I have a fairly decent Rakdos deck that is undefeated against my friends...the only problem is my friends aren't that great.  I'd like a deck that I can beat better, stronger players.  (I love my friends, they're awesome!)  Here's the list:

 

20 LANDS

6 Swamp

6 Mountain

1 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace

3 Rakdos Carnarium

4 Urborg Volcano

 

18 CREATURES

2 Rakdos the Defiler

1 Avatar of Discord

4 Hellhole Rats

4 Ravenous Rats

2 Abyssal Specter

2 Cinder Shade

1 Gobhobbler Rats

1 Abyssal Nocturnus

1 Blazing Specter

 

22 OTHER SPELLS

2 Anthem of Rakdos

4 Terminate

4 Wrecking Ball

3 Twinstrike

2 Coercion

2 Cry of Contrition

1 Walking Nightmare

1 Pain Magnification

2 Rakdos Signet

1 The Rack

 

 

I love my kill spells and discards.  I stop their spells before they even play them, and destroy their creatures before the can cause harm.  My main goal is to discard their hand, and punish them for not having one anymore!  It's a load of fun!  I just need a little...scratch that...a lot of help...making it stronger.  I don't know what it is, but it just is slow and shaky.  I think it needs a better theme, but your the master so i come to you!!!!  I'd appreciate it SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much if you'd help me make it stronger.  You dont even have to put it on the web site if you don't have room/time.  Even an e-mail would be a godsend!!  Thanks again!

                    -Tyler R.

                        ketsup13@aol.com

 

                        PS-  YOU ROCK!!!

Let's move on to your spells.  I'd sort of like to bring your mana curve down a bit, just because you seem to want to make a Hellbent subtheme work and it'll help if you can play spells in your hand faster. So let's start by taking out Pain Magnification.  The COTD team gave a good set of reasons not to play this card, and you've got enough discard as is. Twinstrike might be better as Cackling Flames, but Twinstrike does have more power.  Anthem of Rakdos can come out, though.  If you're into that whole "Bond of Agony" mentality, you can get it at a much better deal with Phyrexian Arena.  Also, if The Rack is going to be a big point in your deck, you need four copies.  I know, I know, they're hard to get, but they're worth it, and if you can't find any, you can achieve similar success with a number of other artifacts, like Skullcage for instance.  Skullcage never really caught on, so it should be fairly inexpensive to get.  I bet Shuffle and Cut Games could get you a few copies pretty easily (shameless plug).  Also, since you don't seem to mind discarding cards and taking damage yourself, you might want to make room for four Feast of Flesh.  They make good kill spells, and they give you some extra life on top of it so you won't kill yourself quite as fast.