Rakdos Delirium — Modern Strategy Guide

Archetype Overview

Rakdos Delirium is a black-red aggro-midrange deck that turns its own graveyard into a second hand. Almost every card does two jobs: it does something on the battlefield, then it becomes fuel once it hits the yard. The list below finished 2nd of 182 players at the MTG SEA Championship Final (Oracle Events, 2026-10-17) in the hands of Moonsteak, and at roughly $499 it is a full-power Modern deck.

The Plan

You deploy cheap threats that grow as your graveyard fills. You strip or kill the opponent's best answer. Then you close with evasive, recursive damage before a slower deck can stabilize. The curve tops out at two mana for anything you cast on purpose. Nethergoyf, Moonshadow, Dark Matter Manipulator, and Stitcher's Supplier all cost {B}, and Fear of Missing Out costs two. That lets you double-spell early and still hold up Lightning Bolt or cast Thoughtseize on the same turn.

The Engine: Card Types in the Graveyard

The deck is built to put as many different card types into the graveyard as it can, as fast as it can:

• Land: fourteen fetchlands, sacrificed as early as turn one.
• Artifact: Mishra's Bauble, which costs zero and replaces itself with a card on the next upkeep.
• Creature: Street Wraith cycles for 2 life and no mana. The cheap creatures and the lone Troll of Khazad-dum also end up here through mill and trades.
• Enchantment: Detective's Phoenix and Fear of Missing Out are enchantment creatures, so each one counts as two types by itself.
• Instant: Lightning Bolt and Flare of Malice.
• Sorcery: Thoughtseize.

Stitcher's Supplier and Dark Matter Manipulator speed this up by milling three on entry, and Supplier mills three more when it dies. Fear of Missing Out discards on entry, so you choose which type goes to the yard.

That type count pays off in three places:

• Nethergoyf is a one-mana creature whose power equals the number of card types in your yard. It can come back by escape for {2}{B}, as long as the other cards you exile have four or more types among them.
• Fear of Missing Out gives you an extra combat phase once you reach four types, and it untaps a creature.
• Moonshadow runs on a related count: permanent cards entering your graveyard. A fetchland crack, a cycled Street Wraith, a sacrificed Bauble, or a mill that hits a land each remove a -1/-1 counter. Your one-mana 1/1 menace becomes a 7/7 menace within a few turns of normal play.

Why the Plan Is Strong

It is mana-efficient to a degree fair decks rarely match. Flare of Malice is free if you sacrifice a nontoken black creature. Sacrificing Stitcher's Supplier to it kills the opponent's biggest creature or planeswalker, mills three, and costs you a one-drop that already did its job. Street Wraith and Mishra's Bauble cost no mana at all, which thins the deck while feeding the engine.

The threats are resilient. Nethergoyf escapes from the graveyard. Detective's Phoenix can be bestowed from the graveyard for {R} plus collecting evidence 6. Your yard pays that cost almost for free, and the bestow turns any body, even a freshly escaped Goyf, into a hasty flier with +2/+2. An opponent who trades one-for-one with you often finds you still have threats left after they run out of answers.

The damage ceiling is high. Fear of Missing Out gives you a second combat. Pair it with a Phoenix-enchanted Moonshadow or a large Nethergoyf and you can win from a board state that looked even a turn earlier. Lightning Bolt adds reach to finish off a stumbling opponent.

You get to see the opponent's plan. Four Thoughtseize let you take the one card that beats you before you commit your graveyard to the board.

Where It Is Vulnerable

• Graveyard exile hurts. Wiping your yard shrinks Nethergoyf, strands Phoenix in exile, and switches off delirium.
• The life costs add up. Fetchlands, Blood Crypt, Thoughtseize, and Street Wraith all cost life. Against fast aggressive decks you have to budget it.
• The maindeck has few blockers that matter early. Racing a faster deck is a real risk if your engine pieces don't line up.

Who Should Pick It Up

This deck rewards players who like a lot of small decisions. Each turn you are asking yourself several questions:

• Which fetch do you crack, and when?
• What do you discard to Fear of Missing Out?
• Do you sacrifice Supplier to Flare now, or keep it for chump-blocking?
• Do you spend your yard on escaping Goyf, or save it for Phoenix's collect evidence?

If you track your graveyard count without thinking about it and you are comfortable paying life for tempo, this list gives you a lot to work with. If you want a deck that plays itself, look elsewhere. The cards here are individually modest, and the deck's strength comes from how carefully you sequence them.

Core Strategy & Game Plan

Rakdos Delirium is an aggro deck that treats its graveyard as a second hand. Almost every one-drop either fills the yard or grows from it, and the payoffs turn that yard into damage your opponent has to answer right away. You are the beatdown in nearly every game. Thoughtseize, Lightning Bolt and Flare of Malice are there to keep your clock unanswered, not to win a long game.

How the Deck Wins

You win through combat damage, and Lightning Bolt provides the reach to finish. The threats fall into three roles:

• Scaling one-drops. Nethergoyf counts card types in your graveyard. Dark Matter Manipulator mills three when it enters and gets +2/+0 for every seven cards in your yard. Moonshadow sheds -1/-1 counters until it is a 7/7 with menace.
• The multiplier. Fear of Missing Out filters your hand when it enters. With delirium, its first attack each turn untaps a target creature and gives you an additional combat phase. The creature you untap attacks a second time, so point the trigger at your biggest attacker, which often is not the 2/3 itself.
• Recursion. Detective's Phoenix bestows from the graveyard for {R} plus collect evidence 6, giving a creature +2/+2, flying and haste. Nethergoyf escapes for {2}{B}. Spot removal trades one-for-one against threats that come back.

The Engine: Four Card Types, Fast

Delirium and Nethergoyf both run on card types, so build the yard with variety, not volume. Here is where each type comes from:

• Land: a cracked fetchland, or a land milled or binned with Raucous Theater's surveil.
• Creature: Street Wraith cycled for 2 life and zero mana, a dead Stitcher's Supplier, or any creature discarded to Fear of Missing Out.
• Artifact: a used Mishra's Bauble.
• Instant and sorcery: Lightning Bolt, Flare of Malice and Thoughtseize after they resolve.
• Enchantment: Fear of Missing Out and Detective's Phoenix. Each one counts as both enchantment and creature.

