I've kept this deck built as my Rakdos colors because I think that it best embodies the mentality of the colors. It just sort of jokes around then suddenly has a gun to your head, and may pull the trigger to stop you or may have been bluffing that the gun was loaded. The entire deck does basically nothing unless the Baron sees it happen, and any actually useful permanents or spells are mostly accidental.
The Baron tries to count down to 1 or 2 as soon as possible. From there, the villain has you hanging by your ankles over a vat of viscous liquid. He's going to tell you that it's acid, but it might just be gelatin. The deck runs 18 instants that have a 1 (and more) on them, but doesn't have a lot of card draw/tutor. The game is now whether I can bluff that I will kill you in response to your transgression, and then if I follow through on it.
If the Baron does fire his laser, It then has to spend at least a turn re-setting up before I can threaten another player. I've also been both Mindslavered into shooting myself and had the target redirected to my own face multiple times.
A pile of cards with numbers
Approximate Total Cost:
To track the current number distribution:
quantity of number | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
instants | 20 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 5 |
non-instants | 37 | 34 | 28 | 28 | 23 |
If I've missed any low cost/recur-able spells with numbers on them or you want to argue about what counts as a number please feel free to comment. I do know that some non-english printings of cards use numbers instead of spelling out some words, such as vindictive lich. I loan out my decks frequently, so I've abstained from this technique to reduce confusion.
Goblin Tutor can get any number for all plausible rolls. Enchantments are covered by Arguel's Blood Fast and Skin Invasion. Artifacts have plenty of options, but Mana Vault and Elixir of Immortality are good examples. Creature can just get Zulaport Enforcer or something like Rimrock Knight // Boulder Rush for an instant. Instant/sorcery can get Dismember or Thunderbolt.
Honorable mentions to a couple friends of mine for making card suggestions that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. Thanks to Greg and Mab for making this more effective than it has any right to be.