Phyrexian Arena
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Pre-release Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Standard Brawl Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Phyrexian Arena

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, you draw a card and you lose 1 life.

DarkKiridon on Swamp Land

2 hours ago

I'm actually intrigued by this. +1 from me. Only thing I'd be worried about is hitting a giant pocket of lands but maybe that's what you want??? lol

Phyrexian Arena might help for an extra draw on upkeep?

DreadKhan on bungo

2 weeks ago

I'm not super familiar with Zombie decks (and have zero experience with Crime decks), but I think I can spot a few cards that you could probably cut for something better. Brain Pry seems like it'd be embarrassing to cast, I'd cut this unless you want actively bad cards (I keep them in some decks so I know when I'm drawing truly awful, but it's very suboptimal). Crippling Fear seems pretty small when there is Kindred Dominance and even Necromantic Selection, either of these is a much bigger, beefier effect. Diabolic Tutor is not a very good card IMHO, if you have access to large amounts of mana potentially (and you do from multiple sources) Diabolic Revelation is a much bigger, better effect, I like to run it with Emergence Zone. Gravestorm is a pretty uneven card if your Commander isn't out, I'd cut this for Phyrexian Arena, your Commander comes out late and resolving Arena on turn 3 feels amazing, if you miss 2 or 3 free cards you might not even be able to cast Gisa. I feel like I'd run Sadistic Hypnotist over Cabal Therapist, even at 5 mana the effect is so much stronger. I might be missing something with Hunted Bonebrute, it's not a Zombie, and Hunted Horror exists, offering a much stronger political play. I usually like Keen Duelist, but your MV might not be high enough to support this kind of effect, in general you should be regularly walloping your opponent with huge MV stuff to justify this. I guess if you throw in Kindred Dominance and/or Necromantic Selection Duelist gets a bit better, but your MV probably needs to be closer to 4 or this will just give free cards to opponents unless your Commander is out (and people are going to be wiping you a lot I suspect). Unless you throw an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in I don't know if Oblivion Sower is good enough, ymmv. If you already have it by all means keep it in, but I feel like Urza's Incubator is not a very good card in here? You have a lot of mana requirements, and your zombies aren't especially big overall, I'd switch this for Sceptre of Eternal Glory if possible.

This is a bit out in left field, but can you imagine if you have Zombie Trailblazer out with your Commander and an Amulet of Vigor? That's infinite, right? Not sure if you want infinites or not, just wanted to mention it (because it'd be a sweet combo because you'd still need Haste or your Altar of Dementia, so it'd still be a 'look out next turn!' thing at 3 cards).

Generally I'd say discard effects are a lot less powerful the less of them you use, but I get that you want to commit crimes in here, perhaps you could look into repeatable removal sources? Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief is a budget card that can commit a crime for BB, and if you have extra mana you can also pump Drana while killing off Blockers. You might also try out Transmogrifying Wand, this can commit 3 very useful crimes, 2/4 vanillas are about as useful as floppy carrots in Commander, especially compared to 3 of the best creatures on the board (which you can reanimate I guess, since it's a Destroy effect). There is always good old Royal Assassin, this is SO MUCH better than Urza's Glasses in practice, and it's only BB more to make a gigantic impact on the board.

Here's some stuff you might consider adding, Night's Whisper is a very good low-to-the-ground card draw effect, as is Sign in Blood, both can help you get your Commander out on time more consistently. Sign can even be used to finish off a vulnerable opponent in a pinch. You also might be curious about War Room and Bonders' Enclave, both are lands that can draw, very useful with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Sorry if I missed some synergies, I like the idea of this deck but am a bit agog at how much this Commander can do if properly supported, Ward seems like major overkill! Have fun out there!

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

1 month ago

Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.

The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.

When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.

Initial thoughts

So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).

So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.

So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?

Redundancy

Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.

One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander: Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye. Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai. Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.

Wincon

Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.

Tutors

This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.

Protecting the combo

So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.

I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.

glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.

Typical stuff

There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.

For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.

Special notes

A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.

Lands

Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)

I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.

Here is the final decklist: Unlimited Power!

MahBoi100 on I'm Gonna Didgeridoo You in the Ass

1 month ago

DarkKiridon

Thank you both for the upvote and the feedback. I appreciate it! I have played with both Phyrexian Arena and Molten Echoes in the maindeck before, but I have found them to be a little too slow and grindy, especially Echoes. I may put Arena into the deck again, but I haven't missed the extra card draw atm. Because minotaurs are a bit slow in the wind-up, I have come to prefer burst card draw, like Night's Whisper and Reforge the Soul. I might actually add Sign in Blood in the future because of that. You've given me something to think about. Thank you for that! :)

Regarding Aggravated Assault versus Relentless Assault, I prefer the former because of its strong synergy with Neheb, the Eternal, as well as being, as you say, repeatable. That being said, extra combat steps are really strong in our deck, and Moraug, Fury of Akoum has shown me that a well timed extra combat step out of nowhere can be game ending. If I find room someday, I might add Relentless Assault or maybe Savage Beating.

Doombeard1984 on Tall Elves

1 month ago

So I also run a Golgari Elfball deck, and it is great fun to pilot. Couple cards that are real good:

Real nice deck, and have upvoted. Good stuff. Be wary of the Shroud effects though from Eladamri, Lord of Leaves and Steely Resolve as you wont be able to equip your equipment (so Sword and mantle), or use The Ozolith, Thousand-Year Elixirs untap ability, or anything else you have that targets your own Elves. I am sure you are totally on top of it, but have made that mistake myself and been fully undone by it hahaha)

DarkKiridon on I'm Gonna Didgeridoo You in the Ass

1 month ago

+1 from me! I love this.

Wish I had some better or useful recommendations but maybe mainboard Phyrexian Arena and Molten Echoes? Swap out Aggravated Assault for Relentless Assault? Maybe the former is better for more uses out of it but I feel like that mana could be used for other things. That's all I got lol

Profet93 on Gorex, the Tombshell - Dead Awake v6

2 months ago

ZombieLibrarian

Bubbling Muck - Ramp

Syphon Mind - Draw

Cabal Stronghold - Ramp

Phyrexian Arena - Draw

Profet93 on I BEG YOUR F@CKING PARDON??!!! - Razaketh

2 months ago

77hi77

Phyrexian tribute and gate to phyrexia were the main 2. The other options available are much more higher in CMC and I don't believe would be worth it. Should you still have issues with artifacts and enchantments after adding the above, then it might be potentially worth looking into.

Rings of Brighthearth is the enabler for them. It doubles your commander, if you add fetches it acts as ramp (urborg allowing you to keep them for later + shuffle effect). Some combos include Everflowing chalice (4x counter) + Rings + Voltaic Key = . I would recommend this combo only if you added more mana rocks.

My favorite, Rings + Deserted Temple + cabal coffers + swamps (urborg to make less) = . Temple is great for untapping your mass mana producing lands and can act as a political tool as well.

Not saying to add but worth noting - Zulaport Cutthroat/Blood Artist + Reassembling Skeleton + Carnival of Souls + Ashnod's Altar. Artist and cutthroat are decent at helping you regain the life you lose in general.

Imp's Mischief - Can "counter" counterspells and redirect targeted removal draw and extra turns! Such a versatile card for only 2 mana.

Dismember - Cheap instant speed removal

Syphon Mind - Draw 3, each opponent discards one.

Phyrexian Arena - Consistent draw

I can try to provide you with cuts as well, lmk!

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