There's no party like a Rakdos party!
Between their shared aggressive strategies and the efficiency of their removal spells, Red and Black decks have always popped up from format to format to make control decks frightened and make aggro decks jealous. So if you’re looking to play something that will make your opponent’s life just a little bit more miserable, I have just the decks here for you.
5. Standard Kroxa Midrange
Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Illustrated by Vincent Proce
The premise of this deck is quite simple: use recurring threats and strong removal pieces to choke your opponent out of the game. At the center of this deck is Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger whose counterpart, Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, was recently just banned due to its ability to be played over and over again. While Uro is gone Kroxa is still kicking, and you bet we’ll be taking full advantage of this unstoppable 6/6.
What is great about this deck:
- Persistent threats that can be played over and over again will prove to be a big headache for any opponent not running graveyard hate.
- With a strong suite of removal, you’ll be able to slow down or stop many of the creature decks in the standard metagame.
- This deck is just as good at destroying your opponent’s creatures as it is destroying their hand.
How This Deck is Played:
- Like we said before, Kroxa is the key to this deck, and finding ways to fill the graveyard to pay its escape cost is key. Tymaret Calls the Dead is a great tool for this as it grants up to two creatures and a substantial amount of mill over the course of two turns.
- This deck packs a lot of removal. Knowing which spells to use when is key, so make sure to save your exile spells for creatures that can be returned and your instant speed spells for hasty threats.
- With so many non-creature spells, this deck runs four Heartfire Immolators, which get a temporary buff upon casting your spells, and in a pinch can be sacrificed to remove a pesky creature or planeswalker.
- This deck also runs three Claim the First-Borns, which pair very nicely with sacrifice effects like Kazuul’s Fury or Village Rites. So make sure to swing in with your stolen creature before you sacrifice it for value.
- Skyclave Shade is shaping up to be a very impressive beater in this standard so it’s no surprise that this deck runs four. So when your Kroxa’s don’t work out, you can still profit in the late game from having frightening threats sitting in your graveyard.
- Rankle Master of Pranks is the glue that holds this deck together. Each of his abilities is perfect in this deck and you will often find yourself activating all of them when you hit your opponent.
Cards:
2 Agadeem's Awakening
4 Bloodchief's Thirst
3 Claim the Firstborn
4 Fabled Passage
1 Hagra Mauling
4 Heartfire Immolator
1 Kazuul's Fury
4 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
5 Mountain
3 Murderous Rider
1 Mutual Destruction
3 Rankle, Master of Pranks
1 Savai Triome
4 Skyclave Shade
2 Spikefield Hazard
6 Swamp
4 Temple of Malice
4 Tymaret Calls the Dead
4 Village Rites
Sideboard
4 Agonizing Remorse
2 Blacklance Paragon
2 Bonecrusher Giant
3 Heartless Act
2 Phoenix of Ash
2 Redcap Melee
4. Historic Rakdos Burn
Sovereign's Bite, Illustrated by Volkan Baǵa
Just like any other burn deck, this deck wants to go face. And go HARD. The difference here is unlike other red burn decks, this deck also plays a few black cards, adding some pivotal reach to your deck that may win you a lot of games.
What is great about this deck:
- This deck is fast and often sacrifices its life total just to go the extra mile.
- Thanks to cards like Sovereign's Bite, this deck is better suited against other aggro decks, making racing you to the finish an impossible task.
- Unlike other burn decks, this deck plays a few more expensive cards that make its late-game unbelievably threatening.
How This Deck is Played:
- The fastest way to pack a punch early is to start the game with a handful of good creatures. Dreadhorde Butcher particularly is an excellent creature to play before your opponent can set up proper defenses, growing its power on each hit!
- At the other end of the spectrum, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell is a card we want to draw later in the game, as for four mana we can add two damage to each of our damage sources, ending the game in the blink of an eye.
- With the inclusion of Light Up the Stage and The Flame of Keld, this deck has a few ways to get up on card advantage, which is important when trying to burn your opponent out with instants and sorceries.
