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Benedict Kalitas, Infection on the Down-Low

Commander / EDH Counters Infect Mono-Black Tokens Voltron

Azzman4u

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Artifact (23)

Instant (10)

Sorcery (14)

Land (36)

Commander (1)

Commander: Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Creature (12)

Enchantment (4)

I've always been a huge fan of Benedict Kalitas. He was one of the first cards I ever acquired when I began playing MTG in 2019, and I've always been surprised by the lack of EDH decks he commands (137 on EDHREC at the time of writing).

I'm not a very experienced Magic player, but this card seems to provide so much value. An affordable 4 CMC cost, solid 3/4 combat stats, lifelink, graveyard hate, token generation and a Sac-outlet to top it off. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe my affectionate nostalgia for BK is clouding my perception of this card, and he's really not all that great...Regardless, I decided to endeavor in building an effective and enjoyable deck around this underappreciated vamp.

~Brief Aside~ I do not play cEDH and do not intend for this deck to perform at a cEDH level.

I first embarked on building BK as a zombie tribal deck; however, I don't really dig tribal playstyles (It makes for too linier of a gameplay experience in my opinion), and I felt that zombie tribal didn't really maximize BK's potential. I briefly pivoted to a discard strategy hoping to capitalize on the graveyard hate this card provides, but this proved ineffective and underwhelming. Next, I tried out a token build. The strategy was simple : Get BK onto the field early and load the deck with cheap removal to maximize BK's static ability - kill opponents creatures and to generate my zombie token army.

As I continued to tinker with this plan I learned that it often led to a really beefed up BK, as I would sack my zombie tokens to buff up Kalitas. So I decided to lean into the beefy BK idea. Gradually, it became clear that the deck was becoming Voltron-esque, and I began throwing in protections for my beefy Voltron commander with the likes of lightning greaves, whispersilk cloak, swiftfoot boots, etc. However, I lacked wincons and so, I turned to the insidious wiles of infect.

In my play experience, I've always found Infect to be underwhelming. Everyone sees it coming from a mile away, you immediately become public enemy #1 and it greatly impairs your ability to politic with the other players. But.... what if it wasn't so obvious? What if I could disguise my secret infect strategy behind the veneer of zombie tribal? This became the purpose of this deck — to appear as if I'm cruising along with my zombies and just so happen to stumble upon a tainted strike or glistening oil for the one shot knock out. To this end, I have included numerous cards which make BK difficult to block: Shizo, Death's Storehouse, Whispersilk Cloak, Suspicious Bookcase, Zombie Trailblazer, etc.

This deck has not been thoroughly tested yet and I'm looking for feedback and suggestions. Any commentary from the community would be greatly appreciated.

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96% Casual

Competitive