Rakdos, Lord's Downward Spiral

Commander / EDH jpermar

SCORE: 159 | 108 COMMENTS | 36808 VIEWS | IN 95 FOLDERS


Teal_Fox says... #1

Call me cheesy, but I quite like Onyx Goblet in Rakdos decks because as long as you have the colors, it ensures you can cast your general turn 4. Utvara Hellkite is a great beater and with your Commander he should come out cheap. Lightning Reaver is a pretty underrated pressure card in my opinion, as it lets you have on the poor guy that can't block it and punish rest of the table at the same time. Sheoldred, Whispering One is an absolute house, especially if you manage to get her and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed out at the same time. And if you really want to make ramp decks cry, adding Ankh of Mishra is the way to go. Believe me, it's worth it every time. Finally, Wound Reflection , Painful Quandary , and Exquisite Blood are all great, albeit CMC heavy, utility enchantments that ensure your opponents have a bad day.

September 26, 2014 4:59 p.m.

jpermar says... #2

Hi Teal_Fox! One of my main concerns in Commander is that cards that are drawn early or drawn late will be good. So... my hesitation about Onyx Goblet and Lightning Reaver is that if drawn late, they don't do a whole lot. Sheoldred, Whispering One is of course an incredible card, but I'm not sure about her in this deck specifically. The reason being that this deck is designed to pressure opponents with damage and to keep the game moving. In particular, I would prefer that people actually have creatures out and be killing each other! This is related to the philosophy of active mitigation I linked above. Plus, I have a wicked "endless zombies" deck where I use Sheoldred :) Ankh of Mishra , Wound Reflection , Painful Quandary , and Exquisite Blood are all pretty cool cards in the right deck. Wound Reflection is really "Rakdos" and so I'll have to think a bit about that one (it's on my list of "no no" cards because it's a pretty "mean" card to play... but for this Rakdos deck, it might be just the card to play!). The others though... in general, I dislike enchantments and artifacts because they don't do anything by themselves, and in a red and black deck in particular (without the card draw from blue), I worry about being empty-handed and drawing one of those. Painful Quandary also slows the game down a lot. So I'll have to pass on those for now. Utvara Hellkite is a great suggestion.. I'll have to playtest a bit more and see if I can fit him in (I'm worried about the curve... when I don't have Rakdos out and have dealt some damage, the creatures are very expensive to cast!). But if someone doesn't kill Utvara Hellkite quickly, he will win the game by himself! Thanks for the suggestions!

September 26, 2014 7:58 p.m.

MelonGator says... #3

October 12, 2014 10:22 p.m.

jpermar says... #4

These are awesome cards. What do you think should come out? I'm having trouble finding slots!

October 13, 2014 1:01 p.m.

MelonGator says... #5

i would drop adamaro and maybe a land or two you could also get Rakdos's Return

October 13, 2014 7:08 p.m.

jpermar says... #6

I'd like to add in Gratuitous Violence , but I'm worried mainly about having too many high-CMC cards. Not to mention that Gratuitous Violence doesn't get a discount from Rakdos, Lord of Riots . So for now it's going to have to stay on the sideline. Heartless Hidetsugu is far better than Adamaro, First to Desire , though, which has been pretty weak, and so I'm happy to swap that our for more Rakdos-style destruction! I'm gonna hold off on Sulfuric Vortex because I already have Mogis, God of Slaughter and Havoc Festival and sometimes I actually need to gain some life just to stay alive (I won a game the other day with 4 life!). I just found out about Tyrant's Choice , which looks like an excellent card for this deck.

October 14, 2014 1:44 p.m.

uniplatiperson says... #7

I would use Gut Shot so you can drop rakdos on turn 4

October 20, 2014 11:38 p.m.

Yes! Long live quick EDH decks! And definitely +1 for the hilarious description!

January 13, 2015 10:14 p.m.

jpermar says... #9

Thanks!

January 16, 2015 10:26 a.m.

nagonjin says... #10

I, for one, believe Lobber Crew is the MVP of many Rakdos lists, simply for his ability to shave 3+ off the cost of any creature spell.

Balthor the Defiled, is like a (usually one sided) Living Death on legs.

Platinum Emperion can come out free, and ensure that your life goes down slower than everyone else.

August 26, 2015 11:03 p.m.

jpermar says... #11

Lobber Crew is a card type i shy away from. What you say is true, but in place of a 0/4 defender, I just lay down flyers to do damage and still get the same mana discount.

Balthor the Defiled is a great card, but I can't put him in this list due to needing BBBBB to cast and activate him right away. In my meta, he won't survive a turn...

Platinum Emperion is better in a control deck where he can be protected. This deck is pure aggro!

