Pointed Discussion

Gilded Lotus now has a reason to be played. Gogo Grixis control.

"There's a problem with Mind Twist"

"What is it?"

"It's not Red enough"

I think this spell is really good, and a true bomb in Limited.

The thing with Discard was that without Megrim or Liliana's Caress, you couldn't really win with it. Now you can.

I can see this card being played, but aggro wise Blightning is still better.

EOT with Hypersonic Dragon for the most brutal play in STD.

The biggest "F YOU" card in the game now. And I didn't think ANYTHING could beat Blightning for that honor.

Rakdos: So you like to Crush Minds, planeswalker? Here. Let me SHOW YOU HOW IT'S DONE!"

Jace, Architect of Thought: O.O I-am-so-sorry-not-kidding-***ing-my-pants-here-wish-I-was-banned-again-please-dear-WOTC-ban-me-again-I'd-like-to-go-to-jail-now-where-it's-safe....

Having X in the mana cost is attractive to pros like me because we always know exactly how much to spend for X.

A grixis style deck with this some Goblin Electromancer maybe? With all the dual lands I could see it happening. Will it be good? Hmmm.

Mid-game it's a Mind Twist with a cantrip, late game it's a Fireball with a cantrip. Yeah I like this card. Kinda don't think it should be mythic, but can you imagine what draft would be like with this as a rare?

"I don't always blightning, but when I do it's a mythic rare that costs 2 additional mana." - Rakdos, the most interesting demon in the multiverse

I don't understand how anyone can complain about a Blightning cranked up to 11. Kinda wish it wasn't Mythic, but oh well.

The only real problem is ramping enough early game to make this thing really effective. Don't wanna drop this when they don't have a hand, after all. You want to get your money's worth.

WHO STOLE MY CUPCAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I splashed this into my Golgari deck at the prerelease. One match, I made someone discard Rakdos, Lord of Riots. In a different match, I used it to kill a player who was about to kill me with him.

Rakdos seems to be his own worst enemy.

Combos amazingly with Rakdos, Lord of Riots.

Many people are comparing this card to Mind Twist, the other 'Discard X cards' spell. I feel like most folks who do that are missing a huge difference between this and Mind Twist. With this card, your opponent gets to choose what they discard. Devastating, but not as scary as Mind Twist, which forces the opponent to discard at random. Which means it can easily hit crucial lands or combo pieces. Ouch.

People need to realize there will never be another card as good at discarding as Mind Twist was. And that's probably a good thing.

That said, this card is pretty dope.

3/5.
Expect more from a mythic, this could be an uncommon. Nonetheless, good.

Better in formats like Commander where "big mana" is more common, but still not a bad card.

When I saw this, Sphinx's Revelation, and Epic Experiment, I thought there was going to be a cycle of instant/sorcery guild mythics with {X}. Needless to say, I was disappointed. This was the card that excited me the most.

Also, though, Blightning is almost this for {X} as {3}. This would cost {2} more. And Blightning is a common. And this is a mythic.

@BongRipper420, not to mention that Mind Twist isn't T2 legal. Here you have quite a nasty one-two punch combo in a single card.

@Gcrudaplaneswalker
It was the cultists from Slaughter Games, and it looks like they're going to devour them all before Rakdos gets there

This, diabolic revealation, primordial hydra, bonfire, think I'll proxy a standard ramp deck and see how it works out.

This is no mind shatter, mind shatter gets useless when your opponent is topdecking, while this remains a wincondition in a ramp deck, do not underestimate this card, if you ramp it gets out of control really fast.

Man, this card is incredible. They tap out for Jace, Architect of Thought and you trash him and their hand.

If the player has 5 cards in his hands and he has to discard 7 for example, does he put his 5 cards in the graveyard and he the top 2 cards of his library in his graveyard?

I have to give this one a 5, it's a great card to start with, but then I love that it's two parts. Even if the opponnet doesn't have a hand, it's still dealing x damage to him/her. As for getting all your opponents' cards in hand, my Rakdos deck in particular gets a pretty sizable amount of lands, I wouldn't use this until I could get at least 3-5 damage with it, by then, the opponent (probably) won't have a large hand size. (Note: If he/she does, Rakdos' haste would off the opponent quickly anyways).

Point being, maybe this could be dropped to a rare, but it's definitely 5/5 in my book.

@PatatePoulet

No, discard only refers to cards in a players hand, cards that make players mill will say "target player puts the top X cards from his or her library into their graveyard"



I think its halarious that this and sphinx's rev switched places in value when they saw how crappy and easly negated this effect was

4/5 Stars

Has anyone tried using this in BR zombies? I feel like it would be good.

Why are people comparing this to Blightning so much? Big surprise, if you give a card more options those options will cost more (see any charm cycle). Yes its worse than blightning when you pay the same for each but this can be used as a finisher.

This card needs to be jammed as a four-of in every Jund list in Standard. Who cares that it's not always going to empty their hand? It's like Blightning; it's never fucking dead because as long as they have life or cards, it should have a somewhat profound effect on the state of the game. And when the best card in the format is Sphinx's Revelation, you have to push back with equal and opposite force.

If only this were an instant. Then it would properly compare to Sphinx's Revelation. Of course, this would also have to cost or more — and it would still be quite better. As it is, Revelation is the better card. Still, 4/5

Using this with liliana"s caress

this and Charmbreaker Devils. once you hit 6 mana and the devils are out, make sure this is the only thing in your graveyard and you win.

I know people are crying about it not being instant speed but there aren't many (if any) discard spells that are instant speed. Wizards did that for a reason. Think about it. If you could make your opponent discard what they just drew, they would flip tables. I LOVE this card. Nothing like taking away all of your opponent's answers in one fell swoop and the damage is a nice bonus.

