Rakdos DeathThrows

This deck boasts cheap resilience and early creature control that manages to keep the board clear, fill your hand, gain life, and deal more damage to your opponent than they anticipated. It\’s highly reactive, which makes piloting this deck loads of fun.

Claim The First Born > Attack > Village Rites/Thud/Bone Shards : This path early on results in strong tempo control while still remaining aggro. Their creatures turn against them and then abandon them to either refill my hand, kill another of their creatures, or even smack them right in the face.

Thud/Village Rites/Blocking/Bone Shards on the Archfiend\’s Vessel makes for an easy and early Claim//Fame follow up. 

A common opening is Archfiend\’s Vessel, then T2 Reckless Charge, swinging for 4/1 Lifelink, and dropping a Serrated Scorpion as a blocker. T3 can be another 4/1 Lifelink swing, almost forcing them to block, letting AV hit the grave, but still picking up another 4 life and possibly taking an enemy creature with it in the process. With lots of threat in such a small package, don\’t be surprised if AV soaks a removal spell with exile – be ready to respond with Village Rites to keep that threat level high. Plenty of times I\’ve been snickering with two 5/5 flyers on T3 – what madness is this!?

Kiln Fiend, while only a 2 of, is surprisingly potent, especially with a Thud in hand. Plenty of cheap spells to get a huge boost for a finishing Thud.

Serrated Scorpion – a card I keep forgetting doesn\’t have deathtouch – is a surprisingly good 1 drop in this setup. Happily teaming up with Bone Shards, Thud, and Village rites to eek out a little advantage here and there, only to be brought back for another chance at creating a 4 point swing (gain 2 life, they lose 2 life) with Claim//Fame or Call of the Death-Dweller. Let it block, swing with abandon, or use it as utility with little downside, especially since its death helps boost Fatal Push\’s capacity for death, and Kroxa can exile it to Escape.

Dreadhoarde Arcanist is a monster of a card, and has some brutal tricks if left unchecked in this deck. My favorite is casting Reckless Charge on him, then recasting it from the grave to swing as a 7/3. If it hits, I\’m not scared to Thud it into my enemy\’s face and rebuild my board with the cheap creatures still in hand, or ready to be recalled from the grave. Call of the Death Dweller happily targets a Dreadhoarde with the menace/deathtouch counters as a way to deter blocking, letting him attack freely for his triggered ability. One more thing – giving DA Reckless Charge means you can cast Call of the Death-Dweller from the grave! 

Kroxa helps early, but is generally a good discard target for Bone Shards or Rotting Regisaur, and also helps push Fatal Push to the 4 cmc kill range. Sure, casting him is fun, but sometimes you just need to throw a Claim//Fame at him in the grave to get a card and/or turn him into a Lava Spike (3 dmg to player). The deck likes to let creatures die, and doesn\’t mind milling. Kroxa isn\’t always the right call, but when he is, you\’ll appreciate him!

On T4, Rotting Regisaur happily targets Archfiend\’s Vessel/Kroxa. I also feel comfortable tossing Reckless Charge and especially Death\’s Shadow because I can bring him back when I\’m ready. Claim The First Born usually let\’s this guy hit alongside an enemy for big damage. Keep in mind, Claim The First Born can target your OWN creatures to give them haste! This can feel like a waste, but sometimes it\’s exactly what you need (like hasting a Dreadhorde Arcanist so you can cast Bone Shards out of the blue!)

Alongside Village Rites, Sin Prodder (menace 3/2) either deals some chip damage on upkeep or nabs a second card, keeping your hand or graveyard filled with juicy goodness. A Reckless Charge doubles his power, and with Claim The First Born, it\’s great how often he swings through. 

I used to have 4 Thoughtsieze, but it turned out to be too slow! It worked very well with Death\’s Shadow, letting me remain aggro, no blocking, then thud a large DT ftw. Without Thoughtsieze, I could potentially drop the Death\’s Shadow for another Call of the Death-Dweller. (Tested this, and it might be better, or maybe I just need 1 copy of Devil\’s Play)

Yes… This deck is a 64 card deck with only 20 land, but MTG arena basically guarantees land in your opening hand and you just don\’t need that much to make this badboy go. All this and only 7 rares takes me to Platinum regularly. 

PS: Pure life-gain decks can suck it – You won\’t always win against that archetype, but when you do, it\’s a delicious victory. Just steal their cheap-o creeps and turn them into fodder for the carnage as fast as possible – holding spells won\’t often help you win in this situation.