Ravnica Allegiance was great for clan Rakdos! Time to make some changes..

• Vandalblast -> Bedevil

Flexibility is king in Commander. Blow up anything that Rakdos can blow up!

• Torgaar, Famine Incarnate -> Light Up the Stage

2 cards for one mana? Yes please! Also, Torgaar is a bit of an awkward card. Typically, we've done a huge amount of damage by the time we cast this (presumably with discount from Rakdos's ability). So it turns out to be "win more" most of the time.

• Vial Smasher the Fierce -> Spear Spewer

Damage to summon the king. Vial Smasher was also awkward because we typically don't want to cast spells before getting our mana discount. And by himself, he probably won't help us get any damage.

• Fanatical Firebrand -> Rakdos, the Showstopper

A wrath for only 2 mana that conveniently won't destroy our commander. And let's face it, the variance on this card is what makes it both memorable and so Rakdos! Also, remember that you don't have to play it just because it's in your hand. If you're winning, keep winning...

• Damnable Pact -> Fiery Confluence

Damage to summon the king. 4 mana spent to get an 18 (EIGHTEEN) mana discount!

• Etali, Primal Storm -> Spawn of Mayhem

Damage to summon the king. The Spawn alone can get us a 7 mana discount!

Cool looking deck! How well do you feel this performs? I've been looking for a blend where I can cast demons and eldrazi's in the same deck, and basically cause mayhem to everyone.

Liberty1776 The deck is very scary to play against. It's in my high power folder for good reason. It can easily win a game if it gets a decent opening hand, with a number of significant threats coming down on turns 5-7 or so, which is a bit sooner than many decks are prepared to deal with. There are so many ways to do damage that it's actually not too difficult to keep Rakdos on the field.

Having said that, I've built it to be pretty aggressive, so it can get a bit rough if the game goes longer. I consider it best in a 3-player game, though it certainly works with 4 players as well.

But best of all, it plays like a Rakdos deck.. it's guaranteed to be a hell of a party!

A massive update this time. One that I'm very excited about. Here are the changes:

• Gilded Lotus -> Fanatical Firebrand
• Sword of the Animist -> Swiftfoot Boots
• Mana Crypt -> Thermo-Alchemist
• Neheb, the Eternal -> Pilgrim's Eye
• Abyssal Persecutor -> Coldsteel Heart
• Dire Fleet Ravager -> Rune-Scarred Demon
• Fiery Confluence -> Painful Truths
• Olivia Voldaren -> Goblin Fireslinger
• Damnation -> Damnable Pact
• Steel Hellkite -> It That Betrays
• Bojuka Bog -> Smoldering Marsh
• Oppression -> Artisan of Kozilek
• Rakdos, the Showstopper -> Theater of Horrors
• Sol Ring -> Lobber Crew
• Flame Rift -> Gamble
• Rakdos Charm -> Lotus Petal
• Duplicant -> Walking Ballista
• Scourge of the Throne -> Void Winnower
• Bloodgift Demon -> Mask of Memory
• Kokusho, the Evening Star -> Painful Lesson
• Oblivion Stone -> Necropotence
• Risk Factor -> Dark Ritual
• Whip of Erebos -> Plague Spitter
• Heartless Hidetsugu -> Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip

Overall, the deck is faster and more consistent. Here's a summary of changes by card category:

• direct damage is now at lower cmc
• -1 Ramp
• +1 protection/haste
• +2 tutor
• +5 draw
• +1 anti-control
• -4 Creature removal
• -2 graveyard hate
• -1 discard
• -1 extra attack
• -1 lifegain/recursion
• +1 removal

So the changes overall are lower cmc, more draw and tutor, less creature removal and less utility (graveyard hate, extra attacks, etc.) Overall, the early turn plays to get direct damage and get Rakdos out are far more prevalent. The deck is more aggressive and more focused now, and plays much smoother.

And yes, this is the only deck I have where I've taken out Sol Ring . It's simply better to have only colored mana in order to cast Rakdos as consistently as possible!

Dude, MASSIVE +1 from me!

Question, tho. How do you avoid wipes and counters? Would you run Imp's Mischief or somethin?

Astroaero Well, you can't avoid everything bad :) Wipes aren't necessarily that bad because of the indestructible fatties. Granted, if you're up against 3 control decks, it's obviously gonna be GL HF. Counters are not too bad if you play around them. The blue players have to tap out sometime!

Blue players be like, 2 lands? Psych, Foil lawl

Thank you for the great decklist and keeping it updated ! I'll definitely looking forward to build and play it!

Dude this is the most fun deck I’ve played in a long time, thanks a bunch!

Kirieschki and Fenryr thank you both!

