That's my Rakdos Burn list. I choose B/R over Boros or Naya, which is arguably the stronger way of building Burn Lists in Modern, out of my love for Rakdos and my disdain for White. I dislike its themes and its identity in the Color Wheel, but I digress.
So instead of asking the question, "What's the best Burn list in Modern?", I started out asking, "How can I build a Rakdos Burn list for Modern?" All Burn decks are heavily red anyways. And I started looking for efficient red Burn Spells. Originally this list had all the classics, including
Rift Bolt
,
Searing Blaze
and
Eidolon of the Great Revel
. But it felt like at that point I would have just been better off playing a Mono Red List, cutting the Blazes and
Bump in the Night
s and the
Bloodsoaked Champion
s which were in here.
So I started thinking about the Color Wheel identity of Black, especially it's tendency to get super efficient mana cost-to-stats-ratios at a price, and started wondering how I could get something like
Master of the Feast
into the deck. But then I happened upon
Phyrexian Arena
and then
Dark Confidant
and felt that was exactly the type of effect Burn wanted and which would be available only when playing Black. I had found the reason to play Rakdos over Mono Red.
I then looked up the price for Bobs and was baffled, since I had never seen this card being played anywhere. Well, since I wasn't able to afford a playset of Confidants, I looked into alternatives and tested
Pain Seer
for a while, which was ok, but not great, tried out
Asylum Visitor
when it was released and ultimately arrived at
Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
. This card is great, mostly since it's hard to block due to it having menace, which is something no other Bobesque card offers. But I quickly realized it requires you to build around it. I started out with just four copies of
Aether Hub
and two Siphoners, but I did not draw them very consistently, which would turn the Lands off quite often and prevent me from playing my Eidolons or my
Molten Rain
s. So I cut the Eidolons altogether, replacing them with two more Siphoners and cut my Rift Bolts for
Gonti's Machinations
. This is the real price you have to pay for playing this Budget-Bob. It's not that you most likely won't draw a card the turn she comes down, but that you have to dillute the rest of your deck ever so slightly. It's still the best option I have found.
Then Hour of Devastation came around and with it
Claim
. I just love this card, it seems perfect for any aggressive Deck, granting much needed resilience and turning your graveyard into a threat, which can take a lot of opponents by surprise. I had tried
Postmortem Lunge
in my sideboard before, but it did not work well, since I did not have many creatures that could be pumped, which made it's usage feel very underwhelming most of the time. But a permanent reanimation? That's great value, especially if your card advantage tool happens to be a creature! I started out with two copies in the mainboard, which got quickly bumped up to four and ultimately prompted me to add a playset of
Vexing Devil
s too, since it pretty much solves their problem of being a terrible topdeck in the later stages of the game. It makes them considerably more threatening if you can give them haste and +2 power without having to hold on to an additional card!
