At a competitive prerelease event, where I ended in the Top 4 and won $100 of store credit (I was one card short of winning that round and splitting in the finals) I opened a prerelease foil of Akal Pakal...

This could be good I thought. There are a lot of artifacts in the set, it is a great blocker, let's do this. I drew it in only one game, and it was instrumental in my winning that one game. Choosing one of the top two cards to draw each turn was ridiculously powerful. Additionally, when researching potential standard decks that I could like, Rakdos sacrifice looked like a lot of fun.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan brought a lot of good potential cards into the available pool for Rakdos sacrifice, including Greedy Freebooter, Tarrian's Journal, Tarrain's Soulcleaver, and Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might // Temple of Power. All of these have their obvious uses from generating a treasure, drawing cards, and burning the opponent out with the red god.

Looking at the deck, I like the card advantage and utility that already exists with blood token generation, Bloodtithe Harvester, Annihalting Glare, Experimental Synthesizer and Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender. I like how it is both fast but has some control elements through the power of card choice, card advantage, and a reduced land count due to low mana costs. The changes and updates I have made take those ideas into account.

The decklist of Benton Madsen, who went 5-3 at Worlds with it, seems like a great place to start. I love Goddric, Cloaked Reveler in his deck, who doesn't want a 3 mana value 4/4 fire breathing dragon? So, without any further jibber-jabber, my initial decklist that I played at a local 3-round standard tournament:

One-Mana Cards (Note, only 7 are true turn 1-drops):

4 Voldaren Epicure

4 Experimental Synthesizer

3 Greedy Freebooter

4 Annihilating Glare

Two-Mana Cards:

4 Bloodtithe Harvester

3 Tarrian's Journal

3 Oni-Cult Anvil

3 Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender

3+ Mana Cards:

2 Godric, Cloaked Reveler

2 Dominating Vampire

3 Akal Pakal, First Among Equals

3 The Belligerent

Lands:

2 Haunted Ridge

2 Shipwreck Marsh

2 Stormcarved Coast

Sideboard - None really, I was concentrating on putting the deck together!

In the 3 rounds of play, I lost my first 2 matches and then won the 3rd. Some things that I learned overall:

• It is surprising how slow this deck feels with so many low mana cards in it.
• The Belligerent is a ridiculous card to trigger in this deck with Tarrian's Journal, Syr Ginger, and tons of low mana spells
• Bloodtithe Harvester activates at sorcery speed, yep reading cards is helpful. I am coming back, it is good to give myself some grace.
• Annihilating Glare is a sorcery. Reading cards...

1st Round I played against and aggro izzet pirates deck. Spyglass Sirens, Kumano, and Zoetic Glyph really did a number on me. In this particular matchup I learned that I probably need more burn to hit creatures with.

2nd Round I played against a deck with many flyers, card stealing bats, counterspells, and Gix. I learned that my deck does not respond well to mulligans or land flooding. I don't like blaming the draw of the cards, I probably would have had a hard time regardless.

3rd Round I played against a dino deck that I was able to deal with thanks to a combination of them having some (the tiniest bit really) trouble with their mix of lands and cards in addition to my deck having decent/good draws to work with. Plus, it helped that I went very aggro in those games.

Additional things that I learned that I didn't mention above:

• I could really use some instant speed creature removal for the early game.
• This deck can be very fast and could benefit from a more aggressive stance overall.
• Dominating Vampire could be quite good in certain circumstances, but overall is probably not good for the deck (and I threw it in last minute)
• Goddric is a beast. Or actually a dragon, most of the time.
• The Belligerent while great when/if it triggers, most games are decided well in advance of that time frame.
• Oni-Cult Anvil, which the original deck seemed to be built around is too slow for me.
• The deck might benefit from moving toward being mostly black and splashing red/blue.
• Experimental Synthesizer is fantastic, especially with Tarrian's Journal.

Things to certainly take out are, 2 Dominating Vampire, 3 Oni-Cult Anvil. With a reworking of the deck, here is what I am going to play next time:

Grixis Blood and Treasure | LCI Standard | Moshe Mann

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Sol'Kanar The Tainted
• 2 Goddric, Cloaked Reveler
• 3 Akal Pakal, First Among Equals
• 3 Syr Ginger, The Meal Ender
• 3 Voldaren Epicure
• 4 Bloodtithe Harvester
• 4 Greedy Freebooter

• Instants (3)
• 3 Torch the Tower

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Annihilating Glare

• Artifacts (13)
• 3 Subterranean Schooner
• 3 Tarrian's Journal
• 3 The Belligerent
• 4 Experimental Synthesizer

• Lands (22)
• 3 Mountain
• 2 Haunted Ridge
• 2 Shipwreck Marsh
• 3 Stormcarved Coast
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Sulphurous Springs

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In terms of the mana curve, I changed two cards costing three mana into one-mana cards. I feel this reduces the mana load of the deck enough to change another land into a one-mana card. The list above is what I played at a local Standard "store championship" where there were exactly 8 players. For a sideboard I threw together some cards that make sense, but it was nothing to write about (quite literally).

I went 2-1 crushing an unmodified mirror match and a homebrew Green token-making deck. I lost to the eventual winner who was playing an Up the Beanstalk control deck. I did take 3 mulligans in that match and it was close. I expected the deck to do fairly well in a control matchup thanks to all of its various card drawing capabilities, and it did. What I learned with this tournament is how absolutely dominating The Belligerent is in this deck and that my relatively low creature count left something to be desired when combined with vehicles.

I definitely need more 3-power creatures and additional ways to get rid of The Wandering Emperor. Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender wasn't as good against the Emperor as I expected because those darn samurai have vigilance.

From the list above, the following changes were made:

• -1 Sol'Kanar the Tainted
• -1 Annihilating Glare
• -1 Torch the Tower
• -1 Akal Pakal, First Among Equals
• -1 Subterranean Schooner
• -2 Goddric, Cloaked Reveler
• -3 Voldaren Epicure
• -1 Mountain
• +1 Haunted Ridge (true turn 1-drops have been reduced...)
• +1 The Belligerent
• +2 Corpse Appraiser
• +2 Duress
• +2 Razorlash Transmogrant
• +3 Sheoldred's Edict

Thus, the deck now is:

Grixis Blood and Treasure v2 | LCI Standard | Moshe Mann

• Creatures (17)
• 2 Akal Pakal, First Among Equals
• 2 Goddric, Cloaked Reveler
• 2 Razorlash Transmogrant
• 3 Syr Ginger, The Meal Ender
• 4 Bloodtithe Harvester
• 4 Greedy Freebooter

• Instants (5)
• 2 Torch the Tower
• 3 Shelodred's Edict

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Duress
• 3 Annihilating Glare

• Artifacts (13)
• 2 Subterranean Schooner
• 3 Tarrian's Journal
• 4 Experimental Synthesizer
• 4 The Belligerent

• Lands (22)
• 2 Mountain
• 2 Shipwreck Marsh
• 3 Stormcarved Coast
• 3 Haunted Ridge
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Sulphurous Springs

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I am still unsure of what the sideboard should look like, and I look forward to further refining and adjusting it over time.

If you play this deck, be aware of the many triggers that you can potentially miss from Ginger, Schooner, Akal Pakal, The Belligerent, Experimental Synthesizer and so on. Enjoy!

-Moshe