Artifact and sorcery are your scarce types. Lands, creatures and instants show up on their own. That makes a cracked Mishra's Bauble or a binned Detective's Phoenix the card that turns delirium on a turn early.

For Moonshadow, count events, not cards. It removes one counter whenever one or more permanent cards hit your graveyard. A three-card mill with two lands in it removes one counter, and a mill of only instants and sorceries removes none. Each of these is its own event:

• Cracking a fetchland.
• Sacrificing Mishra's Bauble.
• Cycling Street Wraith.
• Discarding a permanent to Fear of Missing Out.

When Stitcher's Supplier dies, it can count twice: once for the Supplier hitting the yard, and once more if its mill trigger flips a permanent card. Sequence your free actions one at a time while Moonshadow is on the battlefield.

Spending the Graveyard

Your yard serves two masters. Delirium, Nethergoyf's size and Dark Matter Manipulator's bonus want it full. Phoenix bestow and Nethergoyf escape exile from it. The rule is simple: keep at least one card of each type you need and exile the redundancy. Spare fetchlands, extra creatures and duplicate instants are fuel. Your only artifact or only sorcery is not. A Street Wraith (mana value 5) plus almost anything pays collect evidence 6 by itself, so cycled Wraiths are your preferred Phoenix fuel.

Before you escape Nethergoyf, check what the exile does to your other threats. Escaping a 1-power body at the cost of your delirium or a Dark Matter Manipulator threshold is often a downgrade.

Posture

Your posture is proactive with a light disruptive layer. Each piece of interaction has a job:

• Thoughtseize: strips the one card that stops your clock. Fire it turn one when your hand already has threats.
• Lightning Bolt: clears blockers early and closes games late.
• Flare of Malice: your tempo swing. Cast it for free by sacrificing a Stitcher's Supplier, which mills three on the way out, and the opponent loses their biggest creature or planeswalker without you spending mana. The cost is one body for one body, and you get the mill on top.

The Ideal Game

1. Turn 1: Crack a fetchland and deploy Stitcher's Supplier or Dark Matter Manipulator. Use Mishra's Bauble and cycle Street Wraith freely. Lead with Thoughtseize instead if the hand is already threat-dense.
2. Turn 2: Cast Fear of Missing Out. If you hold Detective's Phoenix, discard it to set up bestow. Otherwise, add a pair of one-drops such as Moonshadow and Nethergoyf.
3. Turn 3: With delirium online, bestow Detective's Phoenix from the yard onto the creature that benefits most. On a fresh Fear of Missing Out, haste lets it attack immediately, and it can untap itself for a second swing with flying. Use free Flare of Malice on any blocker that matters.
4. Turn 4: Finish with Lightning Bolt or an escaped Nethergoyf. Recast Phoenix if they answered the first host.

Not every game looks like this. The constant is that you should present a must-answer board by turn three and make every answer they spend cost them more than it costs you.

Card Choices & Breakdown

The Enablers: Filling Four Types Fast

Every card in the main deck either puts a new card type in your graveyard or uses the ones already there. Your available types are land, creature, artifact, enchantment, instant, and sorcery. Delirium needs four, and Nethergoyf gets bigger with each one.

• Dark Matter Manipulator (4): One mana to mill three. It's the best opener in the deck. Unlike most self-mill creatures it doesn't stay a 1/2. It gets +2/+0 for every seven cards in your graveyard, so in a long game it becomes a real attacker. It's also clean black sacrifice fodder for Flare of Malice once its trigger has resolved.
• Stitcher's Supplier (3): It mills three when it enters and three more when it dies. Sacrificing it to Flare of Malice gets you both the removal spell and three more cards in the yard. It's a 1/1 with no late-game value, though, while Dark Matter Manipulator does the same opening job and scales. That's why the fourth copy was cut and Manipulator got the full set.
• Street Wraith (4): Treat this as a card you cycle for 2 life, not a creature you cast. It makes your deck play like a thinner list, and it always puts a creature card in the graveyard. That counts for delirium and for Moonshadow. It has mana value 5, so one Wraith plus almost anything else pays for Detective's Phoenix's collect evidence 6.
• Mishra's Bauble (4): Costs zero and gives you a delayed card draw. It's your most reliable artifact type, and sacrificing it moves a permanent card to the graveyard for Moonshadow at no mana cost.

The Threats

• Nethergoyf (4): A one-drop whose power equals the number of types in your graveyard and whose toughness is one higher. With all six types it's a 6/7 for {B}. The escape cost lets you rebuy it after removal. The tension is that escape exiles cards your other threats also want. Spend the graveyard on whichever threat wins the current board.
• Moonshadow (4): It enters as a 1/1 with menace and grows by one counter at a time. The detail most players miss: the trigger says "one or more" permanent cards. A Stitcher's Supplier mill that hits three permanents removes only one counter. Separate events grow it faster: a fetchland crack, a Bauble sacrifice, a Wraith cycle. Instants and sorceries do nothing for it.
• Fear of Missing Out (4): The enter trigger discards then draws. Use it to bin an excess land or a Wraith. With delirium, its first attack each turn untaps a creature and gives you an extra combat phase. Bestowing Detective's Phoenix onto it gives it haste, which lets you attack and take the extra combat the turn it lands.
• Detective's Phoenix (4): This is your reach and your answer to removal. Bestow for {R} plus collect evidence 6, from hand or from the graveyard, adds +2/+2, flying, and haste to a creature you already have. A grounded Moonshadow or Nethergoyf becomes a hasty flier at instant speed of decision-making. Hard-casting it as a 2/2 flying haste for three mana is fine when your graveyard is empty.
• Troll of Khazad-dum (1): The only one-of among the spells. Treat it as the main flex slot and the first card to reconsider when you tune for a field.

