"Bolt you."

Something about it just feels nice, and if sending burn spells upstairs is your thing boy are you in for a treat. The new Rakdos mechanic spectacle is a very powerful cost reduction mechanic, but it also asks you to be aggressive. You can do this with creatures or other means, but it works at its absolute best in a pure burn deck. You were gonna send that Shock upstairs anyway, might as well trigger spectacle too!

Rakdos burn was already a reasonable deck before Ravnica Allegiance, but now that Rakdos proper has arrived with all its spectacle goodies, the deck is about to take a leap into the stratosphere.

Time Stamps:

Match 1 - 00:07:03

Match 2 - 00:28:02

Match 3 - 00:48:26

Match 4 - 00:56:05

Match 5 - 01:10:28

Rakdos Spectacle Burn | Allegiance Standard | Jim Davis

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Fanatical Firebrand
• 4 Ghitu Lavarunner
• 4 Viashino Pyromancer

• Instants (12)
• 4 Lightning Strike
• 4 Shock
• 4 Wizard's Lightning

• Sorceries (12)
• 4 Light Up the Stage
• 4 Skewer the Critics
• 4 Sovereign's Bite

• Enchantments (3)
• 3 Theater of Horrors

• Lands (21)
• 11 Mountain
• 2 Swamp
• 4 Blood Crypt
• 4 Dragonskull Summit

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Drill Bit
• 2 Banefire
• 3 Goblin Chainwhirler
• 2 Dire Fleet Daredevil
• 2 Lava Coil
• 2 Guttersnipe
• 2 Pestilent Spirit

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Oh boy is this deck good.

It's hard to undersell how good the three new spectacle cards are.

When I first saw Light Up The Stage, I misread it and thought it only allowed you to cast the cards on your turn and your opponent's turn. I didn't realize it actually meant your entire next turn as well! This is astoundingly good, removing almost all of the timing restrictions that previous similar cards had, while providing a turbo Thoughtcast for your Red deck. When paired with the outstanding Theater of Horrors, putting together a critical mass of burn spells becomes comically easy.

Skewer the Critics gives us sixteen functional Lightning Bolts, with Shock and Viashino Pyromancer not far behind. Every card in the deck deals a good amount of damage or draws more cards, and with only 21 lands that's a lot of heat.

Green decks with lots of early blockers and lifegain are usually some of the best decks against aggressive Red decks and we were able to take two of them down anyway on our way to a clean sweep.

Make no mistake, this deck is a major player in new Standard. It is also very cheap to build, meaning it is likely going to be a popular option as well.

Get on board now, before everyone else figures it out too!