Rakdos Ramp Deck Guide: A Fresh MTG Strategy

Joining Up with Rakdos to Make a Ramp Deck

Merge the chaos of Rakdos with ramp strategy in Magic: The Gathering. Discover how to build and pilot a powerful Rakdos Ramp deck.

Most of us know about the Rakdos Ramp Deck that was popular in Standard maybe a month or two ago. Sometimes it is still played on ladder, and the deck is undoubtedly powerful. For today's purposes, we are going to bring back that archetype, but we are going to use some cards from the new set, Outlaws of Thunder Junction. This time, we will have to pay closer attention to the kinds of creatures that we put into the deck. They will all provide legitimate value, but we are mostly going to be trying to cheat out or reanimate legendary creatures, and you will see why that is so relevant very soon. We do use some cheap creatures early on in the deck that are not legendary, but they generate value on the board, and allow us to get other large creatures into our graveyard. We may miss out on some other value, but the payoff will be worth it. Some of these new cards from Thunder Junction will allow us to pull off a couple of one turn kills.

Total Cards:

Relevant New Cards

This new card is an absolute bomb. We get to reanimate a creature, and then we get extra value when a legendary creature dies. This card alone is the reason that we are wanting to run mostly legendary creatures for our payoffs. We will be using the Burn Together adventure from Callous Sell-Sword to get the ultimate combo. It will effectively be double fling. Having been personally victimized by it plenty of times since it was printed, I elected to omit Atraxa, Grand Unifier from the list, but I absolutely encourage you to add it to the deck if you don't have any issues playing it.

This one is pretty straightforward. We are going to use it to get a creature of our choice in the graveyard. It isn't the best value, but it's something worth trying from the new set. We can also use it to reanimate two smaller creatures if there isn't a better option. I have it in here as a one of to try out, but could easily be swapped out for Liliana of the Veil or something similar.

This one is in the sideboard, but I think it will quickly become a useful tool in most sideboards. It will allow us to de-plot a card, or discard another nonland permanent from our opponent's hand. Having that kind of modality is useful, and I fully expect plot to be a powerful mechanic. Since we don't run any Deep-Cavern Bat in this deck, having another two mana hand hate spell somewhere in the seventy-five is important.

This is a sideboard card that I couldn't help but leave out of the list. I believe it will have an effect on the game similar to Invoke Despair, and it is too good not to have. My justification is that we can use it to be the finisher on our fling spells if the opponent has too much life. Some of the Temur decks that are floating around can easily hover over twenty life, and this can help get them down to the point where we can take them out by flinging a legendary creature at them. Making them sacrifice a bunch of creatures, or discard a bunch of cards never hurts either.

Familiar Cards that Help the Deck Function

It is best if we can do a little bit of ramping in this deck, so we will need four Big Scores. We can also discard the big spell that we would like to reanimate with Rakdos Joins Up and then put two counters on it. Something that is nice about this card is that we get the discard either way, and we can cast it on our opponent's turn. Sometimes they will play differently knowing that we are holding up priority with an instand-speed spell during their turn. A lot of control decks often like to counter this spell, which we can use to our advantage by baiting them into tapping out their mana on their turn, so our reanimation spells do not get countered on our turn.

We all know it. We all fear it. Breach is that huge bomb that nobody wants to see resolved against them. This will help us get more creatures into the graveyard, and steal something relevant from our opponent. Like I said earlier, I did not put Atraxa in this deck - but I will not hesitate to take one from an opponent's graveyard.

This is going to be our fling spell. It is a simple one mana win condition from the adventure portion of this card that can double the triggered ability of Rakdos Joins Up. We likely won't cast the creature part of it too often, but it will allow us to get some good value for one mana.

This is a deck where we can get full value out of our removal spell. We will turn the added tax of discarding a spell into an added bonus. Just drop the Etali, Primal Conqueror into the graveyard, or Rakdos, Patron of Chaos, maybe even Junji, The Midnight Sky, or Drivnod, Carnage Dominus. Actually - we need to talk about Drivnod in a little bit more detail, because he adds even more value.

Not only is the chonky guy a great fling target, but he will also double the death triggers from Rakdos Joins Up. We could potentially have triple fling damage within this deck. The possibilities really start to rack up, and the deck easily is filled with win conditions.

The New Card that Didn't Make it, But Should Still be Great

We aren't sure on the official translation of this card's name- but most websites have it listed this way.

Akul, The Unrepentant

Legendary Creature — Scorpion Dragon Rogue

Flying, trample

Sacrifice three other creatures: You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery and only once each turn.

