Dies to Removal

I think he's going for the archetypal grindy Rakdos deck, so the phoenix is slightly better fit (you cast it, they kill it, they have to kill it again or you flip it later on).

Deck gameplan appears to be to kill/hand hate your opponent's threats and win on pseudo-card advantage from phoenix / rabble or real card advantage from sarkhan/sign in blood.

Feels like it might need more lifegain though, as you will be taking damage from the fetches, sign in bloods and thoughtseizes, so could get run over by hyper aggro or if you stumble on removal/mana.