Hello all, this is my first Rakdos deck. I don't have full Hero's Downfall, more Blood Crypts, or Thoughtseize yet, but will get them later on this week before FNM. I want to make it hybrid Rakdos control, so any help would be appreciated
Your deck lacks focus. Rakdos is an extremely greedy color base. The last thing you need is multiple colorless lands. Even in a master of cruelties centric deck, 2-3 rogue's passage do NOT belong. One can be played if you want it that badly (but isn't necessary usually on the count that a RB controllish deck will be shooting down would be blockers on account of them also being threats) but no more than that. In fact, either master of cruelties belongs because you've already decided that you want to make it the core of your deck or most of your deck doesn't belong because master of cruelties isn't so impressive when it takes the opponent from 5 life down to 1 and can't even deal the last damage. Spark jolt does not even belong in the sideboard. The OP says control in which case it has no use but a vast majority of what the deck list is disagrees with that noted want. Connections is also dependent upon which direction you go.
At the end of the day, what you need to do is decide. Do you want to be aggro? Or do you want to be some kind of controllish deck that centers around master of cruelties? If you want aggro, the top of your curve should probably be exava, rakdos bloodwitch with lots of quick and small creatures to curve up to, plus burn and removal. If you want to be more control, do you want a master of cruelties base or some kind of midrange deck though I don't think Rakdos is the best color combination for this? Either way, if you want control, all those little creatures that come in quickly but don't block well don't belong and should be exchanged in favor of kill, burn, hand hate... things to help you deal with threats and gain control of the game. So what do you want to do?
Oh joy. Here we go again. "You've played this deck for a year and it worked." But don't trust me, battery. See the analysis and then decide. Or test it out with your friends and see how often rogue's passage makes a difference to whether you win or lose. I'm not counting cases where you've already won anyway and all it changes is whether that sylvan caryatid gets to chump block for a turn or not before you finish the job. I'm talking about when it actually changes who wins and who loses.
A cmc 5 creature that has to hit the opponent and cannot finish the job, requiring help. Is it worth playing a colorless land that requires you to pay 4 to make it unblockable (5 if you count that the land itself has to tap but not for mana). So that's 3 pieces without a piece dying in a deck that cannot protect it aside having some hand hate and suggesting adding some lands to provide unblockability... in a deck that should be shooting down every threat in sight which tends to include almost anything that could block. Let's see what else would win given such a magical christmasland position. Perhaps Kalonian hydra with a couple corpsejack menace. I could list more but I'd get off topic a bit. These are the requirements for what makes this idea work.
You must live to turn 6+ or whenever the pieces come together.
You must have a resolved 5 drop that lives after a turn.
You must have a rogue's passage.
The opponent must actually have a field for rogue's passage to serve any purpose. Otherwise, it is a pointless card.
The opponent must not already be dead.
You muse have a card to kill the opponent afterwards.
So what's the important bit here? The opponent must actually have a field for rogue's passage to be worth anything. And you must live to turn 6+ or whenever you have dug out master of cruelties. Rakdos is not exactly adept at digging specific cards out of the deck without killing itself, meaning this could take a while. So how will it happen? Why, it must happen because you sat back and controlled the game. But how did you do it? Was it by playing a midrange game, killing their early stuff and dropping fatties that they couldn't punch through? No because if you did, then the opponent would barely have a field and would get killed by the desecration demons, stormbreath dragons, and whatnot long before master came into play on average. There would be no need to play it and the opponent would have little to no field. It would also be counter-intuitive since the fatties would already have hit the opponent down. A master hitting the opponent from 20 down to 1 is nice. Hitting them down from 8 to 1... not so cool looking given that a desecration demon hits one more time and a burn still finishes the job, no different from if you hadn't played the master other than that the desecration demon can finish the job himself.
So that narrows the possibilities down. You have to be playing control to legitimize master of cruelties and rogue's passage plus a burn. But if you do that, how are you controlling? You hand hate some cards out of their hand and you kill their stuff. But if you kill their stuff, you never needed to play rogue's passage. There's already no blockers or not too many. Maybe a sylvan caryatid or two. But this also means something else. If you're playing control, most of the opponent's removal is left in their hand without an outlet to be used on. And if that's the case, the master of cruelties seems unlikely to live.
So tell me. Do you think master of cruelties and rogue's passage will work together in practice where one reliably works well with and needs the other?
