Rakdos Guildmage

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Rakdos Guildmage

Creature — Zombie Shaman

*( can be paid with either or R]].) *

, Discard a card: Target creature gets -2/-2 until end of turn.

: Create a 2/1 red Goblin creature token with haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.

Vulnoth on Turbo Aggro Grind Time

3 years ago

Continuing where I left off.

continuing from creatures

Something to consider when addressing what to drop for my suggestions is how it affects your overall strategy and politics. Ashenmoor Gouger looks good because on paper it can deal damage, but consider what happens if you draw it 10 turns in and the table has all dug in for the long game. Hyper aggressive cards of the sort that do little else aren't going to help you after the first few turns. Hackrobat, Rakdos Firewheeler, Thrill-Kill Assassin, and the like are what you should look for when hacking cards out of the deck in the creature department. You might be gearing up to go fast and hit hard, but you still are playing the "long game", if you can even call it that.

Support

Onwards we march, starting with the strict spell category. Here, you should be looking for either utility or pure power. Spot removal cards like Go for the Throat work in regular 60 card formats, but lose a ton of value as the game is slowed enough for that one spell to have a diminished effect because it can only hit a single creature, often to little effect. Now Bedevil, on the other hand, is outstanding because you can hold it for either an artifact or 'walker, thus expanding your range and making it always live and effective.

  • Allure of the Unknown - A huge resource generation spell. Additionally, it plays into politics well by letting an opponent (or friend) have a card. Gotta keep the train moving.

  • Bituminous Blast - Perhaps not the most clutch of cards, but at least worth considering since EDH is slow enough for these types of spells to put in work, mostly because Cascade is nuts. I'd understand if it didn't make the cut, though.

  • Captive Audience - Hilarious and effective. Instant enemy-maker, but if you haven't farted in the general direction of everyone at the table, others might turn a blind eye. In my experience, when Joe Shmoe poops out an army of dargons and you slap him with this, the table would generally point and laugh.

  • Cauldron Dance - A nice little shuffling of creatures, which is nice if you're rich in chunguses.

  • Kolaghan's Command - The best charm from its cycle, for good reasons. It's always live in EDH.

  • Spiteful Visions - Perhaps risky for politics, but it does put damage on board, thus making Rakdos live, and generates card advantage.

  • Fork/Reverberate/Wild Ricochet - copy spells, in my experience, tend to do a lot since they're just whatever everyone else is playing.

  • Beacon of Unrest - There will always be something in the grave, and self-recursion is a godsend in my books.

  • Scheming Symmetry - Helps your consistency and makes a friend.

  • Subversion - Nibbles at your opponents while sustaining yourself, and makes Rakdos live.

  • Generally any spell with X in its cost. As the game drags on, they only get better.

I did a brief skim of cards in Gatherer and from among my own decks, but don't be afraid to look at other decks or EDHRec for things that will help you. Just remember that your goal boils largely down to pinging to make Rakdos live, cards that Rakdos is payoff for, and utility general support that rounds out the deck.

Artifacts

Necessary gears to get the machine moving. Mostly it will boil down to mana rocks to accelerate your state, but there will be others that you want purely because they work well for you.

Lands

Here you can start to have some fun. Being 2-color, you do have to be somewhat mindful of what you're running, but you can definitely make use of a lot of offbeat lands since you're not trying to be a fool and mana fix 5 colors. Keep in mind that you may not necessarily need everything listed here, but it's just a matter of helping keep your ability to produce both colors consistent.

  • Temple of Malice - Slow lands may be unappealing, but Scrying usually helps.

  • Arch of Orazca - Yet another personal choice. All you need is to have 10 permanents at any point while controlling/playing a card with City's Blessing and you have it for the game. At which point, Arch becomes something to do with spare mana.

  • Reliquary Tower - Like Thought Vessel, it's worth considering, but is acceptable to pass on if you keep burning your hand up.

  • Command Tower - Staple.

  • Graven Cairns - Filter lands are always nice.

  • Rakdos Carnarium - Slow, yes, but in the long run gives more mana.

