Mana Ramp (16)
- 1x Arcane Signet
- 1x Caged Sun
- 1x Desperate Ritual
- 1x Dockside Extortionist
- 1x Gauntlet of Might
- 1x Gauntlet of Power
- 1x Jeweled Lotus
- 1x Liquimetal Torque
- 1x Mana Crypt
- 1x Mana Geyser
- 1x Pyretic Ritual
- 1x Rousing Refrain
- 1x Ruby Medallion
- 1x Seething Song
- 1x Sol Ring
- 1x Soulbright Flamekin
Stax (8)
- 1x Blood Moon
- 1x Grafdigger's Cage
- 1x Omen Machine
- 1x Silent Arbiter
- 1x Smoke
- 1x Stranglehold
- 1x Uba Mask
- 1x War's Toll
Card Manipulation (5)
Laelia Voltron (12)
- 1x Champion's Helm
- 1x Commander's Plate
- 1x Darksteel Plate
- 1x Embercleave
- 1x Etali's Favor
- 1x Hammer of Nazahn
- 1x Mithril Coat
- 1x Shadowspear
- 1x Sword of Forge and Frontier
- 1x Sword of the Animist
- 1x Tenza, Godo's Maul
- 1x Umezawa's Jitte
Lands (35)
- 1x Ancient Tomb
- 1x Bonders' Enclave
- 25x Mountain
- 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
- 1x Scavenger Grounds
- 1x Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
- 1x Strip Mine
- 1x Tyrite Sanctum
- 1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
- 1x War Room
- 1x Witch's Clinic
Win Cons (5)
Commander (1)
Exile Engines (11)
- 1x Birgi, God of Storytelling Flip
- 1x Bonehoard Dracosaur
- 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
- 1x Creative Technique
- 1x Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
- 1x Jeska's Will
- 1x Professional Face-Breaker
- 1x Tavern Brawler
- 1x Tempered in Solitude
- 1x Urabrask, Heretic Praetor
- 1x Wild-Magic Sorcerer
Removal, Boardwipe, Deterrence (7)
okay y'all, time for your local playgroup to...
(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)
Get Lae'd.
I built a Laelia Funstuff deck a month or so ago. it did well on Tappedout and solidly in my play group. but over time I started making edits and fundamental design changes, and then I discovered that Etsy-sold proxies are a thing and the build became a lot more serious.
this deck is now a fringe-fringe competitive Laelia build--it can almost keep up with decks that can almost keep up with competitive play. I'm calling it a primer cus I think, based on what I've seen online, it might just be the best Laelia, the Blade Reforged EDH deck out there right now--but don't hold me to that!
the build works by ramping aggressively into Laelia and swinging away. where it gets weird is in its Stax elements, which are made to slow the game down just enough to either give you the time to get combo pieces on the board, or to make winning with Voltron alone tenable.
it's not always fast or good. but when it goes, it goes. I've combo'd for win on turn four, or swung with Embercleave and Fiery Emancipation on the board on turn 3. it's by no means competitive in that it's maddeningly inconsistent, but it's capable of CEDH-like boardstates once in a blue moon.
read about how it works below!
- costs one more mana
- doesn't have to swing for a free impulse
- gets access to black and thus everything from forced sac effects to robust tutor-based combos
- generates free mana via treasures
- keeps the free impulse for a full turn, allowing for instant speed play
- is well-known and generally disliked among non-CEDH players on account of how good he is
Laelia, by contrast:
- costs one less mana
- has to swing for an impulse, and gets buffed on impulses, forcing her into a Voltron strategy
- is stuck in mono-red, which is meh-at-best if you're not running something like Godo, Bandit Warlord
- doesn't generate her own mana
- doesn't keep the impulse for a full turn, making instant-speed play risky to say the least
- a whimsical choice, likely to garner a polite reception in non-competitive playgroups
the last point in both lists is the key thing. unless your playgroup is very serious, you're seen as a jerk for building a 2-3K decklist for Prosper, whereas you can do that for Laelia and most playgroups will tolerate you! she's a fun not-jank, not-great commander for players who want to channel their inner Spike without alienating their friends. that's why I play her.
