This deck came about because of a desire to further color balance the decks I have in rotation. I found I had 6 white decks so I wanted to avoid white and I found I only had 4 red decks so I wanted red. As I tried finding a color combination I liked as well as one that tried to color balance my decks, I found that was a bad way to approach building a new deck. To color balance my decks as best as possible, it would have needed to be Blue, Black and Red but I already had Kess, Dissident Mage. I could have done Black and Red but I have never had a Black/Red deck I have enjoyed.
In the end, I just decided to dismantle Kess and build Riku instead. This doesn't balance colors across my deck selections, but that is a poor way to approach building a new deck anyway. Since Kess was really not as fun as I would have liked it (I went with a non-storm build) I figured replacing her with Riku was the right call.
Interestingly, this is my second attempt at a Riku deck. I have a deck list saved from 3 years ago that I decided to use as a base for this deck. Going through it though I realized 2 things:
1) It fostered a playstyle I am not generally excited to play. Namely, it had an infinite combo with Woodfall Primus, Zameck Guildmage, and Goblin Bombardment. This interaction was one of the main reasons I took apart the deck the first time. Either the deck assembled this combo or it lost (generally; there was value beyond this but it always seem to come down to this).
2) I was a terrible deck builder back then. Looking at this deck list, I realized there were way too many high cost threats without nearly enough answers or support cards to make the deck work. It was actually kind of embarrassing to see how poorly this deck was originally constructed.
I have avoided Riku for a long time because of that initial deck, but now seems like the right time to revisit it and see if I can make it work the way I want it to. I don't have any infinite combos and I just have a lot of high synergy interactions. Most cards speak for themselves in the list above, but here are a few I want to touch on:
Harrow - Outside of Tatyova, I really didn't expect to play this card. However, with Riku on the field, this becomes a 5 mana, sac a land spell to then get 4 untapped lands. It ramps at instant timing, works well with Riku, and isn't totally dead without him. This certainly isn't a powerful play, but it does work well with the general.
Pull from Tomorrow & Comet Storm - X spells work very well with Riku. Instead of having to dump 20 mana into either one to draw 18 cards or deal 18 damage, I only need 11 mana plus the 2 from Riku to do the same thing. And Comet Storm works even better when kicking it as I can save myself a lot of mana if I want to target a bunch of different things.
Venser, Shaper Savant - This is an interesting interaction in that I can cast Venser, bounce himself before Riku's trigger resolves, and then copy Venser to bounce the thing I want. It is 6 mana instead of 4 but it gives me a token of Venser and leaves Venser in my hand to do it again as necessary. It is a value play all the way but it is essentially a better Capsize.
Mulldrifter - Evoking Mulldrifter and copying it still costs 5 mana but it draws me 4 cards instead of 2 and still leaves a 2/2 body behind. If I can afford to pay the 5 initially I generally will, but to get an extra two cards at the same cost as costing Mulldrifter normally is pretty good.
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer - This card alone I think makes this deck function very well. One of the issues with Riku is that a lot of the things he copies are more ETB value rather than contributing to any sort of end game. Brudiclad fixes that. If I have a copy of Wood Elves, Coiling Oracle, Farhaven Elf, and Eternal Witness on the field, I have gotten value out of those copies, but they don't do much now that they are sitting around. If I drop in Brudiclad and have a token of a big creature (Inferno Titan is likely the best), now all of those things, plus the token Brudiclad provides, are Titans and start beating down.
Sneak Attack - This works very well with Riku. 1 mana to cheat something in and copy it means that for 3 mana I have started to build a board state and can also use it on defense as needed. One game I cheated in Brudiclad and Inferno Titan, copied the Titan with Riku, and then made all my tokens I had sitting around into Titans. All for 4 mana. I didn't win that turn, but since all my tokens stuck around, I still have 5 Titans the next turn. I won pretty easily with that.
