Dralnu, Combo Lord

Commander / EDH Casual Combo Control Jank Reanimator Spellslinger UB (Dimir)

Myomoto

Land (35)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Dreadship Reef
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 1x Guildless Commons
• 1x Halimar Depths
• 1x High Market
• 1x Ice Tunnel
• 2x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Mistvault Bridge
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Nephalia Drownyard
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Port of Karfell
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Watery Grave

Instant (20)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Dimir Charm
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Fated Return
• 1x Forbidden Alchemy
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Infernal Grasp
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Teachings
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Rescue from the Underworld
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Thought Scour
• 1x Turnabout

Artifact (15)

• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Mindslaver
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Patriar's Seal
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Commander (1)

Creature (16)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Brine Elemental
• 1x Corpse Connoisseur
• 1x Doomed Necromancer
• 1x Fatestitcher
• 1x Kelpie Guide
• 1x Lord of the Forsaken
• 1x Master of Death
• 1x Platinum Angel
• 1x River Kelpie
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Stinkweed Imp
• 1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
• 1x Viscera Seer

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Beacon of Unrest
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Covenant of Minds
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Fortuitous Find
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Notion Rain
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Traumatize
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

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Maybeboard

Instant (12)

• 1x Ancient Excavation
• 1x Careful Consideration
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Desertion
• 1x Doom Blade
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Negate
• 1x Otherworldly Gaze
• 1x Soul Manipulation
• 1x Stifle
• 1x Traumatic Visions

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Freed from the Real

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Argivian Restoration
• 1x Cut Your Losses
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Extract from Darkness
• 1x Grim Discovery
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Promise of Power
• 1x Stitch Together
• 1x Windfall

Creature (5)

• 1x Apprentice Wizard
• 1x Deranged Assistant
• 1x Golgari Thug
• 1x Millikin
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum

Land (8)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Thespian's Stage

Artifact (5)

• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Doubling Cube
• 1x Magebane Armor
• 1x Mask of Avacyn
• 1x Mind Stone

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Control/Combo deck powered by Dralnu, Lich Lord. Dralnu is an extremely janky commander due to his massive drawback, but that's also what makes him so interesting to brew around.

This deck aims to control the general flow of the game, using counterspells and boardwipes at key points to police the overall game state and not allow a single player to get too powerful. The goal is survive until the game reduces to 2-3 opponents (hopefully each being relatively weak), at which point it becomes easier to assume more total control of the game.

Besides giving us good value from single target removal and counterspells by reusing them, Dralnu allows us to utilize the graveyard as a second hand. We aim to fill up the graveyard with various spells with self-mill to keep expanding our options during the game. The fact that the graveyard is a publicly known zone can make games very political/table talky, as people will start looking through your graveyard to find answers for specific problems they have and ask you to cast them with Dralnu. The general goal is to never present too much of an obvious threat and to keep everyone else happy so that nobody will directly target us.

Then, as the game starts to reduce in number of players, we can try to take control with a combo like Turnabout + Yawgmoth's Will which let's us tap all our lands for mana twice, and then start emptying the graveyard for goodies, ideally to set up some of the combos below (some of which can finish the game outright):

• Mindslaver + Academy Ruins allows us to totally control one of the opponents in the game permanently if we have 12 mana available
• Brine Elemental + Vesuvan Shapeshifter shuts down all of our opponents' untap steps permanently, all we need to do is flip the shapeshifter facedown in our upkeep and flip it over again copying the elemental.
• Fated Return + Platinum Angel creates an indestructible angel that almost makes us invincible
• Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal + Sol Ring gives us infinite untaps for Codex Shredder to mill everyone, or if we have an extra manarock it gives us infinite mana for Staff of Domination shenanigans.

Dralnu's massive drawback requires some effort to safely put him on the board, as such we run a diverse range of protection for him:

• Swiftfoot Boots also lets us use his ability right away
• Riptide Laboratory lets us bounce him back to hand if he gets targeted
• High Market and Viscera Seer lets us sac him to get rid of him.
• Rescue from the Underworld lets us sac him as part of the cost, essentially getting rid of him with 'split second'.
• Ghostly Flicker can flicker him (along with numerous other beneficial targets in the deck, such as EtB creatures or manarocks)

Besides protecting him, we also wish to maximize the use of his ability, we therefore run some creature untap sources like:

• Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• Thousand-Year Elixir
• Patriar's Seal
• if Thousand-Year Elixir/Swiftfoot Boots is in play then Rescue from the Underworld/Ghostly Flicker can also untap him
• Fatestitcher (with a manarock on the board, he can help us make extra mana as well)
• Dramatic Reversal/Turnabout can allow us to surprise opponents with Dralnu, or can give us a lot of mana if we have several manarocks in play

The deck also runs several small value engines/combos:

• High Market/Viscera Seer + Stinkweed Imp/Master of Death can fill up the graveyard quick
• Archaeomancer + any reanimation to pull her out of the graveyard lets us get any spell we want from the graveyard to our hand
• Rescue from the Underworld lets us "flicker" one creature to trigger EtB effects and gets us another one from the graveyard on top, all at instant speed
• Expedition Map + Academy Ruins lets us find exactly whichever land we need, as many times as we like
• Academy Ruins + Codex Shredder can let us recycle the same spells over and over
• Academy Ruins + Nevinyrral's Disk gives us the ability to just flip the table whenever we don't like the current game state
• Riptide Laboratory + Snapcaster Mage gives us a repeatable way to use our graveyard if Dralnu isn't available
• Viscera Seer + Master of Death/Stinkweed Imp lets us dig through the deck at a steady pace, while filling up the graveyard (Riptide Laboratory can also me also bounce Master of Death)

For big creature finishers, we generally rely on stealing something from an opponent with Beacon of Unrest/Reanimate/Fated Return, or use our own Rune-Scarred Demon or Lord of the Forsaken.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 0 Rares 29 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.20
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Morph 2/2 C