RedLegendary Creature — Mutant Ninja TurtleRaphael, Tag Team Tough
Mana value6Rank#12,641
The Commander
Menace (This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.)
Whenever Raphael deals combat damage to a player for the first time each turn, untap all attacking creatures. After this combat phase, there is an additional combat phase.
Guide
Gameplan
Raphael is a mono-red aggro engine that turns one good attack into many: connect with him, untap your attacking team, and take an extra combat phase to swing again with a full board. You build a fast, evasive battlefield, ensure Raphael (or a damage-doubled hit) lands, and chain combats until the table is dead.
Strengths
- Built-in menace plus extra combat phases make him hard to block and brutally efficient at racing
- Untapping all attackers means you can keep up blockers or simply re-swing every combat
- Mono-red gives access to the format's best haste, extra-combat, and damage-doubling pieces
- Snowballs quickly—two extra combats with a wide board can be lethal out of nowhere
Weaknesses
- Removal-dependent: if Raphael dies before connecting, the engine does nothing
- Mono-red lacks card advantage and struggles against heavy lifegain and fogs
- Vulnerable to fast combo and to control decks that wipe the board
- Needs a critical mass of evasion or a clear board to actually land the trigger
Key Cards
- Aggravated Assault — With a mana rock or ritual it loops infinite combats alongside Raphael's free extra phase.
- Sword of Feast and Famine — Untaps your lands each combat, fueling repeated activations and protecting the team.
- Fireshrieker — Cheap double strike gets Raphael through and effectively doubles his early damage output.
- Hellkite Charger — Another extra-combat enabler that itself benefits from being untapped each turn.
- Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist — Shuttles equipment onto fresh attackers between combats to maximize evasion and pump.
- Druids' Repository — Stores combat mana to chain Aggravated Assault for infinite turns.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana (Sol Ring, Ragavan, rituals) and protection like Lightning Greaves and Heroic Intervention so Raphael reliably connects on turns 4-5. Lean into infinite-combat packages—Aggravated Assault with Druids' Repository or Sword of Feast and Famine—plus damage doublers (Fiery Emancipation, Gisela) for one-turn kills. Trim do-nothing creatures for evasion granters, extra-combat spells, and efficient mono-red interaction to keep the engine consistent.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Chaining extra combat phases with a wide or buffed board for lethal commander/creature damage
- ▸Infinite combats via Aggravated Assault plus a mana-untap engine
- ▸Voltron one-shots with double strike and trample equipment on Raphael
- ▸Damage doublers like Fiery Emancipation turning a single swing into a kill
Archetypes
- Voltron — Stack equipment and double strike on Raphael so a single connection plus extra combats kills a player.
- Go-Wide Aggro — Untapping all attackers lets a token board swing twice per turn for overwhelming damage.
- Combo — Extra-combat enablers like Aggravated Assault plus mana untappers create infinite combat loops.
- Stax-aggro — Mono-red prison pieces slow opponents while Raphael races them down unimpeded.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (R), by popularity.