The Interaction

• Thoughtseize (4): A sorcery for your type count, and it clears the way for your one-drops. The 2 life matters. Together with fetches, Blood Crypt, and Street Wraith, your own life loss adds up quickly against aggressive decks. Fire it on turn one against combo and big-mana decks, and be more selective against burn-heavy aggro.
• Lightning Bolt (4): Removes early creatures, adds an instant to the graveyard, and gives you reach to finish a game your fliers have set up.
• Flare of Malice (3): The opponent sacrifices their highest mana value creature or planeswalker. That gets around hexproof-style protection and blocks targeting tricks against their biggest threat. Its free alternate cost requires a nontoken black creature. Fear of Missing Out and Detective's Phoenix are red and can't be sacrificed. Hard-cast at four mana it's clunky, and you pay a card for the free mode, so three copies keeps it from flooding your hand. It's at its best against decks built around one large threat. Broodscale Bloodchief is the most-played archetype by Top 8 slots, at 82 of 460 (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18), and every one of its Top 8 lists runs Emrakul, the Promised End (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).

The Mana Base

The deck plays 18 lands, and 10 of them are fetchlands. That's intentional. Every fetch you crack puts a land in the graveyard and moves a permanent card for Moonshadow, which makes land your most dependable delirium type.

• Fetches: Bloodstained Mire (4) finds anything. Marsh Flats (4) and Verdant Catacombs (1) find every Swamp-typed land, but not the basic Mountain. Arid Mesa (1) finds Mountain, Blood Crypt, and Raucous Theater, but not basic Swamp.
• Targets: There are only eight: 3 Blood Crypt, 2 Raucous Theater, 2 Swamp, and 1 Mountain. With 10 fetches and 8 targets, you can run out in a long game. Track what's left, and grab basics early when you don't need both colors right away so a shockland is still there later.
• Raucous Theater (2): It enters tapped, so play it on turns when you weren't using your mana. The surveil 1 can put a card into the graveyard for one more type or one more counter.
• Color balance: Your red needs are light ({R} for Bolt and bestow, {1}{R} for Fear of Missing Out). Your black needs show up from turn one. That's why the deck runs two Swamp and only one Mountain.

The Decklist

This is the exact 75 that Moonsteak piloted to 2nd place at the MTG SEA Championship Final (Oracle Events, 2026-10-17, 182 players). Cards marked Core are the engine and shouldn't be touched. Cards marked Flex are where you tune for your room.

Count check: the main deck below totals 61 cards (28 creatures, 15 spells, 18 lands). Before you register, check it against the event's posted list so you know whether the extra card is intended or a transcription error.

Main Deck: Creatures (28)

Main Deck: Noncreature Spells (15)

Main Deck: Lands (18)

Sideboard (15)

The real flexibility is in the margins: the Stitcher's Supplier/Troll of Khazad-dum split, the Flare of Malice count, and the basic-to-Raucous Theater ratio. Leave the 4-ofs alone. Every one of them either adds a card type or converts a full graveyard into damage.

Mulligan Guide

What Makes a Keep

Every seven gets the same three questions:

• Can you cast your spells? You want two lands, including access to both colors. Fetches count as either color as long as a target remains in your library: Marsh Flats and Arid Mesa can each find Blood Crypt or Raucous Theater.
• Does it fill the graveyard with card types? Nethergoyf, Moonshadow and Fear of Missing Out's delirium all scale with your graveyard. Fetches put lands there, Mishra's Bauble puts an artifact there, Street Wraith and Stitcher's Supplier put creatures there, and your instants and sorceries add the rest. A hand of one-drops and fetches gets better every turn.
• Does it do something by turn two? That means a threat, Thoughtseize, or Lightning Bolt. Hands that sit back and react are the ones you lose with.

Don't count Street Wraith or Mishra's Bauble as spells or as lands. Wraith cycles for 2 life at no mana cost, and Bauble replaces itself on the next upkeep. They are draws, not action. A seven with two of them is really a five-card hand that digs two cards deep.

Example Hands

1. Bloodstained Mire, Blood Crypt, Thoughtseize, Nethergoyf, Fear of Missing Out, Lightning Bolt, Mishra's Bauble. Snap keep. You have both colors, discard to clear the way, and two threats that grow off the land, artifact and sorcery this hand puts into the graveyard by itself.
2. Marsh Flats, Swamp, Street Wraith, Street Wraith, Mishra's Bauble, Stitcher's Supplier, Moonshadow. Keep. It has only two lands and almost no action. But the Wraiths and Bauble dig hard, and Supplier's three-card mill feeds Moonshadow. Marsh Flats can fetch Blood Crypt for red. This hand is slow to apply pressure, so it is weaker against fast combo, but it is still a keep.
3. Arid Mesa, Mountain, Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize, Nethergoyf, Dark Matter Manipulator, Fear of Missing Out. Keep. It looks short on black, but Arid Mesa fetches Blood Crypt untapped for both colors. Crack it turn one and pay for the Crypt so you can lead with a black one-drop or Thoughtseize. Don't fetch a basic Mountain by reflex.
4. Bloodstained Mire, Street Wraith, Street Wraith, Mishra's Bauble, Thoughtseize, Dark Matter Manipulator, Lightning Bolt. Ship on the play; keep on the draw. With one land, you need to hit a second by your next draw step. On the draw, you see two Wraith cycles plus a natural draw before your second land drop, and Bauble adds a card on your following upkeep. On the play, you have one fewer look and less time to recover from a miss.
5. Blood Crypt, Raucous Theater, Swamp, Mountain, Bloodstained Mire, Lightning Bolt, Flare of Malice. Ship. This hand has no threats and no graveyard engine. Without a black creature to sacrifice, Flare of Malice costs four mana. Two answers don't make up for a hand that can't win.
6. Marsh Flats, Blood Crypt, Thoughtseize, Thoughtseize, Lightning Bolt, Detective's Phoenix, Street Wraith. Keep against combo; acceptable elsewhere. Two discard spells and Lightning Bolt are exactly what you want against a deck trying to assemble pieces. Detective's Phoenix can be cast as a hasty 2/2 flier on three mana.

On the Play vs. on the Draw

On the play, cheap pressure is worth the most. Keep hands with a one-drop and Thoughtseize, and treat one-landers as mulligans even when they have cyclers.

On the draw, you get the extra card and you face pressure first. That makes two different keeps better:

• Thin-land hands with digging. The extra card helps you find the second land.
• Hands with Lightning Bolt or a good blocker. Dark Matter Manipulator (a 1/2) and Fear of Missing Out (a 2/3) can hold the ground early.

Going to six is fine with this deck, because so much of it costs one mana or less. Don't keep a weak seven just to avoid it.

