Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Today we are going to take a look at Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch!

Exava is a four mana 3/3 with first strike, haste, unleash which means that she can enter with a +1/+1 counter on herself and she can’t block as long as she has a +1/+1 counter, and each other creature we control with a +1/+1 counter on it has haste.

Game Plan

It’s not too often you see a red and black Commander play around with counters as their primary strategy, but it isn’t that uncommon to have black and red creatures synergize with counters.

The idea is easy enough for us, get +1/+1 counters on our creatures so that they can attack immediately.

The tricky part of the deck is to make sure that we can get as much payoff as we can with the creatures with the +1/+1 counters on them in order to make sure that we don’t just get blown out by our opponents, and that is where deck building gets interesting.

Support

So the first thing we need are ways to give counters to our creatures, and one of the more interesting ways to do that is to use Uncivil Unrest, which gives nontoken creatures we control riot, which gives the creature the option to enter with a +1/+1 counter or haste and if a creature we control with a +1/+1 counter on it would deal damage to a permanent or player, it deals double that damage instead.

This can be very useful for strengthening our small and cheap creatures like Rakdos Cackler who has unleash, Splatter Thug which has first strike and unleash, and Dreadhorde Butcher which gets a +1/+1 counter whenever it deals damage to a player or Planeswalker and when it dies is deals damage equal to its power to any target.

Cryptborn Horror is a neat card because it enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it where X is the total life lost by our opponents this turn, which when our creatures with counters have haste can mean a good amount of counters put on it.

Necropolis Regent is also a great way to put counters on our creature when they are in play because whenever a creature we control deals combat damage to a player, then we get to put that many +1/+1 counters on it.

We also have access to some interesting removal spells like Volt Charge, which for three mana deals 3 damage to any target and then we get to proliferate, which if we have a good amount of creatures with counters on them can be a massive boost.

Astarion’s Thirst is a little more narrow because we can exile target creature and then put X +1/+1 counters on a Commander creature we control where X is the power of the creature exiled this way, which if we don’t have Exava in play can be a bit of a blank, but it is exile based removal at instant speed that synergizes well with the deck, so I can’t really complain that much.

As far as how we win, combat is going to be ideal so Akki Battle Squad is ideal because whenever oneor more modified creatrues we control attack, we untap all modified creatures we control and after this combat phase we get an additional combat phase once each turn.

We can maximize the effectiveness of that by using Unspeakable Symbol, which if we pay 3 life then we can put a +1/+1 counter on a creature, which also happens to work very well with Lasting Tarfire, which at the beginning of each end step if we put a counter on a creature this turn then it deals 2 damage to each opponent.

Setbacks

What this deck will likely struggle with is making sure that we can maintain a well stocked board of creatures.

I go on and on about watching out for removal, but counter decks and go wide decks are the ones that get blown out the worst by board wipes because when you spend time building up a board of creatures with counters, you spent a lot of resources that can be taken away immediately by one card.

In red and black we don’t have as many options for protection like other colors do. We can do mass revival towards the end game, but in the mid game we can only effectively use spot protection, in that we can save a couple of creatures at a time.

Since our deck has an open strategy, we need to be aware that our opponents are aware of what we are going to do. Exava is specific in how she plays with +1/+1 counters, so odds are our game plan will be hampered by our opponents keeping Exava out of play for as long as possible, even if we do have access to rituals that can cast her quickly if we need to.

Aggro strategies have it hard because we need to makes sure we have enough ways to deal damage to everyone and not run out of gas if our board gets broken or we are stopped by our opponents taxing us or preventing us from attacking.

Bracket Rating: High 1, Mid 2

The deck has a straightforward and simple strategy that can be blown out by the removal that higher brackets have access to, especially as it is an aggro deck.

What hurts more is that we have a lot of pieces that can be easily interacted with and have little options to deal with those threats based on the strategy that we are using.

That being said, it is an axis that is still enjoyable enough to play, purely because of how simple the strategy is and the fact that we can just go all in and attempt to win via combat. In lower brackets, Exava can potentially be a threat because of how quickly the board can get out of hand.

The less interaction that lower brackets tend to have can mean you can be a little greedier in the resources you use, meaning you can play cards like Bedlam to make creatures unable to block and Berserkers’ Onslaught to give our attacking creatures double strike and be a solid threat at the table.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual