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Gisela Stax/Destruction

Commander / EDH* Land Destruction RW (Boros) Stax

Kellis

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Instant (7)

Sorcery (8)

Enchantment (6)

Artifact (17)

Planeswalker (6)

Creature (22)

Land (33)

Commander (1)

Commander: Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

The deck doesn’t do Voltron as in typical Gisela lists; rather than attaching swords, pump spells, and double damage spells to Gisela, it uses mass removal to clear the path for Gisela to attack and win the game. The deck does have volton elements, and other cards that serve many functions, but the main game plan is a derivation of the typical Gisela deck.

We have to start with the commander herself. While Gisela has a steep mana cost of 7, Gisela herself is a card that warps the boardstate dramatically. First of all, Gisela is a 5/5 with First Strike and Flying. This makes her an impressive attacker, with two forms of evasion making it difficult to defend against her. This also makes her a good blocker as well; being able to block any creature due to Flying and First Strike allows her to live most combats. This is amplified by her two abilities. Gisela makes ANY damage against opponents or their permanents doubled. This makes Gisela a true beater allowing her to kill opponents with commander damage in only 3 combat steps. If it is not advantageous to attack, you can hold Gisela back, and because of First Strike, she can defend against almost any attacker, allowing the player to encourage other people to attack each other because they have double damage. Her second ability says to prevent half the damage dealt to you or your permanents rounded up. This only makes blocking Gisela even more difficult and blocking with Gisela becomes even easier. It is worth noting that damage prevented is half rounded up. This can stop many infinite combos such as Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion because each instance of damage is prevented (1/2 rounded up is 1, so you prevent 1 damage each time). Gisela’s downside is that she costs a lot for all of this power. Getting to 7 mana quickly is critical to this deck, and it is shown in the list.
This deck relies on artifact ramp mainly to get the job done. The deck plays the 4 fastest mana rocks in existence: Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, and Grim Monolith. These 4 are ideal in the opening hand, and preferably multiples. It is worth noting that Enlightened Tutor can, and has often, found one of these cards on turn 1 or 2, allowing you to cast Gisela quickly. The other artifact ramp is included on the following criteria:
  • 2 CMC mana rocks should come into play untapped and make one mana
  • 3-4 CMC mana rocks should make 2 mana
  • 5+ CMC mana rocks should make 3 mana

Most of the mana rocks in the deck do fit these ideas. Some don’t simply because there are not enough cards that exist to do that, and others are good enough still to make the cut. There are other cards that mana ramp that are not artifacts. Knight of the White Orchid can fetch for any plains, and because Gisela rarely has the most lands in play, Knight of the White Orchid is a solid accelerant. Treasonous Ogre is another accelerant that truly shines in Gisela. Often times, playing 3 life for one mana can be steep, but due to Gisela’s damage reduction, players normally have plenty of life to spare for this mana. Using Treasonous Ogre to cast Gisela quickly and then cast a boardwipe the same turn is one of the strongest things the deck can do. Leaving a Gisela behind can protect your low life total. I have gone to single digits using this method and won the game outright. After all, all that matters is having your life be greater than 0. So long as that’s the case, you still have a shot. There are a few other cards that simply help you find the lands you need. Expedition Map and Weathered Wayfarer can look for a land to play from your deck. Oftentimes, getting Ancient Tomb is the best option because playing it is Mana Accelerating, but sometimes getting a utility land is a good play as well. Land Tax helps thin the deck to draw answers and to consistently make land drops each turn, which is sometimes difficult to do. With the large amount of mana acceleration, the deck can get flooded, but in the same grain, Gisela often dies a lot, so having the mana to cast Gisela over and over again is worth it.