This guy holds ridiculous amounts of value. As if a 5/5 flyer for four mana wasn't enough, he will let us sacrifice three other creatures in order to put out two other creatures from our hand. I love what the card does, and I think there is a list within this archetype that has a place for him - I just didn't see it working in this deck. I did not believe that we were able to have enough creatures on the board in the early game to effectively profit from his ability. I think the card is great however, and there is a strong chance you might see a Numbskull deck in the future that features him!

Rate this article

I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

numb_skull_

Check out more content by Numbskull

Explore the power of Rakdos Dragons in this midrange Magic: The Gathering deck. Unleash combos, removal, and ramp for competitive edge in Standard.

This Deck is Sneaky Good! Get Ready for RAKDOS Dragons!

You didn't think I could only give you one dragon deck, did you? I honestly saw too many fun options to do just Boros, so today I'm bringing you another. This one steers toward the more midrange, good ol' honest Magic side of things. I wanted to center a deck around something that is more consistent with the status quo of dragons: carnage and destruction. We have plenty of removal in this deck, and a creature that doubles as a board wipe when needed. Since we aren't doing a super fancy combo in this deck, I wanted to add element of ramp to get to the higher mana spells that we have in the deck. We will be able to use early creatures to help out with that, and also a new fancy artifact. We will torch the board and force our opponents to be more resilient than we are, while flying over the top of what they might manage to keep on the board. Let's take a look at the deck and then I'll tell you some of my favorite things about it. You can see some of the fun that we will have right off the bat with this deck. We are looking to smash aggro decks, and still punish other decks that don't play to the board. Although this one has fewer dragons on paper, we have a few permanents that can actually turn into them, and this leads to some cheeky interactions. Let's check out some of the new cards from Tarkir Dragonstorm that are in this deck, and then we will go over some fun combos! Key New Cards

It's Time to Mobilize the Aristocrats with Mardu Combo!

There is an ongoing argument in both Standard and Pioneer currently. What color combination is the best for aggressive decks? We have seen people try out Jeskai Aggro to try and incorporate the best of both worlds between Azorius Aggro, and Boros Aggro. Some like to stick with Gruul Aggro because of the high rolls that it allows for, and there is also an argument that sometimes all you need is mono red - and the results have proven as much in major events. There has been a bit of a surge of some Mardu Aristocrat/Sacrifice decks, and today's list will follow that to some degree. We went a little bit more aggro-based, but there is a combo element to it, along with a healthy sideboard that should provide for balanced gameplay. We will look to get a bunch of creatures onto the board, and then create a bunch more based on the amount that we have, while punishing the opponent when they die. If that isn't enough, the go-wide strategy should also allow us to swing for ample damage at an ample pace. A new ability called Mobilize that is being brought to us in Tarkir Dragonstorm is going to allow us to pull off some pretty powerful swings in combat. Mobilize allows us to create a bunch of tapped and attacking 1/1 tokens based on either the number behind it, or circumstances that pertain to "X." Something that is particularly fun is that we can benefit from our creatures dying, because the mobilize ability requires us to sacrifice the creatures that we get from mobilizing at the beginning of our end step. This is yet another deck that can allow us to win on the end step which is always fun. Another fundamental reason why I think the deck is good is because we are rewarded for something that would normally be considered a setback. If you find enough ways to turn negatives into positives, it usually can translate into the small margins that win you a match. Enough of me blabbing. Let's take a look at the cool new cards! Key New Cards

Demons Are Getting New Toys, and This Deck is ROTTEN

We have seen the vast majority of the cards that will be released in Tarkir Dragonstorm, and the excitement is definitely building. Magic players are expecting this to meet the hype that Duskmourn brought us, and hopefully more. We were left a bit underwhelmed with Aetherdrift, but this is proving to be all but a filler set. It's something that is so easy to be excited for. Who doesn't love dragons?! Anyone with an ounce of nerdiness is interested as soon as they hear the word. Although I don't have a dragon deck for you today, I am going to do my obligatory Mono Black Deck for the new set. If you have read my articles in the past, you know that I do one every set - and this one is no different. We finally have enough cards from Tarkir to give me what I needed to make a new-and-improved Demons list for you. We have a new one that will let us pull off some combos on earlier turns, and hopefully have a better body early on to put pressure on aggro decks. I think that should give us a better shot against the meta, since the threat of a 5 damage crackback can definitely give someone extra things to consider in combat phases. He also isn't a bad creature to discard, as he has an ability to activate from the graveyard. This will help us against the bounce/pixie decks. We have ample graveyard hate and removal for the graveyard combo decks, so I like most of our matchups against the current meta. The only thing we will have to see with time is if the meta shifts with this monster of a new set. We really have some fun cards to add here, and we are adding another type of threat to the deck. We have historically not used our graveyard for much, but now we are able to get additional value from it with a new addition. Our sideboard even has a dragon with an adventure that reads like The Meathook Massacre! I've said enough, let's check out these cards. Relevant New Cards

Free Dragons = Turn 4 Wins!

