RakdosLegendary Creature — Goblin MercenaryVial Smasher, Gleeful Grenadier
Mana value2Rank#9,707
The Commander
Whenever another outlaw you control enters, Vial Smasher deals 1 damage to target opponent. (Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues, and Warlocks are outlaws.)
Guide
Gameplan
Flood the board with cheap outlaws (Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues, Warlocks) and tokens so every creature that enters pings an opponent for 1, then multiply those triggers and convert tokens into bigger damage. You curve out aggressively, develop a wide board, and chip life totals down while sacrificing/recurring outlaws for incremental reach.
Strengths
- Commander damage is incidental and unblockable—pings get through stax, fog, and big blockers
- Outlaw is an enormous, well-supported creature pool in BR, making the deck easy to build
- Token doublers and flicker effects turn each Vial Smasher trigger into multiple points of damage
- Low curve and a 2-mana commander mean fast, resilient starts even after wipes
Weaknesses
- Pings are slow against high life totals and lifegain decks—needs critical mass to matter
- Heavily reliant on a wide board, so it folds to sweepers and Pyroclasm effects
- Each trigger hits only one opponent, so spreading damage in 4-player pods is inefficient
- No built-in card advantage; can run out of gas if creatures stop entering
Key Cards
- Impact Tremors — Doubles up on Vial Smasher's ping by dealing damage to each opponent whenever any creature enters.
- Purphoros, God of the Forge — Adds 2 damage to all opponents per creature ETB, massively scaling your token floods alongside the commander.
- Krenko, Mob Boss — Generates a flood of Goblin (Mercenary-adjacent) tokens to maximize creature-enters triggers.
- Anointed Procession — Doubles every token, which doubles the number of outlaw ETBs feeding Vial Smasher.
- Pitiless Plunderer — Turns sacrificed outlaws into Treasure, fueling recasts and more ETB triggers.
- Goblin Bombardment — Free sacrifice outlet that converts your wide outlaw board into direct damage as a backup wincon.
Upgrade Path
Lean into ETB-damage multipliers (Impact Tremors, Purphoros, Terror of the Peaks) and token doublers (Anointed Procession, Mondrak) so each outlaw entering deals far more than one. Add a sacrifice engine—Mayhem Devil, Pitiless Plunderer, Bastion of Remembrance—to create repeatable damage loops and recur creatures via Sakashima or blink. Tighten the curve and add fast mana (Treasures, Sol Ring, ritual effects) to deploy multiple outlaws per turn before opponents stabilize.
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
- ▸Death by a thousand cuts—accumulated Vial Smasher pings plus ETB damage doublers
- ▸Wide aggressive outlaw beatdown backed by go-wide anthems
- ▸Sacrifice loops with Goblin Bombardment or Mayhem Devil draining each opponent
- ▸Purphoros/Impact Tremors blowouts after a mass token dump
Archetypes
- Outlaw Tribal Aggro — The commander rewards playing as many Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues, and Warlocks as possible, each one dealing damage on entry.
- Tokens — Token generators turn one card into many creature-enters triggers, scaling pings dramatically.
- Aristocrats — Sacrifice and recursion loops let outlaws repeatedly re-enter for value and damage.
- Burn/Spellslinger — BR's direct-damage suite stacks with pings to push opponents into burn range.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BR), by popularity.
