I Am Fire, I Am Death

Commander / EDH* BR (Rakdos) Combo Dragons Reanimator Theme/Gimmick

Fuzzlewuzzle

Dragons (13)

• 1x Hellkite Tyrant
• 1x Shivan Dragon
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Two-Headed Dragon
• 1x Volcanic Dragon
• 1x Worldgorger Dragon
• 1x Dragon Mage
• 1x Hellkite Igniter
• 1x Brimstone Dragon
• 1x Utvara Hellkite
• 1x Vampiric Dragon
• 1x Blast-Furnace Hellkite
• 1x Dragon Tyrant

Interaction (10)

• 1x Null Elemental Blast
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Dreadbore
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Terminate
• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Oubliette
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Blasphemous Act

Other (8)

• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 1x Sword of Hearth and Home *f-etch*
• 1x Sword of Sinew and Steel
• 1x Anger
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Dragon Roost
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine

Land (37)

• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Ifnir Deadlands
• 1x Jagged Barrens
• 14x Mountain
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Ramunap Ruins
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 1x Sunscorched Desert
• 12x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Wastes

Draw & Tutor (9)

• 1x Profane Tutor *f-etch*
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Ancient Craving
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Graveborn Muse
• 1x Vile Entomber

Reanimation (8)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Exhume
• 1x Persist *f-etch*
• 1x Feldon of the Third Path
• 1x Chainer, Nightmare Adept *f-etch*
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Zombify
• 1x Chainer, Dementia Master

Commander (1)

Ramp (13)

• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Charcoal Diamond
• 1x Fire Diamond
• 1x Nightscape Familiar
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Dragonspeaker Shaman
• 1x Worn Powerstone
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Gilded Lotus

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Maybeboard

Other (4)

• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Buried Alive

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Why Play Bladewing?

So I Heard You Like Dragons?

This is a deck built all around dragons. Casting dragons. Reanimating dragons. Swinging for a million damage with dragons. You know, just dragon stuff. Now, Bladewing may not be the absolute best commander for dragon tribal (The Ur-Dragon and his Scion can fight for that title) but make no mistake: Bladewing the Risen is awesome, and will absolutely murder your opponents if they aren't ready.

You'll love this deck if:

• You like turning big creatures sideways and hitting people with them
• More specifically, you like dragons
• You like graveyard strategies

This might not be the deck for you if:

• You don't enjoy creature-based strategies
• You mostly want to win with commander damage. He may be cool, but Bladewing is pretty small for a 7-drop

Rundown of the Deck

Dragons

• Bladewing the Risen: The OG zombie dragon, Bladewing is the centerpiece of the deck's strategy, though the deck is still fully functional without him. He brings out a dragon from our yard every time he hits the field, letting us rebuild from boardwipes extremely easily. Also, his new art is the shit.

• Steel Hellkite: Rakdos is a color combo that struggles with removing enchantments. On top of being just utterly badass, Steel Hellkite is one of our best ways of answering enchantments, as well as any other problematic permanents. Completely annihilates token-based strategies, which is neat.

• Hellkite Tyrant: This is one of the "goodstuffs" slots. Tyrant makes the cut because my playgroup runs a lot of artifacts.

• Dragon Mage: Bonk a fool, draw a bunch of cards. Useful for putting dragons in the yard for Bladewing to reanimate, or just refilling your hand after you run out of gas.

• Blast-Furnace Hellkite: What's better than hitting people with a field full of dragons? Hitting them with a field full of dragons twice. Granting double strike to your whole board is an amazing buff.

• Dragon Tyrant: My new curvetopper. I wanted something that would let me present a faster clock when it comes time to turn things sideways. A 6/6 flample doublestriking firebreather is a great way to do that.

• Utvara Hellkite: Pretty much one of the best dragons in EDH. Has a disgusting amount of synergy with pretty much everything in the deck, and will absolutely run away with the game if not immediately answered.

• Worldgorger Dragon: The infamous combo dragon. He's here for exactly what you might expect - reanimate him with Animate Dead, get infinite ETBs of a pingland to kill the table.

Ramp

Sol Ring: I like doing stuff early. This lets me do stuff early.

Dark Ritual: A lil booster shot of mana to help get my commander out faster.

Wayfarer's Bauble: I want mana and I want it fast. Do you see how much my commander costs???

Arcane Signet: Yep.

Worn Powerstone: Coming into play tapped sucks, but 3 cmc for two mana is still a great rate.

Gilded Lotus: Make the jump from 5 to 8 mana. Some of our dragons are ridiculously expensive, and this helps guarantee we can cast them.

Reanimation

• Animate Dead: Yeah it weakens the creature it brings back, but at 2 CMC this is a seriously solid reanimation spell. I would run more if I could.