  • Shadowblood Ridge - Another pseudo Filter Land

Chopping Block

I encourage you to think these things out on your own or ask friends about this part, because understanding the process of what and why things stay or go is important to understanding your deck. Below are my suggestions for what needs to get yeeted.

  • Ashenmoor Gouger/Hackrobat/Hellhole Flailer/Rakdos Firewheeler/Thrill-Kill Assassin/Rakdos Guildmage - All just don't do that much. Awesome to drop in the first turns, but soon are just fodder. They're nice fodder for Lysolda and Judith, but overall too narrow in use and too low impact.

  • Void Winnower/Blood Moon - As someone who wins almost all his games through player politics, I advise against these types of cards that choke the entire table. Like infinite combos kept as panic buttons in decks, you really only get to pull it once before the group starts remembering what you have up your sleeve. After that, you risk being targeted because they'll know what you have.

  • Phyrexian Obliterator - BBBB in 2-color is a bold move for what's essentially a 5/5 unblockable.

  • Dark Ritual/Doom Blade/Go for the Throat - I personally would cut them, but feel free to play around with at least the removal spells for consistency in board control. Ritual, however, is just not suited for this format.

  • Everlasting Torment - It's the only card of its type in your deck, and actually makes you vulnerable to getting chump blocked.

  • Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Urborg serves almost no purpose in this deck.

  • Rakdos Guildgate - Guildgates are just packfiller.

  • Rakdos Signet/Rakdos Keyrune - In the modern day, your mana rocks mostly should be more useful than an overcosted creature, and if it only produces mana, it needs to be efficient like Sol Ring.

  • Lava Axe - Shouting "Catch" while literally throwing this is hilarious, but the card's just horribly overcosted.

  • Anthem of Rakdos - You will lose a lot of games you shouldn't lose because of this.

  • Ogre Battledriver - Giving a dude Haste to swing is nice, but it's a lot easier to just run a pinger like Goblin Fireslinger or Lobber Crew

  • Ob Nixilis, the Fallen - His Landfall is nice, but by nature isn't consistent, which is what you're looking for in ways to ping your opponent. Becoming a chungus is nice, but you're better off just skipping the hoops and playing an actual chungus.

  • Vial Smasher the Fierce - This one I'm not totally sold on cutting, but she seems more complicated than just running a pinger. Play around with her and see how Vial Smasher synergizes.

  • Master of Cruelties - Another I'm not totally sold on chopping, but he can only attack alone, which bottlenecks your options.

I know this all is sort of messy, but when making edits, start with comparable replacements (i.e. swapping a creature for a creature), run a few test turns, and see how things work.

Austin_Smith_of_Cards on The Final Act

5 years ago

I really appreciate the theme of a Rakdos deck purely from cards from the Ravnica blocks.

Carnival Hellsteed and Chaos Imps are beaters probably worth looking into as well as Rakdos Guildmage and Rakdos Pit Dragon .

hungry000 on Arcane Training Grounds Combo

5 years ago

Hey, thanks for the suggestions, but im not trying to make this deck competitive or anything. Im generally trying to stay away from expensive cards like Walking Ballista (the original deck was a prototype, so I just let loose with the budget). Walking Ballista is a really good card though, better than Rakdos Guildmage, however the guildmage is more on-theme so I prefer it ;)

That being said, while the payoffs are creatures, it's literally impossible for an opponent to disrupt me if they don't kill Izzet Guildmage or Training Grounds right off the bat, before I combo off. Since you draw your entire deck, you'll always hit the one Gigadrowse, and you can use it to tap all their permanents. You can also bounce all of their permanents with the Eye of Nowhere, and again tap all their permanents while making infinite mana with Psychic Puppetry + Psychic Puppetry. If I'm worried about something in their hand that they can cast for 0 mana, I usually play Dimir Guildmage and make them discard everything in their hand (if I combo off with Manamorphose I always make some black mana) After doing one of those things you'd play a Guildmage and then kill them. The hard part is getting the first Izzet Guildmage to survive a turn.

