Welcome to my newly constructed Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder EDH deck! This deck was constructed for a focused but non-optimized or competitive meta with decks on a 200-500$ budget. Endrek serves as an interesting commander because he's one of the best token producers in mono-black, given that you can consistently cash in your Thrulls for value so he doesn't leave the battlefield. Listed below are some of the most important synergies of the deck.
The classic mono-black ramp land Cabal Coffers allows us to generate absurd amounts of mana quickly, with backup from Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth increasing our Swamp count on our non-basics. Being mono-black, we also run the more budget-friendly Cabal Stronghold, which can be almost as strong as Cabal Coffers in this deck. Since they're non-legendary, Thespian's Stage can cause things to get out of hand extraordinarily quickly targeting either of the Cabal lands. Other black ramp creatures like Crypt Ghast and Magus of the Coffers can help us get ahead. Finally, some mass-sacrifice deck staples like Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Pitiless Plunderer, and Black Market can help us zoom ahead as well as helping to fuel a game-ending Exsanguinate.
This deck's game plan is to either win with attrition through our many pingers or accruing enough value to stay alive while fueling a large Exsanguinate or piecing together an infinite combo. Zulaport Cutthroat, Blood Artist, and Vindictive Vampire all help us stay alive while managing the life total of our opponents. Hoping we can be casting at least one creature per turn, having one of these on the battlefield can end a game quicker than expected. Smothering Abomination and Krav, the Unredeemed might just be the best cards in the deck, allowing us to turn the token Thrulls we're churning out into card advantage with no harm to our life total. As is common for a mono-black deck, we frequently trade our life total for card advantage. Gray Merchant of Asphodel allows us to gain ridiculous amounts of life and can act as a wincon if looped with a reanimation outlet. We can use cards like Whisper, Blood Liturgist and Phyrexian Reclamation to keep looping these creatures to finish out a game or stabilize from any life total.
Finally, Endrek enables some really unique infinite combos that win on the spot through pingers if uninterrupted. Either of our mana-producing Altars are very key to these combos and are usually our primary tutor targets. Endless Cockroaches creates infinite mana with our general and Phyrexian Altar on the field, creating three Thrulls and itself to be sacced then returned to hand, producing +1 black mana. Since its cost is 1BB, it can't go infinite with Ashnod's Altar, but can produce a ton of dies triggers and colorless mana at a rate of +5 mana per loop. In a similar vein, Ancestral Statue produces infinite colorless mana with Ashnod's Altar if we target it with its ETB bounce trigger and nets 0 mana but produces infinite dies triggers with Phyrexian Altar. While hilarious, mono-black offers little to no defense in terms of combo protection, so either spring these on your opponents when they're all tapped out or as a last resort, since they have to throw everything at you to prevent themselves from losing.
All in all, Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder makes for a crazy twist on a traditional aristocrats or token deck, focused on 'conthrulling' your population and gameplan all while squeezing ever last drop of value you can out of his abilities. Thanks for reading! :D
DECK UPDATE 4/22/19
- Phyrexian Tower, - Swamp. This was a change instituted solely due to UMA dropping its price into a reasonable and affordable range. Tower ramps and provides a sac outlet, which are the two main things Endrek wants to be doing.
- Black Market, - Swamp. Having never played black in Commander before, I highly underestimated the value of Black Market. Initially, it seemed too slow at 5 mana that doesn't affect the game for a turn, but after watching new decks in my playgroup run it there's no denying this card is as busted or more than other staple ramp enchantments like Burgeoning or Smothering Tithe. This deck can also put that mana to use well with our variety of X effects. I try to shy away from cutting lands since that's a dangerous road, but after months of playing this deck I'm consistently drawing enough cards and making enough mana that I'm comfortable going down to 35.
- Erebos, God of the Dead, - Dictate of Erebos. With several decks in my playgroup running large amounts of lifegain, Erebos's effect seems more important than ever, and drawing turning excess mana and life into cards is never bad. Oftentimes I had better things to do with my mana than hold up 5 for blowouts with Dictate, and I felt like it painted too heavy a target on my back when it did come out.
- Massacre Girl, - Sadistic Hypnotist. This deck really needed another board wipe besides Mutilate in my creature-heavy meta, and it doesn't get any better for this deck than Massacre Girl. With Endrek out, due to the chain of 5 Thrulls inducing -5/-5 on all creatures, she's an unstoppable board wipe that leaves behind a menacing 4/4 body that can be reanimated for repetition. She gets under indestructible, is more consistent than Mutilate, and I can't wait for her price to drop in a few weeks so I can include her in this deck. My rationale for cutting Sad Hippy is similar to Dictate: the games where it's gone off just aren't fun for me. Sad Hippy led to some feelsbad moments for my playgroup's level and I didn't particularly enjoy playing it.
