Ghost Quarter acts as another Field of Ruin effect, and works as a second Strip Mine with the Crucible of Worlds effects!

This is a nice idea! I hope you manage to make it work.

You need a Strionic Resonator to double the activations of Ob-Nixilis or Maralen.

Avatar of Growth would be great if you can lay your hands on one.

I am not too fond of the white counterspell sub-theme you have included; with this color scheme you have ample options for removal. Personally I like Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Utter End, and Pernicious Deed. With your search to kill theme, Assassin's Trophy and Path to Exile should also be included.

Not sure why you are currently including Gift of Immortality, but adding a Spore Frog and a Necrotic Sliver makes for fun control.

Since your theme is running a bit thin, I see two options to make this deck more efficient : filling it to the brim with tutors, or including an alternate wincon. I definitely favour the second option; and I though you would like it to include your hidden general for flavor. Here is my suggestion for that:

Liliana's Contract and inexpensive Demons, like Desecration Demon, Grinning Demon, Herald of Torment, Indulgent Tormentor, Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, Rakshasa Deathdealer, Soulcage Fiend.

Hope this helps!

SynergyBuild, that's perfect. Thank you! I don't know how I missed that land in my searches.

Heliogabale, great point on Strionic Resonator, I even happen to have one. Avatar of Growth is definitely a must include as well.

The white counter spells weren't for a quasi removal as much as they were for protecting my setup, especially when it's all getting activated. Gift of Immortality is also there both to protect Ob Nixilis, Unshackled or bring Fertilid back after I use him up. Do you think these are wasted card slots?

Excellent call on Assassin's Trophy and Path to Exile - totally needed additions; both effective and working on them. I have a Trophy and will keep on the lookout for a Path.

Ob Nixilis, the Fallen would be a fantastic add! Not just on flavour, but he'd work with the The Gitrog Monster/Crucible of Worlds package. I could use another "play an extra land" card, perhaps. Now that you mentioned more demons, I have a Rune-Scarred Demon which is one of my favourite combos with Pattern of Rebirth. If I have Ob Nixilis already and Fertilid already in play, he could be a great third option to bring in so I can find another key card.

I do like the idea of a another win-con. I appreciate diverse gameplay. While the instant win cards aren't as enjoyed in our format, Liliana's Contract could work and I'm going to start giving other options some serious thought.

thanks!

Heliogabale, to elaborate a little more on the white counter spell package - I see board wipes as being a big inhibitor for this deck doing what it wants to do. I am definitely open to some other approaches though!

I understand what you mean for protecting your setup; the most efficient way is probably with Teferi's Protection, especially if you happen to already own one. I would replace Fanatical Devotion with Shielded by Faith. I would also consider Darksteel Plate and Hammer of Nazahn.

I had missed the interaction of Gift of Immortality with Fertilid, good call.

I understand the point about "instant win", but in my opinion this one isn't abusive. I hope your group will agree!

Settle the Wreckage might be interesting

Ohhh, yes! Settle the Wreckage, so cheap for an instant wipe because it can have a strong upside for the opponent - but not with the search engine of doom in action! Excellent call Nrdman, that'll be a great addition.

Heliogabale, good tip on Teferi's Protection! That'll definitely go on the one-day-list for when/if I feel it's time to spend the $ to tune this deck up another level. It'd be a great card to have anyway, and I think it's strength would really shine here with the combo pieces all in play. For example, with Ob Nixilis out, if I have Avatar of Growth and Fertilid on the battlefield I can activate their ETB's again - in which case it'd be not just good for protection, but for re-triggering deck searches. Sweet!

I'm hoping for a little more perspective on Fanatical Devotion. I have it in my primary Ghave deck because I can pay 1 to turn a +1/+1 counter into a saproling, then use that as sac fodder to regenerate key creatures. I saw this as stronger than most aura/equipment options because I can protect any creature with it when necessary, with Ghave, Guru of Spores fueling it. Do you think it's worth keeping in, with that in mind?

Either way, the cards you mentioned will also be important additions. Thanks!

I am sorry to burst your bubble, but contrary to Flicker, Phasing does not trigger ETB effect as the permanents are considered not having left play. However the upside is that permanents retain any counters, auras and equipments they have when phasing back in, so that is pretty good in this deck.

I must have been tired or otherwise impaired when I read your list the first time, and somehow saw Fanatical Devotion as an Instant, which would have been incredibly crappy, and not an Enchantment. Do keep it in there!

Heliogabale, thank you for the clarification. That's definitely still going to be helpful, and lead to the idea of adding Eerie Interlude for the flicker effect.

Seems that Avatar of Growth and Primeval Titan is banned. (sucks though cause so many people suggested the avatar). Nice name

Hi Diskord!

You're right. Luckily, our play group allows 1 banned card per deck (I'll add that to the description). This doesn't get too out of hand as none of us play heavy competitive/combo, which is what really seems to make banned cards beyond reasonable (I think).

In this case, I'll likely favour Avatar of Growth, because he's a direct part of the win-con rather than an enabler.

In regards to the name, thanks :). I started calling the mandatory search cards "search engines"—which makes sense with mtg lingo—and it came from there.

Here might be a few janky cards: Old-Growth Dryads, Veteran Explorer, Natural Balance, Borderland Explorer, Jungle Wayfinder, and Wave of Vitriol.

You can also consider running Mindslaver to force someone to tutor while you have Ob Nixilis on the field and kill themselves LOL!

On second thought there are other ways of controlling other people's turn as well, Sorin Markov, Cruel Entertainment, Emrakul, the Promised End, as well as Worst Fears.

It's pretty fun imo, if I died to that I would laugh a lot haha ;P

If your play group allows one banned card per deck and the one you chose is the avatar that searches for land why not use Primeval Titan? It looks like it is better value for you and you’re not giving your opponents any extra lands at the same time.

I am not sure which list you are looking at, but I definitely do not see Avatar of Growth on the Wizards website banned list for Commander. Banned cards include Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial.

Tapped out says avatar is banned. I don’t know other than that

Heliogabale, it's TappedOut.net that says it's illegal, if you look along the sidebar of this deck. I'm guessing they must have it wrong, I don't see how it could be broken enough to be banned. Thanks for taking a look.

KayneMarco, it's funny you should say that - I just removed Primeval Titan to make Avatar of Growth the one illegal card, yesterday. I had Primeval in there to search for my "search engine" lands—Field of Ruin & Ghost Quarter—because they'll make other people search their library. This mandatory search for opponents is the core of this deck, to trigger the ability of Ob Nixilis, Unshackled. I had enough in there to grab those lands and Avatar of Growth gives me another mandatory "search engine" that'll make OTHERS search their library, trigger Ob Nixilis. So, he's a direct part of the win-con rather than just another enabler, where primeval would just be there for setup. If it turns out TappedOut.net is wrong though, and Avatar isn't illegal as Heliogabale found, I'll be putting Primeval Titan back in, for sure! Thank you!

hkhssweiss, oh man! there's an idea... Imagine having Maralen of the Mornsong out, then taking their turn using the tutor trigger of Maralen to search for a tutor card? Wow! If I can find a few other sure-fire ways to make sure I can use their turn to tutor, I will give this some very serious thought. Thats extra jank. Gold star for you.

Also hkhssweiss, to your first comment. I actually have a side list going of cards like Old-Growth Dryads and such, though a couple you mentioned weren't on there.e I'm calling these "temptations" as they aren't quite mandatory searches, but might make someone thiiiiink about it a bit :). "Are those two lands worth 10 life to you right now?". The temptations I have on the deck list now are there because they hugely benefit the deck's pilot compared to their CMC, because opponents getting to find stuff too is usually a downside... of course in this deck, opponents won't want to search in most cases, so it's huge value for the deck's pilot.

I wanted to leave the other card slots open for now, before adding the cards you're thinking of, so I can make sure everything I need to set up and support the win-con can fit... however, now that I'm going over these again, Veteran Explorer could be good enough value and triggerable by Ghaves built in sac engine, and Wave of Vitriol might be good as well, depending on the opposing decks and if Ramunap Excavator or Crucible of Worlds are in my near future. Sweet!

goldlion Glad I could have been of some help!

Thinking more on it, since we have a sac outlet on the field, we could possibly gain more value off of it. Say you have Ob Nixilis on the field (With protection of course) and have the tempts, if you have a way to recur them every turn your opponents have a choice whether to let you have more advantage in resources or taking one for the team and having them take 10 damage every time you tempt them. Once you have enough mana you can then force them to control their turn and since you make the decision for them...well you have just killed them LOL!

Some additional protection package, Asceticism, Standard Bearer (A janky Spellskite), Privileged Position, Sylvan Safekeeper, and Dense Foliage.

goldlion didn’t catch what you were going for. Makes perfect sense.

hkhssweiss - I actually pulled a Standard Bearer in a booster pack from an old box a store had, just last month. Usable if I have a good recursion package out, and keeps to the "jank" theme for sure!

