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Spite, comboless MASTER

Commander / EDH* Aikido

Igjarvi

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The most efficient way to build a spite-themed deck is to use synergy between the different effects to create an infinite combo.

There are four main Spite combos:

  • Damage loop, requiring a red spiter + indestructible + a way to return to itself the damage it deals (e.g. Pariah-effect or Guilty Conscience).

  • One-time infinite spite effect or infinite life, using Volcano Hellion + any spiter + Pariah-effect or damage prevention to self or lifelink.

  • One-time large spite effect, using Madcap Experiment (no artifacts in the deck) + any spiter + redirector. This typically deals 70-80 damage.

  • One-time large spite effect and/or numerous creature reanimations, using Command the Dreadhorde + damage prevention or redirection, the latter which can be directed to a spiter. This will reanimate as many creatures in all graveyards as you want, and potentially deal damage to a spiter equal to their total cmc.

In this version of the deck, I gave myself the challenge to remove all infinite combos. One option is to remove all indestructible- and lifelink-effects (including infinitely repeatable regeneration, e.g. Blessing of Leeches, Fanatical Devotion / Dark Privilege on a green spiter, or Soul Channeling + lifelink). Another is to remove red/boros spiters, which could actually work since there are ~8 other ones. This second option also allows for indestructible-effects, as long as Goblin Bombardement, Blasting Station, and Goblin Sharpshooter isn't used. As regards Volcano Hellion, Madcap Experiment, and Command the Dreadhorde, I think these are fine considering they can kill you if an opponent counters the prevention/redirection or the creature it redirects to, and they will either create tokens which give opponents a round to intervene, or they kill a single player and not all.

If infinite damage is out of the question, how then do we create enough damage?

  • Fire Covenant. You probably don't want to go lower than 20 life or so (unless it kills the last player or gives you lots of tokens for defense), so it might not do more than ~15 damage, but it is very cheap and can also remove several low-toughness creatures. Even when you are at low life there's typically a good target you can remove for two or three life. Great with Tainted Sigil and Children of Korlis. Worth using in those colors just for the option to sometimes work as a good spite enabler. Great with Soulfire Grand Master (infinite damage to any number of creatures).

  • Volcano Hellion / Madcap Experiment / Command the Dreadhorde + damage redirection. Efficient, but it can kill you if the opponent has suitable answers (you can cast the redirector first and thus avoid a blowout if it's countered, but they can still cast instant removal on the redirection target). Volcano Hellion and Command the Dreadhorde can be used without prevention or redirection to mediocre effect, and mitigated by Simulacrum, Children of Korlis, Tainted Sigil, and prevention to you (but not your creatures, e.g. Glacial Chasm, Personal Sanctuary, Solitary Confinement, Protective Sphere, Samite Ministration). This might be reason enough to exclude Madcap Experiment (unless Platinum Emperion is used, though then you would need ways to get it back into the library the 50% of games that it's drawn before Madcap Experiment, unless the latter is tutored for early in which case you might skip that). Soulfire Grand Master works with CtD and ME.

  • Red bomb-spells, e.g. Blasphemous Act, Chain Reaction, Star of Extinction, X-wipes etc. On their own, they might not deal enough damage to be very strong, but you can use damage redirection to gather damage to one target (Gideon's Sacrifice, Martyrdom and Saving Grace are the three big ones, but Shaman En-Kor and other En-Kor creatures can also work), rituals/ramp to boost X-spells (e.g. Mana Geyser), or have multiple spiters on the battlefield so each bomb creates multiple triggers (e.g. tutor for them, Blade of Selves (only works with instant effects), Mirage Mirror, or blue copy-effects, among which Mirrorweave and Infinite Reflection are the two best ones). You could also use totem armor and regeneration to get multiple uses of the spiters, but that also requires multiple damage sources so it's likely not very effective (great for Coalhauler Swine, but not many others). There are a few low-cost spells that can do around 10dmg or more, but in order to really abuse them you would need to have many or use damage doublers or copy them, most likely also regeneration/totem armor/reanimation in order to repeatedly choose the same creature as a target.

