Dies to Removal

Registered with the sole purpose of thanking you guys. I am a complete Magic noob; I have played Magic outside of my home a grand total of 4 times. However, with variations of this deck I have finished 3-2 in the last 2 weeks at FNM.

Right now my deck list sits at:

[deck]
Main

7 Mountain
7 Swamp
4 Blood Crypt
4 Temple of Malice
2 Rakdos Guildgate

4 Spike Jester
4 Chandra's Phoenix
2 Lifebane Zombie
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
2 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Mogis, God of Slaughter

4 Lightning Strike
4 Mizzium Mortars
3 Dreadbore
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Ultimate Price
1 Rakdos's Return
1 Whip of Erebos

Side

1 Lifebane Zombie
2 Dark Betrayal
3 Doom Blade
4 Skullcrack
2 Devour Flesh
3 Thoughtseize
[/deck]

Kept the Mortars at 4 because White/Black Midrange is currently very popular at my shop and answering Blood
Baron is a must. I realize a Mutavault or 2 may be optimum; however they are expensive and I am not sure they are totally necessary for this deck. Any advice would be welcomed.

Thanks again.

@Gutler: What match-ups have you been playing, and what have your losses been against? Your list is so close to mine that the only real difference is cacklers vs ashley and I'm still trying to figure out which is better, when.

In my last tournament, I played vs Mono U, UWR Control, Jund deck with DD, Whip, and Reaper of the Wilds, White devotion aggro with a red splash (twice), and Uw Devotion.

In the tournament before that, I played vs RW Burn, BW Midrange (twice), Golgari Monsters, G/r Monsters.

My 3 losses come down to:

2 vs B/W Midrange decks that play DD, BBoV, removal etc. Like vs Mono B Devo, the hands that are hard to beat are tons of removal into DD or another threat. When I play vs them I kind of wish I had LBZ main, but I
think B/W is a deck that will be seeing it's share of the metagame shrink soon because Mono Black Devotion plays LBZ and Ultimate Price main to deal with G/R, which both happen to be good vs B/W also.

My other loss was to B/w Devotion. Game 1 has always been hard against them, but he made exactly enough seahorse tokens that I'd take lethal no matter how I blocked. In our 2nd game, I found a doom blade for the Master of Waves, but his Thassa kept giving him Frostburn Wierds off the top so that I couldn't keep his devotion count low enough that he just kept swinging for 5 unblockable until I died. In that same tournament, I beat Mono-U Devotion in the first round.

I do have 7 draws with the deck in paper. 6 of them are intentional, but one was a "time in the round" draw vs UWR control. He won game 1 with Assemble the Legion, but I got him game 2 with a burn spell. In game 3, He played an Elspeth and but she met a downfall and then she countered and killed my creatures for the rest of the
game, but never found any other win condition.

The one nice thing about Rakdos Cackler is that he is very easy on your manabase. You do have to side him out vs a lot of the field, but that's not to say that he isn't good vs certain decks.

@Jedu_Knight: I saw your results with the Ash version how are you finding the manabase? is it worth running 2x vaults?

@jerkwad

Nice list, and congratulations on your nice results. Your list seems kinda top heavy which may be a disadvantage against some decks. If I were you I'd add either another 2-drop like Rats, YP$ or Ashley (as a 3-of) or run 4-of 1-drop (either cackler or Firedrinker). I'd also definitely cut Mogis, I tried him and i always wished he had been one of my other 4-drops (big Phoenix or Exava), even the one time i got him to attack the others would have been equal or better (he has no trample so he just gets chumped).

Running mortars to beat BBoV may make sense in you meta, but in that case i think you should consider it a "terror" effect and not a burn spell. So instead of cutting 4x Magma Jet for it I think you should cut some number of Dreadbore, Downfall and/or Ultimate Price (whichever is worst in your meta)

The promised PTQ report...

[deck]Dos Rakis by dtr.com collaborative, 36th out of 175[/deck]

R1 - Josef - Golgari WTF, lost 0-2

Was really surprised to see deck like that mainly because I haven't seen one online at all during testing. I mismanaged the "who's the beatdown" question first game and played right into his Scavenging Ooze, which quickly grew out of hand. SBed like
against aggro, which might have been a mistake since he seemeed he went the control route too. I kept a slow hand which he did too and we slowly took each other's life (me via Phoenix, he via Mutavault and Experiment One). I killed Muta with 2 Jets (one got Golgari Charmed) and eventually got him to 10, at which point he topdecked Ooze. I only had LS in hand. Turned off my brain and bolted him - it all went downhill from here. I could have waited to kill the Ooze with bolt or at least forced it to stay small since there were only 2 creatures in the graves. Or I could have let Mutavault live and just go for his face. Either way, I lost.

R2 - Kristián - UWR control, won 2-0

And just like so, battles of homebrews began. There really isn't much to tell. UWR may have great matchup against other controls (at least that's what I've been told) but i find it slower than the other controls. He was even playing [card:
k0o8vv5a]Assemble the Legion[/card] main. I made two mistakes (forgetting Phoenix trigger and badly separating cards for Jace's -2) but even then I just stomped over him. Nor Helix nor Mortars helped him.

Yesterday I was checking PW points (wanted to know more about WMCQ) and I noticed this little fella (he was about 16 years old) is one of the better players here, but apparently UWR is his pet deck, since he was playing it whole last year. Oh well.

R3 - Gurjot - Esper WTF, won 2-1

Really nice guy, student of medicine from UK currently studying in Olomouc (a city on the other side of the country, about 400 km away from Prague). Was of arabic descent and we had great chat before, during and after games. He was playing something of a middle road between Esper Mid and Control - there were cards like Brimaz, Obzedat or Ephara together with Jace, Eslpeth and Revelation. I went all in the first game and he forgot that Elspeth can kill my dragon - I asked him why he didn'
t d so and just sighted. I felt a kind of understanding... Second game started well, I got him to 6 with LBZ snapping Obzedat with him at 4 lands and with 3 more in hand. He was all smiley and we laughed that the LBZ could have come one turn later this time (since the same thing happened the first game). Then it went downhill. He drew BBoV for which I had no answer. I didn't draw an answer for the next 4 turns and that was it. Felt kinda stressed after that because I already saw myself winning this one. Had to mull the third game, kept Mountain, Temple, Temple, Skullcrack (I said fuck it, let's board cracks, he is playing Rev after all), LS, Dragon. Drew in this order: Jester, Land, Skullcrack, Land.... Life totals went (for him): 20 => 17 => 14 => 12 from land to D-Sphere Jester => 6 from EOT burn => 4 from land to drop Baron and then I showed him my hand with Crack and Dragon.

Thing is, I was pretty sure about not boarding in cracks since I wanted more answers to his creatures... at the
final moment I decided to put back the third Skullcrack and it proved to be the right decision. We then chatted for about 10 minutes. Really nice guy.

R4 - Jiří - GW, won 2-0

Once again a nice guy, we had a little chat before and wished each other no screws or flood. I was surprised to see Selesnya and a little bit scared since the explosive starts of double Voice can be a trouble for me to deal with. Luckily for me he not only didn't manage an explosive start either of the games but got mana screwed too with only one green mana and Advent in his hand. He was genuinely suprised after I LS his Centaur token that the Brave the Elements he just played in response did nothing. After the games we found out that we was thinking that all the GW tokens his cards made were GW not only G. Second game was even more in my control - he got screwed on mana this time with Advent, Ajani and Banisher Priest in hand but unable to
cast them on only 2 mana. He eventually got the third but it was too late.

I recommended removing Braves and trying some stuff like one Spear, Gods Willing or something like that. We played two more games, I've stabilized at 9 life the first one and just rode to victory from there and in the second I kept a 2 Dragon, 1 LBZ, 4 land hand and just drew lands, so that was his first victory there.

R5 - Benjamin - U devo, lost 1-2

I fucked up hard. Seriously. The first game I could have had lethal on board and instead played Whip, which only managed to prolong his suffering. The second game I started making mistakes and was unable to race because of him bouncing my Dragon two times. Should have played more "controly" game. The third one is where the pressure on me started taking it's toll as I wasn't used to so many people watching. I made TERRIBLE, and I mean TERRIBLE plays including drawing LS, attacking and THEN noticing the Phoenix
in grave. Lost with him at 1...

I said to himself I need some time then extended my hand and congratulated him. Then I smashed the table and shouted "FUCK THIS SHIT" (in czech). Judge came a few seconds later, asked who did that, I said it was myself and received warning for unsportsmanlike conduct. I just replied "Yeah, whatever". They made a photo of it after that.

Then we spent the next 15 minutes talking with Benjamin and his friends. The guys came from Vienna, made a story about how they own a strip club where at the end the supposed owner was all like "I've never been to one, I am faithful" to which I replied "You can still be faithful even if you visit one". After these games and talk I was really planning on visiting one that night (which of course didn't work cause GF got drinky mood so we stayed with a friend at a pub until 2:30 am... cleared my mind either way though)
.

Either way, I was the only guy receiving warning for this at the PTQ (even though there were some DQs for shit like bribery). I wasn't pissed at my opponent in the slightest, I was mad at me. Seriously pissed to be honest since the last match could have been a cakewalk had I not fucked everything up. I kept following Benj's progress the next rounds and he eventually lost a mirror match and ended 12th for which I congratulated him again. When asked about the mirror, the guys said that the mirror opponent played terribly, but not as terribly as me. We laughed at that.

R6 - Michal - RB aggro, won 2-1

Younger guy, he was all smiles at the beginning but left the table without comments after we finished. First game I got overrun with Jesters and something else, he just kept casting creatures. I boarded into my removal package expecting a nearly identical mirror match. Turns out I was wrong. He
boarded into control too but somewhat interestingly he left Cacklers in. I just shredded him the second game.

The third game was where it got interesting. The deciding point was when he was at 7 and I at 11. My board was clear, I had 2 Phoenixes in grave and Jet + land in hand. He had a lousy Cackler on board, no Phoenixes anywhere and 1 card in hand. He killed the second Phoenix during combat, so I passed the turn. He draws and cast Spiteful Returned on Cackler. My question is - what do you do?

