commander-phenax

Commander / EDH UB (Dimir)

scottnonnenberg

Land (38)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Desert of the Glorified
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Halimar Depths
• 1x Ipnu Rivulet
• 11x Island
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Nephalia Drownyard
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Witch's Cottage

Single-target Removal (6)

• 1x Avatar of Woe
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Erebos's Intervention
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Reality Shift

Protection (5)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Negate
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots

Mill (13)

• 1x Consuming Aberration
• 1x Eater of the Dead
• 1x Fractured Sanity
• 1x Keening Stone
• 1x King Narfi's Betrayal
• 1x Maddening Cacophony
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Mind Grind
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Nemesis of Reason
• 1x Psychic Corrosion
• 1x Tasha's Hideous Laughter *list*
• 1x Traumatize

Ramp (9)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Oblivion Sower
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Scaretiller
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

High toughness (5)

• 1x Charix, the Raging Isle
• 1x Drift of Phantasms
• 1x Hover Barrier
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Wall of Frost

Boardwipes (2)

• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Ramp + Card Draw (1)

• 1x Solemn Simulacrum

Recursion (1)

• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation

Commander (1)

Card Draw (10)

• 1x Folio of Fancies
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Jace, Memory Adept
• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
• 1x Kefnet the Mindful
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Sire of Stagnation
• 1x Whispering Madness
• 1x Windfall

Synergy (7)

• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Bruvac the Grandiloquent
• 1x Duskmantle Guildmage
• 1x Spoils of Evil
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x The Haunt of Hightower
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir

Exiling Graveyards (2)

• 1x Relic of Progenitus
• 1x Sentinel Totem

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Key ideas:

• Tagline: Mill to kill - or win!
• Our first way to win is to mill our opponents out. We have a lot of tools to mill: Phenax, God of Deception and high-toughness creatures (Wall of Frost, Charix, the Raging Isle, Tree of Perdition), Mind Grind, Folio of Fancies, Windfall/Jace's Archivist/Whispering Madness, and a whole lot more. We can make that go faster by doing damage as we mill.
• The second way to win is to mill ourselves out with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries on the battlefield.
• Bruvac the Grandiloquent is absolutely made for this deck - he doubles all official 'mill!' Some things don't classify, like wheels, but it definitely counts big stuff like Phenax's granted ability, Traumatize, Keening Stone, etc.
• The Haunt of Hightower is extreme synergy: when we mill opponents: it gets big, and can either tap to mill with Phenax in play, making itself bigger, or attacking and gaining us life. Same goes for Consuming Aberration, without the lifegain and flying - though Aberration does work if the mill has already happened when it comes down.
• Duskmantle Guildmage, Bloodchief Ascension and Syr Konrad, the Grim are extreme synergy as well: when creatures go to the graveyard from anywhere they'll do damage. And with Mindcrank out, that's more milling. In that combo, Guildmage/Ascension will kill people immediately, Konrad requires creatures to be milled.
• Thousand-Year Elixir allows us to use Phenax-based milling a lot faster, and perhaps even twice in a turn. So powerful for The Haunt of Hightower and Consuming Aberration, which would get bigger each time.
• Transmute cards at 2 (Muddle the Mixture) and 3 CMC (Drift of Phantasms) to get us key combo elements!
• Several mechanisms to exile graveyards to make sure opponents can't shuffle it back in, or leverage that big graveyard: Scavenger Grounds, Relic of Progenitus, Sentinel Totem, and Bojuka Bog.
• Several mechanisms to take advantage of our large graveyard, bringing back instants/sorceries (Mystic Sanctuary), lands (Scaretiller), creatures (Phyrexian Reclamation/Witch's Cottage) and artifacts (Buried Ruin). This gives us a measure of protection for our most important pieces, like Mindcrank or The Haunt of Hightower.
• Kefnet the Mindful combos well with our ETB lands, allowing us to bounce them back to hand: Bojuka Bog, Halimar Depths, Mystic Sanctuary, Witch's Cottage, and Temple of Deceit.
• A small deserts sub-theme in our lands to enable repeated graveyard exiling with Scavenger Grounds.

Combos:

• (win) Mindcrank + Duskmantle Guildmage/Bloodchief Ascension/Syr Konrad, the Grim + anything hitting an opponent's graveyard = kill opponents with direct damage
• (win) Traumatize/Maddening Cacophony + Bruvac the Grandiloquent = mill an opponent's entire deck all at once
• (win) Traumatize/Maddening Cacophony + Duskmantle Guildmage/Bloodchief Ascension/Syr Konrad, the Grim = kill someone with damage
• Phenax + Eater of the Dead = may be able to mill opponents out, depending on opponents' creature density
• Large hand size + Windfall/Jace's Archivist/Whispering Madness = churn through libraries, filling graveyards. Folio of Fancies to further take advantage of large hand sizes.
• Windfall/Jace's Archivist/Whispering Madness + Psychic Corrosion = opponents mill double what you draw!
• Consuming Aberration/The Haunt of Hightower + Mind Grind = if we mill everyone by about X, these creatures would go up by 3X power!
• Lots of self-mill + Syr Konrad, the Grim + any graveyard exile = can hit opponents for large amounts of damage if our gravehard is huge.
• Whispering Madness on a flying creature = Windfall every turn!
• Thousand-Year Elixir + any big creature = double-up the mill impact of one big creature, especially if it grows, like Consuming Aberration/The Haunt of Hightower
• Oblivion Sower + large, exiled graveyards = We get a whole lot of lands!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.05
Tokens	Manifest 2/2 C