A small tweak:

• Artisan of Kozilek -> Nullstone Gargoyle

Nullstone Gargoyle helps close out the game!

Could you please explain to me how Fiery Confluence is an 18 mana discount? This deck looks really fun to play.

WarSpaniel Fiery Confluence , when you choose 2 damage to each opponent 3 times, does 6 damage to each opponent. Assuming 3 opponents, that's 18 damage.

I've got my own Rakdos deck. It's my favourite!

Sanctum of Ugin is an excellent land to have, since it often means dropping multiple fatties in the same turn. Having many colourless lands can make it difficult to cast Rakdos, but it's very much worth it with this land.

I eventually cut my Terminate for Bedevil and haven't looked back. The extra mana is well worth the flexibility.

Bitterblossom is an excellent source of evasive creatures to be able to cast Rakdos repeatedly. It gives you tons of chump blockers and eventually an army all on its own.

Retreat to Hagra is also a great way to get Rakdos into play by just playing lands. It also gives you a bit of life back and can also pump up some creatures and give them deathtouch occasionally.

I would cut some of your worse card draw spells for Bloodgift Demon. It's another copy of Phyrexian Arena and can also fly in and attack for 5. It also benefits from the Rakdos discount while also remaining playable in the mid game on its own.

Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul are also excellent draw spells. I usually get way more out of it than my opponents do, especially when I can dump my hand, draw a new seven, then dump my hand again.

No Solemn Simulacrum in this deck? It's great when you can cast it for free off Rakdos and it can occasionally get in for some damage to help cast him.

I tried to optimize my deck to get Rakdos out as early as possible (turn 4, sometimes 3). I also run more traditional "pingers" because I have a deathtouch sub-theme as part of my removal suite. Other than that, our lists are really similar. Check it out here

Hi Spell_Slam. You made some great points about your suggested cards. I've had to think quite about each pick to decide if my current selection of cards is better for each one you recommended. Here are my thoughts:

• Sanctum of Ugin is a very narrow tutor with very specific conditions and a very specific set of cards it can find. I currently run the following four tutors that can find any card: Demonic Tutor, Gamble, Rune-Scarred Demon, and Vampiric Tutor. I think these are better choices for a tutor slot.
• I agree with you on Bedevil. It's already in the deck :)
• For "enablers" (cards that help you cast your commander), I prefer straight up guaranteed damage on a card to the repeatable but also conditional damage that Retreat to Hagra offers. The same thinking applies to Bitterblossom. In particular, I've deliberately built my version to be as fast as possible (the MTG concept of tempo is in play here). So I'm wary of waiting a turn for anything to happen with these cards. Considering I only need one point of damage to an opponent to cast my commander, I'd rather cast a card that can immediately enable Rakdos, Lord of Riots to hit the field.
• What's interesting about Bloodgift Demon is that it does multiple things but does those things worse than other cards. Realistically, I'm not going to give an opponent a card for 1 damage to them, so of course I'll be drawing the cards. Thus, in terms of drawing cards it reads "3BB: draw a card next turn and take 1 point of damage". Which doesn't sound that great. Obviously it's also a flying creature and therefore can get the damage needed for our commander. But so can Fanatical Firebrand but it's just 1 mana. For these reasons, I had a hard time justifying Bloodgift Demon in the deck (I've previously played it so I have experience with it). I'm not saying "I'm right" here, just that I've found tjhe deck to be much smoother with low-cmc enablers and high-cmc finishers. The midrange costs of 4, 5, 6 mana are tough slots to fill and REALLY need to justify themselves. This is also the thinking behind me leaving Solemn Simulacrum on the sidelines.
• Regarding Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul, I definitely get what you're saying. I can't say you're wrong at all. For me, this comes down to personal preference. I can't tell you how bad it feels to draw 7 and get not much of anything I need while giving my opponents 21 cards to choose from. I'd rather let my opponents do the work to draw their own cards rather than hand them answers to my board state.

Thanks for your comments. I'm definitely open to further discussion about your suggestions. In particular, if you can recommend cards I might remove to put in the cards you suggested, I think that would help facilitate future discussion. It's find that it's easy to suggest cards but much harder to suggest specific swaps, as often the swap doesn't look so good once you realize what's coming out of the deck.

Hi jpermar. Thanks for getting back to me in such detail. I will try to explain my choices a bit better and suggest what to cut.

For Sanctum of Ugin, it's not about what tutor to swap out for it. It's a tutor on a land, meaning you get extra value out of it for very little investment of your deck space. You can take out a land for it. Being able to Tutor for free for something like Void Winnower or Ulamog after playing a Walking Ballista or some eldrazi is so back-breaking and is often game over.

