On Theme: Running with the Devil (Guilds of Ravnica Part 2 of 10)

So, it has been a few weeks since we delved into the weird and wild world of Ravnica and its many guilds, so we are going to delve deep into the underbelly of the City of Guilds. It is time to visit the Carnarium of the Rakdos Cult.

These demon worshiping killers are led by Rakdos the Defiler, a 7/6 flying trampling Demon for 6. His abilities are:

Whenever Rakdos the Defiler attacks, sacrifice half the non-Demon permanents you control, rounded up.

Now this sucks a bit, but it does give us a clear deck building goal. Lots and lots of Demons, and maybe a way to benefit from sacrificing your stuff.
His other ability is a lot more fun, for us.

Whenever Rakdos deals combat damage to a player, that player sacrifices half the non-Demon permanents he or she controls, rounded up.

So, this is awesome, 'cause how many other demons do you normally see in a normal game? Plus, it is very much a blow up the world mentality that I think will serve as a great idea for the rest of the deck.

So the building rules are as follows:
1. Tribal Demons
2. Sacrifice for Profit
3. Burn the World
4. Suicide for advantage
So let's see how the deck follows these rules.

TRIBAL DEMONS

Let's start with some demons that are just good creatures, there aren’t many since most are over priced.
Bloodgift Demon - A second Phyrexian Arena, and one that can ping others if you need it.
Carnifex Demon - Demons are normally pretty big, Carny here gets to eat tokens and those utility creatures without hurting us too much.
Demon of Death’s Gate - A “free” 9/9 flyer, and his downside fits our other goals of sacrifice and suicide.
Dread Cacodemon & Reiver Demon - One sided wraths are good.
Lord of the Pit & Liege of the Pit - The poster children of pain for power black cards.
Seizan, Perverter of Truth - More pain for cards.
Rune-Scarred Demon - A tutor that is also a 6/6 flyer for 7, yeah he is good.
Now a few non-demons that help the tribal aspects of the deck.
Adaptive Automaton & Brass Herald - I have talked about these two before, so no need to talk about our robot friends.
Blood Speaker - He tutors demons, and then brings himself back to your hand, plus fuels morbid and Gravepact shenanigans.
Skirsdag High Priest - Feeds on morbid to make more creatures, and decently sized ones at that.
Demonic Rising - helps us up that demon count if we are lacking in numbers.
Oni Possession - Turns one of our non-demons into a demon and gives it a nice buff.

Sacrifice for Profit

Black Market - Seriously one of my favorite cards and any black deck should be running it, especially with how pricing out creatures are.
Grave Pact - Sac and make others pay, seems good.
Defiler of Souls - Forcing other sacs.
Disciple of Bolas - Sac for life and cards, it is a nice change from all our other paying for cards.
Disciple of Griselbrand - More sacing for life.
Harvester of Souls - All the creatures dying let's you draw tons of cards.
Ravenous Demon - Sac one of your humans and get a bigger demon.
Reaper from the Abyss - Kill more creatures.
Need something to sacrifice?
Kher Keep - Let the demons snack on some 0/1 kobolds
Gargoyle Castle - Useful even if only able usable once.
Nuisance Engine - more repeatable tokens to feed your demons.

Burn the World

Some people just want to watch the world burn...and we are one of those people.
Dread Cacodemon, Havoc Demon , Kagemaro, First to Suffer, Reiver Demon - These guys love wiping the board.
Damanation & Decree of Pain - More Wraths.
Living Death - Clears the board and should bring back all those demons you fed to things.
Rakdos the Defiler, Hellcarver Demon - These guys love blowing your stuff up.
Malfegor - Nukes your hand to kill other things.

Suicide for Profit

Suicide Black has always been a fun way to play and this deck does alot of it.
Night’s Whispers, Sign in Blood & Promise of Power - Trading life for cards.
Phyrexian Arena, Bloodgift Demon, & Seizan - More pain for cards
Plus we have all the demons we have to pay to keep around, like the deniziens of the Pit and Archdemon of Greed.
So here is the rest of the deck:

Commander

1x Rakdos the Defiler

Creature (32)

1x Adaptive Automaton1x Blood Speaker1x Bloodgift Demon1x Brass Herald1x Carnifex Demon1x Defiler of Souls1x Demon of Death's Gate1x Disciple of Bolas1x Disciple of Griselbrand1x Dread Cacodemon1x Halo Hunter1x Harvester of Souls1x Havoc Demon1x Hellcarver Demon1x Hollowborn Barghest1x Kagemaro, First to Suffer1x Liege of the Pit1x Lord of the Pit1x Malfegor1x Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis1x Ob Nixilis, the Fallen1x Pestilence Demon1x Ravenous Demon Flip1x Reaper from the Abyss1x Reiver Demon1x Rune-Scarred Demon1x Seizan, Perverter of Truth1x Skirsdag High Priest1x Stronghold Overseer1x Tombstalker1x Xathrid Demon

Sorcery (6)

1x Damnation1x Decree of Pain1x Living Death1x Night's Whisper1x Promise of Power1x Sign in Blood

Artifact (19)

1x Basalt Monolith1x Coalition Relic1x Demonspine Whip1x Doubling Cube1x Elbrus, the Binding Blade  Flip1x Everflowing Chalice1x Fireshrieker1x Grim Monolith1x Heart of Ramos1x Lightning Greaves1x Mana Vault1x Nuisance Engine1x Rakdos Riteknife1x Rakdos Signet1x Scroll of Griselbrand1x Skull of Ramos1x Sol Ring1x Thran Dynamo1x Voltaic Key

Land (37)

1x Dragonskull Summit1x Gargoyle Castle1x Kher Keep1x Molten Slagheap8x Mountain1x Rakdos Carnarium1x Reliquary Tower1x Shadowblood Ridge1x Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse1x Spinerock Knoll16x Swamp1x Tainted Peak1x Terramorphic Expanse1x Tresserhorn Sinks

Enchantment (6)

1x Black Market1x Demonic Rising1x Grave Pact1x Mark of the Oni1x Oni Possession1x Phyrexian ArenaSo that was the Demons of the Rakdos Cult. Next week join me for a look at the Izzet Clan of Mages and Mad Scientists. Now I know who you think we will be building but you won’t see any super smart dragons in this deck. We got better things to do with out time. Plus he is too busy running out Silly Hats deck to do anything else.
As always, if you got any ideas for the deck or any other strange themes you would like to see built, shoot me an email at jmfelber@gmail.com, or hit my twitter @RealFelber.  I am also on the Salvation boards as HatterofMad all the time, and if you wanna check out my experiment in MTG Trading check out The One Red Mountain Project, it is starting to get exciting up to over 30 bucks from trading starting with a single foil mountain.


Jon Felber