Allure of the Unknown

Sorcery

Reveal the top six cards of your library. An opponent exiles a nonland card from among them, then you put the rest into your hand. That opponent may cast the exiled card without paying its mana cost.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (24)

DreadKhan on Rakdos' Captivating Carnival

2 months ago

I like what you're doing here!

Since he's riding a unicycle and throwing fireballs around maybe Mayhem Devil?

It won't help you get your Commander out, but Dream Devourer is a pretty nifty Demon, and it can help out as a back up Commander by letting you bank some mana for big effects. You could also take a look at stuff like Golden Guardian  ^Flip, which is a weird card that has pretty good synergy with your Commander. You might also try Burnished Hart type stuff, it's nowhere near as busted as Guardian would be, but if you pay 3 to ramp out 2 lands you're able to recast your Commander.

If you want another big creature for your list, have you considered Kothophed, Soul Hoarder? It's not a great fit if people are all on sacrifice strategies, but it's a pretty impressive draw engine that's also a Demon.

While I'm not the only person who likes Allure of the Unknown (there are several of us!), it's the kind of card that deserves an asterisk, because while it's won me more than a few games, it does straight up cost you one sometimes. I like to offer the free card to someone who's behind, in some pods it can be possible to get them to not use the freebie vs you, but it's at it's worst when the game is 1v1. Drawing 5 cards for 5 mana is a very strong effect in my experience, and making a short term alliance can be it's own upside. It's up to you obviously, but I've been very happy with it in a deck that's a fairly strong 6, the only times I don't want to cast it are when I'm already ahead and don't want to give someone a free wipe (my deck uses a lot of wipes), it often generates decent advantage in practice.

I was going to suggest some Morph cards, but I looked and the only one really worth mentioning is Gift of Doom, which I think is a real gem. The two demons with Morph are some of the worst Morph cards I've ever seen, at least Gift is playable. The big feature to Gift is that using a Morph doesn't follow the same rules as other cards, meaning even if you can't activate a spell or ability you can still hold up Gift and attach it to something by sacrificing a creature.

With your relatively high MV I wonder if Protection Racket would help? It's a source of life loss if people don't want you to have free cards, and it happens during your upkeep, so you can play stuff during your main phase, to take advantage of Haste.

77hi77 on Rakdos the Defil-Loving, Kind, Salt …

1 year ago

FormOverFunction that actually sounds like loads of fun, it's just too much information for my brain to download. Maybe as I get more familiar with cards, it'll take less time to look through 3800. Right now I basically have to stop and read each one (most of the playing I've done until about a year ago has been Standard on MTG Arena, I started at War of the Spark. We've got a long way to go).

DreadKhan oooh Allure of the Unknown would go really well. Give a card to my bestie and I draw 5 cards, that's incredible! Kothophed, Soul Hoarder is in my other demon deck, but would work better here methinks. That deck depends on Razaketh, the Foulblooded saccing my creatures, and Dictate of Erebos making other players do the same, but Rakdos just has all of that built in and can make Kothophed draw me cards more reliably.

legendofa I LOVE those. I'm definitely looking at some reanimator cards, since I'm gonna have a BUSY graveyard in this deck.

Thank you everyone, this is really helpful!

DreadKhan on Rakdos the Defil-Loving, Kind, Salt …

1 year ago

If you want a solidly political Rakdos card, I like Allure of the Unknown, it's obviously a bit risky, but it's often a very good card if you have someone who's not actively out to screw you over. I also like Rite of the Raging Storm, it's pretty chaotic and tends to eliminate the weakest players pretty quickly. Volcanic Offering is strong enough to see play and has a political element. I'm torn by cards like Ogre Slumlord, it's a great source of bodies as long as any creatures are dying, but he's obviously not a demon, there is Kothophed, Soul Hoarder but he only cares about other people's stuff dying, and will cost you some life.