I tanked for a minute and eventually decided to burn the Cackler. At the top I saw land and Mortars, so Returned died the next turn. Maybe I could have waited with Mortaring it. That kept me without a real pressure on board. He drew and cast a Herald of Torment, I drew land. He went to 6, attacked (8) and passed. I drew land. He went to 5, attacked (5) and cast another Herald. I drew... a [card]Lightning Strike[/card:
k0o8vv5a]. Passed the turn, said "trigger", he said ok, I cast the Strike. He was like "unbeliavable", took his cards as quickly as possible and walked away.

Note the line of play I chose could have cost me the game had I not drawn into some burn. On the other hand, had I Jeted him, I would have instantly won on the spot if one of the cards on the top was LS, but if it wasn't and I for any reason would have attacked with both Phoenixes I would have been dead to either Jester (since he left Cacklers in I really wasn't sure what he boarded out) or Exava. If I attacked with one Phoenix and left the second one to block, I would still be at 4 life after his attack.

Even after thinking about it I am still not sure what the "correct" line of play was.

R7 - Jakub - BW mid, lost 0-2

Uninteresting games. Kept a slow hand the first game and he dropped one Baron, which I managed to kill, but not the other two that came after that. The second game is
where my SB comments come from - I took out our burn and I kept a 6 lander with 3 Temples, Muta and Phoenix. A lousy keep, I know, but since I was out of contention either way I wanted to see what happens since I always sent these back. Well, Phoenix got Thoughtseized and 2 Temples sent 2 lands to the bottom only for me to draw 2 more. I eventually managed to get him to single digits because he saw himself in the driver's seat and absolutely ignored my creatures. He tapped out on his last turn, I sacked two creatures to 2 demons and he attacked with everything except his new BBoV.

Yet, he still was at 4 life. Had I drawn into ANY BURN I still would have won. Or a dragon, yeah, true. I ofc drew a land like I haven't had enough of them already.

Wanted to play some games after that, but he just said he needed to go to toilet. No normal games for me this round then.

R8 -
Tomáš - BW mid, won 2-1

I saw him drop Swamp, Swamp, Muta and I was like "oh my, finally a mono black after all day!" Then he dropped Godless Shrine and my hopes were once again crushed. I lost gas with him at 4 life, should have done some things differently (well, I DBed Pack Rat and he dropped Demon next turn, which is what lost me the game). The second game I tried the new SB plan - dragons shocks 2 lands out and LBZ Betrayals and Mortars in. Worked like a charm. Zombie took care of Obzedat, I mortared his Baron and just crushed him.

The third game was the most interesting. He kept a slow hand with both Obzedat and Baron. I had 2 LBZ in my hand from the start so that was taken care of. He eventually drops another Baron which I mortar immediately. Then he doesn't play anything even though I knew he still had Elspeth in hand. Eventually he starts dropping some stuf but everything he played got destroyed as soon as it hit the ground including
double Elspeth. We come to a final turn with both of us at 5, him having 1 card in hand and 5 tokens (3 tapped) and DD in play and me having Phoenix, LBZ, Jester and 5 lands in play with HDF and Mortars in hand (drew temple). I could still have lost to Obzedat and HDF if he drew the baddie, so I tanked for a while (and I haven't found any line of play that would have saved me from these except not attacking at all), used HDF on the demon and went in with Phoenix and LBZ. He didn't have the needed removal so it was game.

Mortars and LBZ are the stars of this matchup coupled with Phoenix.

--TLDR-- + some comments

MTGO is different. The pressure from playing face to face is something I need to work on. Also, I need to put my grave visibly in front of me: finding a way to categorize the cards in front of me is what helped a lot when learning SWLCG so I am gonna do the same there since I don't want to miss Phoenix trigger again.

Deck works. It does. But... it's not free wins. Look at R6 for one
such situation.

I'll write some comments and answers to questions from the last pages in next post, now I need some time off after writing this wall of text. Gonna watch an episode of Supernatural.

Excellent report Jedi, very honest and insightful. Really appreciate the time and effort you put into writing this

Regarding the Cackler/Ash/YP debate - what about Thrill-Kill Assassin ? Easy on the mana, goes through Caryatid, Courser, Gary, NVS, trades with everything, gets haste from Exava, good as a chump blocker. Great flavour text too

Great Report J_K

@Lazer: IDK

Thrill-Kill Assassin is better vs Aggro and Midrange.
Ash/Cack is good vs Control and Black

What is the worst MU? I'll say Control and Black mostly.

Honestly, I like our control matchup. I don't usually have any problems with them. -shrugs-

Of course, that is one of the biggest reasons I like this deck. There's no matchup that feels unwinable. It preys on a lot of the top decks

Although that naya hexproof deck you're workng on makes me very sad. Here's hoping it doesn' become a thing ;P The g/w version either...

The changes between decklists now seem to be focused on a few questions:
1) "Do we want 1-drops?"
2) "Do we want shocks?"
3) "Flame-Wreathed Phoenix or Lifebane Zombie main?"
4) "Do we want a whip, and if so, main or side?"

