Kelsien, Double Tap

Commander / EDH Deathtouch Experience Haste RBW (Mardu)

Redhearth

Creature (27)

• 1x Adarkar Valkyrie
• 1x Ankle Shanker
• 1x Archetype of Finality
• 1x Blood Cultist
• 1x Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Cunning Sparkmage
• 1x Deathbringer Thoctar
• 1x Embermaw Hellion
• 1x Frontline Medic
• 1x Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 1x Hooded Blightfang
• 1x Iroas, God of Victory
• 1x Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas
• 1x Knight of the White Orchid
• 1x Laelia, the Blade Reforged
• 1x Maze Abomination
• 1x Obosh, the Preypiercer
• 1x Onyx Mage
• 1x Pestilent Spirit
• 1x Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant  ^Flip
• 1x Swathcutter Giant
• 1x Syr Carah, the Bold
• 1x Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 1x Venerable Warsinger
• 1x Verge Rangers
• 1x Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Death Pits of Rath
• 1x Everlasting Torment
• 1x Fiery Emancipation
• 1x Outlaws' Merriment
• 1x Rune of Mortality
• 1x Sparring Regimen

Land (35)

• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Bloodfell Caves
• 1x Boros Garrison
• 1x Castle Ardenvale
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Great Hall of Starnheim
• 1x Immersturm Skullcairn
• 7x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 6x Plains
• 1x Rakdos Carnarium
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 7x Swamp
• 1x Wind-Scarred Crag
• 1x Witch's Cottage

Instant (9)

• 1x Bladebrand
• 1x Crackling Doom
• 1x Deflecting Palm
• 1x Electrickery
• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Fracture
• 1x Heartwarming Redemption
• 1x Orim's Thunder
• 1x Sudden Spoiling

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jaya, Venerated Firemage

Commander (1)

Artifact (13)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Battlemage's Bracers
• 1x Boros Locket
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Gorgon's Head
• 1x Mardu Banner
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Staff of Nin
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Blazing Volley
• 1x Boiling Earth
• 1x Call of the Death-Dweller
• 1x Cleansing Wildfire
• 1x Collective Defiance
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Forever Young
• 1x Sudden Demise

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You ever wanted to break the spirits of everyone in your playgroup? Do you hate Drannith Magistrate ? Do you hate life? Well, you don't need stax, you don't need tax, hell you don't even need Murder ! With Kelsien, the Plague , you can have all the fun of instant removal without paying the mana (well maybe sometimes you do)! And all at a budget!

Depending on where you buy your cards, (I bought everything I needed at my LGS for 60ish dollars) this will be a very inexpensive low-mid range deck that aims to use multiple creatures similar in function to Kelsien, in coordination with deathtouch-granting spells and perms to con-troll the board while building to and explosive finish with damage boosting cards.

Kelsien is one of many creatures that tap for one damage to creatures, and is, in all honesty, probably one of the lesser options, but he's a fantastic distraction. He always looks like a threat, because he never gets smaller. Your opponents can't really affect him, they'd need to be able to interact with experience counters, and aside from the rare card (Vorniclex, Monstrous Raider as an example), nothing can prevent you from receiving those counters. While he's combating players, assassinate their threats with other creatures like Blood Cultist , Cunning Sparkmage , and even Staff of Nin .

Cards like Basilisk Collar , and Gorgon's Head grant deathtouch to any relevant creature, whereas cards like Ankle Shanker , Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats , and Archetype of Finality grant deathtouch en masse. The two best cards here are going to be Death Pits of Rath , and Everlasting Torment . The former causes all damage (even from non-creature sources) to be lethal. This is fantastic for us, as all our "board wipes" are low cost, low damage spells; Electrickery , Blazing Volley , and Sudden Demise are always lethal, and hit most, or all creatures not under our control. Everlasting Torment makes each of those spells a debuff to them instead, but that can be more troubling to some players, and gets around indestructible, plus preventing lifegain strategies from forming.

Eventually you will draw into your most vital cards, damage boosting. Some cards in the list are famous, like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight for being kill-on-sight cards, so we run something more subtle, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell . He boosts all red damage you deal by 2. If you order your triggers properly, and with multiple of these effects, you'll be able to pump Kelsien's tap damage from 1 to 40+ per activation. Woah. And thats not just Kelsien, its anything else that can receive that boost. You ever killed someone by tapping Goblin Sharpshooter only once? Well now you can! (it's not in the deck,I put in Deathbringer Thoctar instead for my boardwipe on a stick).

There's one more nuance with Kelsien: multiple activations. Sparing Regimen is a new card that functions in a similar way to Reconnaissance , you simply respond to it sooner. Put the Sparing Regimen trigger on the stack targeting Kelsien, tap him in response, then untap and put a +1/+1 counter on him. If the creature died, Kelsien grows by 2. but with Battlemage's Bracers , you can pay 1 and copy an ability on the equipped creature, so that makes two activations, and 3 power. Activate him later and you can grow Kelsien by 5 before combat is over, and that's without Reconnaissance .

There's also the occasional card to take advantage of all this death, like Adarkar Valkyrie , who can return creatures from your opponents boards to yours, and Kalemnee, Disciple of Iroas, who also tracks the experience counters Kelsien makes (and can generate some of her own) for big distracting hits to our opponents for potentially lethal.

This deck is not optimised, but uses some cards that I never see (especially Sparing Regimen, it's awesome but I haven't seen it AT ALL anywhere else)! You can upgrade this with some more expensive cards, but this list has almost everything this commander needs to do.

All in all, your friends will hate you.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.32
Tokens	Angel Warrior 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Experience Token, Human 1/1 W, Human Cleric 2/1 RW, Human Rogue 1/2 RW, Human Warrior 3/1 RW
Folders	Interesting EDH