  • Lure-effects, forcing all creatures an opponent controls to block your spiter. Siren- and Fight-effects are (weaker) subcategories of this. Can be quite good if your opponent play creature-based strategies, especially if you can give creatures to an opponent or boost them.

  • Create a really big creature and use effects that makes it deal damage to other creatures you control (e.g. Grothama, Chandra's Ignition, or fight-like effects). You could theoretically make an opponent's creature big in order to fight it, or make the spiter big and use spells that makes it deal damage to itself (Justice Strike, Solar Blaze etc). Some big creatures to use for this would be Malignus, Lord of Extinction, Consuming Aberration, Realm Seekers, Evra, Thromok, and any of the five creatures that get a +1/+1 counter for every spell cast.

  • Create many (big) creatures and have them all deal damage to a spiter by using Brawl or Burn at the Stake. Brawl would require indestructible though, unless you only use two big creatures and an instance of regeneration / totem armor or similar.

Another thing is whether red spiters do enough. Even if we are able to gather a large amount of damage to one, the result is that we potentially kill one player. We've then spent 2-3 cards out of a small card pool of spiters, damagers and redirectors, potentially wiping the whole board in the process. Chances are quite high that we lose to another player after that. We must either be able to double the effect (Illusionist's Bracers, Strionic Resonator, multiple spiters), recur the cards, or have so much card draw or tutors that we can get the other ones on hand.

A nice thing with red spiters though is when they're coupled with a damage doubling effect (e.g. insult / injury, quest for pure flame, overblaze, dictate of the twin gods, angrath's marauders, obosh, the peypiercer). If you can deal 10dmg to a spiter that will then double to 20, and the damage the spiter does will be doubled to 40. This is significant enough that you could go for a strategy where you get 2-3 red spiters on the board, a damage doubling effect, and then deal 10+ damage to them (blasphemous act, chain reaction, star of extinction, nahiri's wrath, kindle the carnage, fire covenant). Alternatively, you can get a lot of boros spiters (and copies) and deal <10dmg to half of them, which is doubled to >10, and then those will deal >20dmg to the other half of the spiters which can deal >40dmg to players.

The above is nice in theory, but they likely don't do enough in isolation to warrant use.

I think the boros spiters might be worthwhile as the option to target creatures/planeswalkers make them work as rattlesnakes and potential removal, and Coalhauler Swine also has combo potential, but the other red spiters are weaker than the green and blue ones. Tutors or bLue copies might make the red spiters reach a critical mass.

There were several combo decks in modern that used spite creatures or Ragged Veins together with big burn spells, since it is much easier to reach 10+ tokens or 15+ dmg with them than it is to make it work in multiplayer. They typically didn't use white and redirection, but rather went for blue to filter for combo pieces and also play Swans of Bryn Argoll.

It might be best to use it inside another strategy or engine, e.g. a "shell". The most likely options are:

  • Tutor/copy shell. Not a strategy as such, but simply use a lot of tutors (which I typically avoid in order to have more varied gameplay, but it's fine if the deck otherwise doesn't work well) and/or blue clone and copy effects to get several spiters on the board.

  • Token shell. This synergises well with the green spiters and increases the power of the redirector + damage wipe combo. It also makes Burn at the Stakes, one of the four strongest burn spells, into a great damage source and potential wincon. Only downside is that it is a bit of a nonbo with having multiple wipes and no indestructible, though that could potentially be worked around (e.g. wrap in vigor, Vicious Shadows, Vigor, Divine Light, Sivvi's Ruse).

  • Wipe/control shell. This uses fewer own creatures that aren't spiters and then obviously a large number of wipes and other removal, potentially more aikido-type effects and punishing cards like Vicious SHadows. This would probably work quite well, but might not be much fun for opponents if there are too many wipes.

  • Madness/Reanimation shell. Three of the four strongest burn spells are Kindle the Carnage, Nahiri's Wrath, and Funeral Pyre, all of which has some synergy with madness/reanimation. Maybe that is enough to warrant a madness/flashback shell? Cycling also has synergy with it, since that allows you to have high-cmc cards on hand for the burn, or cycle them otherwise. Cheating creatures into play (e.g. Sneak Attack, Through the Breach etc) and reanimation also works, since that allows you to have high-cmc cards for burn that are also premium cheat/reanimation targets. Other cards with alternative costs or delve etc also work. The problem is that such a strategy typically leaves you with few cards on hand, and you need 4+ cards to discard for KtC and NW.

