If your answer was yes to the question above, put this song on loop and start reading!
Introduction
Trying to come up with a description for this deck is impossible, so i'll just put up logs of some games i've had with the deck recently.
T1: Play dual land untapped, pass. End of opponent's turn, Demonic Consultation for Sol Ring. End up exiling majority of deck, 8 Cards left in library.
T2: Play Swamp, Tap 1, Sol Ring, Tap Sol Ring and Swamp, Demonic Tutor. Look through my remaining 7 cards, grab a Rakdos' Return.
T3: Play a Swamp, Tap for 5, play Master of Cruelties. 5 cards remaining in deck.
T4: Draw a card, 4 cards remaining in deck. Attack with Master, Opponent takes. Cast Rakdos for win. Game set and match.
Opponent speaks. "You're crazy dude"
T1: Play swamp, pass. End of opponent's turn, Entomb. Search for It that Betrays.
T2: Play a land. Tap swamp, Reanimate It That Betrays. Lose 12 Life.
T3: Swing. Opp sacs 2, i gain them. Opponent concedes.
T1: Play swamp, tap for Sol Ring.
T2: Play land, Tap for 4, play Dark Ritual, Hellcarver Demon
Swinging randomly for the next three turns leading to a win.
So as you might be able to tell now, this Rakdos deck requires you to have a few screws loose in order to helm effectively, and you need to be a huge risk taker to enjoy it. The deck employs a Demon Tribal with a sacrifice theme in order to pump up big spells and creatures. The deck also contains combos with Hellcarver Demon/Doomsday to surprise kill opponents. When you play this deck, you need to prepare yourself mentally to take risks.
There will also be games where you play Demonic Consultation and lose immediately, play cards like Infernal Contract too much and end up killing yourself, or getting your Rakdos the Defiler killed post attack and pre damage. (Hasn't happened though!). Listen to your gut feeling on whether or not to play a certain card at a certain time, unless of course your gut sucks.
The Creatures
Most of the Demons have a really good cost to effect ratio or allow you to cheat them out via sacrificing or morph etc. I will skip past most of them and just mention the notables.
Master of Cruelties: Makes for a really strong rattlesnake blocker. When you manage to get an attack off with him, finish the game off with Leechridden Swamp, or any of the other spells that do damage.
Sire of Insanity: Acceling into this card early in the game can put your opponents on top-deck mode, allowing you to safely play your commander and go for the win.
Malfegor: Solid mass removal for the deck. Clears the way for cards like Hellcarver Demon to push through, or helps dump creatures into the GY for recursion later.
Hellcarver Demon: 6 free spells each turn, at the cost of losing everything else. Oh yeaaa.
Lord of the Void: Nets you free creatures to use as sacrifice fodder or additional aggro.
Rune-scarred Demon: Free card tutor. Allows us to set up comboes with Doomsday/Hellcarver or accel for Exsanguinate/Rakdos's Return/Death Cloud etc.
Abhorrent Overlord: Our devotion count usually gets up pretty high in this deck, so this card creates a ton of fodder.
Phyrexian Obliterator: Yet another one of those crazy rattlesnakes. Punishes decks that have creatures which "must attack". Usually goes unblocked when attacking and gives a nice bump to devotion.
It That Betrays: The superstar of the deck. Synergizes with everything that makes opponents sac permanents. Resolving a single pox will usually result in the rest of the table scooping. Plays nice with rakdos, lord of riots and rakdos the defiler. Sacrifice-ing it nets more mana than you know what to do with.
Instants and Sorceries
Not going all that much into specifics here.
The accel cards are there to generate enough mana to play something that disrupts your opponents like Sire of Insanity or Rakdos the Defiler, among others. They also fuel Exsanguinate and Death Cloud.
The card draw helps you maintain gas and refuel your hand after discards. They also help you draw into your Doomsday package if played. Lastly they help drop your lifepool down if you plan on playing Repay in Kind.
The tutors help find specific threats that will cause the most disruption or set up combos with Hellcarver and Doomsday. Especially something like Insidious Dreams is perfect to find a wincon for Hellcarver Demon since it puts stuff onto the top of the library.
Lands
I have 36 Lands in the deck along with 7 Mana Accel cards, which puts my effective land count between 39.5 to 40 (the ideal number). The deck runs alot of triple B or even quad B cards, so alot of black producing lands are required. To ensure I am able to do this, I run a comprehensive suite of dual lands (all the good ones)and added in the painlands like mana confluence and city of brass. I run only 1 mountain, to enable my fetchland incase i already have the shockland in field, and 14 swamps.
