The Gathering’s Standard Rakdos ‘Guaranteed Win’ Combos Explained

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 11, 2024 2 Views 7 Min Read
The Gathering's Standard Rakdos 'Guaranteed Win' Combos Explained

Summary

  • MTG’s Foundations set brought new combos like Demonic Pact and Harmless Offering that require strategic timing.
  • The combo with Nine-Lives Familiar and All Will Be One offers a potential one-turn-kill with the right setup.
  • Sacrificial outlets like Beseech the Mirror and Immersturm Predator play a key role in executing the winning combo.



While many fans are now looking at what is coming with the new year, Magic: The Gathering‘s Foundations set was a massive addition to the game that rapidly shifted the Standard meta and added both new and reprinted cards for other formats to toy with. For example, Doubling Season, a favorite card of Mark Rosewater’s, is now legal in Standard for the first time in a long time, and it has nice interactions with Planeswalkers. Although many decks are standing out for different reasons, Rakdos fans got two interesting “guaranteed win” combos with Magic: The Gathering‘s Foundations, but there’s a catch.

Magic: The Gathering is no stranger to powerful combos. One of the best and most used in Commander is Thassa’s Oracle plus either Tainted Pact or Demonic Consultation, and it can single-handedly win the game if played right. As far as Standard goes, combos that go too hard are often tuned down with bans in best-of-one matches in order to preserve the health of the meta. However, Foundations did make two new combos available for Black and Red decks that can net players a win, though it’s not as immediate or straightforward as it may seem.


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MTG’s New Red and Black Foundations Win Combos Explained

Magic: The Gathering’s Standard Foundations Demonic Pact Combo Explained

The first of these Magic: The Gathering combos comes directly from the Foundations set with Demonic Pact and Harmless Offering. This combo is meant to be played on multiple turns, as Demonic Pact requires the player who controls it to choose one of four different options, one of which reads “You lose the game.” What follows is that players need Harmless Offering to cede control of Demonic Pact, but only after the first three options have been used in order to have the opposing player get the Enchantment with no other option but to lose the game at the start of their turn.


Given that Harmless Offering is a Sorcery, players can’t use it at the end step of their turn or at the beginning of their opponent’s turn, as they would normally use an Instant card, for example. As such, players should consider the option that the opponent may have counters to Harmless Offerings or even Instants to destroy Demonic Pact before their upkeep begins, which means that this specific combo is a bit more like “playing the long game.” However, players can also expand the color identity of their deck to Grixis instead of Rakdos in order to have their own counters ready to make sure that combo goes through.

Grixis is one of the five shards from Shards of Alara, and it includes the same
MTG colors
as Rakdos – Red and Black – with the addition of Blue.

How MTG Players Can Win in One Turn With Nine-Lives Familiar


The other combo that Rakdos players shouldn’t sleep on is arguably more convoluted, but it can be a one-turn-kill with the right cards on the board. Mainly, it requires two cards and then any type of in-color way to sacrifice permanents (or even just creatures, specifically), and these cards are Nine-Lives Familiar and All Will Be One. While Nine-Lives Familiar may not be one of the best Magic: The Gathering Foundations cards in Standard on its own, its wording is what makes the All Will Be One combo work.

All Will Be One is an Enchantment that deals damage to a player or permanent equal to the number of counters the user puts on a permanent they control. MTG‘s Nine-Lives Familiar enters the game with eight revival counters on it, meaning that if players already have All Will Be One on the board, Nine-Lives Familiar will immediately deal eight damage to an opponent or one of their permanents.

With any sacrificial outlet, Nine-Lives Familiar can be sacrificed and put back into play with diminishing revival counters on it, though three activations of All Will Be One are typically sufficient to
win a Standard game
.


Some of the best sacrificial outlets currently legal in Magic: The Gathering‘s Standard format for Nine-Lives Familiar include:

  • Beseech the Mirror, which can let players sacrifice the Familiar and then put into play one of the other sacrificial outlets to finish the combo
  • Immersturm Predator, which can generate an infinite sacrifice loop
  • Back For Seconds, which allows for a sacrifice and can also bring back other creatures from the graveyard
  • Disturbing Mirth, which allows for one sacrifice, but only costs two mana
  • Sawblade Skinripper, which allows for multiple sacrifices and also deals additional damage to the opponent
  • Corrupted Conviction, which only costs one mana, allows for one sacrifice, and also draws two cards

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