Preview season may have moved on, but there is still plenty to be excited about in Jumpstart 2022! Over the past few weeks I did deep dives on Zask, Skittering Swarmlord as leader of Insect tribal, and Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier and all the cool things you can do with its wild ability copy trigger. This week, I’d like to take a look at Orzhov lifegain themes helmed by a Vampire Angel, Rodolf Duskbringer!
At six mana, Rodolf is the most expensive of the new legendary creatures from Jumpstart 2022, which is definitely off-putting for a lot of players these days. Rodolf shows up as #8 of fourteen Jumpstart 2022 commanders on EDHREC, but I think people might be underestimating the card. Its ability to gain indestructible until the end of the turn whenever you gain life means that it’s a lot more difficult to destroy than other six-drop creatures, and since white is in its color identity, you have access to protection effects that can keep it from being exiled.
Rodolf also has three keyword abilities! Flying gives it evasion for attacking, deathtouch means that most anything blocking it will die, and lifelink helps you race against counterattacks, and also feeds into its end-step triggered ability. There’s a lot of value packed into this card for six mana, so let’s dig in!
Lifegain
Rodolf has two abilities that want you to play lifegain effects, so I’d lean pretty hard in this direction with a lot of cards on this list. Of particular value are ways you can gain life on any turn in response to a destroy effect so that Rodolf can become indestructible that turn.
Pristine Talisman, Soulmender, Mine Worker and Vermin Gorger can be tapped for no mana to gain life. Sun Droplet is another solid inclusion; if you’ve taken enough damage, you’ll be gaining one life at the beginning of each player’s upkeep, letting Rodolf gain indestructible almost perpetually. But perhaps the best card to have is Kambal, Consul of Allocation, which will drain an opponent and give you two life each time that player casts a noncreature spell. Someone casts Blasphemous Act? Kambal gives you two life and Rodolf gains indestructible.
I’d also like to call out Creeping Bloodsucker, a common from Jumpstart 2022 for just two mana that has an excellent upkeep trigger for this sort of deck, dealing one damage to each opponent and giving you life equal to the damage dealt that way. It’s also a Vampire, so if you lean into Vampire synergies in your Rodolf deck, it’ll help you in that way too.
Lifegain Matters
If we’re jumping through hoops to leverage the lifegain benefits for Rodolf, why not load up with other cards that benefit from lifegain too? Celestine, the Living Saint basically functions as another copy of Rodolf. I like Well of Lost Dreams as a way to turn the lifegain into extra card draw. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Sanguine Bond turn lifegain into life drain for your opponents.
Cleric Class and Rhox Faithmender let you gain life just a little bit harder, and that could make all the difference.
I’ve seen Ajani’s Pridemate grow to enormous proportions in tournament Magic, so I’m curious to see what it might do here. I might even be tempted to run Ajani, Strength of the Pride to make tokens named Ajani’s Pridemate!
Creatures to Recur
Most reanimation strategies involve putting a huge creature into the graveyard and cheating it onto the battlefield for a lot less mana than it would be to cast it, but Rodolf’s ability to bring back creatures is limited to the amount of life you gained during your turn. Generally, you’ll be paying two mana to bring back something relatively small and probably not worth padding your deck with cards that prime your graveyard like Entomb.
I might still play a card like Buried Alive to put a couple of utility creatures into the graveyard that Rodolf can get back in the mid-game, but basically I’d want to populate the deck with lots of useful creatures up and down the mana curve that your opponents will want to kill that Rodolf can eventually get back. One oddball card I’d be tempted to try is Standard Bearer, which can protect Rodolf from targeted spells so long as it’s on the battlefield, and is pretty easy to bring back with Rodolf’s trigger.
Pay Life for Profit
With all the lifegain going on, I’ll want to lean into ways to pay life for some benefit, and black has a bunch of ways to do just that. In particular, card draw effects like Night’s Whisper, Read the Bones, and Phyrexian Arena will keep the cards flowing. Stinging Study should find a slot too—drawing six cards for five mana at instant speed is too good to pass up!
I’m a big fan of Marshland Bloodcaster in decks with higher-cost commanders. This will let you cast Rodolf the first time for just two mana, leaving plenty of mana to pay for its triggered ability or some way to gain life.
I’ve not yet found a deck that I want to play Life Insurance in, but this might be the one since there is plenty of lifegain to offset the life loss, and the extort ability plays well with the deck’s synergies.
