At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice a creature. If you do, Fireblade Artist deals 2 damage to target opponent or planeswalker.
2/2
Rakdos is a pretty tight section, and Rakdos Cackler is already a staple aggro card for the section. But if Rakdos aggro is a common archetype for you, I could certainly see playing this guy. The card provides a really large chunk of reach if you can't attack, and with all the recursive creatures and token makers, I wouldn't be surprised for this to work better than expected. I know I'd play this card in either mono-red or mono-black, but cracking the gold section is much more difficult.
Good card, but competition is too stacked..
Not convinced it's better than spike jester or Rushblade Commander(I believe it is, but by a very small margin).
I do think it's better than a lot of the commonly played 2 drops that cost 1R or 1B, but ease of cast is an important variable.
Also, between Falkenrath Aristocrat and Judith, the scourge Diva... think he would fall into a distant third if sacrificing recurring creatures was your jam.
Looking forward to seeing what the standard Rakdos decks look like, blown away by their wealth of options.
2/2 haste with upside is a decent floor, but its ability is slow with restrictive timing / use. Sac outlets are strong because they provide value in response to removal, which this doesn’t do at all. I like Judith a lot more as a Rakdos aristocrats payoff card.
I really want to like this creature. Love the haste, love the sac ability and being able to toss damage around. It would play well in a Rakdos aggro/aristocrats for sure. I just feel like there are better cards for Rakdos aggro/aristocrats that I'm not running.
I think this is going to be an excellent constructed card, and I’m going to try it in peasant. It’s got a decent little baseline, and it demands removal even in the face of a board stall, something that usually only gets said of the most elite aggro cards.
How busted would this be if you could sac as many creatures as you wanted?
As it stands, I can't stomach running a sac outlet that doesn't let me sac at instant speed. Believe me I ABSOLUTELY want a playable sac outlet stapled to a creature for cube (preferably mono color due to Rakdos being a highly competitive slot), but this card isn't it.
This is definitely replacing Rakdos Cackler. I played him in the prerelease and he gave me a lot of reach late game. Control decks really saw fear in their eyes when they thought they had just stabilized.
If you support red aggro in your cube (of course you do), Rakdos Cackler should be in your cube. Period. Feel free to move him out of Rakdos, but for the love of all that is holy don't cut him.
I don't think cutting Cackler is that insane. I've been flirting with the idea of doing the same for Judith. The benefit of Cackler is that it lets you cheat on the 1-drop section in both black and red. As far as 2 power 1 drops go, Cackler is probably the most unimpressive, but it helps free up real estate. If you cut Cackler, I think you just need to find room in Red and black for one more 1 drop each.
The way this guy's ability triggers is weird. If it could hit creatures it would be such a big rules headache.
I realize it is technically difficult to template what they are trying to do but sometimes they slave to the technical/legalese of the rules at great expense while other times they just outright change the rules cavalierly and for no apparent reason or gain. Its highly annoying.
I'm sure there is some subtlety that messes up "you may sacrifice a creature to have Fireblade Artist deal 2 damage to target opponent or pw"
yes, there is some linguistic ambiguity (since both parts are intended to be part of the same "may") but if you are pedantic enough there is linguistic ambiguity on probably 50% of Magic cards (or maybe more).
For 1 more mana you can get an extra toughness and deal damage to your opponent or your opponent's planeswalker equal to the converted mana cost of your first spell every turn(theirs and yours) for free. (Also its legendary and you lose haste) but my point is for those considering this and not running Vial Smasher the Fierce, this guy is usually much worse. I think I would have to go fairly deep before this would make my Rakdos section--I have Falkenrath Aristocrat and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden sitting outside of my top 4 as is and they're both better than this.
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Translation:
Rakdos is a pretty tight section, and Rakdos Cackler is already a staple aggro card for the section. But if Rakdos aggro is a common archetype for you, I could certainly see playing this guy. The card provides a really large chunk of reach if you can't attack, and with all the recursive creatures and token makers, I wouldn't be surprised for this to work better than expected. I know I'd play this card in either mono-red or mono-black, but cracking the gold section is much more difficult.
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Not convinced it's better than spike jester or Rushblade Commander(I believe it is, but by a very small margin).
I do think it's better than a lot of the commonly played 2 drops that cost 1R or 1B, but ease of cast is an important variable.
Also, between Falkenrath Aristocrat and Judith, the scourge Diva... think he would fall into a distant third if sacrificing recurring creatures was your jam.
Looking forward to seeing what the standard Rakdos decks look like, blown away by their wealth of options.
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I see what you did there. Lol.
As it stands, I can't stomach running a sac outlet that doesn't let me sac at instant speed. Believe me I ABSOLUTELY want a playable sac outlet stapled to a creature for cube (preferably mono color due to Rakdos being a highly competitive slot), but this card isn't it.
[180 classic cube]
I realize it is technically difficult to template what they are trying to do but sometimes they slave to the technical/legalese of the rules at great expense while other times they just outright change the rules cavalierly and for no apparent reason or gain. Its highly annoying.
I'm sure there is some subtlety that messes up "you may sacrifice a creature to have Fireblade Artist deal 2 damage to target opponent or pw"
yes, there is some linguistic ambiguity (since both parts are intended to be part of the same "may") but if you are pedantic enough there is linguistic ambiguity on probably 50% of Magic cards (or maybe more).