My Journey in Shoe Horning a Blitz deck

So I recently tried to to get my stoopid Rakdos deck working.


And by Rakdos I mean a deck containing Rakdos, Lord of Riots not R/B decks in general =)



So a friend insisted that Rakdos was playable. I got into a tirade on how bad Rakdos is.

I mean, really, I have tried the card in aggro as well as control and he is just plain difficult to use. And I know this friend has'nt tried and is just make baseless convenient conjectures, hence my hissy fit.


But I am a very impartial person, even when I am biased against a point (in this case my prior experience tells me my parun is chicken shit) But still I  gave the opinion its due consideration.

Previously I had tried Rakdos in an aggro deck. But that was with R/B before Gatecrash.

Now strictly a zombie deck might have been able to force a Rakdos out, but at that time I was trying
to avoid zombies (as it was an already established deck, is likely just a poor replacement for the vampire)
and I wanted to use Rakdos upside.


The aggro deck did'nt make it, though (and highly likely) a zombie deck might have made it.

Still, I tried the control route, I did'nt just want Rakdos to be a poor replacement beat stick.

That one had some hope, but I was reluctant to use Rakdos's Return and Slaughter Games as those felt unfair
(but now I would use them gladly, partly as what cards to point slaughter games at is getting clearer + hey everyone is playing Sphinx's Revelation no? =P ).

The reason I said it had hope was that, the deck actually was able to attrite most decks to a blank state on board.... but it did'nt have the last ommph to finish off the opponent when he was down.

Rakdos Return and Slaughter games would have done that handily. Thing is I actually survived
three Sphinx Revelation and my opponent took forever to kill me. That ought to count for something huh?


But anyways before I got over the cheesiness of Rakdos Returns and Slaughter Games, I got interested in
LD (that will be another article).


So my Parun was left homeless for a while.




but due to the brief tirade about how bad Rakdos Lord of Riots is, I decided to explore how bad is he =P


The reason I was interested is this. The Naya Blitz is really fast. Previously my aggro deck ran out of steam and with no way to hit the dome, Rakdos stayed home *w00t a pun!!* but the Naya Blitz is really really fast.


So I decided to attempt to bring Naya Blitz to the Dark Side (I really am just shoe horning Rakdos in I know I know).

So this led to Dark Naya, now I know there is something called Dark Naya out there, but I have never seen it, and I don't want confusion, so I shall call mine Darya, since I have a friend called Darya =) I am pretty sure she would appreciate how this deck contains demons and all *ahem*


Now Darya was not the original attempt. I called the original attempt Dega Aggro. (Dega is from Apocalypse, kudos to the guy who remembered). Dega means WRB.

And this is the list:


//NAME: C:\MWS\Magic Workstation\Dega_aggro.mwDeck
    4 Boros Elite
    4 Champion of the Parish
    4 Rakdos Cackler
    3 Rakdos, Lord of Riots
    1 Deviant Glee
    4 Lightning Mauler
    3 Mizzium Mortars
    3 Bonfire of the Damned
    1 Rakdos's Return
    1 Cryptborn Horror
    2 Disciple of Bolas
    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 Sacred Foundry
    4 Blood Crypt
    1 Vault of the Archangel
    4 Frontline Medic
    4 Dragonskull Summit
    4 Clifftop Retreat
    4 Burning-Tree Emissary
    1 Rix Maadi Guildmage


It is actually serviceable, but the mana is awkward due to Cavern of Souls. Remember Cavern of Souls only produces coloured mana for the creature type chosen when you play it. So sequencing your choice is important.


In the end, the deck was not as fast as I wanted, but it did its job of getting Rakdos out. I just need to actually run it in an FNM.

What bugged me was that it was fast but it lacked Naya Blitz's bulk with speed,   ....severely so. The Human synergy was not there, there might have been enough to make it still work, but I was unhappy.


So I continued tweaking it and I came up with two variants:


I realised that, to really exploit the Champion of the Parish, I needed the one drops to be humans.

Also the removal of Mayor of Avabruck meant the deck lacked tricks. The Mayor accounted for bulk and
added to Champion and when it was howling, it created an army of wolfs that evolved Experiment One.

That was a tough shoe to fill!!