1) I honestly don't know. Like MDU said, Ash is good vs Black and Control and so are the 1drops. I dare to say as long as Burn gains momentum we should stay away from Firedrinker Satyr. It really depends on how explosive you want to be. Cackler into Jester is barring Blind Obedience + Azorius Charm nearly an autowin.
2) I know I do. if we had the option to plaz a reasonablz priced 3 dmg
spell, I would go for it, but as it stands, Shocks soothes the aggro matchup and I don't feel like it's the weakest card in every game. For now I plan on keeping the two copies in.
3) LBZ for me. If BW stops being a thing, then go for Phoenix, but since both on online and in paper (as far my only paper experience is concerned ) BW is still at large I want to have a way of downing Baron/Obzedat. Phoenix suffers against removal heavy decks and shines against GRx, but so does LBZ and it brings something extra to the table. Playing LBZ means fewer Mutas though, if any.
4) It's a concession to Burn and RDW. I do think the right place is in main deck. if you manage to stop the tempo of RDW and resolve Whip, it's usually GG. Haven't used it so far against burn though. Either way it helps in nearly every game so I really think it belongs here (at least for now).

@Jedu_Knight: I saw your results with the Ash version how are you finding the manabase? is it worth running 2x vaults?

I must say that with Ashley running 2 Vaults is suicidal. I've switched back to one because I've already had games lost to colorless mana. It could easily work if one goes the FWP route instead of LBZ but the again you'll be facing mana issues after boarding the zombies. I am really thinking of putting Cacklers in instead since that improves the slow grindy games just as well as Ashley and since we're siding her out in a lot of matchups it doesn't really change our boarding plan. Makes aggro matchup worse though but that is a trade I am currently willing to do.

So far from my experience (so take it with a grain of salt) I would say that 2 Mutas are max for Ashley + LBZ, 3 could work for Ashley and FWP. But since we're playing LBZ in SB one way or the other 2
really are max. Ideal maximum is -1 in each situation. We're already GREEDY.

As for Thrill-Kill, I tried 8 mans with it before the PTQ and was uninpressed. He may shine against GRx but is kinda lousy against Control, which I think that slot should be dedicated to.

[quote="[url=viewtopic.php?p=203426#p203426:23q9h04g]RaidaTheBlade » Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:57 pm[/url:23q9h04g]":23q9h04g]Honestly, I like our control matchup. I don't usually have any problems with them. -shrugs-

Of course, that is one of the biggest reasons I like this deck. There's no matchup that feels unwinable.[/quote:23q9h04g]

I agree. Control can always get those games where they just draw all their answers and then chain Sphinx Revs until you have no hope of coming back, but I've felt like the high amount of haste creatures coupled with burns extra reach can be a huge deal vs UW/x control decks, which often want to spend the first 4-5 turns of the game playing come into play tapped lands. We have the potential to end the game by then and if we don't, we have huge haymakers like SBD which are difficult to answer.

I'm not saying Control is a bad MU, its just the choice between (our 3 empty slots for our low end creatures 1cc or 2cc) I think gearing it with a creature which does work against control is better then gearing for Midrange, thus Ash is a good pick.

Ash happens to be great vs small Aggro, Control and is decent vs Midrange with other cards supporting her

Jedi Knight spotlighted in new SCG article:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28 ... -Game.html

Way to go!

Nice! Sucks that the cat is out of the bag, but who reads scg these days? Right?

Anywho, I do have a couple of questions for you Jedi. Mant to ask them earlier, but this reminded me e.e
The only differences I've noted in your list from mdu's/mine are -1 Hero's Downfall +1 Land, and in the sideboard -1 devour flesh, +1 anger of the gods.

The sideboard change I get fairly well, my question is more about the 25th land.
The first sort of general question is why? Was it to make casting things easier?
Second question is will you still keep it? Your report mentioned a good deal of flood, and reversing it back to 24 land would be a good way to help that.

I'm just curious
I like looking at all the different options we have to make the deck better.

@jerkwad

Nice list, and congratulations on your nice results. Your list seems kinda top heavy which may be a disadvantage against some decks. If I were you I'd add either another 2-drop like Rats, YP$ or Ashley (as a 3-of) or run 4-of 1-drop (either cackler or Firedrinker). I'd also definitely cut Mogis, I tried him and i always wished he had been one of my other 4-drops (big Phoenix or Exava), even the one time i got him to attack the others would have been equal or better (he has no trample so he just gets chumped).

Running mortars to beat BBoV may make sense in you meta, but in that case i think you should consider it a "terror" effect and not a burn spell. So instead of cutting 4x Magma Jet for it I think you should cut some number of Dreadbore,
Downfall and/or Ultimate Price (whichever is worst in your meta)

Thank you for your response.

In building my deck I essentially targeted Black and G/X decks. As a result my toughest match up seems to be any deck that gets out faster than mine. I have plenty of removal but if I don't hit the land drops or removal I am certainly staring at death. I cut the Cacklers early when I realized they were side-boarded out in nearly every match up. I would like to test out Ash Zealot but they may be a tough early cast at times and I don't run enough burn to make them good late game. I have also thought about Rats but I'm not sure how they would play in my deck at all; something I will have to test. Somebody mentioned Thrill-Kill Assassin and that would be an interesting 2 drop. Good early and late due to the Deathtouch; I just wish they they had haste.

On Mogis, I could easily see another Flame-Wreathed Phoenix being useful. However, I have really liked the enchantment aspect of
Mogis. It is another 2 points of damage late that complicates the math or they have to sacrifice a creature at possibly the worst time to do so. I will keep track of how often he pays off vs. an additional big phoenix. Thanks for the tip.

If it weren't for the Blood Baron they would likely be a 2 of for the Overload capability. But the Blood Baron is all over my meta, making the mortars absolutely necessary. And I certainly view them as terror/removal. I have thought about altering my removal package and it will certainly be something on my mind as I play as well. Seems Ultimate Price is probably the easiest to cut.

Thanks for the input. I will keep your points in mind this Friday and look to make changes over the weekend.

Nice! Sucks that the cat is out of the bag, but who reads scg these days? Right?

Anywho, I do have a couple of questions for you Jedi. Mant to ask them earlier, but this reminded me e.e
The only differences I've noted in your list from mdu's/mine are -1 Hero's Downfall +1 Land, and in the sideboard -1 devour flesh, +1 anger of the gods.

The sideboard change I get fairly well, my question is more about the 25th land.
The first sort of general question is why? Was it to make casting things easier?
Second question is will you still keep it? Your report mentioned a good deal of flood, and reversing it back to 24 land would be a good way to help that.

I'm just curious

I like looking at all the different options we have to make the deck better.

Sorry for late answers, I tend to get distracted by just about anything.

I actually think that MDU's list is a little bit better - I already switched Anger to Devour (another Mortars works too) and I am really thinking of going down one land... don't know which one though. For now I put Cacklers in and Ashleys out, works awesome against MBC (haven't met a UWx yet though). But to answer your questions:

Yeah, my line of thought is basically the same as zem's when it comes to land: better be safe than sorry. Hence the extra land. As for the second question: it depends. The more I get accustomed to the deck, the more I feel 25 is one too many. A month ago I've been trying to somehow fit Chandra in to help with the floods. The addition of
Whip helps with that tremendously, so that's solved... kinda.

The main question is, what to put in instead of the land? I am not really in favor of the Downfall, would prefer a third Shock to be honest (or Ultimate Price, but we won't be keeping with MDU's starting thought of every card having a use every matchup).

Also - one guy on SCG said that Exava is piss-poor when not paired with other Unleash creatures. Ok, good to know. Me mentioned Hellhole Flailer to go with her... thoughts? I think Hellhole Flailer is piss-poor in every situation except when paired with Exava, where he is somehow usable.

Stomped black in daily: MBC 2-0, 2-1 and 2-1 + aggro 2-0. I advise siding 1 Mortars in (took out one dragon for them) in case there is a rat infestation. Opponent plays Rat on 4 lands in last game of the daily, my hand is Mortars and Exava, have Jester in play. Have 5 lands in play including Muta... tank for a while, decide to [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ee6aZObyI:111fzgf2]GET DANGEROUS[/url:111fzgf2] and play Exava and into the red zone. He doesn't block (predictable, albeit very dangerous for him, he goes to 5) and kills Exava via Betrayal. Plays land next turn and pass. I draw... a land.

Overload Mortars, attack, extend hand? Not so much, in comes Gary and land.

Draw Phoenix (or LS, Jet, SBD, Jester, Crack, Exava, DB, HDF), activate Vault, extend hand?

k.

LOLs - well done J_K

@J_K: Can you post your current list? (Also cutting 1x HFD for 1x UP works) we're not horrible vs control anyways.

So much to read if I want to get this list up. However now enjoying GW monsters, however you have very good results MDU and Jedi.

How do you feel about Esper Control and BW Control MU? I also played GW Aggro for awhile as well so I'll imagine you struggle with those MUs.

P.S. I'm testing myyamagat list right now, I manage to beat burn once when it had a poor hand (yay me) - the MU really is A) I draw 1-2x DD which they can't answer, B) I draw 2-3 discards, C) I draw Whip or D) I just lose.

How do you feel about Esper Control and BW Control MU? I also played GW Aggro for awhile as well so I'll imagine you struggle with those MUs.

P.S. I'm testing myyamagat list right now, I manage to beat burn once when it had a poor hand (yay me) - the MU really is A) I draw 1-2x DD which they can't answer, B) I draw 2-3 discards, C) I draw Whip or D) I just lose.

Cant say vs BW couse I didnt face it jet, however I won 7 or 8 games out of 7 or 8 vs mono black with GW.
As for UW/Esper currently 2-2.

Currently trying this:

[deck=]Lands (24)
8 Mountain
5 Swamp
4 Temple of Malice
4 Blood Crypt
2 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Mutavault

Creatures (19)
4 Spike Jester
3 Rakdos Cackler
4 Chandra's Phoenix
2 Lifebane Zombie
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
3 Stormbreath Dragon

Spells (16)
3 Shock
4 Magma Jet
4 Lightning Strike
3 Dreadbore
2 Hero's Downfall
1 Whip of Erebos

Sideboard
3 Dark Betrayal
3 Doom Blade
2 Devour Flesh
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Skullcrack
2 Lifebane Zombie
[/deck]

Softer to aggro, more explosive against control.

Anyone watching SCG Open Seattle -- the Timothy Chavez guy doing the deck tech for Rakdos Midrange plays at the local store I go, his main deck is (was?) similar to the standard MDU list but without Phoenix (D Demon instead), sideboard is VERY different though, sounds like he's doing pretty well at the tournament

been on holiday for the past week, but hit MODO on my return with my B/r list, currently on a run of 9 consecutive wins (although take with a slight pinch of salt, as 6 of these were in 2-mans): [
spoiler=sideboarding plan]Mono-black devotion
OUT: 1 mizzium, 1 jet, 1 flames, 2 pyrewild shaman
IN: 4 thoughtseize, 1 whip
Plan A is to blitz, using thoughtseize to protect against sweepers. Plan B is to use the CA from the whip to get there. Rakdos Returns can be a nice topdeck here too

Mono-U Devotion
OUT: 10 x/1s, 2 pyrewild shaman, 1 rakdos's return
IN: 4 LBZ, 1 whip, 4 pharika's cure, 4 thoughtseize
Plan is to keep their devotion down and win the race via lifegain and CA from whip/read the bones. It's borderline if thoughtseize is worth bringing in, but I like it as a pre-emptive answer to an early Thassa or MoW

G/R Monsters
OUT: 2 strike, 1 jet, 2 bile blight, 2 tormented hero, 1 flames
IN: 4 LBZ, 4 thoughtseize
This is very favourable post-board. T1 Thoughtseize in to T2 LBZ is brutal and you have a lot of terror effects for any fatties or planeswalkers they manage to resolve

Mono-Red Devotion
OUT: 10 x/1s, 1 lightning strike
IN: 1 whip, 4 pharika's cure,
4 LBZ, 2 devour flesh
This is a match-up I was struggling with until I added the full 4 Pharika's cure to the SB. Game 1 is still tough, but becomes favourable post-board, as you can now weather the early storm and grind them down with CA/lifegain. I found boarding out Spike Jester good here, as he dies to magma jet and can't deal with Ash. I'm unsure if it's worth bringing in LBZ on the draw, as it will probably miss their reckoners, but it is still nice as an evasive threat and to peek at their hand

U/x control
OUT: 1 flames, 2 mizzium, 2 bile blight, 1 Jet, 2 Strike
IN: 4 thoughtseize, 4 LBZ
I'm yet to play U/x, but feels like it should be a really good matchup. Post-board use thouhtseize to deal with verdict and just blitz them with creatures (not sure if better to side out dreadbore, hero's downfall or burn here[/spoiler]

Overall I'm really happy with the deck, it feels competitive against all of the tier 1 decks. This version is partly constrained by
budget; I only have 1 SBD, 1 rakdos' returns and 0 mutavaults; so would potentially bring some more of those in if I had them in my MODO collection.

General thoughts:
- would consider running an additional rakdos's returns (in SB), as it's so good against midrange and burn, not sure what to cut though
- I seem to bring the second whip in for every matchup, so wondering if I should be playing 2 main. It is often the MVP, both in aggro and control mode
- Pyrewild Shaman is surprisingly solid in the deck, the CA from the recurrence ability is relevant in grindy games and combines well with the evasive creatures and lifegain effects. All of that said, this would probably be the card I'd cut if I wanted to bring something else in
- Thoughtseize is vital for game 2, especially against midrange when they've boarded in all of their sweepers. Definitely keeping it in the sideboard though, as game 1 vs aggro is hard enough as it is
- Herald of Torment does some serious work. Great tempo play in beatdown
and good target for the whip when you're trying to push through that final damage. Even as a vanilla 3 drop it's fine. The only drawback is the lifeloss effect is horrible in game 1 against aggro

Ultimately the B/R build sacrifices Phoenix, but can cast T3 LBZ more consistently, which I think is more important in the current meta. With my old PyroWhite build I always felt like an underdog against G/R, but now I always feel ahead playing against G/x.

poppa_f that list of yours looks amazingly fun and creative.

Some notes:

Pyrewild Shaman is YP 2.0, buying him back isn't unrealistic so I'll recommend keeping him vs Bx Devotion (more as a creature rather then a pump, though he can pump in a pinch).

[card]Pharika's Cure[/card] seems weak vs Ux Devotion, you have very limited targets - HOWEVER!!! due to this it encourages you to save it for MoW which is very nice (good vs burn as well) though I'll recommend you at least run 3x BB so i'll cut one cure .

Since your not running Phoenix the burns seem out of place.

I recommend getting some input from J_K since he is the Redzone of the RB thread (multiple major RL event finishes, PE finishes, DE finishes and tons of 8-Man - the man is truly the master).

Any thoughts on your list from the match vs Z?

Going back to cacklers but cutting shocks for a whip and a chandra, with the land at a 7/7 mountain swamo split, with no mutas.. Then instead of devours, a second whip and fourth exava side.


I see why you did it, cacklers make our games vs control better, and the whip and chandra make up for dropping shocks since they both have great game vs aggro. Then the change in the side is to further help vs aggro, since 2 whip is silly good vs them because of draw chance, and whip makes exava even more amazing so having 4 of her is awesome. Then the land change to smooth things out.
Sound about right?

