MTG Salvation

Mana Upgrade:

Just didn't have time to cast Sunbirds: Sower goes in as a way to kill the table faster.

I have a Geode Golem but cannot decide what to axe for it.

My top two recommendations would be Demon of Wailing Agonies, which is pretty meh without Rakdos, and Combustible Gearhulk, which seems more burn-y than stax-y.
Other options include Corpse Augur which seems underwhelming without a sac outlet, and Stoneshaker Shaman which is a 3 drop that doesn't enable Rakdos.
I might be able to suggest more, but I can't see the noncteature part of your deck since I'm on mobile.

Sure, I'll go with your suggestion: I'll have to feel it out with more games to figure out if it should be Gearhulk or Augur or whatever. The Gearhulk is just to help me refill my hand, as most people don't want to eat random damage. In my meta Gearhulk practically reads "Draw 3" and that's before you consider my deck's ridiculous average CMC. Corpse Augur is also fuel, dies from blocking, being blocked or getting wrathed. The Stoneshaker Shaman is just a stax piece to hurts decks that try to keep interaction open.

Well, looks like Doom Whisperer needs to go in. Draw on a pushed, evasive body.

It's not draw per se, just card filtering. But it's still quite powerful.
Have you thought of Archfiend of Despair? Wound Reflection + Tainted Remedy is great to have on a giant body.

hrrrm ritual of soot seems like it may be a auto include but you do have 11 small fry that do help the overall plan dunno

Quote from shermanido37 »

It's not draw per se, just card filtering. But it's still quite powerful.
Have you thought of Archfiend of Despair? Wound Reflection + Tainted Remedy is great to have on a giant body.

Yeah, the Archfiend is in the deck. It's bloody nonsense; it's so good I'm thinking it should go in a lot more of my B/X decks.

Quote from EonAon »

hrrrm ritual of soot seems like it may be a auto include but you do have 11 small fry that do help the overall plan dunno

I don't have time for Ritual of Soot.

Doom Whisperer is so far the only card I am interested from Ravnica at this time.

The Haunt of Hightower looks to be within Rakdos' wheelhouse but I don't what I would cut for it. It is just another wincon; not a Stax piece to protect Rakdos. Though I have been thinking as of late to slow the deck down and put in more protective elements; such as, Undying Evil, Rush of Vitality or Without Weakness. I've put in a bunch of these types of cards in my Ruric Thar, the Unbowed and the blowouts have been unreal. The decks are pretty similar in that I land an obnoxious Commander and try to win before they can be answered.

With Spectacle now being defined as 'You may cast this if an opponent took damage this turn', it seems like there is going to be a host of cards for Rakdos. Rafter Demon can help Rakdos come down for his second cast or the Rafter can disrupt my opponents. I don't think it'll make the cut but I'm sure there's going to be some kind of obnoxious Spectacle Creature that Rakdos is going to want.

I think Rix Maadi Reveler is much more interesting for you. It's more of refilling your hand for a pretty easy cost.

You're probably right. I'm too attached to find an obvious cut. What looks weak to you?

Stoneshaker Shaman seems kinda meh. Without a sac outlet, how useful has Corpse Augur been? Feels like it could go.

Also, a card that just came up to me that could be an all star in your deck, is Soul of New Phyrexia. The worst thing about having your stax pieces be creatures is that they die really easily, and because they're so fat and expensive it's a hassle to rebuild your board. SONP can be payed for entirely by Rakdos's ability, and protects your board both when he's on the board and when he's in the yard. You can even discard him to Tortured Existence in order to user his ability in a pinch.
Cuts for him are tough, though. Ulamog's Crusher is probably still great but feels clunky because of the "must attack" clause. Etali, Primal Storm seems like it could either be amazing or useless, so maybe it could go.