I really like the idea of things like Dense Foliage in this, especially played at the right time. If I wanted to follow that theme of control, I'd need to make sure I threw in some Ghostly Prison and other pillow forts to protect me from people's scary creature. I think that's the biggest worry with this deck, some sort of battlefield presence to stay alive.

I got a neat side idea for pulling ahead! I think the mass land searches that heavily favour me when Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is out could go great with the one card you recommended, Natural Balance... It'd be a strategy for a little later in the game if I have in my hand a couple cards like Weird Harvest or Collective Voyage that give everyone the option (to search themselves to death), I could play Natural Balance to cut everyone's land mass in half, then jump ahead in a huge way. The Ramunap Excavator or Crucible of Worlds also put me ahead. Ohhhh. Now I just need some extra ways to make use of that extra value I could have.

So - on your idea, hkhssweiss, what are some good instant or sorcery recursions to keep bringing them back? Eternal Witness is off the top of the head, but there must be some more good ones. Revive. hhmm

goldlion I like the way your thinking, and plus it's so janky no one can hate it LOL!

Some instants and sorceries that you can benefit from hmm...off the top of my head you can go for a sub reanimator theme and I would like to go for the reusable ones. Here might be some cards that can help:

Regrowth, Oversold Cemetery, Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Athreos, God of Passage, Dawn of the Dead, Disturbed Burial, Dread Return, Golgari Guildmage, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Palace Siege, Phyrexian Reclamation, Debtors' Knell.

On the more expensive scale:

Reanimate, Necromancy, Corpse Dance, All Hallow's Eve, Genesis, Sheoldred, Whispering One.

This is absolutely amazing! Such a off the wall and cool strategy. One card I might suggest is Tempt with Discovery, very rarely does someone not take you up on the offer.

Also, if you are allowed one banned card in your deck, why not run Biorhythm (and its unbanned ilk Shaman of Forgotten Ways)? Usually no one will have more than 10 creatures on the board. Then you can drop their life total down to < 10 and make them search!

You might also consider Grand Abolisher, Dragonlord Dromoka, or City of Solitude over a card like Silence.

+1 from me!

Hey goldlion, it's been awhile I see you updated your page quite a bit and started adding in a bit more cards. In going for your help request, to keep the consistency of the jank theme in abusing Ob Nixilis I would consider running it more of a lands matter type of deck. It gives it a lot more consistency and will definitely be a more interesting approach.

Since a lot of the "temptation" cards are based upon lands it will make a lot more sense to run those type of shenaningans. There are plenty of interesting synergy that come from using lands for instance a cool combo involving Glacial Chasm and Riftstone Portal when you use Hour of Promise, now all your lands can tap for and no damage can be done to you. Not to mention Glacial Chasm can also tap for mana! Adding to the fact that you will out value them, if you add in cards like Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Oracle of Mul Daya, Exploration in addition to Ramunap and Crucible, you will pull ahead of the game far more than your opponents. Not to mention also that being able to reuse Ghost Quarter or Field of Ruin more than once per turn can lead to the whole table killed once the set up is done.

Another thing I noticed when I was taking a look over is including a Birthing Pod chain, Ghave is the perfect CMC to pod right into Ob Nixilis, I see that you are already running Eldritch Evolution which is awesome. Pod also has other ways you can abuse to trigger your death effects for let's say Veteran Explorer, which also pulls out a 2 cmc creature like Borderland Explorer, so on and so forth.

Also noticed that we forgot a great protection spell in the card of Heroic Intervention a cheap casting stellar card.

Let's try make this deck complete :P

Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor

Including Biorhythm and Shaman of Forgotten Ways is brilliant! Not only if I work the landfall token creature control, but as you say - to get everyone else within reach of an Search-kill. So good! Thanks muchly for this - it's the type of simple and small card additions that can bring it all together.

I had Tempt with Discovery on the "Temptations" list—it half inspired the category's title even— but after some thought and seeing the other cards that were similar I decided to remove it. I think people are going to catch on so quickly and so it wont hold the value that the cards New Frontiers or Collective Voyage do. By the time everyone knows what's going on, the two mentioned will be huge value for me either way, while Tempt with Discovery will digress into a 4 cost tutor for 1 land. The only time I'd see it working is if I can cheat out Ob Nixilis, Unshackled on people who haven't played against the deck before.

While City of Solitude would hold back a bunch of the trickery that other cards in this deck want to do, Dragonlord Dromoka and Grand Abolisher could be great potential additions. Grand Abolisher especially. What value!

Thanks so much for the compliment and encouragement of the +1! I appreciate it :)