Rakdos Aristocrats - The deck I'm using currently with some tips

As I've read the comments on the reddit posts I've decided to pump out a second entry as soon as possible. This entry will treat about the deck I'm using as of right now with some general tips in the game plan for you to watch out while playing.

The deck list is in here: Rakdos Aristocrats

Maindeck explanation - card choices

As you can see this deck is pretty much the standard version, meaning the cards I'm using are the ones that are making into the tournament decks. However, I'm going to explain each of the choices that I've made while constructing this deck.

• Cauldron familiar: this 1/1 cat forms part of the core engine of the deck, is in as 4-of, cause you really want to draw it and better if it is on your opening hand along side with witch's oven. However, you only really need one copy of it for get the engine function.
• Witch's oven: the second half of the cat/oven core engine. Clearly a 4-of, in difference with the cat, the more ovens in play the better.
• Gutterbones: best second one drop creature for this deck, i could use another one drops like knight of ebon legion but we aren't on the pure beat down plan and we want creatures to sacrifice with Priest of forgotten gods and this 2/1 creature provide us with a recursive engine that in the long run can provide lots of value. I'm running it as a 3-of, i think i might go down to 2 in favor for another top end card.
• Claim the Firstborn: This card is really good in this meta game because people are trying to play low cost creatures due to Oko and his elkifying +1. This allows you to steal one creature with CMC less than 3, gives it haste and can hit the opponent or a planeswalker and then sacrifice it to priest or oven. I'm running the complete set.
• Priest of forgotten gods: Another really good enabler for this deck. It also works as a mana dork, giving you 2 mana for each activation and a card draw, letting you ramp into other plays or recur a gutterbones that you sacrifice the same turn.
• Angrath's rampage: great piece of removal, it is really flexible. I'm running a 4-of and it is working so far.
• Midnight reaper: our card draw engine along side with priest and castle locthwain, it really shines if you have the oven and the cat on board.
• Mayhem devil: big payoff card of being in rakdos, great source of damage and really the big threat of the deck, a clear 4-of.
• Chandra, Acolyte of flame: this 3-mana planeswalker is really good in this archetype due to her second +0 ability granting us 2 1/1s that at the end of turn are sacrificed, working really well with priest and mayhem devil. Also another really good use of this planeswalker is with her -2 ability letting you to cast an instant/sorcery spell from your graveyard, letting you to recast a removal spell or a discard spell if you are past game 1, cause we are packing discard on the sideboard of course.
• Cavalier of Night: One of our top end card and our most mana restricting card in the deck with the need for 3 black sources in the casting cost. This card gives the deck an extra edge in the grindy and control match ups, letting you to recur one 3 mana or less creature from the graveyard upon the death of the Cavalier. Is in the deck as a 2-of.
• God-eternal Bontu: the second top end card and the experimental flex slot in my opinion. It can generate a potential one turn kill if you have multiple mayhem devil on the board and he saved me in some games that were lost on the board. I'm thinking in adding a second one if i see it becomes a good resource. I must say that even if you don't have any mayhem devil, Bontu can convert your excess of lands and refill your hand by sacrificing any number of them. So far it is performing really well as a 1-of.
• Land base
• Blood crypts: self-explanatory, we are on rakdos, we play the 4 blood crypts as duo lands.
• Castle Locthwain: the black castles, it provides us with a mana dump for later stages of the game letting us draw cards by paying life for the number of cards in our hand after drawing that usually is 1 or 2 in later stages of the game. I'm running 3 of them
• Fabled passage: mana fixing is useful and this provide us with that and in the process we generate one ping of the mayhem devil that sometimes it adds up to the kill.
• Swamps: I'm running 6 swamps cause we are also running the castles.
• Mountain: I'm running 7 mountains to allow the easy cast on Chandra, the most mountain intesive mana cost in the deck.

Sideboard composition

• Discard Package: I've decided to make an even split between duress and drill bit, cause drill bit with the amount of one drops that we have is a really easy cast in turn 2 as a thought erasure.
• Duress: standard discard spell, letting you watch the opponent's hand and choosing one non-creature and non-land card from it.
• Drill bit: a higher form of duress, letting you to discard a creature from the opponent hand.
• Dreadhorde Butcher: insane if you can hit for one or two turns and it has synergy with the oven, letting you to sacrifice it in case the opponent wants to exile it, giving you the damage. 4-of in the sideboard.
• Embereth shieldbreaker: hate card against artifacts, it enters in the mirror to destroy ovens, other match ups that are using sorcerous spyglass to shut down our planeswalkers or to destroy lucky clover if we are against an adventure deck that tries to go over the top with that artifact.
• Noxious grasp: uhum, Oko, uhum. clear 4-of while Oko decks are prevalent and green on the top of the colors
• Liliana dreadhorde general: for me, this is the flex spot of the sideboard, I've seen deck lists running mask of immolation. I really can't think a match up that you want to sideboard mask in in the current meta, so I've decided to go with Liliana and she is working pretty well, she enters against control decks and midrange decks as another top end card and potential finisher. She is a 1-of at the current moment.

Deck's performance

I must say that this deck is one of my favorites in this standard rotation, it is fun to play and it is putting work done. I completed two traditional constructed runs with 5 wins and some others with less, but in all of them I achieved above 50% win rate and that means going infinite. I must say that I'm most thrilled to play events than ladder at least until the ban announcement on the 18th this month, cause in the runs there is much more variety of decks than in the ladder as of right now.

Tips for playing the deck

Note: I will try to keep this section update if I missed something or I think in new tips.

1. Keep in mind the number of pings that mayhem devil can generate, it may sound silly but sometimes it is really useful to keep track of this number cause if you don't you can miss lethal easily, even more if you are playing Bontu.
2. Mulligan, as other decks you don't want hands with 0, 5, 6 and 7 lands in it, the perfect number is 3 lands accompanied by cat, oven, mayhem devil, and some piece of removal or priest. However,  this depends on the match up, but you have a potential good start each game, so if you see few or none of these cards on your opening hand  consider seriously to mulligan but with head and thinking carefully.
3. Sequencing, this is an aspect really important with this deck, you should know that mayhem devil with priest makes 3 pings, 2 before priest activates and 1 after the activation, so you can clear 2 creatures of 1 toughness before priest activates leaving one big creature for the opponent to sacrifice. This is one example, there are many of this kind of line of play.
4. If you don't need the mana ASAP don't crack the fabled passage till you have a mayhem devil on board (or want to shuffle your deck and thinning it in the process). Try to delay the activation on fabled passage as long as you can and preferable do it with devil on board for one extra ping. That being said, you need to assess, your opener has 3 lands, one is a mountain, the other is a castle and the last one is a passage, here it depends on the rest of your hand, but i may consider playing the passage and cracking it for a swamp and getting my castle enabled already or you need a 2nd mountain for chandra on turn 3.
5. Don't forget about chandra's -2, it is a really good resource, but also remember you can't use it if teferi time raveler is on the board.
6. Remember to use oven if one of your creatures is about to get exiled, the food token may be of use in later stages of the games.

Next post will be about the sideboard guide, I want to wait till the ban announcement, cause i feel like the sideboard is going to be a subject of changes after the 18th.

Hope you enjoy this post!