Card/Deck The Rakdos Cult (BR)

[Aston]

Is there merit? Is the draft more interesting when faced with Baneslayer Angel vs Oblivion Ring and the drafter has to pick which one their deck needs more, or Baneslayer Angel vs Detention Sphere where they can take the first one and wheel the second without too much risk?

My opinion is the former, which is why I don't play Detention Sphere (or Maelstrom Pulse/Vindicate/Abrupt Decay/Putrefy etc).

 

[RavebornMuse]

I think the question is if you're using multicolor slots for generic effects, to showcase theater roles ("aggro Rakdos", "control Azorius") or to showcase archetype design ("Rakdos Sacrifice", "Azorius Tokens"). For me, I'd rather my players see spicy incentives to pivot around in a pair's multicolor section and have them fight over nuts-and-bolts removal in the mono sections, rather than giving out free removal to a pair or encouraging splash cannibalization of the multicolor's Vindicate cache, but I see the merits of other approaches in allowing an overall more powerful list, as well as the ways such an approach could feel better if there are more drafters involved.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Why do people want to avoid simple removal spells in gold slots? Sure some sort of build around can be cool, but in the dark I tend to favor mono-color removal spells anyways, since there's more combinations available (A WR young pyromancer, for eg)

Like sure, Vindicate is probably boring, but no matter what I add or cut from my cube, it seems the more vindicates I add the better, lest my cube turn into portal 3 kingdoms.

I realize this is maybe kind of a sensative time to bring up his point, but Lucus nailed the problem with running simple removal spells in gold slots years ago.

Everyone else and their mother sucks up the mono-colored removal spells, which is fine, unless you're a control deck, that needs efficient removal more than those other decks do, while also having to get its other components. The threat decks dilute the total efficient removal pool, putting the control player in an awkward spot. So than the cube designer goes and tosses in a bunch of gold removal spells to float around at the end of the pack.

This sounds ideal on paper, but in practice, those gold removal spells are always clunky 3 mana spells. They trade inefficiently, and worse, they make it where if the control player wants to have the basic foundation for their archetype, they have to move into 3 color decks all the time. You get these clunky 3 color control decks, running 3 mana non-conditional removal spells, hemorrhaging tempo on every ETB threat.

That sucks, and its just another reason why you're better off focusing on threats, rather than answers, in a lot of these cubes, which you may or may not care about depending on how you feel about hard control.

And this also touches back to what ahada mentioned too, about gold cards carrying a bigger inherient commitment, and they should reward that commitment, rather than being awkard, bottom picks.

Im sure its ok to run an extreme handful, especially if you're struggling to find space for artifact/enchantment removal, but it can get out of hand real quick.

 

[sigh]

Just.. provide the cards your decks and formats want. Don't stress about how """generic""" cards are, stress about how useful they are to your format. Do your GB decks have a strong need for this catch-all spot removal effect in Maelstrom Pulse? Will your GB decks be overall healthier running it? Then run it! Are your Golgari decks actually balls to the wall dredge aggro? Then maybe it's too slow or you need more explicit GB aggro support (maybe run Abrupt decay?).

Everyone makes this justification somewhere. Everyone. Is it with Lightning Helix? With Rakdos Cackler? Just, I find it artifically restricting to think there's some certain... "interest" bar you have to jump over to make it to gold. If the spell is important to a color pair's strategy and helps it thrive in your environment, then run it! Your XY decks will not hate you for having these ground floor effects that can really help them out.

Remember, we have two entire monocolor sections to put cool archetype sign posts to help out the small gold sections. 100 cards in Aston's example. You can afford to put an important generic effect here and there.

Especially, in the originating example, when it's not really that generic (because synergies).

 

[Chris Taylor]

I realize this is maybe kind of a sensative time to bring up his point, but Lucus nailed the problem with running simple removal spells in gold slots years ago.

Everyone else and their mother sucks up the mono-colored removal spells, which is fine, unless you're a control deck, that needs efficient removal more than those other decks do, while also having to get its other components. The threat decks dilute the total efficient removal pool, putting the control player in an awkward spot. So than the cube designer goes and tosses in a bunch of gold removal spells to float around at the end of the pack.