I played my friend who runs mono green aggro and Master of Cruelties won me one out of about ten or twelve games. More often than not, I've killed him with Desecration Demon and early hits with haste. However, I haven't had a chance to bring out Rakdos. I am going to put in the Thoughtseizes when I get them later on this week for hand control, and two more Hero's Downfall. I also have Rakdos Return coming my way.
Honestly, I have the scrying cards because scrying is helpful for the mana screw/flood that inevitably happens each first hand, but I'm willing to take them out for more control cards like Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall, possibly another Doom Blade.
I don't know if I'll be able to get even 1 Stormbreath Dragon in time for FNM. But it looks pretty awesome and I can try to get it before then.
Then I'll in turn ask you this. Do you want to focus on master of cruelties? If you do, then most of the list should go. If you don't, then ditch it and choose whether you want to play semi-midrange or rakdos blitz which you seems to be kind of in between at the moment.
Passage works wheather or not you play cruelties or not, the problem with nev is he's all about stats, he has no experience in the field (pun intended) he's right when he say that your inbetween the two but Master can work in both decks
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"Passage works whether you play cruelties or not". This is completely incorrect unless you're looking to play a deck that doesn't need master of cruelties. If you are playing passage, to be effective, you must meet the following conditions.
You must have a creature that's worth hitting them with that needs assistance to do so.
The opponent must have blockers.
You need to get to 5 lands.
Your opponent must be alive.
So if you're planning to get to 5 lands, aggro is out. Not to mention they don't need a 4 (5) cmc evasion aid.
Midrange is out on account that your best midrange creatures (desecration demon, stormbreath dragon, etc) don't need the evasion.
And control brings us back to... master of cruelties if you like that route or some more fatties that function on their own.
I may not have played this deck myself but I am not so deluded as to think that claims that it has been done successfully are legitimate. Rather, I see several main possibilities. One, your opponents generally play bad decks. Two, your opponents are generally bad players. Three, your successes are exaggerated. This is because you seem to have the idea in your head that that argument will fly, falling back on it, not providing any attempt at refuting it from a logical standpoint of your own, something that anyone who has played it successfully in a decent meta can provide. It comes with the package. If you're a decent player, things that work can be logically reasoned out. You don't have to test both shock and lightning bolt to tell that lightning bolt is better than shock. You don't have to test to know that Aetherling is hard to kill unless you have the right answers (ie, stuff like pithing needle though slowing and racing it is a much more typical way to deal with the issue). And similarly, you don't have to test to know that the idea that rogue's passage works in a deck that plays master of cruelties even without master of cruelties in play is bogus because if you're doing that, you're trying to push through damage in a deck that doesn't need to push through damage except for master and that last burn or whatever way the last damage is being dealt. The part about shooting all their stuff down aside, playing other creatures that are worth pushing through with rogue's passage means that they have to be doing some heavy damage, something that's negatively synergistic with master of cruelties and making it a glorified blocker when it comes into play. It requires about as much testing as suggesting that white weenie should splash blue for supreme verdict. I have not tested this particular deck. I do, however, have common sense.
The beauty is that rouge's passage can be used on any creature it does not matter what creature you use it on, you can't say aggro is out aggro needs passage for the "he survived 5 turns and his stable" aspect plus world eater is a thing. it's really good against midrange which plages the meta. I'm done arguing with with you on another topic that your wrong on
Sorry revenge for arguing on your forum, rouges passage is a card you need
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"The beauty is that rouge's passage can be used on any creature it does not matter what creature you use it on, you can't say aggro is out aggro needs passage for the "he survived 5 turns and his stable" meaning we're duct taping over our deck not working and for some reason playing master of cruelties in a deck that should have the opponent at zero if we're doing out job. And if we're not, we've simply accomplished having a cmc 5 card that doesn't contribute to our main strategy. Not to mention that we're for some reason playing a card that drops the opponent's life to 1 late in a deck that's geared to drop the opponent's life to zero quickly."
How low will the opponent be if we're doing out strategy right? If it is more than 5, we're doing something horribly wrong. But this begs the question. What's the difference between having master of cruelties and having something like exava instead? Exava would accomplish the same thing. One unblockable swing and a burn. But wait. Exava actually works with the curve, has haste, and can land the finishing blow itself. Master of cruelties cannot. In fact, do you know what would finish things more surely and quicker than master of cruelties, rogue's passage, and a burn given an aggro strategy that's even kind of doing its thing? Three lightning strikes. And guess what else? They actually fit with your gameplan, being able to burn away things so your spike jester can roll in for that same 3 damage, only that you got rid of a blocker in the process.
