How to swing with Rakdos and win
First and foremost, attacking with Rakdos the Defiler is setting us back with our board development. Until they print a card that allows us to turn our lands, artifacts, etc. into demon permanents, losing resources is unavoidable. Maskwood Nexus is getting the deck closer to that dream, but Wizards hasn’t given us the holy grail yet. Luckily, the person being hit by Rakdos also experiences the same effect, and chances are that they have more non-demon permanents than we do, so that trade is slightly in our favor. This leaves a big problem though: the two remaining players did not have their board states halved, which suddenly makes their board states significantly better in comparison. On the surface, it would seem like all our attack accomplished was screwing over ourselves and one other person, leaving the other two players as clear favorites to win the game. That would be the definition of a spite play if it were not for the two core strategies the deck is built around: inverse advantage and tempo advantage.
Inverse advantage is created when we take game actions that bend a negative symmetrical effect into one that hurts opponents more than it does us. Charles Zhuang from Dice City Games has a great write up about inverse advantage and stax in commander that I recommend reading (http://dicecitygames.medium.com/inverse-advantage-and-stax-in-commander-4a6ca780caa7).
Tempo is focused on spending our resources more efficiently than our opponent in order to create a “tempo” or mana advantage over the opponent. See Tom Anderson’s article “What is Tempo” for a deeper explanation about how decks aim to create tempo advantage (http://blog.cardkingdom.com/what-is-tempo/).
Although the deck can win by just hitting people enough times with Rakdos to deal lethal commander damage, what we are ultimately trying to accomplish with a Rakdos swing is the creation of a board state in which only our deck remains functional. Therefore, I built my list to exploit a fundamental weakness that most decks share: they need a developed board state to win the game.
The colors red and black in magic are particularly well suited to utilizing resources that extend beyond the board state: life total, graveyard, cards in hand, and library. By leveraging these other resources efficiently, the deck can temporarily ignore its lack of board presence and generate burst resources at key moments for maximum impact. Let’s look at some examples of cards that illustrate this approach:
We’ll begin with using our life total as a resource, since the value of doing so is straightforward. As long as our life total does not become zero, our participation in the game is unhindered by a lower number. Treasonous Ogre can transform a life total into mana for Repay in Kind, which uses our low life total as a weapon against the table. Or we can instead use that mana to cast Savage Beating with entwine or Fiery Emancipation, using our life total to multiply the value of our on board creatures. Doom Whisperer can be used on an opponent’s end step to turn a life total into a graveyard full of beaters and combo pieces with Living Death or Mizzix's Mastery as the next draw. If Gray Merchant of Asphodel is in the graveyard, we’re likely to get all that life back to further utilize our life total as a resource. Vilis, Broker of Blood takes all the lifeloss we experience and turns it into fresh cards in hand. Ancient Tomb, Mana Crypt, Pestilence Demon, Lich, and Reanimate are other great examples of powerful ways in which the deck trades life for advantage.
Next up is another staple of the black color identity: using the graveyard as an intermediary between hand and battlefield. All of the efficient reanimation spells in the deck mean that key creatures only cost as much as the reanimation spells that are used for them, stretching limited on-board resources further. Because I never want to pay full price for the expensive creatures in the deck, I run as many efficient loot, wheel, and graveyard tutor effects as I can to make sure the creatures I need to win the game end up in the graveyard. Cards that synergize with the graveyard discount plan like Dragon Breath and Mizzix's Mastery push the value of prioritizing the graveyard as a resource even further. The graveyard is a fragile resource however; most proactive players these days run at least a couple graveyard hate pieces in their deck due to the abundance of graveyard value decks running around. Therefore, we need additional ways to create burst resources for the expensive win conditions and threats in the deck without being forced to hold Rakdos back, which would hinder the deck’s resource denial game plan.
