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Petrified by the Gorgussy [Primer]

Commander / EDH Alt Win BG (Golgari) Casual Deathtouch Midrange Multiplayer Primer Sacrifice Theft Tokens

Crow_Umbra

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Creature (31)

Land (35)

Sorcery (10)

Artifact (4)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Vraska, the Silencer

Instant (13)

Enchantment (6)

Maybeboard

Creature (38)

Instant (15)

Sorcery (6)

Land (1)

Enchantment (10)

Artifact (9)

Planeswalker (1)

Are your creatures Jace? Because Vraska will have them truly solid. Given recent lore implications, I wanted to have fun with the deck's name.

When I first brewed up this deck, I initially went very heavy on removal and ramp effects, particularly with a focus on instant speed removal. Through some initial goldfish testing against decks I typically encounter in my meta (goldfishing with multiple tabs open simultaneously lol), initial changes have shifted the deck away from being super heavy on instant speed removal.

The meta I primarily play in tends to lean quite aggro, so I realized that I don't necessarily need to put as much active effort into killing things, and can let the natural flow of games help me. To help deter some of those aggro elements, the Deathtouch subtheme in the creature base helps on offensive & defensive fronts, as well as to help set up Fynn, the Fangbearer as an alternate win-con.

Primer WIP

Since the deck seeks to "steal" creatures and turn them into treasures, I wanted to utilize typical alt win conditions for treasure strats, as well as overrun effects that could work in conjunction with Fynn, the Fangbearer and higher number of deathtouch creatures.

Treasure Enabled Shenanigans

Deathtouching to Death

  • Fynn, the Fangbearer - Creature base has a bunch of deathtouch, and a couple of deathtouch anthems? Smoke em if you got em. There are a few spell inclusions such as Infectious Bite, Infectious Inquiry, & Vraska's Downfall which are current includes to help kick off a bit of Poison accumulation. TBD how long they will be included for if Poison is a relatively small sub-theme.
  • God-Eternal Rhonas - A power doubling anthem that also provides Vigilance against crack backs.
  • Overwhelming Stampede - Could be a future landing spot for Triumph of the Hordes, but this works just fine.

A mix of repeatable effects that are fairly typical for Green/Black, in terms of triggering on creature casts, ETBs, & deaths.

The majority of the ramp effects in the deck are focused heavily on acceleration in turns 1-3, with a couple of top-end effects that help with maintaining momentum.

Mana Dorks

Rocks

Land Shenanigans

Rituals

  • Cabal Ritual - Mostly because I have a copy of this, but not Dark Ritual
  • Culling Ritual - I play in a fairly token heavy meta. I don't think I've ever seen a Culling Ritual played in my meta that didn't at least refund itself.

Top End Consistency

  • Wilderness Reclamation - Helps keep mana up for instant speed interaction & stealing creatures with Vraska.

  • Kura, the Boundless Sky - Kura can help fetch lands to help with late game land drops, & helps thin out the deck a bit.

  • Seedborn Muse - Helps to untap our stolen treasures, and sustain keeping mana up for interaction & theft.

I've re-categorized this section a couple of times. I wanted to get a sense for the general ratio of creature-only removal spells, vs ones which can remove creatures and additional permanent types (typically creatures & planeswalkers, or non-land permanents broadly). Initial drafts of the deck were far more heavy on both single target creature removal, as well as edict effects. For now, I think that the creature-only removal should be the smaller subset, given its more narrow scope, even in the context of Vraska in the command zone. Having a larger variety of more versatile options keeps the deck more interactive in a varied multiplayer format.

Creature only removal

I wanted to keep all of these effects as lean on MV, especially if they are mostly going to be Instant speed.

Versatile Removal

A removal suite that can handle just about any permanent type.

Life manipulation

Suggestions

Updates Add

First couple of games played - initial thoughts — April 23, 2024
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I managed to squeeze in a few games last night with some friends & had a blast. Vraska made her semi-proxied up debut while I wait for my last dozen cards to hit my mail box. Overall, I think Vraska had a decent showing, more so in the second game than the first.

  • Vraska didn't do a whole lot the first game, but neither did two of my other friends. Our friend's Gyruda, Doom of Depths deck popped off pretty early and milled everyone pretty hard.

  • Second game was much more interactive, & Vraska mostly stuck around. She died a couple of times because I sent her into combat to bait blocks, to which she then died to against bigger commanders. Definitely made me reconsider including stuff like Ashnod's Intervention, Tamiyo's Safekeeping, and Tyvar's Stand. Luckily, I had a decent amount of mana between hitting land drops, ramp, and stolen Lotus Cobra and Crypt Ghast, so I was able to re-cast Vraska twice without much issue.

  • The All Stars for the second game were a Seedborn Muse on my side of the field and a Wilderness Reclamation on one of my friend's boards. I managed to find a slot for Wilderness Rec, as I think Vraska could benefit from an additional untapping effect.

  • In playing with the current removal suite, I might swap out one of the Bites and one of the Edicts for either: Another targeted removal effect, another instant speed protection effect, or something like Dictate of Erebos or No Mercy. While the Edict effects are useful for thinning out early boards, they're kinda mid when I need more control over what actually dies. Dictate of Erebos could help me punish aristocrats decks by making them sacrifice at a faster pace than they may be equipped to at that point in board development, & No Mercy could help me punish creature-based drain effects that say "deal X damage" and any aggro that I decide to take to face instead.

  • The Deathtouch across my creature base helped turn away a decent amount of aggro, and most of my life loss was due to drain effects on things like Corpse Knight or Awaken the Blood Avatar  Flip.

  • Vraska's stealing ability gave the Aristocrats decks plenty of pause when sacrificing their nontoken creatures any time I had mana up.

  • I was Jazz-Handsing and going into Top Deck Mode the last two turns of the game, so I will definitely look at refining the draw options a bit more. For now, I swapped Damnable Pact with Infectious Inquiry.

After taking some feedback here from folks like Profet93, UltimateRoxas40, and Formless0209, and spitballing with my best friend, I've decided on some swaps that I think better fit the deck based on the initial play throughs and our meta:

  • Wilderness Reclamation replaced Cosmic Hunger - While the Bite removal spells are handy with a higher volume of Deathtouch in the deck, they felt kinda dead in hand until I had Deathtoucher on board. TBD on removing Infectious Bite

  • Infectious Inquiry replaced Damnable Pact - The other X spells I have in deck are much more impactful, & the corner case of using Damnable Pact to finish someone off at low life felt too narrow. A consistent 2 draw for 3 mana, & can get a Poison counter rolling for Fynn seems okay-ish for now.

  • Reanimate replaced Vraska's Fall - The Edict removal spells were kinda hit or miss beyond early turns (mostly miss). I figured Reanimate has enough flexibility to act as recursion for any of my creatures, or can let me double dip on something I stole previously, or missed the opportunity to steal with Vraska.

  • Go for the Throat replaced Sheoldred's Edict - I realized that I'd rather have as much control as possible on what I remove and steal with Vraska. I think Soul Shatter might be the only Edict I end up running in the deck, since it will typically kill some high value creatures.

  • Syr Konrad, the Grim replaced Marionette Master - She was great in my Prosper deck as a finisher, given how many treasures that deck reliably made. I wasn't stealing creatures super often to bank them up for Marionette Master, & the deck currently only runs a handful of actual Treasure token production, that I realized she was a bit more of a trap inclusion. Syr Konrad has done plenty of work in my meta, given the higher volume of Reanimator and Aristocrats decks that I tend to run into. This also would have been a more useful counter to the Gyruda, Doom of Depths deck we played against in our first game.

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97% Casual

Competitive

Top Ranked
Date added 3 weeks
Last updated 2 days
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

7 - 0 Mythic Rares

35 - 0 Rares

26 - 0 Uncommons

12 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.89
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Food, Spirit */* G, Treasure
Folders Cool Decks
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