Valgavoth, Harrower of SoulsValgavoth, Harrower of Souls | art by Chris Cold

The call was coming from inside the house!

Hello there! Welcome once again to EDHighlights, the mini-series where I build decks for the year's most popular commander for each color combination. Now that 2024's set releases have finished up, I'll be taking a look at the most popular releases from the past year. Here, I'll talk a bit about each of the most popular commanders and build a deck for them with a little twist to keep things interesting.

We're working with the year's most popular Rakdos commander this time, which means this article will be about… [Valgavoth, Harrower of SoulsValgavoth, Harrower of Souls

ValgavothValgavoth is the first precon face commander in this series, and it's not hard to see why he's so popular. Rakdos is already a well-loved color pair, group slug is a popular strategy, and Duskmourn was a pretty popular set. So, let's see what this demonic dude can do.

They put this thing in a precon?

ValgavothValgavoth is a 4/4 Elder Demon with flying and ward (cost: pay 2 life) for 4 mana. And, whenever one of our opponents loses life for the first time during their turn, we get to draw a card and put a +1/+1 counter on ValgavothValgavoth.

This is a very strong commander, and it incentivizes us to ensure that we can create a steady stream of life loss for each of our opponents. If we can do that, ValgavothValgavoth promises us heaps of card advantage and a large, evasive creature to win in combat with.

There's lots of ways to hurt our opponents in Rakdos colors, so we won't be starved for options. But, I promised that this deck would break the mold slightly. So, we'll be making our opponents lose life through Aristocrat-style gain-and-drain effects. This color combination is a natural fit for an Aristocrats strategy, and I'm excited to get brewing!

Joining the aristocracy

When I think of Aristocrats, my mind immediately goes to Blood ArtistBlood Artist. This creature is a format staple for a reason, and it works particularly well here.

When ANY creature dies, one of ours or one of our opponents', we'll get a ValgavothValgavoth trigger. Most of the time, we'll have a spare creature lying around that we can sacrifice, and something like Zulaport CutthroatZulaport Cutthroat or Vraan, Executioner ThaneVraan, Executioner Thane will trigger our commander.

So, Blood ArtistBlood Artist and co. will make sure that when creatures die, we get ValgavothValgavoth to do his thing. But now we need a good pool of disposable creatures. One of the best ways to do this in Commander is Loyal ApprenticeLoyal Apprentice.

We'll (hopefully) have ValgavothValgavoth on the battlefield for the majority of the game, so this card can really shine. There's also Lord Skitter, Sewer KingLord Skitter, Sewer King, which makes tokens and acts as an efficient graveyard hate piece. And Lagomos, Hand of HatredLagomos, Hand of Hatred] is here too, both as a token generator and (sometimes) as a repeatable tutor.

If we're going to have expendable creatures, and payoffs for them dying, we need some ways to sacrifice them too. Rakdos, the MuscleRakdos, the Muscle is a free sac outlet, a card advantage engine, and a big flying creature all in one. I think this card is great, and this deck actually plays very well around its “once per turn” restriction.

Because ValgavothValgavoth only cares about the first time an opponent loses life each turn, we can use Rakdos, the MuscleRakdos, the Muscle's free sacrifice ability quite well. There's also Ayara, Widow of the RealmAyara, Widow of the Realm. She provides a sacrifice outlet with built-in life loss, and can reanimate the best thing in our graveyard each turn once we manage to transform her.

I've also included Priest of Forgotten GodsPriest of Forgotten Gods, which can trigger our commander easily (just like AyaraAyara).

A friendly game of ping pong

Instead of making this just another Aristocrats deck that happens to have ValgavothValgavoth at the helm, I'm also including some of the best group slug pieces that Magic has to offer. This commander is so strong, and I want to ensure that we can get maximum value out of him.

Razorkin NeedleheadRazorkin Needlehead and Scrawling CrawlerScrawling Crawler both released recently, and they're perfect cards for this deck. They're guaranteed to ping our opponents at least once on each of their turns, and odds are they'll do a lot more than that. Hearthborn BattlerHearthborn Battler is a good card too, because we'll get to choose where the damage goes no matter who cast their second spell.

This means we can choose to either get more triggers from our commander or whittle down a specific player's life total, whichever seems best at the moment. I'm also a big fan of Mogis, God of SlaughterMogis, God of Slaughter. It gives our opponents a choice, but each option is pretty bad for them.

Plus, because of the Blood ArtistBlood Artist-style effects in the deck, they'll usually trigger ValgavothValgavoth no matter what.

Rounding out the group slug package here is Goblin SharpshooterGoblin Sharpshooter to act as either a way to ping someone's face or kill a creature, Kardur, DoomscourgeKardur, Doomscourge to make combat even more chaotic, and Karazikar, the Eye TyrantKarazikar, the Eye Tyrant to disincentivize our opponents from attacking us. Combined, these creatures will hopefully make attacking us a little less appealing than it otherwise would be.

All together now…

Crucially, there are only 9 cards in the 99 of this deck that have a converted mana cost of 4 or higher. It's important to get some setup on the board before ValgavothValgavoth arrives, and to be able to ramp up the group-slugginess quickly after that, so this deck is relatively low to the ground.

And now, here's the full decklist:

Glorious EndGlorious End

Thanks for reading this week's edition of EDHighlights! This was a fun deck to build, and reminded me a lot of my own high-power Ob Nixilis, Captive KingpinOb Nixilis, Captive Kingpin build. Both commanders want opponents to lose life, and both provide +1/+1 counters and card advantage when they do.

Both cards are great, they both work great in the 99 of each other's decks. And, for a little extra Ob Nixilis in my life, I included Ob Nixilis, the AdversaryOb Nixilis, the Adversary. It's a way to force lifeloss, another sacrifice outlet, and can even provide card advantage if it sticks on the board long enough.

Which do you think is better? ValgavothValgavoth or Ob NixilisOb Nixilis. Let me know in the comments below. I'll see you all next time, when I look at the year's most popular Gruul commander!

Cooper Gottfried

Cooper is a student at Brandeis University, where he’s Editor in Chief of its community newspaper, The Brandeis Hoot. He’s played Magic for a few years, starting in earnest when he was gifted a precon during the summer of 2022. His favorite Magic card is Denry Klin, Editor in Chief, and he bets you can't guess why.