Buried Chain Korvold [cEDH Primer] WIP

Commander / EDH BRG (Jund) Competitive Infinite Combo Midrange Primer Reanimator

Nerve_Atk

Land (32)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darigaaz's Caldera
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Forest
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Gemstone Mine
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Artifact (7)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Tormod's Crypt

Creature (20)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mayhem Devil
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Squee, the Immortal
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood
• 1x Zealous Conscripts

Enchantment (14)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Cindervines
• 1x Exploration
• 1x Food Chain
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation
• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Rhythm of the Wild
• 1x Squandered Resources
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Sylvan Library

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Wrenn and Six

Commander (1)

Instant (15)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Assassin's Trophy *f-pre*
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Tainted Pact
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Life / Death
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Victimize
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Instant (1)

• 1x Plunge into Darkness

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Stranglehold

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Toxic Deluge

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The Fae-Cursed King

Jund's newest cEDH-viable commander has arrived with the release of the Brawl Precons this year. Formerly, we only had the dragon known as Prossh, Skyraider of Kher known for his speed and power with Food Chain

This primer shall cover our new, slightly slower dragon commander Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. He allows us to retain some of the speed, but also generates fathoms of value more than Prossh.

The King Himself

Cost -

Korvold costs 2BRG. At a CMC of 5, he is on the pricier side of commanders, meaning you cannot play him out insanely fast. He does come out on a similar clock as The Gitrog Monster , and can start giving immediate value meaning he is always “online”.

Effect -

Korvold is a Flying creature reading "Whenever Korvold, Fae-Cursed King enters the battlefield or attacks, sacrifice another permanent. Whenever you sacrifice a permanent, put a +1/+1 counter on Korvold and draw a card." To make up for the higher CMC, we get immediate value as soon as we cast our commander by sacrificing a card and drawing a card. Having a draw engine in the command zone is an incredible advantage that we can take advantage of. This being attached to the sacrifice clause opens up a bunch of interesting synergies and ways to give the deck gas.

P/T -

Korvold is a 4/4 with flying. While this doesn't seem like a lot or anything to write home about (which it isn't), Korvold's clause of giving him +1/+1 counters can make beats a last-ditch wincon

Pros & Cons

Pros

Korvold is a very strong commander. He is a draw engine in the command zone. He is a slow sacrifice outlet in play, and can generate infinite sacs with ETBs. Synergizing with sacrificing opens up a lot of lines to go from. Fetch lands take a role similar to that of in Gitrog, so we take special care to synergize with them. Korvold being a Jund commander offers up a lot of ramp from green, tutoring in black, and utility pieces in red, as well as some of the most efficient removal in the game such as Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, and Nature's Claim. While he might not be as fast as Prossh, Korvold is able to grind and play in midrange much more proficiently. Overall, Korvold’s biggest strength is the value he can generate and play even without blue.

Cons

This deck does have some very apparent weaknesses. While Jund colors offer good resources and plays, no access to UW hinders our ability to interrupt opponents and ensure our plan goes through. At 5CMC, Korvold is not the fastest commander in the format either, requiring us to be able to get from early to middle game before we are able to really “pop” off with him.

What are we doing?

Introducing Dockside Cat and reintroducing a favorite classic.

Our goal in this deck is simple. Find Buried Alive, and create piles with Dockside Extortionist + Temur Sabertooth (coined "Dockside Cat") or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts and then win the game, or grind value until we can get our pieces into the grave through a variety of means, and reanimate them, or simply cast them.

Main Win-conditions

Dockside Cat piles through Buried Alive: Show

Delver Pile

Buried Alive > Phyrexian Delver > Dockside Cat---------------------------------------- Cast your reanimation spell (in this ex. I will use Reanimate) targeting Delver, lose 5 life. Target Sabertooth with the ETB trigger, losing an additional 4 life. Pay 1G: return Delver to hand, then recast for 5 Mana (8 total Mana spent), target Dockside Extortionist, losing 2 more(11 total) life, make treasures. Return Dockside to your hand, and generate infinite treasure tokens and sacrifice triggers(when opponents have 4 total artifacts and enchantments) and infinite colored mana(whenever opponents have 5+ total artifacts and enchantments).