Power Boost
Whenever I’m building a deck around a black commander with lifelink, I’ve got to consider Hatred, especially since Rodolf has evasion to potentially fly past blockers for massive commander damage and immediately pay you back the life you spent on it. If you have enough mana to pay for the end-step ability, you can pretty much get back any size creature from your graveyard.
I pretty much put Blackblade Reforged in any deck where a creature is my commander, but boosting Rodolf’s power is going to do extra work in this deck. Hand of Vecna might even be a consideration if you’re running plenty of card draw; paying life for the equip cost can be immediately offset by the lifegain from Rodolf.
Trample
Since Rodolf has deathtouch, you might want to also give it trample; this mystical, magical keyword combination means that only one point of damage for each blocker is considered lethal, and all the rest of the damage Rodolf deals goes directly to your opponent’s life total. Power Matrix is a good one for this since first strike is also pretty amazing with deathtouch. I might even run Haunted Cloak in this deck, since it gives vigilance and haste in addition to trample.
Indestructible
Rodolf’s ability to gain indestructible means it’s harder for opponents to destroy with cards like Wrath of God, so why not play them yourself? Sweep aside your opponents’ creatures, attack with your indestructible Rodolf, and then during your end step use Rodolf’s ability to start bringing your creatures back. I’ve been a big fan of the new card Exterminatus from Warhammer 40,000 since it removes indestructible from all of your opponents’ nonland permanents before destroying nonland permanents; it’s a great way to blast through someone who’s leaning heavily on Avacyn, Angel of Hope to lock down the game.
Mana Ramp
Rodolf is expensive, so we’ll want all the usual mana ramp suspects like Sol Ring, Orzhov Signet, and so on, but there are some others to consider too. Big mana rocks like Gilded Lotus and Firemind Vessel help push from four and five mana to six or more mana, and Rodolf’s end-step ability is a great use for extra mana. Getting the trigger from Sword of Feast and Famine the turn you cast Rodolf will give you plenty of mana for lifegain shenanigans. Bontu’s Monument will shave a mana off Rodolf’s mana cost, and whenever you cast a creature spell later, you’ll get that sweet, sweet lifegain.
You could potentially make Rodolf a mono-black deck, or mostly black, in which case Cabal Coffers and Crypt Ghast can provide all the mana you could possibly need for Rodolf and its shenanigans.
Angel Synergies
Since Rodolf is an Angel, we might want to lean into Angel tribal synergies. Giada, Font of Hope is a linchpin card for any Angel deck, and can help Rodolf hit the battlefield with extra +1/+1 counters. There are also some pleasant flavor considerations to have Lyra Dawnbringer in a deck with Rodolf Duskbringer to have your sunrise and sunset covered.
If you’ve got enough white mana sources in your deck, you might consider The Book of Exalted Deeds. Since Rodolf is an Angel, you can make it your very own Platinum Angel, and Rodolf is a pretty sturdy Angel at that.
Vampire Synergies
Since Rodolf is also a Vampire, we could add some Vampire synergies to the deck, even if we aren’t going full tribal. In particular, I’d look at Vindictive Vampire and Sanctum Seeker, since they have ways to gain life attached to them. Blade of the Bloodchief is also a great card to equip to Rodolf right before you gain some life to make Rodolf indestructible and then cast Damnation. Edgar, Charmed Groom is a good, grindy midrange card that will do solid work even outside of Vampire tribal, since it boosts Rodolf and other Vampires on its front side and churns out a few Vampire tokens with lifelink on its transformed side.
What do you think of Rodolf Duskbringer? Are there other cards you think would synergize well that I may have overlooked here?
Talk to Me
Do me a solid and follow me on Twitter! I run polls and get conversations started about Commander all the time, so get in on the fun! You can also find my LinkTree on my profile page there with links to all my content.
I’d also love it if you followed my Twitch channel TheCompleteCommander, where I do Commander, Brawl and sometimes other Magic-related streams when I can. If you can’t join me live, the videos are available on demand for a few weeks on Twitch, but I also upload them to my YouTube channel. You can also find the lists for my paper decks over on Archidekt if you want to dig into how I put together my own decks and brews.
And lastly, I just want to say: let us love each other and stay healthy and happy.
Visit my Decklist Database to see my decklists and the articles where they appeared!
