MTG Salvation

Rix Maadi Guildmage, the Salt in the Wound

This is part of my series of Ravnica guildmages. I a fully aware of how terrible this guy is and am trying to make him work. As always feedback, ideas and thoughts are welcome.

I don't think they're a terrible general at all, just not as obvious to build around as some of the others.

Some ways I've been fantasizing about building her in my PDH cube:

Higher than normal land to spell ratio, that you can really pump end of turn mana into burning someone out.

Pauper wipes like swirling sandstorm and bloodfire infusion + the pestilence and crypt rats you already have, to really keep the board prostrate and free of threatening dudes.

Cards like blood lust, tainted strike, blood frenzy, psychotic fury, etc on other folk's creatures. Since you have a lot of leverage over what gets through, you can make anything that connects really hurt...for someone else. Then go nuts with the tax ability.

Quote from Dolono

I don't think they're a terrible general at all, just not as obvious to build around as some of the others.

Some ways I've been fantasizing about building her in my PDH cube:

Higher than normal land to spell ratio, that you can really pump end of turn mana into burning someone out.

Pauper wipes like swirling sandstorm and bloodfire infusion + the pestilence and crypt rats you already have, to really keep the board prostrate and free of threatening dudes.

Cards like blood lust, tainted strike, blood frenzy, psychotic fury, etc on other folk's creatures. Since you have a lot of leverage over what gets through, you can make anything that connects really hurt...for someone else. Then go nuts with the tax ability.

So you advocate a political game and removal that doubles as tricks or forces others to remove the creature for you. That a different approach. I'm wary of some sweepers that will nearly always and unconditionally erase my whole field, which I why I like control of two you said I had. Wouldn't those two BI and SS be more metagame calls?

For the others, I like at least Blood Frenzy and potentially Blood Lust and Psychotic Fury, it will be a rare pauper game for me when a creatures gets to 10 power without dying.

One thing to keep in mind with your general is if you keep all of your mana open when you swing, chances are they cannot safely block any of your creatures. If they block, you give their blocker -1/-1 until it loses in combat. If they don't you either drain them or play more creatures second main phase. Chances are, they'll never block. Now you have a B/R commander that makes all of your creatures unblockable and gives you some reach to close games. I'd personally just run a lot of cheap high power creatures. Rix Maadi Guildmage never needs to use his abilities, but the threat of his abilities can make a huge impact on a game.

Quote from TheFishIsBig

One thing to keep in mind with your general is if you keep all of your mana open when you swing, chances are they cannot safely block any of your creatures. If they block, you give their blocker -1/-1 until it loses in combat. If they don't you either drain them or play more creatures second main phase. Chances are, they'll never block. Now you have a B/R commander that makes all of your creatures unblockable and gives you some reach to close games. I'd personally just run a lot of cheap high power creatures. Rix Maadi Guildmage never needs to use his abilities, but the threat of his abilities can make a huge impact on a game.

We are talking red and black here, their high powered, low cost common creatures tend to have extremely low toughness. The R/B cycling creature might fit the bill, but the deck is also designed to have a high quantity of removal outside the general, so the general is potentially more to mess with other people at the table and help mt creatures stay alive, which can require a bigger size.

What creatures were you thinking of?

I'd like creatures like Canrophage, Jackal Familiar, Blind Creeper, Goblin Deathraiders. Most of the creatures with bloodthirst or unleash are probably solid too. Haste isn't that important if you plan on being centered on your commander since you will mainly want to keep mana open during combat and play creatures second main if they are scared to block. By the time they have creatures big enough to block yours without dying to the guildmage, they should be in range or burn + your second ability. I'm pretty new to pauper but this strategy work really well in limited and I would expect it to work here. Might depend on your meta a bit. Just search for creatures with power >= CMC at CMC 1, 2, or 3. If you want high toughness, Ember Beast, Dead Reveller, Tar Pit Warrior, and Lava Zombie seem alright.

Quote from MiffedMoogle

What creatures were you thinking of?

Butting in...

• coalhauler swine
  
• razor swine
  
• monstrous carabid
  
• igneous pouncer
  
• chartooth cougar
  
• macetail hystrodon
  
• ridge rannet
  
• viscera dragger
  
• gempalm polluter
  
• street wraith
  
• fiery fall
  
• dirge of dread
  
• exhume

Now that I'm thinking about it, and based on TheFishIsBig's great comments, I wonder if this should be your infect deck, rather than korozda guildmage. There are definitely fewer infect dudes in red, rather than green, but Rix Maadi will really make sure that attempts to intercept infect dudes are really really difficult. Red also shares quite a few good pump spells with green, so surprise infect attacks are also quite possible with this build (zektar shrine expedition + tainted strike + pump shenanigans).