In my last “New Perspectives” article, I tackled some different aggressive decks built around Domri, Anarch of Bolas, which you can find here. This week’s article is dedicated to the OG angry cow dad, Angrath, the Flame-Chained. The selection of Oathbreakers in Rakdos colors is somewhat limited at the moment, but I think this iteration of Angrath is one of the more interesting and flexible options currently available to the color combination. As always, I’ll be going over three different builds of this Oathbreaker with three different Signature Spells.
The Oathbreaker
Let’s begin by taking a look at the individual abilities on Angrath, the Flame-Chained.
This +1 ability is pretty solid, especially in a multiplayer format like Oathbreaker. In a four-player game, this ability will essentially be doing a collective 6 damage to your opponents, and it will get rid of somehwere between zero and three cards from your opponents’ hands (depending on whether or not they’re already empty-handed). Discard-based strategies are obviously a great fit for this kind of effect, but this ability doesn’t require any additional synergy/support to do some serious damage over the course of a game.
Three loyalty may seem like a bit of a high cost for an Act of Treason, but this ability does come with the additional upside of sometimes functioning as spot removal. There are a lot of strong creatures in Oathbreaker with a CMC of 3 or less, and even if you end up targeting a larger creature, you can always use another sacrifice outlet to get the same end result. This ability even has a tiny bit of political potential since you can borrow one opponent’s creature to team up against another opponent. In the right deck, this ability is more akin to Slave of Bolas than Act of Treason, and I’ll happily pay three loyalty for that effect.
Like many planeswalker ultimates, Angrath’s final ability isn’t something that most players will want to build an entire deck around; however, there’s no doubt that this -8 packs a punch. By the time you get Angrath to 8 loyalty, you’ll likely have used his +1 ability at least four times, and graveyards tend to become pretty full on their own over the course of a game anyways. I wouldn’t count on being able to use this ability every game you play with Angrath, but it is a very worthy ultimate for the angry cow dad.
It’s not surprising that Angrath, the Flame-Chained is currently the second most popular Rakdos Oathbreaker; his abilities are all fairly strong, and none of them shoehorn him into any particular strategy. Since Angrath’s design is so open-ended, there’s plenty of deck building potential with him at the helm of an Oathbreaker deck.
Build #1: Rakdos Steal ‘n Sac
Decklist: An Angrath Fling
This first list is very much modeled after Angrath’s -3 ability, in that it’s all about stealing your opponents’ creatures and sacrificing them for your own gain. On top of more traditional sacrifice shenanigans, this Angrath build is geared towards taking opposing threats, turning them against their owners, and using them as fuel for our own deck afterwards. This deck’s Signature Spell, Fling, is one of this list’s funnier ways to sacrifice a stolen creature, but we have no shortage of other options. The usual nightmare-scenario for this style of deck is running into a bunch of decks with low creature-counts, so this list is also running plenty of its own sacrifice fodder to keep the value train running.
- What’s Your’s is Mine: Even though our Oathbreaker can help us take our opponents’ creatures, we’ll need plenty of redundant enablers for this kind of strategy. Claim the Firstborn and Wrangle can both only target low-cost creatures, but they’re also our most mana-efficient Threaten effects. Kari Zev’s Expertise and Mark of Mutiny both cost a little more, though they do come with their own additional upsides. Our most narrow theft effect is definitely Opportunistic Dragon, but then again, it comes stapled onto a dragon, so I’m not complaining! If we wanna go a bit bigger, we can use Mass Mutiny or Mob Rule to steal multiple creatures from across the board. We can even use certain triggered abilities, such as those on Kaya’s Ghostform and Nightmare Shepherd, to keep our opponents’ creatures for a little longer.
- Sacrifice Outlets: Our Oathbreaker and Signature Spell can help out a bit in the sacrifice department, but having numerous free, repeatable sacrifice outlets will ensure we can sacrifice as much as we need. Viscera Seer, Woe Strider, and Yahenni, Undying Partisan are all creatures that have become staples in sacrifice-based strategies, and Goblin Bombardment will help us peck away at opposing Oathbreakers and life totals. Cards like Recurring Nightmare and Victimize act as both sacrifice outlets and recursion, which will help make sure we don’t run out of fuel. Hazoret’s Favor is an interesting enchantment that’s especially helpful in this type of deck since we’re already planning on throwing our opponents’ creatures against our opponents. This list is also running an assortment of other value-filled, one-off sacrifice outlets, including Culling the Weak, Diabolic Intent, Spark Harvest, and Village Rites.
- Sacrifice Fodder: As I mentioned before, we’ll also need some extra sacrifice fodder just in case we run into a table of decks that are low on creatures. Footlight Fiend and Perilous Myr each deal a little targeted damage upon death, whereas Serrated Scorpion and Tattered Mummy drain each of our opponents. Vindictive Lich‘s death trigger is even deadlier, and it generously spreads its effects across the table. We’re also running a suite of cheap token generators, including Carrier Thrall, Discordant Piper, Doomed Dissenter, Grim Initiate, and Orzhov Enforcer. We can even turn our opponents’ creatures into token generators for us with the help of Anax, Hardened in the Forge!
Build #2: Rakdos Burn
Decklist: Angrath’s Breath
Most players tend to go mono-red if they want to play a burn deck, but adding black to the mix opens up some other interesting possibilities. Angrath’s +1 ability is obviously pretty handy for this kind of strategy, but I’m even more excited for this list’s Signature Spell: Breath of Malfegor. Five mana is quite the heavy cost, but I think dealing five damage to the rest of the table is certainly worth it; however, this deck doesn’t solely rely on its Oathbreaker and Signature Spell. Rakdos colors have plenty of spicy tools at its disposal, creature and noncreature alike. The biggest downside to playing burn in Oathbreaker is that you have to be able to burn out multiple opponents, and I’ve built this list with this particular challenge in mind.
- Creature Burn: Burn spells are the hallmark of many powerful burn builds, but there are plenty of creatures that will be just as helpful with burning our opponents out. Blisterspit Gremlin, Brimstone Trebuchet, Cinder Pyromancer, and Thermo-Alchemist all tap to ping our opponents, and we can reliably untap most of these creatures multiple times in a single turn with this build. Spawn of Mayhem will also peck away at our opponents’ life totals during our upkeep, in addition to punching them during combat. Other creatures, like Tectonic Giant and Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger, can net some guaranteed damage whether or not they’re blocked, as long as they’re able to attack. We’re also running Fanatic of Mogis as an additional explosive finisher, since this list has such a high number of red permanents (21, including Angrath himself).
- Noncreature Burn: On top of all our heavy-hitting creatures, this list is running its fair share of burn spells. I’ve included a few targeted burn spells, like Lightning Bolt and Skewer the Critics, but we’ll need more burn spells that hit the entire table. Fiery Confluence and Price of Progress are two powerful options, as is the back end of Cut / Ribbons. We can also use the +1 abilities on Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Chandra, Awakened Inferno to peck away at our opponents over the course of the game.
- Extra Support: There’s more than one way to burn ‘em out, and this deck isn’t lacking in variety. Mogis, God of Slaughter will make it so if our opponents want to keep all of their creatures, it’ll cost them. Vial Smasher the Fierce is another rakdos-colored legend that will haphazardly bombard our opponents throughout the game, and she pairs especially well with our high-cost Oathbreaker/Signature Spell. We can take further advantage of all of our burn effects with Chandra’s Incinerator, and all of our damage dealers will be even more threatening with Torbran, Thane of Red Fell in play. If necessary, we can attempt to turn our opponents against each other with cards like Disrupt Decorum, The Akroan War, and Xantcha, Sleeper Agent. We’ve even got opposing lifegain covered thanks to Tainted Remedy and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator. Last, but certainly not least, is Fires of Invention. This enchantment is generically strong, but it’s particularly powerful in this list since it lets us easily cast Breath of Malfegor numerous times in a game (yes, we’ll still have to pay commander tax, but that’s all).
