Rakdos Midrange: Can the Old King Still Dance?

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Introduction

I’m writing this at 5:03 PM Arizona time on 5/13. Last week I won the RCQ with Rakdos Midrange, going 7-0-2 undefeated. Since then many of my friends and people on Twitter have messaged me asking for my thoughts on the deck and my sideboard strategy, so I decided to sit down and write this article, hoping it helps everyone.

Why Rakdos Midrange

I think that apart from being a bit weak against Izzet Phoenix and Niv to Light, most matchups are good for Rakdos Midrange, especially Rakdos Vampires, Waste Not and Slickshot Show-Off decks, which are very easy wins if everything goes smoothly. The rest of the matchups depend on experience: as long as you play the right list and pilot it well, you have a chance to fight. The last reason is that I’m a loyal supporter of Invoke Despair, and today’s meta makes it shine even more, and I believe it’s what let me win the RCQ so easily.
(I would definitely never say it’s because I can’t afford Rakdos Vampires and don’t like it, and that the Lotus Field Combo I originally wanted to try is too weak in today’s meta, so I could only go back to playing Rakdos Midrange.)

About My List

Decklist link

Last year I wrote a very detailed deck guide for Rakdos Midrange, including single-card analysis, card choices, matchup details and sideboard strategy (article link here). This time, to keep it shorter, I’ll focus more on “why I chose this way this time”. Let’s get started!!!

Why Reckoner Bankbuster?

Before talking about what makes Reckoner Bankbuster good, let me first say why I don’t like Smuggler’s Copter + Inti, Seneschal of the Sun. Against Izzet Phoenix, Copter + Inti has trouble surviving; against Waste Not, the discard runs right into the opponent’s gun; against aggro it can’t act as a blocker; against slow decks it has an edge in racing life totals, but it’s hard to come back once they catch up in the midgame and late game. Also, if you play Copter on turn two, Inti on turn three and crew, choose to use Inti’s ability to pump the attack and don’t exile a land, you lose a card in hand; and if you choose not to pump through Inti’s ability, your turn-three offense isn’t even as good as crewing Reckoner Bankbuster on turn three, so what are you playing them for? Finally, you don’t want to draw multiple Copters or Intis, and in the midgame and late game they have especially little impact on the game; the two must be paired to maximize their advantage, and they rely on “attacking” to trigger abilities, and in the end you may not actually “add cards” and can often only “loot”. In short, I really don’t recommend the Copter + Inti combination. If you want offense in the first few turns, why not choose Slickshot Show-Off?

Back to Reckoner Bankbuster: it lets us barely keep up with Izzet Phoenix’s resource gap from Treasure Cruise; against control and Niv to Light it serves as early offense and a midgame and late-game resource bank; against aggro it can be a blocker; and it can also fill in spare mana, which matters a lot in matchups like Rakdos Vampires, Amalia Combo and Slickshot Show-Off aggro, where you need to hold mana to respond. Finally, of course, it’s used against Waste Not, where with it you almost can’t lose the matchup.

Why Invoke Despair?

The four main pillars of the format today are Rakdos Vampires, Izzet Phoenix, Niv to Light and Waste Not, and Invoke Despair shines in every matchup except Izzet Phoenix. Handling Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki + the Goblin Shaman token or Vein Ripper + Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord in one go is a huge help in the Rakdos Vampires matchup; it handles all of Niv to Light’s threats + refills resources + lowers the opponent’s life total, and Waste Not is the same story. A one-for-three has a massive impact in any matchup, and sometimes casting it for six with an open board to draw three may even be the best case. It does have bad matchups, but when we need it, it’s very helpful.

Liliana of the Veil in the Main Deck?

I admit this may not be the best choice, but I think we need some cards to fight Niv to Light and Rakdos Vampires, so main deck + sideboard should have at least 3, and the sideboard doesn’t have that much room, so since she performs fine most of the time, I think two in the main deck is fine. If the metagame where you are doesn’t have as many Niv to Light and Rakdos Vampires, you can play other cards instead.

How Did Magda and Kaervek Perform?

Magda, the Hoardmaster isn’t especially good, since she needs to commit crimes multiple times to gain an advantage. However, she has helped me a fair amount in the Quintorius Combo and Amalia Combo matchups, because in those matchups we always need to hold mana for removal to respond to the opponent, which leaves us without enough mana early to cast other spells, and Magda’s Treasures can give us extra mana. Besides that, she performs unremarkably in other matchups and I’m considering swapping her out.

Kaervek, the Punisher is fantastic, turning almost all your cards into two-for-ones or even three-for-ones, and combined with committing a crime at instant speed to recur Thoughtseize, it has a huge impact in many matchups. My list has only 1, but I want more, and maybe he can replace Magda.

Only Two Bonecrusher Giants?

These days Bonecrusher Giant is not as useful as it used to be. Apart from against Slickshot Show-Off and Amalia Combo, where I want more, its chances to perform in other matchups are very limited. I use it because it provides both a two-mana and a three-mana curve play, and it’s a serviceable removal spell and a quality creature, things other cards have a hard time giving. I don’t think we need more, but we shouldn’t have fewer either.

Why Are There So Many One-Ofs in the Sideboard?

I want every card in my sideboard to be very versatile, because in sideboard games I want to swap out all the useless cards and bring in more cards helpful for the matchup. If I put more than one copy of the same card, the sideboard can’t cover as many matchups.

