Assassin's Guildmaster

Commander / EDH RBW (Mardu)

G3M1N1

Land (37)

• 1x Mountain
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Canyon Slough
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Detection Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Foreboding Ruins
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Inspiring Vantage
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Inventors' Fair

Artifact (22)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Cranial Plating
• 1x Darksteel Plate
• 1x Gorgon Flail
• 1x Gorgon's Head
• 1x Magewright's Stone
• 1x Puppet Strings
• 1x Quietus Spike
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of Truth and Justice
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Umbral Mantle
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Tenza, Godo's Maul
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte
• 1x Thornbite Staff

Instant (10)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Crackling Doom
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Tragic Slip
• 1x Unmake
• 1x Utter End
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Seize the Day

Commander (1)

Creature (20)

• 1x Akroan Horse
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Blood Cultist
• 1x Clackbridge Troll
• 1x Deathbringer Thoctar
• 1x General's Enforcer
• 1x Goblin Sharpshooter
• 1x Puresteel Paladin
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic
• 1x Stonehewer Giant
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Archetype of Finality
• 1x Danitha Capashen, Paragon
• 1x Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas
• 1x Obosh, the Preypiercer
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Taranika, Akroan Veteran
• 1x Teysa Karlov
• 1x Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• 1x Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Aggravated Assault
• 1x Ashes of the Abhorrent
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Greed
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Reconnaissance
• 1x Revel in Riches
• 1x Rite of the Raging Storm
• 1x Sigarda's Aid

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Kelsien Kill Krew. The leader of the Assassin's Guild. Semi- voltron, semi mid-range control.

I wanted to build a kill deck that relied more on permanents to do the killing rather than spells. Make no mistake, this deck still contains the spot/direct removal spells, but the killing comes from the sniping.

Why play Kelsien?

When you create a new DnD character, do you lean towards stealth? Are all your Skyrim playthroughs consistently sneaky? When you close your eyes and picture your ideal badass dispatching a room full of enemies, are they breaking down the door with a war cry, slinging magic, or dropping them all from the shadows?

There are a bunch a potential commanders who would be great choices to helm a kill deck... Teysa Karlov, Elenda, the Dusk Rose, Liliana, Heretical Healer  , Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, Syr Konrad, the Grim, Kresh the Bloodbraided all come to mind... but Kelsien, the Plague just has a different sort of flavor to it: vigilance AND haste paired with experience counters make him a formidable combat threat.

Consider this: that room full of enemies wasn't even this assassin's target- just combat casualties. oh yes, we excel in the open field as well.

Alternate builds.

This build leans toward a Voltron type deck, though not quite. I wanted something with a bit more flexibility than Voltron offers, but mostly I wanted the games to play differently each time. Players wanting more of a Voltron type deck would replace the pingers in this build for alternate Voltron options for those times when the Commander Tax may be too high.

The deck could lean more toward an assassin tribal deck. This build would include more one-time spells like Doom Blade and Victim of Night with options like Lurking Deadeye and Vraska's Finisher for more flavor. I've found that this sort of build is only for the jank in you, but wouldn't hold up against your meta's more powerful decks.

Speaking of jank, you could attempt an Obosh, the Preypiercer companion deck. But, as you can imagine, your 99 has just been crippled. I just don't think the ability to cast him Commander-style once per game is worth giving up literally half the MTG world. Additionally, my meta allows proxies... so there goes all three Moxes and the lotus.

Piloting the deck

The first thing you will notice when looking through the decklist is the heavy equipment package AKA the assassin's toolkit.

The 'tutor-ish' type cards are self explanatory: start fishing out the assassin's favorite tools. First things first, Kelsien performs best with deathtouch. If you already have a way to poison the assassin's arrows, then the next step is to nock more poison arrows with Thornbite Staff and Umbral Mantle.

Also in the assassin's toolkit is protection, for a master assassin is never in danger from the poisons they employ. Darksteel Plate and Swiftfoot Boots are the assassin's favored armor choices. And in our build, we exemplify the old adage: 'The best defense is a good offense'... Sword of Truth and Justice and Sword of Feast and Famine are offensive protection pieces.

Last in the toolkit are combat trick-type artifacts.. for what manner of assassin hunts with no sidearm(s)? Sunforger is irreplaceable in this manner, having 7 targets for removal... the poisoned throwing knives. Shadowspear fulfills multiple uses, as does Umezama's Jitte.

Secondly, and this should be obvious, we're gonna be killin stuff- why not have Death Rewards/ Bounties. We are going to want to reward our assassin and his gang of hunters for bringing down their target. That's where Teysa Karlov shines, doubling our experience counters and double triggering: Black Market to fuel cards like Thousand-Year Elixir and Magewright's Stone and Puppet Strings. Blood Artist and Ashes of the Abhorrent to help offset Phyrexian Arena and Greed. Teysa even helps our assassin's gang of hunters- Blood Cultist and Deathbringer Thoctar.

I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating: Kelsien has vigilance AND haste. This unique set of skills dictate Kelsien attack then tap to kill. With Aggravated Assault and Seize the Day, we can abuse this. Taranika, Akroan Veteran helps too. Taranika doesn't offer an additional attack phase, but untaps Kelsien and is protected by General's Enforcer. Theoretically, one could include Aurelia and other options to untap Kelsien, but with our heavy equipment package, Thornbite Staff is seeing the battlefield for sure.

But, look at what we done did. We killed everything! Whoops! What happens if our assassin and his gang of hunters run out of things to kill? Akroan Horse, Clackbridge Troll, Rite of the Raging Storm and Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor all ensure your arrows always have targets.

Why didn't you include:

Gift of Doom: Not at all a bad choice. But for 5 mana, we could tutor and equip an artifact to do the same job, saving us a slot in the 99. Also, the morph cost is too high as each of our creatures are more valuable on the battlefield.

Aspect of Gorgon: Again, not a bad choice. But, we have a heavy equipment package of artifacts to give Kelsien deathtouch. Equipment is strictly better because it doesn't fizzle if Kelsien leaves play. Mayyyyyyybe if we were running Daxos the Returned with proliferation effects, but that's not this build.

Harvester of Souls or Ogre Slumlord: Sooner than you think, the creature tokens WE GIVE the other players will be the only ones they have, making those options worthless. Also with card draw options like Greed, our card draw isn't conditional.

Retreat to Hagra: We have equipment deathtouch options, we have gain n drain options and we don't want either to be conditional.

Any of the Mardu 'proliferate' cards: With this build, we will be killing stuff enough to get those experience counters way high without committing cards in our 99 to do it for us.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 63 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.97
Tokens	Experience Token, Goat 0/1 W, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Lightning Rager, Soldier 1/1 W, Spirit 1/1 C, Survivor 1/1 R, Treasure