This leads to utilizing the hand as a resource. Rakdos does not make us discard cards (kind of a shame really- imagine how much more value we could generate if he forced both players to discard half their hand in addition!), which means we can hold critical resources in hand until big plays are possible. Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual are examples of traditional ritual spells, but mana positive permanents like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus, and Dockside Extortionist all serve the same function: they keep the deck’s mana sources safely off the board while Rakdos does his thing, reducing the deck’s dependence on the board state. The impermanence of permanents on the battlefield when Rakdos is active means we have to reevaluate the function of lands in the deck; they are just one type of mana resource we can use to win the game, but they are not sacred to the deck’s function. A Dark Ritual in hand serves a similar function in the deck as 2 lands that would be played and then sacrificed to a Rakdos swing. With this reframing of resources, it’s easy to see why Burnt Offering and Sacrifice are so synergistic in the deck: they transform all our demons (which are immune to Rakdos’s sacrifice requirement) into precious reservoirs of mana for game winning actions. These two cards represent the culmination of how the deck aims to exploit tempo advantage versus opponents: first, loot and wheel effects remove high mana value creatures from hand and replace them with low mana cost reanimation and ritual spells, which then generate advantage by putting high value creatures into play for discounted prices. These creatures generate additional value with high impact ETB and static effects, protect our life resource from opponent attacks and reduce the life resources of opponents, and finally, are utilized as on-board mana sources that do not add to the number of permanents sacrificed when Rakdos attacks (as long as they are demons). Each step of this value generating chain is accomplished by playing cards from hand that are 1-2 mana value on average, perfect for the limited resource environment that Rakdos the Defiler leaves in his wake. Because lands and ritual effects are BOTH temporary resources in a Rakdos deck, the various wheel, loot, and tutor cards are crucial to keeping our hand full of the resources that our board lacks.
Finally, we come to the library itself as a source of tempo advantage. To begin, there are classic examples of deck manipulation with tutors like Demonic Tutor, Buried Alive, and Burning-Rune Demon that reduce deck variance, but there is a sneakier way the deck aims to create tempo advantage: by creating a game state that elevates the value of our draws relative to opponent draws. Most decks are playing cards that support an “early game, mid game, and late game” plan for their deck in order to best utilize the resources available to them throughout a game. For example, playing a signet on turn 2 is an awesome play for most decks, because it supports their game plan of reaching mid and late game before their opponents. In contrast, Rakdos almost exclusively plays cards that have higher value within the first 3 turns of the game, because that is where we will attempt to arrest the board state of the table. Sire Of Insanity is no longer a risky “chaos” effect but instead a calculated card advantage engine when our average draw provides more value to our game plan than an opponents’ draw can to theirs. Symmetrical wheel effects become sources of asymmetric tempo advantage when opponents draw new hands of cards that they cannot afford to play in contrast to our new hands that are perfectly suited to the boardstate. By restricting table resources, we force opponents to make inefficient choices to progress their plans or try to disrupt ours, increasing the relative efficiency of our plays. In a dream scenario where opponents have 1-2 permanents each while we have Rakdos the Defiler and Bloodthirster on board, every card they draw is unlikely to benefit them, which means we have reduced the value of their deck draws to zero.
Developing a sustainable boardstate
Now, just because the Rakdos color identity gives us the ability to exploit beyond boardstate resources does not mean that the deck shouldn’t try to develop the most advantageous board state that it is capable of maintaining. A successful resource denial game plan means using every resource available efficiently. Rakdos halves our non demon boardstate on swing, which means that it is much easier to “rebuild” a small boardstate than a larger one. With that in mind, let’s discuss the different facets of the deck list.
In the Rakdos color identity, there isn’t a great way to avoid rebuilding a land base one turn at a time, so the more lands and artifact ramp we have on the table, the harder it will be to “recover” our resource pool afterwards. It is for this reason that I prioritize making it possible to cast Rakdos as early in the game as possible, because swinging earlier with him not only makes his effect more potent against enemies, but reduces the impact of his cost on our board relative to the table’s progression. From my experience, the deck is capable of sustaining two to three non-demon permanents while swinging with Rakdos aggressively, so every non-demon permanent in the deck has to be evaluated with the mindset of “would this permanent be worth more than additional mana next turn?” Lands like Lotus Vale, Rakdos Carnarium, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and Ancient Tomb are amazing because they consolidate more mana onto fewer lands, which means more resources survive for future actions. Lands that consolidate mana onto fewer lands efficiently like Lotus Field or Crypt of Agadeem are allowed to enter tapped because we trade current turn tempo for future tempo sustaining, but I would never run a land that enters tapped in the deck that only provides color fixing. Lands entering tapped have a direct effect on our ability to maintain pressure on the table, and too many etb tapped lands can give opponents too much breathing room to establish their boards.
