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Demigod of Revenge Control

Modern BR (Rakdos) Control

severininfurs

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Land (23)

Instant (7)

Creature (7)

Enchantment (4)

Sorcery (14)

Planeswalker (5)

Sideboard

Instant (9)

Sorcery (4)

Artifact (1)

Creature (1)

I was building a Jund deck and realized I did not want to spend that kind of money at the moment. As I already had many cards to build a decent Rakdos deck, I decided I would try out a Rakdos Control build.

I've seen the popular deck on Pack Rat and Goblin Rabblemaster, and to be honest, maybe that is the way to go. But I have a special love for Demigod of Revenge and he's so fun to swing in for lethal with. Pia and Kiran Nalaar and Gurmag Angler are there to help grind out games and for surprise quick matches. P&K works well with Kolaghan's Command and is in general difficult to fully remove due to the thopters. Gurmag can come down quite quickly, much like in Grixis DS decks, due to Faithless Looting. I tried Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet mainboard, but due to the local meta I find he works better in the sideboard when I need the extra grinding power and lifelink that he provides.

I'm pretty happy with the current planeswalker suite. If I were to replace anything, it would likely be Ob Nixilis Reignited to add in another Chandra, Torch of Defiance. Both provide card advantage, creature removal, and a good emblem for closing things out. That being said, not taking damage from the card advantage of Torch of Defiance and costing 1 less than Ob Nixilis is non-trivial. I also find myself using the "Add RR to your mana pool" +1 ability more often than I expected on Chandra, so that I can leave up essential mana for removal on my opponent's turn. Note: I am currently testing Liliana, Death's Majesty with the planeswalker rule change. I am mainly using her for her +1, because there is no other token generating planeswalker in Rakdos colors. While her -3 doesn't combo with Demigod, bringing him back can still be nice depending on the board state.

The strategy is somewhat like one half the Jund or Grixis equation - grind down their hand and remove their board. I tested 3 board wipes mainboard, but between the discard and other single target removal spells, I wasn't running into enough decks where I felt that the 3rd was needed, so I moved down to 2 board wipes, Anger of the Gods & Kozilek's Return mainboard, and moved 1 Damnation to the side. I am additionally testing out 1 Bontu's Last Reckoning in the sideboard, but I will likely change that to another Damnation as soon as I get the money for it. As opposed to traditional Jund or DS Grixis, our way out is casting a Demigod of Revenge to try and get out at least 1 or 2 others from the graveyard, put there through Faithless Looting, Collective Brutality (after sided in), and Liliana of the Veil. Dealing with Surgical Extraction is always rough, but beyond that I would recommend just not getting greedy if you suspect they have something like Grafdigger's Cage or Relic of Progenitus waiting in their hand. Overall, of the two, Grafdigger's Cage is easier to deal with as there aren't many things to save it from being destroyed by Kolaghan's Command. All in all, based on my testing, sometimes it is best to just try and cast Demigod of Revenge even with no others in the graveyard, as he's still a 5/4 with Flying and Haste.

After testing with 3, 4 Blood Moons seems to be best, as in the matchups that you want to see it, you really want to see it (like Titanshift, Bloom Titan, many 3 color midrange decks), and you can just loot away extras. Just be sure to get at least 2-3 swamps either on board or in hand before you cast Blood Moon or else it may be hard to cast several things in your deck. Sometimes it is better to fetch another swamp than it is to fetch one of your Blood Crypts depending on the matchup and your board state.

Leyline of Sanctity really hurts, but I am going to continue testing without sideboarding specifically for one card. I'm not sure if I really want to dilute both the mana base and take up 2 sideboard cards to fight just one card.

I tested Bedlam Reveler and while at first glance, he felt like a perfect fit for the deck, I felt like he made the deck too graveyard heavy and I found him getting stuck in my hand especially in G2s and G3s where they had their graveyard hate slotted in. If you land him for 2-4 mana, he's awesome card advantage attached to an OK body, and he dodges push, which is nice. But when I would draw him early, he would get stuck in the hand for quite a while.

