Mid-way through Saturday morning I receive this text from visiting Apprentice (and Ancestral Recall podcast partner) Roman Fusco.

Roman: Sensei: 2-0

YT: Thumbs up emoji

Roman: But you're not going to like it. I didn't play your deck.

YT: That's ok. Do your best. But when you qualify for the Classic tomorrow, just make the right decision then.

However many hours later, Roman has finished Day One at 8-1... But small consolation, his one loss was to - you guessed it - Rakdos with Rix Maadi Reveler.

We'd been working on the Rakdos Copycat I posted last week.

Rakdos Copycat | War Standard | Michael Flores

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Rekindling Phoenix
• 4 Dreadhorde Butcher
• 4 Ghitu Lavarunner
• 4 Goblin Chainwhirler
• 4 Rix Maadi Reveler

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Chandra, Fire Artisan

• Instants (11)
• 3 Risk Factor
• 4 Lightning Strike
• 4 Shock

• Sorceries (7)
• 3 Skewer the Critics
• 4 Light Up the Stage

• Lands (22)
• 9 Mountain
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 4 Blood Crypt
• 4 Dragonskull Summit
• 4 Unclaimed Territory

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Treasure Map
• 3 Lava Coil
• 3 Lightning Mare
• 2 Rekindling Phoenix
• 3 Angrath's Rampage

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I called him excitedly before his trip to Richmond, as I had not felt as good with a Standard deck in some time. To be sure, feelings are not facts. But I was just getting in the zone with Rakdos in a way that is difficult to describe if you've never been there with a Magic deck. There are decks that are good, and there are decks with good with win ratios... And then there are decks where you feel invincible negate there isn't a damn thing the opponent can do.

The closest thing I can recall is Modern Boros around the time of The Chained to the Rocks Experiment and The Chained to the Rocks Dilemma*. I'd just lean back into my chair and the deck would run itself. Nothing the opponent did mattered because all the bases were covering themselves. Creature damage? LOL. How many cards do you have? What's your life? et al

Dreadhorde Butcher was performing great; to the point that I was making mistakes by underrating it. I was somehow out-carding other players while consistently putting pressure on their mana, life totals, and resources assorted.

Like I said: Felt great!

If you can believe it Roman was playing over the phone with me, describing board scenarios and talking out plays on Arena. We won every Game 1, and losses just seemed so unlucky. They had it, or we flooded out through Rix Maadi... I probably don't have to describe the feeling of bad luck to you.

So I was pretty sure he was going to be on Rakdos.

At this point it will probably be productive to talk about the SWOT analysis I'd put against both decks. If you are unfamiliar, SWOT stands for:

Strengths,

Weaknesses,

Opportunities, and

Threats.

All of these describe overlaps.

Strengths: Positive + Internal

Weaknesses: Negative + Internal

Opportunities: Positive + External

Threats: Negative + External

It's a useful framework for deciding what deck to play, especially when there are many options or you have no idea what to do.

How might we apply this to Rakdos Copycat?

Strengths - Synergy; varied sources of pressure; role flexibility; long game card advantage and virtual card advantage

Weaknesses - Inconsistency, splashes

Opportunities - Timing, haste, role flexibility

Threats - If people want to beat you, THEY WILL

Strengths

Rakdos Copycat is full of internal incentives. I've identified four that matter. You don't need THE MOST strengths (you can have one really big strength and it will trump a field sometimes), but having many means you have both many ways to succeed and many ways for your opponent to fail.

Synergy - The card quality in Rakdos is good, but it's not the best. That said, the way the cards for together is second only to Esper, I think.

The most important is Rix Maadi Reveler and Risk Factor. I think that this dynamic duo we first talked about in context of Teruya Kakumae at GP Kyoto is the breakout incentive to the color combination. Not only do you get to play more lands without flooding late game, you get a natural graveyard synergy in Risk Factor. This card goes both ways! Not only do you get to discard it early, you can discard to it later! Don't want a 1/1 on turn fifteen? No problem.

Varied sources of pressure - Rakdos feels like an insane aggro / pressure deck when it's "on" its threat game. Dreadhorde Butcher into creature removal is better than the best Slith Firewalker. But it's not the best creature attack deck. Gruul is better; there are other Green decks with giant dudes, Finales, and God-Eternals that are much better [at pressuring with creatures].

What Rakdos has that they don't is a late game switch to flip. Now you're not just a B+ attack deck! You know the moment the opponent realizes not to pay four on your Risk Factor? That is the inherent feature of Red Decks that "better" creature decks lack.

Role flexibility - Default Rakdos is the beatdown; but can play a good control game due to all the removal and resilient high end. After sideboarding you can match most slow decks on card advantage between Rix Maadi, Treasure Map, Chandra, and Phoenix; but retain superior speed. Shocks and Lightning Strikes prevent Dimir transition nonsense.

You know what's better than knowing if you should be the Beatdown or the Control? Just taking both roles.

