Rakdos Riots
Commander / EDH
185 VIEWS
It was Super Effective —July 16, 2022
I had my friend Drew over for a day of Magic and the centerpiece was his Mono Black Chainer, Dementia Master deck which he wanted to try out against a live target. Unfortunately for him, the first deck I chose was Rakdos, Lord of Riots. I won 3-0 and each was a pretty sound victory. Half of his strategy is to gain life to pay for Chainer's ability. I managed to get one or more of my Player Cannot Gain Life cards each game. I actually played Stigma Lasher on turn 2 of game 1 and hit him on turn 3. That more or less set the tone for all 3 games. Despite being a huge fan of Kaldheim, he hasn't discovered Feed the Swarm yet so I knew he could do nothing against Havoc Festival and Sulfuric Vortex. With half his gameplan in the garbage, he had nothing to stop me from dealing bits of damage to cast Rakdos, reduce cost into bigger things and then finishing the game a couple turns later with Eldrazi Titans. Game 3 he actually managed to build a decent boardstate but I whittled him down with a very cruel Xantcha, Sleeper Agent. Every time he used Chainer's ability I would trigger in response, effectively taxing him 5 life every time he used Chainer's power (and drawing a card). He played well and against other decks, it was much more competitive, but this matchup was a bust. My deck is designed to combat life gain and that severely hurt his deck's effectiveness. Life link and life gain triggers meant nothing which turned most of his creatures into vanilla attackers and blockers.