Win-con for Grixis Kess?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Aug. 22, 2017, 12:26 a.m. by readerrw07
Working on a decklist for the new best grixis commander Kess, Dissident Mage but win conditions are hard to choose, especially without infinite combos (our LGS limits infinite combos).Any thoughts on wincons for that color combination beides Skithryx and Blightsteel? One or two combos arent out of the question but I need non-combo ways to win for tournaments. Thank you in advance
readerrw07 says... #3
Thats probably the best idea, with the Skithryx and Blightsteel as backups. I'll look up doomsday combos.
August 22, 2017 12:59 a.m.
Winterblast says... #4
Doomsday is funny because it's a combo but technically not infinite, it just makes you win because maniac says so. If your LGS sets up obstacles for infinite combos that's the best way to play around such stupid rules.
August 22, 2017 3:42 a.m.
KillDatBUG says... #5
Yeah I'd say Storm is the best way to go with Kess. Hell to be honest I think Storm is legit OP in EDH now that we have a general that's actually useful. Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge is so much worse than Kess because of its randomness and needing to attack, yet it's the general of choice for pretty much every single competitive EDH storm deck. With Kess, it's much easier as you can flashback a tutor that you need or better yet, flashback a storm spell to make sure your opponents are all dead. And since it's not technically an infinite combo, you're 100% free to play this with no repercussions.
...Of course if you're not a super Spike like me, there's plenty of more casual builds of Kess you could probably do. Off the top of my head, self-mill into value spells sounds like a lot of fun for a control deck. Alternatively, you could be some sort of Grixis reanimator deck that aims to mill itself until it hits a critical mass of dudes like Flayer of the Hatebound and Flame-Kin Zealot to bring back with Living Death. Or maybe you want to go the Stax route by flashing back constant land destruction? Lots of different things you can do with Kess, which is why shes easily my favorite of the C17 generals. Much more versatile than the counterpart Karador, Ghost Chieftain which is pretty much always reanimator.
August 22, 2017 11:26 a.m.
RedUndead40 says... #6
With Kess you can even just out-attrition everyone since you get double casts on everything. Keep control of the board and then beef Kess up with good instant / sorcery buffs like Temur Battle Rage for voltron win, or just burn everyone down with things like Comet Storm or even just taking all your opponents value with things like Blatant Thievery.
You dont need combo or generic bomb creatures to win
August 24, 2017 1:01 p.m.
UpperDeckerTaco says... #7
If you're looking for ideas, feel free to take a look at my Kess Deck:
Just Another Mage
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 5 | 3 COMMENTS | 380 VIEWS
I haven't fully tuned it yet and I there are a couple of "iffy" cards, such as: Silumgar's Command and Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh (both great cards, just not sure if the deck wants it) and Liliana of the Veil (though can win games and control board states, not sure if a spell to force opp to sac is better synergy with Kess).
Other than that, I think my deck has room to grow, but not sure what else to do.
My win-cons are generally Token generators and doubling my spells to go to value town and also Torment of Hailfire which is an awesome card and I highly recommend as a finisher.
October 23, 2017 11:37 p.m.
Have you tried Steel Hellkite or Sphinx of the Final Word ? Really good for 1v1, not great for multiplayer, though. Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh is also superb.
rockleemyhero says... #2
If you are looking to win consistently, I would recommmend running a Doomsday package with a Laboratory Maniac combo. There are a lot of resources for the combo and it is extremely competitive, nets in consistent t3-4 wins, and typically has counter back up on top of that.
August 22, 2017 12:39 a.m.