  • Enchantress shell. Allows for card draw, staying power after wipes, and potentially some pillowfort to stave of attacking. There are some important spite-synergy cards that are enchantments, e.g. Druid's Call, Saving Grace, Unquestioned Authority, Lure, Repercussion and Ragged Veins etc. Could also use auras with totem armor and similar effects (e.g. Gift of Immortality, Kaya's Ghostform). Maybe not enough to be as effective as the other options above, but could be worth trying.

  • Hand size shell. There's only ~15 core cards for the spite strategy. Rather than using tutors, you could simply focus on cards that give you an absurd amount of draws and/or filtering, which will get your synergy pieces in hand and also allow for hand-size based damage (e.g. Fateful Showdown, Channeled Force, Spiraling Embers, Master the Way). While tempting, this is likely not a good strategy since it would likely take too many resources to draw the cards.

Let's consider some scenarios.

The optimal case is to have a spiter and one or more other creatures, then cast Blasphemous Act / Chain Reaction or some other damage wipe, plus one of the three main redirectors. This which will wipe most if not all enemy creatures while yours are unharmed, except the spiter which gets all the damage the others you control would have gotten and thus amass a big effect. Other spiters, copies, and En-Kor creatures could also work instead of a redirector, and Repercussion can replace spiters and potentially win straight out.

Another solid option is to use Volcano Hellion or Command the Dreadhord and prevention/redirection, or Madcap Experiment plus a redirector. This is also fairly efficient, and if you cast the preventer / redirector and let it resolve before causing damage then you avoid blowout if its countered, but you could still die if an opponent casts instant removal on the redirection target.

Lure effects are cheap, have no added risk other than potentially losing two cards to a single removal, and they can sometimes work as removal themselves. However, they rely on at least one opponent having untapped creatures with high total power (two cards that can help are Provoke and Benefactor's Draught - other options aren't good, like Awakening and Intruder Alarm). Some playtesting is required to see how reliably you can get a decent amount of damage, but you likely only want 2-4 lure effects (if you have too many, opponents can quite easily play around them, and against some decks they simply won't work).

Tokens and Burn at the Stake could work quite well, though you'd want at least seven creatures for it to be really good (Volcanic Wind could potentially also work). A nice thing is that if the target is a green spiter, then recurring Burn at the Stake would make the second time it's cast deal a big amount of damage (which can target a player). Stake unfortunately costs 2RRR, which is a bit high to be easily recurable and could be tricky to get enough red mana.

The last realistic option is the discard-driven burn; Nahiri's Wrath and Kindle the Carnage. These are tricky to use and assess, but could be very good. Consider the following: You can probably amass 20-30 damage by fueling it with a big draw effect or redrawing your hand (Recurring Insight, Memory Jar, Magus of the jar, Magus of the Wheel, Jace's Archivist, Shadow of the Grave), or by tutoring/retrieving 2-3 high-cost cards (Emrakul, Ghalta, Draco, Grozoth, Avatar of Woe, split-cards). Setting it up would thus cost 4-6m and 1-2 cards, the deck include high-cost cards which are slightly less powerful than other options, and then it is 3m and a card for the burn effect. It thus comes at a total cost of 7-9m (over 2-3 turns) and 2-4 net cards (i.e. the cards given by the draw effect still counts as one) to deal 20-30 damage to 2+ targets. The positives is that this has a high upper ceiling and can be used together with redirection and multiple spiters, madness, flashback, reanimation and other graveyard-based strategies. The relatively low cost of NW and KtC also makes it easy to use them together with other effects the same turn, and to recur them. NW can become an asymmetric wipe. The downside is that they are quite bad on their own: They are both essentially card disadvantage, KtC discards randomly so you often need to pitch the entire hand, and NW has discard as a cost so it can give a huge blowout effect if countered. If the deck is not based around it (e.g. madness or graveyard recursion), then it might still be work together with 4-5 synergy cards and a few loot/rummage effects to replace them if necessary.

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