Build #3: Rakdos Minotaur Tribal
Decklist: Angrath’s War Cry
Despite having zero inherent synergy in a minotaur tribal strategy, Angrath has become the planeswalker of choice for minotaur tribal decks in Oathbreaker solely for flavor reasons. Rakdos colors are also fortunately the go-to color combo for minotaurs, so we’ll have access to all the tools we need. There are numerous fair options for a Signature Spell for this kind of deck, but there’s one choice that clearly stands out to me: Deathbellow War Cry. This spicy sorcery is a bit on the expensive side for Oathbreaker in terms of mana-cost, and it certainly won’t be the easiest Signature Spell to resolve in a game. Even still, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to try out this five-star jank, and I think it’s very fitting for minotaur tribal; it’s risky, but the risk makes it all the more rewarding if you manage to pull it off.
- Mana Ramp: If we want to have a reasonable shot at casting our Signature Spell, we’ll need a bit more ramp than usual. This list is running the usual two-drop mana rocks you see in these colors, more specifically Arcane Signet, Rakdos Signet, and Talisman of Indulgence. We can also get an extra, temporary boost from Desperate Ritual and Pyretic Ritual, when necessary. Surprisingly enough, there are also a pair of particularly helpful minotaurs when it comes to mana acceleration. Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion will turn any unhelpful cards into a sudden surge of mana, and Neheb, the Eternal will reward us with even more for bringing the pain to our opponents (an effect that works especially well with Angrath’s +1 ability!).
- Minotaurs Matter: Minotaurs are certainly not MTG’s most supported tribe, but they do have their fair share of tools at their disposal. First off, this tribe has access to many of the more “generic” tools that every tribe has, such as Metallic Mimic and Molten Echoes. Two tribal sorceries that land in the same category are Kindred Dominance and Patriarch’s Bidding, which are handy pieces of mass removal and mass recursion, respectively. As far as minotaur-specific tribal support goes, we can deploy our threats especially fast with the help of Ragemonger‘s cost reduction effect. We can also make our minotaurs even more devastating in combat with the help of “lords” likes Felhide Petrifier, Kragma Warcaller, Rageblood Shaman, and Neheb, the Worthy. To top it all of, we’re running this tribe’s newest addition straight out of Jumpstart; Sethron, Hurloon General. This beefy boy’s triggered ability will help us beef up our board presence, and his hectic activated ability will let us close out the game even quicker.
- Other Minotaurs: Every tribal list has their share of “filler” creatures that don’t specifically care about creature types, and minotaurs are no exception. Glint-Horn Buccaneer is a low-cost, hasty threat, and its triggered ability shares a little incidental synergy with some of our other creatures. We can use Felhide Spiritbinder‘s triggered ability to temporarily double up on one of our more deady threats, such as Fanatic of Mogis. Karplusan Minotaur is one of this list’s funnier inclusions, but its downside can actually be used for political benefit in a multiplayer setting, not to mention its synergy with Felhide Petrifier. Tahngarth, Talruum Hero also pairs pretty well with deathtouch, and he already comes with one of the best keywords in Oathbreaker. I’ve also opted to run a pair of powerful changelings in this list, those being Changeling Outcast and Taurean Mauler.
Shared Cards
Here’s a quick overview of what notable cards each of the lists share with each other.
- Burn & Minotaurs: Arcane Signet, Rakdos Signet, Talisman of Indulgence, The Elderspell, Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual, Lightning Bolt, and Fanatic of Mogis
Angry, Angry Angrath
Angrath, the Flame-Chained has been on my “short list” of Oathbreakers to cover since I started this blog, so I’m glad I’ve finally gotten the chance to go over him. I always planned on including a burn list and a sacrifice-based list for this Oathbreaker, but minotaur tribal was a bit of a surprising addition for me. The recent printing of Sethron, Hurloon General is what finally gave me the courage to tackle minotaur tribal, and although they’re certainly not the most competitive tribe, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with their effectiveness.
Have you tried building around Angrath, the Flame-Chained in Oathbreaker? Are there any others way you do/would want to build around him in Oathbreaker? Make sure to share your thoughts and brews with me in the comments or on Twitter!
About the author: My name is Alex Enders. I am a college student that’s been playing MTG for almost eight years, though I only recently began experimenting with writing content. My personal formats of choice are Oathbreaker, EDH, and draft. My other interests include music, education, and most things nerdy. You can find me on Twitter (@AAAEnders) or email me at aenders2112@gmail.com