I looked at the manabase and felt 4 Caverns and the Burning-Tree Shaman might do the trick and Darya was created::


By now it is pretty establised that if Rakdos was used in an aggro deck, its upside becomes irrelevant. Hence
I replaced my parun with the Falkenrath Aristocrat. If tragic slips become extremely popular, Rakdos might become more playable, but for now 4/1 haste is just too delicious.


//NAME: C:\MWS\Magic Workstation\Darya_Blitz.mwDeck
    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 Sacred Foundry
    4 Blood Crypt
    4 Dragonskull Summit
    4 Clifftop Retreat
    4 Boros Elite
    4 Champion of the Parish
    4 Lightning Mauler
    4 Frontline Medic
    1 Rix Maadi Guildmage
    2 Mizzium Mortars
    3 Bonfire of the Damned
    4 Searing Spear
    4 Reckless Waif/Merciless Predator
    2 Falkenrath Aristocrat
    4 Burning-Tree Emissary
    4 Mayor of Avabruck/Howlpack Alpha

// Sideboard:




Darya did'nt run too badly actually it was as fast as Naya Blitz and can match it play for play, however the main difference is that of Reckless Waif versus Experiment One.

Experiment is potentially 4/4 (with Mayor, possibly bigger, but most games don't last long enough)
while Reckless Waif has a max 3/2 but Reckless Waif potentially is faster in getting to 3 power. I suspect Experiment one is more consistent.

The other exchange is Ghor-Clan Rampager versus Falkenrath Aristocrat. The speed at which the deck aims to kill results in the two cards essentially serving the same purpose, that is, to hit for 4 to the face quickly.

Rampager with bloodrush potentially saves your creature though (and still gets the 4 through using trample), the Aristocrat has evasion and is able to protect itself however.

Another difference is Bonfire and Mizzium Mortars versus Giant Growth and Flinthoof boars. You can read it as 3 Bonfire, 2 Mizzium Mortars, 1 Falkenrath Aristocrat and 1 Rix Maadi Guildmage is replacing, 3 Giant Growths and 4 Boars. There is an exchange of two creatures for two spells.

That is largely due to difficulty in finding a good black or red creature at 2 cc. Playing the boar as well as the Mayor would stress my non-green mana base too much me thinks, hence I did not go down that route.

But it held up well and played similarly.



...



So similar that I questioned what I was doing so much to get black for? 2 Falkenrath Aristocrats??? The Bonfire could have been played in the original one! (Though I do not recommend that, Bonfire though powerful is unpredictable and Giant Growth combats tricks are good)


Hence I decided I did not want to go Naya, I wanted it to be Dega.


Hence Dega Blitz was created::

//NAME: C:\MWS\Magic Workstation\Dega_Blitz.mwDeck
    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 Sacred Foundry
    4 Blood Crypt
    4 Dragonskull Summit
    4 Clifftop Retreat
    4 Boros Elite
    4 Champion of the Parish
    4 Lightning Mauler
    4 Frontline Medic
    1 Rix Maadi Guildmage
    4 Reckless Waif/Merciless Predator
    2 Falkenrath Aristocrat
    2 Disciple of Bolas
    2 Knight of Infamy
    4 Skirsdag High Priest
    2 Mizzium Mortars
    3 Bonfire of the Damned
    4 Searing Spear

// Sideboard:


I removed Shaman and Mayor. The Shaman is actually still in contention. However, previously it did double duty, achieving colour fixing + acceleration. Now, in Dega Blitz it only accelerates (since green mana is not needed) and further more if I have more black creatures I cannot accelerate consistently.

I tried very hard to look for a good 2cc red human creature comparable to the Mayor in power, but found none, hence when the shaman's acceleration became less reliable, she had to go.


That leaves 8 slots.


The most powerful 2 cc black HUMAN creature is *drumroll*











Skirsdag High Priest!

This starts to go into Aristocrats or Act 2 territory. But those decks are not my game as I still wanted to blitz.




I ended with

4 Skirdag High Priest
2 Disciple of Bolas
2 Knight of Infamy





Skirdag if left uncheck can be alot of pain. Bolas's disciple is just nice to have and is Human. However he is too slow and lousy in multiples, hence I am only comfortable letting 2 in the deck. Knight of Infamy becos I am not too sure what else to put there.

Overall I like it.  but it is still slower than naya Blitz =/