Long game card advantage and virtual card advantage - As above. You can draw ACTUAL more cards than many control opponents. When burn all goes live late game, the Kaya's Wraths that would bedevil Gruul or become de facto dead draws.

Weaknesses

The greatest weakness of this deck is it's Inconsistency. It can get great pressure draws but Ghitu Lavarunner and Dreadhorde Butcher are atrocious mid-game topdecks.

Similarly, to the degree that we've eliminated Wizard's Lightning inconsistency, we've just added Skewer the Critics inconsistency!

The solve for this is probably to make the deck slower... Swap Treasure Map and Angrath's Rage (or Lava Coil, or both) main deck... But that would eliminate some of the incentives, force us to play more lands, and create different inconsistencies!

Right now one of the unspoken Opportunities of the deck is that every one of the starting sixty is good in every single matchup. Changing that would be trade-offs, not upgrades... At least in so far as my current conception of the metagame goes.

Smaller is the choice of splashes. I went with a very light Black splash. There are a lot of ways you can go, but one thing that is simply true is that this deck doesn't have a Green splash. That means no Cindervines to put Simic in an unbreakable Yes! Lock :(

Yes! Yes! Yes! World's Toughest Vegan destroys the Destroyer

Opportunities

Timing - Rakdos isn't just not the best threat deck... It's probably just not the best deck for a mature metagame. But! When no one knows what's going on yet, playing an aggressive deck where every main deck card is good is... Great! You can kill creatures of all sizes, kill big guys, kill lots of 1/1s, kill Planeswalkers, and yourself present many different problems that need to be solved. When the format solidifies more some of this will change; Rakdos - AND everyone else - will be more informed. But for now? Turn your 2-drop sideways.

Haste - Haste is just good. No news, is good news. If people are playing Planeswalkers, haste is great! It's particularly opportunistic here due to Teferi, Time Raveler. When Tereri goes Into the Roil to zero the board, he is left with one loyalty. That's perfect for Ghitu Lavarunner or ESPECIALLY Dreadhorde Butcher, which is not only perfectly sized, but will grow on connecting with the now-dead Planeswalker.

Role flexibility - Role flexibility returns! It becomes an opportunity when specific card choices change. The opponent takes the action of removing a core card for, say, Moment of Craving. This is intended to combat Ghitu Lavarunner or a small Dreadhorde Butcher. It loses potency against larger Butchers but especially long game Rix Maadi Revelers. A Spectacle'd Reveler is happy to "trade" with a card that was one intended to dominate Viashino Pyromancer straight up. Meanwhile you're more Phoenixes and a ton more card draw. They're on the wrong side of knowing their role.

Key Play Patterns: Chandra, Fire Artisan

1. Phoenix first - All other things held equal, on turn four, play Rekindling Phoenix first. There might be reasons to go the other way, but almost always, you will get a loyalty and nothing else from Chandra. Phoenix is the most powerful creature threat in the deck, and a great way to defend Chandra.
2. Chandra first - For the love of all that is holy use your Chandra first thing main phase! I keep seeing people miss this. You have haste creatures. You might accidentally play a land from hand. This deck plays main phase a lot. There isn't a lot of reason to wait around on Chandra. You might even forget.
3. Role switch - The most telling role reversal in this deck isn't offense and defense, beatdown or control... It's when to switch into turtle mode, using all your guys only to defend Chandra. Because seven loyalty is right around the corner... And will often elicit a scoop.

Threats

If people want to beat you, THEY WILL.

They... Will. Like we said before, Rakdos is neither the most powerful nor the MOST synergistic. One of his Opportunities is an undefined metagame. Once people start loading up with this jazz:

... The party is over.

Roman missed Top 8, landing a very solid 11th place finish. He lost to eventual Richmond champion Will Pulliam with two rounds to go, and dropped the last of three potential win-and-ins to Selesnya Tokens (more on that in a sec).

His deck is awesome, though; and I just went ahead and bought all the cards. Having never owned any previous Teferi Planeswalkers (being a Red guy as you know), um, ouch.

Esper Midrange | War Standard | Roman Fusco, 11th Place SCG Open Richmond

• Creatures (13)
• 2 Deputy of Detention
• 3 Seraph of the Scales
• 4 Hero of Precinct One
• 4 Thief of Sanity

• Planeswalkers (9)
• 1 Narset, Parter of Veils
• 2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
• 3 Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord
• 3 Teferi, Time Raveler

• Instants (5)
• 2 Tyrant's Scorn
• 3 Mortify

• Sorceries (8)
• 2 Discovery // Dispersal
• 2 Enter the God-Eternals
• 4 Thought Erasure

• Lands (25)
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Glacial Fortress
• 4 Godless Shrine
• 4 Hallowed Fountain
• 4 Isolated Chapel
• 4 Watery Grave

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Despark
• 1 Oath of Kaya
• 2 Liliana, Dreadhorde General
• 1 Enter the God-Eternals
• 3 Dovin's Veto
• 1 Time Wipe
• 1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
• 1 Vraska's Contempt
• 3 Duress

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Here is Roman's SWOT.

