New Takes on Rakdos and Golgari Midrange

And the "wrong half of the deck" problem

With WOE out I have focused my initial testing on the Rakdos Kroxa builds I discuss here and the Golgari Midrange decks I discuss here.

For both there were a couples misses, but I ended up getting them to a good state with builds I quite like and have been getting around a 70% win rate with. The exciting part is both feel like they have room for further improvement, especially with the sideboard plans.

Rakdos Kroxa Midrange

Kroxa Prank

By the time the set came out, I had somehow ended up talking myself into Rankle’s Prank being the best card in the set and a likely candidate for a ban (I think I described it as four mana Invoke Despair at one point).

So the first deck I played was a Kroxa Prank list. The idea here was get both players hellbent and with no creatures, but where I have either a Bankbuster in play or a Kroxa in the yard.

And let me tell you, Rankle’s Prank is not at risk of being banned based on my results. There is in fact a much better card in black with the same mana cost I would have done much better if I was playing instead of Prank.

Prank lined up surprisingly ineffectively in a number of board states. Like I would have one creature to my opponents three, and we’d both be left empty handed but they would have their best creature in play and be drawing fist. Or if you’re playing against one of the instant speed decks like Control or Creativity it ends up being something like a 2 for 3, that they have the option to counter if somehow that isn’t to their advantage.

In another league I played while testing Golgari, I faced an opponent who used Prank quite effectively as a Beseech the Mirror target, which I suspect will be Prank’s long term home.

Kroxa Torch

Next I tried a deck that uses Torch the Tower and Hopeless Nightmare.

The deck felt great. I went 11-4 with it and I ended up with two different builds I like that will each require further testing and I think there is real room to improve.

The basic idea is you get your opponent hellbent while using the most efficient removal spells in the format to deal with their early plays. And then you’ve got some combo of Synthesizers or Fables in play or a Kroxa in the yard that you use to take over the game.

You end up frequently relying on Synthesizer samurai beats. Hopeless Nightmare and Kroxa give the deck a burn angle for dealing the last points of damage.

What really makes the deck strong is the discard forces your opponent to discard either land or their top end threats. Either way this means they can not deploy the more expensive threats and then Fatal Push and Torch the Tower are perfect cards for profitably dealing with the two and three mana threats they end up playing.

In the version above I likely want to cut a land, but I am not sure for what.

If you like playing Rakdos, but are sick of playing Fable, here is the Epicure version of the deck. I also got a 4-1 with this and it felt just as strong. I imagine with more testing one of these builds will prove superior, but at this point they are comparable to me.

Golgari Midrange

Wurmlet Artifacts

I started out playing the Wurmlet list I outlined here:

And it was shockingly bad. Wurmlet and Jewel Thief were just too bad as topdecks and the deck wasn’t aggressive enough to win on the aggro plan, so I would end up in topdecking situations where I was drawing worse than my opponent.

This was exacerbated by Tough Cookie having the not 3+ power problem so not putting on enough pressure. I do think Tough Cookie will have a home in a more all in Food Synergy deck, but not in this kind of midrange with light artifact synergy deck.

Dreadknight Midrange

I then played this list I outlined in the GB Midrange article:

It was also bad! But unlike the Wurmlet deck, it had a lot of promise and Dreadknight was clearly strong for this kind of deck. So I identified issues and tuned it over a few more leagues and got it to a point I really like.

There were a few key issues:

• Jewel Thief isn’t good

Simple enough fix of cutting it. I think Jewel Thief could have a home in an aggressive leaning build, but it really struggles in one like this that goes long and it is just way too low impact late.

• The curve was too high

Especially noticeable how hard it was to find a window to cast the End. Again simple enough fix of lowering the curve and then testing to make sure there is still enough power.

• Dreadknight and Bankbuster have similar mana sequencing and make it difficult to efficiently use your mana

This is one that becomes very obvious as you play. Both cards are strong because they allow you to consistently profitably use mana at two mana increments. But you don’t always have two mana to thread in and you also want to play four drops.

There are two fixes for this: Cut some Bankbuster and/or add more one drops, so when you have odd mana available you can efficiently use all your mana.

The issue with cutting Bankbuster is there are not other good two drops and we already want to lower the curve.

I think I came up with a good solution to this problem, but will get to it later as it also addresses the final key issue.

• The “wrong half of the deck” problem

This is the most important issue to deal with. As I was playing I was constantly frustrated by either missing land drops, flooding a bit, drawing a Thoughtseize on a key later game turn.

Over on Faithless Brewing, they call this the “wrong half of the deck” problem and it is one of the most critical aspects of midrange brewing. In a midrange deck you have a combination of lands, threats, and interaction, but it is losing Magic if you draw the wrong part for the current game state. An obvious example is missing land drops early, but it is also a problem if you are not developing your board and just drawing interaction, or not drawing interaction against aggressive decks, and of course you want to be able to avoid flooding.

There is also wrong half issues in your interaction, especially game 1. Some decks you really want Thoughtseize and others you really want Fatal Push.

Rakdos is the best midrange color because it has both Bloodtithe Harvester and Fable to deal with the wrong half of the deck problem.

But if you look at the Dimir and Orzhov midrange decks I describe here you can see I have ways to deal with the wrong half problem. In the Dimir builds I’m running 4 Consider, which gives you a bit of selection.

In the Orzhov build I’m running Informant and Nadaar to give that little bit of extra selection (admittedly these pale relative to Bloodtithe and Fable, which is a key thing holding Orzhov back).

However, in this Golgari build I’m running essentially nothing to deal with the wrong half problem beyond one Wrenn, who was not quite efficient enough so I was looking to cut.

So now I want:

• One mana spell

• That deals with wrong half of the deck problem

As I was playing these leagues, I ended up facing a lot of Phoenix and Drakes lists that were taking advantage of Sleight of Hand being added to Pioneer with WOE. This got me thinking, there is actually a card in Green that combines the best parts of Consider and Sleight of Hand, with additional upside.

Seed of Hope has the instant speed and graveyard enabling of Consider, but lets you see two cards at once like Sleight of Hand and importantly it provides incidental lifegain that will occasionally give you that extra turn which is often all a midrange deck needs to turn things around.

It’s obviously got a huge drawback of only finding permanents, but my deck is mostly permanents so testing will prove if I can live with that limitation and so far it seems I can.

So with Seed of Hope found and further testing, I’ve got a version I 4-1ed with and felt quite good. I’ve really tried to cut the fluff and trim it down to the proven good cards: