Protection Racket

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, repeat the following process for each opponent in turn order. Reveal the top card of your library. That player may pay life equal to that card's converted mana cost/mana value. If they do, exile that card. Otherwise, put it into your hand.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (23)

Sleepysherlock on Life and Death

3 months ago

Alright, i'm bringing memes not dreams this time to strap in.

Protection Racket, Ajani, Strength of the Pride, Ajani's Pridemate, Erebos's Intervention, Heliod's Intervention, Witch of the Moors, Tivash, Gloom Summoner, The Gaffer, The Book of Exalted Deeds, Sanguine Indulgence, Rodolf Duskbringer, Nightmare's Thirst, Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles, Griffin Aerie, Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit, Field-Tested Frying Pan, Crested Sunmare, Cradle of Vitality, Angelic Accord, Resplendent Angel, Righteous Valkyrie, Speaker of the Heavens, Oketra's Last Mercy, Angel of Destiny, Underworld Connections, Priest of Fell Rites, Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, Erebos, Bleak-Hearted, Erebos, God of the Dead, Consuming Vapors, Bloodtracker, Blind Obedience, Archangel of Wrath, Soul of Eternity, Sister Hospitaller, Path of Bravery, Noxious Gearhulk, Kaya, Orzhov Usurper, Kaya's Wrath, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Astarion, the Decadent, Angelic Chorus, Heliod, Sun-Crowned, Treasonous Ogre, Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip, Stinging Study, Lone Rider  ^Flip

Alright that's the first round

DreadKhan on Abaddon Let Chaos Reign(old deck)

3 months ago

I have a Chaos deck, maybe a few of the cards would work here too? I'm a huge fan of Exquisite Blood, even if you play it without the combo, the effect has big synergy with your Commander's ability, and it helps keep you alive when you're ahead. Another enchantment that works with Esquisite Blood (and your Commander) is Rite of the Raging Storm, this is often good for damage and it makes everyone else play way more cautiously (because anyone but you can be stuck taking 15 damage in a cycle if they can't handle the tokens). Rite itself likes a number of other cards that might work here too, one really sneaky one is Mask of Griselbrand, Lifelink is useful (and stacks with Blood), Flying is useful, and the card draw can be very powerful, obviously this is hilarious with Rite since you can equip the token with the Mask, at which point it's probably getting in for damage and when it dies inevitably you can draw 5 cards. It seems like a good piece of gear for your Commander especially. Berserkers' Onslaught is a funny card sometimes, you do need some kind of board, but even your Commander is openly terrifying with Double Strike. Another card that Rite and your Commander both would love is Dauthi Embrace, Shadow is really good evasion (you might look into Dauthi Voidwalker as well, very useful dual purpose card). Scavenged Brawler is a creature I'm testing in that deck atm, it seems good, offering a useful body that can be 'scavenged' when a wipe happens. If your deck doesn't run combos and is in Black Protection Racket can be a source of life loss for your Commander, your average MV is probably high enough to matter, it can also give cards. It will never give you any lands or 0 MV cards, so it's not a perfect card. Make an Example is a generically good card in my experience, you always get (at minimum) each opponent's most problematic creature. Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep and Shizo, Death's Storehouse are two cards that might help your Commander out, and they're untapped lands, very few drawbacks to those!

Cultural Exchange is a Blue Chaos feeling card I love, I can't decide if you've got enough tokens/creatures you don't care about to make it work, but if you can trade off some small stuff for the best stuff on board then you're doing good I think. I guess it doesn't say anything about untapping, so you can use it to open someone up to attack by trading away all their blockers for already tapped creatures in a pinch. Mass Diminish seems worse than stuff like Sudden Spoiling and Polymorphist's Jest (both great cards though!), but the ability to cast it twice is big, and the effect weirdly lasts a turn cycle, this can help eliminate 2 players sometimes.

Since you probably want your Commander out most of the time, have you considered Stubborn Denial? It's not Fierce Guardianship, but I find Guardianship to be obnoxious.

My final ideas are War Tax and War Cadence, Cadence can easily make your stuff unblockable if people are tapped out, Tax can make it very hard for people to attack in draw out games, but Cadence is probably the better fit.

Gleeock on I LOVE CHAOS

5 months ago

DrukenReaps that is a playstyle (which I love) that only certain people win with, takes a very different look at tempo & life totals as a resource. Very midrangy (which I also love). It is really fun to force players to make different decisions than they normally would because you have been chiseling at life totals on a non-lifegain control deck for example.

If you build it the non-cEDH/combo way Atla Palani, Nest Tender is chaotic in a fun way. Atla with Tobasco Sauce plays with high variance. Ruric Thar, the Unbowed is one of my favorite egg-hatches, which probably fits the bill for this topic.

Polymorphing probably fits this bill too, you can build however much variance you want then Reality Scramble tokens.

Fun variance cards: Oath of Druids is a staple for me, you can make the game very lopsided against a miserly opponent with this. Creative Technique is powerful but has variance, Protection Racket is amazing in a fun Timmy deck that doesn't care that much if you lose a card here and there. None of those really stall things, they just keep the foot on the gas. I know there are more that I will think up.

