Play This Standard MTG Deck If You Want to Win: Deck Guide

Standard Rakdos Midrange by Nathan Steuer

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At the Pro Tour, I played Grixis and it did not go well. I lost to Rakdos several times and despite having better cards on paper like Corpse Appraiser and Negate, your mana base is a headache here and there with more tapped lands and painlands.

Duress isn’t quite as good as Negate in the late game but it’s even better in the early game, letting you properly map the first turns and tap out, unlike Make Disappear, which is awkward at times since the opponent can just sit on their Reckoner Bankbuster or play the weakest threats into it.

Despite Grixis seeming better than Rakdos against the mirror, Mono-White, and Reanimator, its smooth mana base and ability to play most of its lands untapped will give you better consistency overall.

Chandra, Hope’s Beacon is the only new addition from March of the Machine and it’s what’s giving the deck an equally strong late game as Grixis. While I love Bladecoil Serpent more in Grixis, I totally understand playing up to two copies of Chandra in this deck.

My friend Anthony Lee broke it with Light Up the Night, an unassuming card that saw zero play in Standard up to this weekend because it combos with Chandra. You can cast it from the graveyard with its flashback and remove all seven loyalty for Chandra, which will still count its static ability since it was part of the cost and you shoot your opponent for 14 damage out of nowhere.

When I said Chandra was the only new addition to the deck, I wasn’t counting the sideboard, as both Lithomantic Barrage and Glistening Deluge are solid addition for the Esper Legends matchup.

Glistening Deluge is particularly good since it will can kill your opponent’s creatures in the matchups where you sideboard it in and will keep your Bloodtithe Harvester and Goblin Shaman token from Fable of the Mirror-Breaker alive unlike Vampires’ Vengeance or Brotherhood’s End.

Liliana of the Veil is a card we haven’t seen much in Standard but it’s good as a removal spell for a Fable token and a way to discard Razorlash Transmogrant or Rotten Reunion against Grixis and Reanimator. Whenever you discard one of those and are able to get them back, it’s card advantage and that’s historically the only way Liliana of the Veil was good, by exploiting graveyard recursion with it.

• If you have eight mana and Chandra in hand and Light Up the Night in your graveyard, that’s 14 damage direct thanks to Chandra’s +1 and flashback from Light Up the Night.
  Because of this combo, you can afford to get a bit more aggressive than Grixis. Against control decks (especially without counterspells like Mono-White), you should push some early damage to then Fireball them.
• Rotten Reunion is a great sideboard card, which I’ve loved against both The Cruelty of Gix and Corpse Appraiser since you can easily discard it to a Blood token, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker or Liliana of the Veil Then you can just keep it in the graveyard with two mana up, and this will hurt a lot your opponent’s play patterns. It also gives you a token to sacrifice to Invoke Despair!
• Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance is another unexpected way to save your creature from Invoke Despair and sacrifice a Spirit token instead.
• Takenuma, Abandoned Mire is a way to fizzle Corpse Appraiser that can also return Chandra to your hand from your graveyard.