Vein Ripper has had a massive impact on the Pioneer format. Before the Murders at Karlov Manor Pro Tour, no one considered Vein Ripper a competitive MTG card. Now, the card is so popular that Pioneer players want it banned.
The combination of Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Vein Ripper is difficult to overcome for many decks. Dropping a creature that completely takes over the board state, and is rather difficult to remove on turn three can completely overturn a game. One deck that got completely destroyed by Vein Ripper was Rakdos Sacrifice. Your biggest value generator gets completely invalidated by a win condition. Good luck sacrificing your Cauldron Familiar to your Witch’s Oven. You’ll lose a life and gain a life for each iteration thanks to Vein Ripper. Isn’t that a bizarre reversal?
Despite Vein Ripper continuing to be the best deck in the format, Rakdos Sacrifice can still manage strong results. In the recent Magic Online Pioneer Showcase, Rakdos Sacrifice managed to reach the top either, which is undoubtedly impressive. Especially so when Vein Ripper decks claimed four of the top eight spots, showcasing their dominance.
Rakdos Sacrifice Returns
- Mana Value: 1BR
- Rarity: Uncommon
- MTG Sets: The List, Secret Lair, War of the Spark, Ravnica Remastered
- Stats: 3/3
- Card Text: Whenever a player sacrifices a permanent, Mayhem Devil deals 1 damage to any target.
After getting a top-eight finish at the recent Pioneer Showcase Challenge, it’s safe to say that Rakdos Sacrifice is back. Earning an invite to the Showcase Qualifier with a Pro Tour invite up for grabs, the stakes for this event were high.
A lot of what we see here is pretty standard for what the Rakdos Sacrifice archetype was before it disappeared from the Pioneer format. Your win condition is primarily Mayhem Devil combined with the powerful sacrifice engine of Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven. Utilizing this engine with other removal options like Claim the Firstborn allows Rakdos to have an incredible creature-based matchup. This gives the deck powerful tools to take down Amalia Combo. If you can deal with Vein Ripper specifically, your Rakdos Vampires matchup is theoretically quite strong as well.
So, how does the Rakdos Sacrifice deck deal with Vein Ripper? The good news is that Vein Ripper’s Ward effect is rather easy to pay for. You’ll almost always have a Cauldron Familiar kicking around and, while you can’t really sacrifice things to strong effect, having a creature to sacrifice to the Ward effect is trivial.
The Ward effect, however, means that you cannot use Mayhem Devil to deal with this. You instead need to rely on Go for the Throat and Thoughtseize in game one to stop yourself from getting Sorin-telled. Post-board, you have some stronger options. Blot Out is a popular removal option to deal with Vein Ripper. Otherwise, Furnace Reigns combined with Witch’s Oven can completely blow out unsuspecting opponents. While Vein Ripper is a nightmare when used against you, it can generally win the game in one fell swoop when it’s on your team.
You can easily tell that some numbers in this deck have been shuffled around to deal with Vein Ripper. Running two Cauldron Familiar in this archetype is rather unusual, but room had to be made considering that the Vampire has literally taken over the Pioneer format. Go for the Throat is an uncommon inclusion that was definitely made with the Vampire in mind.
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Powerful Sideboard Strategies
Sideboard tech has evolved heavily since Rakdos Sacrifice was a popular Pioneer option. One card, in particular, plays a powerful double-duty role in two problematic matchups. Traditionally, while the Izzet Phoenix matchup was competitive, beating Lotus Field Combo was incredibly difficult. Sure, Lotus Field is not particularly popular at the moment, but there will always be people playing a deck like this in an event.
Ashiok, Dream Render deals with both strategies in a powerful way. After all, it stops Lotus Field from searching their library with cards like Sylvan Scrying, Archdruid’s Charm, Emergent Ultimatum, and Dark Petition. Ashiok also exiles graveyards, which not only keeps Arclight Phoenix from returning to play, but also stops Delve effects like Treasure Cruise. Ashiok only started to become popular after the same Pro Tour that Vein Ripper won.
Is it Time to Play Rakdos Sacrifice?
The real answer to this question hinges on how well the deck can deal with Vein Ripper. Ashiok certainly fixes a lot of problematic matchups, but those decks aren’t really popular right now anyway. Whatever deck you choose needs to have a good Vein Ripper, Amalia Life, Izzet Phoenix, and Control matchup. It seems like, from that perspective, Rakdos Sacrifice is a decent choice. It’s likely inferior to playing the Vampires deck yourself, but if you don’t want to play a ton of mirrors, Rakdos Sacrifice could be the option you were looking for.
While the deck is already starting to make a resurgence, Rakdos Sacrifice could get a whole lot better soon. That’s because a huge ban announcement is slanted to make its way to MTG in about a week. If they ban anything from the Pioneer format, Vein Ripper is the most likely thing to go. That would allow this deck to build a much more consistent game plan into other matchups, making it even more resilient.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see if this success for Rakdos Sacrifice is a flash in the pan. If the bans go the way we expect them to, however, chances are that this deck is going to see a big resurgence.
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