So I'll clarify what I was saying earlier. I don't like rogue's passage in aggro but I guess you can cram it in if you want. However, master of cruelties does not belong at all, being counter-intuitive to the flow of the deck, the main win condition, and the curve. So as a pair, they do not belong in aggro.
You go on to talk about "the meta" which is kind of... yours and not the OP's. So that notion is bogus. Might actually be midrange infested, might not. Unless of course Battery plays at your LGS.
And I don't really mind. By all means continue. At least in the process of poking holes in things, I explain the logic behind it whereas you just fall back on "I tried it. I'm right. You're wrong. I can't even explain why it works but I'm right." styled silliness.
I'd have to agree with Nev here. If we are living in a world where MoC is sitting on the battlefield for a turn or two and doesn't get removed you don't need rogues passage to get him through. Why not something like madcap skills that costs 2 instead of the 5 mana activation on passage to allow you the open mana to burn them out the same turn. Chances are they only have one blocker anyway and if they have more, the combo of deathtouch and first strike wipes their board if they are trying to prevent MoC from getting in plus madcap can help your other guys get more damage in earlier too.
I know two people in my LGS that plays the MoC/Passage combo. In the past two months since rotation they've been placing at the bottom of the rankings. The meta has changed frequently in the short time, but their results have been the same. Last week they've finally changed their decks because it just doesn't work in this meta.
Put me down in the zero Rogue's Passage camp as well. I'm not really fond of Master of Cruelties as a Win Condition either because he can't really win you the game. Running multiple copies of Rogue's Passage to facilitate a creature that's somewhat vulnerable to removal seems less than ideal.
The mana for Rakdos is pretty bad as well. I'd much prefer Mutavaults to Rogue's Passage. I don't think Rakdos can support more than 4 colourless sources unless you straight up just add the colourless sources in place of spells and I don't really like that idea either.
Like I said before, "Mr. Experience", experience means you should be able to back it up. So back it up. Also, your meta is not the OP's meta which is not TBuzzsaw's meta unless you happen to be going to the same tournaments or LGS which I sort of doubt.
And Madcap skills works in typical rakdos aggro. If you're playing aggro, there's no need for master of cruelties as exava will get the job done but a turn or two faster while being less taxing on the mana base. Of course, this sort of deck is color hungry and does not need, nor want to get to 5 lands and thus rogue's passage is not the way to go. Neither master nor passage belong.
Whereas in a deck dedicated to master of cruelties, you don't need a card like madcap skills because you won't be attacking with a bazillion other creatures because master doesn't do anything the turn it drops and doesn't allow anything else to attack the turn it does, proceeding to still not do anything aside block while you burn them or wait for a burn. So a card exclusively for master would be bad. At least rogue's passage is uncounterable and would double as a land.
And then there's the third case where you try to cram master of cruelties and rogue's passage into the first case and call it "good" based upon invisible experience that he can't back up (but would have logical explanation and or examples of game progression to show if he did), trying to denounce others on their "lack of experience" which he can't actually determine either. Of course, on the play, you have just a 27% chance to draw at least one of four (I dunno how many you play but I used a 4 count for the percentages) master of cruelties and at least one of the three rogue's passage at the earliest turn you could use them. If you're on the draw, it'll be roughly 35%. So unless your plan is to win in the first 5 turns with a bunch of dead cards and then cross your fingers to draw what you wanted and not get slammed by some removal and that after that you could push through the last bit of damage (which by the way makes your entire starting plays' work completely overlapping with the last little bit as master plus passage plus burn would still equal the same result)...
Apparently saying that you've won with it in absence of explaining matters more than logic and the guy who noted the two guys that tried the same and flopped. So how about we go past the point of me explaining why things don't work and you having the idea that asserting that a circle is a square is proven by saying more times? How about an explanation, a decklist, some actual play outs from both sides where it meshed with your strategy well? Or perhaps just the latter two if you're so adverse to explanations?
Thanks!