I do have 2 Eldrazi but I am not sure I really like them in this deck. They were included as a way to use all my mana and to get huge creatures with good triggers. However, neither works with Riku and they paint a target on me. I am not sure what I want these to be (I have already decided I don't want Craterhoof or Woodfall Primus, but maybe Craterhoof is just the right choice). I really want something that is not Legendary and that has an attack trigger of some sort.
Another questionable include is Helm of the Host. It was added for 2 cards: Riku himself and Etali, Primal Storm. Getting a non-legendary Etali and then making all my other tokens Etali's with Brudiclad gives me an insane amount of value. But, it only really matters with Etali and it is 9 mana. I might be better off with just playing Mirror Gallery and I am not sure that is a good option.
So far, this deck has been performing better and better. I did up the land count and land ramp as, for some reason, the deck has a really hard time getting off the ground. I am still playing the deck and tweaking it so I expect to have a few more major changes in the coming weeks until I get it to where I want it to be.
I played this deck last night and had a decent game with it. It was me against Grenzo, Havoc Raiser, The Ur-Dragon, and Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire. The Ur-Dragon was pretty much just a precon; I don't think they had any changes in the deck.
I started off kind of slow and got a little lucky with some top decked lands to ensure I had my colors when I needed them. Unfortunately, The Ur-Dragon player was able to get Dragons out pretty quickly due to the discount that The Ur-Dragon provides. But, their dragons were somewhat kept in check as the game went on so they weren't as big a threat as they could have been.
I durdled to start with and just kept trying to hit my land drops with an Evoked Mulldrifter into a Cultivate. The next turn I cast Arachaeomancer to get back Harrow. Cultivate was probably the right call, but I wanted something to do at Instant Timing. I did also copy Dragonlord Kolaghan with Phantasmal Image so I had a way to block the incoming fliers as needed.
A turn or two later I dropped a Helm of the Host, and it copied a Wood Elves. Not bad but 9 mana is a lot to ramp 1 Forest. Next turn I cast Ulamog and equipped Helm and attacked Grenzo for Annihilator 8. I attacked them because they not only blew up my Maze of Ith, but also tried to get me to use it to save them in exchange for not blowing it up. Said exchange was a lose/lose for me so I just let the attack go through and let them blow up my land.
Vaevictus blew up the Helm and dropped a Magmatic Force. On Grenzo's next turn they attacked me for 8 to put me down to 2. I understand the play (though they didn't lose a lot from Annihilator), the Magmatic Force was a much bigger threat. This attack not only killed me because Force would kill me next, Vaevictus was the obvious target of the 2 Annihilator triggers next turn. This is because I was at 10 and a turn cycle kills me.
Instead, I died from Force and Grenzo died pretty quickly after that and ended up being the next person out due to the Magmatic Force and the board Vaevictus built up. While I definitely don't begrudge the Grenzo player for effectively taking me out, it was satisfying to see that them coming after me directly led to their demise.
In short, I effectively did nothing all game. I never got to any of my threats beyond Ulamog and I basically never interacted with the board in any meaningful way.
Based on the way this game went, I think this needs to be a wrath of some kind but I am not sure what would be the best. I am not opposed to having something enter that fights, but Wizards hasn't provided much in the way of this in the past, so I don't believe there is much for options in these colors. Maybe Caldera Hellion or Crater Hellion. I am thinking that Chain Reaction or probably Evacuation needs to be in the deck. I need a way to deal with the board and my current list doesn't offer anything beyond Rift and Blasphemous Act.
I also need to find cuts for the Eldrazi. Not only do they make me a target, I have very little else in the deck to protect myself in the likely event of being targeted. As this game shows, I ended up with Ulamog and then nothing else. So, I pretty much just died. I think my 4 and 5 drops need some work or some beefing up. I am not sure the best options here (Spike Weaver is probably the most likely choice).
In the end, I just decided to dismantle Kess and build Riku instead. This doesn't balance colors across my deck selections, but that is a poor way to approach building a new deck anyway. Since Kess was really not as fun as I would have liked it (I went with a non-storm build) I figured replacing her with Riku was the right call.
