I feel like talking about: Rabblemasters
By fleishdawg |
It's 2015.
Martin Dang just won Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir with this deck:
Creature (15)
4 Foundry Street Denizen
1 Frenzied Goblin
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
1 Lightning Berserker
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Zurgo Bellstriker
Sorcery (8)
4 Dragon Fodder
4 Hordeling Outburst
Instant (17)
4 Atarka's Command
1 Become Immense
4 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Wild Slash
Land (20)
4 Mana Confluence
1 Temple of Abandon
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
10 Mountain
It's almost entirely mono red but for a light sprinkling of Atarka's Command and Become Immense. Martin battled through dragons and sweepers to claim victory. If we take a look at his deck we can see some incredible reach with spells like Lightning Strike, Stoke the Flames and Wild Slash clearing out blockers or hitting his opponent in the face. He's got a damage burst from Atarka's Command and Become Immense. And he has density. Lots of density. Tons of one drop creatures along with two and three mana threats that go wide rather than tall. But there it was - Goblin Rabblemaster in all of its wide and tall glory attacking opponents for silly amounts of damage while leaving behind tons of extra chip damage in the form of tokens.
What is going Wide?
Going wide is an important facet of many aggressive decks. The ability to make multiple bodies with a single card (in Martin's above deck is a perfect example with both Dragon Fodder and Hordeling Outburst) can help decks with an aggressive or midrange slant become more resilient to most types of spot removal and help them attack around larger creatures to chip in damage. As a tradeoff you grow increasingly weak against board wipes and other kinds of mass removal.
What is going Tall?
Going tall involves developing larger, single bodied creatures. They'll beat or at least trade with other creatures in combat but will eat removal spells often without generating some value for you. Martin's deck isn't the best at demonstrating this as usually most aggressive decks go wide (with some exceptions, such as Historic Orzhov Auras).
So what does this have to do with Rabblemaster?
Great question. The original Goblin Rabblemaster is a special card because it can be wide and tall. It makes tokens to spread out your attackers and buffs itself for huge damage. Threats that generate extra bodies become removal resilient as now a Dreadbore won't clean up the Rabblemaster and its token. One of the most important roles the burn spells played in Martin Dang's deck was to clear the way for his creatures. Let's take a look at the cumulative Rabbledamage:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 1 | 6 | 8 | 10 | 12 |
Total Damage | 1 | 7 | 15 | 25 | 37 |
As you can see, Rabblemaster can win the game on it's own and even if it doesn't, often generates enough value worth of damage/tokens to be worth the price on the tin. With the success of Goblin Rabblemaster, Wizards of the Coast started printing more and more good token makers at three mana. Let's take a look at them!
With the coming of Eldritch Moon came Hanweir Garrison and Hanweir Battlements which could Meld into the mighty Hanweir, the Writhing Township. While the Meld was admittedly too cute for many Cubes, Garrison stuck around as a threat. Evaluating it on it's own as a 2/3 for 3 with no keywords makes it come up quite short, but attacking for 4 (alongside the two tokens it makes) allows for Garrison to generate value whenever it attacks. For those employing Human strategies in their Cube with things like Champion of the Parish and Thalia's Lieutenant the tokens Garrison make are even humans! Now in 2021 I find that Garrison isn't holding up the best. The lack of immediate presence compared to making a token at combat like Rabblemaster makes Garrison just a little too vulnerable for my taste. Let's take a look at the cumulative damage:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 0 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
Total Damage | 0 | 4 | 10 | 18 | 28 |
As you can see the damage is impressive. Making two tokens on each attack is a valuable thing and plays well with any Rakdos Aristocrat archetype you may support with things like Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and Judith, the Scourge Diva.
Don't be fooled by the 5c ability on this card. Coming straight out of Battlebond Najeela is an excellent rabblemaster contender that has the ability to scale just as hard. Let's take a look at Najeela's damage table:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 0 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 18 |
Total Damage | 0 | 4 | 10 | 20 | 38 |
Wow, that's a lot of damage! Najeela is special because her damage exponentially grows and similar to some other rabbles doesn't have to attack in order to generate value. However, that chart isn't necessarily activate. Let's say you have a 1/1 Warrior on the board the turn you play Najeela. Suddenly, your numbers are pumped to this chart:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 2 | 8 | 14 | 26 | 50 |
Total Damage | 2 | 10 | 24 | 50 | 100 |
That's absolutely wild. Dealing a clean 100 damage in five turns is a feat not many cards can claim.