• Chainer, Nightmare Adept: New card from C19, and he is beautiful. A discard outlet, reanimation source, and haste-enabler all in one card. This is exactly what this deck wants. WOTC, please print more stuff like this.

Draw & Tutor

• Faithless Looting: Gets dragons from my hand to the grave for cheap.

• Entomb: Puts anything I want into my yard for 1 mana. Deck just isnt the same without it.

• Vile Entomber: Dump a dragon on ETB. Little expensive, but I'll take it.

Interaction

• Null Elemental Blast: Spend 1 mana, kill a huge swath of commanders and other multicolor threats. Can notably hit multicolored enchantments, something rakdos normally struggles to do.

• Vandalblast: Wipe away everyone else's artifacts.

• Feed the Swarm: Rakdos FINALLY has targeted enchantment removal that doesn't cost a million mana. Rejoice, my brethren.

• Terminate: Kill a creature dead.

• Dreadbore: Sorcery-speed Terminate that also hits walkers.

• Rakdos Charm: This will usually gank an artifact, but hey, sometimes exiling a graveyard can mean the difference between life and death. And killing someone with the last mode will get you high.

• Toxic Deluge: Pay some life, kill a bunch of dudes. Live life on the edge.

• Bedevil: Nice and simple - kills a wide variety of threats for a reasonable price.

• Oubliette: Send an enemy commander directly to jail. They do not pass go. They do not collect $200. Against some color combos, resolving this just shuts of their deck entirely.

• Blasphemous Act: See that hefty mana cost? Yeah, this will never cost more than one mana. Kills most boards.

Strategy

The gameplan here is realllyyyy simple: Put your dragons in the graveyard, then bring them back. Turn them sideways and smack everyone in the face. Rinse and repeat until everybody else is dead.

1. Start the game by looting and ramping until your graveyard is full of dragons and your hand is full of reanimation spells. Get a haste-enabler like Anger or Dragon Tempest ASAP.
2. If nothing's in your 'yard, ramp until you can hardcast some of your dragons. Keep some reanimation spells ready for when they die.
3. Dragon Tempest, Scourge of Valkas, and Terror of the Peaks let you take start spreading some damage around the table once you start dropping dragons.
4. Keep dropping dragons and turning them sideways until you win. If your dragons die, bring them back. Having a reanimate-on-a-stick in the command zone makes it easy to get back in the game after your stuff is killed.

Or, if you just want to kill the table out of nowhere...

NOTE: the following combos no longer apply to this specific iteration of the deck, but I'm going to leave them here, because they might be helpful to others.

Combo 1, Copy Shenanigans

Bladewing the Risen goes infinite with any copy effect. It goes like this:

1. Make a copy of Bladewing using Molten Echoes/copy effect of your choice.

2. Now, before the copy's ETB ability goes on the stack, the game sees that you have two legendary creatures named Bladewing the Risen. The game does not like this. The Legend Rule demands sacrifice.

3. Sacrifice the original Bladewing to the legend rule. Bladewing hits the grave.

4. Now the copy's ETB ability goes on the stack. You get to reanimate a dragon.

5. Look at that, there's a Bladewing the Risen in your graveyard! Since it was in the graveyard before the reanimation trigger went on the stack, its a valid target. Bring it back.

6. Bladewing hits the field. Legend rule raises it's ugly head. Once again, sacrifice the non-copy Bladewing.

7. Bladewings ability goes on the stack, and it neither knows nor cares that the Bladewing in your yard is the same Bladewing the ability came from in the first place. Repeat step 5.

8. Keep on reanimating and sacrificing Bladewing ad infinitum. If you have Dragon Tempest, Scourge of Valkas, or Terror of the Peaks out, you win by pinging the entire table to death. Alternatively, you can use Boltwing Marauder to infinitely pump your dragons, then swing the old fashioned way.

Combo 2, Infinite Courser Boogaloo

1. Have a free sac outlet out, like Goblin Bombardment or Immersturm Predator.

2. Cast Hellkite Courser, then sac the Courser in response to its own etb.

3. Courser's etb brings out Bladewing. Sac Bladewing in response to its etb too, and let Bladewing go back to the command zone.

4. Bring back Courser with Bladewing's etb, then sac it in response to its own etb again. Bring out Bladewing.

5. Rinse and repeat for infinite etbs. If you have Goblin Bombardment/Dragon Tempest/Scourge of Valkas/Terror of the Peaks out, you win by infinite damage. Can also pump your team with Boltwing Marauder, or put infinite gold counters on Dragon's Hoard I guess.

{B}{B}{R}{R} Archidekt link if you prefer that kind of thing

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Date added	8 years
Last updated	6 months
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	99
Avg. CMC	3.90
Tokens	Copy Clone, Dragon 5/5 R, Dragon 6/6 R, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
Folders	EDH, Commander, commander, new decks, EDH, Decks to look into, Future Deck Ideas, Cool decks, decks, Commander