Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Legendary Creature — Eldrazi

When you cast this spell, draw four cards.

Annihilator 4 (Whenever this creature attacks, defending player sacrifices four permanents.)

When Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles their graveyard into their library.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

wallisface on Am I creating a draw …

5 months ago

Grindstones activation will entirely resolve before other abilities are added to the stack.

Effectively, Grindstone will put the entire opponents library into their graveyard. And then Kozilek, Butcher of Truth will trigger and shuffle all of those cards back into their library. The game continues.

bhst5019 on Am I creating a draw …

5 months ago

So, the situation is I have Painter's Servant and Grindstone out. Friend had Kozilek, Butcher of Truth . I proceed to activate grindstone on them thinking I would be milling their entire deck. What I want to know is this a game draw situation?

Goldberserkerdragon on The Big Black Succ

7 months ago

Hybrow Sorry m8! Just took those cards out after 5 years playing them off and on. Konrad doesnt need sac loops or anything much sacrifice. I got plenty of those decks anyway. Konrad here wins with Morality Shift, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and Basalt Monolith combo. He is finally full mill as of last night, gonna give it a try. If i cant settle there then i will stick to playing Ayara as my casual black deck. She aristocrats well lol.

ProgramIncomplete on The Mycotyrant

8 months ago

Sure thing!

When I decided to build this deck I really wanted to lean into the descend theme so I challenged myself to run as few non-permanent spells as possible. I think my initial list had like 1 or 2. Overtime, I ended up adding more since I realized I needed efficient self mill payoff cards like Reanimate and Overwhelming Remorse or else the deck was a little too clunky. Currently I'm running 9 but I'm looking for oppurtunites to cut some without losing power or efficiency.

But still, even though it isn't "pure permanents" I still tried my best to cover all of the deck's bases with permanent spells. We have permanents that can remove threats like Chupacabra Echo and Reclamation Sage; permanents that can draw cards like Skullclamp and Izoni, Thousand-Eyed; permanents that can ramp us like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Aftermath Analyst; permanents that mill like Mesmeric Orb and Ripples of Undeath; permanents that can bring stuff back from the grave like Journey to Eternity  ^Flip and Animate Dead; we even have The Meathook Massacre and Invasion of Fiora  ^Flip as our boardwipes.

One really nice upside to having everything our deck wants to do on permanent spells is that it makes cards like Malevolent Rumble and Cache Grab really consistent at grabbing something useful. And I recently added Revival Experiment which seems like a really nice payoff for going all in on permanents.

Anyway, the basic idea of this deck is self-milling and using my commander's ability to swarm the board with tokens. Usually we want to spend the first couple turns setting up, hopefully getting a repeatable mill effect on the battlefield like Mesmeric Orb or by pairing one of our dredge cards with a discard outlet like Matzalantli, the Great Door  ^Flip or Geier Reach Sanitarium. Once we've got our mill engine set up, then we can cast our commander. We want to make sure he triggers his end step ability the turn he enters so we can start getting our tokens online.

The tokens really are the core pillar of the deck. They can be sacrificed for value with cards like Skullclamp and Wight of the Reliquary; we can turn them into mana dorks with Insidious Roots; they can gain us a ton of life off of Essence Warden and Ayara, First of Locthwain; and they can present lethal by giving our Craterhoof Behemoth an army to buff. We also have the ability to drain the table to death with the aforementioned Ayara or Mirkwood Bats if we manage to mill enough cards. And of course, since they pump our commander, we can also win with commander damage.

Since we're milling so much the deck also has a reanimator subtheme. Reanimate and Animate Dead can bring back wincon creatures like Craterhoof and Ayara. Squirming Emergence can reanimate any permanent so it's an awesome way to put planeswalkers into play or snag an engine piece or even wipe the board with Invasion of Fiora  ^Flip. Similarly, Rise of the Witch-king let's us bring back any permanent while also forcing our opponents to sack a creature which is nice.

A new card that I'm actually testing right now is Chthonian Nightmare. The fact that it's a repeatable reanimate effect for only 2 mana seems really strong. And even if you don't "charge it up" by repeatedly reanimating creatures that cost less than 3, roughly 75% of the creatures in my deck are 3 or less anyway and among those are some really impactful targets like Eternal Witness, Reclamation Sage, Six, and Accursed Marauder just to name a few. Very excited to see how it performs!

