Zuko, Seeking Honor Spellslinging Combat Tricks

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Article Index

Commander Overview
Zuko, Seeking Honor
How to Play the Deck
Synergy’s in the deck
Phases of the Game
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Removal
Protection
Utility / Support
Mana Base
Win Conditions
Strengths of the Deck
Weaknesses of the Deck
Deck Testing/Matchups
Conclusion

Commander Overview

Zuko, Seeking Honor is one of the most interesting commanders to hit PDH in quite a while. Firebending is a mechanic that can do a lot for us and constantly being able to give our commander first strike and growing them makes us a true nightmare to deal with in combat. Zuko combines all of that in a Rakdos shell, which allows us to play a great suite of card draw, removal, and a ton of combat tricks like Brute Strength, which can guarantee a hit for us and allow us to continue to grow Zuko. While commander damage certainly isn’t the goal for the deck, we can deal a lot of our damage through Zuko, but we have a wonderful cast of supporting creatures to turn all of our noncreature spells into hits that deal additional damage. Zuko has been a blast and performed extremely well at my table, and overall, has a positive and fair impact on the format, not too broken but still quite strong.

Rakdos Combat Tricks Pauper EDH

Command Zone

Zuko, Seeking Honor

Legendary Creature — Human Noble

$27.20

1 Zuko, Seeking Honor
1 Arcbound Tracker
1 Arena Athlete
1 Battle-Rattle Shaman
1 Bellowing Bruiser
1 Bloodcrazed Hoplite
1 Boar-q-pine
1 Crackling Cyclops
1 Erebor Flamesmith
1 Firebrand Archer
1 Guttersnipe
1 Kessig Flamebreather
1 Kiln Fiend
1 Mysidian Elder
1 Pyre Hound
1 Pyroceratops
1 Rodeo Pyromancers
1 Satyr Hoplite
1 Sower of Chaos
1 Spellgorger Weird
1 Stormshriek Feral
1 Vindictive Warden
1 Abrade
1 Ambitious Assault
1 Antagonize
1 Big Score
1 Blood Pact
1 Breathe Your Last
1 Brute Force
1 Brute Strength
1 Feign Death
1 Gimli's Fury
1 Go for the Throat
1 Grasp of Darkness
1 Infuriate
1 Maximum Overdrive
1 Might of the Meek
1 Murder
1 Psychotic Fury
1 Rouse
1 Rouse the Mob
1 Run Amok
1 Rush of Adrenaline
1 Siege Smash
1 Stun
1 Supernatural Stamina
1 Unexpected Windfall
1 Cornered by Black Mages
1 Cosmotronic Wave
1 Crash Through
1 Hazardous Blast
1 Night's Whisper
1 Nighthaze
1 Read the Bones
1 Barbed Bloodletter
1 Black Mage's Rod
1 Burner Rocket
1 Dueling Rapier
1 Javelin of Lightning
1 Mirran Banesplitter
1 Red Mage's Rapier
1 Tithing Blade
1 Wedding Invitation
1 Bestial Fury
1 Ghitu Firebreathing
1 Barren Moor
1 Boiling Rock Prison
1 Captivating Cave
1 Cave of Temptation
1 Command Tower
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Looming Spires
15 Mountain
1 Ominous Asylum
1 Polluted Mire
8 Swamp
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 The Autonomous Furnace
1 The Dross Pits

How to Play the Deck

Playing the deck overall is pretty simple, mostly consisting of getting out our commander and some great instant and sorcery support creatures like Firebrand Archer or Kessig Flamebreather which help when we cast our noncreatures spells and allow us to deal some extra damage while giving Zuko first strike, cards like Guttersnipe are present in this list for the same reason, keep on spellslinging and translating our spellslinging into damage. This deck is very easy to play and suitable for most skill levels. It’s not a good teaching deck, but it is a great option for a newer player with a few games under their belt.

Synergy’s in the deck

Our biggest and only real synergy in the deck is our spellslinging, which I will admit does a feel a bit weird being in Rakdos. Still, it really does work well, cards like Crackling Cyclops and Kiln Fiend not only synergize well with the rest of the deck but with our commander as well. Zuko is fully in a support role in this deck, so getting them huge isn’t a priority, but we are perfectly ok with it going if the opportunity arises. Spellslinging hard is the main thing we do here, and drawing and utilizing Zuko’s firebending to get some extra spells is always worth it.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: We are not a slow deck, and we aren’t super aggressive overall, but we operate mostly like a midrange deck. The early game can have some easy Zuko attacks, but if opponents are playing aggressively and that isn’t an option, that is perfectly fine with us. The most important thing you can do in the early game is play out your creatures and get Zuko out on the field.

Mid-Game: The mid-game is where we start to get a lot better, even if we don’t connect with Zuko him having first strike because of all of the noncreature spell we cast can be a big advantage and make him a nightmare to block in most scenarios, by this point we should also have some great support cards like Pyroceratops or Kessig Flamebreather which can help accelerate the gameplan a ton, we are a combat deck through and through so attacking is pretty much something we will always be doing.

