Historic Rakdos Midrange Deck Guide – Historic’s Underrated Meta Killer

Hello everyone! It’s been a minute since I had the opportunity to do a non-Standard deck guide, so I’m hyped that this is the deck I get to cover!

While looking over the Historic meta tier list, I noticed that while most of the decks had guides, Rakdos Midrange was ranked quite highly and was missing one. Well, I’m not one to leave work undone for too long, but admittedly, I didn’t have particularly high hopes for the deck. Historic is a really powerful format, and Rakdos looked like a glorified Pioneer deck of sorts. Sure, you definitely get some excellent options in Inquisition of Kozilek, Molten Impact, and Seasoned Pyromancer, but that didn’t feel like the same leap as Mono Green getting Leyline of Abundance in Historic. Speaking of, I believed Mono Green would be a bad matchup as they’re traditionally quite good at overpowering slower decks, which was not a great place to be considering how popular it is now. However, it’s not just Mono Green, what about Goblins, Phoenix, or any other deck that’s great against slower strategies? Rakdos seemed promising in the creature matchups, but it seemed like a metagame call more than anything.

Despite my trepidation, I pressed onward to see what Rakdos’ deal was, rank be damned. Well, clearly I need to play decks I think may be bad more often as this deck wasn’t good, it wasn’t even great, it was insane. I have won around 15 matches with the deck and have have lost only twice, one of them to a misclick, so, it’s going pretty good. Sure, I’ve definitely lost games with the deck, but those have felt few and far between as well. Mono Green? Just kill their dorks and kill them before they do anything relevant. Phoenix? Funny enough, a pretty easy matchup. Goblins? Haven’t faced it, and it’s probably bad, but that just means I’m technically undefeated against it!

I’m not here to espouse that Rakdos is actually Historic’s best deck, I can recognize that I’ve been fortunate that I’ve rarely mulliganed, have gotten good land/spell ratios, fine matchups, etc., but this has really impressed me so far with its strength, flexibility, and surprisingly, speed.

But enough introduction, let’s take a look at the list I’ve been using and break down the card choices!

Rakdos Midrange

by DoggertQBones

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Historic

Midrange

best of 3

14 mythic

39 rare

4 uncommon

3 common

0

1

2

3

4

5

6+

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Creatures (18)

4

Bloodtithe Harvester

$1.40

2

Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger

$5.98

4

Bonecrusher Giant

$2.36

4

Seasoned Pyromancer

$23.96

4

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

$319.96

Instants (4)

4

Fatal Push

$9.16

Sorceries (10)

4

Thoughtseize

$47.96

2

Inquisition of Kozilek

$0.70

4

Molten Impact

$0.00

Enchantments (4)

4

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

$79.96

Lands (24)

1

Mountain

$0.35

2

Swamp

$0.70

2

Sulfurous Springs

$3.58

1

Castle Locthwain

$4.99

4

Blightstep Pathway

$27.96

2

Hive of the Eye Tyrant

$7.98

4

Haunted Ridge

$35.96

2

Den of the Bugbear

$11.98

4

Blood Crypt

$71.96

1

Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance

$5.99

1

Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

$12.99

60 Cards
$675.88

Sideboard

2

Liliana of the Veil

$27.98

1

Go for the Throat

$1.49

2

Kolaghan’s Command

$2.98

2

Duress

$0.70

1

Go Blank

$0.59

3

Brotherhood’s End

$23.97

2

Unlicensed Hearse

$1.58

2

Curse of Shaken Faith

$0.98

15 Cards
$60.27

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The role of all the one drops is the same – interact. Rakdos lives and dies on its interaction suite, so having early hand disruption and kill spells are paramount to the deck’s success. In particular, the hand disruption is such an important element as we are an aggressively fair deck. Since we’re not doing anything crazy, robbing the opponent of their highest impact play can let us easily overpower them with our fair, but strong cards.

On the other hand, Fatal Push is an insanely efficient removal spell as you can easily be up on tempo when casting it, whether you’re killing a two drop or a four drop after triggering revolt. There are a lot of decks that play Fatal Push that can’t actually trigger the Revolt that easily, but in a deck with Bloodtithe Harvester, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, it’s been quite easy to do so!

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Unlike the one drops, the two drops are substantially different in function.

