This guy reminds me of Putrid Leech, except he
doesn't have a restriction on how many times you
can pump him in a turn-- more Shade than
Rootwalla. You can also regenerate him--
something else Black and Green both do. Still,
you need mana to do all this, of both RDD's
colors. This could be a good late-game drop in a
B/G deck, as his Shade ability allows him to
maintain relevance, but in the early game, when
he's at his most powerful, you'd rather spend
your mana on other things, right?
Rakshasas have an interesting history in
fiction. They originate in Hindu mythology as
intelligent monsters that preyed on humans but
were not explicitly cat-like, were borrowed by
Dungeons and Dragons to become the
anthropomorphic tiger demons we're familiar
with, played a major role in the backstory and
history of the criminally underrated Eberron
setting, were expanded by the Pathfinder writers
to sometimes have the heads of other animals for
no clear reason, and have never appeared in
Magic until Khans of Tarkir.
The Deathdealer here is probably the rakshasa
most likely to appear in high-level constructed
tournaments, with two abilities that make him
hard to kill and that threaten other early
creatures. He's solid in basically all
situations without being particularly
spectacular, which is basically the same resume
of the entire Rock deck from the Invasion era
long ago; don't be too surprised if he goes on
to have similar success in gameplay.
Today's card of the day is Rakshasa Deathdealer
which is a two mana Black and Green 2/2 that for
a Black and Green mana can get +2/+2 until end
of turn or be Regenerated. In a
Black/Green deck this is an excellent card that
can attack for four on turn three unsupported
and with acceleration can attack for six or for
four with Regeneration as a safety net.
This will definitely see play in Golgari decks
across formats as a strong early game threat and
possible late game finisher with excess mana.
In Limited this is a very strong first pick in
Booster or starting point for a Black and Green
deck in Sealed. The threat it can generate
early on, the defensive power of Regeneration,
and the late game power possible with a pile of
otherwise excessive mana make this a versatile
and effective play at any stage of the game.
A two color deck with balanced levels of Green
and Black mana is best when running this, so
splashing a third color is somewhat
counter-productive.
I haven't had the privilege of playing with this
little kitty yet, but he seems like all kinds of
value. He fits the mana curve nicely as a 2/2
with extra abilities. If your opponent is slow
with blocking creatures, you can attack on turn
three and pump him up to hit for four. Later in
the game, you can use the pump ability multiple
times or save your mana to make a difficult to
remove blocker.
I haven't seen him played much in Standard right
now, I think because he doesn't seem to mesh
well with any of the prominent strategies. But I
would not be surprised to see someone find just
the right deck for Rakshasa and make us all
wonder why we didn't see it coming.
