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Varragoth Broski Sire [Primer]

Commander / EDH* Mono-Black

tthien92

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Lands (32)

Control / politics (10)

Wipes (8)

Ramp/ mana explosions (12)

Removal (10)

Value/ Revives (6)

Mana Dumps or win-con (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire

Card Draw (10)

Overall useful (7)

Maybeboard

Other (57)

This is my take on Varragoth Politics with a (in the works) primer.

This is a mono-black political control deck built for intermediate power levels (~5-7). It leverages spot removal, board wipes, reanimation, tutors (both common and uncommon ones) and a few non-traditional cards like Imp's Mischief and Withering Boon to keep opponents guessing. This deck intentionally avoids running infinite combos, instead focusing on mana-dump win-cons like Torment of Hailfire and Exsanguinate.

This deck can definitely play with high-powered decks in disrupting their game plans and sneaking in a win after opponents have wittled each other down, but this requires saavy negotiations, accurate threat assessment, and impeccable timing.

Varragoth is an objectively suboptimal choice for a control commander in terms of power level. He is slow, has poor stats, and requires an attack to be successfully done without dying. By any measure, a commander like K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth in inherently better.

However, Varragoth offers us the ability to let our opponents have a free Vampiric Tutor. In a 1v1 game, this would be nonsensical, but in a multiplayer, free-for-all format like EDH where the archenemy is always changing based on new threats, this is invaluable. Through political deals, we can leverage our opponent's decks to find answers for any situation.

A Caveat

Varragoth isn't as scary as K'rrik, but a free tutor is very threatening, so it is imperative that you make it known there are no infinite combos within this deck. This will lower Varragoth's threat level to the table allowing him to use his tutor ability for political purposes.

Play this deck if you:

  • Enjoy the social aspect of EDH
  • Like games with a lot of back and forth
  • Enjoy using a unique commander
  • Like mono-black or mono-colored decks in general
  • Like turning people against each other

Do not play this deck if you

  • want clear, combo lines
  • need a truly competitive deck that will win you the max # of games
  • like big splashy cards
  • want total control/stax over the board
  • simply want to win by "doing your thing"

One of the things that make political decks both challenging and fun to play is that the potential to win is directly tied to your opponents' willingness to do things that benefits you. Put plainly, you will likely not be the strongest deck at table nor do you want to be.

Politics means walking a tightrope between diametrically opposing states--being powerful enough to deter opponents while weak enough to avoid drawing too much of their ire. It means helping opponents do just enough to result in a net benefit for us without helping them too much and hurting our own cause. At times you will have to play kingmaker, while a few turns later, you may find yourself usurping the throne to prevent one player from spiraling out of control. Dancing on a knife's edge is the true face of politics.

  • Spot Removal - An essential part of our deterrence kit, spot removal will allow us to dissaude opponents from turning creatures sideway at us. Most of the spot removal we run are cheap, since Toshiro Umezawa allows them to have flashback, essentially doubling the amount of creatures we can take care of. However, this should be used surgically and tactfully. Rather than having to kill a creature just because it's swinging at us, we should also considering killing big creatures that swings at our opponents, netting us both political favors and a reanimation target.

  • Board wipes - As a general rule, these should be primarily be used to limit the board state of the archenemy (which shouldn't be you). Plenty of -x/-x effects, like Toxic Deluge and Dead of Winter circumvent indestructable creatures, extending our list of reanimation targets for spells. We generally do not care so much about using board wipes to establish a lead until victory is in sight, as doing so simply to gain a small lead is generally a way to instantly make us archenemy. On the other hand, combining a board wipe with Thrilling Encore may win us the game.

  • Tutors - Both Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are here to cover this deck's weaknesses in not having the proper answer to a board state or not finding a draw engine early in the game. The other tutors like Scheming Symmetry and Wishclaw Talisman are great political tools in forming temporary alliances against an archenemy. The key point is that you should be able to convince the other person to use their removal to address the boardstate rather than using your removal. Of course, our commander plays into this schematic too, and it's not a bad strategy to convince someone to let you him them to tutor up an answer.

  • Reanimation - There are almost no haymakers or big threats in this deck, so you need to make use of your opponent's deck. The best strategy for this is reanimation through cards like Animate Dead and Reanimate. Yet, a card like Praetor's Grasp can be also devastating for opponents, shutting down combo lines for certain players or just even getting to play the best card from someone's deck. Both Malalkir Rebirth and Thrilling Encore are also flexible cards that can be seen as reanimation with the latter being on a potentially game-ending scale depending on how many creatures we can get out of it.

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97% Casual

Competitive