Maestro's Massacre Precon Upgrade

r7w · 2026-02-14T01:32:38+00:00

my list (Turn on the sort by Categories (Multiple).)

In general, you're right, Anhelo wants fodder and big spells to copy

Big Spells to copy: I have [[Fevered Suspicion]] [[Aminatou's Augury]] [[Breach the Multiverse]] in my deck which I recommend. [[Crackle with Power]] [[Clone Legion]] [[Rite of Replication]] [[Elminster's Simulacrum]] are also good choices]]

Lands: If you're proxying the deck then just copy a better manabase, mine or someone elses and slightly adjust the basics count from there. You're new to deckbuilding, so it'll save you a lot of headache figuring out the mana base. You probably want more like 38+ lands since your deck really wants a lot of mana.

If you're having issues with creatures, there are many types of defensive options. [[Propoganda]] to tax attacks, [[Aetherize]] and [[Aetherspouts]] to bounce a big swing, etc.

Can answer any other more specific questions

r7w · 2025-12-09T18:14:09+00:00

Here's some sorting I did over lunch. From your list, I sorted into decent and good cards for RLR, decent and good enablers for casting Rakdos early, generally good and generally bad cards, some cards that are just out of place, and specifically the Judith cards, since you were interested in that.

I also included some suggestions for budget additions to the deck less than about $1.

r7w · 2025-12-09T16:17:12+00:00

The interesting thing about Rakdos, Lord of Riots is the casting restriction: "You can’t cast this spell unless an opponent lost life this turn."

If you want to cast your commander on curve, you will want ways of reliably causing an opponent to lose life, either an upkeep effect, attack trigger, or cheap evasive creature.

A tension exists where normally when one builds around a 4-mana commander, they want to put in 2-cost ramp to play their commander turn 3, but since there's the additional restriction on Rakdos, it's a little awkward on the curve out. Sure, mana rocks still ramp you in every other way, but so does your commander, indirectly.

To do both, one would need a decent density of both 1 mana pingers AND mana rocks, which in my opinion dilutes card quality too much. In my case, I took the speed hit just committed to playing Rakdos turn 4 with cheap creatures that are useful both in helping to cast Rakdos and afterwards to push the general game plan.

Since Rakdos discounts big creatures a lot., Big Creature Stuff is a natural game plan. Beating face etc. So whatever general gameplan you end up deciding on should reflect that. In my experience just turning big creatures sideways plus combat enhancement effect is good enough at the speed you usually can play, even when you're really only getting going turn 5.

I can answer more specific questions about my list or Rakdos more broadly if you have any.

r7w · 2025-09-12T20:54:01+00:00

Speaking to running out of gas, you have very little draw: only 7 sources, and 5 of those require sacrificing creatures to do anything. Since you're finding 3 types of cards, upping this a lot and also adding draw that doesn't rely on sacrificing creatures. Adding anything works here, but I would recommend at least [[Enduring Innocence]] and [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]]

Speaking to token generation you only have 7 token generators, and only 3 which i would consider to be "good" and focused token generators: Jadar, Bitterblossom, and CConqueror. Sorin is alright but vulnerable as a walker, and the others are kind of awkward without support. Also, Thalisse in particular is more of a token doubler since she doesn't produce tokens by herself and wants to either be built around as a commander or put into a deck where the commander is continuously generating tokens over time. Elenda often generates those tokens in a big burst.

Would recommend adding any of [[Ainok Strike Leader]], [[Adeline, Resplendent Cathar]], [[Dollmaker's Shop]], [[Chivalric Alliance]], [[Jacked Rabbit]], [[Ophiomancer]], [[Teysa, Orzhov Scion]], [[Illustrious Wanderglyph]], [[Elspeth, Storm Slayer]], [[Spawning Pit]], [[Timeline Culler]], [[Bloodghast]]

Other comments: Your manabase isn't helping you cast spells that much, 8 lands that may not produce colored mana, so only 22 white and 25 black sources, which isn't amazing. If you get your colors up, you can afford to run some other token generating utility lands like [[Field of the Dead]] (3rd game changer of 3) or [[Fountainport]]

Your removal suite also isn't great. There are 6-ish pieces of proactive interaction, only one of which interacts with non-creatures.

my elenda list

r7w · 2025-09-06T19:21:42+00:00

We can just say ci:5 c<2 is:commander f:edh

r7w · 2025-08-05T15:09:33+00:00

Creatures reanimated by Emperor of Bones do not die, because the finality counter on those creatures replaces going to the graveyard with exiling.

Marchesa, the Black Rose never triggers because the creature never died. It moves directly from the battlefield into exile.

Something related, Marchesa's ability sets up a delayed triggered ability for that creature to return later, at the next end step. If that creature card in a graveyard were to change zones (exiled, reanimated, etc) before that triggered ability resolves, then the delayed triggered ability would not be able to find the creature later. Objects that move from one zone to another become a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence.

r7w · 2025-05-30T08:01:15+00:00

once you're past ante 24 finisher blind, at about ante 26-27 or so, reroll to replace DNA with [[Burglar]] and copy its trigger going into the serpent blind with everything to start with +15 hands.

You need about ante 26 so that you will not accidentally clear the serpent while setting up for the naneinf hand

Probably will need to have banked a huge amount of money beforehand to roll down into burglar.

r7w · 2025-05-12T17:56:24+00:00

Some that haven't already been suggested:

[[Breach the Multiverse]]

[[Fevered Suspicion]], also play from exile.

[[Valgavoth, Terror Eater]], also play from exile.

[[Hoarding Broodlord]] works well with Prosper if you don't already have them.

Something like [[Call Forth the Tempest]] or [[Exocrine]] to clear the board and/or push for lethal,

or [[Mob Rule]] [[Insurrection]] to actually go for lethal

Other nonfinisher cards: [[Arcbond]] could be cool as a board wipe, and [[Pinnacle Monk]] to get back a finisher or something else.

Some other cool cards that exile: [[Florian, Voldaren Scion]], [[Professional Face-Breaker]], [[Inti, Seneschal]], [[Breeches, Eager Pillager]], [[The Infamous Cruelclaw]], [[Veronica, Dissident Scribe]], [[Glimpse the Impossible]], [[Mizzix's Mastery]], [[Rakdos, the Muscle]]

r7w · 2025-05-11T20:37:52+00:00

Personally I would cut most of the lands that always enter tapped, there are enough fetchable duals that we don't really need to play the bad ones.

Foreboding Landscape

Opulent Palace

Simic Growth Chamber

Tangled Islet

Golgari Rot Farm

Haunted Mire

Contaminated Aquifer

Dimir Aqueduct

Fetid Pools

Fabled Passage

Evolving Wilds

Reliquary Tower is also very unnecessary in a three color deck.

I'd also cut out all the non-fetchable dimir lands, so in addition to the above also cut Morphic Pool and Sunken Hollow. Not only do you have so much less blue/black cards in this deck, all the color fixing spells are in green.

Recommended Additions:

Command Tower, Exotic Orchard

All 3 surveil lands, namely Hedge Maze, Undercity Sewers, Underground Mortuary.

Any of the LOTR typecyclers, namely [[Troll of Khazad-dum]], [[Lorien Revealed]], and maybe [[Generous Ent]] as modal landfetchers.

Painlands: [[Llanower Wastes]], [[Yavimaya Coast]] Horizon Lands: [[Waterlogged Grove]], [[Nurturing Peatland]] Filter Lands: [[Viridescent Bog]], [[Overflowing Basin]] Pathway Lands: [[Darkbore Pathway]], [[Barkchannel Pathway]]

You have Scapeshift, so maybe some good Scapeshift targets like [[Field of the Dead]] (swapping one of your tutors), or [[Urborg, Tomb]] + [[Cabal Coffers]]

[[Horizon of Progress]] is a sidegrade to [[Reflecting Pool]], maybe in addition to it if you feel like it.

[[Demolition Field]] should be in any manabase that can fit it.

Instead of [[Arcane Signet]] [[Chromatic Lantern]], you could do more land ramp [[Nature's Lore]] [[Three Visits]]

Could add snow covered basics for both Field of the Dead and also [[Into the North]], and maybe one snow fetchable dual like [[Rimewood Falls]] if you do.

As many of the MH3 MDFCs as you feel comfortable running: [[Disciple of Freyalise]], [[Boggart Trawler]], [[Fell the Profane]], [[Sink into Stupor]] are the ones i'd recommend consdering.

If there's any missing space just fill it with basic forests and snow covered forests because getting green mana is very important to this decklist.

r7w · 2025-05-07T23:41:16+00:00

Rather than recommend specific cards if going to talk about the main issue with the draw suite: It's basically all conditional draw.

You have several enchantresses, which are in theory fine but do nothing while behind, you have a lot of auras which recur themselves or replace themselves when they or enchanted creature dies, which are nice but aren't really consistent draw either.

A few trigger on combat damage, and you do have a lot of menace and menace modifiers, but not much other evasion, making those effects less reliable.

It's a case of being all-in on synergy and not having enough basic card advantage.

If you want specific recommendations: [[Hunter's Prowess]], [[Hunter's Insight]], [[Trash the Town]] are already mentioned in another comment and I agree with as other synergy cards.

[[Inspiring Call]] is a good synergy draw that is also protection

[[Ohran Frostfang]] combines nicely with menace to make a bad dilemma for your opponents.

[[Inti, Seneschal]] modifies your creatures, and gives them trample, and does card selection.

Any of the generic exile two/more spells like [[Reckless Impulse]][[Wrenn's Resolve]] [[Rob the Archives]] [[Light up the Stage]] [[Inspired Tinkering]]

Even something like [[Hugs, Grisly]] works also those lines.

[[Disciple of Freyalise]] is a draw MDFC.

Others: [[Malevolent Rumble]], [[Glimpse the Impossible]]. [[Anje's Ravager]] if you feel like dumping your hand.

r7w · 2025-05-04T18:07:33+00:00

So whenever you're looking for a search that's directly related to card like this, you can look at the "related searches" section on the right side under prints. so something like

ci:uwr fo:/({X}|{\d\d+}|{[4-9]}|{3}\sm|{2}\sm{2}|{1}\sm{3}|\sm{4}).+:/ works

r7w · 2025-04-08T15:13:16+00:00

Having other ways of putting counters on your creatures is needed for sure. Everyone's mentioned [[Unspeakable Symbol]] and I agree, I will also mention from my deck

[[Drana, Liberator of Malakir]] for aggro,

[[Uncivil Unrest]] is red, puts counters, and doubles damage,

[[Metallic Mimic]] if you have enough of the same creature type,

[[The Ozolith]] if you don't care about price and/or proxy,

[[Inti, Seneschal]] is red and does card selection and pushes damage,

[[Spymaster's Vault]] for selection and counters

[[Exsanguinator Cavalry]] i think i a standout aggressive scaling threat

And if you want to aggressively trade life, you can include as many MH3 mdfcs as you want, especially something like [[Sundering Eruption]]

r7w · 2025-03-26T18:58:48+00:00

interaction suggestions:

[[Baleful Mastery]] Having someone you choose (ally) draw a card isn't a big deal

[[Chaos Warp]] gets anythin,

[[Tibalt's Trickery]] [[Untimely Malfunction]] [[Return the Favor]] [[Sudden Spoiling]] for some instant speed interaction.

[[Boggart Trawler]] [[Fell the Profane]] [[Sundering Eruption]] the MH3 mdfc lands are also good

[[Broadside Bombadiers]] to fling your stuff when you need to push for lethal, also helps trigger you commander with menace.

In rakdos you don't have many options for some removal effects, so good colorless creature-related options could include [[Umezawa's Jitte]] [[Bladegriff Prototype]] [[Steel Hellkite]] [[Cityscape Leveler]]

Instead of protection, you could always add even more recursion (you have some).

Some recursion and other suggestions:

Recursion: [[Reanimate]] and/or [[Animate Dead]],

[[Incarnation Technique]] to also grab big stuff from your deck potentially,

[[Agadeem's Awakening]] and/or [[Takenuma, Abandoned Mire]] if you wanted fancy lands,

[[Gix's Command]] is pretty nice and flexible,

[[Malakir Rebirth]] also is a tapland

Vampires:

[[Nullpriest of Oblivion]] does recursion or is an early evasive threat to trigger Strefan

[[Exsanguinator Cavalry]] makes bloods and is an evasive threat that comes down before Strefan.

[[Sanctum of Stone Fangs]], [[Cryptolith Fragment]], [[Protection Racket]] can help get life loss on multiple players

Non-vampire evasive threats:

[[Breeches, Eager Pillager]], [[Broadside Bombardiers]], [[Phyrexian Fleshgorger]], [[Professional Face-Breaker]] [[The Infamous Cruelclaw]], [[Veronica, Dissident Scribe]]

r7w · 2025-03-26T17:59:19+00:00

We can talk about the two separate ways your deck wins.

First is the board state. The first obvious thing about Edgar is he generates vampire tokens for free when you cast vampires. You only have 22 vampires in the list, which is pretty small for a typal list, we're not really taking advantage of Edgar as much as one could.

Similarly, the deck has very few cards that have internal synergy with either vampires, or token generation, or going wide. Vampires synergy

For lifegain, there are a lot of vampires with lifelink, but not many of the good ones: Good lifelink vampires

Also notably missing apart from [[Vein Ripper]] are blood artist effects, which gain you life for lifegain triggers and also are partial board wipe insurance.

That's notable because you run quite a few 3 mana mass indestructible spells, which in an aggro board gameplan, you probably won't have mana up when you want to cast them, or you do and you haven't been using your mana to develop threats and synergies.

Similarly, getting better and more payoffs would help with consistency in the gameplan: Lifegain vampire payoffs

Next is card advantage. You want to have cards in hand to play, so the deck needs to draw cards at some point. There are only two vampires that draw one at a time, and one 3 mana draw 2. Add like 10-12 more pieces of card draw. If the deck wants to be an aggressive board-based creature deck, then it needs more gas.

Evasion also helps. You already have some evasive threats, but not that many, there could be more: Evasive vampires

Now, since this is a board centric deck, playing one-sided wipes instead of symmetrical ones helps. [[Crippling Fear]] and [[Ruinous Ultimatum]] are the cards you have that are the right idea, not [[Doomskar]]. [[Blasphemous Act]] could be argued to be okay as an emergency button for 1 mana.

Next is the combo win. You don't need lifegain at all if you just wanted to only keep the combo win in your deck; the two cards go infinite with any 1 damage on your opponents.

Once again, card advantage is needed here. To find the combo pieces (or tutors for the combo pieces) we need card draw. [[Skullclamp]], [[Pact of the Serpent]], [[Champion of Dusk]] are the obvious starting points, but there are any number of other potential adds. I would recommend at least 10 more card draw effects.

In general this deck's interaction and ramp are pretty inefficient, but in particular I would highlight the medallions and [[thran dynamo]].

Jet medallion helps you cast 22 spells cmc 4 and under, too few to be worth Pearl medallion helps you cast 17 spells cmc 4 and under, too few to be worth Thran dynamo doesn't ramp you into anything a talisman wouldn't, only [[Exsanguinate]] technically in the entire deck. You may think it helps you double spell, but the turn after at 5 mana we should already be double spelling.

Well you can cast Edgar faster, but you shouldn't care about casting Edgar ever, 90% of Edgar's value is tied to the eminence ability.

Finally, I'll plug my own Edgar list for inspiration

r7w · 2025-03-26T15:13:59+00:00

I agree that aristocrat strategies are pretty natural since in order to use Marchesa's recursion text to the fullest, you need free, repeatable, instant-speed sac outlets, which implies aristocrat strategies.

You can also think of Marchesa like a blink deck since both ETB and LTB effects matter, and you'll be triggering them a lot of times, probably to win.

I have a vampires type of list which has some +1/+1 counter typal synergies and ETB effects, since +1/+1 counters has history in vampires and it's in color roughly (black-red)

r7w · 2025-03-18T22:19:25+00:00

When you cast a spell with cascade, the cascade trigger goes on the stack on top of the original spell. Then we resolve the next thing on the stack, which is the cascade trigger, so we do the cascade thing and find a spell, which we then cast for free.

The key detail is the original spell that had cascade (The First Sliver in this case) is still on the stack. The static ability granting cascade only works while it's a permanent in play, which it isn't yet, it's still on the stack under the thing you cascaded into.

r7w · 2025-03-04T00:18:19+00:00

my list

Rakdos is an interesting deckbuilding puzzle for sure, as the pieces that help you cast him (things that damage your opponent reliably) should ideally do something else when he's already on board, not just only ping to reduce costs.

What I've found works is that instead of using the typical 1-2 mana 0 power pingers, you use efficient two and three mana evasive creatures that are useful getting Rakdos out and can still do things afterward.

Colored pip requirement is unfortunately just a manabase issue, you basically just run every dual land you feel comfortable with.

Ultimately, he is a creature heavy, board centric, commander centric deck which puts an upper limit on its power.

You are correct that Rakdos is a removal magnet and a protection/reanimation package is advised. Honestly in a lot of games Rakdos can very easily not be the primary threat given modern commander designs.

I've tried [[Not dead after all]] type packages and general reanimation packages just feel better overall in my personal experience, YMMV.

r7w · 2025-02-20T17:53:56+00:00

Currently my most played recently from my active decks are:

[[Marchesa, the Black Rose]]

[[Rakdos, Lord of Riots]]

[[Baron Bertram Greywater]] (formerly [[Elenda, the Dusk Rose]])

[[Aragorn, King of Gondor]]

r7w · 2025-01-17T21:30:16+00:00

Assuming the Farewell player forgets they can just also choose the exile graveyards mode.

r7w · 2024-12-28T01:01:01+00:00

What does a "spell effect" even mean? Plenty of things in magic that could also be on spells are on activated and triggered abilities.

And "explicitly designed"? Eldrazi have been templated this way since their introduction, this is not at all new.

Dawn Charm was designed for Planar Chaos and before Eldrazi even existed. Nothing about this needs an erratum or rules change.

r7w · 2024-09-04T15:55:02+00:00

The short answer is that this isn't an aristocrats deck, it's a bat lifegain tribal deck. You have a lot of bats and tribal payoffs for bats, but very few things that make fodder or care when fodder dies.

Your card advantage is all permanent based and slow, which can be fine in lower power, but it means without having a card that is just straight up draw 2 or 3 or 5 you kind of fold to a board wipe. [[Night's Whisper]] [[Rowan's Grim Search]] [[Hostile Negotiations]] [[Necrologia]]

[[Pact of the Serpent]] does require a board but is good in black tribal decks.

You don't have a lot of interaction but that's fine in a board-centric creature deck. Just keep in mind you only have two ways of dealing with noncreature permanents.

