Ever since its inception, Universes Beyond has been steadily pushing at the boundaries of what’s possible and appropriate in MTG. Unsurprisingly, this has caused some upset over the years; however, Magic is no stranger to having bizarre characters in the game. Way back in Legends, for example, we got Ra-Ra-Rasputin Dreamweaver himself.
Beyond just being Russia’s greatest love machine, Rasputin Dreamweaver makes for one hell of an MTG card. Offering free mana and a compelling protection ability, Rasputin can get out of hand very quickly.
MTG Rasputin Dreamweaver
On his own, Rasputin Dreamweaver is a bit of a weird MTG card. As much as the seven Dream Counters are a godsend, since they’re essentially seven colorless mana, Rasputin isn’t cheap. He’s also incredibly weak, so you’ll likely have to use some of those Dream Counters to protect Rasputin, too.
While Rasputin Dreamweaver might not be off to the best of starts, it’s very easy to snowball out of control. Alongside flicker spells like Ephemerate and Ghostly Flicker, for instance, you can massively surge ahead on mana. Alternatively, you can create copies of Rasputin using something like Clone as a slightly more expensive workaround. This then opens you up to play tons of massive artifacts and X cost spells to crush your competition.
The only real trouble with Rasputin is getting to this point, especially since there’s not a ton of ramp in Azorius colors. Technically, The Mind Stone will be able to help once it’s released; however, you’re better off relying on a classic suite of mana rocks. Alongside these, you can also run unexpected ramp tools like Warping Wail and Eldrazi Confluence, which hint at Rasputin’s real plans.
While he might look like a harmless old mana, Rasputin Dreamweaver is basically a fully fledged eldrazi deck. It That Betrays, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and even Kozilek, Butcher of Truth are all great inclusions here. Similarly, Walking Ballista is basically an auto-include, thanks to the potential for creating infinite mana with Rasputin.
Infinite Dreams, Infinite Mana
For better or worse, it is shockingly easy to go infinite with Rasputin Dreamweaver. All you really need, in fact, is Eldrazi Displacer in play, and you’re off to the races. Since this Eldrazi lets you flicker a creature for three colorless, you can net four mana every time you flicker and dream with Rasputin.
Similarly, Nim Deathmantle and a sacrifice outlet like Ashnod’s Altar will let you establish a similar loop. While Nim’s reanimation loop does cost one more mana, the mana gain from Ashnod’s helps to offset that. Alternatively, you can easily use Phyrexian Altar to create infinite colored mana instead.
If you want even more consistency, Cogwork Assembler and Mycosynth Lattice let you create infinite Rasputin tokens. While these are only temporary without something like Mirror Box, you can still create infinite mana with them. Sadly, giving these tokens Haste is difficult in Azorius, but not impossible with Odric, Lunarch Marshal and something like Gingerbrute.
Big Power, Big Price
Sadly, while Rasputin Dreamweaver is surprisingly powerful and a whole lot of fun, this MTG card isn’t cheap. Thanks to being so old and on the Reserved List, a copy of Rasputin will set you back around $147. At this price, it’s difficult to say whether you’re getting your money’s worth, as you really have to value the fun factor.
If Rasputin Dreamweaver does have anything going for it, it’s the fact that it’s incredibly underplayed in Commander. According to EDHREC, there are fewer than 800 Rasputin decks in existence, and he appears in the 99 of fewer than 500. Thanks to this, he’ll be a real surprise for your Commander table if you do end up building him.
As if that’s not enough to convince you, Rasputin Dreamweaver is just so happy to be a sneaky bit of psychological warfare. Playing this card once is likely enough to get your pod humming Boney M.’s Rasputin and lamenting the fact they can’t get it out of their heads. That’s totally worth $147 anyday, right?
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