all that aside, it's worth noting that impulse is basically card draw if you're willing to play around it. commanders who generate card draw are, as a rule, solid! I think we can say that of Laelia.
you gotta swing with Laelia to get the free impulse. she buffs herself whenever she swings. if she didn't--if she was just unblockable, for example--we could swing with her without threatening KOs. as it is, she's locked into being a threat, which is decidedly a weakness.
still, even if Voltron's a B-tier-at-best EDH strategy, it is fun. playing a commander who's forced into a subpar build has the perk of making the deck more lighthearted and less serious.
this is the thing that's not well-understood by newer players, the reason why Voltron just isn't that great: you can only swing for commander damage on one player at a time. so you choose the biggest threat, and your other opponents are bound to make you pay for not choosing them, instead.
luckily, red has access to a few underrated, asymmetric, and pointed Stax cards which can stop a given build in their tracks. the idea here is to drop one of them and assess the board to understand who just got most damaged by your Stax spell; Don't swing at them. swing at the unaffected player(s) and leave the rest for later. divide and conquer, essentially.
since this is the real crux of the strategy of this deck, here's a card-by-card breakdown.
Blood Moon
shuts down: any well-tuned three-to-five color deck, plus some abusive lands like Cabal Coffers.
why it's good here: Blood Moon is the king of red Stax. I was reticent to add it because of how good it can be. it has the potential to simply destroy greedy decks that stretch themselves thin by wanting to have access to a plurality of the cards WotC has printed.
it's a double-edged sword, though. if you drop it alongside Gauntlet of Might, for example, and fail to hate out mono or dual-color opponents, you might find that you've increased rather than decreased an opponent's mana base, plus you may regret it when you've lost your Scavenging Grounds and you really need to exile graveyards. play it wisely, and expect some salt from your local Bant or WUBRG player!
Price of Glory
shuts down: anyone who likes to use mana when it's not their turn (control decks, instant-speed removal, most decks at higher-level play)
why it's good here: impulse effects aren't instant-friendly unless--like with Prosper, for example--they let you hold onto the card for a whole turn cycle, rather than just a turn. with Laelia, if you impulse a card like Deflecting Swat, it's worse than useless; you could've not run it and run something you can impulse, instead. this means that a). you really shouldn't run many instants and b). Price of Glory doesn't get in your way like it does for other players. it's an ideal piece here!
Silent Arbiter, Smoke
shuts down: players swinging wide, token decks, tap/untap combos (Smoke only)
why they're good here: this deck rarely swings with more than one creature. unless you happen to land the Brash Taunter + Fiery Emancipation semi-combo (more on that later), you'll almost never need to untap more than one creature at a time either. these cards ice aggro players out and largely leave you alone.
Stranglehold
shuts down: Tutor-based decks, Farseek-type ramp, really just lots of stuff, plus extra turns as a cherry on top
why it's good here: Stranglehold is underrated. there are few things a player can do so powerful as searching their library, and stopping that trips up most decks if not shutting them down outright. that it's assymetrical means your Gamble doesn't suffer. a lot to love here; I reckon if Stranglehold were one mana cheaper, it'd be a famously broken Stax piece.
the second effect, preventing extra turns for your enemies, is less likely to affect a game, though when it does, it's huge. players rarely take extra turns, but when they do, they almost always win. icing out a rare but incredibly powerful tactic is always worth doing.
War's Toll
shuts down: spellslinger decks, combo decks, potshots from aggro decks
why it's good here: ah, War's Toll. it trips up all but the most aggressively "drop one big creature a turn and swing" decks. sometimes devastating, always annoying, there's almost never a reason not to feel good about casting this spell.
Omen Machine, Uba Mask
shuts down: card draw, which is to say everything, eventually
why it's good here: these are the best Stax cards in a Laelia deck. they buff your commander, for one thing, so that's a nice perk. more importantly, your access to impulse effects makes their shutting down card draw much less of an issue for you than it is for others. little by little these pieces whittle down your opponent's hands by making what cards they have irreplaceable, slowing the game to a crawl after two or three turns. they also have hilarious synergy with wheel effects--more on that below!
