Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Exploring Raul, Trouble Shooter's Blue-Black Identity
Raul, Trouble Shooter strides into the battlefield with a confident mix of streetwise grit and necromantic curiosity 🧙🔥. His mana cost of 1 generic, one blue, and one black ({1}{U}{B}) hints at the classic blue-black pairing: cerebral planning, strategic disruption, and a willingness to peek into the graveyard for value. In Fallout’s commander-focused landscape, Raul’s color identity isn’t just a cosmetic badge—it defines what you can do, how you interact with opponents, and where your deck’s engine begins to hum ⚔️🎲.
The card design places Raul squarely in the realm of graveyard matters, a niche blue and black players often adore. Blue brings you a world of manipulation, card flow, and timing tricks; black emphasizes the gravity of the graveyard, value from death, and reclamation of what was once lost. Raul’s ability to cast a spell from your own graveyard that was milled this turn taps into both sides of that identity. It rewards careful milling and precise timing—a tempo-rich proposition that asks you to think several steps ahead while keeping your opponents honest 🧠💎.
How the mechanics embody Blue-Black Identity
Once during each of your turns, you may cast a spell from among cards in your graveyard that were milled this turn. This is blue-black design in two parts: first, the graveyard as a reservoir of hidden options (blue’s curiosity and black’s reclaiming mindset), and second, a controlled recast that isn’t a repeat of what you drew this turn. The key is milled cards—things that would otherwise sit idle—suddenly becoming castable options. It’s the heart of the "graveyard as resource" concept that blue and black have made their own across countless strategies 🪄.
Then there’s the activated ability that costs {T}: each player mills a card. This is where Raul’s blue-black pulse feels honest to the core. The milling is not a one-sided engine; it nudges everyone toward a shared space where graveyards grow, options multiply, and the game narrows toward who can best leverage the info and the tempo. In a multiplayer Commander setting, that shared milling creates windowed tension—do you mill aggressively to set up your own plays, or temper the mill to disrupt an opponent’s key graveyard plans? Raul makes both possibilities feel plausible, and that tension is deliciously blue-black 🧭⚖️.
Flavor and lore lining up with color identity
The flavor text grounds Raul in Fallout’s grim, post-apocalyptic vibe: “Raul Alfonso Tejada, former gunslinger and sole survivor of Hidalgo Ranch, at your service.” The line evokes a character who has seen the worst humanity has to offer and learned to navigate it with cunning, a weaponized intellect that blue-black fans can recognize. The zombie mutant rogue creature type—combining resilience, adaptability, and a hint of menace—fits the black identity (death, mutation, the underworld) while the blue aspect surfaces in his tactical play: planning, sequencing, and the lure of recapturing value from the past. The Fallout setting adds extra flavor, painting Raul as a survivor who knows how to turn a bleak situation into opportunity, which is very much a blue-black ethos 🧪⚔️.
“Raul Alfonso Tejada, former gunslinger and sole survivor of Hidalgo Ranch, at your service.”
Design notes and how to pilot a Raul shell
Raul’s stat line—1 power/4 toughness for a 3-mana cost—leans into the idea of a stabilizing, late-game engine piece rather than an aggressive beater. The high toughness invites you to lean into control and long games, where milling your own threats and revisiting them from the graveyard feels rewarding rather than punishing. In practice, you’ll want to curate a graveyard that’s primed for replay: milled spells that you’re excited to cast again, along with payoff cards that can take advantage of recurring access. The balance of blue’s permission-and-protect options with black’s graveyard-reclamation toolkit is what makes Raul sing in formats where you’re allowed to mull over your decisions and out-value opponents over time 🧩.
In gameplay terms, Raul shines when you sequence your turns so that a spell milled on one of your turns becomes a viable recast option on a future turn. This means you’ll value milling effects that are predictable and safe to return, rather than milling away your own crucial lines. It also means you’ll want to manage the flow of milling to keep opponents honest without tipping your hand too early. The “mill everyone” moment from Raul’s ability can be used to accelerate the table’s fatigue while keeping your own engine intact, a neat trick that captures the delicate dance of blue-black tempo vs. midrange grind 🕰️🎯.
Art, set, and collectibility notes
Artwork by Irina Nordsol gives Raul a moody, cinematic presence that suits the Fallout commander vibe. The dark palette, the rugged silhouette, and the sense of a character who’s both lived through chaos and learned to exploit it all read as a perfect visual analogue to a blue-black plan: a combination of resilience and ruthless efficiency. The card’s “legendary” frame emphasizes Raul’s place as a singular figure in any deck, a go-to commander’s companion who can open doors to graveyard-centric gameplay systems 🎨.
In terms of collectibility, Raul is an uncommon that can appear in foil and nonfoil varieties, with demand rising in any player base that enjoys graveyard matters and mill strategies. Scryfall’s data places Raul among the modern, casually legible utility cards that find homes in both competitive sleeves and commander tables. For collectors who chase foil variants, the foil market hints at a healthy premium, while nonfoil copies remain accessible for budget-minded lists. The card’s EDHREC ranking sits in a robust mid-range, signaling that it’s a recognized pick for players who enjoy the blue-black identity and the novelty of mill-based recursion 🧾🏷️.
Putting Raul to use in your deck-building philosophy
- Graveyard fidelity: Build around a robust graveyard strategy that can recycle milled spells back into play. Think synergy with spells that create value when recast, or that benefit from having multiple cards in the graveyard to unlock future turns.
- Tempo with milling: Use Raul’s toll of milling to tempo the table—forcing decisions on opponents while you sculpt your next recast. The trick is to keep your own graveyard primed for Raul’s free-spell recast without giving away your exact plan prematurely.
- Blue-black resilience: Lean into counterplay, card draw, and graveyard resilience. The blue-black identity thrives on information, timing, and the comfort of knowing you can retrieve strength from what others discard to the grave.
- Flavor-first builds: If you’re chasing a Raul-focused narrative, pair the card’s lore with a deck that leans into post-apocalyptic cool and a roguelike milling motif. It’s not just about function—it’s about telling Raul’s story with every draw and every graveyard cast 🤝🧭.
If you’re browsing for an on-theme playmat to accompany Raul’s world and your Fallout-flavored list, this Gaming Mouse Pad—custom 9x7 neoprene with stitched edges—offers a neat promo crossover pairing you can enjoy off the table as well. It’s a small but satisfying nod to the tactile side of Magic play, a reminder that the multiverse lives not just in the cards, but in the boards, the mats, and the shared table story 🧙🔥💎⚔️.
For those who want to explore Raul’s universe even further or grab a copy for your collection, the card sits nicely within Commander legal formats and the broader eternal formats where blue-black mashups shine. If you’re chasing a budget-friendly, graveyard-centric pick that still feels narratively rich, Raul delivers both value and flavor in equal measure 🎲.