Rakdos, Lord of Riots
2 Thrill-Kill Assassin
4 Spike Jester
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Rakdos Shred-Freak
2 Lifebane Zombie
3 Desecration Demon
2 Act of Treason
3 Titan's Strength
3 Magma Jet
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Spark Jolt
Blood Crypt
3 Rakdos Guildgate
10 Mountain
10 Swamp
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At the end of the day, what you need to do is decide. Do you want to be aggro? Or do you want to be some kind of controllish deck that centers around master of cruelties? If you want aggro, the top of your curve should probably be exava, rakdos bloodwitch with lots of quick and small creatures to curve up to, plus burn and removal. If you want to be more control, do you want a master of cruelties base or some kind of midrange deck though I don't think Rakdos is the best color combination for this? Either way, if you want control, all those little creatures that come in quickly but don't block well don't belong and should be exchanged in favor of kill, burn, hand hate... things to help you deal with threats and gain control of the game. So what do you want to do?
DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS I played this deck for over a year and it worked amazing with this deck, it wins games passage is a boss with cruelties
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A cmc 5 creature that has to hit the opponent and cannot finish the job, requiring help. Is it worth playing a colorless land that requires you to pay 4 to make it unblockable (5 if you count that the land itself has to tap but not for mana). So that's 3 pieces without a piece dying in a deck that cannot protect it aside having some hand hate and suggesting adding some lands to provide unblockability... in a deck that should be shooting down every threat in sight which tends to include almost anything that could block. Let's see what else would win given such a magical christmasland position. Perhaps Kalonian hydra with a couple corpsejack menace. I could list more but I'd get off topic a bit. These are the requirements for what makes this idea work.
You must live to turn 6+ or whenever the pieces come together.
You must have a resolved 5 drop that lives after a turn.
You must have a rogue's passage.
The opponent must actually have a field for rogue's passage to serve any purpose. Otherwise, it is a pointless card.
The opponent must not already be dead.
You muse have a card to kill the opponent afterwards.
So what's the important bit here? The opponent must actually have a field for rogue's passage to be worth anything. And you must live to turn 6+ or whenever you have dug out master of cruelties. Rakdos is not exactly adept at digging specific cards out of the deck without killing itself, meaning this could take a while. So how will it happen? Why, it must happen because you sat back and controlled the game. But how did you do it? Was it by playing a midrange game, killing their early stuff and dropping fatties that they couldn't punch through? No because if you did, then the opponent would barely have a field and would get killed by the desecration demons, stormbreath dragons, and whatnot long before master came into play on average. There would be no need to play it and the opponent would have little to no field. It would also be counter-intuitive since the fatties would already have hit the opponent down. A master hitting the opponent from 20 down to 1 is nice. Hitting them down from 8 to 1... not so cool looking given that a desecration demon hits one more time and a burn still finishes the job, no different from if you hadn't played the master other than that the desecration demon can finish the job himself.
So that narrows the possibilities down. You have to be playing control to legitimize master of cruelties and rogue's passage plus a burn. But if you do that, how are you controlling? You hand hate some cards out of their hand and you kill their stuff. But if you kill their stuff, you never needed to play rogue's passage. There's already no blockers or not too many. Maybe a sylvan caryatid or two. But this also means something else. If you're playing control, most of the opponent's removal is left in their hand without an outlet to be used on. And if that's the case, the master of cruelties seems unlikely to live.
So tell me. Do you think master of cruelties and rogue's passage will work together in practice where one reliably works well with and needs the other?
Honestly, I have the scrying cards because scrying is helpful for the mana screw/flood that inevitably happens each first hand, but I'm willing to take them out for more control cards like Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall, possibly another Doom Blade.
I don't know if I'll be able to get even 1 Stormbreath Dragon in time for FNM. But it looks pretty awesome and I can try to get it before then.
If you have a budget, you shouldn't play magic competitively
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You must have a creature that's worth hitting them with that needs assistance to do so.
The opponent must have blockers.
You need to get to 5 lands.
Your opponent must be alive.
So if you're planning to get to 5 lands, aggro is out. Not to mention they don't need a 4 (5) cmc evasion aid.
Midrange is out on account that your best midrange creatures (desecration demon, stormbreath dragon, etc) don't need the evasion.
And control brings us back to... master of cruelties if you like that route or some more fatties that function on their own.