Before I continue, here is the current decklist:
1 Riku of Two Reflections
Lands
1 Alchemist's Refuge
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cinder Glade
1 Command Tower
1 Diamond Valley
9 Forest
1 High Market
9 Island
1 Maze of Ith
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Misty Rainforest
5 Mountain
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Winding Canyons
1 Wooded Foothills
Instants
1 Beast Within
1 Boomerang
1 Chaos Warp
1 Comet Storm
1 Counterflux
1 Crop Rotation
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Disallow
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Harrow
1 Krosan Grip
1 Mana Drain
1 Pull from Tomorrow
1 Wipe Away
1 Acidic Slime
1 Archaeomancer
1 Bane of Progress
1 Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Combustible Gearhulk
1 Draining Whelk
1 Dualcaster Mage
1 Duplicant
1 Etali, Primal Storm
1 Eternal Witness
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Inferno Titan
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Mulldrifter
1 Mystic Snake
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Phyrexian Ingester
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Progenitor Mimic
1 Protean Hulk
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Wood Elves
1 Yavimaya Dryad
1 Helm of the Host
Enchantments
1 Sneak Attack
Sorceries
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Cultivate
1 Day's Undoing
1 Far Wanderings
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Rampant Growth
1 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Urban Evolution
1 Windfall
Interestingly, this is my second attempt at a Riku deck. I have a deck list saved from 3 years ago that I decided to use as a base for this deck. Going through it though I realized 2 things:
1) It fostered a playstyle I am not generally excited to play. Namely, it had an infinite combo with Woodfall Primus, Zameck Guildmage, and Goblin Bombardment. This interaction was one of the main reasons I took apart the deck the first time. Either the deck assembled this combo or it lost (generally; there was value beyond this but it always seem to come down to this).
2) I was a terrible deck builder back then. Looking at this deck list, I realized there were way too many high cost threats without nearly enough answers or support cards to make the deck work. It was actually kind of embarrassing to see how poorly this deck was originally constructed.
I have avoided Riku for a long time because of that initial deck, but now seems like the right time to revisit it and see if I can make it work the way I want it to. I don't have any infinite combos and I just have a lot of high synergy interactions. Most cards speak for themselves in the list above, but here are a few I want to touch on:
Harrow - Outside of Tatyova, I really didn't expect to play this card. However, with Riku on the field, this becomes a 5 mana, sac a land spell to then get 4 untapped lands. It ramps at instant timing, works well with Riku, and isn't totally dead without him. This certainly isn't a powerful play, but it does work well with the general.
Pull from Tomorrow & Comet Storm - X spells work very well with Riku. Instead of having to dump 20 mana into either one to draw 18 cards or deal 18 damage, I only need 11 mana plus the 2 from Riku to do the same thing. And Comet Storm works even better when kicking it as I can save myself a lot of mana if I want to target a bunch of different things.
Venser, Shaper Savant - This is an interesting interaction in that I can cast Venser, bounce himself before Riku's trigger resolves, and then copy Venser to bounce the thing I want. It is 6 mana instead of 4 but it gives me a token of Venser and leaves Venser in my hand to do it again as necessary. It is a value play all the way but it is essentially a better Capsize.
Mulldrifter - Evoking Mulldrifter and copying it still costs 5 mana but it draws me 4 cards instead of 2 and still leaves a 2/2 body behind. If I can afford to pay the 5 initially I generally will, but to get an extra two cards at the same cost as costing Mulldrifter normally is pretty good.
Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer - This card alone I think makes this deck function very well. One of the issues with Riku is that a lot of the things he copies are more ETB value rather than contributing to any sort of end game. Brudiclad fixes that. If I have a copy of Wood Elves, Coiling Oracle, Farhaven Elf, and Eternal Witness on the field, I have gotten value out of those copies, but they don't do much now that they are sitting around. If I drop in Brudiclad and have a token of a big creature (Inferno Titan is likely the best), now all of those things, plus the token Brudiclad provides, are Titans and start beating down.
