Commander Collection: Swamp Thing

Commander / EDH Mono-Black

Jurrane

Creature (24)

• 1x Archfiend of Depravity
• 1x Ayara, First of Locthwain
• 1x Bloodgift Demon
• 1x Bloodletter of Aclazotz
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Dread Presence
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Grim Haruspex
• 1x Harvester of Souls
• 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1x Magus of the Abyss
• 1x Magus of the Coffers
• 1x Magus of the Will
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Nighthawk Scavenger
• 1x Phyrexian Obliterator
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Soldevi Adnate
• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Triskelion
• 1x Twilight Prophet
• 1x Vampire Nighthawk
• 1x Weaponcraft Enthusiast

Instant (8)

• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Doom Blade
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Malicious Affliction
• 1x Skeletal Scrying
• 1x Slaughter Pact
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Victim of Night

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Foundry of the Consuls
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1x Spawning Bed
• 20x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vesuva
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x War Room
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Artifact (12)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Sorin Markov

Commander (1)

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Bubbling Muck
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Victimize

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Contamination
• 1x Gate to Phyrexia
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation

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{B}{B}{B} Introduction: Back in Black {B}{B}{B}

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“Swamp Thing” is one of the very first EDH decks I made. It was originally built a few years ago for a five-colour mono deck challenge, where five players each created a mono deck from one of the five colours. I was the black player, as black’s my favourite colour in Magic. We then played a five player Commander game in the private library at Mox Boarding House in Seattle, where the objective was to win by eliminating your two opponents in enemy colours. (True to form, I think the blue player won.)

This deck has evolved steadily over the years, becoming more competitive and efficient. It's now strong enough to compete at higher powered tables after the addition of fast mana and combo win conditions. Unlike most of my other EDH decks, it’s not really built around a particular mechanic or theme: I’d mostly describe it as a ‘goodstuff’ deck which does some degenerate things with a lot of Swamps and some of my favourite black cards. I suppose it sits somewhere between midrange and control, as it gets stronger and stronger as the game goes on.

Objective

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When playing the deck, our goal is to control the game as much as possible, using a host of removal and mass destruction effects to keep the board clear of opposing threats. It wins by generating very large amounts of black mana using any combination of Black Market, Extraplanar Lens, Crypt Ghast, Lake of the Dead, Cabal Coffers, Cabal Stronghold, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Magus of the Coffers to power big game-ending cards like Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire.

Alternatively, we can go down the infinite combo route and use its various tutor effects to find any of our instant kill combo pieces. There are as follows.

Combos

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We have access to two lethal card combinations that can instantly remove one or more opponents from the game. The first of these is the infinite damage interaction between Triskelion and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Here's how it works:

Prerequisites:

- Triskelion and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed both on the battlefield. - Triskelion has at least two counters on it.

Steps:

1. If Triskelion has at least three +1/+1 counters on it, activate Triskelion by removing a +1/+1 counter from it, dealing one damage to any target;
2. Repeat step 1 until there are two +1/+1 counters remaining on Triskelion;
3. Activate Triskelion by removing a +1/+1 counter from Triskelion, dealing one damage to itself
4. Repeat step 3 an additional time;
5. Triskelion dies;
6. Triskelion's undying ability triggers, returning it to the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it;
7. Repeat ad infititum.

Our second combo is a nasty one and is enabled by our new toy from Lost Caverns of Ixalan: Bloodletter of Aclazotz. Bloodletter's static damage doubling ability affects any life lost by Tree of Perdition's activited ability or Sorin Markov's second loyalty ability, effectively doubling any life loss and therefore potentially enabling an insta-kill for the targetted player.

Here's the ruling in question for Bloodletter of Aclazotz (the same is true for Sorin Markov's -3 ability:

"When the ability resolves, Tree of Perdition’s toughness becomes the targeted opponent’s former life total and that player gains or loses an amount of life necessary so that their life total equals Tree of Perdition’s former toughness. Other effects that interact with life gain or life loss will interact with this effect accordingly."

For both Tree of Perdition and Sorin Markov, the exchange counts as life loss. So losing more than 13+ life (or 10 life for Sorin) in the exchanges means that the doubling effect would, rather than just make them lose (life total - 13) life, cause them to lose (life total-13)*2 life instead.