The main plan is to play Gisela quickly and then to wipe the board after. All of the boardwipes often destroy everything leaving behind only Gisela. There are two exceptions to this: Catastrophe and sometimes Austere Command, but they have enough utility otherwise to warrant being included. Some boardwipes clearly show this, such Cataclysm, where you simply choose not to sacrifice Gisela. Others like Hour of Devastation, Wildfire, and Destructive Force are trickier. Due to Gisela’s damage modifications, these boardwipes deal double to opponents’ permanents and only half to your own. This makes a card like Destructive Force deal 10 damage to permanents opponents control and only 2 damage to our permanents, often killing everything but your own creatures.
This deck gains a large tempo advantage out of wiping the lands on the field. This deck relies heavily on mana rocks, so destroying your own lands doesn’t cause as much issues for this deck. Cataclysm, Wildfire, and Destructive Force wipe out lands and do damage to all the creatures on the field. Other cards that can remove lands are Armageddon and Catastrophe. Restricting your opponent’s mana through land destruction makes it difficult for them to answer Gisela. And since most of our mana is in mana rocks, we often come out drastically ahead after, and ideally when a land is left behind, it is a land that taps for 2 mana such as Ancient Tomb or Boros Garrison.
As with most Boros Decks, this deck can struggle to have enough cards to do what it wants. Due to the large amount of mana available, this deck plays Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, which draws 4 cards and it is substantial threat when played. The deck also has two wheels in Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul, as well as an off-wheel in Chandra, Flamecaller. The deck has a tendency to empty its hand quickly, or have lots of cards it does not want in its hand. These wheels helps the deck cycle through and/or draw a large volume of cards at one to keep the pressure going. Other card draw spells are Sword of Fire and Ice, Mind's Eye, and Nahiri, the Harbinger. There are also lands that can also draw cards as well. Arch of Orazca is expensive to activate, but the deck does have lots of mana and obtaining the City's Blessing is easy for this deck. Throne of the High City allows the deck to become the Monarch, allowing it to draw cards at the end of each turn. Even though the Monarch can be taken away by being dealt combat damage, an untapped Gisela often holds back all of the aggression so you are always the queen. This is often enough card draw to have enough resources in your hand. Enlightened Tutor can also tutor for card draw artifacts late game to keep the train rolling.
Even with the plan to remove everything and attack after, sometimes just strapping on a few swords and attacking is just the right thing to do. The different swords all do various things depending on what the deck wants, which is often just card draw. In addition, each sword turns Gisela into a 2 turn clock down from 3 due to commander damage. Lightning Greeves is a way to give Gisela haste and attack quickly. Stoneforge Mystic can get a sword early, and Stonehewer Giant can get a sword on demand, which turns off all targeted removal onto Gisela, due to either Shroud granted from Greeves, or attaching a sword to give Gisela protection from a color.
This deck is a little light on artifact and enchantment removal, but each of the cards can remove 2 or more things at once if needed. The removal in this deck are Wear//tear, Return to Dust, Austere Command, Nahiri, the Harbinger, and Fiery Confluence. While Cataclysm does remove artifacts, it is hard to justify casting either of them with the single goal to only kill a signet. Fiery Confluence can also function as a boardwipe with Gisela in play, dealing up to 6 damage total to opponents creatures and 0 to ours, dealing 1 damage 3 times, so it gets prevented to 0.
Having single target removal is always important in EDH. The deck plays both Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares. Nahiri, the Harbinger is another way to deal with tapped creatures as well. The deck also plays Angel of Serenity to remove several problems at once and to function as grave recursion as well, more on grave recursion in the next section.
This deck has a few cards for creature recursion: Angel of Serenity, Sword of Light and Shadow, Bruna, the Fading Light, and Dawnbreak Reclaimer. Sword of Light and Shadow can return key creatures to your hand to be played again. Bruna, the Fading Light can either return a large angel, which there are plenty of, or Gisela herself. If Gisela dies, you can put it in your own graveyard and cast Bruna to return it, that way you don’t have to spend mana to recast it and cheat Gisela into play. Since Bruna's ability is on a cast trigger, you can almost always get Gisela back, even though a counterspell. Dawnbreak Reclaimer is an uncommon choice. Because the deck generally only has large board impacting creatures, the opponent is often forced to return something large and scary while they return something less impactful. This can also return Gisela because there are several situations where Gisela is the only creature in the graveyard. This is much more risky than Bruna because Dawnbreak Reclaimer can just get killed before she triggers.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and Heartless Hidetsugu is a combo that can win the game outright. If you opponents are at an even life total, they die. If they are at an odd life total, they go to 1 life. This combo is often fetched with a Nahiri, the Harbinger ultimate and often ends the game on the spot. This does only half of the damage to you, leaving you safe if your opponents are still living.
A good way for this deck to get ahead is to slow you opponents down and/or disrupt them allowing your deck to get ahead. Linvala, Keeper of Silence stops all activated abilities your opponents control, even mana abilities, which punishes deck with lots of mana dorks. Kismet, Loxodon Gatekeeper, and Blind Obedience all force your opponents to have a majority of their permanents come into play tapped. Casting one of these cards early can often disrupt your opponents to a large degree and allows Gisela to plow ahead. Stranglehold not only prevents your opponents from taking extra turns, but it stops your opponents from searching their libraries. This is strong against fetchlands and turns off all tutors your opponents have, decreasing the chance they can find an answer to what Gisela is doing or preventing them from winning. Many EDH decks have enter the battlefield triggers, and topor orb stops them right in their tracks. Gisela has very few enter the battlefield triggers, so Topor Orb barely effects this deck, while it can turn off lots of opponents decks. Because this deck is only 2 colors, we can afford to play Blood Moon as well. Blood Moon is brutal against tuned mana bases and any deck that runs 3 or more colors. This deck can sometimes feel the pain from Blood Moon, but it can be planned around by using fetchlands to get plains before casting it so you can still cast Gisela and other cards on time. Blood Moon can also turn off utility lands such as Maze of Ith and Mystifying Maze that can disrupt our way to end the game in a quick fashion. Enlightened Tutor can search for a taxing effect as well when you need it.
Most of the lands in this deck come into play untapped, which is important because casting Gisela on time is critical, and having lots of enter the battlefield tapped lands can slow down the deck a lot. The deck also has several utility lands that it can use in different situations. Cavern of Souls stops blue players from countering your spells, while Slayers' Stronghold pumps up creatures and gives it Haste to get in the last points of damage. Strip Mine, meanwhile, takes care of those pesky Cabal Coffers, Maze of Ith, or even basics if you feel truly evil. Lands that help with card draw, like Throne of the High City and Arch of Orazca, may only produce colorless mana, but they make up for it with getting cards, which this deck desperately needs. Ancient Tomb and Boros Garrison gives the deck a good land to keep post boardwipe, as does Flagstones of Trokair, which searches for a land after it get destroyed in a boardwipe.

If you have any questions or comments about specific inclusions or exclusions, let me know in the comments. I am always looking for ways to make this deck better, and perhaps even to break Boros.

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Date added 9 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

31 - 0 Mythic Rares

37 - 0 Rares

13 - 0 Uncommons

6 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.31
Tokens City's Blessing, Construct 0/0 C, Copy Clone, Elemental 3/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Soldier 1/1 W
Folders Primers, Suggestions, EDH
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