Bloodtithe Harvester is here simply because it’s a fantastic card. It attacks well, it blocks well, it can be a removal spell, or a body with a filter when you use the Blood token. A lot of choices, all great.

Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger is probably the most “unfair” thing this deck does. Whether you cast it for two mana to get it in the graveyard or pitch it to one of the deck’s many looting effects, bringing this back for the Escape cost can kill the opponent extremely quickly.

The lone Alchemy card in the list, Molten Impact is a pretty messed up card as it’s just a two for one for two mana. You very often get to kill something small with it, then use another removal spell to kill something big or two more things to completely obliterate the opponent’s board! I knew this card was good going in, but the power level of it has been absolutely bananas.

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Already, we reach the top of our curve where we have the power cards.

Bonecrusher Giant needs no introduction, but in a metagame where there’s a lot of small creatures running around, it’s easy to justify playing four. The initial build of this list was running just two main, but I felt like I wanted them in every matchup so it was easy to justify pushing them up to four copies.

Easily one of the most underplayed cards in Historic, Seasoned Pyromancer is a beast that fulfills many roles for this deck. Need to filter away excess lands? Check. Filter away superfluous cards like hand disruption late game, removal spells against Control, additional copies of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse? Check. Draws two cards when your hand is empty? Check. An insane target for Reflections of Kiki-Jiki? Check. An ability even when it’s in the graveyard? Also check! That is a lot for a single three drop, and it easily rivals Fable of the Mirror-Breaker in power.

Speaking of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, I could end the explanation saying the card is insane, but it’s so much better than that in this deck. The treasure token makes it easier to double spell and trigger revolt, the looting lets us filter through unneeded cards, and the third chapter is nuts with Bloodtithe Harvester and Seasoned Pyromancer. However good the card normally feels, double it for this deck.

Finally, we have four copies of Standard’s premiere creature, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Similar to Bonecrusher Giant, the initial list only had three copies and one in the board, but considering I was boarding it in every matchup, I quickly made the switch to four main and haven’t looked back. Unlike Bonecrusher Giant, there is a higher risk to playing four Sheoldred as it’s legendary, but we have three safety valves for that. One, if you have one on board, it’s realistically pretty hard to lose unless you’re massively behind. Two, we have 12 cards that help us filter cards, so if you can’t rid yourself of the extra copy, it still has a lot of utility. Finally, and this somewhat ties into the first point, the opponent is going to be hard pressed to kill this, so if they do, you have the back up copy!

So, all this said, why do I think this deck is so good? Consistency. The deck is pretty simple in construction, but it can just do the same thing every single game. Turn one and two you’re probably interacting, turn three you’re playing a powerful three drop, turn four you either keep slamming powerful cards or keep interacting, then it’s pretty easy to close the game from there. Furthermore, with all the filtering this deck has, it’s easy to always have something to do. Consistency is a really underrated element in a deck, so to have a bunch of ways to exchange bad cards for potentially good ones is a really powerful thing to have. Just off the back of good interaction, good threats, and a lot of filtering, this deck has felt extremely powerful as my opponents will often be left with nothing to do after a certain amount of turns where I’m drowning in resources. If that sounds like an appealing proposition, I highly recommend this deck.

Matchups and Sideboard Guide

Rakdos Trapfinder

This matchup seems like it would be excellent on paper, but it’s actually much closer than you’d think. You could lose at nearly any point past turn three so it becomes an awkward contention between wanting to deploy threats versus not tapping out in case they happen to have the means to kill you. Personally, I’m in the philosophy of “make them have it” because unless you know for sure they can combo you, or you are at least reasonably certain, you need to establish a clock otherwise they’ll likely find a way to kill you.

That being said, once you do establish a clock, you can just hold open some removal and they will have a very hard time winning. In the regard, you are in the most danger on turns three and four specifically when you may want to deploy a threat, but they can combo you, so be extremely scruitnous of your decisions as this juncture.

Artifact Aggro

This matchup is, unsurprisingly, quite good for us. It’s definitely not super favored, but considering the amount of interaction this deck plays and the five artifact hate cards in the sideboard, we’re pretty well set up. There isn’t too much of a secret to this matchup beyond look to interact whenever you can and whatever threat you happen to have can likely work cleanup duty.