Strengths

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We play mono black because of its key strengths that help us control the game. These are:

- Big Mana: We’re second only to green in our ability to generate large amounts of mana. Many of our powerful ramp cards are listed above and we use these to power out must-answer threats and fuel our game-ending spells. Soldevi Adnate’s an older card that’s often slept on, which offers a nice ritual effect for unwanted creatures (or those that are about to die anyway). We have lots of mana rocks for the early game, including Jet Medallion, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Worn Powerstone etc.

- Tutors: With Sidisi, Undead Vizier as our commander, we have a repeatable tutor to find any card that’s needed at the right time, including our two combo pieces. We rarely have a problem paying her commander tax because of all the mana generation effects we have. We also run Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Rune-Scarred Demon as additional tutor effects.

- Card Draw: We rarely run out of resources, thanks to card draw effects like Necropotence, Bloodgift Demon, Bolas's Citadel and Phyrexian Arena. Alongside these, we have a host of extra tools to help us draw more cards, including creatures like Dread Presence, Ayara, First of Locthwain, Erebos, God of the Dead, Grim Haruspex, Harvester of Souls and Twilight Prophet; alongside low-costed spells like Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper and Read the Bones. Because we’re black mages and we’ve made all sorts of pacts with the underworld, our draw effects usually cost us life, but that’s the price we pay and we can often gain it back with our lifelinking creatures (or Gray Merchant of Asphodel).

- Removal: We’re the best colour for creature removal and it’s not particularly close. Enemy creatures will rarely be a problem for us with spot removal spells like Hero's Downfall, Malicious Affliction, Slaughter Pact and Victim of Night. We have plenty of mass removal too: Damnation, Crux of Fate, Toxic Deluge and Living Death offer efficient ways of keeping the board clear, ready for us to land threats of our own.

- Recursion: We run some nasty creatures that are capable of ruining anyone’s day and, even if they're removed, they rarely stay dead for long. Spot land destruction is still seems to be relatively rare at most EDH tables so Volrath's Stronghold is an all-star here, supported by Victimize, Phyrexian Reclamation, Living Death and Magus of the Will. Even if our recursion (or tutor) effects rely on us sacrificing creatures, we have plenty of ways of generating sacrifice fodder with cards like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Bitterblossom, Westvale Abbey  , Foundry of the Consuls and Spawning Bed, as well as other spells that give us Zombie tokens.

Weaknesses

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We might aspire for greatness at any cost but unfortunately we’re not perfect. We’re weak to opposing enchantments and artifacts, and although we have a few tools to help, they’re pretty limited. We run Feed the Swarm and Gate to Phyrexia, and we have Nevinyrral's Disk in a pinch, but that’s about it.

Also, despite the fast mana we run, we’re not the fastest deck out of the blocks. Very aggressive opponents can outpace us easily as if we’re don’t find our mass removal quickly, we can be in a tight spot. I’ve done a lot of work to lower the mana curve by including as many lower-costed mana rocks and draw spells as possible, but because many of our threats have high CMCs, we run the risk of being outclassed in the early game. But if we can hang in there, we get stronger and stronger with each passing turn, and the longer the game goes, the more we’re favoured.

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All My EDH Decks

• S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal
• Blue Streak: Mono-Blue Spellslinger
• Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters
• Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Goodstuff
• Black Hole: Mono-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats
• Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug
• Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens
• Timber Terror: Mono-Green Stax
• Hydrus: Mono-Green Hydra Midrange
• Control Freak: Azorius Control
• Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry
• Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal
• Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies
• Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss
• Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice
• Trailblazer: Gruul Kicker
• Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire
• Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal
• The Boss: Selesnya Hatebears
• Diamondback: Selesnya Auras
• Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation
• Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain
• Time Traveller: Izzet Suspend/Big Mana
• Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch
• Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard
• Steel Force: Boros Equipment
• Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured
• Wicked Twister: Simic +1/+1 Counters
• Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts
• Twisted Twins: Esper Theft/Clones
• Mindbender: Grixis Discard
• Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal
• Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal
• Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker
• Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator
• Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens
• Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Spirits Tribal
• Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers
• Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons
• Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

Date added	4 years
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.14
Tokens	City's Blessing, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Morph 2/2 C, Servo 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Want to Build