Urabrask, Heretic Praetor
shuts down: nothing, though he can trip up anything and anyone
why it's good here: oh, Urabrask. the only non-pushed Praetor. probably just getting punished by WotC for having the best lore XD
in all seriousness, if Wizards had any cojones they'd've made Urabrask an Uba Mask on a stick just for your opponents--turning all enemy card draw into impulses-- kept the free-impulse-for-you effect, and had him cost six mana instead of five. then he'd be just as pushed as the other Praetors and we'd have ourselves a cornerstone piece in the 99.
as it is, he's just good. not great, not pushed, just good. to be fair, he fits this particular deck like a designer glove. he speeds up your deck's tempo, gets Laelia buffs, and possibly forces opponents either to throw away their highest mana-cost spells or to cast a given spell before they actually want to. a very, very good card in an impulse/stax deck, which is what this happens to be! I just wish my fave Praetor got the same love from WotC as the rest of 'em.
for example: drop Blasphemous Act with Taunter and FE on the board and it does 39 damage to Taunter, who in turn does 117 damage to an opponent: 13x3x3. (note that, if you don't have a Blasphemous Act in hand, you can always just have Taunter fight Laelia).
example 2: Laelia swings and deals six damage to an opponent. that becomes 18 damage with FE on the board; Kediss does 18 damage x 3 to everyone else, or 54 damage: 6x3x3.
basically, these card interactions can very quickly nuke a single player, or all but one player, and might well end the game.
worth noting: Fiery Emancipation interacts badly with Mana Crypt and Ancient Tomb. be careful!
even without the combo, Aggravated Assault is a fantastic card here. its low initial cost makes it very impulse-friendly, and in the late game, it's the perfect place to sink mana: swing again with Laelia, impulse another card, get that commander damage and tempo advantage. also interacts well with Brash Taunter as an untap engine and Professional Face-Breaker, who gets to generate extra treasures!
- on turn 1: tutor for Mana Crypt if you have no ramp available, or Jeweled Lotus if you have access to some or want to start the game with a bang.
- if your gamestate is cruising along but you could use a little card fixing: Sensei's Divining Top will help!
- if you have one piece of a combo and enough cards in your hand to make it worth the risk: tutor for the other!
- if you need spot removal: Chaos Warp is a classic.
- if an opponent is going off: consider one of your Stax pieces or, if those don't quite do it, maybe grab a Blasphemous Act or a Vandalblast.
- if you're topdecking or nearly topdecking and need a card that's safe to throw away: that's what Seize the Day is for!
this deck loses to removal!
kind of a trite thing to say, but like all Voltron decks, the whole thing depends on Laelia. if you lose her enough times or, worst of all, if an opponent manages to take her over with like an Agent of Treachery or whatever,
in short: this deck is a particularly delicate glass cannon and, I mean, duh. it's a mono-red Voltron deck. it's YOLO incarnate. what else could you expect?
Laelia VS. Razaketh, the Foulblooded VS. Strefan, Maurer Progenitor
Laelia did really solidly here! Stranglehold successfully stymied the broken boardstates Razaketh is capable of, and while the Strefan player built up an intimidating board of vampires, he wasn't willing to swing at me, since the Razaketh player was also able to build an intimidating board of demons. Uba Mask into Wheel of Fortune almost won the game for me! unfortunately, the Razaketh player had Vilis, Broker of Blood and k'riik son of yawgmoth on the field. see the as-much-card-draw-as-life-you've-got interaction there? one of those situations where Omen Machine would've been much better than Uba Mask. he was able to dig for answers and closed out an exciting game with style!
Laelia vs. Niambi, Esteemed Speaker vs. Strefan, Maurer Progenitor
played immediately after the previous game, this game showed just what Laelia could do. on turn two I Gamble'd for Mana Crypt and started swinging on turn 3, landing and equipping a Commander's Plate. the Strefan player blew up my Mana Crypt with a Rakdos Charm in the hopes of slowing my ramp; this turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as I was able to avail myself of the protection I was afforded from Commander's Plate to make Laelia basically untouchable; getting rid of the equipment might've been the better move. a clutch Chain Reaction wiped out everything except Laelia and my Brash Taunter; from there I swung out and won with good ol' fashioned Voltron.