EDIT: Several more suggestions:

The new Risk Factor seems strong in your deck. Much better than Browbeat since the choice is narrowed down to a single player, and since it can convert a dead card to be a copy of it. Giving your opponent the choice between giving you cards or enabling Rakdos seems like "a rock and a hard spot" choice for them.

With this new discard tech Garna, the Bloodflame becomes considerable - and I haven't seen your opinion of this card. Not only it represents wrath recovery similar to SONP, which is your biggest weakness, but it also recovers all creatures you discarded and such. Both cards require you leave 5 mana open, both have additional advantages.

With more colorless creatures Neheb, the Eternal becomes more viable to return, perhaps along with Steel Hellkite and Sandstone Oracle, and maybe even Kozilek, the Great Distortion.

I'll take the opportunity to remind you of my pet cards Underworld Cerberus and Pain Magnification.


Additional possible cuts: Graveyard Muse, Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Erebos, God of the Dead (more colorless means less devotion), Tunelling Geopede (your only enabler that's reliant on lands).

Nice Primer man. Im thinking of making a more casual non staxy version and your list looks quite helpful. Thoughts on Spawn of Mayhem?

Edit: Also wondering your thoughts on Dread Cacodemon.

Spear Spewer is an auto include

Quote from shermanido37 »

Stoneshaker Shaman seems kinda meh. Without a sac outlet, how useful has Corpse Augur been? Feels like it could go.

Also, a card that just came up to me that could be an all star in your deck, is Soul of New Phyrexia. The worst thing about having your stax pieces be creatures is that they die really easily, and because they're so fat and expensive it's a hassle to rebuild your board. SONP can be payed for entirely by Rakdos's ability, and protects your board both when he's on the board and when he's in the yard. You can even discard him to Tortured Existence in order to user his ability in a pinch.
Cuts for him are tough, though. Ulamog's Crusher is probably still great but feels clunky because of the "must attack" clause. Etali, Primal Storm seems like it could either be amazing or useless, so maybe it could go.

EDIT: Several more suggestions:

The new Risk Factor seems strong in your deck. Much better than Browbeat since the choice is narrowed down to a single player, and since it can convert a dead card to be a copy of it. Giving your opponent the choice between giving you cards or enabling Rakdos seems like "a rock and a hard spot" choice for them.

With this new discard tech Garna, the Bloodflame becomes considerable - and I haven't seen your opinion of this card. Not only it represents wrath recovery similar to SONP, which is your biggest weakness, but it also recovers all creatures you discarded and such. Both cards require you leave 5 mana open, both have additional advantages.

With more colorless creatures Neheb, the Eternal becomes more viable to return, perhaps along with Steel Hellkite and Sandstone Oracle, and maybe even Kozilek, the Great Distortion.

I'll take the opportunity to remind you of my pet cards Underworld Cerberus and Pain Magnification.


Additional possible cuts: Graveyard Muse, Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Erebos, God of the Dead (more colorless means less devotion), Tunelling Geopede (your only enabler that's reliant on lands).

You've convinced me on the Augur, the rest I'm a little more hesitant.

I don't want colorless Creatures, even if they're free, I want Stax pieces on bodies which unfortunately tend to be coloured Creatures. The Eldrazi are in for either fuel for other chains or their Annihilator to eat my opponent's permanents. The must attack clause on Ulamog's Crusher is irrelevant, I'm swinging even into a Glissa, the Traitor because I'm looking to eat their permanents.

A lot of your suggestions for protection are great, but this is my 'balls to the wall' deck; I very rarely have any mana open. Hence Garna, the Blood Flame and Soul of New Phyrexia won't do anything for me, I don't have one or two mana open much less 5-6. The way I protect my board is with cards like Nullstone Gargoyle or eating their permanents so they can't cast spells because they have insufficient lands.