Let me give an example: Torch the Tower and Noxious Grasp are both very helpful against Amalia Combo and Quintorius Combo, but Torch the Tower can also fight Slickshot Show-Off and Izzet Phoenix, while Noxious Grasp can fight Niv to Light and Azorius Control. If I picked only one of the two and played two copies, I couldn’t answer all the different decks.

Common Matchups

Rakdos Vampires

I think this is a very good matchup. We have more resource advantage than they do, and with Thoughtseize and 5 sacrifice effects to handle Vein Ripper + Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, even if we don’t have them, sacrificing a creature to kill Vein Ripper is still an acceptable price. I don’t have much advice for this matchup: keep a card in hand that can disrupt Vein Ripper + Sorin, and as long as they don’t have the combination, we’ll always win the game.

Izzet Phoenix

If they have Young Pyromancer, keep Bonecrusher Giant and take out 2 Bloodtithe Harvester.
If they have Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki, keep Invoke Despair and take out 2 Bloodtithe Harvester.
If they have both, take out 4 Bloodtithe Harvester.

This matchup used to be decent. They rely on a large amount of resources to run the deck, and we’re very effective at stopping that kind of deck: Thoughtseize and Duress can take away the opponent’s important cards, Graveyard Trespasser can hate the graveyard while coming with its own protection, and we also have Sheoldred, the Apocalypse to punish them for drawing, so we usually only lose when the opponent has 2 or more Arclight Phoenix early in the game.

However, I think the matchup is unfavorable for us now. Sleight of Hand and Picklock Prankster // Free the Fae greatly speed up Izzet Phoenix’s tempo, letting them filter into 2 or 3 Arclight Phoenix faster and cast Treasure Cruise more easily, and in the end we lose the game by falling behind on resources.

I think this matchup depends heavily on experience: you need to balance offense and defense, when to disrupt, when to force out the opponent’s removal, and when to counterattack, and these shifts in timing take some experience to master precisely. Of course there are still some simple concepts: for discard value, besides choosing the opponent’s Treasure Cruise, you can also choose Spell Pierce to escort Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki, because Fable is to us as Treasure Cruise is to Izzet Phoenix. I will also try to force the opponent to use Lightning Axe on creatures other than Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, to ensure Sheoldred’s safety late in the game.

Niv to Light

I really dislike this matchup because the pressure is always on us. Every card of the opponent’s is individually stronger than ours, and even if we use some hand disruption early to interfere, the opponent just draws a quality card and our efforts go to waste. Reckoner Bankbuster on turn two is best, dodging most of their removal and sweepers and having more offense than Bloodtithe Harvester. If possible, I’ll save instant-speed removal for Omnath, Locus of Creation, because the opponent drawing a bunch of cards and gaining life is more painful for us, as we then need more turns to kill them. I really like how Liliana of the Veil and Invoke Despair perform in this matchup: Liliana’s discard every turn is very good here, while Invoke Despair can handle the opponent’s enchantments, and both can disrupt while also carrying removal.

Waste Not

I really don’t want to say that resolving Reckoner Bankbuster wins the game, but many times that’s how I feel. Our topdeck ability is great, the opponent’s discard is mostly one-for-one, and as long as we draw cards that go one-for-many, we have the advantage. That’s why Bankbuster is so good: it’s the nemesis of Liliana of the Veil, since instant-speed draw hurts an opponent who has Liliana too much, and whether Liliana uses +1 or -2, we can crew Bankbuster to ram Liliana to death. Of course, apart from the advice to slam Bankbuster, I think the only thing to watch for is that when you draw a land in the midgame or late game, there’s no need to rush to play it, because the opponent may activate Geier Reach Sanitarium, which gives you a chance to filter, and discarding a land is the option that loses the least to Waste Not (or when the opponent slams Thoughtseize you can shout “Gotcha!!!”).

Slickshot Show-Off Deck

I think this is a very good matchup. We have lots of removal and also lifegain, so what we need to do is keep our life total as high as possible and then finish the game quickly. The only tricky ones are probably the red-green and red-white versions that bring protection, since we have to slam removal around the protection. A trick is to use removal only at the opponent’s end step, because the opponent will always hold a spell to respond to your removal, and even if your removal gets dodged at their end step, on your turn the opponent won’t necessarily have enough mana to respond. And you take less damage from the last turn too, because the opponent isn’t using the spell before damage is dealt.

Amalia Combo

This matchup depends heavily on the experience of both players. I’ve faced very strong opponents who kept me under pressure the whole game, and I’ve also faced players unfamiliar with the deck who gave me very easy wins. If the opponent knows how to play, they usually play more conservatively until they’re confident enough to go for the combo. And you don’t dare cast spells carelessly either, because you want to hold mana to respond to the opponent. The problem is that they’re the more proactive side, slamming down some irrelevant creatures early to attack and force us to act, and we don’t have a good solution for that. I really find it hard to explain the tricks of this matchup; all I can say is use your mana carefully, and if you can see their hand early with Thoughtseize, this matchup goes much better.

Conclusion

I think this deck really isn’t the first choice in today’s metagame. The main reason I chose it is personal preference, since this deck has stumbled along with me from the first season until now, from an ordinary little rookie to the professional-level player I am today, so it’s full of memories. Still, I hope everyone will be brave enough to try things out, since perhaps fighting the metagame’s off-meta choices is the best first choice for making an impact at tournaments. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or message my fan page “夢續工作室 DreamOn Studio”, and tune in to our podcast, “龍尊與荒野騎士的玄境之談”, now available on Spotify and Apple Podcast!!!

I’m ClarkShih, see you next time!