Obosh, the Preypiercer. Man, what a card. I’ve been having a ton of fun with this one in EDH/Commander lately combined with Kaervek the Merciless as the commander. The combination of red and black mana always gives everyone either a headache or an immediate target on your back at the table. Typically associated with demons, devils, evil harlequins and in older sets firey-lightning elementals that used Wither (dealing damage in the form of -1/-1 tokens.) which is an interesting mechanic to run with indestructible creatures; big or small!

I’m actually planning to purchase my deck I use on XMage; the entire deck hitting a hefty price-point of 300 dollars for 100 pieces of cardboard. I’m unsure of the proxy policy at my local game stores, but if it comes down to it I may order half or bits of it at a time and use proxies for the most expensive cards until I can get them.

Now, for the Rakdos! That’s what the combination of this mana is called. In older sets; creatures with wither, dragons and some brutal options for permanent removal. In Ravnica, where Rakdos was coined it took on the aesthetic of an “evil circus” with performers and deadly performances that sometimes target the audience. The flavor reflected that in the cards; dealing damage to your own hand and forcing everyone else to do the same. Abilities that activate with brutal effect when you have no cards in hand. The other side was riots and chaos; enchantments that double, hell, TRIPLE damage from any source/permanent and fast devils backed up by hard-hitting demons protected by removal spells that can target any permanent on the battlefield. The down-side is that you drain your own health with some of them.

Obosh here shines with that; allowing you to put him in your deck normally or summon him in your hand at any point during a game for three mana of any color with it’s Companion ability if you build a deck with only cards that have odd casting costs. Weird, right?

No flavor-text for this one. I’ll leave you that flavor-text from Rakdos Shred-Freak:

“If there was such thing as a soul, I think it would be behind the gallbladder but above the kidneys.”

Artist - Daarken