Grey Merchant is vitally imporant to make sure I don't die, it is frequently the target of a tutor-chain with Razaketh: Grey Merchant, sac it to fetch Artisan of Kozilek, play Artisan to get my Grey Merchant. Depending on how many pips I got on board, it can be devastating - the deck can quite easily put 7+ black pips on the board, not many players can repeatedly take 14 and survive. I also gain a buttload, which I need considering I'm also the focus of attacks before I spew Demons from every orifice.

Quote from FearDReaper »

Nice Primer man. Im thinking of making a more casual non staxy version and your list looks quite helpful. Thoughts on Spawn of Mayhem?

Edit: Also wondering your thoughts on Dread Cacodemon.

I definitely want to include Spawn of Mayhem, I think it's great. I'm just waiting for its price to drop.

I like the Cacodemon just because I get to childishly say 'Caca'. If you're going for a more casual build, the Demon can fit; I'm not running it because I look at what else it is competing with with Triple Black: Necropotence, Myojin of Night's Reach and Razaketh, the Foulblooded. In this mean version, the Caca demon just doesn't measure up in comparison to those three cards.

Quote from FearDReaper »

Spear Spewer is an auto include

Definitely agreeing with your assesstment of Spear Spewer: Rix Maadi's draw is frontloaded unlike Corpse Augur's backloaded draw. As shermanido37 pointed out, the deck looks to keep pushing forward so aggressive draw is important.

Plague Spitter has the least amount of synergy from my suite of pingers, so it got the axe for the Spear Spewer. The rest of them can sit there with big butts and stop token spam chip damage and then EOT poke for extra damage.

My two cents:
the bad:
geode golem looks horrible. it's stuck in your hand unless you're already winning (can get in with a hit by this guy). Isn't it better to have a more hardy guy (i.e. doesn't ALSO die to artifact-hate) that can drag you up to parity from behind?
dread cacodemon - basically unplayable. I've never gotten it to work effectively at least. For you, you either cast it post-combat (i.e. the board wipe comes AFTER attacks) and you can cast at discount, or it's pre-combat (at near-full cost), and your guys are tapped. Might become more playable with haste enablers.
spear spewer - it's so small and the effect is so small, i'm not sure it's worth it. remember, if you're playing a stax build, you HAVE to make sure that a vast majority of cards needs to be able to drag you from behind back on top. this guy doesn't do that, doesn't help you much at parity, and doesn't really help significantly when you're ahead.
razaketh, the foulblooded - i'm not convinced this is good. your experiences will tell you more than my conjecture. In my rakdos deck, i'd almost always rather have just a draw spell or a reanimation spell. the tutoring is ok, but why not just have a tutor effect instead? how often do you get to 8 mana to cast the guy (i've never cast mine 'fairly'; either treasonous ogre or reanimate)? and how often do you have a guy that you're willing to sac to tutor for something? and how many toolbox-creatures do you have that you absolutely need to tutor up?
Bane of Bala Ged, Ulamog's Crusher - doesn't help you to control the game (since you're unlikely to get to that sort of mana without having already controlled the game), and as a late-game threat, i doubt they'd do enough.


the missing/suggestions:
abyssal overseer is a pretty major miss i didn't see on your list. It comes down with a mass of 1/1 fliers that you can sac to whatever pox effect, leaving your quality dudes alone.
new rakdos/big bro' rakdos - both come in big and makes people lose stuff. a lot of stuff. or at least there's a good chance they're gonna lose things.
it that betrays - you're making other people sac tonnes of things (presumably, since it's called stax). Surely you can make better use of it with this?
wheel of fortune - what's better than drawing some number of cards? stopping your opponents from sculpting the perfect hand AND refilling yours up to 7.
heartless hidetsugu - somehow, spear spewer is playable, yet hidetsugu isn't?
malfaegor - ditch your hand, wipe your opponent's boards. seems like a good trade, no? seems like the trade is -7cards<<-number of players(7 tempo units). also then gives you
torment of hailfire - at some point, you're going to want the ability to end the game without using the combat step.
smokestack - stifles your opponent's tempo.
pox - i didn't see pox here!
shallow grave - hear me out on this one. Almost all of your guys have comes into play triggers. Sometimes, you really need a clutch effect at instant speed. Sometimes, you have shallow grave to help with that. It's expensive for that reason, unfortunately (if you're curious, look up a legacy deck called 'tinfins')
living death - sometimes, your opponents remove a lot of your things. Occasionally, they don't realise that your graveyard is a tad too big late-game. There are times when you can completely wipe your opponent's smile from their faces.
twilight's call -... and sometimes, you need that effect at instant speed.