Laelia VS. Thromok the Insatiable VS. Araumi of the Dead Tide
these games ended up a bit of a deadlock between myself and Thromok, all of them close, two going to Thromok, one to me. my friend's Araumi deck has a hard time against mine; it relies on playing opponents' milled creatures, and I don't run many creatures other than Laelia. the game I won, I won with Gauntlet of Might, Gauntlet of Power, and Caged Sun on the board, coasting on sheer mana superiority. then I lost one game on the Thromok player's crucial decision to blow up my Tenza, Godo's Maul. between that, the Araumi player milling away my Shadowspear, and an ill-fated decision to play fast and aggressive instead of landing an impulsed Soulbright Flamekin, I'd lost most of my access to trample, so swinging out against a Thromok token deck became basically impossible. oh well! live and learn.
Laelia vs. Lathril, Blade of the Elves vs. Sevine the Chronoclasm.
these games were interesting. the first I kind of stomped, building an intimidating boardstate (Hammer of Nazahn, Tenza, Fiery Emancipation) and landing a couple boardwipes, culminating in a Sevine-player-Mana Flare-assisted turn 5 Omen Machine into Wheel of Fortune. from there I just swung away to end it, hitting the Lathril player with a Creative Technique when they tried to Worldly Tutor to put Ezuri, Renegade Leader on top of their deck, forcing a shuffle. credit to the Lathril player, who pointed the interaction out when I casted Creative Technique. what good sportsmanship!
the second game, I made a serious, and hilarious, mistake. basically, the Sevine player tempted me with an offer to put Laelia second from the top of my library with a Commit / Memory. I took it, since I had a Tome of Legends on the board and had already lost Laelia once; why pay seven for her when I could, effectively, pay four? then he hit us with a Timetwister and Laelia got shuffled XD
I still almost won! Lathril swung out on Sevine. meanwhile, I'd gotten Neheb, the Eternal on the board after casting a couple wheel effects desperately searching for Laelia. I put a Shadowspear on him then swung three times in one turn with Seize the Day. I might've won it if I didn't forget to equip Neheb with my Embercleave between swings two and three, at which point I had enough floating mana. that would've either forced a block from Lathril's ten-token elf army, or would've allowed me enough mana to Sensei's Divining Top into Soulfire Eruption, potentially winning it. as it was, Lathril was able to eat the damage and swing at me for seventy or so with a hoard of boosted elves :(
takeaway: Neheb is a viable alternate commander! Seize the Day: kinda rules! keep track of your boardstate and don't make dumb mistakes! and don't get your commander shuffled into your library! so that's it!
thanks for tuning into my first serious, if not competitive, EDH decklist on tappedout! any and all recommendations welcome, give it a +1 if you like it!
(background image: "Limbs and Torso" by Hyman Bloom)
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92% Casual
Competitive
Revision 4 See all
(3 weeks ago)
| -1 | Aggravated Assault | main |
| +1 | Bonehoard Dracosaur | main |
| -1 | Brash Taunter | main |
| +1 | Etali's Favor | main |
| -1 | Fiery Emancipation | main |
| +1 | Grafdigger's Cage | main |
| +1 | Inti, Seneschal of the Sun | main |
| +1 | Karlach, Fury of Avernus | main |
| -1 | Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar | main |
| +1 | Mithril Coat | main |
| +1 | Mountain | main |
| -1 | Price of Glory | main |
| -1 | Soulfire Eruption | main |
| -1 | Sword of Feast and Famine | main |
| +1 | Sword of Forge and Frontier | main |
| +1 | Tavern Brawler | main |
| -1 | Tome of Legends | main |
| -1 | Valakut Exploration | main |
| Top Ranked |
|
| Date added | 1 year |
| Last updated | 3 weeks |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 10 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 9 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 3.22 |
| Tokens | Dinosaur 3/1 R, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Treasure |
| Folders | decks I like hehe, Fun, Tapped Out - User Decks |
| Votes | |
| Ignored suggestions | |
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