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Big, Bad and Mad! Rakdos, Lord of Riots [2025]

Commander / EDH* Aggro BR (Rakdos) Competitive Demons Eldrazi Haste

dylan1119


Maybeboard


This is my attempt to build a Rakdos, Lord of Riots EDH deck. I love Rakdos, and his ability to dump your hand on turn five is just absolutely amazing. He is very susceptible to hate as soon as you drop anything scary onto the board so don't expect to have a game without board wipes or spot removal for Rakdos. Because our commander is so key to the deck, we have lots of coloured mana and overall efficient ramp to ensure that we can either recast Rakdos a second or third time, or just drop our fatties onto the board. With lots of ramp, it is not hard to get 7-9 mana by turn 6. Vial Smasher the Fierce *f-etch* just adds great incremental value by hitting our opponents for free. This build is great fun but has no "Infinite Combos" due to wanting to have a more relaxed game, therefore its obviously not a deck for hyper competitive metas. It has a ton of answers in it and if Rakdos is on the field for at least 2 turns you're gonna have a great time. Overall it's a fun deck and I would recommend it to anyone who loves playing huge creatures and getting to smash face with them. Any suggestions are gladly accepted!

I have tested some of the suggestions in the comments and haven't found a good home for any just yet. The Mox are a great idea and they are next on the list, the Sunscorched Desert is tempting, however there are just so many Rakdos enablers already that I don't think its worth sacrificing the precious coloured mana land slot. I will continue to test more options in hopes that we can make Rakdos as powerful as possible!

Suggestions

Updates Add

—Spring 2019–

1) Swapped out Lobber Crew for Spear Spewer . From my testing the 1/3rd mana cost is much better than the bigger body.

2) Swapped out Hero's Downfall for Bedevil . It is basically a strictly better version of Hero's because for the same mana cost you can hit artifacts along with creatures or Planeswalkers.

3) Swapped out Praetor's Grasp for Oblivion Sower . This was an interesting test, I played over 10 games with Oblivion Sower in the deck and I happened to cast it 4 times. In those 4 casts I got at least two lands every time. If you target the green or land heavy deck you will almost always get at least one land. Personally I didn't really like Praetor's Grasp and when you can cast Sower for free 80% of the time its just free value that gets you lands.

—Fall 2019–

4) Swapped out Thermo-Alchemist for Stormfist Crusader. I think the one card for everyone, including yourself for only 2 mana is really good. It is card draw, Rakdos enabler, and is a bear with menace all for 2 mana. I think it’s well worth the slot.

—Spring 2021—

5) All of last year I did not add any new cards, I only added more foil and special versions of cards I already had. Nothing sparked my interest for good adds to the deck. 2021 looks promising for deck tech so I will post updates as I add them.

—Summer 2021–

6) Took out Sensei's Divining Topfoil and added Scroll Rack. I think the Rack’s ability to potentially throw away a garbage hand and fill it with gas after a Rakdos swing is really worth the swap. Whereas the Top only gives me one card.

—Summer 2024—

7) After 3 years of not playing magic my groups started up again. I know there have been many new cards and I’m in the process of looking at most of them. So far I have swapped out Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. He was 6 mana but didn’t do much for the state of the game. Essentially a “win more” card I think. I put Darkness in its place because most never expect it and it can be a great way to survive a full swing and get the opponent on the next turn.

Comments

Top Ranked
Date added 7 years
Last updated 2 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

22 - 0 Mythic Rares

44 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.08
Folders Demon, Decks I liked, Competitive Inspo, EDH (Rakdos, Lord of Riots), EDH, EDH, EDH, EDH Favourites, compare with mine, so deck robado
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