RakdosLegendary Creature — Time Lord RogueThe Master, Gallifrey's End
Mana value4Rank#11,927
The Commander
Make Them Pay — Whenever a nontoken artifact creature you control dies, you may exile it. If you do, choose an opponent with the most life among your opponents. That player faces a villainous choice — They lose 4 life, or you create a token that's a copy of that card.
Guide
Gameplan
Build a wide artifact-creature board and turn every death into value: when a nontoken artifact creature dies, the highest-life opponent either bleeds 4 or hands you a token copy. Sacrifice your artifact creatures repeatedly with outlets and recursion to grind opponents out from above while rebuilding your battlefield for free.
Strengths
- Every villainous choice is a win-win: incremental life loss or a free token copy that can itself die for more value
- Loves artifact-creature ETB effects since copies trigger them again
- Punishes high-life/lifegain opponents hard
- Black-red gives top-tier sacrifice outlets, removal, and recursion
Weaknesses
- Needs a sacrifice outlet to fully exploit the ability—dies feel slow without one
- Token copies retain only printed characteristics (legend rule, summoning sickness, no counters)
- Trigger only hits the single highest-life opponent, so damage spreads slowly across a table
- Board wipes and graveyard hate set the engine back significantly
- Commander itself does nothing the turn it lands and is a removal magnet
Key Cards
- Goblin Bombardment — Free repeatable sacrifice outlet that pings while triggering The Master on each artifact creature death.
- Phyrexian Altar — Sac outlet that refunds mana and fuels endless loops with token copies.
- Pitiless Plunderer — Generates Treasure on each nontoken creature death, paying for repeated sacrifices.
- Ashnod's Altar — Free outlet producing colorless mana to chain dies triggers and ETBs.
- Junk Diver — Recurs your dead artifacts, keeping fodder flowing for the villainous choices.
- Marionette Master — Turns each artifact death into massive direct damage, a hard kill alongside The Master.
- Disciple of the Vault — Drains a life for every artifact that hits your graveyard, stacking with the trigger.
- Steel Hellkite — A premium artifact creature whose ETB and ability are worth copying repeatedly.
Upgrade Path
Add fast mana and free sacrifice outlets (Goblin Bombardment, Ashnod's/Phyrexian Altar) so the engine comes online turn after turn, and pack mana-positive enablers like Pitiless Plunderer and Treasure makers. Lean into infinite combos with a drain payoff (Disciple of the Vault, Marionette Master) and recursion (Junk Diver, Myr Retriever) to close games outright. Round out with strong artifact-creature ETBs worth copying and protection for the commander like Lightning Greaves.
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
- ▸Repeated villainous-choice life loss whittling the table down
- ▸Marionette Master / Disciple of the Vault drain off mass artifact sacrifice
- ▸Going wide with token copies and swinging with anthems or Impact Tremors-style damage
- ▸Infinite sacrifice loop with Phyrexian/Ashnod's Altar plus a drain payoff
Archetypes
- Aristocrats — The commander rewards death triggers, making sac outlets and drain effects the core engine.
- Artifact Tokens — Token copies of artifact creatures snowball your board and ETB value.
- Combo — Free sac outlets plus mana-positive Treasure/Altar generation enable loops of dies-and-copy triggers.
- Reanimator — Cheap recursion lets you sacrifice and rebuild powerful artifact creatures endlessly.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BR), by popularity.
