Withercrown

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Brawl Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Pre-release Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Withercrown

Enchantment — Aura

Enchant creature

Enchanted creature has base power 0 and has "At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life unless you sacrifice this creature."

TheForsakenOne on K'rrik, Manipulator of Life (Totals)

1 month ago

This deck seems very .... confused. On one hand you have swamp synergies, on the other sacrifice synergies, and then you have weird cards like Elder Brain that don't fit into either. I'd suggest picking one of the two theme's and sticking to it.

Cards I would suggest cutting:

Withercrown (just not a good card)

Crypt Incursion (Too situational, its going to be dead a lot of the time)

Xathrid Gorgon (Too slow)

Visara the Dreadful (Removal magnet + too slow)

Consume Spirit (There are better mana sinks than this)

Corrupt (Needs too many swamps to be worth the mana)

Liliana's Shade (Also just not a good card)

Elder Brain (just a weird card in general and too inconsistent)

Cards I would suggest adding:

Abhorrent Overlord (Makes a buch of creatures for your sacrifice triggers)

Pontiff of Blight, Thrull Parasite, Basilica Screecher (More extort cards that synergize very well with K'rrik)

Exsanguinate (Better mana sink than consume spirit)

Nirkana Revenant (Another mana doubler for swamps)

Vein Ripper (Very good for this kind of deck, but it just came out and is currently pricey so I'd wait to buy this one)

Bitterblossom, Dreadhorde Invasion (make a creature every turn for your sacrifice outlets)

Viscera Seer the classic free sacrifice outlet. Also see Woe Strider

Ayara, First of Locthwain (Free creature with K'rrik out and pings opponents every time a black creature enters which usually happens a lot with sac decks)

multimedia on Tariel wrecker of holes

1 year ago

Hey, you haven't really made a complete deck yet to begin optimizing? Since there's only 14 lands here and you have to know that's not enough lands for a Commander deck?

There's some good ideas here, such as stealing opponent's creatures, attacking with them and then sacing them, but you want more sac outlets for this strategy. Making opponents discard cards is good, but giving an opponent the choice of what card to discard can be problematic for Tariel since opponent is not going to discard a creature. There's some reanimation and lots of recursion here which is good in these colors, but there's few enablers to get your creatures into your graveyard.

Some causal budget deck building advice to get started.

To start add 36 lands, they can be all basic lands to begin, can change some to dual lands later. Have 36 lands so you fill all the spots that are needed for lands and to clearly see how many cards have to be cut for lands. The double faced cards represented as lands here are all terrible cards for the mana cost. Cut them all and replace them with basic lands?

To add more lands next cut all the Pacifism removal? This type of creature removal doesn't interact with Tariel, Reckoner of Souls because it doesn't kill opponent's creature putting it into opponent's graveyard. If you want to utilize Tariel's ability then your opponent's creatures have to be put into graveyards, not exiled or stuck on the battlefield unable to attack or block.

The next cards to cut to add more lands are the high mana cost creatures who don't do enough for Tariel, Reckoner of Souls. Tariel is the high mana cost spell you want to cast more than the rest, the other spells played should have some interaction with him or interact with opponent's creature in some way such as In Garruk's Wake. Keep Wake, cut the rest?

Cards to cut last are some that just aren't doing enough for the mana cost and don't have any interaction with Tariel, Reckoner of Souls or the other strategies being played.

All these cuts make enough spots for 36 lands. When you have enough lands then you can begin to optimize the rest of your deck. Good luck.

wallisface on Jorn's Snakes and the Snakebitten Undead

1 year ago

Some thoughts:

multimedia on

2 years ago

Hey, well done for a first deck on such a low budget. I haven't seen this Commander before.

When you're just starting out building decks in Commander it can be helpful to have some basic deck structure guildlines to follow.

This is just a basic structure to get things started. It doesn't cover everything and your final deck may have different numbers for each part of the structure such as you might have more creatures. Some cards can cover more than one area such as Palace Jailer who is creature removal and can be repeatable draw which is really helpful.


Ramp is something all Commander decks need since you don't want to only rely on lands/land drops to make mana. You have Sol Ring which is really good, but that's where the ramp ends here. Only Sol is not enough ramp.

I always explain to new Commander deck builders that you need to be able to sacrifice (cut) some of the fun cards to add ramp to your deck. Since doing this will help gameplay so that you can more easily cast your Commander and the other big fun cards you want to play. In the case here my advice is consider cutting at least 9 cards to add more budget ramp?

Some cards to consider cutting to add more ramp are creatures who don't do enough for their mana cost: Gods' Hall Guardian, Living Tempest, Dread Rider, Shepherd of Heroes, Kor Celebrant, Ronom Unicorn, Brinebarrow Intruder


Like ramp all decks also need draw that comes from single draw effects and more importantly repeatable draw sources. Currently your deck has three good single draw effects Baleful Strix, Champion of Wits, Cloudblazer and one repeatable draw source Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. There's a reanimation theme here that can get you more draw from these creatures which is good, but consider more draw?

