At first I tried a rakdos midrange deck but it was always beat by GB and Teferi fog..
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Gameplan
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Turn 1:
I ultimately found the most success just playing around
Judith, the Scourge Diva
's ability and spectacle. The idea is to get
Vicious Conquistador
,
Fanatical Firebrand
, or
Footlight Fiend
into play turn one. (preferably one of the first two). These options will ultimately allow us to effectively use our spectacle cards a turn or two from now.
Turn 2:
Fireblade Artist
is really good to bait your opponent's removal or to heavily pressure your opponent into it if they have to trade into it. If you need to draw into removal or draw into more options for turn 3
Rix Maadi Reveler
and
Light Up the Stage
will increase your chances of being able to play what you need to. You also have the option to kill something such as
Wildgrowth Walker
or Ajani's Primate.
Turn 3:
Now that we have a good number of low cmc drops to help us pressure the enemy or enable spectacle we want to put
Judith, the Scourge Diva
on the board to maximize our damage.
Fanatical Firebrand
and
Footlight Fiend
with Judith are able to kill a creature with 2 toughness. To do this you use fireblade artist's ability or just turn them sideway.
Fanatical Firebrand
is far the best creature for it.
If you don't have
Judith, the Scourge Diva
in your hand then
Spawn of Mayhem
is the next best option as they enable spectacle and chain into each other. They also scale very well into the late game. Midnight reaper is also very useful to help draw into these since you're going to have a lot of creatures die.
Post Turn 3:
By this point ideally you have a judith, the scourge and a
Spawn of Mayhem
on the board and are able to turn creatures sideways to win by turn 5. If your board is cleared or you've run out of fuel/draw I would just forfeit.
This deck for me has been fun to play since it feels very rakdos to me.
**Notes:
-I have been playing around with
Awaken the Erstwhile
against turbo fog and the gate decks and when I do draw it it completely ruins their game plan. I'd also much rather deal with zombies than an infinite turn loop. Not to mention we have ways to indirectly damage them or fly over. If you are playing in paper I would just try it as a sideboard and throw in another
Ravenous Chupacabra
or
Midnight Reaper
-cast down (may turn into a lava coil due to afterlife)
Some evidence that the deck is standard playable: https://imgur.com/a/XHILpV7
*took me about a week after getting a build for this that I like to go from unranked to gold. It does outpace these control decks.
