Rakdos: Threat or Menace?

Pioneer Aggro BR (Rakdos) Budget Casual

Scallywallwest

Creature (26)

• 3x Hunted Nightmare
• 3x Insolent Neonate
• 2x Judith, the Scourge Diva
• 3x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
• 4x Labyrinth Raptor
• 3x Sin Prodder
• 3x Sonorous Howlbonder
• 4x Stormfist Crusader
• 1x Terror of the Peaks

Land (21)

• 2x Castle Embereth
• 2x Fabled Passage
• 7x Mountain
• 2x Smoldering Marsh
• 8x Swamp

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Angrath, the Flame-Chained

Artifact (1)

• 1x Embercleave

Instant (6)

• 2x Burn Bright
• 4x Fatal Push

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Rakdos's Return
• 2x Tentative Connection

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Theater of Horrors

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Sideboard

Sorcery (8)

• 3x Despise
• 3x Duress
• 2x Tentative Connection

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Chandra, Awakened Inferno

Instant (3)

• 3x Smelt

Artifact (3)

• 3x Tormod's Crypt

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I love Spidey. Have since I was teeny-tiny. I'm pretty sure the original colors of his costume were red and black, blue used for lighting effects...so that fits!! :D

Rakdos: Threat or Menace? is a budget, somewhat collaborative effort, meant to be played within our playgroup, so it's mainly casual. In this deck, menace matters. A lot. Our key pieces here are Labyrinth Raptor and Sonorous Howlbonder. These help boost our menace creatures and makes it quite annoying for the opposing player.

Menace Matters -- Our Strat Does, Too

Utilizing the boost gotten from Ikoria for menace, here is a budget Pioneer deck. Our goal is to play lots of smaller creatures with menace, then get Sonorous Howlbonder onto the field for maximum menace effect. The top of our curve is 2 and 3 drops (with Angrath at five, although he doesn't really count, plus Embercleave is reduced), meaning we can keep our land count nice and low.

Once you start playing your menace creatures, you usually want to make sure that a Raptor is on the field. This way, you can start pumping your menace creatures until they are a force to reckon with. The same goes for Castle Embereth. As long as you can get your menace synergies online, you're good to go. Also, a potential win. To finish our opponents off, we run 3 copies of Burn Bright, greatly increasing our damage output, plus 1 copy of Rakdos's Return when we have extra mana and want to go the extra mile. :)

Card Advantage and Removal

For card advantage, we have mostly creatures like Stormfist Crusader and Sin Prodder. Along with this, we also run 2 copies of Theater of Horrors. This helps us keep tapping into gas and keeping up with our opponents. Also, just imagine this: A Stormfist Crusader on the board. You recently played a Sin Prodder, and have a Theater of Horrors as well. Your upkeep rolls around, and, well, let's just say...you have a lot of options. ;)

As for removal, we run 4 copies of Fatal Push. I originally had Dreadbore, but here is what I noticed--mana cost, speed, etc.

• Fatal Push is less money. Dreadbore costs about $4-5, whereas Fatal Push can easily be found for about $3.

• Fatal Push is less mana-intensive. It doesn't cost a Black and a Red, making it much easier to cast.

• Fatal Push goes off at instant speed, so I don't have to waste my mana on a turn where I should be doing something more important.

Sideboard Choices and Strange Inclusions

Smelt is for when we face artifact heavy decks, or just decks that run some powerful ones to boost itself.

Duress/Despise can help against many kinds of decks. These cards help shut down spells matter decks, with their key instants/sorceries, as well as combats Dimir Inverter decks, which are a pretty hot topic in the metagame.

Tentative Connection. Why is this card in my sideboard? I run 2 in the main deck. If I'm playing against a creature-heavy deck, then I can swap these in when I need to.

Tormod's Crypt is to get rid of graveyard strategies and shut down combos of that kind.

Chandra, Awakened Inferno: Good against control decks, can be added in when we know we are gonna be playing a particularly grindy game.

As for stranger cards to include in the deck, let's start off with Angrath, the Flame-Chained. Angrath is helpful for emptying our opponents hands and dealing them extra damage. This can easily finish off an opponent with a low life total. His second ability allows us to gain control of a creature of our choice, effectively turning a creature against our opponent... until end of turn. If it is a handy low-cost creature, all we do is sacrifice it, getting around indestructible and just generally annoying. His ultimate is wonderful if we can reach it. Since they'll be discarding and sacrificing because of the Raptor, this can easily finish off an opponent.

Terror of the Peaks: Just a really good card, it's a great finisher, and it sends our opponents this message: YOU ARE DED. CONCEDE NOW.

Embercleave--it's a great card, helps us get in more damage, cost is reduced. 'Nuf said.

Weaknesses of the Deck...And Tips for Playing

So...every deck has weaknesses. This one doesn't have that many, I like to think. First of all: this is not a super fast deck. It can definitely keep up with aggro decks. It can also most of the time beat control decks. However, if you don't get both a turn one and two play, you may fall behind...basically, you need a balanced hand. About 2-3 lands, hopefully a 1-drop, definitely a 2-drop, and if you're lucky, a 3-drop or a Fatal Push. This deck will not, I repeat will not, fare well in modern. It's just too slow there, and becomes more of a midrange deck that doesn't want to be midrange. When sideboarding, you almost always want to sideboard in a Despise or Duress just to slow your opponent down and keep yourself going. I just wanted to add this section to address these things, but it just turned into me talking about tips for playing the deck, so..I guess one more tip: DON'T ALWAYS EXPECT TO WIN!! Expect to get close to winning, having a good time, and making it fun for your opponent to strategize. You do want to win, yes, but this can be a super janky deck to play. The real goal here is to entertain yourself and your opponent, to create and interesting and interactive atmosphere. So with that, I guess we'll end this.

Saving up for a second Embercleave...hopefully I'll have enough money after I buy Zendikar, Jumpstart, and whatever other boosters come out... Also was able to get my hands on two Fabled Passages, a Terror of the Peaks, and a Chandra, Awakened Inferno. Added them in to give the deck some more threats/finishers..

Please upvote and comment if you have the time, and have a nice day!! :D

Top Ranked	Achieved #14 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Pioneer 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	U
Legality	This deck is Pioneer legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 1 Mythic Rares 25 - 0 Rares 9 - 6 Uncommons 7 - 8 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.56
Tokens	Emblem Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Ragavan
Folders	Oooh this is interesting! May play!, pioneer, Decks I OWN