Magic: The Gathering Modern: Dark Matter Rakdos Goes 4-1 With 17 Lands
A Reality Fracture-based Modern graveyard deck stacks one-drops that mill and grow, then finishes with Detective's Phoenix. According to MTGGoldfish, its author finished a league at 4-1.
According to MTGGoldfish's Much Abrew column, a Magic: The Gathering Modern deck called Dark Matter Rakdos (also known as Rakdos Dark Matter Manipulator Aggro) is built around cards from Reality Fracture. The list plays 17 lands, and its author reportedly finished a Modern league at 4-1.
The author argues that Reality Fracture has had a major impact on Modern, with several new decks appearing around its cards. This is a single community-sourced report, and no publisher has commented on the deck.
How the deck plays
The approach is a graveyard-focused aggro plan. Many one-drops either fill the graveyard or get bigger as it fills, some removal supports them, and Detective's Phoenix closes out the game.
Dark Matter Manipulator and Stitcher's Supplier form the core. Each one mills three cards upon entering, so the deck holds eight copies of that effect in total.
Moonshadow and Nethergoyf are also one-drops. Both gain from cards landing in the graveyard, and the author says they can become very large alongside Dark Matter Manipulator and similar cards.
Detective's Phoenix and evidence
The author calls Detective's Phoenix probably the most important card in the list, since it lets the deck fly over the opponent's defenses to end the game.
It can be bestowed from the graveyard for one mana. That means milling it with Dark Matter Manipulator or Stitcher's Supplier is not a loss, because it still provides value.
The catch is that bestowing it requires collecting six evidence, which means six mana value of cards in the graveyard.
That requirement explains a few unusual inclusions. Street Wraith and Troll of Khazad-dum are there mainly to be cycled and feed evidence, and the author says a 17-land build will probably never cast them.
Flare of Malice is among the removal spells. It has mana value four but is generally free to cast, which also helps build evidence.
Most of the remaining slots go to removal and a couple of cyclers with distinct card types, which push up the card type count for Nethergoyf.
League result
In the author's Modern league, the deck won its first four rounds and then lost the last one, ending at 4-1 and just missing 5-0. The author met Energy decks three times and likened the list to older Hollow One decks, minus Hollow One itself.
Context
Dark Matter Manipulator shows up in other builds too. A Legacy Golgari Hogaak list runs 4 copies of it alongside 4 Moonshadow. Reality Fracture planeswalkers also feature in a Jeskai control list.
What is still unknown
The source reports no results beyond this one league.
What it means for players
- The list shows how a Modern graveyard deck can lean on mill one-drops, with eight copies of the three-card mill effect.
- Evidence works as a resource here: the cyclers and Flare of Malice exist partly to fill the graveyard for Detective's Phoenix.
- A single league run is not a tournament finish, so treat the list as a starting point.
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