Commander Collection: Curse of Novgorod

Commander / EDH Bracket 4 Combo Control Enchantment WB (Orzhov)

Jurrane

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Kor Haven
• 11x Plains
• 1x Serra's Sanctum PGC
• 1x Shineshadow Snarl
• 1x Silent Clearing
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Urza's Cave
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x War Room

Ramp (8)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Monologue Tax
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Smothering TitheGC
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Thought Vessel

Card Draw (5)

• 1x Esper Sentinel P
• 1x Greed
• 1x Mesa Enchantress
• 1x NecropotenceGC
• 1x Phyrexian Arena

Removal & Boardwipes (19)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Banishing Light
• 1x Damn
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Darksteel Mutation
• 1x Excise the Imperfect
• 1x Extinguish All Hope
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Oblivion Ring
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Seal of Cleansing
• 1x Spear of Heliod
• 1x Stroke of Midnight
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vindicate
• 1x Wrath of God

Protection (7)

• 1x Aegis of the Gods
• 1x Dawn's Truce
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Greater Auramancy
• 1x Sphere of Safety
• 1x Story Circle
• 1x Teferi's ProtectionGC

Combo Pieces (3)

• 1x Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• 1x Triskelion
• 1x Walking Ballista

Recursion (2)

• 1x Debtors' Knell
• 1x Resurgent Belief

Commander (1)

Other Win Conditions (9)

• 1x Archon of Sun's Grace
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Hallowed Haunting
• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x Opalescence
• 1x Sigil of the Empty Throne
• 1x Starfield of Nyx
• 1x Underworld Coinsmith
• 1x Wound Reflection

Tutors (7)

• 1x Demonic TutorGC
• 1x Enlightened TutorGC
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Imperial Seal PGC
• 1x Ranger-Captain of Eos P
• 1x Vampiric Tutor PGC
• 1x Weathered Wayfarer

Other Utility Enchantments (3)

• 1x Doomwake Giant
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Tymaret, Chosen from Death *f-etch*

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{W}{B} Deck History & Concept {W}{B}

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The origin of this deck has a bit of a story to it. Way back when, I made a bunch of 60-card "precons" to help a new player learn the game. Each of the 10 decks was based on one of the colour pairs, featuring a different theme or mechanic. The Orzhov deck I chose was a constellation build, using Sigil of the Empty Throne to create a bunch of Angels by casting enchantments and auras. It was my favourite deck of the 10 so I decided to turn it into a Commander list.

Kambal, Consul of Allocation was the commander of my first version as it's such a nasty Orzhov card. Cool though he is, it quickly became apparent that Kambal doesn't do anything particularly good in an enchantments deck, so I rehomed him to my second Orzhov deck which was a more dedicated gain and pain build. The obvious replacement was Daxos the Returned as he's perfect for a black/white enchantments theme. And here were are today.

'Curse of Novgorod' is a Orzhov constellation deck with a control theme. It has answers for most threats and gradually tightens the screw on its unsuspecting opponents, slowly choking the life out of them with layers of enchantments while generating Angels with Sigil of the Empty Throne. It can tutor for Sigil relatively easily, or find other good utility cards that it nearly always wants to see, including Smothering TitheGC, Luminarch Ascension, Black Market or NecropotenceGC.

The fun thing about this deck is that it has a number of different routes to victory. It was originally designed to work around Sigil of the Empty Throne (and now Hallowed Haunting too), but it can also win by generating large amounts of mana to cast a lethal Exsanguinate, or turning all its enchantments into creatures with Opalescence and Starfield of Nyx and attacking into the empty board states it creates with Damnation, Wrath of God and Kaya's Wrath. Or it can raid opponents' graveyards with Debtors' Knell and beat them to death with their own creatures. Finally, it also has a combo gameplan by using its various tutors to find Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Triskelion/Walking Ballista, which interact with Heliod for infinite damage.

Power Level

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I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

I would categorise this as one of Tier 2 decks. It's a bit slow but has a lot of strong cards, including an infinite combo with various tutors to find the key pieces. It doesn't have a lot of fast mana but does include an Ancient TombGC and a Serra's SanctumGC, which is an insanely powerful card. It's doesn't win quickly enough to hold its own at competitive tables, so I'd say it's probably on high side of casual and can compete against a variety of opponents. Right now its win rate is around 60%.

Budget

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The average price for this deck on Card Kingdom is around $600. Obviously that's high for a casual deck but take out Ancient TombGC, Demonic TutorGC plus some of the other mid/high price cards and the deck is a lot more reasonable to build. Many of the more expensive enchantments have come down in price recently thanks to Enchanting Tales, so now's a good time to pick them up if you're thinking about building a constellation deck.

Play Style

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We're a control deck so therefore we try to control the board in order to control the game. Being black/white, we can't run counterspells but we're the best colour pairing in the game for removal, which means we can deal with nearly anything that hits the board. Our goal is to keep the battlefield clear of threats - or to lock down our opponents' best cards - while creating threats of our own. We do this by using Daxos the Returned's activated ability, or the cast triggers from Sigil of the Empty Throne, Hallowed Haunting and Archon of Sun's Grace.