The temporary nature of any permanent based ramp in the deck changes which ramp effects we choose to run. For instance, I only run mana positive mana rocks, as I have found that ritual effects are better for the deck because they fulfill the role of temporary mana sources more efficiently than lands and most artifact ramp. The whole point of mana rocks in most lists is to function as cheap and efficient reusable mana sources, but Rakdos the Defiler negates that entirely. If artifact ramp does not generate more mana than it costs to play, it is worse than a ritual in the deck. Artifacts should also produce two or more mana to be worth adding to the non-demon permanent count, which is why Sol Ring makes the cut but Chrome Mox and Lotus Petal do not. Mana Vault is the only efficient mana positive artifact ramp card I would consider adding at the moment, but the 3 colorless isn't helpful for casting Rakdos, and our other demons are more efficient to reanimate anyways.
Here's an example to illustrate my point: I need 6 mana to cast Rakdos, so say I have 3 lands and 3 signets, I'll have to sacrifice 3 permanents to Rakdos. Instead, say I generate the same 6 mana with Dark Ritual, Graven Cairns, a random land that taps for black, and a Sol Ring/Mana Crypt. Now, I'll only sacrifice 2 permanents to Rakdos on the swing. Not only did I sacrifice less permanents to Rakdos in the second example, but it's possible to do that a turn or two faster, which means I've already hit two players by the time the signet ramp even lets me get Rakdos on the board.
Now moving away from mana producing permanents, let’s discuss what types of demon and non demon permanents the list wants to run. Since demon permanents are exempt from Rakdos the Defiler’s sacrifice count, prioritizing demons with additional deck utility like Dream Devourer, Herald of Slaanesh, Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Immersturm Raider, Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire, Rakdos, the Showstopper, and Bloodthirster mean that our board state is developed without increasing the negative repercussions of a larger field. Non demon permanents should either add significant value to the table to justify the extra land they’ll sacrifice or be intended to be sacrificed to a Rakdos swing to protect lands. Treasonous Ogre lets us use our life total for mana, which easily offsets the extra land it costs to keep around. Likewise, Moraug, Fury of Akoum turns all the fetch lands we’re already running to enable Anger into two extra combats, which means we can hit all three opponents in a single turn to offset the additional sacrifice triggers. Fiery Emancipation is a permanent-efficient force multiplier for the demons on our field, even turning Rakdos into a one hit kill with commander damage. Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Dockside Extortionist are both incredible in the deck because they provide almost all their value immediately upon entering the battlefield, provide more resources than they cost to play, are easy sacrifice choices, and actually gain value once in the graveyard since they increase the potency of any reanimation spells in hand. Dragon Breath is perfect in the deck because it automatically attaches to our big creatures from the graveyard for free and can be sacrificed to protect lands during combat after the creature that needed the haste effect has already attacked. Bitter Reunion is also another great haste enabler stuck to a loot spell, and it is an easy sacrifice target to Rakdos if not needed.Lich and Liliana's Contract function as game winning combo pieces with Repay in Kind and Final Fortune respectively. Liliana’s Contract can be used as a disposable draw spell without issue, but Lich should never be played unless we can either immediately weaponize our life total or save ourselves from an opponent’s strategy long enough to win. Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are both worth the extra permanent sacrifice since they increase the reliability of Rakdos connecting with other players across multiple turns (in contrast to Not of this World and Tibalt's Trickery, which are single use effects). Shroud and hexproof disable targeted removal during combat, and haste makes opponent sorcery speed removal a less effective answer to our plan. An early game reanimated Tectonic Hellion is backbreaking to the table, accomplishing more for the deck's gameplan than even an early game Rakdos would. Sneak Attack is a great way to get big creatures out of hand and into the battlefield/graveyard. For 1 red mana, we get combat potential, ETBs, and abilities for the turn. Sneak attack also plays very efficiently post Rakdos swing and easily passes the “is it worth sacrificing a land to keep around” test.
