Korvold's Token Buffet

Commander / EDH Aristocrats BRG (Jund) Multiplayer Sacrifice Stax Tokens

Shabompistan

Land (35)

• 1x Blightstep Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkbore Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 7x Forest
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Kher Keep
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 6x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Temple of Abandon
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Interaction (9)

• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Hull Breach
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Veil of Summer

Ramp (16)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Beastcaller Savant
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Cryptolith Rite
• 1x Deathcap Cultivator
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Farseek
• 1x Ilysian Caryatid
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Paradise Druid
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Simian Spirit Guide
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Tinder Wall

Utility (12)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Ohran Frostfang
• 1x Pattern of Rebirth
• 1x Prying Blade
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Toski, Bearer of Secrets
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

Sac (6)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Attrition
• 1x Eradicator Valkyrie
• 1x Goblin Bombardment
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Commander (1)

TokenGen (15)

• 1x Animation Module
• 1x Arasta of the Endless Web
• 1x Awakening Zone
• 1x Creakwood Liege
• 1x Dragonlair Spider
• 1x From Beyond
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse
• 1x Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
• 1x Master of the Wild Hunt
• 1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
• 1x Xenagos, the Reveler

DeathTrigger (6)

• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
• 1x Fecundity
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
• 1x Pitiless Plunderer

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Sideboard

Other (3)

• 1x Doom Blade
• 1x Dreadbore
• 1x Terminate

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Maybeboard

Other (4)

• 1x Cindervines
• 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip
• 1x Seal of Primordium
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

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Introduction

Once Upon a Time there was a Prossh Deck. Then Korvold was released and this food chain Prossh deck became a Korvold aristocrats deck.

In short, this deck does two things to win, generate maximum value for sacrificing tokens and attack weakened opponents. The biggest goal of this deck's design is to simultaneously make Korvold stronger, while making opponents weaker in various ways.

This deck was built for a medium to high power meta which is played at my LGS, roughly 60% to 70% competitive. Budget constraint is roughly around 30$ maximum card price.

The Decklist

Korvold's Engine of Death runs on 3 things: Token Generation, sacrifice outlets, and sac/death triggers. You will see these in the decklist categories to further illustrate how the deck is supposed to run. There are some extra interaction and support cards to either deal with specific threats to the deck or generate more card advantage through draw and tutors.

The Colors

Jund is my favorite color combination ever since they released the Prossh, Skyraider of Kher precon deck in 2013. It combines R/G aggressiveness with the strength of black sac value. This deck could be built B/G if Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is more to your liking, but I prefer having red since it gives us a few more options for token gen, ramp, and interaction.

Strengths

In my opinion, the biggest strength of any Jund deck is ramp. Jund has access to pretty much all the best ramp options across R/G and B/G, not to mention all the artifacts. Mana dorks are frequently cited as one of the most optimal forms of ramp, and Jund has these in abundance. Even dorks that can sac themselves such as Tinder Wall for maximum deck synergy.

But to what end? You can ramp into the board setup that is vital to the deck engine. Setup the token gen, death effects and watch the triggers begin pile up. You can build up a wide boardstate fairly early, which can make you resistant to early attackers.

Another advantage we have in this deck is tutors. Admittedly I do not run the most optimal tutors in the current decklist due to budget constraints, but I would suggest these adds if you wish to up the competitiveness of the deck:

Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Summoner's Pact, Worldly Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, Survival of the Fittest

There are 4 tutors in this version of the deck: Pattern of Rebirth, Demonic Tutor, Wishclaw Talisman, Diabolic Intent. They tutor any piece of the engine you are missing, or let you respond to specific threats.

The last strength I will point out for this deck is card draw. Not only is it built into your commander, there are lots of options for draw-on-death triggers such as Fecundity and Erebos, Bleak-Hearted. Draw-on-damage also works just as well so I included Ohran Frostfang. Stacking any of these effects with Korvold will not leave you wanting for cards.

