Overview:

This Rakdos deck helmed by Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls employs a life-drain attrition strategy, leveraging incremental damage triggers, forced sacrifices, and punishing card draw to whittle opponents down. Valgavoth acts as both a scaling threat and card advantage engine, rewarding the deck's core strategy of dealing repeated small life losses to opponents. Secondary themes include stax-like effects (Harsh Mentor, Rampaging Ferocidon) and board wipe synergies with death triggers (Blood Artist, Syr Konrad, the Grim). The deck lacks infinite combos but threatens lethal through layered damage sources and commander damage as Valgavoth grows.

Primer:

Core Strategy Execution:

1. Early Setup (Turns 1-4): Deploy mana rocks (Sol Ring, Rakdos Signet), damage engines (Kederekt Parasite, Stormfist Crusader), and deterrents (Harsh Mentor). Use targeted removal (Infernal Grasp, Feed the Swarm) to disrupt opponents.
2. Midgame Triggers (Turns 4-7): Cast Valgavoth and activate its Ward protection. Deploy key engines like Spiteful Visions, Braids, Arisen Nightmare, or Mogis, God of Slaughter. Use symmetrical draw/damage effects to trigger Valgavoth's ability every turn cycle.
3. Late Game Domination (Turns 8+): Resolve board wipes (Blasphemous Act, Decree of Pain) paired with death triggers. Deploy finishers like Gray Merchant of Asphodel or Kaervek the Merciless. Protect Valgavoth with Lightning Greaves to accumulate +1/+1 counters and card advantage.

Mulligan Priorities:

• Keep hands with 3+ lands (including color fixing) and at least 1 early play (ramp, engine, or removal).
• Prioritize cards that trigger life loss on opponents' turns (Fate Unraveler, Nightshade Harvester).
• Avoid hands lacking damage sources or with excessive high-CMC spells.

Key Tips:

• Time board wipes to maximize death triggers when you have Blood Artist-type effects active.
• Use Theater of Horrors to bypass hand depletion from symmetrical draw effects.
• Rakdos, Lord of Riots enables casting high-impact demons/artifacts after triggering Valgavoth.

Weaknesses:

Critical

• Heavy reliance on Valgavoth staying active for card advantage; repeated removal can cripple the deck.
• Limited protection against enchantment/artifact hate targeting key engines (Spiteful Visions, Theater of Horrors).

Moderate

• Struggles against lifegain strategies due to limited "players can't gain life" sources beyond Rampaging Ferocidon.
• Slow to recover from early board wipes that reset damage engine setups.

Minor

• Some mana sources enter tapped (Canyon Slough, Temple of Malice), slightly slowing early plays.
• Limited instant-speed interaction for stack-based combos.

Most Important Cards:

• Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls (Card advantage engine + scaling threat)
• Syr Konrad, the Grim (Massive damage amplifier via graveyard interactions)
• Braids, Arisen Nightmare (Forced sacrifice engine + card advantage)
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel (Game-ending life swing)
• Blasphemous Act (Synergistic board wipe)
• Spiteful Visions (Symmetrical draw/damage engine)
• Mogis, God of Slaughter (Persistent damage pressure)
• Rakdos, Lord of Riots (Cost reduction for high-impact plays)
• Kaervek the Merciless (Spell-based damage multiplier)
• Blood Artist (Death trigger payoff)

Attribute Ratings:

Speed: 5/10
Threatens wins around T9-11 through accumulated damage but lacks fast combo potential.

Resilience: 5/10
Moderate recursion (Syr Konrad, Shifting Woodland) but over-reliant on Valgavoth staying active.

Consistency: 6/10
Multiple redundant damage engines but limited tutors for key pieces.

Interaction: 6/10
Solid targeted removal suite but lacks counterspells/graveyard interaction.

Rating Justification:

The deck demonstrates focused casual power with reliable incremental damage but lacks the speed (T9-11) and redundancy of optimized lists. Its resilience is hampered by commander dependency, aligning it with the "Focused Casual" tier that wins via slow combos/attrition.

Power level: 4.5 - 5.0