I was aware of the EDHrec page, yeah. Been looking through it already. My hope in posting this thread was to learn of more cards, synergies, and strategies with Valgavoth not immediately apparent.

I'm getting back into MtG after about one year and a half of not playing. Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls interests me because of the awesome artwork and ability to draw cards and get stronger without necessarily being an instant combo commander. I'd say I'm a casual player, but I like any deck I play to be fine-tuned, resilient, and effective in what it does. I still want to win, after all!

For this deck, I'm naturally thinking some kind of burn route with cards like Underworld Dreams and Sulfuric Vortex to consistently trigger Valgavoth's effect on every opponent's turn. Effects that punish the opponent for doing anything will also be effective in triggering the effect and whittling their life totals down. Additionally, I'm wanting to add in an aristocrats strategy for more life loss triggers, value, and more importantly, board control. A discard theme might also be nice, but aristocrats seems like it has more support.

Problem is that I'm not really familiar with either burn/punisher or aristocrats strategies, so I have no idea what cards and engines to put in a Rakdos deck. I have a Yawgmoth, Thran Physician deck, but that doesn't really need a whole lot of investment seeing how the commander is its own sac outlet, card draw, and board control.

tl;dr Valgavoth burn/sacrifice deck for life loss and board control. What do?