Jailer and Rose can be repeatable draw sources with the Monarch Emblem. When you have the monarch then you draw a card at your end step. Only one player in the game at one time can be the monarch and it can change players. As long as you are monarch you get the repeatable draw at your end step which is a big advantage.

For an opponent to become the monarch they have to do combat damage with a creature to you or play a card/effect that makes them the monarch. When this happens you loose the monarch and that opponent becomes the monarch. You can get back the monarch though by doing combat damage with a creature to the opponent who is the monarch or playing a card/effect that makes you the monarch.

Some cards to consider cutting to add more draw: Withercrown, Grave Endeavor, Arcane Endeavor, Smite the Monstrous, Extract Brain, Wand of Orcus


The area of your deck that you have a lot of is removal. I count 23 single effects of removal here. You can afford to cut some removal to improve other areas of your deck: Withercrown, Befuddle, Iron Verdict, Smite the Monstrous.

If you're interested I offer more advice in another comment. Including explaining how blink from single effects or repeatable such as Soulherder and Brago, King Eternal can be powerful here. Would you like me to continue with more advice?

Good luck with your deck.

BruhYouFarted on Pauper Curses

2 years ago

I would also recommend Marauding Blight-Priest , but I would like to recommend taking out Kalastria Healer and Vermin Gorger . How about switching the Gorger to another gorger: Savage Gorger . With all the pings, Ol' Savage is almost guaranteed a counter each turn. Vermin Gorger just doesn't have good hits beside Kalastria Healer ; which isn't great. Regarding the Healer, I would either swap it for Dusk Legion Zealot or; If you are counting to go into the late-game, Bloodrite Invoker could be a serious threat, pummeling for three with drain while still synergizing with the theme of the deck. If not, Dusk Legion Zealot could be a good one-shot card draw while still holding a chump. With stall-y decks like this, Withercrown doesn't seem great. Go with Cast Down instead. On that note, I feel that Paralyze is self-deprecating in this deck. With the extra mana they have, they can just pay the tax needed for Paralyze , and swing in. If you want to keep their baddies at bay, I would recommend Typhoid Rats (in the main board), a Oldie but a Goodie. The Rats do a great job on defense, and most-often trade up. (Kill a creature with a greater mana value or alternate cost.) Vampire Envoy doesn't do much in a pillow-forty deck like this, i would take it out for Sign in Blood .

Misc. Recommendation: Mesmeric Fiend / Toll of the Invasion - Both snatch your opponents best cards and leave a body, which can be a Mirror-Breaker. (Although Mesmeric Fiend is a bit risky)

Sorin_Markov_1947 on Menace Tribal

3 years ago

Withercrown is terrible removal/drain. By rule of thumb, things that give your opponents decisions are bad for you because they'll choose what's best for them. Eat to Extinction also isn't great. Heartless Act is just way better, or Extinction Event for exile if you really need it.

You should probably be focused on the board though, and not on removing your opponent's things or disrupting their hand. This is an aggro deck, after all. Perhaps Embercleave is good here.

multimedia on Orzhov token life drain

3 years ago

Hey, nice budget version with some creative strategies. You forgot Sol Ring :)

Consider more repeatable draw from effects you don't have to cast since you have a lot of cards to assemble for the combos and then you don't lose life from Liesa.

Dawn of Hope is nice with Liesa because she has lifelink thus when she does damage pay 2 mana to draw. Arguel's Blood Fast  Flip uses life to draw. Liesa has flying and there's quite a few other fliers here who can more easily do combat damage to a player for Mask of Memory .

Court of Grace and Palace Jailer can be repeatable draw with the monarch and Grace can be repeatable 4/4 Angels or 1/1 Spirits. Cards that create tokens are good with Skullclamp especially 1/1 tokens such as from Keeper of the Accord and Leonin Warleader .


Some cards to consider cutting:

Cards to consider cutting are Harmless Assault since four mana for this effect is too much. Mishra's Self-Replicator there's much better five drops here to cast. Withercrown subpar for a removal spell since your opponent can just ignore it until they find a way to remove it because losing 1 life is not much to worry about. Rally the Ranks since +1/+1 anthem effect is not really worth it.

Demon of Loathing is not as good as the other high CMC creatures. Bloodline Pretender only good when you have Nexus or Conspiracy on the battlefield because you have to choose a creature type. Instead play a card that can help to setup Nexus or Conspiracy? Sol Ring could replace Replicating Ring .

Good luck with your deck.

SaintFinni on

3 years ago

Weird_Frisbee So, I’ve also seen a few people throwing in copies of Hateful Eidolon with Dead Weight , Mire's Grasp and Withercrown as a way to produce a card draw and destroy/control creature mix. Seems like a good idea in theory.