At a glance
- Format: Standard
- Colors: Black / Red (BR)
- Archetype: Rakdos graveyard drain-burn (aggro-midrange)
- Power tier: mid-high
- Standard: ✅ Legal
Strategy
Challenge deck. The constraint: build a Standard deck that must run 4 Rubble Rouser and 4 Raven Eagle — everything else free. This is the graveyard-burn take.
The plan is to stock the yard with loot and surveil, then bleed the opponent out of it. Rubble Rouser loots on entry (filling the graveyard) and its “{T}, exile a card from your graveyard: add {R}, deal 1 to each opponent” turns that yard into repeatable reach every turn. Raven Eagle flies over, exiles opposing graveyards for Clues, and drains 1 each time you draw your second card in a turn. Around them: Vengeful Bloodwitch drains on every creature death (with Fanatical Firebrand happily sacrificing itself for value), Perforating Artist raids for 3, and Starlit Soothsayer — a flyer that surveils every single turn because this deck always gains or loses life — is the steady graveyard fuel that makes Rubble Rouser’s engine real instead of aspirational. Burst Lightning, Lightning Strike, Grab the Prize and Fiery Annihilation double as removal and reach to close.
Hardened by a 5-lens critic panel: it cut do-nothing card-draw that didn’t even trigger the Raven Eagle drain (Resentful Revelation puts cards into hand — not a draw), added the Starlit Soothsayer fuel engine and real burn, and stripped the manabase to zero taplands at 23 lands. 100% owned, zero wildcards.
Cards
Decklist
Paste straight into MTG Arena (or Moxfield/Archidekt):
Deck
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Vengeful Bloodwitch
4 Rubble Rouser
4 Raven Eagle
3 Perforating Artist
2 Dawnhand Eulogist
2 Starlit Soothsayer
2 Resentful Revelation
4 Burst Lightning
4 Bitter Triumph
2 Lightning Strike
1 Grab the Prize
1 Fiery Annihilation
4 Blood Crypt
1 Blazemire Verge
1 Dark Fortress
8 Swamp
9 Mountain
Card images & data via Scryfall.