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Nihilism

Commander / EDH* WUB (Esper)

eminentemily

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Land (36)

Enchantment (7)

Instant (18)

Artifact (13)

Commander (1)

Commander: Zur, Eternal Schemer

Creature (15)

Sorcery (10)

This deck is a deck of stasis. Tranquility. Nihility. It was born of anxiety and a long, sleepless night, and a desire to make a couple cards I owned when I was first getting into Magic over a decade ago useful. Those cards would be Barren Glory, and One with Nothing. I think it would be absurd to expect anyone to get this deck in legit cardboard. Proxies maybe. I usually play online with virtual cards so cost isn't an issue.

The commander, like everything, is irrelevant and exists solely to support the color scheme. You could fancy it a distraction, to keep people guessing what this deck actually does. Perhaps another commander would suit better. But it doesn't particularly matter. Use him to block if you have to, but I prefer to think of him as Hikawa, from Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Sitting placidly in the background, awaiting the opportunity to bring stasis to the world.

Your objective is to have Barren Glory on the field and Renounce in your hand. Optionally, if you happen to have more cards in hand, One with Nothing to ensure that, come upkeep, you have nothing. You sacrifice everything on the field for massive life-gain, discard your hand if needed, on your last opponent's end-step, and you win the game with nothing else in play or in hand. Alternatively, if you have Sphinx or Shadow of the Second Sun in play, you can trigger the effect of receiving a new beginning phase and cast it all on your post-combat main phase.

Everything else in this deck exists to support this combo and to protect itself long enough to allow it to take effect. Creatures with Deathtouch to dissuade attacks and stax enchantments to make it difficult to swarm against it. Mana rocks to accelerate having the mana necessary to hard-cast Barren Glory if needed. Lost Auramancers to cheat Barren Glory out. And tutors. Lots of tutors. At least one card to retrieve Barren Glory if it happens to get nuked, counterspells to combat removal and targeted effects, Blessed Sanctuary to help protect against being bolted to death. Even a fog or two to mitigate combat damage. Wraths to keep the board from becoming too active. It's all there to turtle and build the pieces you need.

Alternate wrath based options exist, like tapping all your lands and casting Armageddon, if you have enough resources to get the win-cons in place. But Armageddon in particular I fancy to be a distraction tactic for opponents' counterspells. Obviously any reasonable player will want to deny that spell, so ideally, they won't have a counter when you get the win-cons in place.

I don't think this would make a good regular-play deck. But for what it's worth, it's a solid 4-bracket and a potentially good way to surprise a table with an unexpected win-con. And in a strange way, I think it's beautiful, to win by bringing your entire board to a stand-still.

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Casual

99% Competitive