Friday Night Magic - Portland Oregon - May 26, 2006 - Rakdos Redemption?

I decided to give Rakdos one more chance at Friday Night Magic. I figured there would be a good combination of decks copied from Regionals winners, rogue decks and random creature decks to give the old red/black a good workout. If the deck did as badly as I did at Regionals then it would be back to the card boxes for Rakdos.

I made some tweaks to the deck after Regionals and ran with this build:

Spells (10)
----------
3 Char
3 Demonfire
4 Rise // Fall

Enchantments (4)
-----------------
4 Seal of Fire

Artifacts (3)
------------
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Creatures (20)
--------------
4 Jagged Poppet
4 Lyzolda, the Blood Witch
4 Rakdos Augermage
4 Rakdos Guildmage
4 Ravenous Rats

Land (23)
---------
4 Blood Crypt
5 Mountain
2 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
4 Sulfurous Springs
8 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
--------------
4 Blood Moon
4 Hit // Run
3 Pithing Needle
4 Rain of Gore

The changes definitely helped, especially Blood Moon in the board and having more creatures. The Guildmage is suprisingly effective if I can live long enough to get to four land.

We played five rounds and had over twenty players---a good turnout for Friday Night Magic lately.

Round 1 - Colton Klein - White Weenie

Colton was running straight up white weenie complete with Glorious Anthem and a pack of Savannah Lions and Isamaru. He also had the 2/1 flyer from Dissension, Mistral Charger. In game one Colton bolted out of the blocks with a Isamaru on turn one, a flyer on turn two and two Savannah Lions on turn three. I couldn't catch up and only hit him once with a Jagged Poppet. Game two was even worse as I didn't do a point of damage. I wasn't feeling good about the deck's future after this match---white weenie never even looked back as it rolled over Rakdos.

Games: 0-2
Matches: 0-1

Round 2 - Bruce Freed - RG land destruction

Bruce and his son Noah and I have met at many local tournaments and they're always very friendly. Unfortunately for them they usually like to sport rogue decks which seem to get hated out of the tournaments. This Friday night Bruce admitted that he had just thrown the deck together from spare parts because he and Noah wanted to play Magic. He had the Birds of Paradise hoping to lead to the turn two Stone Rain. We played a couple of casual games after round one and I rolled him---I got Augermage on turn three followed by Jitte on turn four and he couldn't get a threat in time. We both laughed when we found out we were paired in round two.

Game one was back and forth. Bruce got off to a fast start with a Kird Ape and a Dryad Sophisticate but I eventually found enough burn to kill his creatures. I stabilized---at four. Against red. I wasn't feeling good. Fortunately for me Bruce's build didn't have much burn (I never saw any burn except Volcanic Hammer.) Jitte went the distance again as he never kept another creature on the board.

Game two was brutal for Bruce. He led with Forest, Birds. I led with Blood Crypt untapped, Seal of Fire, kill the Birds. Next turn he played another Bird and missed his land drop---he had been counting on either drawing a land and doing the turn two Stone Rain (which he was holding) or just playing another Bird and Stone Raining me on turn three. So after playing the Bird he passed the turn. I played a land and Demonfire'd his Bird. He didn't draw another land until the turn I killed him as a Guildmage carrying a Jitte did him in.

Games: 2-2
Matches: 1-1

Round 3 - Greg Goodapple - UB spirits

As we started Greg admitted "This is my first serious tournament." He was already 1-1 so I tried hard not to let my guard down. He was playing a bunch of little Spirits like Bile Urchin plus Theif of Hope and Devouring Greed as a finisher. He got off to a fast start, playing Bile Urchins and black and blue Zubera, but once I hit three land I started playing Poppets and Augermages. I had extra land so I was able to pick off the black Zubera and not lose anything important. Finally I found a Jitte and started swinging. He had three Drift of Phantasms in play but I used Jitte counters to start killing his creatures which had a power greater than zero. He found a Devouring Greed and hit for six but then had nothing left but the Phantasms. I had four or five creatures in play and killed him in two turns.

Game two was more of the same. He had another fast start but I had Seal of Fire early and random creature plus Jitte late.

Games: 4-2
Matches: 2-1

Round 4 - Jason Powell - The Rock/BGW control

Jason, 2006 Oregon States Top 8 finisher, is another regular at Rainy Day Games but I haven't seen much of him in the last few months. He skipped Regionals but can usually be found at all the major events. I knew he was playing some sort of black/green because he'd traded for a couple of my Crime // Punishment before the tournament started.

