Alara's School of Witchcraft and... Witchcraft

Commander / EDH* BR (Rakdos) Combo Jank UB (Dimir) UBR (Grixis) UR (Izzet)

georgem1998

Landbase (37)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 3x Island
• 1x Kher Keep
• 1x Lavaclaw Reaches
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Volcanic Island
• 1x Watery Grave

Copy (6)

• 1x Howl of the Horde
• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Mirari
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Swarm Intelligence
• 1x Twincast

Wipes (1)

• 1x In Garruk's Wake

Removal (13)

• 1x Crosis's Charm
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dreadbore
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Ruinous Path
• 1x Terminate
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Victim of Night
• 1x Vraska's Contempt

Draw (9)

• 1x Ambition's Cost
• 1x Ancient Craving
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Staff of Nin
• 1x Well of Ideas

Payoffs (8)

• 1x Army of the Damned
• 1x Blatant Thievery
• 1x Choice of Damnations
• 1x Cruel Ultimatum
• 1x Expropriate
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Sadistic Sacrament
• 1x Torment of Hailfire

Walkers (3)

• 1x Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
• 1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• 1x Sorin Markov

Wipe (3)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Commander (1)

Defense (10)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Collective Restraint
• 1x Dread
• 1x Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1x Kher Keep
• 1x Koskun Falls
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Sphinx of the Final Word

Mana (8)

• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Tutor (7)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Revelation
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Mastermind's Acquisition
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Aminatou's Augury
• 1x Bonus Round
• 1x Chain Reaction
• 1x Cut / Ribbons
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Mana Geyser
• 1x Mizzix's Mastery
• 1x Skull Storm
• 1x Time Stretch

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Firemind's Research
• 1x Precognition Field
• 1x Sunbird's Invocation
• 1x The Mirari Conjecture
• 1x Thousand-Year Storm

Instant (2)

• 1x Expansion / Explosion
• 1x Fury Storm

Creature (1)

• 1x Niv-Mizzet, Parun

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"There will come a day so dark, you will pray for death. On that day, your prayers will be answered." -Minaldra, the Vizag Atum

My beauty, my creation, my magnum opus, if you will. You will see the fear in your opponent's eyes as your Nicol Bolas slowly but surely makes his way up to his ultimate. You will feel the resignation as you take your third extra turn. You will feel the constant cry of 'Really man, again?' as you use Cruel Ultimatum as a removal spell, and you will watch your friends throw things at you when you reveal Kess as your commander. Pick this deck at your own peril, I warn you, as it is truly for the person who really just cannot stand their friends.

Card Choices

Copy

"The Locust God's children were numberless, relentlessly eating away every trace of the city's protection"

Now the thing with this deck's prime wincon (huge X costs), they're fantastic to use but unless you've got some kind of infinite mana combo, it's unlikely you'll win the game with them, so my idea was that I could effectively double (or more) the effectiveness of any Torment of Hailfire or Banefire to quickly close a game off. Additionally, copying spells that may not serve as a wincon but are fantastic utility or means to facilitate a wincon (Expropriate is a prime example here) can put you very far ahead in the game, effectively guaranteeing your win (or just hindering your opponents enough to stop them being able to stop it).

Defense

"He answers questions as readily as he asks them, but his answer is always no"

In a deck running as few creatures as this, I find defense via other means is often fairly important. I've included a few largeish creatures, Sphinx of the Final Word, and Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs etc, that can also serve as decent utility. Along with that are the taxation effects and the Bitterblossom for flying blockers.

Draw

"What is a sliver of one's soul compared to unimaginable wealth?"

This is fairly self explanatory - generating card advantage is probably the best feeling in the world. I've mainly used Ancient Craving style cards, them and enchantments like Well of Ideas and a few creatures to help out more.

Landbase

"Deep within the Cabal's Vault, the Mirari pulsed like a dead sun - and its darkness radiated across Otaria"

Obviously a deck needs lands, we're not playing vintage here, but there are some interesting things in here: Boseiju, Who Shelters All helps me against control, Lavaclaw Reaches can even be an alternate wincon with all the mana I have, and even a Strip Mine can stop someone from destroying my cabal coffers with their destruction lands

Mana

"Lost to time is the artificer's art of trapping light from a distant start in a ring of purest gold"

Not too much notable here, for a deck based off huge spells with cmcs like this I've obviously found I needed a lot of rocks. I've included the Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth package, because with the amount of tutor I have normally allows me to get a good payoff out of it. The only issue with that is that coffers can brick my hand, but I've found the possible payoff makes up for that (or at least I'm telling myself that).