We are officially in the perpetual spoiler season of the MTG year, and Wizards has not been disappointing us. Most people can get behind a set centered largely around dragons, and it definitely helps that the plane itself is one that we have wanted to see them bring back for a long time. Over a decade later, we are going back to Tarkir. I played a good bit of Magic and did a lot of deck building the last time we had some fun dragons on Arena, and I knew that this set was going to call me back to those days. My favorite archetype a couple of years ago was Boros Dragons. I largely played that in the Alchemy format, but I am going to bring you a Boros Dragons Standard Deck today. We are going to take advantage of a combo that is used in Standard currently, but we are going to use a different payoff this time. We are going to cast dragons for FREE and then either they will have the opponent dead just from entering, or we will hopefully have a way to give them all haste! We will take a look at the new cards that are awesome. Then I'll let you know about the combo that will help us get there. We want to keep the board as clear as we can for our dragons and then slam them all on the board at once to clean things up. We also have some smaller creatures that we can use to chump block earlier in the game. When needed, we also have board wipes to deal with other creatures. New Cards from Tarkir Dragonstorm

I See a Monument and I want it Painted Black

It's been a few weeks since Aetherdrift came out, and we are starting to see the cards that are standing out in the meta. We didn't expect the set to change things too much with regard to what we have been seeing. What we did get from it is a nice supplement to many other decks. Although we did not get a ton of format-shaping cards, we have seen a couple that have lit up fringe archetypes. What I've brewed for today plays off of a familiar archetype, and it was one that we kind of already had, but it allows us to pivot in a certain way and get additional value from it that we may not have gotten in the past. One of the biggest things that our deck can do is have plenty of action on the end step/cleanup step. It's an interesting scenario because usually when we think of the cleanup step at the end of each turn, we remove damage, and we discard to hand size. Usually discarding to hand size is pretty much the final step, and there aren't any triggers... until now. We will be using Monument to Endurance to have triggers when we discard to hand size, and get additional value from it. Now we don't care if we end the turn with nine or ten cards in hand, because we are going to benefit from it. This will help us possibly get in some finishing damage against our opponent, or get extra value. It is worth noting that this will cause triggered abilities on the cleanup step, and this is something that our opponents can respond to. This has historically been a point in the turn where no player can respond to actions. We'll take a look at the relevant cards in the deck, and then I'll detail a few fun combos that we may see during gameplay. Relevant Cards

We've had a Couple of Weeks to Try Achievements on MTG Arena, and I have Opinions

The economy on MTG Arena has always been a pain point, and a grand debate over how far a digital version of a card game should go to ensure players feel as if they are getting proper value for their time. Wizards has two different versions of its beloved game on the internet, and they both seem to have their benefits and drawbacks. On February 11, Arena launched the Achievement System to reward players for hitting milestones in-game, and completing specific tasks. While it is always fun to do these kinds of things in each game, something that gamers always do is assess whether the reward for doing so in-game is worth putting forth the extra effort for the task. While there are some things in the achievement tab that I believe to be kind of fun, and certain things that I know people will want, I view the entire thing as largely a waste of time. Today we will look at why the new feature on Arena simply isn't enough for what the game should have, and what it could be. The Good and The Bad There are plenty of things that we love about Arena, with how it is the easiest way to play our favorite decks from Standard, and not spend thousands of dollars in doing so. It is probably the most efficient way to try out decks. We also love the wildcard system. Although it is not the easiest to obtain them, it is great that a rare/mythic wildcard could buy a rare/mythic card that is of any value and it still just costs one wildcard. This was especially helpful in getting a play set of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I still don't have a play set in paper simply because I don't want to spend that much money on it, but on Arena it was easy. I had the wildcards to do what I needed. The only part where this may be lacking is the economy itself. What if we could earn wildcards for hitting certain achievements (I.E. the achievement tab giving us wildcards instead of sleeves, etc.)? I believe that the rewards from this new feature being solely cosmetic underscores the ongoing issue of the economy on Arena simply not being enough for us.

This Deck is Sneaky Good! Get Ready for RAKDOS Dragons!