DreadKhan on I LOVE CHAOS

1 year ago

I built a single deck that has the Chaos tag, Pavel the Mighty, Hero We Deserve. That deck prioritizes unusual cards/effects, and doesn't mind running some questionable cards if they can fill a role. From the deck, these are some of my favorite Chaos spells: Allure of the Unknown is not only a solid draw spell, it's also a great way to make a friend, especially if you've got big/crazy effects in your deck. I also like the Auctions, Thieves' Auction and Illicit Auction, both have a strong absurdist element to them, but either can do things you're really not supposed to do in Red. Fevered Suspicion can be a lot of fun, Hurl Through Hell is a truly weird effect. While Pavel is a chaotic deck, it also has the possibility of eliminating people, I don't think I like Chaos for Chaos' sake, I like there to be a plan, even if the plan has elements of insanity to it.

I think if you want to build Chaos, your deck should be able to win the odd game, otherwise you're kind of violating the presumption that we're all trying to win the game (to some degree/in some fashion). I suppose if you have a playgroup that's fine with decks that do the equivalent of throwing feces at a dinner party then have at it, but if your deck can sometimes threaten a win it's a very different story than if you're just making people miserable for kicks. I for one will tolerate a lot of annoying things in decks, but at least have a plan to end things, I hate frustration scooping!

DreadKhan on Kaervek of the CMC!

1 year ago

Allure of the Unknown (funny with your Commander out if they take something big, you might be able to politic with it in some metas) and Protection Racket seem really good with this deck. For a big MV critter to sneak out, Dragon Tyrant can deal a lot of damage with it's Double Strike and Firebreathing, I guess 10 MV might not be big enough at this point though.

They seem bad but I find that in a slow deck there are few better ways to heap up mana in Rakdos than Mercadian Bazaar and Subterranean Hangar. I even run the Fallen Empires Storages, which are much worse but can still let you play a big drop pretty early. I get that you don't plan to cast any of these big spells, but I feel like if you start with any Storage land in your opener you'll be able to cast one by turn 6 or 7 pretty reliably (when you might be at 12 or 13 mana for a single burst), which is early enough to bother with in most metas. If you're playing Eldrazi Titans and Blightsteel, casting them unexpectedly early can just win a game sometimes, these lands can let you do this more often.

Cool idea for a build.

DreadKhan on Baby You're a Firework EDH Ed.

2 years ago

War Room is card draw that can work, there are also cards like Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, Syphon Mind, and Village Rites (there are lots more). There are various enchantments that sit around and help like Black Market Connections, Underworld Connections, Greed, Necropotence, and Phyrexian Arena. If you recast Juri repeatedly, Tome of Legends might work. Ayara, First of Locthwain can draw some cards.

It's a tad out there, but Mask of Griselbrand lets you draw cards and is cheaper than Skullclamp, and it offers evasion and the ability to gain life via your newly evasive Commander.

If you're fairly desperate for draw, you could risk Allure of the Unknown, a card that I have generally been happy with. It sucks when you just hit lands and mana rocks, but you probably were going to lose the game if you had to sit and draw rubbish for 6 turns.

I really am liking the new Make an Example, this is actually a removal effect that forces each opponent to sacrifice their best creature, and can be even better if your opponent doesn't know what to pick.

If you already have Gravecrawler in the deck, another card that synergizes well with creature sacrificing decks is Pitiless Plunderer. Gravecrawler, Viscera Seer and pitiless plunderer are infinite Scry, ETBs and death triggers.

blueknightethan on Blim, Funny Man.

2 years ago

Out In

Midnight Oil -> Arcane Signet

Goldnight Castigator -> Sol Ring

Pitiless Horde -> Charcoal Diamond

Allure of the Unknown -> Temple of Malice

Treacherous Pit-Dweller -> Fellwar Stone

Immortal Coil -> Blasphemous Act

chilbi on X gon' give it to ya' [Xantcha EDH]

2 years ago

@jamochawoke: Thanks for the input - frankly, I'm afraid that 2 damage each turn on one single opponent just won't affect the game enough to justify the effort.

@DeeLight: By now the carddraw generated via Xantcha has been sufficient, but Allure of the Unknown definitely looks sweet in case I'll need more alternative ways in the future, thanks a lot!