Hellcarver Demon and Doomsday Combos
Lifeloss Scene: Lich and Repay in Kind. Lich drops your life down to 0. Repay in Kind sets all your opponents life down to yours (since it's the lowest). They drop to 0 and die. Something similar can be done with Necropotence/Master of Cruelties/Pain's Reward, Repay in Kind and Leechridden Swamp. (Abit more complicated with Hellcarver since you can't play exiled lands)
Mana Bomb: Pull cards like Exsanguinate(Or Death Cloud etc)/Burnt Offering/It That Betrays(Or any high cost Demon)/Shallow Grave/Ill-Gotten Gains depending on which pieces you already have available. Dump the creature to GY. Recur it, sac it for mana, cast something like Ill-Gotten Gains to repeat the process until you have enough mana to cause an Exsanguinate kill. If going for death cloud, you can float enough mana to recast the creature after or recur with something like reanimate instead. With a doomsday stack it costs about 8+ predraw to generate up to 20 or so mana. If you have an additional card already in your hand, you can accel up to 30+ mana. Most doomsday stacks have prerequisites like having a card draw in your hand and/or having a SDT.
Demon Rush: Final Fortune/World at War/Insurrection/Abhorrent Overlord/Savage Beating/Lord of the Void. Played with Hellcarver Demon, you gain a 7/7, a 6/6 and 8 1/1s. Then you gain control of all your opponents' creatures. Everything you control gains haste and you gain 2 additional combat phases this turn with double strike, an extra turn, and an additional combat phase for that turn as well. If 4 combat phases aren't enough to bring home the game, you deserve to lose! Remember not to attack with Hellcarver Demon on the remaining combat phases.
I'll post more as I think of them, and please do the same if you have ideas.
What's Next
I've probably missed a ton of good cards that could probably go into the deck. Let me know if you can think of any. As i gain more experience with the deck, i'll continue tweaking cards and posting new synergies and interactions that i find or add. I'll also add more to explanations to the card choices as people ask me questions. More Doomsday/Hellcarver combos will be posted as i play them and learn. Please feel free to question,discuss,critique,flame or disregard as always. Check out my other builds located in the signature below as well!
- Promise of Power + Insurrection
- Tendrils of Agony + Final Fortune
- Mountain + Tainted Peak
- Swamp + Sulfurous Springs
- Bloodgift Demon + World at War
- Rix Mandi, Dungeon Palace + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
- Shivan Gorge + Cabal Coffers
- Moonlight Bargain + Faithless Looting
- Harvester of Souls + Living Death
- Yawgmoth's Will + Past in Flames
- Rakdos, Lord of Riots + Mass Hysteria
- Treacherous Pit-Dweller + Dragon Tempest
- Demon of the Death's Gate + Anger
- Liege of the Pit + Blood Speaker
- Demon of Wailing Agonies + Savage Beating
- Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis + Defiler of Souls
- Sensei's Divining Top + Mana Crypt
- Rakdos Riteknife + Rakdos Signet
- Bitter Ordeal + Talisman of Indulgence
- Culling the Weak + Wheel of Fortune
- Temporal Extortion + Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
- Rakdos's Return + Korthophed, Soul Hoarder
- Heartless Summoning + Gray Merchant of Asphodel
- Temple of Malice + Smoldering Marsh
- Necropotence + Sneak Attack
- Dragon Tempest + Fervor
- Blood Speaker + Whip of Erebos
- Herald of Torment + Mizzix's Mastery
- Exsanguinate + Necromancy
- Forbidden Ritual + Animate Dead
- Leechridden Swamp + Kuro, Pitlord
- Cabal Coffers + Badlands
- Shizo, Death's Storehouse + Foreboding Ruins
- Insurrection + Ancient Tomb
Void
Cauldron Dance
Havoc Demon
Buried Alive
Generator Servant
Grinning Ignus
Flamekin Village
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So your doomsday piles makes sense; gonna look for a firey wmancipation when I can.
but do you have any opinions about say piles with abhorrent overlord and breath of fury? Combined with say emancipation, haste enabler and one more, maybe a lord of the void? Not good enough?
Also, having browsed some chaff lying around, any opinions on urbrask the red praetor? Has a one-sided kismet and fervor stuck to a 4/4 body. Seems good I would have thought.
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I don’t have a lot of the newer cards. Also noticed that I don’t have a lot of ways to make doomsday piles that arnet just lich-repay in kind.
gonna add in grey merchant, world at war. Would like to be able to get those double faces land cards too.
also, no love for goryos vengeance?
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One thing i remember having in an old nin deck was stuffy doll. Good fun all around. If you wanna punish people for drawing cards, its nekusar, the mindrazer you want, i suspect. Nin is more along the lines of board control/group hugs/something along those lines that you'd wanna do.
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e.g. I have a zedruu, the greathearted as a voltron general. Yep, trying to deal 21 damage. I just chucked in a mass of 1-2 cmc aura creature power boosts (like immolation), then depending on what sort of aura it is, i donate the various auras to the vaarious opponents around the table (blue scarab to whoever, since the scarab ends up seeing me as an opponent with blue, zedruu; bravado to the tokens player, and so on). and then beat face (and draw cards/gain life along the way).