This sounds ideal on paper, but in practice, those gold removal spells are always clunky 3 mana spells. They trade inefficiently, and worse, they make it where if the control player wants to have the basic foundation for their archetype, they have to move into 3 color decks all the time. You get these clunky 3 color control decks, running 3 mana non-conditional removal spells, hemorrhaging tempo on every ETB threat.

That sucks, and its just another reason why you're better off focusing on threats, rather than answers, in a lot of these cubes, which you may or may not care about depending on how you feel about hard control.

And this also touches back to what ahada mentioned too, about gold cards carrying a bigger inherient commitment, and they should reward that commitment, rather than being awkard, bottom picks.

Im sure its ok to run an extreme handful, especially if you're struggling to find space for artifact/enchantment removal, but it can get out of hand real quick.

Nah man, a lot of this advice was coming from lucas! Though it was more of the "Only allowed to be so efficient because it's multicolor" stuff, like electrolyze. Perhaps I need to reconsider my opinions on Vindicate specifically.

Thinking about this, I think probably the "Platonic Ideal" of a removal spell (Just...pretend I'm using that term correctly here for a moment) might be something like this:

WB
instant
Kicker 3
Exile a creature. If kicked, exile a permanent.

Obviously a rough sketch, but this has the efficiency we'd need to keep up with modern creatures, while still not being blank against more varied threat types (Not just walkers, remember that). I remember someone bringing up that Netrunner's removal worked like this, where basically any removal spell could remove anything, but were more efficient at removing certain things.

Just.. provide the cards your decks and formats want. Don't stress about how """generic""" cards are, stress about how useful they are to your format. Do your GB decks have a strong need for this catch-all spot removal effect in Maelstrom Pulse? Will your GB decks be overall healthier running it? Then run it! Are your Golgari decks actually balls to the wall dredge aggro? Then maybe it's too slow or you need more explicit GB aggro support (maybe run Abrupt decay?).

Everyone makes this justification somewhere. Everyone. Is it with Lightning Helix? With Rakdos Cackler? Just, I find it artifically restricting to think there's some certain... "interest" bar you have to jump over to make it to gold. If the spell is important to a color pair's strategy and helps it thrive in your environment, then run it! Your XY decks will not hate you for having these ground floor effects that can really help them out.

Remember, we have two entire monocolor sections to put cool archetype sign posts to help out the small gold sections. 100 cards in Aston's example. You can afford to put an important generic effect here and there.

Especially, in the originating example, when it's not really that generic (because synergies).

This is probably the way to look at things

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I feel like, if its a 3cc gold removal spell, at this point, it almost has to cantrip to be competitive. I still like electrolyze, and k. command cantrips in a weird way, but that seems to be the standard now.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I still like Vindicate (and Utter End) in my list, because they are different from monocolor removal spells in that they "permanently" deal with any (nonland, in the case of Utter End) permanent. There's no monocolor equivalent that does this as clean as Vindicate. Then again, my multicolor section is a lot bigger than most cubes'.

 

[Aston]

Whilst I'm here, does anyone play

This got a bit lost in the gold removal discussion, any thoughts?

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

Seems very high power, fireblast sort of level. Would imagine a case of if you don't have removal you're probably going to die quite quickly.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Seems very high power, fireblast sort of level. Would imagine a case of if you don't have removal you're probably going to die quite quickly.

On your upkeep... take 10.

 

[sigh]

Alternatively, with a more riptidian card, on my next turn.. take 10.

 

[Chris Taylor]

6+4 = 4+6

 

[Onderzeeboot]

We need to go deeper!



Take 10!

Or... how about...



TAKE 10!!!

 

[Aston]

So with Vial Smasher in play every time you play a spell your opponent takes 10? Seems good.

 

[VincePendrell]

Speaking of generic removal spells, this one is quite a nice one and hasn't been mentioned:


And other very generic Rakdos cards:

I'm not running either at the moment, but they can be good additions if you need Rakdos to be on a low curve and punching face.