Sneak Attack - This works very well with Riku. 1 mana to cheat something in and copy it means that for 3 mana I have started to build a board state and can also use it on defense as needed. One game I cheated in Brudiclad and Inferno Titan, copied the Titan with Riku, and then made all my tokens I had sitting around into Titans. All for 4 mana. I didn't win that turn, but since all my tokens stuck around, I still have 5 Titans the next turn. I won pretty easily with that.
I do have 2 Eldrazi but I am not sure I really like them in this deck. They were included as a way to use all my mana and to get huge creatures with good triggers. However, neither works with Riku and they paint a target on me. I am not sure what I want these to be (I have already decided I don't want Craterhoof or Woodfall Primus, but maybe Craterhoof is just the right choice). I really want something that is not Legendary and that has an attack trigger of some sort.
Another questionable include is Helm of the Host. It was added for 2 cards: Riku himself and Etali, Primal Storm. Getting a non-legendary Etali and then making all my other tokens Etali's with Brudiclad gives me an insane amount of value. But, it only really matters with Etali and it is 9 mana. I might be better off with just playing Mirror Gallery and I am not sure that is a good option.
So far, this deck has been performing better and better. I did up the land count and land ramp as, for some reason, the deck has a really hard time getting off the ground. I am still playing the deck and tweaking it so I expect to have a few more major changes in the coming weeks until I get it to where I want it to be.
I started off kind of slow and got a little lucky with some top decked lands to ensure I had my colors when I needed them. Unfortunately, The Ur-Dragon player was able to get Dragons out pretty quickly due to the discount that The Ur-Dragon provides. But, their dragons were somewhat kept in check as the game went on so they weren't as big a threat as they could have been.
I durdled to start with and just kept trying to hit my land drops with an Evoked Mulldrifter into a Cultivate. The next turn I cast Arachaeomancer to get back Harrow. Cultivate was probably the right call, but I wanted something to do at Instant Timing. I did also copy Dragonlord Kolaghan with Phantasmal Image so I had a way to block the incoming fliers as needed.
A turn or two later I dropped a Helm of the Host, and it copied a Wood Elves. Not bad but 9 mana is a lot to ramp 1 Forest. Next turn I cast Ulamog and equipped Helm and attacked Grenzo for Annihilator 8. I attacked them because they not only blew up my Maze of Ith, but also tried to get me to use it to save them in exchange for not blowing it up. Said exchange was a lose/lose for me so I just let the attack go through and let them blow up my land.
Vaevictus blew up the Helm and dropped a Magmatic Force. On Grenzo's next turn they attacked me for 8 to put me down to 2. I understand the play (though they didn't lose a lot from Annihilator), the Magmatic Force was a much bigger threat. This attack not only killed me because Force would kill me next, Vaevictus was the obvious target of the 2 Annihilator triggers next turn. This is because I was at 10 and a turn cycle kills me.
Instead, I died from Force and Grenzo died pretty quickly after that and ended up being the next person out due to the Magmatic Force and the board Vaevictus built up. While I definitely don't begrudge the Grenzo player for effectively taking me out, it was satisfying to see that them coming after me directly led to their demise.
In short, I effectively did nothing all game. I never got to any of my threats beyond Ulamog and I basically never interacted with the board in any meaningful way.
Based on the way this game went, I think this needs to be a wrath of some kind but I am not sure what would be the best. I am not opposed to having something enter that fights, but Wizards hasn't provided much in the way of this in the past, so I don't believe there is much for options in these colors. Maybe Caldera Hellion or Crater Hellion. I am thinking that Chain Reaction or probably Evacuation needs to be in the deck. I need a way to deal with the board and my current list doesn't offer anything beyond Rift and Blasphemous Act.
I also need to find cuts for the Eldrazi. Not only do they make me a target, I have very little else in the deck to protect myself in the likely event of being targeted. As this game shows, I ended up with Ulamog and then nothing else. So, I pretty much just died. I think my 4 and 5 drops need some work or some beefing up. I am not sure the best options here (Spike Weaver is probably the most likely choice).