In game 1 Jason played a couple of land and then---well, then he missed about nine land drops in a row. He never found another land and I never took a point of damage.

Game two I took out the Jitte's (they always get Fettered or Naturalized anyway against that deck) and boarded in the Blood Moons. I got one on turn three and it wrecked his mana for the rest of the game. He was still able to play Sakura Tribe Elders and find some basic land, then was able to start playing Hierarchs. He was up to 28 life until I started to draw burn. I was down to four but I finally killed all his creatures. I knew he had a Putrefy in hand but couldn't find a Swamp. I knew he also had some other good card in hand. I had a Poppet in play and a land in hand. I drew a Blood Witch. I played the land, then the Witch, and swung with the Poppet to empty his hand. Jason couldn't find another answer in time.

Games: 6-2
Matches: 3-1

Why are most matches sweeps with this deck? It's very odd.

Round 5 - Steve Gobel - UGR Graft

Steve's another RDG veteran. He was playing a slightly tweaked version of the deck which led him to a 5-2-2 finish at Regionals. I like this deck and I'm going to build it as soon as I can find the Root-Kin's. In game one he led with a Root-Kin on turn three (after a Tribe-Elder) and I Demonfire'd it away. I started to play some of my own creatures but he Savage Twister'ed them away. He decided after Regionals that the Twisters should be main and they certainly wiped my board with ease. Even worse, a couple of turns later he played Simic Sky Swallower, the 6/6 Flying Trampling untargetable beastie. I can't deal with an untargetable flyer pre-board and I scooped with me at seven at him at 16.

Game two I double mulliganed---ugh, shades of Regionals. I had two Swamps in my set of five and kept even though my three spells all required red. I really didn't want to go to four on the play. Can you guess what happened? Yes, I never drew another land. Stuck on two swamps I watched as he played a creature a turn. He had eight points of offense on the board with me at 12 and I scooped after missing another land drop.

This was one of the worst rounds I've ever had. I just got totally crushed. I was never in either game.

Games: 6-4
Matches: 3-2

A random prize brought me a foil Goblin Warchief which my Goblin deck will enjoy, but otherwise Rakdos still hasn't proven that it can compete. Of my three match wins I beat a deck which should be a good matchup for me (land destruction without burn), a good player who got lousy draws, and a player in his first tournament. I got swept by a deck archetype which I think will become more and more popular and by a fairly vanilla creature deck. Not promising. I think I need to take out Demonfire and just go all out Hellbent---maybe replace the Demonfire's with Shocks or go back to Ignorant Bliss in order to maximize the usefulness of the Poppets and the Augermages and put the Demonfires in the board against control.

But I think more likely is I'll either go back to Zoo or build the UGR graft deck. Steve's version had Sky Swallower, Demonfire, Stampeding Serow, and a couple of other singletons with no way to search for them. I think I'd increase the burn and get rid of the singletons or boost their numbers---probably two Sky Swallower's, two Demonfire, some Electrolyzes (Steve didn't run any) and drop the Serow.

This is a bad environment for a color combination that can't deal with enchantments or artifacts once they hit the table. A Paladin en-Vec with a Jitte is pretty much game over for me, as is a resolved Glare.

By the way, two decks drew at 4-0: Owling Mine and a rogue gold deck using a bunch of the split cards and Pillar of the Paruns to cast them. I played a couple of casual games against the deck before the tournament, using my Izzet deck. I'm not sure what his win conditions are---the only thing the deck ever did to me was Crime my Solifuge's into play on his side (which turned out to be enough because this Izzet deck doesn't play many creatures).

Cascade Valley Regionals Report - May 20, 2006

I have been looking forward to the black red Rakdos guild since the Ravnica block began. I've always favored aggressive decks and I figured this guild would suit my play style well. I was somewhat dissapointed that they didn't include a reprint of Terminate but I got over it (Wrecking Ball is no Terminate).