- This deck runs A LOT of ways to hit your opponent in the face, 21 ways to be exact. And, generally, that’s where they should be pointed because if you spend too many spells killing your opponent’s creatures you’ll run out of gas before you can deal those last points of damage.
- The last great part of this deck is the inclusion of Tibalt, Rakish Instigator who can stop your opponent from gaining life for as long as he sits on the board. A great way to deal with our worst matchups; lifegain.
Cards:
4 Blood Crypt
4 Viashino Pyromancer
4 Sovereign's Bite
2 Light Up the Stage
4 Shock
3 Swamp
9 Mountain
4 Dragonskull Summit
2 Tibalt, Rakish Instigator
3 Wizard's Lightning
4 Lightning Strike
3 Slaying Fire
3 Risk Factor
2 The Flame of Keld
3 Ghitu Lavarunner
4 Dreadhorde Butcher
2 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
3. Historic Death-Whirler
Goblin Chainwhirler, Illustrated by Svetlin Velinov
If you are unfamiliar with the Death Whirler combo, it goes like this: reanimating a Goblin Chainwhirler with the card Call of the Death-Dweller puts a deathtouch counter on your goblin before its ability triggers dealing one damage to each of your opponent’s creatures. This means you wipe your opponent’s board for only three mana. This is a deck that takes full advantage of this interaction.
What is great about this deck:
- The inclusion of the Death Whirler combo in any deck gives you strong outs against opposing creature decks, which red decks often struggle with.
- Even without the combo, this deck has a very strong shell and can win even without drawing a Call of the Death-Dweller.
- Thanks to the strong land bases in the historic format, this deck can get away with running no basic swamps, meaning you will have no trouble casting your triple red costed Chainwhirler on turn three.
How This Deck is Played:
- On its face, this deck looks like a pretty traditional aggro deck, and in a lot of ways, it will play like one. You will find yourself easily outracing other creature decks and pressuring control decks just like any other aggro deck can.
- Though unlike other aggro decks, which traditionally never play board sweepers, we have access to the combo, which means we have an extreme amount of reach when dealing with decks such as mono-green, mono-white, or even some more midrange builds.
- Rix Maadi Reveler is a great tool, as she not only can discard a Goblin Chainwhirler on turn two to be reanimated turn three but can be cast with her spectacle ability to redraw a hand of three cards later in the game.
- Even when you can’t find the necessary Goblin Chainwhirler to wipe out your opponent’s creatures, you can opt instead to return a Fanatical Firebrand which does a similar job picking off just one creature. It’s not as efficient but sometimes it does the job.
- But like I said before, this is an aggro deck before it is a combo deck, and the inclusions of Anax, Torbran, and Embercleave means that late in the game you have strong finishing power. Death Whirler or not.
Cards:
3 Anax, Hardened in the Forge
4 Blood Crypt
2 Spikefield Hazard
4 Call of the Death-Dweller
2 Castle Embereth
4 Dragonskull Summit
3 Embercleave
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Fervent Champion
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
11 Mountain
4 Rix Maadi Reveler
4 Runaway Steam-Kin
4 Scorch Spitter
1 Temple of Malice
2 Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
Sideboard
2 Claim the Firstborn
1 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Lava Coil
3 Rampaging Ferocidon
4 Robber of the Rich
1 Theater of Horrors
2. Historic Rakdos Sacrifice
Mayhem Devil, Illustrated by Dmitry Burmak
If you’ve been playing Arena for any amount of time you have likely come across some version of Rakdos Sacrifice. This deck’s ability to kill out of nowhere mixed with its persistent threats make it a great contender in any metagame.
What is great about this deck:
- What all Rakdos Sacrifice decks have in common is their inclusion of Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven, which allows you to drain your opponent for one life each turn, while triggering your death and sacrifice triggered abilities.
- Thanks to interactive cards like Priest of the Forgotten Gods, this deck also does a good job of slowing down your opponent’s gameplan.