Based on my testing, it seems like my deck doesn't like Simian Spirit Guide. True, he can lead to some great plays, but most of the time I found I would rather have more land. And with how tight the deckslots are, I had trouble making space for 4 without cutting the lands. That and since we are on black, it is nice to have the option to fetch for one extra turn (to turn on Fatal Push) if need be before we get our Blood Moon down. Skred and W/R Prison, who commonly run SSG, don't have that issue, so while it's good for them it may not be good in Black Moon variants. In addition, I feel like the games I lost at the Dallas Classic a few weeks ago were predominately due to mistakes on my part, or occasionally getting mana screwed, which SSG would not have fixed. I'm back to testing Goblin Dark-Dwellers for now to see if a 4/4 Menace body attached to a free spell (board-wipe or targeted removal, whatever we need - all but one our spells cost 3 or less) ends up helping us grind through the midgame better than another P&K.

Some of my decisions for the deck will depend on the local meta, but feel free to leave comments and suggestions as to what you think and what you would change.

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SCG Modern Classic — Oct. 1, 2017
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Woo, well, I personally think the archetype as a whole is in a pretty good place right now. The current metagame seems to fall down to Blood Moon and even some aggro match-ups are manageable, like Affinity with all of our artifact/creature destruction.

I went 5/3 (really 4/3, the last match was a no-show) today in a ~200 player tournament and made 56th overall. As it was my first tournament, I'm pretty happy with the results. That being said, the deck itself performed great, and I think with better piloting I might have been able to go 6-2 with it. I'll do my best to describe my matches, though my memory may be a bit fuzzy on a few.

Round 1(0-1): 0-2 vs Kiki Chord First round I just died to normal beats, I wasn't drawing into any of my correct removal and I believe I made a misplay, though remember the game well. I know at least once in the tournament I fetched when I didn't need the land as opposed to leaving it up for Fatal Push like I should have, and I think that's the mistake that I made game 1. Game 2 I went in not sure if he was just Naya Zoo with Chord, so I wasn't sure how to board. That being said, I ended up locking myself out of the game with my own Blood Moon and on my final turn, tapped out as he cast Restoration Angel in my end step and Kiki'ed me next turn.

Round 2 (1-1): 2-0 vs Jeskai Midrange Locked him out both rounds with Blood Moon, and he wasn't able to draw into any of his early game threats. He did what he could to keep me under lock, but then I was able to get a Demigod of Revenge through game 2 with one in the GY and he didn't have the board wipe for it the following turn.

Round 3 (2-1): 2-0 vs Ad Nauseam Game 1 was fairly close. I was able to keep him off his mana for a few turns with Blood Moon, but he had his Bloom in play so if he had drawn into his pieces he could have gone off at any time. I was able to beat him with Demigod quickly enough, however. Game 2 I mulliganed to 5...into a Thoughtseize + Surgical Extraction hand. Turn 1 - Thoughtseize'd Ad Nauseam and immediately Extracted it. We still played it out, and the game went a bit long as my only threat I was able to stick was a Liliana, the Last Hope and I had to wait to ult her to win, thankfully beating him out before he drew his Laboratory Maniac

Round 4 (2-2): 1-2 vs Bant Spirits This match-up was a blast. First game I got beat pretty hard, partially because I misplayed a Fatal Push on his Drogskol Captain (I really didn't want him to have it, heh) and it fizzled. Game 2 I casted Blood Moon, which got taken by his Spell Queller. However, I had removal in hand so I was able to recast it and from there it stuck. Through that, I was able to keep him locked off his mana due to his greedy landbase, and Demigod'ed for the win. Game 3...the misplay of the century (okay, maybe just this week). I did a very greedy Faithless Looting and looted away my 3rd land, keeping Pia and Kiran Nalaar instead. I proceeded to not draw into any land at all. I had nothing else to play the rest of the game, and was facepalming the rest of the match as I realized I could have stunted his progress significantly with my Blood Moon I had in hand, if I had only had that 3rd land. He was a great player, and went on to top 8 so I wasn't entirely unhappy with the loss, and I learned I probably shouldn't loot as greedily in the future, so not all was bad.

Round 5 (2-3): 0-2 vs Some sort of 4C Zoo? I was starting to get a little sleepy around here, and I got frustrated by being mana screwed by my deck, so I don't remember the match terribly well besides my opponent being really polite and nice. The first match he beat me to death with 3 Noble Hierarch in play as I proceeded to not be able to play anything. The second match I Thoughtseiz'ed into a hand with Sigarda, Host of Herons and Eternal Witness. I took the E-wit as I didn't want him to have double value, and the next turn I drew into my Blood Moon that would have kept him from casting Sigarda in any reasonable amount of time. With his Ajani Vengeantfoil keeping me off my second black source, I was unable to cast my Damnation to destroy his Sigarda despite actually drawing into it. Since by the time I was able to cast my Blood Moon, he already had his Sigarda out, I probably should not have even cast it, but hindsight is 20/20.

Round 6 (3-3): 2-0 vs Scapeshift Game 1 went a bit long, I was able to keep the board clear for the most part and during top deck wars, he just happened to not draw into Scapeshift, so I was eventually able to get Demigod out for the win. Game 2 I got my Demigods out a lot quicker so the game ended fairly fast.

Round 7 (4-3): 2-1 vs Sun and Moon (Nahiri + Emrakul) This match was probably my favorite of the tournament. I love playing against the other Blood Moon decks, like Sun and Moon or Blue Moon. To be honest, part of the matches had to do with luck. All 3 matches I happened to draw into my planeswalker destruction, Dreadbore and To the Slaughter. Game 1 he plays like he would against most decks and gets his Blood Moon down and it ended up helping me more than hurting, as I drew into my second Swamp fairly early. I believe that match came down to me being able to Thoughtseize his Chandra, Torch of Defiance early on and being able to land one of my own and pinging him for several turns, finally ending with a Demigod. Game 2 after a judge call, I was able to rewind a little bit to play my Rakdos Charm in response to his Emrakul, the Aeons Torn hitting the graveyard which saved me for a little bit, but he ended up beating me with Chandra, Flamecaller as I was only able to take out one of his planeswalkers that was out unfortunately. Game 3 I kept on drawing into removal for his planeswalkers, and I ended up winning with my Demigods again.

Round 8: No show

All in all, it was a blast. I think I already have an idea of some of the changes. The Bant Spirits player suggested possibly running Simian Spirit Guide and I am heavily considering adding in at least 2, if not more, in order for a surprise turn 2 Blood Moon or turn 4 Demigod. Due to how tight the decklist is, I am loathe to take out anything in the mainboard, but I may try pushing To the Slaughter (beyond Round 7, it didn't do much of anything for me) to the sideboard and dropping down a land or 2 to make room for them. For the most part, besides unlucky shuffles here and there, the mana base feels fine and I only ran into graveyard hate once (a Leyline of the Void) the entire tournament, so Demigod seems to be worth using at the moment. He really seems to improve the control match-up.

Liliana, Death's Majesty only came up once but she did some work when she did. The main thing I like about her is her +1, as in BR colors we don't have another token generator (besides Chandra, Flamecaller, but you can't block with them) and I liked having the chump blockers against non-flyers. I want to do more testing with her to see if I actually like her or Ob Nixilis Reignited better.

Pithing Needle...well, perhaps it is just because I don't know how to play it properly, but I only brought it in once and the whole tournament I was thinking I would rather them be another Damnation and Dreadbore (or possibly another Surgical Extraction). There just isn't enough stuff I care about seeing - artifacts I would rather destroy with my 1 mainboard + 4 sideboard artifact destruction, creatures I generally have enough removal for, and as for planeswalkers, well, as a fellow Rakdos control player mentioned to me, they're better off dead than Needle'd.

Oh, last minute I decided to cut Chandra, Flamecaller but I don't think it would have mattered one way or the other. Every time I drew her replacement, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, I ended up drawing them way too early so I had to loot them away and never ended up casting them all tournament. That being said, I want to do more testing with the gobbos, as if I do actually find myself able to cast them, they seem like value town with being able to flash back a pertinent spell, and they don't die when flashing back Anger of the Gods.

FNM — Sept. 16, 2017
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Modern Monday — Sept. 12, 2017
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Date added 7 years
Last updated 7 years
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)

5 - 2 Mythic Rares

35 - 9 Rares

6 - 4 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons
Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.73
Tokens Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, Thopter 1/1 C, Zombie 2/2 B
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