Alongside the reanimator subtheme we have an aristocrats subtheme. As mentioned earlier the tokens make great fodder for stuff like Skullcamp and Wight. And we have creatures that either sack themselves, like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Aftermath Analyst, or want to be sacrificed, like World Shaper. All that sacrificing can net us additional value off of Liliana, Dreadhorde General or Mirkwood Bats since he triggers on token sacrifice as well. We also have Disciple of Freyalise  ^Flip, a great reanimation target that can draw us a ton of cards by sacrificing our creatures that grow in size as our graveyard does like Splinterfright and Souls of the Lost.

So yeah, that's the deck. It can be a bit slow and the lack of instant speed interaction is definitely a drawback but overall I like it a lot and it can have some explosive turns. You just have to be careful not to mill yourself out which is why I added in Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. He's a bit random so I might replace him with Elixir of Immortality. We'll see.

P.S. Apologies for the long winded reply, hopefully it was insightful.

m_tironi on

1 year ago

Woehrlebird, I delete decks often, so you should copy it if you are interested.

Ramp the is good with Lumra: Lotus Field Harrow Roiling Regrowth Springbloom Druid

Support for Lumra: Panharmonicon Amulet of Vigor

To help shuffle your graveyard back into your deck after you milled too much: Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

The rest is optimized good stuff: landfall and cheating cards in with Apex Devastator, Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant and Last March of the Ents.

Also, Monogreen mass haste: Surrak and Goreclaw Concordant Crossroads

Wurwilf on Beledros Supernova

1 year ago

Heartbeat of Spring at only 3 mana can set up some nasty tempo turns.

Skullclamp and Lightning Greaves are probably still worth it even if you mostly try to win the turn you play Beledros.

Sanctum of Eternity is a funny little guy with commanders that untap lands.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is good in all decks that can cast him.

Defense of the Heart is a meta call, I guess, but it's usually reliable. Boring card though, to be honest.

Profet93 on War of the Machines

1 year ago

I notice you already have Top + Forge + Cost reducer = draw your whole deck.

You also have Basalt + Forsaken = Infinite mana

Basalt + rings = infinite mana + top = infinite draw/cast your whole deck

Everflowing Chalice (4 counters) + Voltaic Key + rings = infinite mana

metalworker (2 artifacts in hand) + voltaic key + rings = infinite mana

Loreseeker's Stone - Seems weak draw. Given all your ramp, have you considered swapping it for Kozilek, Butcher of Truth?

Emrakul, the Promised End should be considered as another wincon not to mention the synergy with Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant.

Maybe Trading Post to draw in a pinch, sac spine of ish shah and create tokens for Skullclamp?

Let me know what you think of each suggestion

Profet93 on The Iron Giant

1 year ago

I don't recall even after searching through your EDH decks. Nevertheless, that makes me happy, I hope I can provide you with some meaningful suggestions and input.

Lands

Personally, I don't run lower than 37 lands in most of my lists, but I am super cautious about not having lands in my opening hands. Others are less inclined and are more aggressive with their openers to establish early board presence/value. In this artifact build, I suggest 34 lands lands or so. Not only will this ensure easier opening hands, but also assists you for when someone inevitably wipes the board with a vandablast, oblivion stone, etc... I would up the land count a little bit to playtest it and see if it works for you.

Why run 11 wastes without more land fetching ramp? I understand myriad landscape but without any more effects, I believe you can substitute some wastes for other non-basics that provide you additional utility, which is one of greatest strengths of colorless. Additionally, adding more nonbasics can fuel Field of the Dead. While it's not an entirely serious suggestion given the theme of the deck, it can definitely help (given that you said you wanted more bodies in your most recent update).

Draw

You beat me to it, this deck needs more draw. Given you are running Eldrazi, I'm surprised you're not running the best ones, Kozilek, the Great Distortion and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. The former is my favorite given it allows you to pretend to be blue, bluff and provides a full hand guaranteed. The latter is more aggressive and 4 cards is nothing to scoff at.

Personally, I would avoid symmetrical effects like howling mine as you have no way to break parity and you are only getting one while each opponent (usually 3) gets one, for a ratio of 1:3 which isn't optimal. Chromatic star is less draw and more cantrips. While they are nice at times, they aren't often included unless you can utilize them for a greater purpose.

Misc

Sensei's divining top + Mystic Forge + Artifact cost reducer (you have several) = Draw your entire deck. Additionally, top helps smooth out your draws. Moreover, it synergizes with Kozilek Distortion to draw 3 cards deeper.

Expedition Map - Find Urza lands, buried ruin for recursion or just smooth our early game/ensure land drops.

Warping Wail - Having a colorless counterspell and the ability to bluff is strong. It can even give you a blocker in a pinch. I like having interaction in colorless given that it's hard to interact without paying 7+ mana (usually).

Let me know what you think of each suggestion. Looking forward to your response.