Rakdos Shadow's Scourge
I know a lot of decks trying to utilize Scourge of the Skyclaves will be popping up because this guy can become huge in the mid to late game. Scourge is similar to Tarmogoyf in a lot of midrange style decks, being a two drop that slowly gets bigger over the course of the game. With this deck, we try to smash together a Death's Shadow style deck with a Blitz style deck. This lets us use Scourge to great effect by bringing our life total down while also quickly reducing our opponents life.
With the Blitz creatures of Monastery Swiftspear and Soul-Scar Mage, we can swing for a decent amount of damage in the early game with them and burn spells. Other than that we play the Death's Shadow package with a bunch of fetch lands and shock lands, as we as Thoughtseize to bring our life total down.
This deck is a fairly simple aggro deck even with the addition of the Death's Shadow/ Scourge package. You really just do damage to both you and your opponent, so that within a couple turns you can get a big creature on the board, that is harder to deal with. Usually with the blitz decks if you run out of spells, your creatures don't do a lot because they are just 1/2's. With this deck though, you can have much bigger creatures that are still cheap to cast.
Card Options
Monastery Swiftspear and Soul-Scar Mage are here for the blitz package and early game damage,
Death's Shadow is a great one drop if built around. Being able to get at least a 5/5 for one mana is really good, and can help finish the game fast.
Scourge of the Skyclaves is a new card that has an effect similar to Death's Shadow, but the difference being that your opponent also needs to have low health for this to be big. The upside is that Scourge has the potential to be bigger than Shadow most of the time. With the use of all the Blitz package you can easily get your opponent low in life to make sure this guy is a one-shot kill if it connects.
Mishra's Bauble essentially makes the deck only 56 cards instead of 60 because it draws you a card and costs nothing to play. It also triggers prowess, and also gives you slight information about your opponents next draw, which can be relevant.
Lightning Bolt, Lava Spike, and Bump in the Night all deal 3 damage to your opponent to get them into range for being able to use Scourge. Bolt can also kill a creature if you need to, and if you do happen to get a lot of lands you can flashback Bump in the Night. Though you shouldn't hit that many lands in this deck.
Fatal Push as a two of main and one of side is here just to deal with your opponents creatures more efficiently than something like a Lighning Bolt.
Light up the Stage is here to give the deck some more draw power. You could also opt for playing a Street Wraith in this slot to also help your Shadow's and Scourge's, but I wouldn't play both because if you hit a Wraith off of this, you will never be casting it. I ended up choosing Light up the Stage because it draws 2 cards, and this deck doesn't need more help reducing its life total. Also without Street Wraith, Lurrus, of the Dream-Den can be our companion.
Thoughtseize is a great card here, giving us yet another good turn one play. This also helps reduce our life total, while getting rid of a problem card from our opponents hand.
Temur Battle Rage is a necessary two of in this deck to be able to power through damage through your opponents chump blocks. Especially paired with Scourge this card is devastating.
For the manabase we play a playset of shocklands and ten fetchlands to help with both Shadow and Scourge. We also play a few basics in case we need to save a couple life, or for Path to Exile and Blood Moon.
Sideboard
Lurrus, of the Dream-Den is our companion in case you ever need it late game. Getting back a Death's Shadow, or a Scourge can be game winning.
Abrade is a three of because we need a way to deal with something like Chalice of the Void, or even Ensnaring Bridge. It can also deal with any other pesky artifacts, or just if you need another removal spell.
Cleansing Fire is a three of to deal with any Tron lands, Field of the Dead, or even Valakut. It's perfect in this deck, because it's cheap, and even replaces itself.
Feed the Swarm is here mainly for enchantment hate, especially Leyline of Sanctity. You can bring it in for additional creature removal, but you most likely won't need it for that.
Nihil Spellbomb is here to get rid of your opponents graveyard, if you need to deal with the whole thing. You can also replace this with Relic of Progenitus if you want to get rid of your own, in case you play against decks that use Tarmogoyf, or even Scavenging Ooze.
Surgical Extraction is here for more graveyard hate, but to also deal with problem cards that your opponent might have. If you play against a deck with a lot of kill spells, you will want these, so that you only get hit by them once and then you can remove them all from your opponent's deck.
Deck List
Creatures (15)
Artifacts (4)
Instants/Sorceries (24)
Lands (17)
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
Sideboard (15)
3 Abrade
Overall this list is pretty straight forward, but does have room to make changes and make it your own. I could easily see getting rid of Lurrus as the companion and adding Street Wraith to essentially make the list 52 cards. Also adding another discard spell or two in the main or side could be very good against control decks, to do this I would get rid of one or both Nihil Spellbomb for those slots in the side.
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