Dead by Dawn!
Art:Forge Boss
by Igor Kieryluk
Table of Contents
Todays Featured Commander is:
Forge Boss is a super sweet rakdos commander, that does a lot of things we expect to come from rakdos decks with a ton of direct damage to our opponents! Forge Boss is easy for us to cast and the deck is fully built around him and allows us to trigger him every single turn and begin dealing a ton of damage. This deck is a ton of fun and we can easily do a ton of damage to our opponents and end games pretty quickly!
The Deck:
Forge Boss Sacrifice!
Why Forge Boss?
The main reason we chose Forge Boss, is because we can use uncommons as commanders in PDH which is super sweet and adds so much dimension to the format and lets us use so many different gameplay styles. Forge Boss is also a super sweet build around card that lets us play a straight up sacrifice and deal 2 damage to each opponent pretty much every turn. Since most of our sac outlets are instant speed and we can generate a ton of creatures / tokens we can very easily deal 8 damage to our opponents during each turn cycle which can end games very easily!
Deck Overview:
The Deck Overview section features highlighted cards from the deck.
Creatures:
Our creature package focuses on sac outlets as well as benefits for our sac outlets! Some of our best creature-based sac outlets includes Viscera Seer
, Bloodflow Connoisseur
and Blood Bairn
. All of these are great ways to not only get the benefits but trigger forge boss as well!
Since we love to sacrifice creatures, we can also hurt our opponents with this with cards like Fleshbag Marauder
which will not only trigger Forge Boss for us, it will also hurt our opponents board! Chain Devil
has a similar effect to fleshbag and can be an all-star in the deck!
Since we want to sacrifice at least one creature per turn we of course have creatures that produce tokens like Beetleback Chief
and Mogg War Marshal
which are both cheap efficient creatures that produce two tokens and can be easily used to trigger Forge Boss!
Even though we typically can end games before we hit the late-game we have a bunch of big creatures that can be great blockers and help us control the board. These creatures include Rot-Tide Gargantua
which is a essentially a fleshbag maruader on a bigger creature and triggers Forge Boss! We also have Igneous Pouncer
which is a great creature that we can be aggressive with or if we dont need it we can land cycle it as well! Morkrut Behemoth
is a great card that is a huge pile of stats and allows us to sac a creature!
Instants:
Our instants have a bunch of direct damage that allows us to close out games after a few turns of Forge Boss triggers! Collateral Damage
is the perfect burn spell for our deck since we have to sacrifice a creature and deal 3 damage. Breath of Malfegor
is a big mana burn spell that can also help to close out games!
We also have a bunch of ways to draw cards that have a sac outlet attached which is absolutely perfect for our deck! Altar's Reap
and Village Rites
are both great ways for us to trigger Forge Boss and draw some cards! Reckoner's Bargain
is a multi-faceted card that allows us to sac a creature gain life and draw some cards!
While we don’t have a ton of single target removal, we do have Terminate
and Call for Blood
which are both great removal spells that can hit a variety of creatures!
Two other cards that are really sweet in our deck is Feign Death
and Undying Malice
which are both great ways to get back some of our important ETB creatures and continue to sacrifice for Forge Boss!
Sorceries:
One of our best sorceries in the deck is Flame Rift
since we can do a ton of damage with Forge Boss, Rift allows us to deal a bunch more damage and continue to get closer to ending the game!
Since we always are sacrificing creatures we have some pretty sweet ways to produce tokens, these include Krenko's Command
, Dragon Fodder
, Hordeling Outburst
and Empty the Warrens
all of these are just great ways to produce a decent amount of tokens and continue to be able to sacrifice and trigger Forge Boss.
We do also have some sorcery speed removal with a sac outlet attached like Bone Shards
and Bone Splinters
which are just simple great pieces of removal that trigger forge boss!
Artifacts:
Our artifact package mostly focuses on mana production with cards like Rakdos Signet
, Charcoal Diamond
, Bonder's Ornament
and Commander's Sphere
. All of these are standard PDH mana rocks that allow us to cast stuff quicker and are just a ton of help!
Arguably the most important artifact in our deck is Ashnod's Altar
which is one of the best sacrifice outlets in the entire format, with altar we will not only get 2 mana we also can trigger Forge Boss!
Enchantments:
Our enchantment package is really small but is also very important since it focuses on graveyard recursion. Omen of the Dead
is a great way to scry the deck and get a card back from the graveyard. While we can cast omen very early it is typically best to hold it until we have a high value target for it!
Font of Return
is the best piece of mass recursion that we have in the deck and is just a great way to get your etb creatures like Mogg War Marshal or Beetleback Chief back!
Land Base:
Our land base is very simple consisting mostly of basics, but we do have some lands that let us fetch out some basics like Evolving Wilds
, Maestros Theater
and Riveteers Overlook
. The only real interesting land in the deck is Witch's Cottage
which is a great land that can come down and recur a creature for us!
Strengths of the Deck:
- A bunch of different Sac outlets
- Many ways to recur permanents
- Easy to do a ton of direct damage to opponents
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Extremely weak to graveyard hate
- Deck functions worse without Forge Boss
- Weak to lifegain strategies as they can typically outpace our damage
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
We dont really have any combos, are main win conditions come from dealing damage with our creatures, spells and mostly forge boss’s ability! We have a ton of sac outlets, whether it be dedicated ones like Viscera Seer or Ashnod's Altar. We also have have some spell-based sac outlets like Village Rites. All of these can help contribute to triggering forge boss each turn and whittling down our opponents!
Conclusion:
In conclusion Forge Boss is a ton of fun PDH deck that focuses on noncombat damage and dinging your opponents every turn. Even though Forge Boss can be triggered once a turn, it can be triggered each turn! We can use this to constantly damage our opponents and start bringing them down. This deck is a really fun rakdos deck that is well positioned in Pauper EDH and is a ton of fun to pilot!
Special thank you to Paul@scarecrow1779 on twitter for the suggestion! If you have any suggestions please DM or tweet at us on twitter!
Thanks for reading to the end!