A void as cryptic as reality itself.

Formatting courtesy of Suns_Champion's Well of Ideas

Colorless is much more interesting than most players think in my experience. When I first made my Karn, Silver Golem deck back in 2009 or so every land had to be a colorless non-basic. I had never spent such a long time just working on a manabase. Even 5 color bases were easier to optimize. It isn't balancing the colors, since there aren't any to balance, rather it is finding abilities on lands that are worth running. Every land has the potential to be just as strong a card as any other in the deck. I ended up with a lot of stax options in my Karn deck though. It was too good for casual play and not good enough for competitive play. At least what I was able to build at the time and the ease of killing lands was ridiculous. So I moved into colored decks. I don't know what has caused me to want to return to colorless. I guess I like the challenge.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion has replaced Karn and the deck is very different. Amazing what a decade or so of cards can do for a deck. I chose Distortion because Karn makes it too easy to kill lands and Distortion has card draw built in. OG Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is the stronger of the two specifically in colorless. Efficient card draw is a big weakness of colorless so the consistent draw 4 every cast is really strong. Much stronger than something that could draw 2 just as easily as it could draw 7. I find their removal abilities and evasion to be roughly on par. Countering anything as long as you match the converted cost and menace is great, Annihilator 4 on every attack is also great. I'm not looking for the best colorless commander though, I'm just looking to have fun and if my commander can address some weaknesses of the lack of colors available all the better.

This also speaks about why I didn't choose any of the other possible colorless commanders. Only Kozilek comes with card draw which keeps the deck chugging a long.

Kozilek's planar avatar is a titan of apparently humanoid anatomy, but with a mass of tentacles in place of legs, and a complex orifice in place of a head. His body is covered in eyes and chitin, and an arrangement of dark plates float above his shoulders and extend from his elbows. They are often described to be or to create dark "holes" in reality.

Kozilek is the Titan of Distortion, a reality-slicing nightmare of relentless insanity. He changes the perception of the reality, making impossible to discern the truth. He twists loyalties, muddies thoughts, transforms emotions, induces despair and panic. Kozilek represents themes of deception, puzzles, lies, mind domination, transformation, and experimentation. Sages call Kozilek the confusion of panic, the trap of enigmas, and the harrower of thought.

Eldrazi of the Kozilek brood lineage have many eyes growing near joints or along body ridges, jagged plates or blades of lustrous black mineral jutting from or floating around their bodies, and animalistic or insectoid anatomies covered in tough carapaces. Kozilek's drones can absorb life just by their presence, but prefer to rend flesh with their onyx-like projections.

Learn all about our lord and master here

There are 4 Custom Categories and a list of 'Other' because of all the random little effects they add that don’t really fit into a large enough category to be named.

Mana: Produce mana, play additional lands, or return lands from the graveyard.

Card Advantage: Draw cards or pull additional cards from the library.

Removal: Remove opponent's cards from play.

Return: Bring things back to hand or to play. It is interesting how strong return to hand can be here since there are a number of different cast triggers such as the card draw from either Kozilek.

Other: An assortment of the rest of the effects in the deck, it would just take too many extra little categories to organize these.

Ashnod's Altar Krark-Clan Ironworks High Market 2 extremely abuseable sac outlets and 1 pretty useful sac outlet. Having even "bad" sac outlets can save you from having your permanents stolen or exiled from the game.

Basalt Monolith Mana Vault Sol Ring Palladium Myr Plague Myr Walking Atlas Scorched Ruins Hedron Crawler Manakin this is the decks fast mana.

Dreamstone Hedron Thran Dynamo Skyclave Relic Kozilek's Channeler Oblivion Sower this is the decks slow mana.

Blast Zone removal on a land !!!

Bonders' Enclave War Room card draw... on a land... yes please. There are some more lands that do this. I might end up adding those too.

Buried Ruin Haunted Fengraf return things from graveyard.

Command Beacon well it's command beacon. I can dodge some commander tax with it, really nice since I'm paying as a baseline...

Crucible of Worlds Scaretiller a good number of my lands sacrifice themselves for neat effects. Lets repeat those.

Deserted Temple untaps lands which creates some silly interactions with all of these utility lands and even ramps mana further by untapping lands that make more than 1 mana.

Eldrazi Temple Shrine of the Forsaken Gods Temple of the False God these lands can be dead if certain reqs aren't met... but if those reqs are met it is a decent little boost to have. They will always be on the watch list.

Forsaken Monument this card alone might make colorless decks better at mana than white decks. Love it, hilarious!

Ghost Quarter Strip Mine Tectonic Edge opponents have good utility lands these days. Get rid of them.

Homeward Path having things stolen isn't cool.

Inventors' Fair Sanctum of Ugin I didn't include any tutor effects in the rest of the deck. Having it on a pair of lands is pretty handy.

