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All-In Ad Nauseam-a cEDH Primer

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Mono-Black

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Artifact (12)

Instant (5)

Land (81)

Sorcery (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Maralen of the Mornsong

With only 18 non-land cards (19 including Maralen), this doesn’t look much like a cEDH deck. It looks more like modern Treasure Hunt. However, upon closer inspection this is a lightning fast all-in Ad Nauseam combo that can go off on turn 3 fairly consistently. The deck revolves around a few specific cards with a few others that help out with consistency and a small amount of cheap control to ensure your combo goes off uninterrupted.

I chose Maralen of the Mornsong to lead this deck because she is a very aggressively costed commander at just 3 mana and she lets you tutor your library for Ad Nauseam every time for the low cost of 3 life. Another often overlooked ability is her ability to shut down your opponents from digging for answers by preventing them from drawing cards.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier is the main commander I see with Ad Nauseam decks, and it just doesn’t make sense to me. First, you need another creature to exploit in order to tutor for your library. Sure, this is often very easy but it’s just another hoop to jump through that Maralen bypasses. Another reason is that Sidisi costs 2 more mana than Maralen, making her a lot slower in most cases. While Sidisi’s effect is one-sided, the extra speed from Maralen means your opponents will likely have a hard time shutting her down, making the parallel effect often meaningless.
I mentioned earlier that this is an all-in combo deck, and that means we have one win condition every time. The turn after we get Maralen out, we’re going to tutor for Ad Nauseam . Hopefully by this point you have enough mana rocks to get to 5 mana, but if you don’t, worst case scenario you tutor for another mana rock and slow yourself down another turn. Then you cast Ad Nauseam and draw your deck until you hit around 40 cards (you need to draw an amount of cards equal to the highest life total at that point) and you have enough mana rocks to hit 2 mana (one being colored). You also need to make sure that you hit Sickening Dreams and Dark Sphere . You play the Dark Sphere and then cast Sickening Dreams , discarding enough cards to kill everybody. In response to your own spell, you sac Dark Sphere to halve the damage you take while killing everybody else instantly.
When playing against heavy control like Baral, Chief of Compliance , you absolutely need an aggressive opening hand. When playing against value or slower combo decks (most other combo decks), your hand can be a bit more forgiving which is what I love about this deck.
If you’ve found yourself up against a fast control player with more counterspells than could possibly be needed in a deck, your opening hand must be aggressive, and there is absolutely no shame in mulliganing. You usually want 1-2 mana rocks and 1-2 fast lands. When I say fast lands I mean something like Peat Bog or Ancient Tomb , something that lets you tap for more than 1 mana from a single land. The rest can usually be basic lands. The one off Dark Ritual could be useful in an opening hand for a turn 1 Maralen, but it is also nice to cast Sickening Dreams off of a Mox Amber after an Ad Nauseam . Don’t mulligan a hand away because of a Dark Ritual , but also don’t mulligan to try and find one.
Even in the more forgiving matchups, the same general rules from above apply but are not absolutely necessary. Don’t have any fast lands? Tutor to find some more mana rocks and just wait an extra turn-it’ll usually be just fine. Don’t have any mana rocks? Maybe mulligan. A turn 3 Maralen is usually not what you’re looking for but if your cEDH group is all value focused decks, you could still pull off the combo. The main thing to take away from this section is when playing against slower matchups, you don’t have to mulligan as aggressively, but don’t be stupid taking unnecesary risks with your opening hand.
These are where the deck earns its price tag, but they are pretty much necessary to allow the deck to go off quickly. Mana Crypt is far and away the best mana rock in this deck. A 0 mana Sol Ring (which is also in this deck) is just insane value. The 50% chance of 3 damage is not going to do anything in the long run. Lotus Petal is a great one use mana source that can come in handy if you had to tap out for Ad Nauseam . I’ve toyed a lot with keeping Lotus Bloom in the deck, but I’ve decided that it’s 0 mana and while I almost never use it because games don’t go that long with this deck, having it in my opening hand can occasionally be nice so I’ve kept it in so far. Mana Vault is just one mana and pretty decent one shot value (you’ll almost never be untapping it). Mox Diamond is great considering the 71 basics in the deck.
There’s a few answers in this deck in case something stands in your way or the game goes long (yes, you still have a chance). So, your Ad Nauseam got countered. What next? The answer is Elixir of Immortality to take another try and do it again. You also wouldn’t have this problem with a good Boseiju, Who Shelters All . Tapped out and got a problemsome Platinum Angel or Platinum Emperion ? Who doesn’t love a good Slaughter Pact . Does somebody have a janky reanimator combo deck that’s somehow faster than you? I personally love Tormod's Crypt in almost any deck.
If you choose to make this budget, you’d sacrifice a lot of speed but the actual combo can be built for less than $20 (even including Maralen) using damaged cards (they still work just fine). You can cut a lot of the expensive mana rocks for cheaper and slower ones like Thran Dynamo or Worn Powerstone , and a lot of the expensive lands can be traded out for cheaper lands or even more basics. If your meta isn’t quite as fast and cutthroat, this option might appeal to you. You could also build this deck as a solid frame to start your first cEDH deck and slowly buy/trade your way up to the full power list.

This is me dipping my toe into the water of cEDH deck building, so it is very likely I missed some good cards. If that’s the case, please let me know.

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