Rakdos, Lord of Riots has a fairly nifty ability. It says that for each 1 life that an opponent has lost this turn, your creature spells costs 1 less to cast. So, if your opponent has lost 6 life this turn (say, because you just attacked with your Rakdos), your creatures spells will cost 6 less to cast that turn. Which is good if you have something like Stuffy Doll you want to cast, because Rakdos will reduce the cost down to zero mana. But it’s not as good if you want to cast Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, because Rakdos won’t help you at all with casting Jarad.

See, the difference is that Rakdos can only reduce the colorless part of the cost of the spell. It can’t do anything with the colored portion of the cost. So Stuffy Doll and Rakdos make a good combo, because Stuffy Doll only has colorless in its cost, so Rakdos can help reduce that cost down to zero. But Jarad doesn’t have any colorless portion to its mana cost: it has two black and two green mana symbols. Since there’s no colorless portion in its mana cost, Rakdos won’t help you cast Jarad at all, so you’ll still have to pay BBGG to cast it.

Today’s Rules Tip written by Nate Long