Consequently, we run very few creatures of our own. Those we have are either enchantment creatures themselves, or synergise well with an enchantments strategy. The other advantage of our low creature density is that we either suffer minimal collateral damage when we use our boardwipe cards, or we can easily rebuild using Hallowed Haunting or Sigil of the Empty Throne triggers.

Because we're so reliant on cast triggers, we need a steady stream of spells to keep us in gas. NecropotenceGC, Greed, Phyrexian Arena and Mesa Enchantress are all useful resources to draw more cards. If incremental beatdown with Angel, Pegasus and Spirit tokens doesn't do the trick, we have access to several other win conditions, which are outlined below.

Win Conditions

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As noted in the introductory section, the deck isn't reliant on a single win condition and hence has a number of ways to try and close out the game. Here are the ways it can achieve this.

Token Beatdown: Sometimes we'll get there by going wide and attacking with the tokens generated by Daxos the Returned, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Luminarch Ascension, Hallowed Haunting or Archon of Sun's Grace. The advantage of this strategy is that it's highly resilient as we can always create more token if the first wave(s) are removed. Most of our tokens have flying so they're evasive and can avoid the majority of blockers.

Heliod Combo: Heliod, Sun-Crowned goes infinite with Walking Ballista or Triskelion by granting them lifelink for {1}{W} and then giving them a +1/+1 counter each time they do damage. The combo is also quite resilient to disruption as Heliod is indestructable and opponents often only have limited opportunities to interact with the combo on the stack. We run several tutors to find our combo pieces, namely Demonic TutorGC, Imperial SealGC, Enlightened TutorGC and Idyllic Tutor. This win condition is particularly useful to break through creature stalemates or otherwise stalled board conditions.

Draining Life: We have a series of cards that are able to generate very large amounts of mana: Serra's SanctumGC, Black Market and Smothering TitheGC. These can be used either individually or in combination, usually in the late game, to power out a large Exsanguinate. That can often kill opponents outright if their life totals are low enough, or soften them up for creature attacks with our tokens. The life points we gain also help make our game winning position more insurmountable.

Enchantment Beatdown: Opalescence and Starfield of Nyx turn our enchantments into creatures, thus enabling them to attack for lethal if our board is strong enough. We have to be careful here because, as creatures, they become more vulnerable to removal, so it's usually best to to this when opponents are tapped out, their defences are down, and we can attack into a clear board. Extinguish All Hope is helpful as a one-sided boardwipe ready for our enchantment creatures to attack unopposed.

Reanimation: It's expensive to cast and slow to set up but Debtors' Knell has won me games. Providing it sticks around, the inevitability it presents can be game-breaking as we can reanimate the best creatures from our opponents' graveyards turn after turn. Like many of our enchantments, it becomes very difficult to remove if Greater Auramancy is on the board.

Utility Enchantments

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The enchantments we cast are the engine room of this deck, as we use them to create tokens with Daxos the Returned, Luminarch Ascension, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Hallowed Haunting or Archon of Sun's Grace. They also fulfill other useful roles. Here's what we use them for:

Ramp: The more enchantments we make, the stronger Serra's SanctumGC is. Black Market and Smothering TitheGC are also helpful for ramping in the early game and big mana in the late game. I'd also like to add Black Market Connections as it's such a strong utility card, helping us create Treasure tokens, amongst other things.

Protection: We are capable of running a pillowfort strategy that makes it difficult for opponents to attack us, or otherwise interact with us. Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety mean it can be difficult for us to killed through combat, and Story Circle prevents damage from coloured sources of our choosing. They're also a useful way of building up a critical mass of quest counters on Luminarch Ascension. Aegis of the Gods gives us hexproof which prevents us being targeted directly by enemy spells.

Removal: Although we run many of the best-in-class removal spells in Orzhov colours (Vindicate, Utter End, Anguished Unmaking, Stroke of Midnight etc), we have a range of enchantments that fulfill a similar role. Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light and Grasp of Fate are useful catch-alls; Aura of Silence and Seal of Cleansing either tax and/or remove enemy artifacts and enchantments, Darksteel Mutation locks down opposing Commanders or other problematic creatures; and Karmic Justice, Spear of Heliod and No Mercy support our pillowfort strategy by disincentivising our opponents to interact with us. Doomwake Giant can often be a repeatable boardwipe for smaller creatures.

Card Draw: NecropotenceGC, Greed, Phyrexian Arena and Mesa Enchantress are our main sources of card draw. Esper Sentinel isn't an enchantment but it offers great value.

Upcoming Changes

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I'm fairly happy with the deck how it is. It's fun to play, albeit a bit slow, and is sometimes vulnerable to mass enchantment removal like Farewell. I'm not looking to make any significant changes at the moment.

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All My EDH Decks

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Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

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Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

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{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
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{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
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{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
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{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
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Thunder Striker: Temur Power Matters

Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 weeks
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.92
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Enchantment Spirit */* WB, Experience Token, Human 1/1 W, Incubator, Pegasus 2/2 W, Phyrexian 0/0 C, Spirit Cleric */* W, Treasure