Decklist: BR Graveyard Burn

A while ago a friend of mine and I both coincidentally ran some Wheel of Fortune-based decks at the same time. I'm obviously a Johnny player, so I based mine off of the Commander format (Nekusar being my obvious commander-in-chief) and filled it with 99 other fun cards to make everyone draw. My friend is more of a Timmy player, and hence went for power.

His deck was Vintage format, no creatures. Instead, he packed it with Wheel-like effects and rituals, insuring that he had enough mana to keep going and eventually killing everyone with a Cerebral Vortex or Molten Psyche. It was brutal. He got a win off in multiplayer as early as turn 3, if I recall. Needless to say, once the deck had proven its point we urged him to dismantle it and try something a little more engaging.

Anyway, while the deck was a little un-fun for our kitchen table games, it did push me to try to respond to it from a different angle. After shamefully retiring my Nekusar deck, I set upon building a deck within the same spirit; low on creatures, using rituals to keep the engine going until the killing blow. Instead of drawing, however, I decided to use the graveyard as a resource. You can see the results below.

The RITUALS

4x Rite of Flame
4x Dark Ritual
2x Cabal Ritual

The CARD ADVANTAGE

4x Night's Whisper
2x Sign in Blood
1x Wheel of Fortune
2x Wheel of Fate
4x Wild Guess
3x Browbeat
1x Demonic Tutor

The BURN

3x Guttersnipe
3x Burning Vengeance
4x Tendrils of Agony

The RECURSION

4x Past in Flames
1x Yawgmoth's Will

The LANDS

(22 lands to taste)

As you can see, this is a bit of a one-trick pony. Use your rituals and card advantage right away to cycle through the deck and load up the graveyard. Then, use your recursion to activate your graveyard, and your burn should provide one hell of an Alpha-Strike.

A fun exercise, but much like my friend's un-fun deck it was quickly retired. The worst part is, it could never beat his Wheel deck...!