Punisher Rakdos .dec

Largely this deck is inspired by the redundancy brought to us with Risk Factor bringing out total of cards like that to three. Punisher mechanics are usually poor for the obvious reason that you don't want to give choices to your opponents. When you are able to align the theme of the deck with the options in the punisher cards they rather jump up in power. No result is bad pretty much regardless of situation. This list does that nicely and then takes the punishment theme a little further than just cards that directly give an option to the opponent like Risk Factor. It also includes all the classic red effects that do damage if you perform certain actions. This list is therefore nicely all round flavoured in the punishment sense. It is Rakdos too which feels like the guild most likely to be into punishment!

Basically this is just a burn deck as found in modern. Pretty good but pretty linear. With all the draw three effects at the top of the curve it tends to go a little longer than a pure burn list and as such the various ongoing damage sources gain a little value. Cube also goes on a little longer than modern. Here is the Rakdos Punisher list;

25 Spells

Vexing Devil
Goblin Guide
Monastery Swiftspear
Soul-Scar Mage

Grim Lavamancer

Lightning Bolt
Chain Lightning
Lava Spike
Shard Volley

Firebolt
Forked Bolt
Rift Bolt
Black Vise

Bump in the Night

Harsh Mentor
Eidolon of the Great Revel
Skullcrack
Ankh of Mishra

Sovereign's Bite

Browbeat
Risk Factor
Sulfuric Vortex
Rampaging Ferocidon

Sword-Point Diplomacy

Fireblast

15 Lands

7x Basic Mountains (with another 4 across duals and sacland)
BR Duals


That is not actually the exact list I ran. I cut the Black Vise and Ankh of Mishra because I find those cards polar. They lead to poor games either totally winning them or being complete blanks pretty much entirely down to chance and with little options presented. I also couldn't find a Bite! As such I ran three Incinerate effects all of which were obviously fine includes all be it less punisher in feel. Although it might have been a little less powerful this change did make my version rather more consistent. I wasn't in need of any card quality effects which this list looks like it would appreciate a little more. I also wonder a little if the creature count needs bringing back a little what with so little of the burn being able to clear a path for your attackers. Small beaters lose value rapidly if you can't burn away the smaller blockers.

These isn't loads to say about this deck. Burn is a well known archetype and strategy with plenty of literature support. It is pretty easy to assess the power of the different burn cards as well due to how well most of them translate into math. This version of burn does well for both power and flavour. It is probably one of the better directions to take a Rakdos burn deck in with the various new additions. It is not however an archetype you really want to support so heavily in a draft cube. The face only burn cards are too narrow and so a more typical creature heavier RDW style of list is the way to go there. I can see this being a strong way to go in a rotisserie style event where you can select appropriate punisher and hoser cards as the meta commands. Things like Price of Progress and Pyrostatic Pillar can be utterly devastating against the right thing but they can also be underwhelming.