Matchup Adjustments

Broodscale Bloodchief:

• Every Top 8 list ran 4 Urza's Saga and 4 Eldrazi Temple (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18), so their fast mana is in their lands. Prioritize hands that interact early and pressure quickly.
• Soul-Guide Lantern appeared in 74 of 82 main decks (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Even in game one, a hand that wins only through a stocked graveyard can get reset.
• Grafdigger's Cage was in all 82 sideboards (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). After sideboarding, value threats you cast from hand over plans built on Nethergoyf escape or bestowing Detective's Phoenix from the graveyard.
• Obsidian Charmaw gets cheaper for each of their lands that could produce {C}, so a hand containing it improves sharply in this matchup.

UR Cutter Prowess:

• All 30 Top 8 lists played 4 Lightning Bolt (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Your life total matters, so hands that pay a lot of life early through fetches, Thoughtseize, Street Wraith cycles and an untapped Blood Crypt get worse.
• Prefer hands with your own Lightning Bolt and early blockers over hands built around discard.

Devoted Combo and other combo decks: Thoughtseize and Lightning Bolt are your premium cards. Mulligan hands with neither unless they present a fast clock.

Control: Keep land-heavy hands with two threats. Here the risk is running out of threats, not stumbling on mana.

Sequencing & Key Lines

Turn One: Choosing Your One-Drop

Most hands give you several one-mana plays, and the right lead depends on what the opponent can do to you.

• Against an interactive or combo opponent on the play: lead with Thoughtseize. Taking their removal or graveyard answer before you commit makes every later threat safer.
• Against a creature deck, or with a hand full of enablers: lead with Moonshadow. It only shrinks its counters while it is on the battlefield, so every turn it arrives late is growth you lose.
• Stitcher's Supplier and Dark Matter Manipulator are best after Moonshadow is down, because their mills feed it.

Raucous Theater enters tapped. Play it on a turn when you weren't spending that mana anyway, such as a turn-one Bauble turn or a turn when you hold up nothing. Use the surveil to bin a permanent card.

The Moonshadow Ordering Rule

Moonshadow removes one counter for each event that puts permanent cards into your graveyard, not one counter per card. That makes ordering everything:

• If you have a Swamp-type land, play it untapped and cast Moonshadow first. Crack your fetchland on a later turn, so the land hitting the graveyard removes a counter.
• Cast Mishra's Bauble after Moonshadow, then sacrifice it. The Bauble entering the graveyard is a counter.
• Cycle Street Wraith after Moonshadow resolves, not before. The exception is when you need the draw to find the land that casts it.
• Spread your mills across separate events. Stitcher's Supplier entering is one event. Sacrificing it to Flare of Malice is another, since the Supplier itself hits the yard. Its dies trigger is a third, if it mills a permanent card.
• Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize and Flare of Malice are not permanent cards. Casting them never shrinks Moonshadow.

The Bolt threshold matters too. With three counters left, Moonshadow is a 4/4 and survives 3 damage. Every UR Cutter Prowess Top 8 list ran four Lightning Bolt (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Count your remaining enablers before you send a 2/2 into open red mana.

Turns Two and Three: Building the Fear of Missing Out Turn

The Fear of Missing Out enter trigger is a discard followed by a draw. Your best discard is usually a Detective's Phoenix. It adds two card types (enchantment and creature) and can still be cast from the graveyard with bestow. Never discard Street Wraith, since cycling it costs only life and replaces itself.

The premium line looks like this:

1. Fear of Missing Out is on board with four or more types in your graveyard.
2. Bestow Detective's Phoenix onto it for {R} plus collect evidence 6.
3. Attack with a 4/5 flier with haste.
4. The delirium trigger untaps a creature and gives you an additional combat.

Because of the haste, this works the turn you cast Fear of Missing Out if you have the mana. Bestowing onto Moonshadow is the alternative. It gives you a large flying, hasty menace attacker, which is strongest when the opponent has few or no fliers.

Managing the Graveyard Budget

Your graveyard pays for several things at once:

• delirium for Fear of Missing Out
• card types for Nethergoyf
• the card count for Dark Matter Manipulator
• the exile costs of collect evidence and escape

The common branch point is the bestow turn. Delirium is checked when Fear of Missing Out attacks, so pay collect evidence with duplicate types. Street Wraith alone covers 5 of the 6, and a spare Lightning Bolt finishes it if another instant stays behind. Do not exile your only land or only artifact.

Escape Nethergoyf in your second main phase whenever the attack depends on delirium. It can't attack the turn it arrives anyway, and the extra combat comes with no main phase in between. Also remember that Dark Matter Manipulator's bonus counts in steps of seven cards. Check whether an exile drops you under seven before you pay.

Flare of Malice Timing

Your preferred sacrifice is Stitcher's Supplier, which mills again on the way out. A Dark Matter Manipulator that has already milled is next best. Fear of Missing Out is red and can't be sacrificed.

Because the opponent sacrifices their creature with the greatest mana value, cast Flare of Malice at instant speed right after they land a single big threat. Don't wait until a second creature gives them a worse one to give up. Pay the full {2}{B}{B} late in the game when keeping your board matters more than tempo.

Playing Around the Format's Interaction

• Diversify your threats. Moonshadow and Fear of Missing Out don't need the graveyard to exist. Lead with them into opponents likely to hold graveyard exile, and keep Nethergoyf escape and graveyard bestow as your follow-up.
• Hold the Phoenix when graveyard hate is likely. Against those opponents, keep Detective's Phoenix in hand. It can be hard-cast for {2}{R} as a hasty flier.
• Size up before committing. Nethergoyf survives 3 damage once you have three or more types in the graveyard. Before that point, pass with Bolt mana up instead of running it into removal.
• Crack Bauble with a purpose. Sacrifice Mishra's Bauble on your own turn when you need the artifact type immediately. Otherwise, use it in the opponent's upkeep to peek at their draw. Either way the card arrives on the next turn's upkeep.

Matchup Matrix

The Modern field from 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18 has one clear leader and a pack of roughly equal decks behind it: Broodscale Bloodchief took 82 of 460 Top 8 slots, UR Cutter Prowess 30, Rakdos Delirium 29, and Boros Aggro and Scepter Chant 24 each (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Your sideboard is built for exactly this field.