Payoffs

"There is always a greater power"

The real meat of the deck here, these are the cards you're winning with. Choice of Damnations, especially when copied can make people just flat out concede, Sadistic Sacrament can all but exile an opponent's deck lategame, and I personally have taken 8 extra turns with a copied Expropriate (people really need to start learning to always vote money on that honestly) , much to everyone else's hatred.

Removal

"Pretty baubles of persecution"

A hugely important part in any deck, this one especially. You can use removal in this deck fairly frivolously, with our commander easily recurring all the spells we cast. Being that I'm in Grixis, there's only two cards that can permenantly(ish) get rid of enchantments, but besides that I'm doing well with removal, to deal with problem creatures :).

Tutor

"There are some secrets so dark no human mind should ever contain them. Interested?" -Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis

Tutor obviously very useful in a deck running the Urborg package and so many integral spells to the wincons. Remember, Kess can recast all the tutor you cast, allowing you to use just one or two tutor to grab all the cards you need for the win. Diabolic Revelation especially is a godsend in any deck, especially this one - you can tutor for the decks entire wincon and then take it the next or even the same turn, depending on how much mana you had available at the time

Walkers

"Your God-Pharaoh has returned" -Nicol Bolas

Walkers are well known in magic for being immensely powerful cards, and the ones in this deck are no exception. With the lack of creatures and low defense for the walkers in this deck, I've only included walkers that either have a huge effect as soon as they hit the board, or have some way of protecting themselves. Both iterations of Bolas either kill or steal creatures, and Sorin Markov is worth casting even it's just for a Magister Sphinx - that effect is ridiculously powerful in edh I find.

Wipes

"It's a difficult task to quarantine a plague that moves with the clouds" -Esara, healer adept

Now this goes without saying, but every EDH deck needs a wipe, especially one in a deck like this that doesnt rely on creatures. All these wipes do something slightly different, from being able to selectively hit tiny creatures like elves with Toxic Deluge to being able to get insane card advantage with Decree of Pain!

"I came here looking for demons, and I found a plane full of angels. I hate angels" -Liliana, Vess, on Shandalar

Strategy

"I think we can come to an arrangement" -Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Now, you've seen all the cards, the justification for some of the cards, but how do you actually play the deck? Well as much as the deck seems very violent, this deck is in a lot of ways political. For as long as you can't see a way of winning, you need to be attempting to not lose (obviously). I find that setting up a threat works - pinning a commander as 'scary' and then using a lot of removal on the person running that commander, I can shift the fire onto them. As soon as you can see something in hand that can lead you to the win, like a Torment of Hailfire or an Exsanguinate (I bring these up a lot because they hit every opponent, allowing you to win a game in a turn), you need to start tutoring for mana to cast them for lethal lifeloss and the means to copy them enough to ensure victory. A brilliant card to have on the field for as much of the game as possible is Swarm Intelligence. The card really is good enough to single out - I find it doesn't really draw fire as much as other spells in this deck can, and it's useful for more than just the victory (all your spells are 2-for-1s!). Obviously the deck won't always function perfectly, and this isn't a comprehensive guide, but if you try something like I've detailed you should do pretty well :).

"I had hoped of more from you. But I expected as much." -Nicol Bolas, God Pharaoh of Amonkhet

A note on budget

"Gold buys death. Death buys gold" -The Sultai people of Tarkir

For those of you who've been reading this and thinking that I must be some mad rich guy getting into MTG for the first time, I'll explain something - I play on a website called Untap.in, which is a free site with a server of all the cards printed (heavy citation needed, I'm not too sure how the site works but that's as far as I understand), without any cost to pay, so I play my games on there with 'optimal' decks, without a budget limit. So, if you want to make any suggestions (which I 100% advocate you doing!) then don't be put off by what my budget is - it's nonexistent :).

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.10
Tokens	Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Kobolds of Kher Keep 0/1 R, Ogre 3/3 R, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	New Deck Ideas, Ideas for edh, commander