When I sit down to build a serious deck, I like to think about what the commander offers. Is it a card advantage, mana advantage, or a win-con? If it’s not one of those 3 things, I usually pass on to the next option.
Garna, Bloodfist of Keld presents both card advantage, and a win-condition, and what better way to take full advantage of her abilities than with a Pauper EDH deck.
Garna’s ability encourages us to want to attack with as many creatures as possible. There really isn’t an incentive not to attack, as our creatures will either get in for damage on their own, die while attacking so we can draw cards, or we can sacrifice them during combat to deal direct damage.
For this reason, the deck wants to be as fast as possible. The mana curve is quite low, with many of our creatures costing between 1 and 3 mana. The ideal scenario would be turn 1 rock, turn 2 creature, turn 3 Garna and attack with our creature. The creatures in our deck are meant to replace themselves when they die, either with tokens or additional card draw, so you should always have bodies available for the next swing.
Synergies in the Deck
One of the best synergy pieces in the deck is Beetle-Headed Merchants, which takes advantage of Garna’s ability to the max. We want to attack with it and another creature, and after declare attackers, sacrifice a creature to the Merchants. We’ll get to buff him with a +1/+1 as well as draw 2 cards (1 from Merchant, 1 from Garna).
The other synergies all revolve around attacking and sacrificing creatures to eke out value. Attacking with the board then sacrificing all your guys to Viscera Seer can fill your hand quickly, while netting you a lot of death trigger value. Or, waiting to sac tokens and lil guys until an opponent’s turn is also an option, since Garna doesn’t require them to be attacking to ping for damage.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game – Getting out a mana rock and a cheap creature should be your turn 1 and turn 2 priority. Keep hands with lands so you can reliably play Garna.
Mid-Game – Garna on board, a few value creatures, slowly pinging opponents and drawing cards. Waiting to find the Beetle Merchants or something like Ulamog's Crusher to become a threat.
Late-Game – Using your removal to pick of creatures and damage life totals, then going in for a big push to knock everyone’s life down to 0 with Garna by sacrificing creatures.
Card Breakdowns
Game-Plan Cards
We’ve already talked about the Beetle Merchant, but what other cards do we have access to that will help us ping out our opponents? Pulse Tracker, Sanguine Syphoner, Falkonrath Perforator, and Agate-Blade Assassin all ping our opponents on attack, which can turn into cards or more damage depending on your access to a sac outlet.
Creeping Bloodsucker doesn’t need us to do anything to ping our opponents, since it’s an upkeep trigger.
Ramping in pauper in Rakdos is a challenge, so I included more rocks that I usually would in this deck. We have the classic assortment of Bonder's Ornament, Fellwar Stone, and Mind Stone. I also threw in one of my favorite cards, Wanderer's Twig, which fetches us a land to our hand. Dark Ritual is an auto-include.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Garna provides us with our primary mode of card draw, but there are a few other ways to draw quick bursts of cards. Thrill of Possibility, Big Score, and Grab the Prize are the classic, red discard to draw effects. We also have Syphon Mind, which can get us up to 3 cards without having to discard, which is pretty good.
This deck allows us to draw a lot of cards, and with 30 creatures, the idea is to always have a body to drop onto the battlefield to replace ones we’ve lost.
Removal
Removal is easy in this color pairing, and we have a decent selection. Terminate, Tragic Slip, Shock, and Lightning Bolt are the usual suspects here. But, we’re also running Oubliette, which is particularly nasty for commanders. Gotta love old cards, there’s a reason they changed Oubliette to an uncommon.
Protection
Garna is the primary part of how we win the game, so we want to protect her at all costs. Most of the other creatures don’t matter if they die, because they’ll replace themselves or help us. For this reason, you want to try to save your protection for Garna.
Armor of Shadows grants temporary indestructible, while Dark Privilege acts as both a regenerate effect for Garna and a sac outlet for creatures, so it’s quite useful.
Recursion
Obviously, running black we’ll be doing some graveyard shenanigans. Sometimes, our high-value creatures will die and we’ll want to get them back to make them do the thing a second time. For that, we have Dread Return, Unearth, and Emergency Weld. They’re all sorceries, but, what can you do.
Additionally, we have Dutiful Attendant, which is a Myr Retriever for creatures.
I like to include the cheap cycling lands in most decks because in the late game, 1 mana for 1 card can be the difference between winning and losing. Barren Moor and Forgotten Cave are both in here.
And finally, I included Tramway Station for a last-ditch effort card draw. 4 mana to sac a land and draw a card is terrible, but if the game stalls out, you do what you have to do!
Win Conditions
The Win Conditions in this deck are centered pretty solidly around Garna. She’s a good Blood Artist effect, and we want to make the most of it. Ulamog's Crusher can be a late-game threat, but it’s not a great option for dealing with multiple opponents.
Using your removal to target problem creatures can create opportunities to swing in with larger creatures or the attack-trigger pingers. Hopefully, over the course of the game you’ve brought everyone’s life low enough that it’s easy to end it with a few sacrifices.
Strengths of the Deck
Resilient to board-wipes and removal.
Always has options for drawing cards.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Comes out of the gate strong, can falter sometimes in late-game.
Imprisoned in the Moon effects hurt us a lot, since Garna is our keystone card.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, I don’t think Garna is the next big cPDH thing. She’s tough, her ability gives us a solid advantage, but as games drag on, we’re sometimes left without much to do.
That’s not to say that she isn’t fun, her ability really puts the Rakdos party line to work, and when you’re up, you’re up.
I enjoyed building this deck, and at it’s cheapest it’s only $30, so hopefully you can put it together and give it a shot, too.
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