4 Commander damage are more than enough to kill

Commander / EDH Mono-Black

Alex7

Ramp (17)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Charcoal Diamond
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Worn Powerstone
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Magus of the Coffers
• 1x Nirkana Revenant
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Myriad Landscape

Utiliy Lands (8)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Vesuva
• 1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Tutors (6)

• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Revelation
• 1x Increasing Ambition

Recovery (11)

• 1x Netherborn Altar
• 1x Palace Siege
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Death Denied
• 1x Wretched Confluence
• 1x Memorial to Folly
• 1x Mortuary Mire
• 1x Witch's Cottage
• 1x Call to the Netherworld
• 1x Fortuitous Find
• 1x Grim Discovery

Sneaky Phage (9)

• 1x Key to the City
• 1x Manifold Key
• 1x Prowler's Helm
• 1x Trailblazer's Boots
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak
• 1x Filth
• 1x Dauthi Embrace
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse

Draw Engine (6)

• 1x Greed
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Underworld Connections
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

Lifegain (3)

• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Sengir, the Dark Baron
• 1x Exsanguinate

Basic Lands (20)

• 20x Swamp

Commander (1)

Removal (9)

• 1x Dark Impostor
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Royal Assassin
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Scour from Existence
• 1x Vraska's Contempt
• 1x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Mutilate

I Don't Want To Die (7)

• 1x Sundial of the Infinite
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Platinum Angel
• 1x Thrull Wizard
• 1x Withering Boon
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Lich's Mastery

Protection (2)

• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Combo (1)

• 1x Endless Whispers

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Death Count: 5 8(last update 06 November 2021)

Phage the Untouchable has been one of (if not THE) my favourite cards since when I started playing in 2008, so what is the better way to celebrate it? Building around her a EDH commander deck.

Unfortunately there is a problem: if you cast Phage from the command zone, you will die! How to get around this? The ability of Phage is a triggered ability so we can do something in response, for example we activate the Sundial of the Infinite in order to end our turn (and exiling all the ability on the stack) or we can directly prevent it to go on the stack thanks to Torpor Orb (also useful against opponents' creatures, just remind that if Torpor Orb is onto the battlefield Gray Merchant of Asphodel won't trigger!). There are also other way to not lose the game:

• Platinum Angel: with this beautiful angel onto the battlefield we cannot lose the game, neither from the ability of Phage, nor for our oppontents' cards
• Lich's Mastery: it does not allow us to die and provide card advantage whenever we gain life, but each time we will lose 1 life we have to exile a permanent or a card from our hand or graveyard. When it leaves the battlefield we lose the game. Playing with this card is playing with fire, but so is our commander (and fortunately all the cards mentioned above that can be used to prevent us from losing the game are useful also in this situation
• Withering Boon and Thrull Wizard: if we cannot prevent the etb of Phage to kill us, a very simple way to avoid it is to not allow Phage to enter the battlefield and counter her
• Command Beacon: allows us to put Phage directly into our hand, so that we can cast her without any risks

Once Phage is out, half of the job is done, and unless she is exiled (and we have to put her into the command zone), we do not have to worry anymore. We have a lot of cards that give us the abiltiy to recover her from the graveyard. The most important are:

• Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege and Volrath's Stronghold: are the best way to recover over and over Phage from the graveyard
• Mortuary Mire, Witch's Cottage, Memorial to Folly: are lands that can both produce black mana or recover a creature from the graveyard (only once))
• Call to the Netherworld, Fortuitous Find, Grim Discovery, Death Denied: istants and sorceries to recover creatures from the graveyard.
• Wretched Confluence: this card is very versatile, it allows us to recover Phage or other creatures from teh graveyard, draw cards or remove some creatures from the battlefield.

The reason to play Phage is of course her magnificent ability: "Whenever Phage deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game". Exactly, she insta-kill a player, regardless the amount of life they have. We have to make that happen, how? With some tricky cards:

• Manifold Key, Prowler's Helm, Whispersilk Cloak, Trailblazer's Boots, Rogue's Passage: Phage is unblockable. Phage attacks, hits, they die. Easy Peasy.
• Shizo, Death's Storehouse, Dauthi Embrace, Filth: they give Fear, Shadow or Swampwalk, not as good as the previous ones, but we can make them work

This is our base strategy, all the other cards help us to accomplish it. We have:

• Tutors to fetch the card we need the most, it can be a way to not die of Phage ability or a way to make her unblockable
• Draw engine in order to be able to draw the cards we need or the tutor to go fetch them
• Removal for the opponents' creatures that threaten us
• mana ramp: Phage aint no cheap and neither are some other cards, especially if we want to play different of them in one turn, so we need tons of mana

One last thing, there is a very interesting card that goes along with Phage and is Endless Whispers. If Phage die, we can give her to one of our opponents and since she did not entered the battlefield from our hand they will lose the game. The drawback of this "combo" is that once they die, Phage is exiled so we have to send her to the command zone and try to put her into the battlefield using the previous mentioned strategies.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.33
Tokens	Thrull 0/1 B
Folders	EDH, Commander