(Magar of the Magic Strings | Art by Tomek Larek)

Unleash The Demons Inside

Welcome back to the devilishly fun combo series Wombo Combo, where we look at the most used combo cards in each distinct color identity, with help from EDHREC and Commander Spellbook. This week, we shall travel through fire and brimstone, as we examine the demonic pairing of black and red, most commonly referred to as Rakdos.

Rakdos is a key color combination to many different in-game actions, such as impulse draw (effects that exile a card with the ability to cast that card from exile), madness / discarding cards, and lifeloss interaction. It is also a key color combination for many creature types such as Demons, Vampires, Devils and Goblins. If any of these fire you up, then let's have a look at the Top 10 most used Rakdos cards to condemn your opponents to a grueling defeat.

 

#10: Magar of the Magic Strings

Number of Combos: 16

Deck Inclusions: 2,879 as commander (#339); 1,013 as card (0.180%)

While Rakdos may be the guild of destruction and chaos, we start our Top 10 with a more light-hearted card. Magar of the Magic Strings was released in Unfinity, which was the first set to feature both silver-bordered cards (denoted with an acorn stamp at the bottom) and black-bordered cards. Magar feels like one of those cards that is truly skirting the border of being black or silver bordered, and the result is an extremely unique effect that is likely to remain unique for years to come. The main combos using Magar use its ability to repeatedly cast extra turn spells, such as Time Warp or Capture of Jingzhou.

 

#9: Rowan, Scion of War

Number of Combos: 19

Deck Inclusions: 4,458 as commander (#204); 1,023 as card (0.468%)

Rowan, Scion of War may have only been released less than four months ago in Wilds of Eldraine, but it's steadily making waves as a strong commander and combo piece. Rowan's ability opens the door for many cheap win conditions, such as using Necropotence to lose a large sum of life, then activating Rowan to cast a cheap Exsanguinate or Debt to the Deathless. Rowan is also a solid value piece for decks that want you to have a low life total, or that involves lots of self-pinging and/or life payments. From there, Rowan can let you cast cards for much cheaper, and end the game much quicker.

 

#8: Prosper, Tome-Bound

Number of Combos: 23

Deck Inclusions: 14,885 as commander (#14); 21,561 as card (2.781%)

If impulse drawing is your thing, then you probably know Prosper, Tome-Bound. Prosper has two simple effects - one that lets you impulse draw at the end of your turn, and one that creates a Treasure token when you play a card from exile. While impulse drawing is one way to create Treasure tokens, you can also use cards such as Squee, the Immortal or Eternal Scourge to repeatedly cast them and get Treasure tokens. Add in Ashnod's Altar or another mana sacrifice outlet, a way to exile the creature such as Planar Void, and maybe Xorn or another Treasure-doubler, and you have a unique combo using a zone that is meant to be mostly off limits.

 

#7: Burnt Offering

Number of Combos: 25

Deck Inclusions: 12,942 (1.685%)

Our throwback card of Rakdos Edition takes us back to Ice Age, released in 1995, to look at Burnt Offering! Burnt Offering is a simple card to understand - you cast it and sacrifice a creature, and add any combination of black and/or red mana to your mana pool equal to the sacrificed creature's mana value. There are two main combo lines involving Burnt Offering. The first line involves sacrificing a creature to it, and then casting Dualcaster Mage. With the Dualcaster Mage trigger on the stack, you sacrifice it to any sac outlet of your choice, then resolve the Dualcaster Mage trigger to copy Burnt Offering. From here, you can return Dualcaster Mage via an Extus, Oriq Overlord trigger and repeat this process, gaining mana from each Burnt Offering copy. The second combo line involves sacrificing a card such as Scholar of the Ages, which can return Burnt Offering and another recursion piece.

 

#6: Bladewing the Risen

Number of Combos: 27

Deck Inclusions: 520 as commander (#1,100); 25,707 as card (3.316%)

Bladewing the Risen is the ultimate recursion card for Dragon decks, returning any Dragon from your graveyard to the battlefield. This can be used to cheat in expensive dragons like The Ur-Dragon or Nicol Bolas. While costing 7 mana is fairly expensive, you get a 4/4 Dragon with flying and the ability to cheat out a more expensive Dragon or to bring back any Dragon that is helpful to your cause. Most combos revolve around using Bladewing's ability to return itself, using cards such as Molten Echoes, Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm or Flameshadow Conjuring to create copies of Bladewing, and then using the copy's trigger to return the nontoken Bladewing to the battlefield.