I just kinda wanna hear how it felt, since I must say I like the look of it. If it weren't for BO and land nonsense, Z woulda been screwed.

Only issue I have is no muta, but that's cause I am pretty damn greedy

Anyone watching SCG Open Seattle -- the Timothy Chavez guy doing the deck tech for Rakdos Midrange plays at the local store I go, his main deck is (was?) similar to the standard MDU list but without Phoenix (D Demon instead), sideboard is VERY different though, sounds like he's doing pretty well at the tournament

Link here http://www.starcitygames.com/events/cov ... _with.html. There are some odd choices in his dec.

1) He isn't strained on mana as we are - why no Mutavaults then? At least 2 should belong here, if not more.
2) Havoc Festival... I saw it while shopping for cards and would be really interested whether it
helped him win some games. It's only usable against Control, sure, but 6CMC seems like about 2 too many.
3) One ofs are fine, but I am missing Whip here - how does he deal with Burn?
4) Thoughtseizes are cool. Probably that's how he deals with Burn.
5) I am not keen on Mogis. Sure, he can activate him but I would rather see him in SB. Also where the fok is Exava? Cut him and 1 Zombie, insert 3 Exava. There, more explosive!
6) I do like Sire of Insanity and RR in SB, I don't like Pithing Needle here. He can kill the walkers/Mutas.

SB feels a little bit like a pile, but the decks he met at the time of the video (3x GRx, 2x RDW and BW mid) should be doable (aside from aggro where he kinda has to land a demon or overload Mortars).

Will comment later on more questions. Also that praise from MDU made me tickle. And giggle. And smile. Thanks.

Also that praise from MDU made me tickle. And giggle. And smile. Thanks.

?

poppa_f - I understand the budget constraints, started the same way. I fully agree with what MDU said about PS and Cure with one more thing - I'll either cut the Cure completely and relegate it to SB. It still is a powerful card against aggro, but given the online meta I don't really think it's better than Blight currently. Bile Blight just solves many more problems. Also I am not a fan of Shaman - I don't consider him a bad card per se, just that he isn't as good as one would expect him to be. But I understand wanting to play him, just that every tiem I've tried him, it just didn't work.

Also no Phoenixes means there really is no extra need for burn. FoF seems kinda out of place there, as does the singleton Jet. If anything, go for either LS or Jets full suplement, but without Phoenix you would be better suited with either another Dreadbores/HDFs or a set of Mortars (2-3).

LBZ belongs in the main - as long as one
keeps running into GRx and BW it will continue to be awesome. Especially with regards to your thoughts in the comments. I wouldn't run 2 Whips main though: there are certain matchups (aggro, burn) where you wanna increase you chance of drawing it, but the second copy is fine in SB from my epxerience. But feel free to put it in.

If I may, I would consider following changes (keeping with the fact that both extra SBDs and Mutas will help):
-1 FoF
-2 LS
-1 Jet

+1 Mortars
+1 Dreabore
+2 Bile Blight

This basically upgrades your removal. You may cut 1 land too since you're only running 1 five drop.

As for the creatures I would definitely put 2 LBZ in. Also Spiteful Returned in 2-3 copies would be seriously awesome if you wanna up the Tormented Hero count to 4.

Would also be really interested how is Read the Bones for you. I've cut since I've started to run into a lot of aggro decks, but I do miss me
some card draw.

------------------------------------------

I for one like adding the second Whip to SB. Burn matchup against competent players/deckbuilders (basically those that are here on dtr ) comes down to whoever lands their hate card first: either they get BO out and we're basically dead, or they don't and we manage to land a Whip followed by anything hasty, which either turns the tide or at least gives us a couple more turns to draw into Dragon.

Went up to 4 Cacklers because why the hell not. They cackle! Need to smooth SB plan now.

Fuck them hamsters-run servers, was 4-0 in PE when it crashed. This is like overcrowded WoW servers all over again.

Feed your goddamn hamsters WotC!

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm going to make some of the changes you've suggested and test more on MODO. There's a win a box tourney at my LGS at the end of the month, so hoping to have the final 75 locked in by then and can crack top 8 again

Overcrowded WoW servers were better because they were fixed promptly and the issue never came up again once the initial issues were resolved. They had top notch people working on it around the clock. MTGO has shown no such progress for some reason.

Not 'for some reason'

Wizards clearly doesn't care enough about the online magic scene to fix even the most basic issues

Any thoughts on your list from the match vs Z?

Going back to cacklers but cutting shocks for a whip and a chandra, with the land at a 7/7 mountain swamo split, with no mutas.. Then instead of devours, a second whip and fourth exava side.


I see why you did it, cacklers make our games vs control better, and the whip and chandra make up for dropping shocks since they both have great game vs aggro. Then the change in the side is to further help vs aggro, since 2 whip is silly good vs them because of draw chance, and whip makes exava even more amazing so having 4 of her is awesome. Then the land change to smooth things out.
Sound about right?

I just kinda wanna hear how it felt, since I must say I like the look of it. If it weren't for BO and land nonsense,
Z woulda been screwed.

