Szadek, Lord of Secrets

Legendary Creature — Vampire

Flying

If this would deal combat damage to a player, instead put that many +1/+1 counters on this creature and that player mills that many cards. (To mill a card, put the top card of your library into your graveyard.)

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)

DemonDragonJ on Waste Not

9 months ago

I have replaced Szadek, Lord of Secrets and Sultai Ascendancy with Necromaster Dragon and Glarb, Calamity's Augur, which reduced the average converted mana cost of this deck from 3.68 to 3.65, because, as great as Szadek was, in this deck, he simply was too expensive, and the dragon also provides tokens, which I definitely need, as this deck contains several sacrifice outlets, and Glarb is better than the ascension in nearly every way.

DemonDragonJ on Should I Keep Fungal Shambler …

10 months ago

Is Szadek, Lord of Secrets too expensive for this deck, as well? His ability definitely works with the strategy of this deck, but he costs seven mana to cast, so I worry that I may not be able to summon him sufficiently quickly for him to actually make an impact upon the game.

legendofa on League of Supervillans

1 year ago

How villainous do you want to get with this? Rakdos and Lazav are both very much sinister, destructive, monomaniacal beings, but they played a key part in taking down the Nephilim, Experiment Kraj, and Nicol Bolas (Rakdos got in on all three, Lazav missed the first two). On that note, Szadek, Lord of Secrets is pure villain.

Volrath the Fallen was one of the earliest arc villains. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician can fit in.

Oona and Maralen are at least antagonistic, but are they strictly villains? They mostly just acted against each other, trying to work around the Great Aurora.

Lord_Olga on Therapy failed because I kept putting up Walls

2 years ago

Great deck!! I run Szadek, Lord of Secrets in my Phenax deck cause he can make himself bigger by milling and attacking which makes him work better and better with Phenax. If you can generate the mana to cast him, he's great.

CasualCucumber on zombie

3 years ago

It seems your deck is going in too many directions at the moment. You have a lot of zombie lords which is good, but there needs to be a bigger zombie production. You seem to be going for the token zombie spam, so cut out the creatures that doesn't help this plan. In zombie tribal I would build around The Scarab God first ability and not focus too much on the second ability in your deckbuilding - plenty of graveyards will be filled without dedicating yourself too much to a mill plan. Of course I can see you're not finished with the deck but simple things like Szadek, Lord of Secrets seems bad when you could run Altar of Dementia.

To start with, cut: Ascendant Evincar, Pontiff of Blight, Evil Twin, Szadek, Lord of Secrets, Wight.

DemonDragonJ on Diabolical Machinations

3 years ago

I have replaced Szadek, Lord of Secrets with Blizzard Specter , which lowered this deck's average converted mana cost from 4.66 to 4.61, which is a good thing, since this deck still has the higher mana curve out of all my decks.

DemonDragonJ on Mind Over Matter

3 years ago

I have replaced Dromar, the Banisher _ with Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign , because, as much as I wish to have all ten primordial dragons in my decks, Dromar is highly situational, because he hurts his controller three-fifths of the time.

I have replaced Mindleech Mass with Blizzard Specter , mainly because the specter has a lower mana cost than does the mass.

I have replaced Szadek, Lord of Secrets with Nemesis of Reason , because, while it is great that Szadek grows more powerful with each attack, milling my opponents' cards is not a central strategy of this deck, so I cannot afford to pay Szadek's high mana cost.

These three changes together reduced this deck's average converted mana cost from 4.24 to 4.13, which is very nice.

multimedia on Which Card Should Replace Mindleech …

3 years ago

DemonDragonJ, you have the right idea with wanting to cut an 8 drop for a another 3 drop creature and more of these ideas would further help gameplay. Ponder about more things you can do before you cast your Commander not after you control it. Something to think about is the amount of high CMC creatures you're playing and if these creatures are really needed or could something else lower CMC better help Sen? The large amount of high CMC creatures is making the avg. CMC 4.0+ which doesn't give you many plays to make before you cast Sen.

Sen is the high CMC creature you want to cast more than the others, but before you can cast Sen you want to cast other cards and hopefully these cards help you to cast Sen or give you another advantage the turn you control Sen. Lots of high CMC creatures doesn't give you as much plays to make before you control Sen. An Arcane Signet for example is going to do more than Szadek, Lord of Secrets because you can potentially cast Arcane before Sen and it can help to cast Sen and opponents spells afterwards.

Another example is Lim-Dul's Vault could replace another high CMC creature such as Drogskol Reaver since you can use Vault to potentially find your best high CMC creature when you can cast it or before that to setup your draws before or after you can cast Sen. Vault can also help to find Chromatic Lantern to make it easier to cast opponent spells.