Broodscale Bloodchief

This is the matchup you will play most. Flare of Malice is your best card here. It makes them sacrifice the creature with the greatest mana value, and you can cast it for free by sacrificing Stitcher's Supplier, which also mills three when it dies. Use Thoughtseize on the card that makes their turn 3 work, not on a top-end threat that Flare can handle later.

After sideboarding, Obsidian Charmaw gets cheaper for each opposing land that could produce {C}, and its trigger destroys a nonbasic land such as Urza's Saga or Eldrazi Temple. Every one of their 82 Top 8 sideboards ran Grafdigger's Cage and 79 ran Trinisphere (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18), so Meltdown has targets in post-board games.

UR Cutter Prowess

All 30 Top 8 lists played four Cori-Steel Cutter, four Lightning Bolt, and four Mishra's Bauble (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).

• Their Bolts kill your early creatures, so don't overcommit. One threat at a time, backed by your own Lightning Bolt, is the posture.
• Meltdown for a small X clears Cutter and their Baubles at once. It also destroys your Mishra's Bauble, so crack yours first.
• Glistening Deluge kills their X/1s.
• Obsidian Charmaw showed up in 19 of their 30 sideboards (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Fetch a basic early if the game allows it, so a Charmaw trigger doesn't cut off a color.

Rakdos Delirium Mirror

Both decks fill the graveyard and both run Flare. Two rules decide most games:

• Bait Flare before committing. Opposing Flares take whatever has the greatest mana value. Make sure a cheap creature isn't the target when your Moonshadow is the real threat.
• Hit their graveyard at the right moment. Nihil Spellbomb in response to an escape or bestow from the graveyard shrinks their Nethergoyf and Dark Matter Manipulator and strands their Detective's Phoenix.

Fatal Push handles their cheap creatures cleanly.

Boros Aggro

Your Lightning Bolt, a large Nethergoyf, and a Fear of Missing Out body are all good at holding the ground. Bring in Glistening Deluge: green or white creatures get -3/-3 in total while yours get only -1/-1. Their burn makes Thoughtseize and Street Wraith cycling costly, so trim life payments.

Scepter Chant

Treat this as a combo matchup. Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek take the pieces, and Meltdown answers an artifact-based engine. Pressure matters more than card advantage, so use Fear of Missing Out's extra combat to end the game before they rebuild.

Pinnacle Affinity

Game 1 is a race where your removal is aimed at their best threat. Post-board, a well-timed Meltdown for the right X can wipe their board.

The Rest of the Field

• Creature combo: Devoted Combo won the event where this list placed 2nd (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-17). Keep Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, or Glistening Deluge up during their combo turns rather than tapping out for a threat.
• Graveyard combo: This is your weakest spot. Your discard has to land, and Nihil Spellbomb has to be on the battlefield before their key turn.
• Big mana / ramp: Discard plus an early clock is usually enough. Obsidian Charmaw and Blood Moon punish nonbasic-heavy mana. Blood Moon also turns your Blood Crypt and Raucous Theater into Mountains, so fetch Swamp before you cast it.
• Control: Detective's Phoenix cast from the graveyard and Nethergoyf's escape cost them their one-for-one trades. Don't overextend into a sweeper. Commit your threats one at a time.

Sideboard / Tech Guide

The 15 here is built to answer specific strategies, not to patch general weaknesses. Most packages are tight two-for-two or four-for-four swaps. Your cuts come from the same few flexible slots: Street Wraith, Lightning Bolt, Thoughtseize, Flare of Malice, and the lone Troll of Khazad-dum.

Quick Reference

Broodscale Bloodchief

This is the archetype you'll face most. It took 82 of 460 Top 8 slots (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Every one of those lists ran Eldrazi Temple and Urza's Saga, and 80 ran Ugin's Labyrinth (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).

That mana base is exactly what Obsidian Charmaw punishes. The enter trigger destroys a nonbasic land, and the cost drops by one for each of their lands that could produce {C}. Count their colorless sources before you cast it. Often it costs far less than five.

Lightning Bolt is your weakest card against their larger threats. Flare of Malice stays in, because "greatest mana value" is exactly where you want to aim against this deck.

Expect graveyard hate after sideboarding. Grafdigger's Cage appeared in all 82 sideboards, and Soul-Guide Lantern in 74 main decks (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). That means:

• Don't sink everything into Detective's Phoenix and Nethergoyf escape lines.
• Keep a fair, on-board threat count.

UR Cutter Prowess

Two-mana-or-less threats are the problem, so bring in Fatal Push and Glistening Deluge. Revolt is easy to turn on with your own permanents. Cracking a fetchland, sacrificing Mishra's Bauble, or losing Stitcher's Supplier all count, which upgrades Push to mana value 4 or less.

Glistening Deluge gives all creatures -1/-1, and that includes yours:

• A freshly cast Moonshadow dies to it.
• Stitcher's Supplier dies too, though that at least mills three.

Sequence it before you deploy your own small creatures.

Cut Thoughtseize and Street Wraith, since every 2 life matters against burn. Their sideboards ran Obsidian Charmaw in 19 of 30 lists (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Fetch your basics early so Blood Crypt and Raucous Theater aren't your only colored sources.

Creature Aggro and Affinity

Against creature decks with white or green threats, Glistening Deluge becomes a one-sided sweeper: those creatures take -3/-3 while yours take -1/-1. Thoughtseize is too slow and too painful here, so cut it heavily.

Against Pinnacle Affinity, Meltdown is your reset button. Choose X carefully:

• Even X=0 destroys your own Mishra's Bauble.
• X=1 or more also takes your Nihil Spellbomb.
• If you can, sacrifice your Bauble for value before casting it.

Graveyard Decks

Nihil Spellbomb exiles target player's graveyard, so aim it at them, never at yourself. You can hold it untapped as a threat. When it leaves the battlefield, pay {B} to draw, and the artifact still lands in your graveyard for delirium.

Inquisition of Kozilek adds a fifth and sixth discard spell to strip their enablers.

Big Mana: UrzaTron and Amulet Titan

Blood Moon and Obsidian Charmaw both attack nonbasic mana bases. Know exactly what Moon does to your own lands first, because it turns every one of your nonbasics into a Mountain:

• Your fetchlands stop fetching.
• Blood Crypt and Raucous Theater lose the Swamp type and stop making black.
• Before you cast Moon, crack fetches for Swamp so your black mana survives.

