Magic: The Gathering – Standard Rakdos Discover Deck Guide

Introduced in Magic: The Gathering's Lost Caverns of Ixalan, discover is a powerful mechanic that allows you to cast a card from the top of your library or put it into your hand. As the history of Magic has proven, casting cards for free is an extremely powerful ability so it ought to be no surprise that this mechanic has led to its very own deck build.

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Rakdos Discover is a midrange deck that plays the most powerful cards in black and red to leverage the discover mechanic to its utmost ability. This deck is capable of fielding multiple threats in a single turn and can do so again on later turns by playing discover cards once again from the graveyard.

Sample Decklist

Main Deck

4 Bloodtithe Harvester

4 Deep-Cavern Bat

1 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor

4 Preacher of the Schism

4 Geological Appraiser

3 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

1 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal

4 Trumpeting Carnosaur

3 Cut Down

1 Anoint with Affliction

2 Go for the Throat

3 The Cruelty of Gix

3 Blackcleave Cliffs

3 Cavern of Souls

4 Haunted Ridge

2 Mountain

4 Restless Vents

1 Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance

3 Sulfurous Springs

5 Swamp

1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

Sideboard

1 Cut Down

2 Duress

1 Abrade

1 Anoint with Affliction

2 Extract the Truth

1 Go for the Throat

1 Brotherhood's End

3 Liliana of the Veil

2 Gix's Command

1 Breach the Multiverse

Key Cards

Geological Appraiser

The first card in your discover engine. While the stats on this guy aren't anything impressive, we play him to cheat a Bloodtithe Harvester, Deep-Cavern Bat, or Preacher of the Schism into play. When you take into account the extra creature you get from casting this card, that's when it starts to make sense.

Of course, it's also possible that we hit one of our removal spells when casting Geological Appraiser. That can be great if the opponent has a creature on the battlefield or just middling when they don't. Even if they don't, we can add the removal spell to our hand which puts us up a card.

Rakdos Discover plays so few removal spells to increase the chance we hit a creature with Geological Appraiser's discover effect. Keep this in mind when you go to sideboarding.

Trumpeting Carnosaur

Geological Appraiser's bigger and much more powerful brother. Ideally, you want to discover a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse / Geological Appraiser / or The Cruelty of Gix when you cast this card. Discovering something else is fine too, but it's really difficult to lose when you hit a good target while casting Carnosaur.

This creature doubles as a removal spell in a pinch which gives the deck a nice added level of flexibility. If you have The Cruelty of Gix in hand, you can throw away your Carnosaur by discarding it to deal damage and then reanimate it a turn early using cruelty.

A plethora of options is partly what makes Rakdos Discover such a powerful deck. However, these same options also provide a big decision tree that makes it easier to misplay your cards. For maximum effect, always consider the deck your opponent is playing as well as your most likely route to victory before making a move.

The Cruelty of Gix

In the best of circumstances, this card provides a three-for-one trade. You remove a card from the opponent's hand in the first chapter, add a card to your hand in the second, and return a creature from the graveyard in the third. That's a difficult amount of value for any opponent to overcome.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely that Cruelty will hit just right in the vast majority of cases. You have to know what chapter to start this Saga on if you really want Rakdos Discover to perform for you. Most of the time, reanimating a Trumpeting Carnosaur from your graveyard will be more than enough to get the job done. If you're ever in doubt, that's a good default choice.

You'll get the most value out of this saga when playing against control decks. In these matchups, don't be afraid to take your time with The Cruelty of Gix. It's kind of counterintuitive to how midrange versus control matchups typically go, but you can actually outvalue control decks using this card. It's a lot safer to go this route than rushing the battlefield and taking a risk at the opponent topdecking a sweeper.

Preacher of the Schism

Your best target for Geological Appraiser's discover effect. This card is great whether you're ahead or behind, and the best Magic cards play well in both situations. You almost always want to be swinging in with this creature so that you trigger its effect every turn. After all, the effects this card has are the entire reason we're playing it.

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The draw effect is the better of the two options but making lifelink blockers can come in handy against aggro decks. Always keep your opponent's life total in mind as that's what ultimately decides the effect this card gives you.

How To Play Rakdos Discover

This is a typical midrange deck that wants to curve out on the opponent as hard as possible. The nice thing about Rakdos Discover is that it mostly doesn't matter what your opponent is trying to do. Your main concern is casting discover cards and hoping that you hit your best possible targets. That being said, there are some intricacies of this deck to keep in mind.

Firstly, the blood token generated by Bloodtithe Harvester can be used for multiple purposes. Sometimes, you want to hold onto these for as long as possible to make your future Bloodtithe Harvesters capable of removing a big opposing creature. Other times, you'll want to use them early to bin a Trumpeting Carnosaur for cheap so that you can reanimate it with The Cruelty of Gix.

If your opponent isn't playing too many creatures, don't worry about holding onto your blood tokens. In grindy matchups, you may still want to save them for later to discard lands though.

Deep-Cavern Bat is a great card to clear the way for your Preacher of the Schism. A big reason we play this creature is so that the opponent is forced to use removal on it. Then, the coast is clear for our preachers to generate value turn after turn. In short, this creature usually trades for a removal spell, and that's exactly what we want.

There are quite a few cards in the format at the moment that can only remove an attacking or blocking creature. For this reason, sometimes it's best to just let your Deep-Cavern Bats hang around instead of trying to inch every bit of value out of them by attacking. This is usually the case against opponents playing white.

Keep in mind that losing a Trumpeting Carnosaur to the graveyard is still a good trade for you as you can reanimate them using the Cruelty of Gix. For this reason, it's usually best to just swing in with your Carnosaurs even if your opponent has enough blockers to kill them. That being said, beware of exile effects like The Wandering Emperor.

Sideboarding

You don't have a lot of slots to work with as far as cards coming out of your main deck as this deck's discover engine requires a critical mass of creatures. That being said, the spells and one of creatures in your main deck are perfectly fine to pull out in favor of something better for the situation.

Duress, Extract the Truth, Liliana of the Veil, and Breach the Multiverse are your tools against control decks. Typically, you'll want to swap most of your removal and your Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor for an array of these options that fit the opponent's deck.

The rest of your sideboard is built for tailoring your removal in midrange matchups or bringing in sweepers against aggressive decks. Be sure to sideboard out The Cruelty of Gix whenever you're facing an aggressive opponent. While it provides great value, it's just a bit too slow to keep in against decks that are trying to kill you quickly.

Closing Thoughts

Rakdos Discover does have a bit of a luck factor to it thanks to the way the discover mechanic works. However, when your discover effects hit their perfect targets, there's very rarely anything the opponent can do to prevent your victory. Regardless, making the most of the luck you get will separate the best Discover players from the rest of the field.

And that's Magic the way Richard Garfield intended.

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