Star- This is the one you should search for against agro. Ryusei simply ends a game against agro when you play him on turn four. They’ll be void of ground creatures and have a colossal blocker in the way of flying.

Mana base- This deck needs to have a green, so I filled it with as many duals as I could grab, two of each red and black for searchability and a lot of green to ensure you can play that Birds of Paradise down turn one.

Sideboard-

Naturalize- This is great against those pesky artifact and enchantment decks. Zur’s wierding? I think not. Jitte? Don’t bother. Heartbeat? Find another. This just is an answer to many decks in standard, but not all, so it can’t quite afford to be in the main deck.

Umezawa’s Jitte- This is the most powerful card in standard when left unchecked. So, this deck’s sideboard jittes are really to stop opposing jittes. Of course, if they choose not to try and get in your way, there’s no reason you can’t use this to beat agro yourself- this deck can have turn three swinging jitted creature with another sitting around, and that’s not very common in standard.

Last Gasp- Here’s another pesky anti-agro card. Also, it helps if they try to get firemane angel on the board- one shot and they’ll pay ten mana next turn if they can to reanimate it. Considering Rakdos should have cut their permanents in half, I sincerely doubt that will be the case.

Wear Away- Instead of being mean to heartbeat, wierding, and glare, now you’re being cruel. With so much green, pulling up a pair isn’t a problem, and you’re going to run them out of tutors to find heartbeats if you pull this and naturalize.

Matchups-

MagictheGathering’s “Niv-Mizzet and His Fiery Control”- This is one of those matchups that’s just easy for you. Because of the nature of your deck’s rush to dump a rakdos and swing, he shouldn’t have time to get bombs down by the time you swing and cut his permanents in half. Mulligan liberally- one rakdos by turn four is the game here.

Sideboard- None

None of the sideboarding tools help very much- there are no signets (which most control decks play for speed) for which I could board in naturalize, and no midgets against which I should play last gasp or jitte. This is pretty much a win no matter how you spin it.

Osion’s Law of Nature deck- While this isn’t quite a fair comparison because Osion’s deck is block, mine is about ¾ Ravnica. Putrefy is a total dealbreaker against anything expect ledgewalker. Clear out the board as fast as you can with a ryusei during your turn (forecast/blessing can’t save creatures because forecast is only during his upkeep); try to dump a bomb and just swing away.

Sideboard -4 Shielding Plax
+4 Last Gasp

The plaxes have very limited use as his only removal is a semi-remover- the bounce spell repeal. If he has the mana to repeal Rakdos, first of all you were land choked by your own deck and you kept a hand you shouldn’t have, and secondly he only has four copies. Just play it again and you’re good to go. Last Gasp will take out creatures in response to forecast or enchanting or instantly buffing the random Herald or Charger, and you should put this away.

Cleston’s “Build Budget in a Simic Way”- Well this matchup is budget vs. not budget, and it shows. Your high cost mana base just lets you get away with far more than just U/G, giving you access to more power and versitility. The vanilla creatures just can’t hit you for enough damage to matter before you dump a Rakdos and swing. Against Simic Sky Swallower, just give double strike- you still trample over for eight, survive, and make them lose 75% of their board.

Sideboard- -4 Putrefy
+4 Umezawa’s Jitte

The only large threat is untargetable, so Putrefy won’t be doing a whole lot here, but jitte will make them lose a creature or two every combat. With no answer to jitte, you don’t even need Rakdos to help you swing away- even a bunch or random wood elves and llanowars with a jitte can take down agro, and this is no exception.

Orzhov Agro- Just so nobody thinks I’m trying to build a “my deck beats everybody” deck, here’s the worst matchup in standard for the Rakdos Deck. Orzhov Agro makes Rakdos deck discard down to choke mana and then mortifies Rakdos in response to attacking, preventing board loss and letting them swing for the win.

Sideboard- -3 Psychodic Fury
+3 Last Gasp

Against agro, gasp is your bestest friend. And honestly, if you can get rakdos in against orzhov, you’ll pretty much win; half their board should maim them enough. Also, gasp helps stop specter from causing too much hurt. This becomes barely winnable after board, but don’t walk away expecting too much.

Heartbeat Combo- This is a big race game, and you should win. If you can grab a Rakdos on turn three off a beat, even with mana for a Time of Need to find it. Heartbeat usually can’t kill you until about turn five, at which point they are missing too much land to function because you’ve swung with Rakdos.

Sideboard- -3 Seething Song
-3 Psychotic Fury
-1 Llanowar Elves
+4 Naturalize
+3 Wear Away

Here, you need lands for mana because they will at some point drop a heartbeat of spring. Therefore song and elves help less. Also, if you swing and hit with Rakdos, you won’t need to hit twice; once will end the game. The enchantment hate is good because you can hopefully drop Rakdos and blow up the beat on the same turn so they have to find another. You should be able to win because of the fact that more mana cost creatures benefit a lot from heartbeat and you can kill their lands.

Till next time. Enjoy wrecking your opponents board!

Grail

Cleston

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 4:41 pm

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

I like the match-ups against other people’s decks, although it was a pretty unfair match against my poor simic first version sketch... Laughing

what if someone kills rakdos during your attack? you lose your permanents and they lose nothing... I understand this is the kind of high risk and high return deck... but I`d use some form of recycling for your own cards once they hit graveyard.... I dunno, life from the loam? maybe my point is that you don’t seem to have a plan B there... if you have, I missed it... (attacking with elves and jitte?)

but I like the article and the idea... Rakdos is costing a lot in cobracards.com these days, you know, something around U$1.00 each.... I’ll keep an eye on this article, hehehehehhehe, if anyone can suggest something really amazing I’ll have to make him fit my budget next month, hehehehhehehhehehe

keep it coming!

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

Cobra

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 5:34 pm

Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 1202 Location: Austin, TX, USA

Cleston wrote:

Rakdos is costing a lot in cobracards.com these days, you know, something around U$1.00 each....

http://cobracards.com -- Web's best deals on Trading Card Games.

La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 5:34 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

It is lessenned by the presence of shielding plax. I knew that would be a problem ( a mortify) but with plax, they’ll not kill my board if they are going to kill Rakdos.

(this in response to Cleston’s comment about Rakdos hurting you, too). Perhaps read a bit more carefully? I pretty clearly addressed this very issue in the description for why plax is in the deck, but it’s all good!

Cleston

Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 11:53 am

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

La_Sin_Grail wrote:

It is lessenned by the prescence of shielding plax. I knew that would be a problem ( a mortify) but with plax, they’ll not kill my board if they are going to kill Rakdos.

(this in response to Cleston’s comment about Rakdos hurting you, too). Perhaps read a bit more carefully? I pretty clearly addressed this very issue in the description for why plax is in the deck, but it’s all good!

of course I’ve read that... but you’re depending on them to save him... perhaps it would be nice to add something to change the targets of the spells while you look for your plax?

Cobra, I was using a bit of sarcasm there... Laughing

I dunno how that sounded, though...

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 5:13 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

sounds like a good idea.. but are there any ideas on what? I’m having trouble finding other things that could pull that off and having trouble moving things out of the list.

Cleston

Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 5:41 pm

Joined: 10 Aug 2005 Posts: 110 Location: Brasil

La_Sin_Grail wrote:

sounds like a good idea.. but are there any ideas on what? I’m having trouble finding other things that could pull that off and having trouble moving things out of the list.

I thought reroute was fine, but it only works for activated abilities, oh well....

and I was thinking about goblin flectomancer... though it adds blue to the mix, you have four birds there and it would be no problem, would it?

you seem to be disappointed with my ideas, if that’s the case i am sorry. but i gave you a 4 in review, i think that shows i actually liked the deck, so there’s no need to feel like that. Wink

- "If I die, your deck will crumble!"
Gandalf (any of them)

The First

Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 7:15 pm

Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 195 Location: Anderlecht, Belgium

What about Grave Pact instead of Shielding Plax?

Attack with Rakdos, thus clearing the board -sac those birds ’n’ elves- and destroy their mana base when you hit with Rakdos.

It will also make your opponent think twice about killing your critters.

I wouldn’t focus on keeping Rakdos alive but how to bring him back. If they can kill him, they will do so in response to your attack or plax.

There are enough graveyard tricks - Soulless Revival, Sickening Shoal, Hana Kami would be divine with Grave Pact. Kill 1 with the Shoal, splicing to get Hana Kami back, sac the kami (triggering the Pact) and get the Shoal back. Rakdos + Goryo’s Vengeance + Grave Pact = Wrath + 1/2 armageddon for opponent.

Death Denied can get lots of creatures back as well.

Cobra

Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 8:50 pm

Joined: 12 Jul 2005 Posts: 1202 Location: Austin, TX, USA

Grave Pact is nice, but what’s it have to do with protecting Rakdos? Rolling Eyes

Also, IMO the real problem isn’t that Rakdos might get killed, it’s that he might get killed during the combat phase -- after you’ve sacrificed half your board, but before Rakdos hits your opponent. Shielding Plax is definitely a good way to put a stop to that... Sure, they could Putrefy or Mortify him in response to the Plax being played, but that’s not during combat so it’s not a game-ending loss. You can always Time of Need for the other copy.

Some extra protection and/or ways to get Rakdos back would be nice, but what to take out? Maybe Psychotic Fury (seems like if Rakdos is hitting your opponent at all, you’ve already won)... but that combo is just so cool... Cool

http://cobracards.com -- Web's best deals on Trading Card Games.

La_Sin_Grail

Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 10:09 pm

Joined: 14 Aug 2005 Posts: 806 Location: Maryland

I suppose I should cut fury, but I’ve just seen too many decks that can stilll live on a few mana.

I’m sorry, Cleston, I didn’t mean to dash your ideas. I just was wondering how possible they are. Like they are good concepts, but I’m not sure there are cards in standard that can carry them out, if that makes any sense.

Flecto might work... in which case I would switch llanowar elves for utopia sprawl, I guess. I kind of liked the elves as jitte carriers against agro and as utility blocker against cloak etc., but I suppose flecto might be better. I’m just not wild about four colors after my last... experiment. (4 color deck with mizzet and hierarch and everything in between)

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