Strengths - synergy, Synergy, SYNERGY

Weaknesses - situational sequencing, curve

Opportunities - Teferi, Time Raveler leads the pack!

Threats - Going wide

Strengths

Synergy is the name of the game with this deck.

A lot of the cards are awesome... But awesome cards are part and parcel for competitive Standard. What this deck has above all others is a wild level of synergy hinging largely around Hero of Precinct One.

I was initially kind of medium on Dovin's Veto. I mean, who cares about the extra Negate text? But Hero can get some real value out of this card, and so many others.

I would go so far as to say this deck is the most synergistically potent in all of Standard, weaving the possibility of offense alongside a lockdown board presence that would bring a proud father's tear to Brian Weissman's eye.

Key Play Pattern: Thought Erasure on the opponent's turn!

Teferi, Time Raveler allows you to play sorceries during the opponent's draw. That means if the opponent will draw a card, you can take it before they can cast it. This is true even if it's an instant because Teferi also restricts when the opponent can cast their own spells!

In all my years of playing MTGO there has never been a surer bet to a slightly behind opponent disconnecting than this little one-two.

Small thing for me (but maybe not for you), but as a deck with both 1/1 tokens from Hero of Precinct One and 2/2 tokens from big Lili, I can play with both kinds of Mike Flores tokens!

Now we just need Cool Stuff to make a */* Mike Flores Zombie Army and we're all set.

Weaknesses

The mana base to this deck is a cruel mistress. I mean it's fantastic when your first land is a Watery Grave and then every subsequent land is a Glacial Fortress or Isolated Chapel, but sometimes you're all thumbs (and Drowned Catacombs), or taking a ton late by finding your Godless Shrines when needing mana under pressure.

That's nothing new for Esper fans, but the fact that you can't cash in on, say, a Settle the Wreckage when you're coming over with 100 tokens.

Not a weakness when it's rolling, but a critical one when it's not.

Perhaps more important is that this deck is almost the definition of erratic sequencing. You kind of need to draw your cards in a certain order or they don't even do anything. You need Hero before gold cards. You need creatures either down or in the graveyard for Sorin isn't generating any value at all.

Perhaps Esper doesn't have an offensive curve in the abstract, but it's almost unacceptably choppy when compared with the 1-drop glory of a Red Deck. You can have all threes or fours and be stuck casting one card per turn (if that). You also need to draw a lot of lands, but your "Opts" all cost two.

Still... Hell of a deck.

Opportunities

Teferi, Time Raveler leads the pack!

Remember, Opportunities are positives that have to do with other people's stuff; so if I wanted to say "Teferi's fail state is an Into the Roil at a discount" that would be a Strength.

This is what I am really getting at:

Remember when some folks thought this was going to break the whole universe?

Remember how they had to ban a strategy in Best-of-One because of it?

Well with Teferi, Time Raveler on the battlefield, much of the Reclamation's mischief potential is cancelled. Because you can't cast a sorcery during your end step, the extra mana doesn't matter as much. Sure, you can still search with Azcanta or level up a Growth-Chamber Guardian on the bonus, but there will be nowhere the number of recurring Time Walks or giant Explosions to the face.

Teferi is a format-bending card in other ways, as well. How about the fact that it counters every counterspell in the opponent's deck? So long as Teferi is down, there won't be any permission wars... Because the opponent won't be able to cast any!

This card is like an extra Mind Twist against anyone with a fist full of the un-fun.

Clearly there are other Opportunities. Roman narrowly missed a second loss on Day One simply because he drew the singleton Oath of Kaya. That card really does put the hurt on Red, regardless of archetypes staring off in the Open Finals.

... But Teferi leads the way.

Threats

Shortly before the last rounds of Swiss, we exchanged a phone call. Roman was understandably proud of where he was on the weekend, having slain a number of top players to remain at the top tables. He won five Feature Matches without getting on camera.

"Your deck doesn't seem very good against go-wide," I said. "But it doesn't sound like that matters. But one March of the Multitudes..."

Look at that seventy-five. One sweeper in the list. It's in the sideboard, and it's a fiver.

Spoilers! Roman lost to Tokens to miss Top 8. We all know that offensive decks are best in the early weeks, and this was a case where he didn't have the right answers against go-wide.

Any good SWOT analysis will help identify these kinds of issues, so maybe we'll see more cards a la Cry of the Carnarium or Kaya's Wrath in the next iteration. Or...

One Question

Might both these decks just be better without all the creature action?

That's one more to noodle on for now, rather than answer at this point. But it really does seem to me forcing around Hero of Precinct One is a little restrictive on the interaction front. You grok?

LOVE

MIKE

*Which you should read if you haven't. They are two of my favorite articles not just for Cool Stuff but that I've ever, ever, worked on.