Labyrinth of Skophos Mystifying Maze I don't know if these are really worth it. 4 mana is a lot to just keep up for something that only delays. They can be neat but I'll be keeping my eyes on them.

Nephalia Academy I don't run into a lot of discard but hey, why not?

Reliquary Tower Thought Vessel I don't like discarding cards if I don't have to.

Rogue's Passage this card has won me a lot of games over the years. A 12 power commander will make even better use of it.

Sanctum of Eternity allows me to easily repeat my commanders cast trigger or dodge removal.

Semblance Anvil Ugin, the Ineffable Cloud Key Conduit of Ruin Eye of Ugin Geode Golem various cost reduction effects. If combined with the right cards they can allow for some very silly interactions but also these sorts of effects tend to just produce more mana than any land.

Springjack Pasture I'll be keeping my eye on this one but a token producer isn't the worst thing to have on a land.

Thespian's Stage I have some crazy strong lands in here, lets have more of them.

Mirrorpool just like some of my lands are crazy strong some of the rest of the deck is really powerful. Duplicate that shit!

Tomb of the Spirit Dragon another land I'll be keeping my eye on. It could turn out to be decent though.

Tower of the Magistrate interesting land, can really do some nice things against other artifact decks.

Urza's Mine Urza's Power Plant Urza's Tower the Urza lands. I've never gotten all three into play at once... Maybe some day I'll see the dream.

Winding Canyons Emergence Zone the vast majority of this deck is sorcery speed. These lands can really screw opponents over when they aren't paying attention.

Endbringer Karn, Scion of Urza Staff of Nin Weatherlight these are just good effects to steadily draw extra cards turn after turn after turn.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Much like his younger brother the Great Distortion this can be used as burst draw or used along side some bounce effect to be a draw 4 every turn. If it happens to die it also shuffles your whole graveyard into your deck. This is great against mill decks but also it can just be nice to reset your deck too.

Mystic Forge Oracle's Vault why should we only play things from hand? Now your deck is your hand too!

All is Dust Nevinyrral's Disk Steel Hellkite Ugin, the Spirit Dragon these are the board wipe effects I am running. Some of which are very one sided. All Is Dust in particular gets around some protections that people run.

Gruesome Slaughter is somewhere between a potential board wipe and a single target removal. It can also just do nothing but with the size of my commander it should kill at least one thing when played. It is a card that I'm wary of.

Duplicant Meteor Golem Scour from Existence Spine of Ish Sah Titan's Presence typical colorless removal effects. A bit of exile mostly destroy and very little in the way of limitations. Honestly some of my favorite removal despite the steep costs. Usually these work best in colorless or colored decks when they ramp hard.

Not of this World generally going to be a free counter spell protecting my commander or another large scary thing.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre these act as large scary things but also removal on a cast trigger. Normal removal spells can be stopped with Counterspell and friends. These still get their cast trigger. They are only really stopped by a few counter spells that don't get run as much as they should be. And if someone counters the cast trigger Ulamog still gets cast.

Erratic Portal Blood Clock these are very strong with Kozilek, the Great Distortion allowing me to return him to my hand and re-cast him to draw more cards whenever I start to get low. This also works well with the plethora of ETB and cast triggers in the deck.

Guardians of Koilos Ancestral Statue these are in here for the same reason as the 2 above but are not as strong since they are not as easy to repeat.

Conqueror's Galleon   grabs any card from my graveyard to my hand. So if kozilek or another cast trigger or ETB trigger goes to the grave or I just want something cool back from the grave here it is.

Trading Post very similar to Galleon but it only works for the billion artifacts in the deck.

Artisan of Kozilek Nim Deathmantle these 2 bring things straight back into play. Not good for repeating cast triggers but still useful.

Scarecrone like above except only for artifact creatures.

Junk Diver Myr Retriever Workshop Assistant Scrap Trawler 3 of these are basically the same card allowing me to grab back an artifact whenever they die. The other is like an 'evolved' form of them, grabbing artifacts whenever any artifact dies. With some of the cost reducers these can end up getting looped around and around with a sac outlet. They can also just return useful tools.

Crashing Drawbridge Swiftfoot Boots Lightning Greaves all give things haste and the greaves and boots offer some protection. This can be particularly terrifying when you drop kozilek and swing with him immediately. Or anything with annihilator...

Emrakul, the Promised End because why not? She is a huge scary creature that also allows me to totally mess up someone's next turn. The amount of sac outlets in practically every deck makes her extraordinarily powerful.

Mirage Mirror Sculpting Steel These are just really powerful cards. Becoming a copy of any artifact or mirror becoming practically anything makes for a lot of shenanigans.

Silent Arbiter has a soft spot in my heart and is one of the pieces from my original Karn deck. It also combines with Kozilek, the Great Distortion's Menace to make my commander unblockable.