Lightning Bolt does little here, so cut all four.

Combo and Control

Against spell combo and control, Flare of Malice can lack targets. Trade one for Inquisition of Kozilek and keep the other two as insurance against finishers.

Against creature-based combo, Fatal Push is an instant-speed answer to cheap combo pieces, and it's often live at mana value 4 thanks to revolt.

Adjusting for Your Field

The brief points toward a few adjustments:

• Broodscale-heavy room: all four Obsidian Charmaw stay locked in. If you need to trim, cut a Blood Moon before a Charmaw.
• Rising Prowess and Boros counts: a third Fatal Push is the first addition. Cut the second Nihil Spellbomb for it if graveyard decks are scarce.
• Combo-heavy room: a second Inquisition of Kozilek can replace a Meltdown.

Tech Choices & Variations

This 75 is tight, but a few slots can move depending on what you expect to face. The cards you can adjust are the ones you can change without breaking two things the deck depends on: reaching four card types in the graveyard, and filling the graveyard fast enough for Moonshadow and Dark Matter Manipulator.

Maindeck Flex Slots at a Glance

Discard: Thoughtseize vs Inquisition of Kozilek

Against fast aggro, swapping in Inquisition of Kozilek is the cleanest change you can make. Your deck already costs you life in several ways:

• Fetchlands cost 1 life each.
• Blood Crypt costs 2 life to enter untapped.
• Cycling Street Wraith costs 2 life.

Either discard spell puts a sorcery in your graveyard for delirium, so the swap costs you nothing on card types. The downside is the mana value cap. Against decks built around expensive threats, Thoughtseize has to stay, because the cards you most need to take are often above mana value 3.

The Engine Count: Stitcher's Supplier and the Troll Slot

The 4th Stitcher's Supplier is the most natural addition to the deck. It strengthens nearly everything else in the list:

• It mills three cards when it enters and three more when it dies.
• It is a free sacrifice for Flare of Malice, and the sacrifice triggers its dies mill.
• Each permanent card it mills removes a counter from Moonshadow.
• It pushes Dark Matter Manipulator toward its next seven-card threshold.

The single Troll of Khazad-dum is the slot that would make room for it. If you expect a fast field where a 1/1 body and a faster yard matter more than one bigger threat, make the swap. If you expect slower, removal-heavy decks, keep the Troll. It gives you a top-end threat that doesn't depend on graveyard thresholds.

Removal Density

Three Flare of Malice is a deliberate number. The card is strongest when you can cast it for free, by sacrificing a nontoken black creature you've already gotten value from. A Stitcher's Supplier that has already milled, or a Moonshadow about to trade anyway, is the ideal sacrifice.

You can move a Fatal Push to the maindeck to fight small, cheap creatures. Fetchlands turn on revolt easily, which lets Push hit creatures up to mana value 4. Push is the better maindeck card against a field of low-curve creatures. Flare is better against decks that commit one large threat, because it forces them to sacrifice their highest mana value creature or planeswalker.

Street Wraith and the Life Budget

All four Street Wraith cycle for 2 life each. Each one puts a creature card in the yard at no mana cost and replaces itself. If you go up a Stitcher's Supplier, cutting one Wraith keeps the creature count stable and saves life against aggro. Do not trim Mishra's Bauble to make room for anything. It is the deck's only maindeck artifact, and losing it slows delirium badly.

Mana Base Adjustments

The ten fetchlands put land cards into your graveyard and each counts as a permanent card for Moonshadow. Keep them. The real decision is how many basics to play versus Raucous Theater. Swapping a Theater for a basic does three things:

• It supports Blood Moon after sideboarding.
• It gives you an untapped land on curve.
• It leaves fewer nonbasic land targets for opposing land destruction.

That last point matters in practice. Obsidian Charmaw, whose enters trigger destroys target nonbasic land, appears in 19 of the 30 UR Cutter Prowess Top 8 sideboards (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).

Reshaping the Sideboard

The single Inquisition of Kozilek is the loosest sideboard slot. If you've already moved Inquisition into the maindeck, use that sideboard space for whichever of these your field punishes most:

• A third Meltdown against artifact decks. Pinnacle Affinity took 22 Top 8 slots (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).
• A third Nihil Spellbomb against graveyard decks. Living End took 17 slots and Instant Reanimator took 14 (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).
• A third Glistening Deluge, if green and white creature decks are common locally.

Tuning for Your Field

• Big-threat field: Broodscale Bloodchief took 82 of 460 Top 8 slots (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Against a field like this:
  • Keep all four Thoughtseize.
  • Keep Flare of Malice at three or go up to four.
  • Keep the full four Obsidian Charmaw in the sideboard.
• Prowess and aggro field: UR Cutter Prowess (30 slots) and Boros Aggro (24 slots) are the most common decks of this type (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Against them:
  • Move Inquisition of Kozilek and a Fatal Push into the maindeck.
  • Trim a Street Wraith.
  • Add a basic in place of a Raucous Theater.
• Unknown or mixed field: Register the list as written. It already covers a wide range of opponents, and every swap above weakens at least one matchup.

Budget Options

The list runs about $499 at TCGplayer market prices, and that number is approximate and changes over time. Check current prices before you buy anything. Most of that cost is likely in a few places: the ten fetchlands, Thoughtseize, Blood Crypt, and Blood Moon in the sideboard. Some of these are long-running Modern staples that hold their value. The rest of the deck is mostly one-mana creatures and cantrip artifacts, and that core is what makes Rakdos Delirium function. Your budget plan should protect the engine and cut corners on the mana and the discard.

Don't Budget the Engine

Nethergoyf, Moonshadow, Fear of Missing Out, Detective's Phoenix, Dark Matter Manipulator, Stitcher's Supplier, Street Wraith, Mishra's Bauble, Lightning Bolt, and Flare of Malice all work as a unit:

• Street Wraith cycles for 2 life and puts a creature in your graveyard without spending mana.
• Mishra's Bauble adds an artifact for zero mana.
• Stitcher's Supplier and Dark Matter Manipulator mill cards to fuel delirium, Nethergoyf's power, and Detective's Phoenix's collect evidence.