Weaknesses

Like many token decks, the main weakness of the deck is boardwipes and Cyclonic Rift. Heroic Intervention is your main defense against any regular boardwipe, but it is just one card and does not cover exile boardwipes. Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast are your only defense against Cyclonic Rift.

The deck goes lighter on sac outlets which have been sacrificed (pun intended) for better ramp and token generation. This makes the deck more reliant on Korvold for a reliable sac outlet to generate value. If Korvold gets removed or countered, while not totally destroying the deck, it can significantly slow down your engine and force you to attack with tokens/other creatures to secure a win.Mazirek, Kraul Death Preist is a good backup win condition.

Korvold also struggles against decks that run a moderate amount of flying creatures available to block. This makes it hard for Korvold or any other creature to connect hits without trample. The main defense against this is effects like Dictate of Erebos, Grave Pact, Priest of Forgotten Gods, Attrition, and even Yawgmoth, Thran Physician to take out the blockers.

This is a bit of a softer weakness but I will include it here. A good amount of the EDH community does not like playing against Korvold. People liken him to Lord Windgrace or The Gitrog Monster where the strategy can get convoluted when many different triggers start getting stacked and you sometimes play a bit of solitaire until you win. This isn't particularly fun for other players and might give you a bad rap in the playgroup depending on how much you outmatch them. I would recommend watching The Command Zone's epsiode about Worst Commanders to Play Against and watch the Korvold part. Consider if Korvold is right for your playgroup.

General Gameplan

Your ideal staring hand has a little ramp and the engine elements you need to make value from death.

Consider this as a good baseline: 2 lands, 1 ramp, 1 token gen, 1 interaction/sac outlet, 2 utility/death trigger

This is pretty negotiable, losing interaction/utility for another land isn't bad. The most important things to focus on in the starting hand is ramp and token gen, Korvold can fill in the rest. In general here's a blueprint of the ideal first couple turns: Turn 1: Land, 1 drop dork/permanent Turn 2: Land, ramp spell/dork OR 3 drop token gen OR tutor The strategies split off here in to many different routes. But basically the steps you want to follow in order are:

1. Ramp

2. Create tokens

3. Cast Korvold

4. Cast death trigger effects/additional sac outlets

5. Start swinging

One thing I'll note here is a brief guide on how to tutor for things. Unless you have a specific threat to answer as described in the next section, you generally want to tutor for things that fill in your engine. Have lots of tokens but only Korvold to eat them? Tutor Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. Not enough tokens to feed you hungry sac outlets? Tutor Grave Titan or Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. And so on.

Specific Strategies

Various matchups I have experienced:

Blue combo/spell slinger: Prioritize Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast/Veil of Summer in tutors. Try to bait out counterspells with other scary cards like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician or Collector Ouphe so you can cast Korvold safely. Depending on the politics of the pod, this might be easy or very difficult.

Stompy green: Prioritize removal/dictates like Attrition or Grave Pact, play as normal since there's not much interaction in these decks.

Artifacts/Urza: Hull Breach, Nature's Claim, Caustic Caterpillar, Reclamation Sage, Collector Ouphe, lots to play with.

Re-animator: Same as stompy strategy but expect to need to keep removing things over and over again.

Of course power level is a thing. This is not a competitive deck, so of course you will probably loose to cEDH combo players who have decks worth more than my car. They simply outspeed the deck before you can set anything up.

Combos & Synergies

This is a hard section to write since nearly every effect in the deck triggers off each other. Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is pretty much a win condition by himself. He will double the counters on Korvold as well as buff any tokens you still have on the field. If Korvold isn't working out, he fills in just fine. Combine either Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos in a four man pod and your board will explode with counters.

Animation Module+Ashnod's

Animation Module (yes, a 35 cent bulk rare) is a huge combo piece in this deck. The most simple combo is

Animation Module + Ashnod's Altar + Korvold, Fae-Cursed King+ creature to sac The loop is:

1. Sac creature to Ashnod's

2. Korvold sac trigger, let it resolve

3. Ashnod's ability and Module trigger go on the stack at the same time, chose to have ashnod's resolve first

4. Use ashnod's mana to pay 1, servo ETBs

5. Use servo as creature in step 1.

Each loop of this combo nets you a draw, a counter on Korvold, and one colorless mana. The limit is drawing your whole deck, which will give you colorless mana and counters on Korvold equal to the cards you draw. Normally I would use it to get Korvold to 21 power and swing for the kill if he's uncontested.

