Pain’s Reward
Pain favors its disciples.
Pain’s Reward illustrated by Matt Cavotta
Congrats to murkyaztec and their 3-0 victory! Rakdos Burn deploys low-to-the-ground creatures for early chip damage before using drain effects to reduce its opponent’s health while bolstering its own. Removal keeps the deck protected when it exchanges chunks of its life total for cards. Let’s take a closer look at how it all works.
Drain
Rakdos Burn sustains through its aggression.
Rakdos Burn has minimal board presence, but still looks to win the damage race. Drain effects keep the deck healthy while still focusing on aggroing out the opponent. Gifted Aetherborn does just that. It’s a cheap creature that is hard for opponents to profitably block early on, gains life to offset costly draw spells, and is great on defense once the ground gets clogged up.
Gonti’s Machinations is an efficient 1-mana burn spell that rivals Lava Spike, but requires a little extra work to get online. However, Rakdos Burn has multiple ways to ensure that it gets the energy necessary to activate the enchantment. Glint-Sleeve Siphoner not only makes energy when it enters and attacks, but also causes life-loss when choosing to draw a card with the creature’s ability. Infernal Contract requires sacrificing half of your life. Even City of Brass and Sulfurous Springs can trigger Gonti’s Machinations, and on the opponent’s turn too.
Soul Spike drains for four. Being at instant speed and potentially requiring no mana to cast lends Rakdos Midrange a surprising amount of burst damage. The extra two-card cost isn’t much of a downside if the pitched cards are useless otherwise. For example, some late Rakdos Cacklers that can’t attack through a large Midrange board or a pair of Fatal Push against most Control decks can instead fuel Soul Spike.
Draw
Card draw keeps up the onslaught of attacks.
The drain effects work hand-in-hand with Rakdos Burn’s card draw. Infernal Contract draws four cards at the cost of half of your life total, but the deck’s likely to hit a life-gain effect to recoup the cost. The lower Rakdos Burn is when casting this spell, the less life they pay, so they are incentivized to hold their drain effects until the last possible moment. On the surface, the opposite is true for Pain’s Reward, where Burn is more likely to win the bid with a higher life total. However, they might try to purposely lose the bid to get their opponent low and surprise them with unexpected drain. For this reason, a high amount of cards in the hands of the Rakdos Burn player acts as a great tool of intimidation during a bid war.
Glint-Sleeve Siphoner is the more aggressive foil to Gifted Aetherborn. Menace makes it more difficult to block, and it can find more pressure with its draw ability. When paired with Gonti’s Machinations, it can stay back on a clogged board and still do a fairly great Phyrexian Arena impression.
Key Card
A steady stream of cards is pain’s reward. Maintaining a reckless offense leads to low bids or an opponent getting too desperate— they get stuck with a high bid and pay the price. The card draw allows the deck to remain a menace throughout the game rather than peter out. It keeps the mana-curve low, the land-count lean, and many spells in hand— or in the case of Soul Spike, cards aimed at the opponent!
