There Can Only B (1)

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Combo Devotion Mono-Black Theme/Gimmick UB (Dimir)

HarveyPekar

Creature (32)

• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Bloodsoaked Champion
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Cruel Sadist
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Dauthi Slayer
• 1x Deadeye Tracker
• 1x Deathgreeter
• 1x Dimir Guildmage
• 1x Dread Shade
• 1x Dread Wanderer
• 1x Garza's Assassin
• 1x Gatekeeper of Malakir
• 1x Geralf's Messenger
• 1x Ghastlord of Fugue
• 1x Gifted Aetherborn
• 1x Gravecrawler
• 1x Guul Draz Assassin
• 1x Kiku, Night's Flower
• 1x Kuon, Ogre Ascendant  ^Flip
• 1x Nightveil Specter
• 1x Phyrexian Obliterator
• 1x Plagued Rusalka
• 1x Relentless Dead
• 1x Scarblade Elite
• 1x Silent Assassin
• 1x Stitcher's Supplier
• 1x Thoughtpicker Witch
• 1x Vampire Hexmage
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Withered Wretch
• 1x Zombie Trailblazer

Sorcery (15)

• 1x Bubbling Muck
• 1x Damnable Pact
• 1x Dark Salvation
• 1x Dread Summons
• 1x Hymn to Tourach
• 1x Marsh Casualties
• 1x Mind Twist
• 1x Pox
• 1x Profane Command
• 1x Raven's Crime
• 1x Sadistic Sacrament
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Smallpox
• 1x Temporal Extortion
• 1x Unearth

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Carnival of Souls
• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Tortured Existence
• 1x Vampiric Rites

Land (34)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Desert of the Glorified
• 1x Memorial to Folly
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 30x Swamp

Commander (1)

Instant (10)

• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Death Denied
• 1x Fatal Push
• 1x Geth's Verdict
• 1x Malicious Affliction
• 1x Memory Plunder
• 1x Tainted Strike
• 1x Tragic Slip
• 1x Undying Evil
• 1x Victim of Night

Artifact (2)

• 1x Astral Cornucopia
• 1x Scepter of Fugue

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As in, There Can Only , the next in an illustrious line of decks centered around silly mana restrictions. In this case, there is only generic CMC in the whole deck; the rest can paid for with .

It used to be full-on exclusively colored mana costs, but that's when I realized the deck also made a perfect home for a famously abysmal card I have been trying to break for years. Yes, not only is this another gimmicky CMC-centric joke deck, but this is also a shell for a Carnival of Souls combo.

The Premise

Glancing at the commander, this is a dimir deck. But look anywhere else -- the lands, the spells, the anything -- and it reveals itself to be an unorthodox mono-black deck. Aside from the aforementioned Carnival, every spell in our deck requires . Keeping on-theme limits our purely black options to Kiku, Night's Flower and Kuon, Ogre Ascendant , both of whom are narrow and underpowered (but decent in the 99). Sygg has a much more incidentally useful ability while also expanding our card base, allowing us to play dimir hybrid cards.

Reaper King could have potentially been another general that would bring in all other manner of other hybrid cards, but the s in his hybrid CMC were too much of a breach of the restriction to sit comfortably with me.

Another grey area was spells, and ultimately I decided that X is not a number. As it would be equal to 0 in every location other than the stack, it should likewise be legal here. This may not be everyone's interpretation of the letter of the law, but this is my deck and I decide that letter, which in this case is X. Plus, it gives us a little bit more legs in the late game.

The Cards

Our mana curve skews super cheap, by virtue of eliminating generic mana costs (nearly) altogether, so we can safely trim the land count to fit more efficient removal, low-impact 1 drops, and assorted asassins-matters jank.

• The "Combo" and the reason we are an awkward deck instead of a nice . Carnival of Souls is our perfect little blemish, the missing link to a deck that I had been brewing for months that needed a clean finisher. And we are so close without it, too! Gravecrawler in conjunction with Viscera Seer , Deathgreeter , and a random zombie nets us one life and one scry for every black mana we spend. With Carnival of Souls , we lose that one life and gain the mana back. Which gives us infinite deaths and infinite scries. Switch Viscera Seer with Carrion Feeder and you get one large sucker. And then... that's it. Without any type of Blood Artist/Clone effect at B, BB, BBB, or so on, unfortunately the value train stops there. We have to start paying additional mana or life for game-turning advantages like draw-locking opponents with Thoughtpicker Witch or massive draw from Dark Prophecy . (Edit: I figured out how to break it! Bridge from Below was the key. See the update below)

• "Threats" in this deck are nontraditional, especially for EDH. Dark Ritual into Phyrexian Obliterator can be as good as it gets here. With a mono-devotion deck, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can occasionally act like a Turn 4 Temple of the False God , but other times can power out massive Dread Summons or a kicked Sadistic Sacrament . Temporal Extortion hopefully tricks an opponent to pay half their life, otherwise it's probably an Explore . And then there is everyone's favorite finisher, a pumped Dread Shade topped off with an unexpected Tainted Strike .

• Draw is thankfully somewhat decent. Necropotence needs no 'splanation, Cryptbreaker synergizes with our other zombies when it isn't making its own, Dark Prophecy and Vampiric Rites let us draw off of an aristocrats plan, Damnable Pact and Sign in Blood are strong single-uses, and Deadeye Tracker draws lands or bins creatures for our...

• Recursion suite. Bloodghast and Gravecrawler bring themselves back for very little cost, while Dread Wanderer and Bloodsoaked Champion come back for a bigger expense. Unearth hits nearly every creature in the deck, Tortured Existence lets us rebuy value creatures while binning something like a Bloodghast, Death Denied scales into the late game, and Profane Command is all about dat versatility.

• Discard. Unsurprisingly, discard is a common theme among cheap, efficient black spells. We run the good, repeatable, or scaling ones. Scepter of Fugue , Ghastlord of Fugue , Dimir Guildmage , Raven's Crime , Hymn to Tourach , Mind Twist . Also sorta in this category are Pox and its little brother Smallpox , which are also an antidote to decks that will inevitably ramp harder and play higher quality cards.

• Aristocrats is another plan our available card pool lends itself to. Like discard, it's all about grinding out the bigger, better decks with recursive creatures and sacrifice outlets like Thoughtpicker Witch and Plagued Rusalka . Witch backs up the discard plan by locking out the good cards from future draws, while Rusalka chips away at our opponent's board. Geralf's Messenger has some extra synergy with Sygg, and Kuon, Ogre Ascendant can be a legitimately powerful control piece.

• Ramp. Slim pickings in the numberless ranks. No artifact mana, except Everflowing Chalice (everflowingly useless) and Astral Cornucopia . Bubbling Muck is great, and Dark Ritual is less great but can power out early plays.

• Removal. Our heftiest, healthiest cluster of spells, from Tragic Slip to Fatal Push , from Kiku, Night's Flower to Gatekeeper of Malakir . Marsh Casualties is sort of a wrath... sort of... yeah.

• Two, Count Em, Two Tribes! There are plenty of Zombies in the deck, with synergistic cards like Relentless Dead , Zombie Trailblazer , and Dark Salvation holding them all together. Far more interesting and weaker are our assassins! Scarblade Elite is our one and only payoff card, but we support it with incidental assassins that are quarterway decent on their own like Garza's Assassin and Guul Draz Assassin .

• The Rest. Bloodchief Ascension is an absolute house, synergizing with our commander and threatening to kill opponents on its own, and we are lucky that we can play it. Dauthi Slayer is an unblockable creature that dings opponents for two, working well with our commander if not all-the-way-there. Withered Wretch is graveyard hate, Undying Evil is creature protection, Vampire Hexmage hates on planeswalkers and other random permanents, Gifted Aetherborn blocks and gains a little life, and Memory Plunder has a wicked high ceiling.

The Loneliest Number

What are we missing? Reanimate would be decent, but honestly I think is just worst than Unearth in this deck. Entomb would be great, but I don't have any extra copies, ditto Sinkhole . Urborg Justice is a cute spell that works with our combo and aristocrats plan, but sometimes will do absolutely nothing and only hits a single player when it works. Shadow of a Doubt is a terrific gotcha card at best and cycler at worst, and I don't own a copy. Darkness is a $6500 fog.

Blood Pet and Basal Thrull could make the cut if the right cards are printed to synergize with 'em in the future. Cuombajj Witches is useful as a pinger, but can also be a great liability given how many X/1s we run. Deathgrip is a powerful, narrow meta call. Demonic Consultation would be a strong tutor if we had a simpler combo, while Doomsday would be more useful if it were better at actually winning on the spot. Disciple of the Vault would be an overpowered miracle if Gravecrawler were an artifact, but unfortunately Mycosynth Lattice doesn't fit the requirements.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.86
Tokens	Zombie 2/2 B