Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Rakdos the Defiler!

Rakdos is a six mana 7/6 with flying, trample, and whenever Rakdos attacks you sacrifice half the non-Demon permanents you control rounded up and whenever Rakdos deals combat damage to a player, that player sacrifices half the non-Demon permanents they control rounded up.

This Rakdos is a drawback Commander, in that you will also lose some of your things, which can also include lands, whenever Rakdos attacks, with the payoff that your opponents will also sacrifice some of their things if it deals damage.

Getting this deck to work is going to be tough, but there are ways we can make it work to our benefit.

One of the first things we need to do is make sure that we can get Demons onto the battlefield, because oftentimes they can be expensive mana wise, like Rakdos, and when the inevitable comes that we sacrifice lands we can make use of our limited mana base.

Herald of Slaanesh is perfect because not only does it make our Demons 2 mana cheaper to cast, but it gives our other Demons haste, which for a creature type that tends to have huge bodies is perfect.

Another creature we can make use of is Ancient Cellarspawn, which not only makes our Demons 1 man cheaper, but our Horrors and Nightmares as well. What’s more important is that if we cast a spell using less mana than the mana value of the spell, a target opponent loses life equal to that difference.

This means that if we have Ancient Cellarspawn and Herald of Slaanesh on the battlefield, we can have an opponent up to 3 life for each Demon spell we cast.

There is even a two mana tutor in Demonic Counsel that allows us to tutor for a Demon card, and if we have Delirium then we can tutor any card. Ideally we tutor for more Demon cards, but the potential to get any card can prove useful, especially if we lose a number of permanents.

So the best way we can get value out of Rakdos is to make sure we sacrifice as few things as possible.

Overseer of the Damned is an option because not only is it a Demon, but it destroys something when it enters and a whenever a nontoken creature an opponent controls dies, we create a tapped Zombie token, which we can sacrifice if we need to.

We can also make use of our things being sacrificed and have creatures like Mayhem Devil, which deals damage to any target whenever anything is sacrificed from any player.

If we want to get a ton of resources whenever our opponents lose creatures, which are the first things that they will most likely sacrifice to Rakdos’ ability, then there is Mahadi, Emporium Master which at the beginning of your end step makes a Treasure token for each creature that died that turn.

If we want a big Demon that we can cast for cheap, then there is also The Balrog, Durin’s Bane, which gets cheaper for each permanent sacrificed that turn, has haste, cannot be blocked except by legendary creatures, and when it dies it destroys a creature or artifact an opponent controls.

The way we win the game is the consistent denial of our opponents resources, but its always good to have a back up option to win.

Since we are going to be running a lot of Demons with different names in our deck, Liliana’s Contract is going to be our alternate win condition. If we manage to deny our opponents from interaction, then we should be able to cast it and resolve it.

If we can manage to hold off from attacking with Rakdos for long enough to get a bunch of mana, then we can cast It That Betrays, which can steal the nontoken permanents that our opponents sacrifice, which can give us more things to sacrifice and we lose less of our own things to Rakdos’ ability.

If we just want a creature that gets bigger, there is Orca, Siege Demon which gets a +1/+1 counter whenever another creature dies and when it dies it deals damage equal to its power divided among any number of targets, which can help close out a game if we get Orca big enough.

Rakdos is a tricky Commander to play correctly, mostly because while he incentivizes you to attack in order for your opponent to sacrifice their things, we also lose things when he attacks.

If we manage to exercise some patience then we should be able to get the most value out of Rakdos, and gain more than we lose.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual