Black and red are two colors I really enjoy playing in multiplayer games. They bring a level of intensity to games. While other colors tend to deal with problematic permanents in roundabout ways, Rakdos gets right in there: Burn it; destroy it! Other colors sit there, considering the best way to deal with a situation, considering the options and long-term ramifications of their decisions. Black and red just march in, see the problem, and cut it out. They get the job done.

Black/red decks tend to be rush decks. They dump all their resources on the board faster than you thought possible, then pound on their opponents for as long as they can. Most times, they can kill one opponent or do a lot of damage to several opponents, but they rarely win out by overcommitting in this fashion.

The problem for the deck isn’t that it runs out of resources too quickly, the problem is that it draws so much attention to itself early on. Everyone else in the game must deal with the Rakdos player as soon as the game starts. This means that the Rakdos player is essentially playing a three-against-one game—without the benefit of Archenemy cards. Rakdos players can win this matchup early on because all their resources are already in play. They are using everything early on. They have the equivalent of ten resources in play while the three opponents each only have two. Rakdos is winning. The problem lies in that Rakdos adds only one resource each round, while the opponents are adding between three and six each round. The game quickly turns against the Rakdos player.

This isn’t true of other decks. They may draw some occasional attention from one or two players, but it isn’t sustained. Most decks use gradual incremental advantages to try to win the resource war, backing off and letting their opponents fight each other, jumping into the fray occasionally, but not for long.

Other aggro decks tend to rely on creatures or other permanents to finish opponents. Everything is there in front of you. There is the occasional pump spell, but it is generally something predictable. Even when you consider the aggro options in other colors, Rakdos still draws more attention. I suspect the issue for Rakdos, beyond the resource imbalance, lies in the psychological aspect of what B/R does. When other color combinations win, you feel as though you lost a game. When Rakdos wins, they killed you. Lightning Bolt and Drain Life killed you. I’d rather lose the game than be dead.

In spite of these issues, here we are in Rakdos week, and I’m trying to come up with a multiplayer deck that is running just black and red! I decide to start by looking through my cards to look at my options for decent multiplayer cards in these colors, when I come across this doozie.

If I can use cards that spend 1 mana to do 1 point of damage to each opponent, I could, in theory, put several +1/+1 counters on Cryptborn Horror for every mana I spend! With the trample ability already on the creature, this seems to be a great place to start!

I started searching through cards, but I’m an old-school player, and Pestilence just kept reminding me that it is right there. The difficulty I have with Pestilence—and Earthquake and most of the X spells—is the mana cost. Let’s imagine we’re in a four-player game with Pestilence in play and the Cryptborn Horror in hand. We want the Horror to be the biggest thing out there, so we are thinking of activating Pestilence for 4. With three opponents, that gives us a 12/12 trampler. That seems pretty solid. The problem is that we need 7 mana to activate Pestilence (eight if we are using Earthquake) and cast the Horror on the same turn.

Are there other ways to make this happen? I whispered out to some Muses for other ideas. The guys came through in spades.

This works fairly well, but it is a one-trick pony. You do the damage, and then this card is gone. You really need to ensure that everything goes according to plan or all those eggs sitting in that single Cryptborn Horror basket can be easily upended. That’s where the next suggestion comes in.

The real benefit with Hidetsugu is that he doesn’t need to sacrifice himself as the Magmasaur does. You may lose the Horror to removal, but Hidetsugu can continue to tap every turn! Just a quick note: Be sure to tap Hidetsugu before attacking. Not tapping first is like giving your opponent extra life!

As long as our opponents will be losing plenty of life, why not run Rakdos, Lord of Riots in the deck as well? A 6/6 flying trampler for 4 mana would be enough on its own, but when everything gets rolling, you are not likely to be ever paying anything other than the colored mana symbols for any card you play, and that’s just gravy.

The final key ingredient in this cake is Anger. Right now, I’m relying on creatures with no protection to actually stay in play. This is a dangerous thing to do with so many opponents around, especially after they have played against you a couple of times and know what is coming. Anger is there to speed things up by a turn. A hasty Cryptborn Horror is much more likely to hit than one that sits there for an entire turn before turning sideways.

The entire deck fills out like so:

Cryptborn

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Hammerfist Giant
• 1 Pestilence Demon
• 3 Aetherflame Wall
• 3 Anger
• 3 Magmasaur
• 4 Cryptborn Horror
• 2 Rakdos, Lord of Riots
• 3 Heartless Hidetsugu

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Koth of the Hammer
• 1 Liliana of the Dark Realms

• Spells (14)
• 2 Terminate
• 3 Psychotic Fury
• 3 Wrecking Ball
• 2 Dreadbore
• 4 Veinfire Borderpost

• Lands (24)
• 10 Mountain
• 6 Swamp
• 4 Badlands
• 4 Rakdos Guildgate

Buy This Deck

Supporting Cast

Hammerfist Giant – I know he kills himself when he activates his ability, but I had one lying around, and it fit the theme. I’m guessing this will be one of the first cuts when I edit the deck, but other cards have surprised me before. Besides, it looks as though he just defecated out a Ravnican, and I love twelve-year-old potty humor.

Aetherflame Wall – Most of the other cards in the deck are there because I realized that the key cards do nothing until turn four. While sitting wide open will probably be okay in many groups, it doesn’t hurt to have something out earlier to deal with any early-game attacks. The Aetherflame Wall deters random attacks coming your way since you can pump it up and kill that random creature. The Wall also gives everyone the impression that you are harmless. That’s right, just a little bit longer . . .

Psychotic Fury – If the Cryptborn Horror isn’t doing enough damage, give him double strike! This nasty surprise will come out of nowhere and screw up your opponent’s combat math badly enough that every swing will be death for one of your opponents.

The planeswalkers are there to up the mana a little bit. Untapping Mountains, adding mana, and finding Swamps are all beneficial to the deck. I’m not sure if the mana costs are cheap enough to make including them for mana fixing make sense, but I’m happy to try. At worst, they will absorb some damage that would have been done to me.

The Borderposts are there to ramp up the mana. This is a weak part of the deck since I’m not sure if I need more mana ramp or if I should go with instants that give a burst of mana for just one turn. Ramping seemed to make more sense with this deck, so I went with the Veinfire Borderposts. With a little testing, I should know quickly if this needs to be changed.

This deck has never been played, so the numbers will need to be adjusted. I also suspect that I’ll be eliminating some cards to make room for graveyard recursion. Even with Anger, I expect this deck is a little delicate, so it’s still a work in progress. Any and all comments are appreciated!

This deck is not the common Rakdos aggro deck. While it is still a risky deck that is running a mostly all-or-nothing plan, I hope you will be able to pilot it through the mid- and late game when your opponents’ resources are depleted, avoiding the dreaded three-on-one that makes most Rakdos decks so tenuous in multiplayer games.

Bruce Richard