Triggered

Commander / EDH Artifact BG (Golgari) Control Multiplayer Primer Stax

rdeller

Instant (4)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Unravel the Aether

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Death Cloud
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Smallpox
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Worm Harvest

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Awakening Zone
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Bottomless Pit
• 1x Gibbering Descent
• 1x Necrogen Mists
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Tainted AEther
• 1x Tombstone Stairwell
• 1x Words of Waste
• 1x Zombie Infestation

Artifact (29)

• 1x Aligned Hedron Network
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Executioner's Capsule
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Geth's Grimoire
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Horizon Spellbomb
• 1x Lifespark Spellbomb
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Meekstone
• 1x Mishra's Bauble
• 1x Necrogen Spellbomb
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Nihil Spellbomb
• 1x Pithing Needle
• 1x Possessed Portal
• 1x Salvaging Station
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Smokestack
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Trading Post
• 1x Traveler's Amulet
• 1x Unstable Obelisk
• 1x Urza's Bauble
• 1x Wanderer's Twig
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms

Creature (12)

• 1x Archfiend of Depravity
• 1x Bloodghast
• 1x Cunning Lethemancer
• 1x Hangarback Walker
• 1x Hex Parasite
• 1x Lodestone Golem
• 1x Mindless Automaton
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Sylvok Replica
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine

Land (36)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 7x Forest
• 1x High Market
• 1x Hissing Quagmire
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Phyrexia's Core
• 1x Strip Mine
• 7x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Commander (1)

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Maybeboard

Artifact (1)

• 1x Trinisphere

Creature (1)

• 1x Cathodion

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Game Plan

The deck is built around a large amount of low cost artifact spells. Early game the Baubles and Spellbombs supply you with plenty of card advantage as you slowly play your discard, tax, and sacrifice effects.

Mid game you should be focused on assembling engines, like Salvaging Station + Smokestack , that allow you to kill off many of your opponents' creatures at a time. if your opponents don't play many creatures, cards like Tombstone Stairwell and Forbidden Orchard will allow you to give them easy to kill tokens, which will trigger Glissa upon death allowing you to return a bunch of artifacts that you can either recast or discard to Zombie Infestation or Mindless Automaton.

Late Game you should aim to close out the game through locking down the board with combos like:

Gibbering Descent + Smokestack Once Hellbent is active you never need to sacrifice to the Smokestack again.

Black Market + Death Cloud if you can get X to equal a large number you'll generally leave everyone low with no hand, creatures, or lands, and if Glissa was on the board, you'll have a hand full of artifacts once it resolves as well as a Black Market that probably just got loaded with counters.

Possessed Portal + Words of Waste Both of these are replacement effects meaning you can still activate Words for all of your draws. This will allow you to clean your opponent's hands faster forcing them to start sacrificing permanents sooner.

Nevinyrral's Disk + Soul of New Phyrexia pay 6 to destroy all creatures, artifacts, and enchantments you don't control.

If you can't manage to land a board lock the other viable path to victory is to fill your graveyard with lands, wipe the board with one of the deck's many sweepers, and swarm your opponents with Worm tokens from Worm Harvest.

Card Choice Explanations

Creatures

Archfiend of Depravity: Counters token swarms and provides plenty of triggers for Glissa. His 5/4 Flying body also makes him a good finisher, and he's ended more than one game for me.

Bloodghast: Cheap and recurs itself. One of the best cards to use as discard/sacrifice fodder.

Cunning Lethemancer : Repeatable discard that hits each player, probably one of the weaker discard effects in the deck.

Hangarback Walker: This card is a 10 out of 10 that Glissa turns into a 15 out of 10. Thanks to Glissa it's a one card army that needs to be permanently removed or it will take over the game.

Hex Parasite: There are so many counters in MTG that I struggle thinking of an EDH deck that doesn't have cards that get killed by it. It eats Planeswalkers, Everflowing Chalice, ect., and most importantly can be recurred with Glissa. On top of using Parasite offensively you can use it to keep age counters off Tombstone Stairwell or pull some soot counters off of Smokestack if you need to reset it (preferably at the end of the turn right before yours).

Lodestone Golem: Decent recurable finisher, who's tax effect doesn't really bother us since it doesn't effect 73% of our deck.

Mindless Automaton: Recurable source of instant speed discard that doubles as card draw. Sometimes I run out of artifacts in my graveyard to recur, so I like having instant speed discard outlets to help me not miss Glissa triggers. It also helps when I want to skip my upkeep with Gibbering Descent , because without instant speed discard I wouldn't be able to make use of Glissa Triggers and maintain Hellbent.

Sheoldred, Whispering One: Format staple and late game finisher. This deck cares more about her second triggered ability than her first.

Soul of New Phyrexia: This is not a spellslinger deck. This deck is heavily dependent on developing a board state, and Soul is probably the best card at protecting that board state, on top of being an excellent and recurable finisher.

Steel Hellkite: Recurable flying finisher that can easily wreck someone's board.

Sylvok Replica: Spot removal machine gun. This guy is an all star that my opponents have gone out of the way to make sure gets exiled at some point in the game.

Wurmcoil Engine: Strong recurable late game finisher.

Artifacts

Aligned Hedron Network: It's an artifact that passes the Avacyn, Angel of Hope + Sigarda, Host of Herons test.

Codex Shredder: This is our Eternal Witness that doubles as a middle finger to half the tutors in the game. #SS

Crucible of Worlds: Reuse all those lands we're discarding and sacrificing. Synergizes great with all of our upkeep discard effects letting us pitch our land drop for turn.

Executioner's Capsule: Yo dawg, I heard you liked kill spells! #SS

Expedition Map: I run a lot of utility lands. This gets me the ones I need. #SS

Geth's Grimoire: Powerful card draw engine with all of our discard effects. Combos insanely with Words of Waste

Golgari Signet: Signets are some of the best mana available.

Horizon Spellbomb : Easy Breezy Beautiful Card Advantage! #SS

Lifespark Spellbomb : If people want to stop playing creatures, start making their lands creatures. Bonus points if you kill their land and bring Lifespark back with the Glissa trigger. #SS

Mana Vault: . If you don't want to pay to untap it you can just sacrifice it to something. #SS

Meekstone: Getting trampled by fatties got you down, not anymore. Just make sure not to attack with Glissa if Meekstone's out. #SS

Mishra's Bauble: I hear free reusable card draw is good. #SS

Necrogen Spellbomb : Sacrifice/discard fodder, card draw, or a discard spell. Versatility is power. #SS

Nevinyrral's Disk : Our reusable reset button. Combine with Soul of New Phyrexia it's our GG button.

Nihil Spellbomb: Graveyard hate is important, and spellbomb is one of the best hate cards available on top of synergising with the rest of the deck really well. #SS

Pithing Needle: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. If nobody's playing him Sensei's Divining Top.

Possessed Portal: One of our primary win conditions. Very few players and decks can play properly under a Portal. It's important to note that skipping draws is a replacement effect so other effects that replace draws such as Words of Waste or dredge cards like Life from the Loam will still work.

Salvaging Station : Curious as to what #SS means? That would be any card that can be targeted by Salvaging Station. The amount of card advantage this card generates is absurd. It allows us to play insanely greedy with Smokestack effects due to the large amount of sacrifice fodder it will produce every turn.

Skullclamp: If I have to explain why this is in the deck, this isn't the deck for you. #SS

Smokestack: In a deck full of fodder the Smokestack is king. There's a reason people hate this card, and Glissa abuses it like no other. Just remember to stack your Smokestack triggers so that you sacrifice to it before you add your soot counter for the turn.

Sol Ring: I amar prestar sen: han mathon ne nen, han mathon ne chae...a han noston ned wilith. #SS

Sphere of Resistance: This deck's average CMC is >3, we can easily afford this tax. Opponents will struggle with it when combine with all the stax effects.

Torpor Orb: The best card in the deck. No, really it is. The entire deck is build around accommodating this card. The only card in the deck this turns off is Tainted AEther. I've ended games on turn one by going land into Sol Ring into Torpor Orb. A lot of players don't realize how heavily their deck relies on abilities that trigger on creatures entering the battlefield until they're sitting across from an early Torpor Orb. It's fun watching decks draw relentlessly because the only cards in their deck that remove Torpor Orb are Krosan Grip, Trygon Predator and Cyclonic Rift, and they can't combo with it in play.

Trading Post: This card does everything, and it's appalling how little I see it run. This card should really be an edh staple, it's that good.

Traveler's Amulet: Helps fix our mana early game while giving us lands to pitch to Worm Harvest or recovering from large Death Clouds late game. #SS

Unstable Obelisk: In most decks this card is bad since there are so many better mana rocks out there, but with Glissa you can use its Vindicate mode over and over. The worst mistake you can make with this card is only using it's mana mode.

Urza's Bauble: Bauble 2: Electric Boogaloo #SS

Wanderer's Twig : Helps fix our mana early game while giving us lands to pitch to Worm Harvest or recovering from large Death Clouds late game. #SS

Wayfarer's Bauble: Mana ramp #SS

Enchantments

Awakening Zone: Gives us mana and sacrifice fodder every turn.

Bitterblossom: Gives us sacrifice fodder every turn. Important to note that the only sources of flying in the deck are the Faerie tokens, Steel Hellkite, Hangarback Walker's thopter tokens and Archfiend of Depravity.

Black Market: If you can protect your Black Market you won't need lands anymore. The amount of mana this card generates is ridiculous, and any game where you're allowed to resolve one and fuel it is probably ending in your favor.

Bottomless Pit : Repeatable discard that hits each player. One of the strongest discard effects in the deck since the discard is random. Yes is sucks that it hits you too, but Glissa can recur most of the deck. The minor inconvenience it causes you is well worth the major inconvenience it causes your opponents.

Gibbering Descent : Repeatable discard that hits each player. The life loss, madness, and Hellbent effect make it the best discard effect in the deck.

Necrogen Mists: Repeatable discard that hits each player. See redundancy.

Phyrexian Arena: Draw power incarnate. There's a reason it's a format staple.

Tainted AEther: This card makes life hard for your opponents, and turns Forbidden Orchard into tap: Add to your mana pool, return target artifact from your graveyard to your hand.

Tombstone Stairwell: This is a pet card of mine that I always try to make work, and Glissa makes it work best. Tombstone Stairwell triggers Glissa more than @MeninistTweet triggers Tumblr.

Words of Waste: Turn your excess draws into discard spells!!!

Zombie Infestation: Instant speed discard outlet that produces more sacrifice fodder. See Mindless Automaton for why I like instant speed discard.

Planeswalkers

Liliana of the Dark Realms : An opponent of mine once questioned why I would run LotDR in a multicolored EDH deck after I played her. Lilly went on to take over and single handily win that game. If you ever manage to land her ult it's game over. I had my doubts about her at first, but after seeing her on the table I've had a hard time finding reasons not to put her into my black edh decks.

Instants

Beast Within: Every deck needs instant speed spot removal, and this is the best card available. Glissa even makes giving away the 3/3 an upside since it's another trigger.

Krosan Grip: Sometimes you just need removal that can't be responded to. This card is a format staple for a reason.

Putrefy:Solid removal spell that hits the two most relevant permanent types.

Unravel the Aether : I was originally using Deglamer, but I was able to find a foil Unravel. I started using it to deal with gods, and I've never been sad to top deck it.

Sorceries

Black Sun's Zenith: One of the players in my playgroup became famous for using Tooth and Nail to grab Avacyn, Angel of Hope + Sigarda, Host of Herons . I needed removal that could deal with that, because if it can deal with Sigarda + Avacyn it can deal with almost anything. The down side is how mana intensive it is, but it's well worth the cost.

Death Cloud: The almighty XPox. Death Cloud wins games, but please use it responsibly. I love Death Clouds where X > 15 just as much as the next guy, but if you don't have a way to win or recover after casting it, don't. Death Clouding for the win is fun, Death Clouding for the lulz makes you a douche.

Life from the Loam: This deck runs a lot of cards that make players sacrifice permanents, and sometimes you have to sacrifice lands. Loam also refills your hand with lands to discard to Worm Harvest or your universal discard effects like Necrogen Mists, so you can hold onto important cards.

Smallpox: With the switch over to the Vancouver mulligan smallpox can win a game on turn 2 now that people can't partial their way into mana. Our deck doesn't need a lot of lands to operate at full capacity, so this is a perfect fit. Bonus points if you use the Time Spiral version, as it's flavor text is the epitome of this deck.

Toxic Deluge: Included for the same reason as Black Sun's Zenith only it has a life investment instead of a mana investment.

Worm Harvest: In this deck lands die. Most of the time your lands dying is a bad thing. Worm Harvest makes it an okay thing. Death Clouds for 10+ are fun when you have a Black Market, Liliana of the Dark Realms , and Worm Harvest.

Lands

Forest + Swamp : It might be weird to explain basic lands, but I feel like people underestimate them. A lot of people seem to view basic lands as budget and believe they should try to run the bare minimum. I think that's wrong, and every mono, bi, and tri colored EDH deck should be running basic lands as AT LEAST a third of their land base. Running too many nonbasic lands leaves you vulnerable to hate cards like Blood Moon, Ruination , Back to Basics, or Tsabo's Web. The even 7/7 split between forest and swamp might also appear weird in this deck when you consider look at the mana and color distribution of the deck, but even thought the deck is extremely black heavy I still need early on in order to cast Glissa.

Bayou: The best duel land money can buy. I wouldn't go out and buy one for this deck, but if you already have one there's no reason not to run it.

Overgrown Tomb: Budget Bayou. Run it.

Command Tower: Unconditional color fixing that enters untapped.

Forbidden Orchard: Unconditional color fixing that enters untapped. The 1/1 is an upside in this deck as it provides more Glissa triggers.

Llanowar Wastes: Color fixing that enters untapped. The one life is negligible in edh.

Verdant Catacombs: Fetch Lands are amazing, and multicolored decks should always run on colored fetches. That said, I'm not a fan of off colored fetches. I feel like they take the place of basic lands most of the time, and I've seen more than one player screwed out of a game because their Esper deck with 9 fetch lands couldn't get rid of a Blood Moon.

Woodland Cemetery: Color fixing that enters untapped most of the time.

Twilight Mire: Color fixing that enters untapped. The filter is extremely powerful, but you need another source of in order for Mire to produce colored mana.

Tainted Wood: Color fixing that enters untapped. You need a swamp in order to activate it, but with 9 swamps, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and plenty of ways to search for swamps that shouldn't be a problem too often.

Temple of Malady: Unconditional color fixing that enters tapped. Our first enters tapped land. I hate lands that enter tapped, because the temp loss is a killer. That said the scry is good enough that I don't mind.

Hissing Quagmire: Deathtouch Manland is okay. Entering tapped sucks, but the ability to create a deathtouch blocker seems situationally useful enough to warrant a slot.

Bojuka Bog: Entering tapped sucks, but graveyard hate is necessary, and this is uncountable (Yes The Mimeoplasm can Voidslime it, you're not being clever).

Barren Moor + Tranquil Thicket : The cycle lands. They make up for entering tapped by being cantrips in the late game, and being synergistic with Life from the Loam.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Every black deck should run this, and even some nonblack ones should (Shimmer + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on swamp is pretty funny). This deck is very black heavy, and turning all of our forests into Bayous is insane. Now would also be a good time to reread Liliana of the Dark Realms 's -3.

Vault of Whispers: I heavily debate this card. The benefit is that it's a land recurable by both Glissa and Salvaging Station . The problem is that it gets blown up by every Vandalblast effect that goes off. #SS

High Market + Phyrexia's Core : Sacrifice outlets are super important, never leave home without one.

