Rakdos the Defil-Loving, Kind, Salt of the Earth Kinda Guy
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on June 19, 2023, 4:26 p.m. by 77hi77
I'm in that awful/exciting place where I'm working on 4 decks at the same time. My wallet hates it.
I've always known that I want to build a Rakdos the Defiler deck. A while ago, I posted on here looking for ideas of chaotic cards/archetypes that fit his theme. "I attack, I sacrifice myself to do it. Uh oh, you took damage, sucks to be yoouuu" is such a chaotic way to play. As I'm building the deck now, though, I'm realizing that it's so much more fun to lean hard into the politics of it. Rakdos the Defiler is a commander that forces you to get into character, and I've been fantasizing about various ways to politic with Rakdos, which should also make it a more fun game than the rampant destruction I was originally aiming for.
The two cards that really made it click for me: Sower of Discord and Scheming Symmetry. I can just imagine myself drawing a card then, grinning ear-to-ear, asking: "If this were a 2v2 game, what would the teams be?". Then proceeding to play that character of the overtly nice one to my new bestie while we both tutor. Or Wishclaw Talisman, I tap it, tutor, then give it to my new bestie; now my new bestie has to decide whether they want to give it back or betray me. It presents everyone with character choices that they have to deal with, and Rakdos the Defiler is very likely to be the scariest commander on the board, which just adds to it all. That also allows me to build my favourite kind of deck: the glass cannon, knowing that it has built in politics as a defensive measure.
So I've been looking for cards in Rakdos like Secret Rendezvous, and more Sower of Discord kind of effects to go with that theme. So far I've got the cards I've already mentioned, Zurzoth, Chaos Rider to help my bestie draw cards (and to give Rakdos some tokens to sac), Bloodthirster to pick on my non-besties, and yeah that's about all I can find. If you know of cards that help, or if you've seen decks that really play into the Generous Untrustworthy Demon archetype, I'd love to see them!
Thanks all!
FormOverFunction says... #3
The first card that came to mind while reading this was Cruel Entertainment. I’ve got it in my pre-strixhaven witch deck (oops) and it hits the type of fun I think you’re looking for. Beyond that, I would recommend looking at all the cards with a rakdos logo on them. While making my all-watermark decks (one of which is rakdos) I realized there are a TON of very flavorful and weird cards that go almost completely ignored... and searching by watermark is a great cheat to find some of them!
June 20, 2023 10:08 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi first of all, Goreclaw is ADORABLE and your whole deck is full of fluffy fluffballs that should be cuddled, I fully agree with you there. Assault Suit is perfect, I can already think of so many fun things to do with that. Thank you!
FormOverFunction you delivered absolute gems when I thought I wanted this to be a chaotic deck, and here you are again with another, thanks!
I'm still not great at searching for cards, I have to say. Like, I'll usually go on scryfall and do something like "you target player draw", but that'll pull up a lot of cards I don't want, and not everything I do want. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll take the time to look at the weird cards in that way.
June 20, 2023 6:04 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #5
I don’t know if this will work, but it’s worth a shot: https://scryfall.com/search?as=gridℴ=name&q=commander%3ABR+%28game%3Apaper%29+legal%3Acommander+%28set%3Arna+OR+set%3Agrn+OR+set%3Adgm%29+is%3Awatermark
I looked briefly at page one and saw Captive Audience, which could be a catastrophe if you’ve got a well-timed blood artist. Lots of good stuff. Eventually you may end up where I’m at, where you just do a search for “green” or something and scroll through all 3800 cards one by one... trolling for a new deck idea... ;p
June 20, 2023 9:49 p.m.
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.
June 21, 2023 11:26 a.m.
Commander 2013 Tempt cards (Tempt with Immortality, Tempt with Vengeance, honorary spot for Tempting Contract), Commander 2014 Offerings (Infernal Offering and Volcanic Offering), and Strixhaven Commander Demonstrate cards (Creative Technique and Incarnation Technique) are good places to look for political cards. Spectral Searchlight is an option.
June 21, 2023 12:18 p.m.
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!
June 22, 2023 12:13 a.m.
One more for you, with Humble Defector. (Did every card in the game get a LotR reprint?)
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #2
That definitely sounds hilarious. I tend to go "into character" when playing Goreclaw, but that's rather me being silly about my 10/10 juggernauts being adorable.
A card to consider for the deck could be Assault Suit.
June 20, 2023 12:11 a.m.