I may not have played this deck myself but I am not so deluded as to think that claims that it has been done successfully are legitimate. Rather, I see several main possibilities. One, your opponents generally play bad decks. Two, your opponents are generally bad players. Three, your successes are exaggerated. This is because you seem to have the idea in your head that that argument will fly, falling back on it, not providing any attempt at refuting it from a logical standpoint of your own, something that anyone who has played it successfully in a decent meta can provide. It comes with the package. If you're a decent player, things that work can be logically reasoned out. You don't have to test both shock and lightning bolt to tell that lightning bolt is better than shock. You don't have to test to know that Aetherling is hard to kill unless you have the right answers (ie, stuff like pithing needle though slowing and racing it is a much more typical way to deal with the issue). And similarly, you don't have to test to know that the idea that rogue's passage works in a deck that plays master of cruelties even without master of cruelties in play is bogus because if you're doing that, you're trying to push through damage in a deck that doesn't need to push through damage except for master and that last burn or whatever way the last damage is being dealt. The part about shooting all their stuff down aside, playing other creatures that are worth pushing through with rogue's passage means that they have to be doing some heavy damage, something that's negatively synergistic with master of cruelties and making it a glorified blocker when it comes into play. It requires about as much testing as suggesting that white weenie should splash blue for supreme verdict. I have not tested this particular deck. I do, however, have common sense.
Sorry revenge for arguing on your forum, rouges passage is a card you need
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How low will the opponent be if we're doing out strategy right? If it is more than 5, we're doing something horribly wrong. But this begs the question. What's the difference between having master of cruelties and having something like exava instead? Exava would accomplish the same thing. One unblockable swing and a burn. But wait. Exava actually works with the curve, has haste, and can land the finishing blow itself. Master of cruelties cannot. In fact, do you know what would finish things more surely and quicker than master of cruelties, rogue's passage, and a burn given an aggro strategy that's even kind of doing its thing? Three lightning strikes. And guess what else? They actually fit with your gameplan, being able to burn away things so your spike jester can roll in for that same 3 damage, only that you got rid of a blocker in the process.
So I'll clarify what I was saying earlier. I don't like rogue's passage in aggro but I guess you can cram it in if you want. However, master of cruelties does not belong at all, being counter-intuitive to the flow of the deck, the main win condition, and the curve. So as a pair, they do not belong in aggro.
You go on to talk about "the meta" which is kind of... yours and not the OP's. So that notion is bogus. Might actually be midrange infested, might not. Unless of course Battery plays at your LGS.
And I don't really mind. By all means continue. At least in the process of poking holes in things, I explain the logic behind it whereas you just fall back on "I tried it. I'm right. You're wrong. I can't even explain why it works but I'm right." styled silliness.
If you have a budget, you shouldn't play magic competitively
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If you have a budget, you shouldn't play magic competitively
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Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
The world is on fire
and you are here to stay and burn with me.
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The mana for Rakdos is pretty bad as well. I'd much prefer Mutavaults to Rogue's Passage. I don't think Rakdos can support more than 4 colourless sources unless you straight up just add the colourless sources in place of spells and I don't really like that idea either.
And Madcap skills works in typical rakdos aggro. If you're playing aggro, there's no need for master of cruelties as exava will get the job done but a turn or two faster while being less taxing on the mana base. Of course, this sort of deck is color hungry and does not need, nor want to get to 5 lands and thus rogue's passage is not the way to go. Neither master nor passage belong.
Whereas in a deck dedicated to master of cruelties, you don't need a card like madcap skills because you won't be attacking with a bazillion other creatures because master doesn't do anything the turn it drops and doesn't allow anything else to attack the turn it does, proceeding to still not do anything aside block while you burn them or wait for a burn. So a card exclusively for master would be bad. At least rogue's passage is uncounterable and would double as a land.
And then there's the third case where you try to cram master of cruelties and rogue's passage into the first case and call it "good" based upon invisible experience that he can't back up (but would have logical explanation and or examples of game progression to show if he did), trying to denounce others on their "lack of experience" which he can't actually determine either. Of course, on the play, you have just a 27% chance to draw at least one of four (I dunno how many you play but I used a 4 count for the percentages) master of cruelties and at least one of the three rogue's passage at the earliest turn you could use them. If you're on the draw, it'll be roughly 35%. So unless your plan is to win in the first 5 turns with a bunch of dead cards and then cross your fingers to draw what you wanted and not get slammed by some removal and that after that you could push through the last bit of damage (which by the way makes your entire starting plays' work completely overlapping with the last little bit as master plus passage plus burn would still equal the same result)...
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Please refrain from calling other users stupid. Infraction for flaming. -rujasu
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