Commander Legends: Commander Spotlight: Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh
When I was cracking packs of Commander Legends, no card quite caught my
attention the way Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh did. This angry little kobold has a lot
heaped on his shoulders to prove his worth. First of all, the Kobold creature type is rare in Magic the Gathering, I know of only a handful of kobold cards, some of which being: kobold taskmaster, kobolds of Kher Keep, and kobold drill sergeant. You probably wont see a successful kobold tribal deck anytime soon, but perhaps Rograkh can pave the way for new kobold cards in the future. Having both the Legendary and Partner keywords means Rograkh can be chosen as your deck’s commander and although he has a cost of “0” he is red mana affiliated. Because he is a partner commander you can choose him to splash powerful red damage spells into your commander deck and use Rograkh as a potentially powerful crony for your main more powerful commander. If you draw Rograkh in your opening hand he can come into play immediately thanks to his 0 cost, and reviving him will be quite cost effective meaning you can keep bringing him back out for
more.
Looking at his combat prowess, Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh has first strike, menace, and trample baked into him, a triple threat of combat abilities: watch as he cuts down most foes unscathed with first strike, force your opponent to dedicate 2 blockers to thwart his attack, and rub your hands together greedily as his extra power damage spills over to your opponents life points directly. (Cue Yugioh TV show life point damage sound effect).
Now the bad news is Rograkh has a power of 0 and a toughness of 1, making him seem more like cannon fodder than a worthy commander choice, but I see the potential of this guy. Just looking within the Commander Legends set only, some examples on how to toughen him up to make even poppa Rohgahh proud of his shrimpy son would be with Commander’s Plate. Commander’s Plate would boost him into a 3/4 creature that has protection from all colors except red. Another example would be Hero’s Blade. This would be a good early game equipment because it has a cost of only 2, and if its in play first, when Rograkh comes out the blade can automatically attach to him for free, giving him + ( 3 / 2 ). One more offense equipment idea would be to use Blackblade Reforged, which once in play, could be equipped to a legendary creature for only (3) and would give Rograkh +1/1 for each land you control. Lastly you could protect Rograkh from harm easily with the swiftfoot boots, equipping for only (1) and granting him hexproof and haste to boot. (no pun intended).
The other way I could see Rograkh being useful would be depending on which other partner commander’s color you have in your deck. For example, if your commander deck is red/green, you could boost this lil’ kobold with Ordeal of Nylea, which could potentially turn him into a 3/4 creature if he can attack 3 turns in a row, or even the enchantment Retreat to Kazandu, which would allow you to use landfall to put +1/+1 counters on him. There are probably close to endless possibilities to boost Rograkh, especially if you are building your commander deck with cards outside of just the commander legends set, and I imagine a lot of players are already thinking of good combos and buffs to make Rograkh the fiercest kobold that ever existed in MTG, and besides, his flavor text summarizes all this perfectly: “strength is relative."
This article was contributed by Eric Simmons.