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Anje Falkenrath

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Anje Falkenrath

At a glance

  • Commander: Anje Falkenrath
  • Colors: Rakdos
  • Archetype: Rakdos madness / reanimator value
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

The Commander (real printed text)

Anje Falkenrath — Haste. , Discard a card: Draw a card. Whenever you discard a card, if it has madness, untap Anje Falkenrath.

This is the whole engine in two lines. Anje is a repeatable looter who untaps every time the card you pitch has madness — so if you keep discarding madness cards, she keeps untapping and you keep looting for free, chaining draws and dumping madness spells onto the stack at their (usually cheaper) madness cost. The scout paraphrase matched the card exactly; no discrepancy. commander_oracle_ok = true.

Gameplan

  1. Rummage with Anje to dig and fill the graveyard. Every madness card you discard refunds the tap, so a hand with a couple of madness spells turns one activation into a chain: loot → pitch madness → untap → cast the madness spell for cheap → loot again.
  2. Madness payoffs are real cards. Fiery Temper (3 dmg for ), Alms of the Vein (drain 3 for ), Murderous Compulsion / Dark Withering / Terminal Agony (removal), Bloodmad Vampire / Kitchen Imp / Reckless Wurm (bodies), Grave Scrabbler (madness ETB = free reanimation). You’re not “discarding to enable” — you’re casting spells from the discard zone.
  3. The yard is a resource. Cheap sac-fodder + value creatures get dumped, then bought back. Unearth, Dread Return, Rise Again, Grave Scrabbler, Driver of the Dead, Persistent Specimen, Mortuary Mire and the unearth crew (First-Sphere Gargantua, Scrapwork Rager, Molten Gatekeeper, Rotting Rats) recur threats and value engines repeatedly.
  4. Aristocrats drain closes. Cauldron Familiar (recurs off Blood/Food-adjacent sac… here mostly off recursion), Greedy Freebooter, Shambling Ghast, Dire Fleet Hoarder, Impulsive Pilferer feed sac-draw (Village Rites, Costly Plunder, Deadly Dispute, Corrupted Conviction, Reckoner’s Bargain) for a card-advantage lock.

Key synergy lines

  • Free loot chain: Anje taps, discard Fiery Temper → it has madness → Anje untaps → cast Fiery Temper for killing something → tap Anje again, discard Alms of the Vein → untap → drain 3. You sculpt, remove, and gain card flow off a single creature.
  • Madness as removal value: discarding Murderous Compulsion / Dark Withering / Terminal Agony to Anje (or any looter) casts removal at its madness cost — you’re “drawing” interaction, not throwing it away.
  • Grave Scrabbler madness ETB: discard it to Anje, pay madness, and its trigger returns any creature from a graveyard to hand — a recurring recursion engine that also untaps Anje.
  • Reanimate the fatties: First-Sphere Gargantua and Scrapwork Rager give “draw a card” ETBs and have unearth, so they recur themselves; Dread Return / Rise Again / Stir-tier sorceries bring back anything you milled.
  • Mortuary Mire tucks a key creature to the top of your library when it enters — a land that doubles as recursion.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 36 (15 basics + Command Tower, Rakdos Carnarium, Bloodfell Caves, Cinder Barrens, Geothermal Bog, Sulfurous Mire, Tramway Station, Bojuka Bog, Mortuary Mire, Evolving Wilds, Ash Barrens, Vault of Whispers, Great Furnace, and six cycling lands — Barren Moor, Forgotten Cave, Polluted Mire, Smoldering Crater, Desert of the Fervent, Desert of the Glorified, Night Market, Escape Tunnel — that pitch to draw and shrink the flood).
  • Ramp — 10: Lotus Petal, Sol Ring, Rakdos Signet, Charcoal Diamond, Fire Diamond, Rakdos Locket, Mind Stone, Iron Myr, Leaden Myr, Blood Fountain.
  • Card advantage — 10 dedicated: Faithless Looting, Faithless Salvaging, Bitter Reunion, Night’s Whisper, Sign in Blood, Corrupted Conviction, Village Rites, Costly Plunder, Deadly Dispute, Reckoner’s Bargain — plus Anje herself and the loot-on-ETB creatures (Voldaren Epicure/Blood tokens, Discerning Peddler, Fissure Wizard, Immersturm Raider, Insolent Neonate, Masked Meower, Goblin Picker) for a much deeper effective draw count.
  • Spot removal / interaction — 14: Fiery Temper, Alms of the Vein, Murderous Compulsion, Dark Withering, Terminal Agony, Alchemist’s Greeting, Flame Slash, Disfigure, Terror, Bone-tier edicts (Diabolic Edict, Cruel Edict, Geth’s Verdict), Fleshbag Marauder, Executioner’s Capsule. Heavy interaction count is deliberate — half of it doubles as madness value.
  • Pseudo-wipes — 2: Innocent Blood (symmetric edict that barely hurts a recursion deck) and Dry Spell. Black/red commons are thin on true wraths; the deck instead leans on a fat interaction suite + edicts + recurring blockers and an aristocrats drain for inevitability.
  • Engine / payoffs / recursion — the rest: madness bodies, unearth creatures, reanimation spells, sac-fodder, and the Treasure/Blood value creatures.

Win condition

Grind the table out: out-card the room with the Anje loot loop, recur evasive/value threats (Bone Picker flying deathtouch, Kitchen Imp flying haste, unearth beaters) and chip with repeatable aristocrats drain (Alms of the Vein, Cauldron Familiar, sac engines) until you’ve buried everyone on resources and life total. Inevitability comes from recursion + drain, not a single combo.

Pilot notes

  • Don’t over-loot into an empty board. Anje’s loop is best when your hand has madness cards to refund the tap; if not, loot conservatively to set up reanimation targets.
  • Sequence madness through Anje, not just hardcast. Even when you could pay full price, pitching to Anje untaps her and nets a loot — that’s two cards of selection plus the spell.
  • Hold an edict for hexproof/protected commanders — your removal is mostly targeted, so Diabolic Edict / Geth’s Verdict / Fleshbag are your answers to shroud-y threats.
  • Cycling lands smooth the late game — once you have 6+ lands, crack the cycling lands for cards.

Weaknesses

  • Light on true board wipes. Against a wide aggressive board, Dry Spell + Innocent Blood + edicts is the whole sweeper package; you can get run over before the grind kicks in.
  • Graveyard hate hits the recursion plan hard — though the deck still functions as a madness tempo-value pile if the yard is exiled.
  • Anje is the engine. She’s cheap to recast but repeated removal slows you; lean on the Treasure rocks to rebuild and keep enough gas in hand to operate without her.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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