Only issue I have is no muta, but that's cause I am pretty damn greedy

That was a failed experiment, I haven't been able to test RB lately due to lack of cards (I lend out my RB cards and Borrowed a Robot deck for Modern, I didn't think I'll hate playing Robots that much though ;/).

Playing vs Burn goes back to the good old Mike Flores philosophy of "Who's the Beatdown?"

Remember the rules of Beatdown?

The player with more creatures is usually the beatdown.
The player with more removal is usually the control.

When you're playing against burn, even though they have so much removal in the form of burn spells; they still want to be the beatdown, because they actually run so few creatures and the ones they play are all 2/2s. If they waste all their burn just trading with creatures, they will gas themselves out with you at a high life total, which will put the game out of reach for them, since they wont ever be able to get the amount of cards they need to put together 20 damage.

Now, our usual plan against Beatdown decks is to play as the control, deal with their aggression, keep a high life total, and eventually land a creature on an empty board and use it to
quickly close out the game. However, our plan doesn't work vs Burn because they aren't a deck that we can play that way against, they are going to be doing only small amounts of damage with creatures, so all our terrors are dead cards.

So now we have a situation in which we cannot effectively play as the control, so how do we play? We play as the only other option, the beatdown.

We try to usurp the role of Beatdown from Burn, this is a task that we are very well equipped to do, we can have 20+ creatures after sideboard of which a great majority all have haste. The way you board against burn is cut all your terrors and play as many creatures and burn as you can possibly jam in. Ever creature in the burn deck is small enough that it will die to a burn spell anyway, if you need to kill a creature.

After sideboarding vs Burn, my deck looks like this:
21 Creatures
15 Burn Spells
24 Land

The basic plan is to just play creatures and attack with them. Creatures deal damage over turn and putting
burn on a clock from turn 1 or 2 severely impacts their game plan. The burn player must choose "Do I use my Shock on his creature or do I Shock him or her?" The burn player has 2 options:

1.) Burn our creatures, in every case but Seering Blood, this preserves our life total, which is good for us and lessens their ability to put together 20 points of damage. If they burn your creatures, you are winning. Enjoy it.
2.) They attempt to force themselves into the role of beatdown by just aiming everything at our dome. Ignoring our creatures is a terrible idea and a burn deck has a much slower clock them we do. We also win in this scenario.

I have only ever lost 1 single game to Burn, it was in game 1 so I had 5 dead cards in my deck and he had 2 Boros Charm and 2 Warleader's Helix. This is pretty much the only way you can lose to burn if you play as the Beatdown; they assemble 20 damage with a frighteningly low number of cards, which lets them use all their other cards as removal to stop your
beatdown plan. Don't worry, the hypergeometric distribution is in our favor again, because the chance of them drawing two 4 to the dome burn spells by turn 4 is less then 50% and they really can't draw just two of them, they need to draw 3-4, which is an extremely unlikely scenario, but sometimes it happens; but hey that's magic for you.

If you want to beat burn, play as the beatdown. Jam your deck full of damage and force them to play as the control, which is very rarely something that burn can do and still be able to win the game. Burn as the control is not playing to 'win', they are playing to 'not lose' this turn or the next turn, where all od what Rakdos Aggro is trying to do is play for the win.

Reposted from Pyrored:

I very much like the idea of siding into a burn deck vs. Mono black. Nice drown in sorrows you got there huh?

Dreadbore your demon, leave up 2 mana
Skullcrack your merchant, return phoenix.

huehuehuehuehuheuheuheuhue

Monoblack was a cake walk before rotation.


Finally traded in a bunch of cards to complete nuwen's temple of malice set so she's running the deck now. She likes shock better than searing blood for one, so if you're looking to cut something to make room for searing blood it probably has to be some number of magma jet =/ (running a 2-2 split atm).

Curving out at 2 Chandra and 2 Exava at the 4-drop. Running 24 land just because its important to curve out, and extra scry to hopefully prevent flood.

Nuwen will post her lists and thoughts

I will sing the successes UNDERWORLD CERBERUS, particularly against this burn deck you speak of.

I keep in every creature (except Satyr) post-board to absorb hate - the most important cards in this matchup are Phoenix, Chandra Pyromaster, and Cerberus. The game inevitably goes late; they're gassing down and you're both flooding. Slam a Cerberus and ask "what u do now?"

Haven't been playing too much lately, I'll post my current list up sometime(TM).

I really never was a fan of whip in these lists btw, at least not MB.


Its such a huge loss of tempo, and you play so many spells that its really just about protecting those creatures you do play to win the game in a timely fashion before they get to play out their more impactful cards. Whipping an exava back seems awesome until you realize you're just going to keep running into soldier tokens or polukranos or something each turn...


Obviously its great if you get in a MU where you're just racing someone, which is why i can see it post board.

I'm glad Fate and Nuwen are back on working with BR, I look forward to reading the updates.

- - - - - - - - -

UNDERWORLD CERBERUS sounds rather disgusting against burn and control, its horrible vs BW, Bx Devotion and every other aggro deck known to man (since we're lighter on the creature count compared to the rest).

Is the Burn and Control MU hard enough to justify the inclusion? I think it is (also means I can remove whip and Cack).