Look at this happy little fellow! Guilds of Ravnica's Legion Warboss is a variant that uses the fun but often underwhelming Mentor mechanic. Warboss however uses it in a way that lets it more consistently trigger - he makes his own Goblin every combat in a way evocative of the original Rabblemaster. With such a high comparison, let's take a look at cumulative damage:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 1 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Total Damage | 1 | 6 | 13 | 22 | 33 |
Pretty good damage, but we have to remember - unlike Rabblemaster, while Warboss goes wide he does not go tall. A simple 2/3 is all it takes to thwart our Goblin friend here as unlike Najeela or Rabblemaster he will rarely tradeup and unlike Garrison he'll rarely survive his attack.
Still on Ravnica with War of the Spark comes the second character printing of Krenko. Krenko is a strange Rabblemaster since while he swings in with an increasing size every turn the tokens he makes sit back without attacking. This severely hampers his offensive output but allows you to play a decent two-way game with Krenko making blockers. Krenko also has greater synergy with cards like Grafted Wargear or anything else that increases his power. Let's take a look at his cumulative damage:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 0 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 14 |
Total Damage | 0 | 2 | 7 | 16 | 30 |
Impressive, but slow. The ability to artificially pump these numbers with any power buff similar to pumping Najeela's numbers by having any Warrior out is valuable, but when comparing to the other Rabblemasters Krenko comes up pretty short.
Lastly from Jumpstart comes Zurzoth! Zurzoth's 1/1 Devil tokens are better than any 1/1 Goblin or Human but they require your opponent to draw on your turn in conventional 1v1 Magic. With Zurzoth on the board you can reasonably expect your opponent not to misplay and cast Opt on your turn, so it's good that he comes with the ability to make your opponent draw and discard on attack. Discarding at random feels pretty bad but as the aggro deck you should be able to leverage your resources better than any other deck at the table. Zurzoth plays as a non exponential Najeela (notice it is whenever one or more Devils, you don't get to draw/discard for every attacking Devil) which sadly is Najeela's primary excitement factor. Let's take a look at Zurzoth's cumulative damage:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Total Damage | 0 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 14 |
These numbers aren't truly representative of Zurzoth's damage as each token can do an extra 1 damage when they die, but even with that consideration it's not exactly impressive.
Hero of Bladehold kind of breaks the mold in two different way compared to the other cards we're talking about. It's 4 mana and White. I think it's important to talk about what adding +1 mana can do to a card. First, let's talk about what's great about Hero:
Turns on Board | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damage this Turn | 0 | 7 | 11 | 15 | 19 |
Total Damage | 0 | 7 | 18 | 33 | 52 |
So for 1 more mana you're doing massive damage over any of the three CMC Rabblemasters. So how much does costing 25% more really matter? It turns out a fair bit. Hero does just kill your opponent but remember by the time Hero of Bladehold is doing 7 Goblin Rabblemaster is doing 15. Hero comes with the same problems as all of the rabblemasters that need to attack to generate value - you get 1 for 1'd and that's usually in the favor of the person casting the kill spell. Despite Hero's relative slowness compared to the rest of this list (not you Zurzoth), it's still a card I run for it feels like it's almost for nostalgic purposes at this point.
So what's the point?
Play Rabblemasters! They're great. Having creatures that don't get cleanly answered by standard removal spells and leave behind token value is a great way to diversify your threats. A single Flood spore rabblemaster can kill an opponent if you clear the path as a scaling threat that also allows for you to play a fair game. They allow Red to diversify their threats to avoid being blown out by removal spells and play into other colors and their strategies exceptionally well as they all cost 2R. There are some other Rabblemaster-esque cards in Red if you want to stretch that theme farther:
Anax, Hardnened in the Forge is a card I've really enjoyed in my Cube. Wrath protection along with a dummy strong swinging arm (he usually swings for 4-5 damage on his own) and leaves behind more annoying tokens to sacrifice or swing with later.
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame played only ok for us. Pressuring for two damage feels nice and being a Snapcaster Mage when you need one is great, but I think the token aspect of this card isn't as important as being able to Flashback your spells.
Tibalt, Rakish Instigator is a deceptively good card. Devil tokens are an absolute pain to deal with and the Sulfuric Vortex-esque "your opponents can't gain life" can really matter. If you strip the 3 life off of your opponent casting Lightning Helix you feel great.
Where to reach me:
Feel free to talk to me on Twitter, in the comment section here or on Discord about anything Cube:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fleish_dawg
Discord: fleish dawg #0329
Thanks to Sam and Steve for editing and thanks Riley for the ideas!
Let me know what next I should write about, have a good one and happy Cubing!
Damn. This is great.