Rilsa Rael, Kingpin - Dangerous Dungeons
Rilsa Rael, Kingpin
Approximate Total Cost:
About the Deck
Creatures in this deck are basically either:
A) Dungeon based
B) Evasive, to take advantage of Rilsa's ability, carry equipment, and/or regain The Initiative if someone takes it from you.
C) Payoff creatures like the various infect creatures and cards like Needle Specter.
Once you have completed any dungeon, that typically starts setting off alarms for your opponents as even a lowly 1/1 can hit for 6 damage, and if that creature has infect then that 1/1 is a two-hit kill.
There are a few dungeon based creatures or other venture effects that fit the dimir color identity that I have chosen to exclude because they felt slow, clunky, and/or inefficient.
I've been playing this deck for the past few weekends and I feel like it is in a pretty good state at the moment, with the exception of some utility lands I want to add in soon. I haven't seen every card in the deck in action yet, but many of them have shown up in the games I've had. I'm definitely going to keep tinkering with this deck for quite a while, it's certainly not set in stone.
Navigating the Dungeons
Tomb of Annihilation and Dungeon of the Mad Mage I have completely avoided in all games. They are decent for other decks but the benefits are too low and they are too slow to get through.
If in The Undercity, I will almost always take "Secret Entrance" to "Forge". "Forge" increases the power of your payoff creatures which is huge. From "Forge", I would typically take "Arena" which is almost always useful, but occasionally "Trap" can make a difference on someone who has already been hit for non-infect damage. "Archives" and "Catacombs" are both very useful. An extra card from "Archives" is clearly great. The 4/1 skeleton token you get from "Catacombs" becomes a 9/1 with Rilsa, which is a pretty decent chunk of damage when it connects. The final step of the dungeon "Throne of the Death Three" is just silly, often resulting in some sort of infect creature hitting the board for free with +3/+3 to it's stats.
If you have Inkmoth Nexus in play, definitely consider giving it the +1/+1 counter dungeon payoffs if you feel safe to do so.
Other Cards For Consideration
Phyrexian Obliterator - I just love this card and making it swing for 10 seems awesome. I would not be surprised if it ends up in the deck eventually.
Teferi's Veil - This is great in any blue based aggro deck for avoiding board wipes and it is only a matter of time before I put it in the deck. I want to get a lot of games in, to see what is working and what isn't working, and then I'll likely put this in the deck.
Strionic Resonator - This makes you double up on ETB and damage triggers to get you through dungeons quicker but paying 4 mana to get the first benefit just makes me feel like I should be playing another threat or another card that actually does dungeon stuff on its own. I feel like this card is a trap that slows you down.
Sarevok's Tome, Dungeon Map, Dungeoneer's Pack - All three of these were in my deck for the first night I played it. I never drew any of them, but in retrospect they feel slow, and I think I'd rather just venture with creature based effects that can actually apply pressure.
"Blink Effects" - Various cheap blink effects could be useful to speed through dungeons even quicker but I honestly haven't felt the need to include them. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling and Sword of Hearth and Home have been good enough for blinking when I get them in play and I think it would be easy to go a bit overboard on those effects while not actually keeping pressure on people.
"Monarch Effects" - This deck can definitely do a good job of retaking The Monarch status due to all of the evasive creatures and menace that Rilsa grants, it's just a matter of finding room to reasonably include any of more of these effects beyond Throne of the High City.