You could always try weird things like 'geriatric'-tribal, with zur, the enchanter and a bunch of other old-peeps. Or maybe the lich-themed deck (this is one im trying to build right now).
It's not about what obscure general you use, it's about how you use 'em. I've a rakdos the defiler suicide BR that's seriously awesome to play with. It usually doesn't win, but it always bumps the fun level for everyone, AND cuts the game legnth in half. at least.
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Like some other posters have pointed out, it’s probably not designed specifically for that one general.
In fact, I’d guess that cards from standard sets are only designed for standard. But if it’s possible to twist it to make usable in edh (like just Adding a “each opponent” instead of target opponent), then they’d give it a real shake.
Anyways, I don’t really see it as being so problematic. It’s an old hame with many moving parts. It’s gonna happen, and I don’t think anyone in wizards is that genius-brained enough to figure stuff at this level out to be deliberately ‘planned’
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I'd agree up to an extent; the real problem i see is when those two players meet to play a game with those specific decks.
If players are able to meet each other on a vaguely similar 'expectation of the game', then it doesn't really matter. I have a selenia, dark angel, which has an ~$50 budget, which can combo off and win relatively early, like turns 4-6; and a rakdos the defiler deck that's probably worth over a thousand, with badlands, wheel of fortune, and so on, but it's only a balls-to-the-wall-funsies deck that often loses to itself more than it wins. The budget isn't really a problem; it's the difference between what the players bring to the table that creates the problem.
The 'i win out of nowhere' cards you mentioned, they all have more 'fair' applications. There's the guy who played standard in mirrodin, who's got that green card who just tries to ramp into it, only to land a bunch of lands and some big beaters... but not really game-winning out of nowhere as such. Cards like coalition victory, it literally just wins when it resolves, and there's a tiny window of interaction.
i'm not really for nor against this as a criteria, but the way how i see it, it's the social bit of the format that players really need to be more aware of to make the format work. No banlist will 'fix' EDH for everyone. We have to accept that. As players who like the game, we gotta take responsibility for ourselves and make it work in our local groups where possible. If you don't have a local group, it becomes even more important for us to chat to other players we play with to make it work.
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Sol ring isn’t nearly as bad when it’s thought more of as a “I’m establishing myself as being the furthest ahead and therefore archenemy”, and sculpting interesting play around that.
I think that’s where the argument about sol ring starts to break down. Sure it’s a powerful enabler, but it really isn’t format-warping.
On the other hand, biorhythm and coalition victory can come in and ‘win out of nowhere’. I’m wondering if stuff like mirrodin besieged should also be included on a watchlist for this effect.
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just as mishra's workshop hits all the restricted criteria for vintage; brainstorm for legacy. But each format needs their 'signature' card(s) that help define the format. It just so happens that sol ring is that card for EDH.
....and wait a minute; does sol ring really break all of these points?
• Cause severe resource imbalances (i'd severely debate the qualifier severe)
• Allow players to win out of nowhere (not by itself)
• Prevent players from contributing to the game in a meaningful way. (it's not a hoser)
• Cause other players to feel they must play certain cards, even though they are also problematic. (yes; though on any given game, there's usually some number of other artefacts i'd rather be stealing)
• Are very difficult for other players to interact with, especially if doing so requires dedicated, narrow responses when deck-building. (every colour can deal with artefacts - though mana abilities can't be interacted with easily)
• Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or the specific rules of Commander. (not really?)
• Lead to repetitive game play. (sol ring does this, but in the same way that basic island does.)
I think that many EDH players are a bit too hung up on not having structure to the rules. Maybe a larger emphasis on a social agreement is needed? Maybe as a part of the official rules, before the game starts, players need to describe their deck and what they expect to contribute/expect from the upcoming game.
An aside - I played with randoms one day at the local LGS some months ago, and i started the game by saying that i got a rakdos suicide aggro deck that's somewhat tuned ~75%-90% probably. one other person described their deck as a warrior tribal, another as a nearly unmodified precon, and the 4th kept tightlipped. The table got crushed on turn 3 or 4 by human tribal. By calling it human tribal, it's like he was deliberately hiding the fact that it's a hermit druid combo. the fact that it and najeela are humans is irrelevant.
At that point, everyone's playing the game by the rules, but the 'human tribal' guy was not playing by the spirit of the format, or at least how i saw the format to be. If i want to crush my opponent, i have legacy for that. If i wanna play magical cardboard wizard with a pet lord of tresserhorn who leads my pile of old-school rubbish, i got EDH for that. But if my mates want to play magical cardboard wizards with a more 'serious' bent to it, i'd wanna know so i'd know to choose a gun over a toothpick to the gunfight.
I don't think the banlist is the problem; it's the ideals and principles/philosophy of the format not being well understood by some players.
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