I appreciate your comment!

August 27, 2015 6:54 p.m.

nagonjin says... #12

Oh, one last thing i thought you may try - Pyrohemia. Great against tokens!

August 27, 2015 7:01 p.m.

jpermar says... #13

It's definitely personal perference, as Pyrohemia and Pestilence are sweet cards. For a bit of token hate, I have Rakdos Charm. What I do instead of Pyrohemia is play both Fault Line and Molten Disaster. I like those better because most of my army flies. More importantly, though, this deck has huge problems with colored mana, and similar to my reasoning for Balthor the Defiled, I typically don't have a ton of one color to sink into Pyrohemia or Pestilence.

August 28, 2015 5:18 p.m.

bluetigerreed says... #14

A funny combo that could work in this deck is Havoc Festival + Wound Reflection . After using this combo, you will and your opponents will be left with either 2 life points or be dead. This combo also works with or Heartless Hidetsugu + Wound Reflection , however, this combo will either put your opponents to one life or kill them. These combos is super fun with a play group that loves long control multiplayer matches.

November 17, 2015 4:29 p.m.

jpermar says... #15

Hi bluetigerreed. Actually, the Havoc Festival + Wound Reflection combo kills each opponent at the end of each turn. The main reason I'm not running it is that it takes 12 mana to get both out in one turn, which is typically too much for this deck to create. Otherwise, I agree with you, it would be awesome and I would love to play it! The other combo is of course actually fairly easy for this deck to cast (8 mana typically, due to Rakdos's discount for Heartless). However, the problem is that the cards aren't good by themselves, so I don't want to run them. Too bad... :(

November 19, 2015 12:23 p.m.

ENZU says... #16

Hey man I like the deck and I never really thought about Artifact Shenanigans with Mogis. I like your playstyle as described by your description and I was wondering if you wouldn't have some thoughts for my Mogis deck built pretty much on exactly the same principle (to end games fast and to screw with Oloro players etc.)

I'd like it if I could get some pointers on its construction. The description isn't very good and I don't have it organized by function like you do but nonetheless here it is:http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/starting-life-total-40-lets-see-about-that/

Basically its premise is to whittle down people's life until they're within the range of burn spells. Favorite synergy is Blasphemous Act + Stuffy Doll

December 17, 2015 11:47 a.m.

Throw in a Sire Of Insanity and I'll upvote >:)

February 19, 2016 7:15 p.m.

jpermar says... #18

Thanks for commenting Nightdragon779. Sire Of Insanity is a sweet card in any deck that wants an empty hand. In EDH, though, I never want an empty hand! This deck has 12 instants and sorceries to remove permanents, draw cards, or get back in the game (13 including Perilous Vault), any of which I want to hold and use. Since I would be the first person discarding my hand, I wouldn't want to accidentally take myself out of the game if someone just removed Sire after I discard! To contrast, I like Havoc Festival because it affects opponents before me. If you agree, I would appreciate the up-vote!

February 20, 2016 10:37 a.m.

Yes of course, I was joking. I just love Sire Of Insanity.

February 20, 2016 10:43 a.m.

edgarius696 says... #20

I loooove this deck, simple chaotic fun, pressure is crazy, pure madness! I will use this deck as base to play in my group, but I will include Possibility Storm to my list for more chaos. Up vote for me, this deck really is a riot

April 16, 2016 12:50 a.m.

jpermar says... #21

Thanks edgarius696!

April 16, 2016 1:29 p.m.

CaptSillva says... #22

I find that this guy works best with artifact creatures so you can get the full benefit of his cost reduction. Here are a few good options you could try out. Steel Hellkite, Duplicant, Myr Superion, Myr Battlesphere, and Wurmcoil Engine. You could also try making use of Heartless Summoning.

May 9, 2016 10:01 a.m.

jpermar says... #23

Hi CaptSillva, thanks for commenting! I actually already have Steel Hellkite in the deck! I would put Wurmcoil Engine in except that I think I already have a better card for the job: Kokusho, the Evening Star, which of course feeds the mana cost reduction for Rakdos, Lord of Riots and allows me to slam down Eldrazi if it dies :) The other cards are ok, but they don't fly, which limits my ability to connect for damage and cast my general.

May 10, 2016 7:51 p.m.

CaptSillva says... #24

No problem glad I could help. Though I feel I should point out that Rakdos only cares about your opponents taking damage. It doesn't care about combat damage so Myr Battlesphere's effect would almost definitely get through.

May 11, 2016 12:19 a.m.

jpermar says... #25

Oh good call CaptSillva I definitely missed that. Hmmm... what would you take out to put in Myr Battlesphere?

May 12, 2016 8:41 p.m.

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