Nothing else in the 75 does these jobs. A list that cuts these pieces is no longer this deck, so buy them first. Keep the single Troll of Khazad-dum if you can, since it fills a slot nothing else in the list covers.

The Fetchland Trick: Buy Whatever's Cheapest

Look at what each fetch can actually find in this deck. Blood Crypt and Raucous Theater are both Swamp Mountains, so every fetch in the list can get either of them:

• Marsh Flats and Verdant Catacombs find a Swamp.
• Arid Mesa finds a Mountain.
• Bloodstained Mire finds either.

The only real difference shows up when you're fetching a basic. Bloodstained Mire is the most flexible, while the others can reach only one of your two basics. That means the specific fetches are close to interchangeable. Buy Bloodstained Mire first, then fill the remaining slots with whichever of the others is cheapest when you shop.

If ten fetches is too much, you can replace some with basics, but you give something up. A fetchland sacrifices itself, which puts a land card into your graveyard. That has three effects:

• It adds the land type toward delirium for Fear of Missing Out.
• It raises Nethergoyf's power.
• Because a land is a permanent card, it removes a counter from Moonshadow.

A basic Swamp gives you none of that. Lands have mana value 0, so fetches never helped Detective's Phoenix's collect evidence. That part of the plan doesn't change.

Swap Table

Mana Base Guidance for the Budget Build

Most of the deck's spells need black, and Fear of Missing Out, Detective's Phoenix, Lightning Bolt, and the Blood Moon / Meltdown sideboard cards need red. If you trim fetches and shocks, keep Swamp sources clearly ahead of Mountain sources. Make sure you can still cast red spells by turn two.

Your extra basics come with a hidden upside. Blood Moon turns all nonbasic lands into Mountains, including your own Blood Crypt and Raucous Theater. A budget mana base with more basic Swamps keeps its black mana after you resolve your own Blood Moon. The full list can strand its black spells in the same spot.

Upgrade Path

1. Engine first. Get the full creature core, Mishra's Bauble, Lightning Bolt, and Flare of Malice. Play Inquisition of Kozilek main and run more basics and Raucous Theaters.
2. Bloodstained Mire. This is the most flexible fetch for this list and the best single mana upgrade.
3. Thoughtseize. Taking any nonland card, not just cheap ones, is the biggest power jump available in the 75.
4. Blood Crypt. Untapped dual mana smooths your fast starts.
5. The remaining fetches. Buy whichever are cheapest, since they work almost the same here.
6. Blood Moon last. It only matters after sideboarding, and only in some matchups, so it's the easiest piece to delay.

At every step, the budget version plays the same game: fill the graveyard and attack with oversized one-drops. You're giving up small edges in tempo, life total, and graveyard density, not the core plan. Learn the deck on the cheaper build, then add the upgrades as your budget allows.

Common Mistakes

The list rewards counting and punishes autopilot. These are the errors that turn winning board states into losses.

1. Batching your Moonshadow triggers

Moonshadow removes one counter per event, not per card. A Stitcher's Supplier mill that hits three permanent cards removes one counter, the same as one fetchland. If you crack Mishra's Bauble, fetch, and cycle Street Wraith before you cast Moonshadow, those triggers are wasted.

Fix: Cast Moonshadow first, then feed it one event at a time:

• Fetchland sacrifices.
• Mishra's Bauble sacrifices.
• Street Wraith cycles.
• Permanent cards discarded to Fear of Missing Out.
• Creatures sacrificed to Flare of Malice.

A Stitcher's Supplier sacrificed to Flare of Malice counts twice. The Supplier going to the graveyard is one event, and its death-trigger mill is a second. Remember that Lightning Bolt and Thoughtseize are not permanent cards, so they never shrink the counters.

2. Eating your own card types

The Nethergoyf escape and the Detective's Phoenix collect-evidence cost both exile cards from your graveyard. Careless exiling hurts you in three ways:

• It shrinks every Nethergoyf on the battlefield.
• It can switch off delirium for Fear of Missing Out.
• It can drop Dark Matter Manipulator below a seven-card threshold.

Sorcery is the type most often lost. Thoughtseize is your only main-deck sorcery.

Fix: Before you exile anything, list the types in your yard. Exile duplicates first: the third land, the second instant, the extra creature. Leave at least one card of each type behind. Detective's Phoenix and Fear of Missing Out are each an enchantment and a creature, so one of them alone covers two types. Exile them last. If escaping a second Nethergoyf leaves the first one as a 1/2, the escape is often not worth it.

3. Attacking with Fear of Missing Out before delirium is live

The extra combat only happens if four card types are in your graveyard when Fear of Missing Out first attacks that turn. That makes the first attack each turn the one that counts.

Fix: Finish building your graveyard before you move to combat. Crack the fetch, sacrifice the Mishra's Bauble, cycle the Street Wraith. Do not pay an escape or bestow cost before combat if it would drop you below four types. When the trigger resolves, untap your best attacker, not by reflex the Fear of Missing Out itself. A bestowed Detective's Phoenix gives the enchanted creature haste. That lets a Fear of Missing Out cast this turn swing right away and take the extra combat.

4. Discarding the wrong card to Fear of Missing Out

The enter trigger forces you to discard before you draw. Tossing your worst card is the wrong default.

Fix: Discard the card that adds a missing type, or the card that still works from the graveyard:

• Detective's Phoenix can be cast from the yard with bestow.
• Nethergoyf can escape.
• A discarded permanent card also removes a Moonshadow counter if one is on the battlefield.

Pitching Street Wraith wastes a free cycle you could have taken anyway.

5. Spending Flare of Malice badly

Flare of Malice makes the opponent sacrifice their highest mana value creature or planeswalker. It does not hit the creature you pick. Timing and fodder both matter.

Fix:

• Fire it while the threat you need gone is still their biggest permanent. A later, larger, less dangerous creature can shield it.
• Pay the alternative cost by sacrificing Stitcher's Supplier or a spent Dark Matter Manipulator. Do not sacrifice your Moonshadow.
• Hard-cast it for four mana only when every black creature you have is pulling its weight.

6. Bleeding out against aggro

Your deck charges life in many places:

• Every fetchland costs 1 life.
• An untapped Blood Crypt costs 2.
• Thoughtseize costs 2.
• Cycling Street Wraith costs 2.