Lab Maniac is a good idea though, I forgot about him. I actually included Eye of Nowhere in order to get around Worship and Leyline of Sanctity, now I realize that Lab Maniac would solve that problem... the only thing is that he's useless if I draw him early, which is something I tried to avoid when choosing my combo pieces (this is the reason I took out Lava Spike). I think I'll add him to the sideboard.

I'll think of your other suggestions when I try making a more creature-heavy version of this deck, earlier I was fiddling around with a Jeskai Training Grounds deck with Mistmeadow Witch and Azorius Guildmage and stuff that went more for control. Ghost-Lit Warder could be neat in that list, Banefire I think would be a good win-con.

Again, I really don't expect this deck to do well at all against any deck that packs removal or counterspells lol. It's way too easy to kill Izzet Guildmage or counter the first spell, however I really love this deck just cuz it's super fun when it works. (Sry for the long reply lol, and thanks for checking out my deck :D)

hungry000 on Training Grounds Combo

6 years ago

Thanks so much, that's really helpful. Though after testing a bit I don't think the Fateful Showdown is super necessary, since the only thing that could stop an Emrakul or Rakdos Guildmage is Ensnaring Bridge, and there's already an Echoing Truth in there to deal with it... then again, it's a super spicy way to win and easier to win with than Blue Sun's Zenith, so there's that. Then AGAIN, Blue Sun's Zenith allows the deck to win at instant speed, which could be important in certain scenarios... idk

I really like the idea too. It's so satisfying to pull off. There are some problems with the deck though: it's hard to find all three combo pieces and go off through removal in a timely fashion and a bunch of the creatures (Guildmages and the Mistmeadow Witch) rely on having a Training Grounds out to stall the game well enough to get to the combo... they're really slow and kinda useless without one. They're fun and on-theme, though, and I guess that's all that matters in a janky deck.

Now that I look back at those medium-sized walls of text, I realize that I was rambling a bit. sry about that. also, thanks for commenting, I'm really excited about this idea and I hope more people show up to help nurture it.

Sanity_Cleaver on Xira Arien Multiplayer Control

7 years ago

Haha glad to see my decklist has inspired you! :)

Man Nissa is a beast, she does so many things so I don't know if she can truly be replaced.But Borderland Ranger does this same thing as the flip side, Frontier Guide can search up lands repeatedly, something like Blood Scrivener might be able to draw you into some extra cards- but probably the best budget replacements I can think of might be Jade Mage and Yavimaya Elder. Jade Mage lets you spit out little saprolings for incremental advantage over the long game. If you're more concerned about the ramp and draw parts, the Elder is great. And although Rakdos Guildmage does vastly different things, he's still pretty amazing.

Basically what you are looking for in the Nissa slot is a solid value creature that generates some sort of card advantage.

DaringApprentice on Witness Me! (Concept)

7 years ago

Hey UnleashedHavok, no problem, I dig your deck, too! I agree, it is really different from mine, lol. I've definitely considered those two before, and though I won't include Bone Shredder due to my anti-Phyrexian flavor preferences, Stingscourger seems like a powerful and fun way to control the board. I'll definitely see if I can make a spot for it!

I've only played this deck once, and I didn't last too long, haha, but I feel like there's a decent amount of control in this deck. For creature removal, for instance, I might use Rakdos Guildmage, High Priest of Penance, Spear of Heliod, Nekrataal, King Macar, the Gold-Cursed, Triad of Fates, Brutal Hordechief, Warstorm Surge, or Solar Tide. Not exactly removal, but Grenzo, Havoc Raiser and Citadel Siege can also prevent me from being attacked by certain creatures. Thoughts about using these as creature removal?

DaringApprentice on Witness Me! (Concept)

7 years ago

Thanks for the excellent suggestions! I am mostly using spellshaper discard abilities, since the idea of discarding my entire hand makes me nervous, but I will keep those suggestions in mind! I use Cryptbreaker, Devout Witness, Rakdos Guildmage, Sparkspitter, Undertaker, and Faithless Looting to enable Alesha's ability, and I use Cryptbreaker, Disciple of Bolas, Mentor of the Meek, Triad of Fates, and Faithless Looting for card draw.

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