- Torment of Hailfire, - Profane Command. Torment was a card I avoided when building the deck due to budgetary reasons, but this deck really needs another one-shot finisher besides Exsanguinate and the first mode of Profane Command wasn't cutting it. I rarely felt the need to use the other modes since the deck reanimates and removes well and isn't often looking to win through combat damage, so Hailfire seems like a great upgrade here.
- Liliana, Dreadhorde General, - Reaper from the Abyss. Liliana, one of the strongest cards from War of the Spark does it all in this deck. She can tick up to protect herself while buffing your boardstate and threatening a win in a few turns or tick down as a sac outlet/removal 2-for-1. Her static ability is the best part, as another Dark Prophecy with no downside should provide enough gas to end the game in a turn or two with any reasonable boardstate. I've been unimpressed with Reaper in this style of deck where most removal comes from mass sacrifice effects and the creature count is high enough I'm comfortable slotting Lili into the 6-drop slot along with Grave Titan.
Playtesting Update 10/31/19. Currently in the works, testing increasing cheap, unconditional removal while playing more into the graveyard theme while and going down some inefficient or win-more cards.
- Codex Shredder, - Mortician Beetle. The flexibility of returning a single sorcery or enchantment could be great in this deck. Also used to fill graveyard or ruin scrys/tutors to the top. Beetle usually attracted too much attention while doing little in a deck not wanting to win through combat.
- Altar of Dementia, - Bloodthrone Vampire. Following the rationale above, Altar of Dementia is a better 2 CMC sac outlet that lets us fill our graveyards or mill our opponents as a win con.
- Animate Dead, - Hell's Caretaker. Cheaper reanimation that can be used on our opponents' yards. Hell's Caretaker usually felt like a worse Whisper, Blood Liturgist having to act only during our upkeep.
- Magus of the Will, - Thallid Soothsayer. Unfortunately not as powerful as YawgWin but still a great card to have on a budget. Soothsayer rarely got used since the deck has more efficient sources of draw and sacrifice.
- Defile, - Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief. Cheap removal that will kill most creatures and gets around indestructible. Drana was rarely activated because she's so slow.
- Oblivion Stone, - Bontu's Monument. The deck needs an all-reset button that can hit pesky enchantments and artifacts. O Stone was chosen over Perilous Vault since we have lots of graveyard recursion, but indestructibility plays a large role in my meta so the switch may be made in the future. Monument usually felt like a worse drain effect since it doesn't work with Thrull tokens dying, and the cost reduction wasn't that relevant since the curve of the deck is quite low.
Christmas Update 2/13/20. Christmas brought about some extra spending money so I made some sweet upgrades so I can include some of my favorite cards in mono black!
- Massacre Wurm, - Charcoal Diamond. Finally, I get to play with one of my favorite cards in mono black! Massacre Wurm serves as a sweet piece of mass removal and win condition locked into one. I can't wait to play with it. I took out Diamond because this deck produces so much mana consistently with Swamp synergies it never felt particularly relevant, especially when it entered tapped.
- Demonic Tutor, - Diabolic Tutor. Tutoring for cards in EDH is one of my favorite things to do, and now I get to do it strictly better! Yay!
- Force of Despair, - Magus of the Will. I'm really intrigued to see how the black Force from MH will play out. I was looking through my collection and thought of how insane the blowout potential from this might be. You can use it as a sort of 'free counterspell' to hit a pesky creature without targeting or absolutely blow out some cards like Genesis Wave or Avenger of Zendikar Magus never really lived up to how good I thought it might be. Waiting a turn and paying 6 mana for this effect is asking a lot.
- Dictate of Erebos, - Nether Traitor. Dictate is back, there's really no card like it for controlling the board in an aristocrats deck. It's incredibly useful for getting around 4 decks in my meta that rely heavily on indestructibility, too. Like Reassembling Skeleton, Nether Traitor was near useless when Endrek was out making tokens and I was usually spending mana catching up if he wasn't.
- 2 Swamp, - Barren Moor and Polluted Mire. Entering tapped was a big hassle, and I figured increasing Swamp synergy found in the ramp package is more important than paying to ditch an excess land.