I playtested for a couple of weeks and settled on this build:

Spells (14)
----------
3 Char
3 Demonfire
4 Ignorant Bliss
4 Rise // Fall

Enchantments (4)
-----------------
4 Seal of Fire

Artifacts (3)
------------
3 Umezawa's Jitte

Creatures (16)
--------------
4 Gobhobbler Rats
4 Jagged Poppet
4 Lyzolda, the Blood Witch
4 Rakdos Augermage

Land (23)
---------
4 Blood Crypt
5 Mountain
3 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
4 Sulfurous Springs
7 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
--------------
4 Cranial Extraction
4 Hit // Run
3 Pithing Needle
4 Rain of Gore

I didn't run Dark Confidant because I have other card drawing abilities in the Ignorant Bliss and Lyzolda, and without Jitte (which is often hated out of a game) I don't have any way to gain life. Maybe I should have run him anyway, I'm still undecided.

We had 133 players which meant 8 rounds of Swiss.

Round 1 - Stefan Hoover - Gruul

Stefan looked a bit nervous and admitted as we played game one that this was his first big tournament. This didn't make me feel any better as he beat me down with Scab-Clan Maulers and Dryad Sophisticates after I mulliganed (a theme which would continue all day). I didn't mount much of a defense as his red green beaters, well, beat up on me.

Game two I boarded in Hit // Run, which did it's job quite well. Stefan's version was a bit of a budget version and included Viashino Sandstalker instead of Giant Solifuge. The Sandstalker hit me once but I Hit him back the next turn. He cast another one the next turn and that got Hit as well. Then he cast a Streetbreaker Wurm and I was out of Hits. The next turn he put Moldervine Cloak on the Wurm and swung for 9. I had an Augermage equipped with Jitte but I chose not to block. I probably should have in case he had burn but I hadn't seen any burn in the first game, just creatures and Cloaks. I top decked a Demonfire and swung with the Augermage. Between Jitte counters and Demonfire I was able to kill the 9/7 Wurm and he never got another creature into play.

Game three I had a fast start. Two Fall's, one on turn two and one on turn three, netted two Burning-Tree Shamans, a Scab-Clan Mauler, and another critter. He had one card left and I had a full grip. I started playing Augermages and Rats and they killed him off.

I will note that Stefan had to mulligan in both games two and three. There was a LOT of mulliganing this day.

Games: 2-1
Matches: 1-0

I was happy to finally win round 1. I usually lose round one. Unfortunately it wasn't a good sign of things to come.

Round 2 - Dave Doffing - Gruul

Dave had a better, fully tricked out version of Gruul with Solifuges and Flames of the Blood Hand main. Game one I mulliganed once and then missed two early land drops in a row. I never did a point of damage to him as his bugs were followed by two Flames. Game two I lasted longer and at one point had cleared the board of all non-land permanents. Then he cast two bugs. I responded by losing my life.

Games: 2-3
Matches: 1-1

Round 3 - Ryan Evens - Roxodon Hierarchy

Ryan led with a Swamp and I was happy to be facing something besides Gruul. Game one was great, it must have taken at least 30 minutes and we went back and forth many times. He wound up Fetter'ing my Rix Maadi because I was using it to keep both our hands empty. But eventually he found and played an Arena and started to gain card advantage. He maxed out at 31 life but I started getting Lyzolda and Augermages and whittled him down to 7. Then he cleared the board with another Wrath, then used Crime to steal one of the Augermages from my graveyard. Eventually the little traitor killed me because I couldn't find a creature or burn.

Game two, I mulliganed (surprise). He quickly established card advantage with another Arena and laid down Kokusho. He said he had them main but just didn't find it game one. I had boarded in Rain of Gore, which was in the board just for this matchup, but naturally I couldn't find it. Kokusho took it home.

Games: 2-5
Matches: 1-2

Round 4 - Tyler Lang - UB Control

Tyler was piloting a deck played by Josh Beck, a nice guy who I've played against at States and several GPT's and who qualified for PT-LA last year. Despite having swept Mike Hall in round one (currently the top ranked Constructed player in Oregon), Tyler was not happy with the deck and kept telling Josh that Darkblast should have been included. Josh was sitting next to us as we played our match. In game one I played Lyzolda. Tyler pointed to it, turned to Josh and said, "See, Darkblast!" I played too many threats for him to deal with and killed him with 18 life left.