Eternal Witness Pile

Buried Alive > Eternal Witness + Dockside Cat (this only works with Instant/Sorcery reanimation spells)------------------------------------------------------------------- Reanimate Witness, Temur Sabertooth requires enough Mana to bounce eternal witness to hand after reanimating it (5 total mana more to go off with than Kiki pile) Recast witness, getting back Reanimate, return Dockside. Make infinite Mana with 5+ artifacts under opponents play. Go into looping any spell from graveyard with eternal witness, or draw your deck with Korvold.

Winning through Victimize. Living Death All Hallow's Eve Living End Command the Dreadhorde also work for this)

Multi-Reanimation Pile

Buried Alive > Dockside Cat + Any creature-------------------------------------------- Meet the conditions to cast your reanimation spell (Victimize as my example). Sacrifice a creature & place Dockside Cat combo into play and generate infinite Mana and sac triggers. Play Korvold and draw into your win-condition from there. Eternal Witness can be used to loop spells from your graveyard (keep in mind you will eventually have to return Korvold to hand so as not to deck as well)

Kiki-jiki piles Show

Delver Pile

-If you are trying to win with a single-target reanimation spell; Put Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Zealous Conscripts, and Phyrexian Delver into graveyard. Target Delver to return to play (let's use Reanimate again), lose 5 life, target Kiki with ETB, lose 5 . Use Kiki to clone Delver, lose another 5 (15 total life lost) to reanimate Conscripts, untapping Kiki and then creating as many hasty Conscripts as neccessary to win.... say 20,000 of them.

Eternal Witness Pile

When using an instant or sorcery-based reanimation spell; Buried Alive > Kiki, Conscripts, Eternal Witness-------------------------------------- Reanimate Witness, etb trigger brings back Reanimate, Reanimate Kiki, copy Witness to get back Reanimate, Reanimate Conscripts, untapping Kiki. Make infinite hasty Conscripts.

Winning through Victimize

Buried Alive > Kiki + Conscripts > Victimize-------------------------------------- Cast victimize to return Kiki + Conscripts to play. Make infinite hasty Conscripts.

Food Chain Show

Food Chain Combo

Cards needed: Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal Cast Food Chain, and generate 3 mana to cast Squee. Exile Squee to food chain, making 4 red mana to cast creatures. Recast Squee, leaving 1 red. Repeat an unbounded amount of times to generate unreasonable amounts of red mana, then filter into your other colors. Cast Squee, then Korvold, sacrificing Squee and drawing a card. Exile Korvold to Food Chain, recast Squee, then Korvold. Repeat as many times as needed to pick up your deck. From this position, we can cast Kiki + Conscripts, Cast and Sac squee to Goblin Bombardment infinitely, utilize Dockside Cat with the ability to generate infinite mana + Eternal Witness + Noxious Revival + Wheel of Fortune to deck out our opponents, using Eternal Witness ETB's to return Revival to hand and keep our deck filled up, or Korvold can sacrifice Wrenn and Six after a -1, return it with Eternal Witness, recast, -1, sac to Korvold, repeat, or Rhythm of the Wild + Deathrite Shaman + instants and sorceries to drain your opponents life with Temur Sabertooth to pick up the DRS.

Developing Early

Other Notable Korvold Builds and Strategies

King's Chain FC [Korvold Food Chain](http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/korvold-food-chain/) list by Centipedantic that takes a more refined approach to Food Chain and the Dockside combo. This is a more interactive take on the FC plan that ends the game through loop combos provided by Dockside Cat + Eternal Witness and Noxious Revival Mortuary Eggs Combo [Korvold Eggs](https://archidekt.com/decks/273620#Korvold's_Cursed_Eggs_(full)) list that takes a more unique approach to Korvold. Looking for synergy, as opposed to pure slot efficiency, this list utilizes Ashnod's Altar, Krark-Clan Ironworks, and Mortuary to abuse Gleaming Barrier, Dockside Extortionist and Scrap Trawler.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Exclude colors	WU
Splash colors	R
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 25 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.06
Tokens	Copy Clone, Emblem Wrenn and Six, Treasure
Folders	Korvold, EDH Decks that are cool, cEDH ideas, Cedh, EDH, commander, Commander, EDH decks