A single turn of fetch into untapped Blood Crypt into Thoughtseize costs 5 life. Against Boros Aggro or UR Cutter Prowess, that is often the game.

Fix: Fetch for basic Swamp and Mountain while they last. Play Raucous Theater on turns when you don't need the mana. Hold your Street Wraith cycles until the card you draw actually changes the turn. Keeping Lightning Bolt mana open is usually better than adding another graveyard type.

7. Dumping your graveyard into hate

Your opponents are prepared for graveyard decks:

• Grafdigger's Cage appears in all 82 Broodscale Bloodchief Top 8 sideboards (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).
• Soul-Guide Lantern appears in 74 of those 82 main decks (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).
• Tormod's Crypt is in 21 of the 30 UR Cutter Prowess sideboards (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).

Passing the turn with a stacked yard and your threats still in it is the mistake those cards punish.

Fix: Cast threats from your hand first. Spend the yard on escape and bestow while you still can, instead of saving it. Moonshadow counters already removed stay removed, and a Detective's Phoenix already bestowed stays on the battlefield. A wiped graveyard costs you future value, not the board you have already built. After you see hate in game one, sequence game two as if the yard will be exiled at the worst possible moment.

Tournament Prep & Final Notes

What to Practice Before the Event

This deck is not hard to pilot, but it punishes sloppy accounting. Most lost games come from miscounting your graveyard, not from bad threat choices. Before the event, put your reps into these three areas:

• Graveyard math at speed. Goldfish openers and call out your card-type count after every mill, fetch, and cycle. Detective's Phoenix and Fear of Missing Out each count as two types (enchantment and creature) on their own. A single Mishra's Bauble plus one of those plus a land already gets you to delirium.
• Resource-spending decisions. Practice choosing what to exile for Nethergoyf's escape and for Detective's Phoenix's collect evidence 6. Both shrink the graveyard that powers Fear of Missing Out, Dark Matter Manipulator, and every other Nethergoyf.
• Life totals. Thoughtseize, Street Wraith cycling, an untapped Blood Crypt, and fetches all cost life. Against aggressive decks, add up those costs before you spend them.

Rules Interactions to Know Cold

• Moonshadow counts events, not cards. It removes one counter whenever one or more permanent cards hit your graveyard. A Stitcher's Supplier mill that dumps three creatures removes one counter. Instants and sorceries remove nothing. Fetchland sacrifices, a cracked Mishra's Bauble, a cycled Street Wraith, and a creature discarded to Fear of Missing Out each remove one. Use a die to track the counters.
• Fear of Missing Out checks delirium when it attacks. The trigger needs four card types in your graveyard on the first attack each turn. Don't escape Nethergoyf or pay collect evidence precombat if that drops you below four types.
• Escape exiles exactly what you choose. Nethergoyf needs four types among the exiled cards, not every card you have. Exile the minimum and keep the rest, so the escaped Goyf still has power.
• Street Wraith is premium evidence. It has mana value 5. A cycled Street Wraith plus any one-drop pays collect evidence 6 by itself.
• Flare of Malice's alternative cost needs a nontoken black creature. Fear of Missing Out and Detective's Phoenix are red and can't be sacrificed. Stitcher's Supplier is the best fodder: its dies trigger mills three, and the sacrifice also feeds Moonshadow.
• Bauble's draw is delayed. You draw at the next turn's upkeep. Crack Mishra's Bauble on your opponent's end step to draw on your own upkeep. A sacrificed Bauble also turns on Fatal Push's revolt, and so does a cracked fetchland.
• Know which fetch finds which land. Every fetch in the list can find Blood Crypt or Raucous Theater. Only Bloodstained Mire and Arid Mesa can find the lone basic Mountain. Marsh Flats and Verdant Catacombs can't.
• Your sideboard hits you too. Blood Moon turns your nonbasics into Mountains, so fetch a basic Swamp before you cast it. Glistening Deluge kills your own Stitcher's Supplier, a fresh Moonshadow, and a Nethergoyf with no types in your graveyard. Meltdown destroys your own Mishra's Bauble and Nihil Spellbomb, so crack them first. Nihil Spellbomb can target either player, so always name the right graveyard.

Pace and Clock Management

The deck closes games quickly, but each turn involves a lot of small actions: frequent shuffles, mill triggers, surveil, and the extra combat from Fear of Missing Out. Keep the round moving:

• Fan your graveyard by card type so you and your opponent can both check counts at a glance.
• Announce each trigger and its result in one sentence.
• Only crack a fetch when the shuffle or the land matters. A fetch held for later still feeds Moonshadow and revolt.

Plan to sideboard quickly. Decide your swaps for the common matchups before the event, not between games.

Reading the Field

Broodscale Bloodchief is the deck you must be ready for. It took 82 of 460 Top 8 slots (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Every one of those 82 lists ran Grafdigger's Cage in the sideboard, and 74 ran Soul-Guide Lantern in the main (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Expect graveyard hate in every game against it, and lean on threats that work from the battlefield, such as Dark Matter Manipulator and Moonshadow.

UR Cutter Prowess was the next most common deck, with 30 Top 8 slots (source: MTGTop8, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18). Consign to Memory appeared in 29 of those 30 sideboards and Tormod's Crypt in 21 (source: MTGTop8 deck exports, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-18).

The banned list is stable for now: the 2026-10-12 announcement made no Modern changes, and the next announcement is set for 2026-11-30 (source: Wizards of the Coast).

Final Assessment

This list rewards careful play. Its threats are cheap and keep coming back from the graveyard. Thoughtseize and Flare of Malice let you disrupt your opponent without slowing your own clock, and the sideboard has real answers for big-mana, artifact, and graveyard-hostile decks. It took 2nd out of 182 players at the MTG SEA Championship Final.

Its biggest weakness is dedicated graveyard hate. Its biggest risk is the pilot losing track of the graveyard. Drill the counting until it's automatic, and you can register this deck with confidence.

Metagame Context

Built from Moonsteak's 2nd Place list at Regional Championship - MTG SEA Championship Final - Oracle Events (182 players, 2026-10-17), via MTGTop8. Metagame context comes from a research brief dated 2026-10-19 covering 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-19, drawn from MTGTop8; Wizards of the Coast. Card text and prices: Scryfall.

Source: tournament results. Decklist and placements as reported by the event organizer.