Rakdos Cackler is currently on my list to be cut. The card is good, but I have multiples of one-drops in both black and red, and they feel so much more interesting to play with. If I get to push a counters theme in the future, maybe I'll try to have it around for Sultai builds, but not sure. And speaking of a counters theme:

Has anyone tried this yet? 4/4 for 4 with Haste, really hard to block profitably with counters synergy upside seems pretty good. I haven't got to play with it outside of drafting Dragon's Maze yet, but feels like it could fill spot in cubes that have midrange decks topping above 4 mana.

Half of my RB section is hybrid spells right now. This is a color combination that doesn't seem to need any help from the guild slots to get drafted, but then again, I run multiple Gravecrawlers, Bloodghasts and Bloodsoaked Champions, so black is always the best match for aggro and the Goblin Bombardment/Greater Gargadon deck.

 

[Chris Taylor]

while a sorcery, dreadbore isn't quite as awkward to use on a creature as vindicate would be, dodging the issue discussed above.

I actually like Cackler more than shred freak or spike jester. 2 toughness is a bit deal, even without counter synergy. the 2 drops I find much more replaceable, and shred freak is pretty below the curve at this point I think.

I'm trying Exava this week, though I'm not sure I don't want something like Hellhole Flailer as a synergy card rather than her as a payoff.

 

[Jason Waddell]

**stacks triggers hopefully correctly**

Take 14?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Someone I know once used that card to mise a win in the top 8 on his way to win Dutch nationals

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Has anyone tried this yet? 4/4 for 4 with Haste, really hard to block profitably with counters synergy upside seems pretty good. I haven't got to play with it outside of drafting Dragon's Maze yet, but feels like it could fill spot in cubes that have midrange decks topping above 4 mana.

That looks interesting. How would the counters theme look in RB though?

 

[ahadabans]

I tried it. Problem at the time - there wasn't enough +1/+1 counter support. I still think it's a bit loose for this to really be great, but I could be wrong.

I remember mentioning how great this would be as a Gruul card and then someone made a beautiful custom and I wanted to print a proxy real bad (but never did).

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Unfortunatly, it looks like the only mechanics that work well with it in the colors is actual unleash, which is too bad because global haste is such a powerful effect.

Edit: also devour/fabricate/explore

 

[Aston]

There's some black outlast creatures.

 

[RavebornMuse]

+1/+1 Counters might actually have legs, now that I'm looking at it. A lot of usable pieces have seen print since Exava's debut.

Here's a quick list I whipped up. It's not all-inclusive; I skipped over several things that I felt were completely without a home (Urborg Skeleton, among others), only noting things that I felt were worth noting. Categories are a bit loose and certainly debatable, with a huge caveat that power level is varying greatly (I would be remiss to not include some of these despite personally feeling they are too on-the-nose powerful for my format or similar).

Top Picks


For Your Consideration


Sacrifice Synergy


Everybody Gets a Counter!


Archetype Bleed (stuff that I don't think this deck wants, but might use and be pleased with)


Viable Weirdness


AWWH HELL YEAH!!!


Hold-Your-Nose Aggro Pieces


Probably Not Worth It

Spoiler

I'm personally a bit down on fabricate aside from Weaponcraft Enthusiast, as imo black got the short end of the stick and it's all a bit high on the curve for what I would think this deck wants. That said, the obvious overlap between token-producers in red and creature-eaters/death trigger growth creatures in black makes a compelling case for seeing if a whole package could be implemented at a middling power level.

edit: added Volt Charge, per Rasmus. thanks!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Cool list. A lot of sweet +1/+1 creatures are in red.



Mandarory red +1/+1 card!

 

[VincePendrell]

That looks interesting. How would the counters theme look in RB though?

I guess the biggest problem is that Exava feels like a curve-topper for aggro, but it actually wants you to keep playing bigger stuff, or have multiple creatures for the turn after. Maybe it would fit best in a June deck, with Reyhan or that green human Arcbound Worker I don't know the name of, or things with graft, maybe even making a Jund Human Aristocrats deck, and something like Metallic Mimic would provide counters to everything coming after it. Damn, now I want to add support for this in my cube.