MTG Salvation

I've researched a lot on how to build an efficient Rakdos deck. Most suggestions are basically just pingers or random burn cards. While it does work, it mitigates what Rakdos' ability wants to do and is a terrible late game topdeck. The trick, to me, is to have <4cc weenies that have a use at any point of the game and having an efficient curve. In a multiplayer game, there is (almost) always someone whose deck's early game strategy is throw mana rocks and ramp. You can catch them off guard and set off on your dead sprint to the finish line.



Card Choices:
>4 cc Creatures
All of these creatures early game creatures serve as enablers for a turn 4 Rakdos. Swing at the defenseless guy, then use them for the following purposes. Bonus points for most of these being clamp-able.

The 4 or more CC creatures should be self explanatory, mostly just fatties with good abilities.

The rest of the deck should also be self explanatory with your strategy being:
Turns 1-3: Lay down a weenie, beat face.
Turn 4: Throw down Rakdos. Rakdos allows you to basically skip midgame and go straight to late game.
Turns 4-8: Keep laying down fatties and smash face.
Wraths basically say 'return to start'. Luckily, this deck recovers fast.
Late game you start throwing down your discard/stax elements and overwhelm the board.



Thank you for your time. I'll add more details in time and as requested.

You could try switching in Blood Artist as a means of punishing other players for wrathing. Also, Megrim could be another way of triggering Rakdos's ability, especially with the discard effects you're already playing

A decent creature that kind of synergizes with a lot of the multicolored spells you have would be Lobber Crew. I run a Lord of Riots, and if crew is in my opening hand, turn 4 usualy means a decent 2 damage to all my opponents

Quote from Lord_of_Runes

A decent creature that kind of synergizes with a lot of the multicolored spells you have would be Lobber Crew. I run a Lord of Riots, and if crew is in my opening hand, turn 4 usualy means a decent 2 damage to all my opponents

Which, in a four or five man game lets you drop any colorless creature below 7-9 mana for free. Specifically because of stuff like that I'd consider Wurmcoil Engine, Duplicant, Steel Hellkite, Ulamog's Crusher, hell I can even see reason to run Thopter Assembly. Honestly, I'm surprised I don't see more Eldrazi either. I'm working on a Lord of Riots deck myself, and saw no reason not to include all the colorless Eldrazi.

Being that I am working on Lord of Riots myself, I'd like to know how yours does. Do you have any consistency issues? What's your (rough) win rate? What's the earliest turn (with no interference) you can reasonably win on? What turn do games tend to end with this deck on board? Do you have a problem dealing with other peoples big threats?

Granted, all that is meaningless without one question being answered-How competitive is your meta?

All in all, though, I like the deck, and think you should flesh out the first post and apply for primer status. We need a good primer for a non-combo Rakdos(color scheme).

Thank you all for your input.

Quote from Joeschmoemama

You could try switching in Blood Artist as a means of punishing other players for wrathing. Also, Megrim could be another way of triggering Rakdos's ability, especially with the discard effects you're already playing

First of all, welcome to the forums! Blood Artist may be good as an early weenie and perhaps discouraging wraths, has it worked for you? On one hand it would force them to lose some life, but is it enough to make them stay their hand.
As far as Megrim, the discard is more to close out the game rather than as more damage.

Quote from Lord_of_Runes

A decent creature that kind of synergizes with a lot of the multicolored spells you have would be Lobber Crew. I run a Lord of Riots, and if crew is in my opening hand, turn 4 usually means a decent 2 damage to all my opponents

I'm trying to avoid pingers, they just don't seem to do enough and are a terrible late game top deck. Although I always misread that card as 'target' opponent, not each. Is that alone good enough to warrant a test?

Quote from AlaAlba

Which, in a four or five man game lets you drop any colorless creature below 7-9 mana for free. Specifically because of stuff like that I'd consider Wurmcoil Engine, Duplicant, Steel Hellkite, Ulamog's Crusher, hell I can even see reason to run Thopter Assembly. Honestly, I'm surprised I don't see more Eldrazi either. I'm working on a Lord of Riots deck myself, and saw no reason not to include all the colorless Eldrazi.

Being that I am working on Lord of Riots myself, I'd like to know how yours does. Do you have any consistency issues? What's your (rough) win rate? What's the earliest turn (with no interference) you can reasonably win on? What turn do games tend to end with this deck on board? Do you have a problem dealing with other peoples big threats?

Granted, all that is meaningless without one question being answered-How competitive is your meta?

All in all, though, I like the deck, and think you should flesh out the first post and apply for primer status. We need a good primer for a non-combo Rakdos(color scheme).

As far as Wurmcoil Engine, Ulamog's Crusher, and Duplicant is concerned, they just don't seem to do enough. Since for consistences sake I'm running mostly creatures so they have to have a rather large impact to make up for the lack of spells. I've only been testing this deck for about a month now and it gets a rather consistant win precentage. I can always get Rakdos out turn 4 rarely turn 3. My only real problem matches are something like mono-u control/permission. My threats come down faster and there's enough draw in it to keep laying down heat. As far as what my meta's like, it's very different day to day. I don't really have an actual meta, I play with about three different groups that range from rather casual with no real spot removal (or much removal at all seems like) to a rather cut throat group. This deck seems great because it can hold it's own in either, and causal people can't really complain because it's winning through the combat step.

Sorry for the wall of text haha. But thank you for your input, I'll definitely start testing a few of the above mentioned cards once I get my hands on them.

EDIT: Forgot to talk about the Legendary Eldrazi. The only reason I don't have them in there is because I can't afford one, let alone both. Until I figure out how to work cockatrice (anyone want to give me some pointers?) they're staying out of the deck.