The only piece of interaction they have that is relevant is Metallic Rebuke, so try to bait that out whenever you can. If they aren’t establishing a clock, don’t be afraid to play draw go if they’re clearly representing Rebuke, but if they can deploy a threat and represent it, generally I’ll run a threat out which incentives the counter and then use interaction. Even when our threat isn’t that threatening, most opponent’s will just Rebuke whenever they can, so utilize that to your advantage.

Izzet Wizards

This matchup can be scary, but as a small creature deck, this matchup is definitely favored. The only thing you need to prioritize is keeping a high life total. As long as you’re outside of burst range, you can easily win the attrition war to be able to secure a victory. In particular, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is an obvious house as it can kill them very quickly and gain you a bunch of life too. In that vein, if you have Sheoldred out, use every filter effect you have whenever possible. Once you’re above 6 or so life, it becomes really hard for Wizards to kill you, so getting there is quite important. However, even at 10 life, don’t think you’re completely safe, so holding up removal or looking to close the game out quickly if you lack interaction is very important.

Phoenix Decks

In theory, you would think this matchup is quite unfavored, but so far, it has felt very good. While our inherent game plans don’t match up well, we have so many good cards against them that it doesn’t really matter. For example, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is a near auto win, Unlicensed Hearse will win you the game barring an Abrade from them, and Curse of Shaken Faith is extremely hard for them to race. Couple that with your interaction that can slow them down, and you have yourself a solid matchup.

I mostly found that as long as you stop their first few plays via removal or hand disruption, then kill their reanimated Phoenix, their game plan tends to fall apart very quickly. Interact when you can, slam threats, and ride those to victory.

Mono Green Devotion

Yet another matchup that doesn’t look good on paper, once again, I’ve found that it’s quite good for us. Realistically, this matchup has gone the same exact way for me every time. You kill their early dork, you use hand disruption to rid them of their presumable one top end piece, then they kind of just lose. The deck really struggles when you have multiple pieces of interaction, so as long as you keep hands that have that, this matchup should be quite good for you.

The biggest trap in this matchup would be keeping threat heavy hands that have just a piece of interaction. If you absolutely have to keep that, then do what you have to do, but I try to mulligan towards interaction when possible, but I generally will keep a middling six over going to five to try and get multiple pieces of removal.

The lasr note I would say is you may want to consider boarding in Brotherhood's End for this matchup. Not only can it mop up mana dorks, but you can also take out Karn, Great Creator after a -2, so it could be a great way to catch back up if they have a good start. I haven’t found it necessary yet, but definitely something to consider.

Control Decks

Control can be somewhat difficult depending on their build, but it is a dynamic and interesting matchup overall. You have a boatload of cards that are excellent against them, so it turns into a game where you have to leverage each to the best of your ability to overcome their insane cards like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria.

Like a creature deck, the biggest thing you have to be careful of is overcommitting your threats as although they accrue more value than the average threat, getting hit with a wrath is still definitely painful. Attack their hand anytime you can, play just enough to have a good clock, and this matchup should be in your favor.

Tips and Tricks

• While most know, keep in mind that you can only activate Bloodtithe Harvester sorcery speed. Furthermore, try to save the Blood token for as long as possible as you ever other, better ways to filter your hand.
• I prefer to pitch Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger to Fable of the Mirror-Breaker or Seasoned Pyromancer if I have any other play on turn two. If not, I would still consider holding back just so I can filter it away.
• While it seems like flavor text, keep in mind the Stomp half of Bonecrusher Giant turns off abilities that would prevent damage being dealt such as Fog effects, protection from colors, or cards like Nine Lives.
• Seasoned Pyromancer will force you to discard two and draw two unlike Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, so keep that in mind. However, the draw two isn’t contingent on you discarding, so if you have no cards in hand, you get to draw two cards for free!
• If you use Molten Impact after a Molten Impact, you can bank a bigger one because the excess damage from the previous one resolves first, then the one you just cast. This is good if you’re trying to kill something bigger later on as it’s easy to get to 3 damage left in the bank, then a Stomp can take out most creatures.

End Step

While I wasn’t expecting too much of Rakdos, I’m glad to be quite wrong about the deck. The consistency it has enables the deck to feel very powerful and the interactive suite is truly top notch. If you enjoy playing decks like this, I very highly recommend it.

Thank you for reading!