Most recent edit:removed: forgotten cave, swamp, pyroblast, asylum visitor, iron myr, leaden myr, cryptborn horror, hellhole flailer, liliana's spectre, vampire nighthawk, guild feud, necropolis regent, bogarden hellkite, blasphemous act.added: Canyon Slough, Hope of Ghirapur, Bomat Courier, Coldsteel heart, lightning greaves, thermo-alchemist, fellwar stone, lim-dul's hex, conduit of storms, neheb, the eternal, duplicant, herald of leshrac, skyline despot, dragon mage.
Reasonings: I felt I had a bit too many lands, and forgotten cave is only one color and enters tapped. Took it out instead of barren moor because I think I have more black sources, but this may have been a mistake. The myrs are out because I just found that they either ramped or were enablers, but not great at either. I'm hoping conduit of storms can serve as some sort of replacement. Meanwhile I wanted to streamline my ramp, so I added fellwar stone and coldsteel heart. All this might allow me to cast Rakdos turn 3 once in a while. Pyroblast should probably still be in, but I think I just wanted to try other things out. Hope of Ghirapur just seemed fun. I'm hoping bomat courier can generate card advantage every once in a while. other additions also for card draw: skyline despot, dragon mage. Herald of leshrac as a staxy addition (might be too much) but also ramp, neheb for ramp (has been great). duplicant for removal, thermo and lim-dul as a concession to try everyone else's favorite enablers. Never used hellhole flailer's ability. Cryptborn, nighthawk, bogarden and liliana's spectre were decent, but seemed ok to pull out to try other things. Necropolis regent and asylum visitor went to another deck. Guild feud never felt like it did enough. I think it was too slow. Blasphemous act should probably still be in.
Games were going too slow. This deck is meant to speed things up. Rakdos either takes everyone out, or goes down swinging pretty quickly.
DECKTECH
The point of this deck is to get Rakdos out, drop a bunch of fatties and demand the table answers it. If they can, great. Rakdos will likely lose, but if they're can't, the game will be over pretty quickly. Towards that end there's a few things the deck needs to hum.
Enablers
Rakdos
Fatties
Card Draw
Let's dive into these a bit more.
These are the cards in the deck (generally creatures) that can cause damage or loss of life easily in the early game. They must be CMC 3 or less, and it's best if they have some sort of evasion. Large fliers with downside like Herald of Torment and Master of the Feast are great for this. The downsides rarely become an issue. Dragonmaster Outcast and Tormented Soul can get through fairly easily. Even cards like Rakdos Cackler and
Scab-Clan Berserker
can usually find someone to hit, and Scab-clan can cause big problems down the line. Some of the best enablers in a multiplayer setting are the pingers: Cryptolith Fragment
, Lobber Crew and Nettle Drone. Lobber Crew is great because it taps on turn 4 to enable Rakdos, which untaps it, so it can tap again. In a 4 player game this then lets me drop something like Wurmcoil Engine for free on turn 4 as well. Nettle Drone is also great because a majority of the deck is also colorless, so we can wear opponents down pretty quickly with this. Ruthless Ripper is also great in that it deals damage for free. We just need to keep it in mind and make sure not to dump all our black cards.
The important point here is the manabase. We want Rakdos down as soon as possible. We want 4 lands on turn 4, and we want them untapped and able to provide RRBB. Because of this strict mana cost, and the fact that Rakdos cuts down on colorless cost himself, we want as few lands that produce colorless as possible. Lands that fix and can enter untapped are extremely important, so you'll find a lot of these. Graven Cairns is an allstar in this department; If we have a swamp, a mountain and Graven Cairns out, one turn we can produce BBB and the next we can produce RRR, effectively providing a 6 mana swing. The exceptions to these rules are Homeward Path, which was a concession to people taking control of my creatures as a way to deal with them, Rogue's Passage to get through people with blockers. The cycling lands were also a means to try to get card draw into the deck, but maybe these should come out now that I've added more card draw. Protip: Cause your life loss on turn 4 before dropping your land. People might actually think you're not going to make your land drop and allow damage when they otherwise wouldn't.
Not too much to say here. We just want the biggest beaters we can get. Evasion is good. Colorless is great. Because of 4 player EDH and Lobber Crew and Nettle Drone and the fact that Rakdos is a 6/6, 6 Colorless seems to be the sweet spot here. Therefore, Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite, Soul of New Phyrexia, and Scuttling Doom Engine work great. Even higher mana costs are not a problem with the enablers we got out previous to turn 4, making Ulamog's Crusher, Artisan of Kozilek, Void Winnower and Myr Battlesphere likely to be free. You can even set this up with Conduit of Ruin. Note that Even higher mana cost eldrazi would also be awesome. It That Betrays or Ulamog, or especially Kozilek can really swing the battle, but they're not in here both for budget reasons, and to slow the arms race among my playgroup.
So I cast Rakdos turn 4 (maybe earlier), turn 5 I've attacked and probably dumped my hand (or close to it). So now it's time to refill. Any card draw I can have on a creature is the way I'd like to do it since I can actually play these cheaper. Therefore Sandstone Oracle, Dream Pillager, and Knollspine Dragon are perfect for us. Just keep in mind Knollspine is target opponent, not all opponents, so don't spread the love if you're planning on dropping this after attacks. Some can double as early game enablers too, such as Sin Prodder, and Asylum Visitor. Guild Feud is also a fun gamble, but our creatures are generally larger on average than opponents, and we can choose an opponent with smaller utility creatures. Sin prodder's big robot brother Combustible Gearhulk Will probably also come down during a time when opponents will be in a sticky situation and neither option will be great for them.
That should do it. If you've followed these steps you've had a successful Rakdos run and everyone should be low on life. Sometimes people will get out of it, and that's where Heartless Hidetsugu and Havoc Festival can help out. I'm also interested to see how Vial Smasher the Fierce works out in this deck. She seems to do everything we want to do, and can probably help finish up games. Always gauge if it looks like the blue mage might counter on turn 4. And be aware that we don't have much of a back-up plan. It's aggro all the way for this demon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~current edit: took out Herald of Torment for Walking Ballista