I totally hear you when it comes to cheap enablers. My own deck has no enablers over the cost of 3. I used to run pretty much exclusively pingers, but I've found that combat is more reliable at getting in damage than people think. That's why I play Bitterblossom as an enabler slot. It can start hitting for damage on turn 4 (early enough for Rakdos) and it's very hard to deal with permanently, since the tokens keep coming. Not only is this a great and reliable enabler, but it also serves as a growing source of damage that can get out of control quickly. I would cut either Fanatical Firebrand, Goblin Fireslinger or Lobber Crew for it.

In the same vein, Insolent Neonate has been a very reliable way to get in damage while also never being a dead card by replacing himself.

I would definitely play Bloodgift Demon over something like Theatre of Horrors or Ancient Craving. 5 power in the air for only 5 mana is a great deal (that can enable Rakdos) and it has the potential to draw you tons of cards over the course of a few turns. I've had many games where the opponent dealt with my pinger or Rakdos, leaving me with fatties I couldn't play. The 5 mana for Bloodgift Demon is easy to get to and allows you to get back into the game by being a fat, flying, card-drawing body.

I hope you found this useful!

Spell_Slam,

I know that a few of my card draw spells may be sub-optimal, simply because they are too much mana (e.g., 4 mana is actually a lot for this deck!). So I'm testing out the following card draw changes:

• Ambition's Cost -> Magmatic Insight
• Ancient Craving -> Thrill of Possibility
• Damnable Pact -> Tormenting Voice
• Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip -> Cathartic Reunion

Obviously these swaps are card advantage -> rummaging (i.e., no card advantage). But we obviously both know that Rakdos plays kinda like a fair combo deck in that what you want to see in your opening hand is 1) 4 mana, 2) an enabler for Rakdos, and 3) a payoff card (eldrazi!). so i'm hopeful these cards will increase the percentage of openers with those combinations of cards.

OK you convinced me enough to do some goldfishing with the following swaps:

• Theater of Horrors -> Bloodgift Demon

I always like it when I can swap a non-creature card for a creature card.

• Spawn of Mayhem -> Bitterblossom

4 cmc cards are awkward due because they conflict with Rakdos having 4 cmc.

Thanks for the great discussion and suggestions!

A very fun deck, thank you for posting! I used to run Rakdos, Lord of Riots, though my deck had a "haste" theme to it, so I ran things like Fervor. I also occasionally used instants like Lightning Bolt as that first domino to get Rakdos going, and I liked its flexibility as removal in case my Rakdos engine was already running. What are your thoughts on that direction? Or have things like Goblin Fireslinger worked better in your experience?

Hi King_of_Bees. Previous iterations of my deck had those elements of haste and spells for direct damage. What I found was problematic about those two things...

Regarding haste, the haste cards themselves took slots away from my current card categories. that's actually a big drawback, because what this deck wants to do is really get the commander on the field and do damage to cast the payoff cards for free. With haste, the big bonus is obviously that you can cast your commander and immediately swing. However, you just actually used all your mana for your commander, so now you don't have any colored mana to cast big fatties after you do damage with rakdos. of course, in theory you could cast eldrazi for free but then again the commander on his own actually does 6 damage, which isn't enough to cast those 10+ cmc spells for free. Now, there is a tiny bit of haste but only if it has crucial protection for our commander (e.g., Lightning Greaves.

Regarding spell direct damage, I found it actually had the same problem as haste. You'll spend some mana on direct damage but then don't have that mana available to cast the commander. So I found creatures to be a much better source of direct damage because you attack to get your damage in and now have all your mana available to cast your commander, cast payoff cards, etc.

Hope that helps!

(whispering_like_Dark_Confidant) You know...with Havoc Festival you wouldn’t need to worry about board wipes... (/whispering_like_Dark_Confidant)

FormOverFunction +1000 for the Dark Confidant flavor :)

Havoc Festival is a card I love and was in an earlier build of this deck. It's definitely on-theme for "The Downward Spiral". Unfortunately, it's not a creature (so we can't cast it for only 2 mana) and this deck now has primarily creature-based damage (due to the incentive from Rakdos, Lord of Riots to play creatures) so we can't really close out a game with spell damage when Havoc Festival is out (e.g,. by casting a spell to damage each opponent. Archfiend of Despair is it's spiritual successor :)

Your math and logic is solid, I just couldn’t help myself! ;p

The reduced casting cost aspect of Rakdos is one of the strongest aspects of my Rakdos Watermark deck, so you’ve got my full support on this plan!

epic

One easy swap:

• Chandra, Torch of Defiance -> Tectonic Giant

We don't want to defend planeswalkers. Tectonic Giant fits the same role but is more durable and can attack.

I know you've already said you're not a huge fan of direct damage via instants/sorceries, but I think Flame Rift should be an exception with how cheap it is and it's massive discount potential.