Strip Mine: Targeted Land hate is super important. Tons of problem lands exist such as Cabal Coffers, Emeria, The Sky Ruin, or Gaea's Cradle, and you need the ability to remove them. Yes it works well with Life from the Loam, but that only really shuts down one opponent, so unless you're in a 1v1 situation it's a rather mediocre lock.

Phyrexian Tower: Sac outlet that doubles as ramp.

Volrath's Stronghold: I only have 4 nonartifact creatures in my deck so this isn't completely necessary, but it doesn't hurt to run. I'm sure some day having this will be the deciding factor in a win so I don't cut it.

Darksteel Citadel: It's an artifact that's also indestructible. Having a land that survives an Obliterate or Armageddon is nice, and producing colorless isn't that much of a downside in this deck since only 30% is colored.

Notable Exclusions

Mindslaver: This card is amazing with Glissa, and creates a one card lock. That said, people despise this card. Depending on your playgroup you could end up dealing with an enormous amount of hate just for having it in your deck. Personally I found Mindslaver wins extremely boring and unsatisfying so I ended up cutting it.

Creatures with Enter the Battlefield effects: Eternal Witness, Acidic Slime, Fleshbag Marauder, ect. I'm intentionally not running these. My deck is making use of Torpor Orb, and would prefer if Torpor Orb was always on the battlefield. While I understand many etb creatures are extremely good, this deck was built to function without them.

Contamination : I ran it for quite a while, and it's a great include, but there were a lot of games where a turn 3 or 4 Contamination just caused the table to scoop. If I were playing in a more cutthroat meta this would go back into my deck, but I'm looking for interesting and entertaining games, and Contamination wasn't creating any.

Thornbite Staff: If Glissa was a Shaman I would be running this. Honestly I ran it for a long time, and I just found it difficult to equip since it has a steep equip cost. It turns out when you have a machine gun that kills any creature people stop playing creatures, meaning the only creatures you get to kill are the tokens you give away. Opponents not playing creatures is bad for us, because it means we aren't recurring artifacts meaning we're generating less card advantage.

Mana Crypt: If I owned one it would be in here, but I don't, and I'm not willing to drop over $100 on a slightly more explosive opener. Many other big money cards like Chains of Mephistopheles are omitted for the same reason. All of the cards in my deck over $20 are remnants of my days playing standard, and I was able to pick up the Bayou for $65 years ago when it was going for $80.

Demonic Tutor: Looking through the deck one might notice the complete lack of Tutors. The only cards my deck is capable of searching for are lands. I personally don't like Tutors, yes they let you find any card in your deck, but I found tutors generally made every game feel the same. It's a play style choice of mine, but I usually only run tutors in combo decks. I've also found that not running tutors makes it easier for my friends and new players to play when I loan them my decks.

Budget

This deck could very easily be made more budget friendly by replacing the Bayou, Verdant Catacombs, Twilight Mire, and Phyrexian Tower with more budget friendly lands since none of them are completely needed, I just happened to have copies of them. The Bitterblossem can easily be replaced with From Beyond which while slower, saves you $20. The Crucible of Worlds, while good, can also be left out as you have Life from the Loam. If I weren't for the fact I pulled one in a 10th core booster back in 2007 I doubt I'd be running it. These 6 cards make up over half of the deck's cost, and without them the deck falls to around $250 which, while still a tad pricey, is a good deal.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	8 years
Key combos	Nevinyrral's Disk + Soul of New Phyrexia Barren Moor + Tranquil Thicket Shimmer + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Avacyn, Angel of Hope + Sigarda, Host of Herons Salvaging Station + Smokestack Gibbering Descent + Smokestack Black Market + Death Cloud Possessed Portal + Words of Waste High Market + Phyrexia's Core
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	14 - 0 Mythic Rares 41 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.83
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Goat 0/1 W, Spirit 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Worm 1/1 BG, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Haste
Folders	Commander Ideas, Good EDH, EDH, inspiration, Works in Progress