I dunno... Probably Void Winnower and It That Betrays. No particular reason not to include them. Most likely I'll find a spot for them down the road after I can get back to playing regularly with my buddies. Expedition Map would be a solid inclusion too. I keep missing that one for some reason...

Wastes are useless. Fite me.

Strengths: With the deck being colorless I can never be color screwed, much like mono-colored decks and to a degree 2-color decks. With 59 mana sources of various kinds only 35 of those being lands the deck can produce mana with the best of them. A commander that draws cards and more, can fill a hand from 0 to 7 in one cast. Also this is a counterspell deck, lol.

Weaknesses: The deck is colorless... Colorless doesn't do everything all the colors can do. Or when it does it is a lot more mana to do it. colorless decks are also overwhelmingly artifact based. and are scary colors to go up against because of this but really anything that has mass artifact destruction can wreck things...

Characteristics

Flexibility: pays for flexibility by dramatically increasing the cost of effects. Colorless also has the smallest card pool but artifacts have been part of the game since the first set. So you can adapt to most things but sometimes the answer is just this one card and there aren't any other options. Redundancy just doesn't exist in some cases.

Resilience: is mainly artifacts. If you run into a lot of artifact hate or artifact removal your deck is going to crash and burn. The eldrazi lessen the impact of artifact hate/removal but only so much.

Sustainability: With the crazy high mana production possible and the commander drawing up to 7 cards this deck maintains a high level of sustainability. Much more so than a lot of other decks I've played.

Consistency: This almost always comes down to 'do I have the mana for it' the answer is almost always yes. I'd say consistency is high.

Cohesiveness: Artifacts like to work with artifacts. It loses a little cohesiveness with some effects that only work with artifacts. Since those won't effect the eldrazi and there are some effects that only effect the eldrazi and not the artifacts. These non-interactions are pretty minimal though.

Efficiency: This is pretty low. Some of the best removal in costs while other colors are paying or

Effectiveness: The deck can go from 0 to 60 faster than most anything else I've played. A single eldrazi can also just turn the whole game around. I consider effectiveness to be pretty high.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger + Oblivion Sower. Oblivion Sower doesn't only grab the lands exiled off it's own effect but all the lands that player owns in exile. If they are still around after an attack or two from Ulamog then Sower could end up grabbing quite a few lands. This interaction makes it worth considering Ulamog as the commander from time to time.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion + Erratic Portal or another instant speed return to hand. Whenever an opponent casts a spell you have the opportunity to return something to your hand with Portal and then discard that card to Kozilek's activated ability. So even if your hand is empty Kozilek's counter is still potentially a threat.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion + Silent Arbiter makes my commander unblockable.

Forsaken Monument + Basalt Monolith is infinite mana.

Myr Retriever + Junk Diver + 2 to 3 cost reduction + a sac outlet = spins round and round. It depends on what sac outlet is being used as to what happens with this but Ashnod's Altar makes infinite mana.

Nonbos: A few things that only work with artifacts or only work with eldrazi but pretty minimal and not detrimental.

Politically this deck is the archenemy. No way around it... Doesn't matter how strong or weak your eldrazi led deck is. Everyone is just going to point at the giant scary thing in your command zone and say kill them first. They are not exactly wrong either though, lol.

Opening hands want mana. Lots of mana. Like all of the mana. If you pick up that hand and it is all mana you are good to go. You can play all of that out as fast as possible and then go right to playing Kozilek, the Great Distortion on turn 3 pretty easily and refill your hand. You are now the archenemy lol. Be careful what you play out at this point. Being able to counter your opponent's responses can be key to winning or losing from here. Don't counter everything, choose your targets wisely. Remember most commander games are 4 players and every time you counter something it is a 1-for-1 card.

Getting a bounce to hand effect can be really nice once you have an eldrazi with a cast trigger in play and the ability to recast it once or twice a turn. This is an optional way to go though. This won't directly win the game.

Winning the game often comes down to turning 1 or more eldrazi sideways. The commander is a great one to do this with since it only needs to hit a player twice and has menace. Any of them will do.

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Revision 13 See all

(8 months ago)

+1 Inspiring Statuary main
-1 Not of this World main
+1 Not of this World main
+1 Silent Arbiter main
+1 Sword of Vengeance main
+1 Vedalken Orrery main
Top Ranked
Date added 4 years
Last updated 1 month
Exclude colors WUBRG
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

21 - 0 Mythic Rares

45 - 0 Rares

26 - 0 Uncommons

8 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.72
Tokens Assembly-Worker 2/2 C, Copy Clone, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Emblem Karn, Living Legacy, Goat 0/1 W, Powerstone, Spirit 2/2 C, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders POSSIBLE DECK, pp, Commander, Bullshit, inpsiration, Tapped Out - User Decks, Decks, This looks dope., Cool, prox
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