 

#5: Deathbringer Thoctar

Number of Combos: 30

Deck Inclusions: 5,717 (0.744%)

Deathbringer Thoctar is the Rakdos equivalent to the popular payoff card Walking Ballista. Deathbringer Thoctar and Walking Ballista can both ping opponents for damage, and put counters on themselves using cards such as Sunbond and a lifelink enabler to gain infinite life and to deal infinite damage. You can also ping a card like Urban Daggertooth, as long as you give it indestructible, to infinitely proliferate. Outside of infinite combos, Deathbringer Thoctar can also create a lock on creatures. By giving it deathtouch, it uses a +1/+1 counter to kill a creature, and then gains that counter back to repeat the process as needed.

 

#4: Murderous Redcap

Number of Combos: 34

Deck Inclusions: 11,798 (1.536%)

Persist creatures are great combo engines, and Murderous Redcap provides the additional benefit of dealing damage alongside it. Using Murderous Redcap as your Persist creature means you end the game without having to add any additional cards, as would be necessary for cards like Putrid Goblin. Murderous Redcap easily combos with cards that can counteract the -1/-1 counter, such as Renata, Called to the Hunt, Solemnity or Cathars' Crusade. You can also avoid using persist half the time using Luminous Broodmoth or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, and alternate returning Redcap with them and its own ability.

 

#3: Rakdos Carnarium

Number of Combos: 40

Deck Inclusions: 124,271 (16.179%)

Rakdos' resident bounceland is Rakdos Carnarium, and has many of the same combo potential as Dimir Aqueduct, which we covered in our last edition. Rakdos Carnarium does have the disadvantage of not containing blue or green organically, making it generally off-color for Landfall-related combos. However, it is a card that every deck can benefit from running, so it isn't a large sacrifice to include it either. If you do run a Landfall deck, Rakdos Carnarium (or any of the other bouncelands, for that matter) are always a solid include for an easy infinite Landfall combo, with cards like Walking Atlas and Retreat to Coralhelm.

 

#2: Rakdos, Lord of Riots

Number of Combos: 48

Deck Inclusions: 5,856 as commander (#121); 15,156 as card (1.955%)

The namesake of Rakdos is none other than Rakdos, Lord of Riots, which just so happens to be a strong combo card. Similarly to Rowan, Rakdos allows you to cast high-mana creature cards for cheap by leveraging life your opponents have lost this turn. This can lead to a free Ancestral Statue which creates a two-card infinite combo (or a one-card if Rakdos is your commander), or free Junk Diver and Workshop Assistant for an artifact heavy deck. You can also cause opponents to lose a large amount of life, and then cast Walking Ballista or another X-costed card at a steep discount, ending the game in the case of Walking Ballista, or further increasing your discounts.

 

#1: Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Number of Combos: 82

Deck Inclusions: 3,132 as commander (#312); 3,017 as card (0.389%)

Our #1 card is the enterprising Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, with an interesting upside-down style approach to Magic. Grenzo has an ability that allows you to pay two mana to put the bottom card of your library into your graveyard, and then possibly put it onto the battlefield if its a creature card that has less or equal power to Grenzo. The simplest Grenzo combo involves Timestream Navigator for infinite turns, or Arashin Sovereign and a sacrifice outlet, but there are a host of other cards that help Grenzo, such as Epitaph Golem or Soldevi Digger, You can then continuously recur token generators like Myr Battlesphere, mana generators like Priest of Urabrask, or persist creatures like the aforementioned Murderous Redcap. No matter how you build it, Grenzo is a great Rakdos combo engine, and a cool Goblin card to add to your deck as well.

 

Honorable Mentions

These cards didn't quite make the Top 10, but they can still stoke the fire in your next combo deck:

1. Olivia Voldaren: Useful for creature locks, using cards such as Pitiless Plunderer and Xorn, as well as a deathtouch enabler.
2. Garna, the Bloodflame: Useful for mass recursion combos, involving discard outlets like Mind Over Matter and blinkers such as Emiel the Blessed.
3. Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar: While you may not be able to pronounce the name correctly, you can still combo with it using cards such as Gilded Goose or Yomiji, Who Bars the Way.
4. Mayhem Devil: A great value engine for sacrifice-heavy decks, and also has combo opportunities with cards like Polyraptor.

This concludes the Rakdos Edition of Wombo Combo! Be sure to check out the next edition, and to visit Commander Spellbook for more EDH combos, as well as the Commander Spellbook Discord to vote on the next edition of Wombo Combo!