commander · Anje Falkenrath
Merciless Rage (C19).
A Rakdos madness deck led by Anje Falkenrath, rummage endlessly with haste, discard madness cards for their cheaper cost, and untap Anje for every madness card to chain through your entire hand in a single turn.
The Commanders
Merciless Rage is a Rakdos Commander deck built around madness: discard a card with madness and cast it right away for a cheaper alternative cost. Anje Falkenrath staples a Rummaging Goblin effect to haste and an untap trigger on every madness discard, which turns a slow filtering mechanic into an engine that can rip through most of your deck in one turn.
Anje Falkenrath is a 1/3 Vampire for {1}{B}{R}. She has haste and taps to discard a card and draw a card, then untaps whenever you discard a card with madness. The untap is everything. Discard a madness card, Anje untaps, tap her again to draw, discard that card if it also has madness, untap again. With a hand full of madness cards, she chains activations until you have burned through a big chunk of your deck in a single turn. The backup commanders are Chainer, Nightmare Adept (reanimator) and Greven, Predator Captain (draw on attack).
Key Cards
Archfiend of Ifnir
The best discard payoff in the deck outside of the madness cards themselves. Whenever you discard a card, each creature an opponent controls gets a -1/-1 counter. Discard to Anje several times in a turn and you stack several counters on every opposing creature. Nobody keeps a creature-based defense standing while Archfiend is out, since each turn cycle shaves two or three counters off their board. Feed it an Anje discard chain and Archfiend can drop five or six counters in one turn, wiping the table clean.
Bone Miser
A stacked discard payoff. Bone Miser gives you something different for each type of card you pitch: discard a land for a Zombie, a creature for a 2/2 Zombie, a noncreature nonland for {B}{B}. With Anje chains throwing away five or six cards a turn, Bone Miser floods the board with Zombies and makes mana at the same time. That mana pays for the madness cards you are discarding on the same turn, so the whole Anje chain sometimes comes out free.
Shadow of the Grave
Recursion for a whole turn's worth of discards. Shadow of the Grave returns every card you discarded this turn to your hand for {1}{B}. Run an Anje chain that pitches 10 cards to rack up Archfiend counters and Bone Miser tokens, then cast Shadow of the Grave and get all 10 back for two mana. You keep every madness trigger, every Anje draw, and every Archfiend counter, and then the cards come home too. It is the best recovery tool in the deck and the reason a discard-heavy Anje turn never actually costs you cards.
Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion
Mana acceleration off combat and discards. Whenever Neheb deals combat damage to a player, discard any number of cards and draw that many, then add {R} for each card discarded. One Neheb attack that pitches five cards draws five new ones, adds five red mana, and untaps Anje five times. That mana pays for the madness cards you just drew. So Neheb connects, draws five, makes five mana, and you cast five spells before the turn ends. In an aggressive pod, Neheb can close games on tempo alone.
Greven, Predator Captain
The aggressive alternate commander. Greven is a 5/4 Human Warrior with flying and menace. When he attacks, you can pay life to give him +X/+0 until end of turn and draw X cards. The life payment grows Greven and draws cards at once, so a 15/4 flying menace can draw you 10 cards on a single swing. Discard those drawn cards and Archfiend starts shrinking the board too. Against pods where the race matters, Greven takes Anje's slot and just deals damage.
How to Play
Play Anje on turn two. She costs two mana and has haste, so she goes to work the moment she lands. Spend the early turns chaining through madness cards and stacking up Archfiend counters and Bone Miser tokens. The chain hums with five or more madness cards in hand, and the deck runs 19 of them. Mid-game, Shadow of the Grave recovers any discarded hand that wasn't all madness cards. You win along two lines: Archfiend grinding opponents' boards down while Bone Miser builds a wide Zombie army, or Greven racing with direct combat damage and steady card draw.
