Ral Zarek is a fun Planeswalker

Someone posted on one of the forums asking how a play set of Ral Zarek could be built-around. Responses were negative to the effect of 'what do you plan to do with one, let alone a play set?' I thought it a good challenge and got me one from the bots. I went to Gatherer to find suggestions on how to play him, and Goblins seemed to make sense. I tried that and it didn't work. Krenko and the other Goblins are too slow against Evolve Simic and Battalion Boros combos. The Goblin Izzet build evolved to Grixis but there the deck still wasn't working.

Then I turned it into White Blue Red with 4 of Frostburn Weird, 4 of Firemane Avenger, my lone Hellrider, my lone Vexing Devil, and lone Hound of Griselbrand. With these powerful creatures I could get Battalion to work. I also added my two Silverblade Paladins to use Soulbond. This deck is a lot of fun. Zarek's + ability isn't that great, but his -2 is just plain awesome.

As I get close to redemption I am planning to use every useful card I have in some build. This deck is one of those builds.

[follow this link for the mana curve, sample hands, and example of plays]