- Due to the low mana requirements in this deck, Jegantha, the Wellspring fits in quite well as a big body to play later in the game if needed at no cost to you.
How This Deck is Played:
- The play patterns in this deck are simple at its surface. It is important to set up an engine that allows you to take full advantage of cards like Priest of the Forgotten Gods, Judith, the Scourge Diva, and Mayhem Devil.
- These engines involve looping your creatures in and out of the graveyard, the easiest way to do this is of course with the aforementioned Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven, which is very hard to interact with if you know when to activate each piece of the combo.
- Cauldron Familiar isn’t the only thing you can sacrifice profitably though, Dreadhorde Butcher gives you a big bonus when you sacrifice it and the token produced by Woe Strider is ideal for doing just that.
- To top it all off Midnight Reaper will refill your hand with cards after sitting on the board for only a turn or two, especially when you have the Witch’s Oven loop in effect.
- This deck splashes green for just one card: Collective Company. This allows you to flash out key creatures and kill your opponent when they least expect it.
Cards:
4 Blood Crypt
4 Cauldron Familiar
4 Claim the Firstborn
4 Collected Company
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Dreadhorde Butcher
3 Judith, the Scourge Diva
4 Mayhem Devil
2 Midnight Reaper
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Phyrexian Tower
4 Priest of Forgotten Gods
4 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Witch's Oven
4 Woe Strider
3 Woodland Cemetery
Sideboard:
2 Act of Treason
2 Evolution Sage
1 Jegantha, the Wellspring
2 Korvold, Fae-Cursed King
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Liliana's Standard Bearer
4 Witch's Vengeance
1. Historic Rakdos Arcanist
Dreadhorde Arcanist, Illustrated by G-host Lee
No doubt one of the strongest decks on all of Arena right now, Rakdos Arcanist benefits greatly from all the cards introduced with the release of Amonkhet Remastered. Both Thoughtseize and Claim // Fame are included in fours and have single-handedly brought this deck into existence.
What is great about this deck:
- This deck does it all, attacks the hand, attacks your opponent’s board, and attacks their life total.
- Recurring threats is what this deck does best, and it does it fast. Does swinging in with a flying 5/5 on turn two sound exciting to you? Because it sounds exciting to me.
- To top it all of Lurrus of the Dream Den is historically considered the strongest companion there is, and this deck takes full advantage of that.
How This Deck is Played:
- This deck treats its graveyard like a second hand, which means cards like Stitcher’s Suppliers can draw you effectively six cards, and stands to be one of the best sacrifice targets in the deck due to its death trigger.
- Dreadhorde Arcanist is the namesake of the deck and for good reason, with so many powerful one mana instants and sorceries, this zombie wizard will give you so much value throughout the game and is a “kill on sight” creature for many of your opponents.
- Young Pyromancer also takes full advantage of these cards, creating a creature token each time you cast one (and yes that even triggers when casting from the graveyard).
- Cards like Thoughtsieze, Claim // Fame, Village Rights, and Spark Harvest are highly efficient and made even better by Dreadhorde Arcanist and Young Pyromancer.
- To top it all off, Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger is a two-mana 6/6 that packs a massive punch and rips apart whatever is left of your opponent’s hand.
Cards:
2 Agadeem's Awakening
4 Blood Crypt
1 Castle Locthwain
4 Claim/Fame
4 Claim the Firstborn
1 Cling to Dust
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Dreadhorde Arcanist
2 Fabled Passage
3 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
4 Mountain
2 Priest of Forgotten Gods
2 Spark Harvest
2 Spikefield Hazard
4 Stitcher's Supplier
5 Swamp
4 Thoughtseize
4 Village Rites
4 Young Pyromancer
Sideboard:
1 Abrade
2 Angrath's Rampage
1 Cling to Dust
2 Duress
3 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
2 Redcap Melee
3 Witch's Vengeance
You may also be interested in:
