Do you want to know more about the latest Rakdos (red-black) Commander deck? In that case, you’ve come to the right place, as today we’re going to share everything we know about the Endless Punishment precon so far.
UPDATE: On September 12th, the whole deck was revealed, you can find it below.
Make Your Opponents Pay
First things first, the art on this packaging looks absolutely metal. When I first saw it, I planned to get it just based on that. (Plus, I very much enjoy most Rakdos decks.)
Anyway, speaking of the packaging, there are two lines on it that give us some information about the deck: “punish your opponents” and “make them pay”.
This suggests there will be a lot of punisher effects in the deck. These are cards that give opponents a choice. However, they’re all pretty bad for them, and they typically involve them losing life. That’s also one of the themes of this deck.
Some examples of punisher cards would be:
If you like such cards, you’ll probably enjoy playing with this precon.
Endless Punishment Decklist
Endless Punishment Spoilers
A four mana 4/4 flying is neat, particulary when it can grow further, as Valgavoth certainly can. All you need to do is to make sure your opponents lose life during their turns.
When that happens, you not just put a +1/+1 counter on this Elder Demon, but you also draw a card. At first, I was really surprised how there was no “this only triggers once each turn” text. But, as one of our readers reminded me in the comments, this only triggers when an opponent loses life for the first time during each of their turns. Naturally, that can only happen once in a turn.
Nevertheless, the card is still pretty good, if you can reliably trigger it on each opponent’s turn. Even the ward cost can help with that. If an opponent tries to deal with Valgavoth during their turn, you’ll at least get another trigger and a card out of it.
All in all, this commander is extremely fun to build around. It’s no wonder why so many Rakdos fans are really exciting about it.
Endless Punishment Upgrade Ideas
It’s still too early to do a full on upgrade guide for this precon, but there are some cards I wanted to highlight anyway. These all work great with this deck’s commander, and weren’t reprinted in the precon.
So, if you plan to buy the Endless Punishment deck and want to upgrade it right away, you might want get these soon.
Herald of Slaanesh
Even if the only Demons in the Endless Punishment precon is your commander, Herald would still be worthy of an inclusion. If you play it, and immediately follow it up with Valgavoth, you essentially only paid a single red mana for it. That kind of efficiency is really great.
Your commander now gets haste, plus if you need to cast it again, Herald will help you with its Commander tax a little. Of course, if there are additional Demons in this deck, it becomes even better.
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
You want to make sure that your opponent will lose life on their turn in order to get the most value from Valgavoth. One way to do so is to include Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. On your opponent’s turn, they’ll draw a card and lose two life. This triggers your commander, so you draw a card, meaning you also gain two life.
Of course, if your opponents (or you) are drawing multiple cards per turn, Sheoldred becomes even stronger. There’s a reason why it has been a staple in multiple MTG formats since its release.
Ankh of Mishra
Here’s another card that kinda guarantees your opponents will take damage on their turns. Players typically want to play lands even if they comes with the cost of losing two life. Thus, Ankh is a really cheap way to get those Valgavoth triggers.
On top of that, you’ll occasionally play against a ramp deck, that plans to put a ton of lands into play quickly. Against those, this artifact will feel particularly absurd.
The only downside here is that an opponent could play around it by not playing lands. If that bothers you, so you’d rather use a guaranteed life loss, there’s Barbed Wire. Just keep in mind that it costs more and has a much lower ceiling.
Punish Your Foes
More information about Endless Punishment precon will follow later this week. In the meantime, feel free to check other Duskmourn Commander decks. If you’re a fan of the horror genre, you’re going to really enjoy these.
Until next time, enjoy Magic, and may your opponents always play their shock lands untapped. (So Valgavoth will trigger.)
It triggers once a turn because it’s only for the first time they lose life.
Oh, of course. Somehow completely missed that, thanks for letting me know, will fix it.
Mana barbs
Wow, yeah! That’s a great addition. Four mana is manageable, and the effect can be extremely punishing.
I feel like ob nixilis still is the better version of this but I am gonna pick this up because of the great cards with ping effects that will probably be there