http://www.gatheringmagic.com/markwischkaemper-121214-26-decks-in-a-year-episode-8-rakdos/

I’ve decided to do something different with this week’s column. In honor of Worlds being held in Nice, France (and my sister getting married in Normandy, where I was last week), I want to just take a peek over into the world of French Commander—specifically, how it relates to multiplayer.
French Commander, for those who don’t know, is a one-on-one Commander format with mostly the same rules, except you start with 30 life and, well, there’s only one opponent. It has its own banned list. Some of you may already play this format—so you already know how different it is when you only have one opponent. There’s no politics, spot removal is way better, and Syphon Mind becomes a lot worse—these are just a few differences. How can this relate to our series on multiplayer Commander?
It can relate in a couple of ways. First, you can sometimes only find one opponent. In that case, it’s nice to have a deck in your stable that will compete well in that scenario. Second, you may actually come across a French Commander tournament (or be lucky enough to travel somewhere it’s a lot more common), in which case a deck designed for heads-up play will serve you well. Or finally—and my genesis for this idea—you may have someone in your playgroup who just needs to die at all costs. You know that guy: the one who spends all his extra cash on more power for his oppressive, controlling deck which wins the same way—slowly—and makes the whole table suffer. It’s sometimes worth it to just take one for the team and kill that guy, forgetting the rest of the table. You aim your deck like a pistol and pull the trigger.
Today’s Rakdos deck is designed to do just that. When you take this deck out, it means you’re gunning for just one person. After that, you’ll almost certainly lose—but that one guy will be very, very dead.
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch
An interesting side effect of a deck like this is it ignores a lot of my standard Commander deck-building principles—namely the Unified Theory of Commander—that say we should follow My Deck Tickled a Sliver (Mana, Draw, Threats, Answers, Synergy). Instead, we’re going to be completely single-minded, playing at relative card disadvantage, because we’re not playing for the long game. Remember: That guy needs to die.
Stensia BloodhallSo for mana, we have thirty-seven lands. That’s it—no rocks. This is a lot lower than I like to go, especially with no additional sources, but the average mana cost of this deck is 2.28, and the most expensive card is 4 mana. (There are two exceptions, but we’ll get to those.) This is the Commander equivalent of playing nineteen lands in your sixty-card, mono-red deck in Standard. (I know the math isn’t right, but the principle is the same.) We have a couple of utility lands such as Stensia Bloodhall and Barbarian Ring, which do damage, and we have a few dual lands, such as Tainted Peak and Dragonskull Summit. Sulfurous Springs is worth noting because I generally don’t like pain lands in Commander—they’re too costly over time. In this case, the damage doesn’t matter, and we want as few lands that come into play tapped as possible. The deck without lands is quite cheap—around $50—so I used the rest of the money to buy duals that enter untapped, including an $8 Graven Cairns. Any others you have would be well-placed here—shocks and fetches opened in Drafts would be awesome. Also, take note of Kher Keep, which lets us use excess mana to make a dork we can then sacrifice for 2 damage.
Draw comes almost exclusively from our Commander, and trust me, we’ll want it. After a few turns, most of our creatures are going to be outclassed anyway, so they’re just going to be “shock and draw.” (Wow, that’s so bad it’s almost good.) Play a useless dude, maybe block with it, sac it to Lyzolda, the Blood Witch, shoot for 2 and draw one; rinse and repeat. We also have Sign in Blood, which can target our target in a pinch, and the same is true of the Toil half of Toil // Trouble.
We have no traditional threats; the deck itself is a threat. I suppose Rakdos, Lord of Riots is a threat—6/6 flying trample will do that—but it’s the only large creature here. Aside from lands, there is exactly one card in the deck that doesn’t do damage to your opponent somehow.
Red Elemental BlastWe also have exactly one answer, which comes in the form of Red Elemental Blast. Usually, “that guy” will be playing blue and will have a well-timed Counterspell to keep us from, say, hitting him with Rakdos’s Return. Red Elemental Blast will make sure he dies anyway. Hold it for a clutch moment. In other decks, a lot of the direct damage could be considered answers because it would be creature removal, but we don’t do that. Burn goes to the dome, and that’s it. So what if the opponent has creatures? (By the way, Flame Javelin is one exception to our converted-mana-cost limit. Its technical cost is 6, but in our deck, it’s going to be 3 almost always.)
As for synergy, it comes in the form of running a bunch of creatures that are both {B} and {R}. Most of the creatures will shock and draw with Lyzolda; those that don’t are there for a very good reason. Hellspark Elemental is a doubled Searing Spear, and Geralf’s Messenger, Mudbutton Torchrunner, and Perilous Myr all do extra damage when they enter or leave the battlefield, making them worth it. Sootstoke Kindler is also worth noting here because its ability to give things haste can be huge: A turn-three Ashenmoor Gouger, given haste and swinging, is a big play. Spiteflame Witch can also make use of extra mana when we have it. Beware, though, because it does drain everyone, and you’ll often want to avoid drawing the ire of any other players at the table. Finally, Toil // Trouble officially has a mana cost of 3, but in this deck, we’re almost always going to want to fuse it, so it’s the only spell we should count with a mana cost over 4. Have the enemy draw two and lose 2 and then lose 5 or 6 more, all for 6 mana.
We are all-in on the strategy here. Throw all damage straight to the face of your target. Attack with everything except Lyzolda; if a creature is blocked, sac it for damage and a card. The enemy will be dead before he or she knows it.
I mentioned before that additional untapped duals would be good here. Additionally, if you have a bit of extra cash floating around, you could add things such as Bonfire of the Damned, Grim Lavamancer, and Flames of the Blood Hand. Price of Progress would be silly-good. And the classic Chain Lightning deserves a slot as well.
Bonfire of the DamnedIf, for some reason, the table decides to stop us, there’s going to be very little we can do about it. We have to hope our target is one everyone would like to see eating a bit of humble pie, and that will allow us to go about our business. With few exceptions, most multiplayer-oriented Commander decks won’t be able to deal with our speed. Just don’t let anything be distracting—everything goes to the face. As long as the enemy is dead before we are, we’ve won.
Next time, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled article with a deck designed to have a Fighting Chance at beating a whole table. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts about a couple of specific things First, is this kind of deck interesting or useful to you? And second, how would you do Rakdos for multiplayer? (I have a Tymaret, the Murder King deck that rarely gets there but that is a lot of fun.)
Also, if you’d like a completely different take on Lyzolda, please take a look at my fellow author Alex Ullman’s recent Lyzolda, the Blood Witch deck.


One of my favorite parts of Commander is it doesn’t just have to be about beating a table. That’s a common goal, sure, but it can also be to make a point, tell a story, or achieve a specific thing—such as it is with this deck.
I’d like to offer a shout-out to Terres de Jeux in Rennes, France. My French is pretty bad, and no one there spoke much English, but they were friendly, helpful, and extremely kind. I didn’t have time to get a game, but if I ever find myself back there, I hope to—though the people I saw with hundred-card stacks were playing French Commander.
Total cost: $73.30