Have you thought about adding Kormus Bell for how it combos with Conspiracy (and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth if you want to add antother card into the mix)? It can make Rakdos much more one-sided with his triggers and the major downside to Kormus Bell, that your swamps are likely to die, is something youre willing to handle anyway in this type of deck.

Filth would be a good addition. Nothing like giving ole Rakdos swampwalk and with urborg there will be swamps to walk on!

Really nice list. I think I'll have to try this deck although it will face a lot of hate in my meta. Currently my Gisela, Blade of Goldnight uses a lot of board wipes and lockdown with enchantments but this list seems a bit more brutal.Good job +1

Choice of Damnations is fun... not the best card, but definitely fun.

May I ask why you do not have Rakdos, Lord of Riots in here? The flavor of both Rakdos' is awesome, but if you're sacrificing permanents you may want a way to cast your creatures for less right? Also if you're playing Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth you may want to look into Cabal Coffers, Crypt Ghast and Magus of the Coffers. They all help fix your mana even if you have few lands. Also, in order to control your opponent, have you looked into cards to make them discard? Rakdos's Return and Triumph of Cruelty? Smokestack and Pox also seem like they would fit in well here.

you could play 35 shadowborn apostles ;-)

Add Assault Suit it would be awesome equipped to Rakdos

I encourage you to try out Sire Of Insanity. Already a good sized demon, the disruption he provides completely changes the game and takes the power away from combo decks or players who try to be too reactive. Note that his ability kicks in the same turn you cast him... no waiting for upkeeps, you can punish people who tap out. I play him in my own Rakdos the Defiler deck and I can attest that Sire followed by Rakdos is enough to finish off most opponents.

I've given a lot of thought to the Sire in the past. I've been hesitant to try him out because I almost always have a decent sized grip with this deck. Part of the strength of what I'm doing is always being able to follow up one big spell with another, and I'm not sure that pitching my hand is the right move towards that end, even though I do like the idea of making my opponents do the same.

Man, this deck is really cool. I've been a bit intimidated to try out the Defiler, but the more decks I see with him at the helm, the more I want to give it a go. I just wish my playgroup wouldn't be so anti-MLD.

At any rate, I'm curious if you've ever explored the use of tokens with Rakdos the Defiler. I tried to put Rakdos the Defiler in the context of my own "Demons & Devils" theme (I run Rakdos, Lord of Riots) and actually had what I think is a neat idea: make Devil tokens as sacrifice fodder for your Defiler swings. They get to deal 1 damage to a target creature or player each when they die, and there are some neat ways to make tons of devil tokens off of some of the devil-token spells such as Devils' Playground or Dance with Devils using stuff like Pyromancer's Goggles (saw a sick deck on MTG Goldfish that ran that). It's pretty clunky but I like the idea of Rakdos harvesting his devil servants in bloodlust as he charges toward the next hapless victim.

Just my own food for thought, but I figured I'd pick your brain regarding the idea.

My very first build of the deck years ago focused on making tokens to sacrifice (Thrulls, Goblins, an so forth) and recurring minions like Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, and Nether Traitor. It was fun, but I slowly gravitated towards the build I have now. The problem I had was that in my meta, the tokens would rarely stick around to be sacrificed, and I was not getting to defile as often, or as favourably, as I wanted to. My solution was to get meaner and punish my opponents more aggressively for trying to disrupt my plan. Rather than trying to avoid sacrificing lands to Rakdos, I just accepted that I would be doing exactly that, and focused on making it even worse for my opponents than it was for me.

Demons as a tribe keep getting better and better as new sets come out (we've come a long way from Lord of the Pit), so falling back on my other minions to just beat face after denying creatures/artifacts/lands to my opponents is actually a reasonable strategy.

I have to say, I really like the flavour of harvesting devils that you're proposing (especially sine they do a damage when they die). I think a build that focuses heavily on duplicating devil spells would be really fun (make sure to include Burn at the Stake)... I'd just be prepared for those moments when you try to attack with Rakdos and someone uses Golgari Charm to kill all your devils before you can sacrifice them, so you have to sacrifice your lands instead.

For sure, the blowout potential is slightly off-putting, and I think that it is smarter to go with your strategy of embracing the drawback and maximizing your offensive capability rather than constantly worrying about damage control. Burn at the Stake sounds absolutely delicious though, and I'll need to consider it if I ever decide to try Rakdos the Defiler out with a Devil-token based strategy.

Thanks for the input and for putting this decklist out there. I'll keep it on my radar and send any suggestions your way should I have any in the future.

Thanks man, keep in touch. Always happy to trade tech. Good luck!