HOWEVER, if you have Purphoros, God of the Forge on the field at the start of this combo, then it is possible for you to kill the entire pod because each loop has one Purphoros trigger in it, so if you loop 20 times and draw 20 cards, you deal 40 damage to each opponent. Just loop half the amount of maximum damage needed. You can take a big risk and attempt to draw into Purphoros, provided you have one red source to cast him. If you manage to draw him before your minimum threshold of cards is reached, then you can secure a pod kill. But if he's near the bottom of your deck and you have no mana to cast anything else... then you'll just whiff.

Module + Pitiless Plunderer

There is a more complex and less mana efficient version of this combo that uses Pitiless Plunderer to feed Animation Module and with any instant speed sac outlet (Goblin Bombardment etc) which nets 2 counters and 2 draws per loop:

Animation Module + Pitiless Plunderer + any instant speed sac outlet + Korvold, Fae-Cursed King

1. Sacrifice creature to outlet

2. Korvold sac trigger and plunderer death trigger, let them resolve, get a treasure

3. Outlet effect and module trigger go on the stack, they resolve in any order you like

4. Sac treasure to pay for animation module (second Korvold trigger), servo ETB

5. Use servo as creature in step 1.

While less efficient, this combo is a bit more versatile because you can use different sac outlets to make it work. For example, using Goblin Bombardment gives you a ping for each loop, which can kill a player if you're okay with drawing 40 cards. Viscera Seer can work, and it allows you one scry per loop which can help you dig for Purphoros faster. The same logic shown above with Purphoros, God of the Forge also applies here.

Another non-looping combo is: Animation Module, Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest, and Cryptolith Rite

Mazirek's ability puts a counter on all creatures while cryptolith allows you to pay for each of those individual Module triggers as they resolve by tapping all your creatures. The result is generating servo tokens equal to the number of creatures you control. Treasure tokens and Eldrazi Spawn/Scion tokens work very well with Korvold, they buff him up fast and net mana for more value.

Building and Modifying

If you don't mind spending a bit of cash, there are a lot of cards that are solid upgrades for the deck like many of the popular tutors mentioned in a previous section. Growing Rites of Itlimoc   is a solid card that flips easily and could be swapped for a draw outlet.

If you want to lean more towards tokens, there are a lot of options to consider, such as goblins: Goblin Rabblemaster or saporlings Avenger of Zendikar, Tendershoot Dryad If you want to make the deck more interactive, these are some neat options: Pernicious Deed, Cindervines, Seal of Primordium

Playtesting Notes

Cards such as Red Elemental Blast and Veil of Summer have provided some good interaction with competitive decks, but ultimately this deck just isn't on the same power level and doesn't stand a chance in the end. And the above mentioned cards become completely dead in more casual pods. I'm playing with the idea of swapping out Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, and Veil of Summer for basic removal cards when in a more casual match.

Wishclaw Talisman has been great fun as a political card and lets the pod be passive aggressive to the more competitive decks.

Top Ranked	Achieved #12 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #11 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Aristocrats 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BRG (Jund) 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	11 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 1 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 2 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.72
Tokens	Cat 2/2 G, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Goblin 1/1 R, Insect 1/1 G, Kobolds of Kher Keep 0/1 R, Plant 0/1 G, Satyr 2/2 GR, Servo 1/1 C, Snake 1/1 B, Spider 1/2 G, Treasure, Wolf 2/2 G, Worm 1/1 BG, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Da vedere, Possible edh decks, Jund EDH, Commander, Decks I want, Korvold, Jund, Budget EDH, EDH, Korvold Deck
Based on	Prossh's Token Buffet Shabompistan EDH