Rakdos has taken a few tribal detours over the last decade for Pirates and Warriors and Minotaurs, and occasionally leans towards control, but the most common well for it is sacrifice.
- Stuff like Fireblade Artist, Blazing Hellhound, Brawl-Bash Ogre, Dire Fleet Warmonger, Elite Headhunter, and Slaughter-Priest of Mogis all sacrifice creatures for fun and profit as does Spontaneous Combustion on a one-shot basis.
- Creatures like Hellhole Flailer and Cinder Shade can pitch themselves into the 'yard.
- Mayhem Devil rewards us for allowing our stuff to die as does Showstopper on a one-shot basis.
- Swift Warkite, Garna, the Bloodflame, Murderous Redcap, Angrath, Captain of Chaos, and Rakdos Guildmage all in their own ways help us keep fuel for the sacrificial pyre.
Possible Commanders
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These are all the Rakdos commanders that are under a buck and conceivably play well with a Sacrifice theme. There's lots of overlap on "Goblin" and "Sacrifice", so Wort, Boggart Auntie is also a defensible choice albeit one that is a very different direction for the deck. For my part, however, my pick is Judith. Judith combines a low CMC (I think newbie commander decks play best with a commander at 4 CMC or less) with a high power curve.
A sample decklist, then, is:
Rakdos Sacrifice
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How does this deck work? Well:
How it Works
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Judith is a powerful commander that gives us an "Anthem" (giving all creatures +1/+0) with an even better trigger - whenever a non-token creature dies, you get to ping something for 1. That sounds small, but with enough triggers in a long enough game, it gives you a lot of reach to kill players or snipe weak creatures or remove pesky planeswalkers. This deck wants to be aggressive, playing cheap creatures, chipping in for early damage, and then bleeding opponents dry with death triggers and tricky attacks and blocks in the endgame.
There's some interesting tension with Judi though. Normally, the best way to abuse +1/+0 to your board would be to "go wide" with tokens - but her second ability only works on non-tokens. To fuel her, we're running a TON of creatures - 40 to be precise. We also go out of our way to run creatures like Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodsoaked Champion, Squee, Goblin Nabob, and Tenacious Dead that can come back for more. Undying and persist creatures are also good here, especially the two we picked in Flayer of the Hatebound and Murderous Redcap who deal even more damage when they come into play.
1 damage is more than you think but still isn't a lot, and the best way to snowball in commander is to stack effects so the deck is also running lots more death triggers. Just pinging for 1 is good, but with Zulaport Cutthroat, Mayhem Devil, Havoc Jester, Bastion of Remembrance, Hissing Iguanar, Outpost Siege, and Syr Konrad, the Grim your opponents can be taking a scary amount of damage each time a creature you control dies. Damage is the name of your game, but there's other triggers too - Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge turns dead creatures into Treasure; Midnight Reaper, Harvester of Souls, Liliana's Standard Bearer, and Smothering Abomination turn dead creatures into more cards and more fuel; Sifter of Skulls and Anax, Hardened in the Forge turn dead creatures into more creatures which won't trigger Judith but will trigger a lot of the rest of these effects or just give you more attackers and blockers. And at the top of your curve Butcher of Malakir kills enemy creatures each time one of yours dies.
Just attacking and blocking is going to start the party with Judith, but it's nice to be able to force the issue. One pro once said the most powerful thing in the world is being able to sacrifice cards at instant speed for zero mana, and we want lots of sacrifice effects. Your best ones are indeed the ones like Carrion Feeder, Bloodthrone Vampire, and Thermopod that allow you to throw away bodies for considerable advantage at instant speed. You have tons of these effects though, and they all combine to ensure you can throw away creatures when and how you choose to get the most advantage in the moment. They also make cards like Claim the Firstborn, Act of Treason, Captivating Crew, and your "big finisher" Mob Rule a lot better, since you can steal something, attack with it, and then toss it away before having to give it back.
The rest of the deck is some fairly standard removal and card draw, with an eye towards self-sacrifice in stuff like Plaguecrafter, Shriekmaw, Ingot Chewer, and Village Rites. One special mention is Deathtouch, however: Judith and the devils love having Deathtouch since it allows them to kill anything with a 1-damage ping, so the deck is running Gorgon's Head as a repeatable way to do that and Archetype of Finality to give the whole squad Deathtouch and make opponent's lives really miserable
There's some interesting tension with Judi though. Normally, the best way to abuse +1/+0 to your board would be to "go wide" with tokens - but her second ability only works on non-tokens. To fuel her, we're running a TON of creatures - 40 to be precise. We also go out of our way to run creatures like Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodsoaked Champion, Squee, Goblin Nabob, and Tenacious Dead that can come back for more. Undying and persist creatures are also good here, especially the two we picked in Flayer of the Hatebound and Murderous Redcap who deal even more damage when they come into play.
1 damage is more than you think but still isn't a lot, and the best way to snowball in commander is to stack effects so the deck is also running lots more death triggers. Just pinging for 1 is good, but with Zulaport Cutthroat, Mayhem Devil, Havoc Jester, Bastion of Remembrance, Hissing Iguanar, Outpost Siege, and Syr Konrad, the Grim your opponents can be taking a scary amount of damage each time a creature you control dies. Damage is the name of your game, but there's other triggers too - Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge turns dead creatures into Treasure; Midnight Reaper, Harvester of Souls, Liliana's Standard Bearer, and Smothering Abomination turn dead creatures into more cards and more fuel; Sifter of Skulls and Anax, Hardened in the Forge turn dead creatures into more creatures which won't trigger Judith but will trigger a lot of the rest of these effects or just give you more attackers and blockers. And at the top of your curve Butcher of Malakir kills enemy creatures each time one of yours dies.
Just attacking and blocking is going to start the party with Judith, but it's nice to be able to force the issue. One pro once said the most powerful thing in the world is being able to sacrifice cards at instant speed for zero mana, and we want lots of sacrifice effects. Your best ones are indeed the ones like Carrion Feeder, Bloodthrone Vampire, and Thermopod that allow you to throw away bodies for considerable advantage at instant speed. You have tons of these effects though, and they all combine to ensure you can throw away creatures when and how you choose to get the most advantage in the moment. They also make cards like Claim the Firstborn, Act of Treason, Captivating Crew, and your "big finisher" Mob Rule a lot better, since you can steal something, attack with it, and then toss it away before having to give it back.
The rest of the deck is some fairly standard removal and card draw, with an eye towards self-sacrifice in stuff like Plaguecrafter, Shriekmaw, Ingot Chewer, and Village Rites. One special mention is Deathtouch, however: Judith and the devils love having Deathtouch since it allows them to kill anything with a 1-damage ping, so the deck is running Gorgon's Head as a repeatable way to do that and Archetype of Finality to give the whole squad Deathtouch and make opponent's lives really miserable
Have more money to throw at this deck? Well, the first and best priority would be mana. Sol Ring and Arcane Signet and Talisman of Indulgence for better rocks; Smoldering Marsh and Graven Cairns and Dragonskull Summit as a start for better lands. Luxury Suite and Sulfurous Springs and Blood Crypt are even better lands for around the price of a trip to the (currently) closed theater. But since that's boring, my picks for the best adds to the deck on a modest budget (no card more than $20) in no particular order:
Upgrades!
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Broadly speaking you can group those as either:
- Better sac outlets. The current deck is running a lot of sac outlets that are either limited to combat triggers (like Brawl-Bash Ogre), require mana (like Blazing Hellhound), or are just sort of mediocre effects (like Bloodthrone Vampire). Upgrading to elite sac outlets like Viscera Seer, Goblin Bombardment, and Ashnod's Altar is a huge deal for ensuring you can ship stuff to the 'yard for full profit.
- Better death payoffs. The current deck has some great draw engines for killing its own dudes but is missing the two best for budget/complexity reasons in Skullclamp and Grim Haruspex. It's also running casual nonsense like Hissing Igunara and Butcher of Malakir over more lean, powerful effects like Blood Artist and Dictate of Erebos. Getting more from each death trigger will definitely help this deck snowball.
- Better recursive creatures. Good recursive creatures tend to be expensive so the base deck is relying on slower cards like Reassembling Skeleton and Tenacious Dead. Upgrading to Nether Traitor, Bloodghast, and/or Gutterbones would greatly improve the deck's consistency.
- Finally, special mention to Basilisk Collar - Judith is SCARY with Deathtouch, and the base deck is skimping by running Archetype of Finality and Gorgon's Head to enable it. Collar is much better.