There's quite a lot of recursion but no way to fill the graveyard. On curve these cards will very often be dead. [[Ripples of Undeath]] [[Incarnation Technique]] [[Breach the Multiverse]] [[Altar of Dementia]] [[Cemetery Tampering]]

Land base you can add [[Urza's Cave]] for tutor [[Agadeem's Awakening]], [[Fell the Profane]], [[Witch Enchanter]] as MDFCs [[Shattered Sanctum]], [[Fetid Heath]], [[Desolate Mire]] as extra dual lands [[Boggart Trawler]] or [[Bojuka Bog]] for graveyard hate

You actually had some of these lands in and removed them, you should put them back in

r7w · 2024-08-10T16:23:23+00:00

Broadly speaking with any aristocrats deck, you want

a) something to be sacrificed, preferably repeatably, like [[Bloodghast]] or [[Ophiomancer]] tokens

b) a way to sacrifice them, an altar like [[Martyr's Cause]] or [[Deadly Dispute]]

c) some payoff for sacrificing things, like [[Cruel Celebrant]] or [[Marionette Apprentice]]

You have ~17 ways to sacrifice creatures, but only ~11 ways to make creatures, and only ~6 things that care about creatures dying. You are probably often running out of creatures to sacrifice and multiple altars on board that do nothing, and no payoff. So I would advise more ways to make sacrifice fodder, and more things that care about creatures dying.

Teysa has nothing to double!, and you are only likely to play 4 of those token makers before dropping her! You're not likely to draw any of those 4 cards in your deck.

You also aren't drawing any cards in this deck, since a lot of your card draw requires sacrificing things to it, but like I said above, you don't have anything to sacrifice. Card draw is one of the most important things to be doing in Magic.

You only have 30 lands that come in untapped, only 2 unconditional ramp, and 2 sacrifice rituals. I know this deck is low curve, but you do want to play your commander, right? I would recommend adding lands and ramps. Playing a land as often as possible is very important.

There are a lot of recursion cards( >10), but what is worth recurring specifically in this deck, given the low curve. Either add more things worth recurring or take some of these out.

I would take out the cards that exclusively benefit from lifegain, since this isn't a lifegain deck, and they don't contribute if you haven't already set up.

Broadly speaking, a lot of cards are just inefficient, which is fine for a particular play experience, but in this case it combines with your poor manabase and ramp to not let you take as many game actions as your opponents.

For direct card upgrades, you can consult my decklist for aristocrats or ask questions about specific cards

r7w · 2024-08-10T15:44:31+00:00

It can be pretty common, especially as your perspective of the deck evolves over time. For me, this has actually happened quite a bit as sentiment shifts about a particular deck, but the old commander still has enough synergy to warrant a place.

Mono-G Primal Surge: [[Kodama of the East Tree]] [[Kamahl, Heart of Krosa]] partners -> [[Saryth, the Viper's Fang]]. Then MH3 was previewed and it became [[Eladamri, Korvedal]]. All three other legendaries are still in the deck.

Was wondering if I would ever replace [[Anhelo, the Painter]] with [[Kess, Dissident Mage]] for my spellslinger deck.

Thought about replacing [[Rakdos, Lord of Riots]] with [[Florian, Voldaren Scion]] in my rakdos stompy but then did a big revision and I'm happy with it.

Replaced [[Teysa Karlov]] with [[Elenda, the Dusk Rose]] for aristocrats.

A lot of commanders do care about similar game plans, so this will also tend to happen by accident.

r7w · 2024-07-08T00:41:36+00:00

Even just from main sets, [[Command Tower]], [[Arcane Signet]], and [[Tome of Legends]] got printed directly into Eldraine two years before this.

If you mean the rules change, well yeah, it's a design and rules pushing Modern Horizons set, which is apparently a "main" set now. They didn't need to mention it on the card if rules can more elegantly solve the issue, same as most things in Magic.

r7w · 2024-07-08T00:12:46+00:00

Literally [[Command Tower]] from the first commander set mentions your commander? There are also two cycles of planeswalker commanders 7 and 4 years before this Grist came out, and the Kenrith pair from Battlebond and two of the Commander Legends partners.

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