Hey Y'all!

BPRadiant here with a real hot take of a deck. This is going to be a drain tank style control build featuring the rakdos color pair! We wanted to build a list around Florian, Voldaren Scion but I know I'll be building vamps when the next set drops so I wanted to try something out with his ability saying loss of life. This means that with cards like Sanctum of Stone Fangs we can psuedo draw 1 card per turn while establishing our slow win con. And so the deck was born!

I'll structure the rest out like I usually do and if you like the deck feel free to give the video a watch as it will go into more on the decision making aspect of the deck and show off some really good games.

Deck Tech

First and foremost this deck is not your standard control list. It actually tends to do better into other control shells than it does midrange. I would still say it is favored in midrange games but If I had to put its matchups it would go Control>Midrange>Combo>Aggro. The slow kill style means that against many control decks we can just trade 1 for 1 with them while we work to build up our card advantage. Which makes this deck perfect for the weekend.

Now I can't fully share my data yet as it's still a work in process of getting enough games in to be sure but so far out of around 100 games played on the weekend and the week over the last month control decks seem to be more popular from Friday to Sunday. Whereas aggro seems to be more common on the weekdays Monday to Thursday.

So with that in mind we are using some of the drain cards to create a win condition. The best two in the deck are Ill-Gotten Inheritance and Sanctum of Stone Fangs as they will also proc Florian to draw you cards. Though we also include Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Dogged Pursuit, and Underworld Dreams all create our drain triggers that are the backbone to winning with this deck. We have one you've for sure seen in a deck like this with Cat Oven combo as well. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to go to turn 15+ in control vs control matchups.

The Finishers

Well even if you can slowly drain your opponent you may also need to speed up that clock when you get close. We have a few answers for that. My favorite has to be Hidetsugu's Second Rite this card is a house in this deck and I'm not talking the burn down the house kind. Since we do our damage slowly it is very easy to get to the point where we can cast this card. And no one sees this coming. Usually they start to get close to 10 and start making super desperate plays and tap out which is when we can hit them with it. We also run Geistflame Reservoir from the newest set to help us with a finisher damage as well as one of our draw engines. Torment of Hailfire is another win condition as when we hit enough mana usually our opponent is running on fumes and we can either disrupt our opponent in a way they can't recover or they take massive damage. Tergrid's Lantern is another win condition as getting to activate this multiple times a turn is always a way to gain advantages in a much faster way than we were originally. Our last big splashy win con is Urza's Rage. This card is uncounterable bolt for 3 which seems pretty bad but for 10 damage at 12 mana even though the rate is not great the instant speed nature and flexibility of this card make it a fantastic draw early or late. There has been some internal debate over including bane fire as well since we do often reach enough mana to use it. Unfortunately, I've had a hard time trying to find a spot to cut for it.

The Engines

Our commander aside we have other ways of gaining advantages through card draw or pseudo draw. Phyrexian Arena is the obvious and best choice. As we said before Geistflame Reservoir works in a pinch as well. Theatre of Horrors synergizes off the charts as well since we are draining to gain access and it gives us a mana sink to speed the clock. We also include the Immortal Sun since we only run a few planeswalkers and just having two draws a turn is so good in these colors.

The Removal

So our removal and boardwipes are fairly standard across the board. I pretty much just picked the best and as many as I could fit in after we fit in engines and win conditions. You need to be able to consistently deal with threats as you drain away. That doesn't mean going 1 for 1 constantly. You need to also learn when to ignore creatures till a later board wipe and then stop what your opponent is actually trying to do. Two pieces of note are Farideh's Fireball. It does a bit of damage and honestly is in here because I love the art and flavor. This is a style choice that I've loved since AFR Limited. Replace with your favorite removal if you don't want to just yeet someone with fireball. Burn down the house was the other. This card is much better than it looks along with Tibalt, Rakish Instigator at setting up for your opponent to be at 10 life with the ping triggers. Several games have turned into tricking my opponent into incorrectly blocking to let me get them to exactly 10 or to create no win situations for our opponents.

Tech Cards

Graveyard interaction is all the stuff these days so we needed to put in stuff to answer it like Hive of the Eye Tyrant, Bajuka Bog, Leyline of the Void, and Cling to Dust. These help us into decks that want to go long using their graveyard and can let us keep them at bay. Roiling Vortex and Curse of Shaken Faith can help us against combo decks. Leyline of Combustion can add up damage against other control decks. The Bedazzle side of things of Bedeck Bedazzle along with Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter give us some flexible answers to land but Stone Rain has been on my mind to think about including. Lastly we also put in Revel in Riches and Trove of Temptation to create an alternate win condition that synergizes with our plans to remove our opponents creatures anyways and can let us make utility creatures attack into our first striking commander. It's been surprisingly effective against Kinnan decks early to pick off creatures if I don't draw board wipes.

Closing Remarks

Don't be scared of recasting Florian. I feel like with how few creatures I run he easily gets up to like 11 mana most games and that's ok. Use him for a few cards and to bait out removal from your opponents hand. Also always be thinking about your outs or the win condition from where you are at. It really matters.

Hope y'all have a great week and sorry for taking a two week break on the videos! Midterms season was there.

Be Radiant!