Late-Game: The late-game is pretty alright for us, as opponents boards get bigger we do need to rely on cards like Kiln Fiend or Crackling Cyclops as well as some spellslinging a lot more but we can certainly hold our own at this stage of the game, using big buffs like Brute Strength that also grant trample is a super good way to guarantee some damage, we are a deck that can sit back and let our opponents beat each other up until we swoop and steal the game!

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We don’t ramp at all in this deck, but since the highest mana cost card in our deck is five, we don’t really worry about ramping. If we have one to three lands in our hand, we should be perfectly fine. While we don’t ramp at all, we certainly never run out of things to do and cast.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

While we certainly aren’t a blue deck, we have ways to continue to fill up our hand so we can keep on casting and fulfilling the overall game plan. Cards like Big Score and Unexpected Windfall help a lot with card draw and some extra mana production, which we will certainly never say no to. Night's Whisper and Read the Bones are also cheap options to keep our hands full. While we may not always have seven cards in our hand, we usually have more than enough to keep on casting.

Removal

Since Zuko almost always has first strike we are pretty decent at removing opponents creatures through combat but that is not always an option, because of this we do have some strong single-target removal like Grasp of Darkness, Go for the Throat and Breathe your Last which are all easy ways to take out our opponents best creatures and commanders, if our opponents wont engage with us in combat and we cant leverage Zuko’s first strike and our spells our removal is a great option.

Protection

Our deck is a little more aggressive than most, so protection isn’t something we do a ton of, but cards like Feign Death and Supernatural Stamina are cheap and easy ways to recur cards like Zuko and some of our best creatures like Guttersnipe. Since we don’t have a ton of protection, we don’t have to look for these, but if we have them, we will certainly use them.

Utility / Support

Let’s highlight some of my favorite cards in the deck. Our “ping” package is some of the best stuff we have. Kessig Flamebreather, Firebrand Archer and Guttersnipe are great ways to deal passive damage to our opponents and help us get closer to ending games; they can come down early and do a ton of work throughout the game. Zuko is a huge part of our deck and being able to make them stronger is always better since they almost always have first strike and our suite of free equip cost equipment can help a ton and make Zuko a true nightmare to deal with, cards like Dueling Rapier, Javelin of Lightning and Mirran Banesplitter are all easy and cheap buffs that are great for any creature but more importantly trigger Zuko and can give him first strike for a turn which is great for our deck and exactly where we want to be. Lastly, I want to highlight a couple of cards that help a ton in making blocking very difficult for our opponents, like Cosmotronic Wave, which not only fully stops our opponents from blocking but can also be a sweeper against token decks or any other small creature strategy. Hazardous Blast is essentially the same card and is still just as great; it’s a great way to eliminate opponents.

Mana Base

Nothing really interesting is going on in our landbase. I tested a bunch of different land counts with this deck, and I did find that more lands were better, even though we have a low overall cost. I did find that having extra lands so we can have big turns where we do a lot has been very good and, through testing, works quite well.

Win Conditions

Our only win condition is through combat. While Zuko is a big part of our deck, we don’t typically kill opponents with commander damage, although in one of my testing games it did happen. Combat and non-combat damage in tandem is the best way that we close out games.

Strengths of the Deck

Combat with Zuko and our other creatures and buffing them up and making them bigger is a huge strong suit of our deck.

Since we have so many ways to buff up our creatures we are nightmare to block into.

Weaknesses of the Deck

We can get run over by aggressive decks.

Removal heavy decks can be problematic for us since we have limited ways to protect them.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Black Waltz No. 3. Matchup Record: 1-3

I struggled a lot with this matchup; they have a Guttersnipe in the command zone and have a ton of removal to back it up. I struggled to keep cards like Firebrand Archer on the battlefield, and it made it very difficult to win. Zuko is a big strength in our deck and works pretty well in this matchup, since Black Waltz isn’t great in combat. Unless we are super aggressive, this can be pretty tough.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Feign Death, Run Amok and Crackling Cyclops.

Game 2: Vs Bone-Cairn Butcher. Matchup Record: 3-1

While Bone-Cairn is a pretty scary commander, I thought this was a great matchup for our deck. Cards like Cosmotronic Wave and Hazardous Blast do overtime in this matchup and allow us to wipe their board. We don’t typically care about Bone-Cairn’s passive, but keeping them off the field can be strong. The most important thing in this matchup is taking good attack opportunities while they are open, especially early. As the game goes on, they may not be as open.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Grasp of Darkness, Pyre Hound and Brute Force.

Game 3: Vs Cliffhaven Vampire. Matchup Record: 3-2

A tough but winnable matchup, Cliffhaven’s drain and gain can be a lot to deal with. Combined with their higher-than-average life total, it can be tough for us to ping them down. Being a bit more aggressive and taking advantage of their overall low creature count is the best way to handle this matchup; it’s a bit of a grind. Still, we outscale them by quite a lot, especially in the late game.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Breathe your Last, Maximum Overdrive and Barbed Bloodletter.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this one. Zuko was a deck request for the site and has been an absolute blast to play and mess around with. While I don’t think they are the strongest option for Rakdos, I think they are a ton of fun and perfectly suited for casual play. Playing spellslingers without blue is already a different experience, but in testing, it has been a ton of fun. After testing, I even built this deck for real and have been rocking it at my PDH nights. While the idea may seem weird and wacky, it’s pretty awesome.