Don't hit me, hit that one!
This is the deck that beat up my Red Lantern Hidetsugu deck and rifled through its pockets for spare win conditions, and (as long as you're playing against three or more opponents) it took them.
This deck is still an overall Work In Progress, I plan on throwing in a
Crown of Doom
when I can get one along with a couple other RB politics cards. Inspired by this deck I set to work making my own fun stuff.
Damage is a Girl's Best Friend
So right off the bat this deck has a pretty different goal than its source material. Thinking of it as a combination of my Red Lantern Deck and the deck mentioned above, I set to work trying to make hostility hospitable. Things like
Curse of Bloodletting
make all your passive effects like
Eidolon of the Great Revel
and
Mindsparker
more of a threat to one player in the mid-fight, while turning
Chandra, the Firebrand
into a late game power attack. Important to note that the curse does not increase effects that specify lose life as it only affects damage. That disclaimer out of the way, a lot of this deck is spent on trying to make sure that no matter what they're doing your opponents are taking damage. From Mindsparker and the eidolon above to
Rakdos Roustabout
and
Blood Reckoning
. If they're playing the game they should be paying for it with their life total. Besides all that, you've got a good few one-off spells that you can lob at their faces as well!
Sizzle
puts your opponents on the grill, while Rakdos staples like
Lightning Bolt
and
Bump in the Night
offer some turn one fun for the victim of your choosing.
Don't think you're being left out of the fun, this is a Rakdos Party after all!
Spawn of Mayhem
is a powerful passive effect slapped onto a scary af looking demon with Flying and Trample, and turns your own life lost into a semi-permanent buff for himself. With
Carnage Gladiator
applying the roustabouts effect to every player as well you won't have any FOMO for the life-loss portion of the party. Some of your attendees looking for the health potion punch bowl? Keep those cowards down with
Rampaging Ferocidon
and/or (and)
Havoc Festival
! Havoc Festival isn't really a damage card, but that's where
Heartless Hidetsugu
comes in! For just a single tap he'll bring the pain to the whole table in the form of non-combat damage and instantly eliminating whatever poor sap you cursed earlier in the game.
Attendance Matters
What do you call a Rakdos Party without any participants? Lame, the answer is Lame. So! In order to keep you from being the smacktalk of the town, I've supplied a wonderful little invite list.
You might've noticed this deck is slightly creature heavy, that's for a reason. Every creature in here that isn't a quick play,
Rakdos Cackler
and the rest of the turn one to two plays, has a purpose. Except
Carnival Hellsteed
which is just a straight up good card. Six cost 6/5 with First Strike and Haste=Yes Please!
Hellkite Whelp
and
Assembled Alphas
fall into the same vein as Rakdos Roustabout, punishing players for doing anything during combat, while
Mizzium Mortars
can board wipe each opponent to make way for a big damaging push. Granted this won't kill
Xantcha, Sleeper Agent
but you don't really want it to, as long as she's on the field you have card draw and damage anytime you have three mana left over before your next turn. I think it's crucial not to use her ability on your turn unless you have nothing else to do, this way you're starting your next turn with at least one extra card and you have a chance to make someone's attack against that opponent mean just a bit more. Thank gods nobody plays
Harmless Offering
right?
Devils' Playground
and
Death by Dragons
both give you some extra creatures if you manage to have none in hand, with the playground giving you potential to deal four damage after casting. Now if you have creatures in hand but cost is a problem,
Rakdos, Lord of Riots
is here to help. Follow him up with some of the cheaper damage spells and effects in this deck and you'll empty that hand like the bowels of every former Rakdos Party attendee, hopefully getting out
Master of Cruelties
while you're at it. For the measly cost of 3 damage and two mana, you can reduce a single opponent to ashes in just three easy steps!
Step One; Keep him alive for just one turn. This is literally the hardest step.
Step Two; Play one of your many "You don't get to block this turn" options! Varieties include and are limited to:
Cosmotronic Wave
,
Rogue's Passage
,
Magmatic Chasm
,
Seismic Shift
,
Panic Attack
,
Pyreheart Wolf
and that's all! Don't have one in your hand? Precede that with
Diabolic Tutor
and get ready to win.
Step Three; Attack!
We've had a lot of fun talking about the ways to get your party attendance up there, but now it's time to talk about how to keep them around and bring them back when they're gone. First up is your entertainer for the evening,
Liliana, the Necromancer
! Just considering her +1 she was a wonderful fit for this deck, and her minuses are wonderful compensation for the amount of hate your creatures draw. She and
The Eldest Reborn
give you similar recovery or theft options, with Eldest Reborn potentially granting you a planeswalker out of the deal (fun thoughts for the upcoming WAR release huh?). A neat little spell called
Flameshadow Conjuring
can keep a token of your non-legendary creatures around for backup, giving you extra fodder or maybe even another Master of Cruelties if you can swing it. But for those things that tokens just can't replace you've got
Rescue from the Underworld
. Letting you sacrifice an attendee that has outlived their entry fee to get them and one of those pesky little graveyard dwellers back into the game. It's a one-off though, so use it wisely. Or copy it with Chandra and trade some tokens for some non-tokens, combo those entries with some flameshadow tokens, and you've rebuilt your board state.
Spells such as
Subtle Strike
and
Incite War
are one time buffs that can save your creatures and doom your opponents. Subtle Strike has some more flexibility in its use, letting you either buff a creature about to die, reduce the power of it's attacker, or a combination of the two, you can improve a creature semi-permanently and kill off one of your opponents attackers/defenders.
Feast on the Fallen
offers the same semi-permanent buff, triggering every turn as long as an opponent lost life the previous one.
Your Party, Your Rules
No party like a Rakdos Party and a Rakdos Party follows the very basic rules of Do What I Say And You Might Survive Long Enough To Watch Me Kill Your Date.
To aid in the effort of date-dismissing should your opponents disagree, I've provided you with a selection of board control spells. We've already covered some levels of creature elimination so there's not much to include here, let's start with the
Doom Blade
. An obligatory inclusion in every black deck, it's followed by
Dreadbore
, which has the added lethality of taking down a planeswalker and the balance of being a sorcery. For the more patient among you I've put
Tetzimoc, Primal Death
on the party list as well, giving you five turns of taunting before hopefully board wiping an enemy on turn six if you get him in your opening hand. Speaking of opening hands,
Vicious Rumors
is here to start the game off right by milling, forcing a discard, and dealing one damage to each opponent, with the added benefit of starting the game off at 41 life if you're going first. Follow it up with
Goblin Diplomats
to let them know YOU decide who attacks and when, and then on turn three pretend you're playing uno when you make them skip a turn with
Suppress
. Are they still casting too many spells? On your next turn play one of your land destruction cards!
Molten Rain
has the added benefit of dealing 2 damage to remove that pesky two colour they're relying on.
And there you have it! This is only the second version of this deck, and once I have the money I'll be making some major adjustments to it's hostility.