@Continue

Wizards have come out and said that they will never print instant speed discard. Thinking about it, activated abilities that cause discard always have an "only in your turn" clause on them. I guess it makes sense - if you could just lock your opponent out of having any cards, it would make the game less fun... and discard broken.

Little surprised I'm the first person to point this out, but if there's an apostrophe after an s, there shouldn't be an s after the apostrophe. So the card should be "Rakdos' Return."

@Max_Glycine: Nope, either is perfectly fine. It's a preference thing.

The opposite of Sphinx's Revelation

@MCcreator & Max_Glycine: Only if the 's' is being used for a plural. In this case, it's Rakdos's, since Rakdos isn't multiple things. It's just the demon himself. In the same way you wouldn't say Thomas', but Thomas's.

With Crypt Ghast for up to 8 dmg and 8 discard turn five?

Empty an opponent's hand and kill their planeswalker. GEE GEE

This is one awesome card. Just start beating them up with your Sin Collectors and Obzedats, and then for 4BR this finishes any control deck along with their Jace. After Think Twice rotates, it's even harder for them to come back. Against midrange this is also superb as long as they don't reanimate (and Unburial Rites is rotating out). The only bad matchup for this card will be aggro, but that's why you also have Boros Reckoner, Warleader's Helix and your choice of 1-2 mana removal.

2 words. Dual Casting.

The card that won France the World Cup.

this card is currently selling for >$10. I guarantee that this will drop, possibly to $5 or less. This is overrated and is nowhere near comparable to mind twist or even blightning. It will fill the same niche mind shatter did when that card was legal in standard, which is basically be a sideboard card in control mirrors.

edit: it is in fact $5 as of this post, although it could go up after rotation. But on the flip side...
http://youtu.be/54FDertxrJM?t=1h20m46s

For those of you who forget: UBR Control is still a thing. This is also decidedly not the only Rakdos card made with Control in mind. There is also Slaughter Games.

This card is one of the few variable CMC cards that gets better the more mana you spend on it. It's a little unrealistic to play this for more than around 7 or 8, because no matter how much draw power their deck has, your opponent will most likely not have more than that in their hand. However, if by some folly(I'm looking at you, Enter the Infinite), your opponent does, in fact, have more than 7 cards on your turn, and you can, in fact, cast this for {9}+{B}{R}, the more power to you.

Combine one of these with a sliver deck with a few manaweft slivers and you start seeing some nice return on this card.

EDIT: Forget it, it's nuts. So good.

The card that has the worst grammar ever in the title.

Shouldn't this be Rakdos' Return?

@Ratoly That's a debate that's been going on for centuries...

In casual, Grinning Ignus allows you to do 4 damage and 4 discard on T4; no card loss. In a more expensive environment, accelerating with Deathrite Shaman (in color) and Mox Diamond and ancient tomb (or another sol land) can allow for a 3-to-4 card nab on T2.

In either scenario, one can imagine that that's game unless it got countered.

Rakdos has the best parties.

This card is quite underrated, probably due to a lack of understanding by those who have rated it less than 5.

Even if it was XBB to discard X it would have been pretty good still since that it is a Mind Shatter (minus random discard), but since it is XBR with damage as well then it is already starting to look on par with the mighty Mind Twist. Remember that twist doesn't have the secondary ability to function as a straight finisher (on its own) while return can in fact outright kill an opponent because of the damage. Now this may seem obvious, but in reality a significant percentage of the community likely doesn't fully understand the importance of that fact.

Now where return really starts to shine is when you look at the wording of the card, and realize that it says "target opponent" not "target player" which is super massive important. Cards like Redirect and Swerve are extremely powerful in general, but in multi they are off the charts good and will be played quite a bit by those with skill and experience. Even in single player an opponent (who can't counter it) is forced to just eat return even if they have a redirect in hand, and just think how important that is to a game.

One of the most epic plays you will ever see is a redirected mind twist back to the caster, and in multi it is not that uncommon for all players to have 6+ cards in hand when this happens. What happens when you are casting return on someone in that same situation though is that they will be forced to redirect it to another opponent instead, most likely one with a full hand so it is a more effective use of their spell. So what ends up happening in this case is that you were able to protect yourself from a backfire, blow an opponent's hand out still anyways, AND force another (the orig target) to use up their valuable redirect.

Just imagine if instead you got redirect twisted back at yourself in this situation, and just a few weeks ago I saw exactly that happen in a multi game with my buddies. The caster of twist (for X=9) had 8 cards in hand, and his target had 7 at the time. The clutch redirect in response was by far the most crucial play in the whole game, and it ended with me (the one not involved in the scuffle) eventually winning. If it had been return that was cast though, I would have been targeted instead via the redirect since it was only a 3 player game.

So when you add all of this up you have a card that is honestly better than mind twist as outlandish as that may sound, and by my calculation that makes it the 2nd best discard in the game behind Hymn to Tourach. This card is simply amazing and is clearly not fully understood yet; those who can't see this need to rethink their position regarding return.

An easy 5/5.

Skull Rend is arguably better. And it costs waaaaay less, money-wise.

The fact that this card should be, "Rakdos' Return" rather than, "Rakdos's Return" makes the card (and game in general for that matter) feel lower quality. On a mythic rare too no less, so a card people are actually supposed to value?

Not that Wizards should pay any extra special attention to the more rare cards they are making, but this error is pretty bad IMO. They teach this kind of thing to fifth graders.

As for the card, it's amazing. When combined with graveyard exile cards like Leyline of the Void this can really ruin a person's day in edh.