Overall, i feel like this deck is very multiplayer solitarey; it sort of interacts with your opponents, but it's very non-staxy and non-controlly, considering what i assume you want your deck to actually do. That being said, maybe my game group is a lot more cutthroat/have tuned decks compared to yours. Also, you rely a LOT on sorcery-speed effects. For a quite effective stax build, i'd suggest a lot more lower-CMC instant-speed effects both stuck to beaters and in your hand. that way, your opponents are really going to have to consider what they can afford to play around, and you can play more meta-games with what you have in hand. You can 'telegraph' a hero's downfall, but i don't think that's going to be very relevant most of the time. bedevil, Kolaghan's Command, terminate, wrecking ball can really blindside people, especially if they think they can wriggle themselves out of a lock.

How does your deck actually play, by the way? maybe i'm just misunderstanding how it's supposed to work. I can't see how it's stax-like, nor can i see how you'd be able to be manage the tempo you've lost during build-up to actually establish your stax.

You need to deal damage to be able to play Rakdos, then when he's down he plays Creatures that make it difficult to answer his board: Keldon Firebombers, Myojin of Night's Reach, Sire of Insanity, Nullstone Gargoyle, etc. Razaketh, the Foulblooded lets me easily tutor up a lock chain that's pretty difficult to get out of, or any other chain that I need.

So you may think Spear Spewer isn't very good, but it's necessary to ensure that I can cast Rakdos on Turn 4. This is why Haste isn't good in my build: I'm dropping fatties after the combat step. These fatties all have abilities that make my board difficult to deal with or force you to answer them instead of Rakdos. All of those builds that introduce Haste then need to fill their deck up with one-shot pain effects, such as Gut Shot or Cave-In, that have a terrible opportunity cost when it comes to topdecks.

All of these big sorceries you're suggesting aren't going to be cheapened by Rakdos. Why play all of these reanimation Sorceries when I can play a free Artisan of Kozilek, or use Sheoldred, Whispering One to recur my Creatures while locking out my opponent's Creatures? Pox is in the deck list and Wheel of Fortune doesn't grow on trees.

Dread Cacodemon isn't in the list so I'm uncertain why you're even commenting on it. My list forces the table to collapse on me before I go off or they lose. If you're playing a more friendly Rakdos, then you don't need to do that and play whatever.

Trying an experiment: Adding Showstopper and Spawn of Mayhem are long overdue. I just didn't know what to cut as I knew I wanted to shift my deck's design. After seeing the hilarious results of Ruric Thar, the Unbowed dodge spot removal due to the smattering of Instants I can use to protect him, I thought to do the same with Rakdos. I added the Sandstone Oracle as a way to refill my hand after I am spent, to hopefully get more protection or gas.

A lot of the less than effective cards got cut for this and I've added a Vampiric Tutor to help with how the deck likes to chain off.

Time to put the dinos down: The Fericodons fit the staxy nature of my fatties, but they were unimpressive in execution. Sure, they're big and people don't like blocking them, but when they do, it doesn't hurt the table too badly. I'm trying out the new Neheb because I believe he can help me cast my more expensive colourless Creatures when I'm a mana or two short, he helps me recast Rakdos after an untimely demise, his Trample means he can get for pain mana or the ability to recast Rakdos and the rummage effect means that the cards that are inappropriate for the moment can be tossed away for more gas.