If you’ve been paying attention to the list during the primer so far, you may have noticed that there are three powerful non-demon permanents I avoided mentioning until now, and I saved them for last because they fundamentally flip the deck’s play style once on board. It That Betrays, Tergrid, God of Fright
, and The Reaver Cleaver each almost entirely negate the resource denial symmetry Rakdos creates, turning his effect into a one sided affair. These three cards are the pinnacle of asymmetrical advantage with Rakdos, and they will create an insurmountable tempo advantage if we can keep them active for a few combat cycles. Abhorrent Overlord and Wand of Orcus seem like are of a similar power level and should be auto includes in the deck (as they also turn the symmetrical effect of swinging with Rakdos into asymmetrical advantage), but it is important to remember what resources are required to enable them in game. Abhorrent Overlord is a 7 CMC creature, which means we’ll need to use resources in hand to put it in the graveyard and reanimate it, or rituals to hard cast it with our limited mana base, all for what on average will be a single asymmetrical attack with Rakdos. This deck is already constructed to remain operational after sacrificing half our board state, so the resources required to put Abhorrent Overlord into play are better served enabling cards that actively advance the game plan of restricting opponent resources instead. Wand of Orcus is significantly more playable because it breaks the effect cost into two chunks of {3} which the deck can afford with land mana alone, but once again, it does not help restrict opponent resources. It makes the cut for now, but it may one day be replaced by a card that supports the resource denial plan better. The key point to remember when evaluating cards is that the deck is functional after sacrificing half of its boardstate, so cards that only exist to preserve our board state do not advance our gameplan. In contrast, It That Betrays, Tergrid, and The Reaver Cleaver generate more resources than the deck used to facilitate them. It That Betrays and Tergrid will usually end up refunding lands, artifact ramp, or other valuable non land permanents from our opponents after a Rakdos swing, with the potential to gain access to effects and answers our deck can’t play due to our strategy or color identity. Both creatures also generate advantage in our deck simply existing on the field independent of Rakdos the Defiler, as they allow us to double dip on opponent fetchlands and other sacrifice value cards, and Tergrid synergizes incredibly well with wheel effects in general. The Reaver Cleaver is an insane source of mana advantage if worn by any creature in the deck, but becomes extra potent when worn by our commander. Producing treasures equal to the damage dealt to players means that we will often end up with more mana resources after a Rakdos swing than before it, which feels extra dirty. Paying 6 mana to play and equip the cleaver to Rakdos pays for itself in the same turn if Rakdos connects, and becomes an even better value with damage multipliers and extra combat effects involved. While it can’t protect our non-demon permanents on the very first swing, subsequent attacks will allow us to sacrifice treasures instead of other permanents to keep key permanents on board.
Tying it all together
The final key to the Rakdos the Defiler engine is that the cards it plays are good cards independent of his function. The deck does not NEED Rakdos on the field to generate tempo advantage, as the cards naturally do that on their own by enabling beyond the board state resource utilization. If the game state is such that swinging with Rakdos will set you so far behind the table that victory is impossible, the deck does not force you into the resource denial game plan to win. Hellcarver Demon+Doomsday, Lich+Repay in Kind, Gray Merchant of Asphodel+Mass Reanimation spells, Fiery Emancipation+Rakdos the Defiler/other creatures, Archfiend of Despair+Repay in Kind or other life loss/damage sources, Liliana's Contract+Final Fortune+Mass Reanimation or enough demons already on board, Savage Beating+Rakdos the Defiler/other demons, Doom Whisperer+Mass Reanimation spells, Moraug, Fury of Akoum+Rakdos the Defiler/other creatures, or Mizzix's Mastery+a graveyard full of spicy instants and sorceries are all capable of winning the game regardless of the resources opponents have at their disposal. That we can still play any of the above win conditions while choking the life out of the table with Rakdos swings each turn is the magical combination that makes this deck so special.