pie chart

Kelsien

Commander / EDH Deathtouch Enchant Equip RBW (Mardu)

RizzyJ10

Upvote 0
0

Creature (22)

Enchantment (10)

Land (35)

Sorcery (9)

Commander (1)

Commander: Kelsien, the Plague

Artifact (17)

Instant (6)

Maybeboard

Creature (20)

Artifact (12)

Sorcery (6)

Enchantment (8)

Instant (7)

Here is my Kelsien the Plague deck. I imbue his arrows with the plague (deathtouch) and he spreads it amongst all my opponents creatures. I use the death triggers to benefit my game plan and build up my board for the win. The second primary way to win is keyword soup. Third is commander voltron.

The main combo is Basilisk Collar + Kelsien, the Plague + Thornbite Staff . The collar can be swapped for anything else that gives Kelsien deathtouch. Kelsien himself can be swapped with Cunning Sparkmage I have made sure to include lots of ways to recur and tutor out these combo pieces for more consistent wins.

I also like Chandra's Ignition with Kelsien plus death touch to voltron my way to a win. Alternate win cons include Quietus Spike, and Vorpal Sword.

Ways to get around hexproof and indestructible include Burn from Within and Glaring Spotlight. Force sacrifice also works with Crackling Doom and Mythos of Snapdax. Just make sure you've tapped Kelsien in response to get your experience counter.

Speaking of experience counters, Minthara, Merciless Soul, Daxos the Returned, and Otharri, Suns' Glory help boost your experience for doing things the deck already does.

This deck also runs aura and equipment synergies since a lot of those are what give Kelsien deathtouch. These include Sram, Senior Edificer, Sigarda's Aid, Open the Armory, Armored Skyhunter, etc...

Wanna abuse Kelsien's tap ability? Untappers like Drumbellower, Magewright's Stone, Patriar's Seal, Aurelia, the Warleader, and T Staff do good work. There are not many untap options in Mardu, but I have found that these do the job well. Also having Otharri onboard with Aurelia is super fun and deadly.

How do you deal with opponents that don't run many creatures? Just give them your own! Humble Defector and Forbidden Orchard. Spellslinger decks, and others that don't run creatures, are a major weakness for Kelsien, but since adding these cards, I've had better luck against them.

You may notice a lot of the creatures have unique Keywords. Odric, Lunarch Marshal is a great way to tie them all together and swing out for the win.

Finally, if all else fails, you have City on Fire to triple your damage output and secure victory.

All in all, I find this deck to be very fun to play. It is high powered, but not CEDH and it has many different ways to win. The deck is resilient and can come back form major and targeted removal. You don't feel as bad when key pieces get removed because you know you always have other options at hand. Experience counters being impossible to remove is uber helpful as it always makes Kelsien and Otharri a hasty threat to swing lethal.

This deck can put a target on your back. But what deck doesn't do that nowadays? I was not able to squeeze in any proliferates. I know they can be beneficial to the deck, but those cards seem to come with a higher mana curve. Being in Mardu, I really wanted to keep the decks CMC under 3. Also, I would not get the full benefit of proliferation being that I only deal in myself having counters. Having nothing else to proliferate feels bad. If you have any feedback or suggestions I would love to hear them!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

96% Casual

Competitive