Game two was back and forth (after my obligatory mulligan). I got a couple of good Fall's but he was able to recover and start playing blue Legends. He played Meloku which I tried to kill with Demonfire. He Hinder'ed that but the Hinder tied up the mana he would have used to make flying tokens. He got me down to five with Meloku before I could kill it, but then cast Keiga. I had a land in my hand. I drew---Demonfire. I played the land and cast it at him for 7. He was at 6. He looked at his three untapped lands, looked at his hand, and looked at Demonfire, and back and forth for what seemed like several minutes. Finally he extended his hand and said "Good game" as Josh looked on and shook his head.

Tyler wound up 1-5 before dropping. The only guy he beat was Mike Hall. It was that kind of day.

Games: 4-5
Matches: 2-2

Round 5 - Romain Hughes - UGW control

Romain, proprietor of our competitor KardKastle but still a nice guy, was playing a hybrid graft/blue-white control deck. I don't know if this is a net deck or not but I had never played against it before. He had total control of game two as he countered everything relevant and Mortified the creatures which did hit the table. Game two I brought in Pithing Needle and Rain of Gore and kept an openin gseven of this: one Mountain, two Rain of Gore, two Fall, a Rat and a Poppet. I kept. I figured at 2-2 I didn't have much chance at Top 8 anyway and it was a good place to take a chance. If I did get a source of black it would totally shut down his game.

Naturally I missed land drops for the first three turns and wound up discarding the Poppet. This was my deck telling me "Don't do that again!"

Romain, meanwhile, was laying down his defenses including a turn three Ivory Mask, then Story Circle on Red a couple of turns later. I got a Pithing Needle through for the Story Circle but Ivory Mask made much of my Fall-filled hand dead cards. I started swinging with a Rat but I wasn't doing much damage and I actually said, "I'm giving you way too much time---I'm just waiting for you to rip Meloku." He did, the next turn, and Meloku killed me.

Oh yeah, I mulliganed game one. Again. I think that's part of why I kept in game two; I just didn't feel confident that my next six cards would be better than the seven I started with.

Games: 4-7
Matches: 2-3

Round 6 - Ben Oden - Rakdos

Ben built his deck differently than mine. He used the Rakdos Guildmage and Hellhole Rats. The Hellhole Rats weren't very effective. As I saw in my playtesting they are a bit slow against any aggressive deck. He cast his in game one while I had two cards in hand. I responded by casting the Char to kill one of his other critters and discarding what would have been my sixth land.

But of course I had mulliganed in game one, making it at least one mulligan in every single round. Boy that was frustrating. No excuse for that in a 23-land, two color deck which curves out at three. But I digress

Game one went back and forth as we played critters and killed our opponents critters. Eventually he out-crittered me and he used the Guildmage to create a Goblin token (he even had the Unglued Goblin tokens for the occasion) which was one more creature than I could block.

Game two was pretty even until he found two Hit // Run in a row. He killed both of my creatures, did six damage to me, and swung with the creatures he had left. It was just ugly.

Games: 4-9 (!)
Matches: 2-4

I dropped after that. Wow, I just realized that I got swept in all four rounds I lost. Ouch. I still feel that this deck is much better than it showed today.

Final thoughts: Rise // Fall is awesome and a must include in any Rakdos deck. Even if it gets countered it's still a one for one and I hit for two, Hymn to Tourach style, way more often than I missed.

I think three Rix Maadi was too many. Having more than one is unnecessary and it sometimes gets in the way of the heavy color requirements of the deck. You really want to get to two black so you can get the Augermage out there.

Ignorant Bliss was a good trick and got me out of a couple of Castigates in round three but overall I don't think it was needed. I think I'll make these changes and try again at the next Friday Night Magic:

-1 Rix Maadi
-4 Ignorant Bliss
-4 Gobhobbler Rats (I only regenerated them in the Hierarchy matchup, to defend against Descendants. Otherwise it was a Grizzly Bear with more difficult mana requirements.)

+1 Swamp
+4 Rakdos Guildmage (I need more early beats/threats/blockers---the deck just starts too slowly and doesn't finish people off quickly enough, giving them time to draw threats.)
+4 Ravenous Rats (More disruption than the Gobhobblers but they can still carry a Jitte.)

I expected UG Graft to be big but I'm not sure that any of those made the top 8. I know good guy and fellow Rainy Day Gamer was able to draw into the Top 8 with Ghazi-Glare, and there were several Zoo decks, a Ghost Husk and a Ghost Dad deck all near the top 8. I know one Ghost Dad deck piloted by Jason Schumacher wound up qualifying for Nationals.