Sheld on The Chaos Legion

5 months ago

Hi @zepample,

I play in a very casual meta, so I can afford to play dumb expensive flavorful cards. :)

Here are some modifications you can try to make the deck stronger if your meta is a bit more serious:

• Take out some expensive and "timmy" cards. Suggestions: Emrakul, Myojin, Wondrous Crucible, Ovika, Gigantoplasm, Wildfire Devils. While being fun and flavorful, these are in my opinion not great cards in a more competitive setting.

• Add more protection for Abaddon and more ways to enable his ability easily. Suggestions: Swiftfoot Boots, Bolt Bend, Logic Knot, Protection Racket, Loyal Subordinate, Court of Ambition. Abaddon is often a remove-on-sight commander so more protection could be necessary and relying on combat damage to enable him could be problematic in a more competitive setting.

• Add more triggers from draws/discards. Suggestions: Tergrid  ^Flip, Megrim, Liliana's Caress, Bone Miser. These cards combined with wheels can provide huge tempo swings making the deck much more spiky.

• You might need more/better control cards and finishers. My suggestion for another finisher would be Torment of Hailfire.

Hope some of this helps to adjust the deck for your meta. :)

Optimator on Devil in the Detroit City

5 months ago

Protection Racket might be really good since your creatures are so expensive.

Harvester of Souls is worth noting too.

Promise of Power is flavorful.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

6 months ago

If you're interested in playing fair, then you might like Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. This can take a board full of utility creatures and make them very formidable very quickly. Hell's Caretaker is a card I find useful that doesn't go infinite with anything I know of, it just lets you sneak stuff in once per turn. If you don't include anything like Pitiless Plunderer you can set up repeatable sacrifice loops to generate XP for Meren, probably to reanimate a Protean Hulk or someting else juicy. For this you might use Gravecrawler or Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and probably a 1 drop Knight to have something you can keep killing over and over. Any card that cares about creatures dying will go off, so some stuff that draws on death might be nice, Liliana, Dreadhorde General is a versatile card that fits the bill.

In my experience, the best thing you can tutor up is usually Protean Hulk, Sidisi, or Razaketh, any of these tends to spiral out of control in a deck that can reanimate them on the end step or sooner. Hulk can find various creatures to solve whatever problems you have, but you probably need a sac outlet to ensure it dies right away, the others are more generous. Razaketh notoriously likes abusing Life / Death to set up a pretty quick win when you're ready, you can find stuff like rituals to generate enough mana to go off.

If you want another reanimator that isn't picky, there is Demon of Dark Schemes that helps clear the board of weenies, and as long as you don't have cards that generate mana the Demon won't go infinite with something like Mitotic Slime or Underworld Hermit, they'll just give you lots of triggers for your extra mana. Demon also likes Merciless Executioner type creatures, they can easily generate Energy. Another reanimator I often forget reanimates stuff is Liliana, Death's Majesty, this brings back stuff as a Zombie if you don't want the ultimate, and she survives some wipes as a PW that can make 2/2s while milling you. Some people don't like PWs so ymmv.

I suspect that if you're not sure if you need more wipes, you might want to try one or two more. In Black there is Make an Example that is very brutal as you always hit your priority target for each opponent. It won't clear the board, but it can help manage it, and you can follow it up with a bunch of forced sacrifice. One card that likes seeing a wipe happen (that makes running extra feel less problematic) is Ogre Slumlord, if you run enough 'pay life'effects you might want Sangromancer, and if you think you can kill enough of your opponent's permenants then Kothophed, Soul Hoarder might work out, that can turn a Damnation into a big draw spell.

If your deck is finding it hard to stay alive, you can use Dawnstrider to save you on needing to reanimate a Spore Frog, though I use both as I find Meren can be annoying to certain players.

If you like Phyrexian Arena and aren't using 'win on the spot combos', have you considered Protection Racket? This can draw plenty of non-land cards or deal damage to your opponents, both seem good as long as you don't care if you lose some random 1-3 drops. There is also Black Market Connections, this can provide various resources without being as busted/all-or-nothing as Necropotence.

Hope some of this is helpful! Any Commander that requires a lot of tutoring is very frustrating to learn to play, Commander is incredibly hard to master, but it's easy to get better with practice!

Gleeock on top cards of each color

6 months ago

Boy, I don't play too much mono-color. Maybe:

{W} - Akroma's Will & Tragic Arrogance

{U} - pass/ Mass Polymorph & Bident of Thassa

{B} - Protection Racket & Bolas's Citadel

{R} - Descent into Avernus & Fiendish Duo

{G} - Oath of Druids & Selvala's Stampede

Probably could be convinced of some other things though

DreadKhan on Mishra's Might

7 months ago

It feels weird to complain people aren't being creative in a game where you have to use pieces that you buy, many of which are considerably worse than the best options. Everyone ends up running similar cards when you get to certain power levels, until you hit cEDH and everyone just runs the most optimal build they can. You can fight this by running absurdist stuff (I have several decks that are doing this), but every pet card you add makes your deck strictly worse, so you either lose more games or run other, even more staple cards because they are stronger.

Not sure if you're running any key combos/cards, but with an average MV over 3.5 I'd take a look at Protection Racket. It's terrible if people know what cards you 'need' (or if you need lots of lands specifically), but if that's not a problem it's free damage or free cards. I also love Make an Example, it's probably the more aggressive 4 mana removal that will ever see print, you always hit everyone's best pile because you get the final choice, it's everything that Do or Die wishes it was, except the MV.