Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest Shenanigans
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 175 | 117 COMMENTS | 38772 VIEWS | IN 69 FOLDERS
Deck Updates - 10,000 views! —Nov. 27, 2015
First of all, let me thank you for everything who helped this deck reach #1, and got it over 10,000 views. Wow, did not expect that!
I've continued to do some play testing, and have made a few minor changes to the deck.
The deck still runs as a battle-cruiser deck, however it seems to be reliable in early game or late game. I had a game against a person playing combo Maelstrom Wanderer, and unfortunately I got my ass handed to me. This deck was not able to easily respond to a turn 4 Maelstrom Wanderer, cascading into two extra turns. However, I never really intended this deck to be a strong 1v1 deck to fight against T1 level generals such as Zur, Narset, etc.
This deck truly shines in multiplayer. It has the resources to survive multiple board wipes and removal, TONS of card draw which most people don't want to waste removal on, and overall very resilient as our biggest offense is also our biggest defense - weenies.
I've made the following changes to help make the deck more reliable:
Added: Viscera Seer
Removed: Sadistic Hypnotist
Why? I'm finding that the Sadistic Hypnotist is usually a dead card in my hand. When I have it, I don't want it, and it's too much of a threat (and expensive) to simply play and let it sit on the board. Viscera Seer is different - it's cheap, an easy sac outlet, and nobody wants to remove it due to its cost. In addition, Scry is much better than most people think as it helps us stack our deck to our liking. In addition, we can easily (and cheaply) search for it with Chord of Calling. (Paying 4 mana VS 8)
Removed: Harmonize
Added: Diabolic Intent
Why? I love Harmonize - it's one of my favorite cards. However, I'm actually finding that my draw in the deck is doing pretty well without it. Skullclamp was a great addition, and I firmly believe that this deck has enough tutors to search for whatever tool that we need at the time being. Adding Diabolic Intent makes our win conditions that much more reliable, and can simply help us search for card draw if necessary.
Removed: Liliana of the Veil Added: Tooth and Nail
Why? Liliana was an instant addition at first in my T1 deck, which is probably one of the only cards I haven't considered cutting until now. The reason being is that she actually can hurt us quite bad. This deck does not reanimate, so discarding can be a bad thing. In my game last night, I had her in my hand while the wanderer player had absolutely no creatures in play. In my hand I have Liliana, and a Avenger of Zendikar which I couldn't quite cast yet. It was at this moment I realized that Liliana can also be a dead card in the deck - even for her sacrifice effect, it's honestly not THAT good. It only targets a single player, and they get to choose which creature they sacrifice. Tooth and Nail lets us put a combo into play directly (Woodfall Primus + Viscera Seer while our general is in play), or a Disciple of Bolas + Ulamog so we can draw a ton of cards and gain a ton of life + shuffle our library, or whatever the heck you want! I'm finding that the most important thing that this deck can do is be a "toolbox" which is able to respond to any threats as they come up.
As always, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below!
AS mentioned previously, I'm currently working on a new project called "The Commander League" which is a new EDH variant myself and my playgroup are working on. We've started building a site for it at www.thecommanderleague.com which goes into detail what we're doing, however this is nowhere near finished yet.
Once again, thanks for all the support and suggestions! It's much appreciated!
@IpCrash3rThanks for getting back to me. I agree with you that it definitely is "a last resort" kind of deal. It is one of those things you use when someone has a Defense of the Heart on the field and you know they run Blightsteel Colossus and a Xenagos, God of Revels and they are going to swing at you when they get there chance.So, I am planning to build this deck and play it with my commander buddies. Some of the changes I was planning to make was going to revolve around Doubling Season. Stick in Hangarback Walker, Cabal Coffers, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Liliana of the Dark Realms etc. In any case, one of the problems was that Doubling Season makes the Puppeteer Clique combo not work. Was wondering in your experience with playing with the deck, is this combo worth more than the benefits that Doubling Season could provide? @TheSquirrelLord you can chime in too. Both inputs would be greatly appreciated.
November 20, 2015 2:07 a.m.
TheSquirrelLord says... #3
@AKBZWhy does Doubling Season shut down the Puppeteer Clique combo? It places two -1/-1 counters, yes. But when Mazirek resolves two +1/+1 counters are put on Clique/Primus, removing all four counters.
Did I get this right?
November 20, 2015 9:17 a.m.
TheSquirrelLord says... #4
In my playgroup, Doubling Season would get eliminated before my next upkeep, when most token-producing effects trigger. Once I play a Season, I am down 5 mana, meaning I have to have 12+ mana open to begin with, if I want to play Avenger of Zendikar or Abhorrent Overlord.
If I have to wait until my next turn to play a token maker, Season will be in the graveyard and me 1 turn behind.
November 20, 2015 9:22 a.m.
@TheSquirrelLord - I believe you're incorrect about the combo. After the -1/-1 counters are placed on Puppeteer Clique the trigger is done resolving and state based actions would be checked. When this happens Puppeteer Clique has 0 toughness and would be placed in the graveyard. Then the Mazirek trigger would happen.
November 20, 2015 9:42 a.m.
@TheSquirrelLord I believe evncrbch is right. The state based action would be checked when Puppeteer Clique came back with negative counters on him, so you would get the trigger and bring back something from your opponents graveyard, but then it would die with a toughness of zero and 2 negative 1/1 counters before Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest ability could resolve, resulting in no infinite +1/+1 on all the creatures you could bring back from the graveyards plus all your creatures. So, with that in mind, you would prefer to spend the 5 mana and try to go for the kill with Puppeteer Clique than for the long haul with Doubling Season if the opportunity presented itself that you could cast one or the other. Also, if you did not have the opportunity to cast one or the other but just Doubling Season, you think Doubling Season would earn you too much hate and end up making you lose the game, resulting in the potential benefits not outweighing the potential hate that would result. I can see that. Thanks for the input TheSquirrelLord.
November 20, 2015 10:45 a.m.
TheSquirrelLord says... #7
Oh yeah, I forgot about Puppeteer Clique's 2 toughness.It would still work with Woodfall Primus, but yeah I feel really stupid at the moment...
All the Hate consideration is strictly specific to your playgroup. Mine don't really care about winning, we all just want a fun game. This definition of "fun" changes person to person, but we all are unified against infinite combos and immediately turn on anyone setting one up (we all play the anyway, just to draw out all removal if nothing else).
November 20, 2015 11:12 a.m.
Doubling Season is not worthwhile. This is why:
1) Doubling Season is a card that instantly draws extreme hate - no matter what playgroup you are a part of, if someone drops a Doubling Season, you know they are about go do something bad, fast.
2) When I am evaluating instant hate cards such as Doubling Season, I evaluate their worth in my head. It works well with tokens, and naturally with our general. However, I only have about 8-9 cards that truly work well with it. Basic math tells us that the chance of us having a card in our deck that works well with Doubling Season is about 8.5% - those odds are not nearly enough for me.
3) It can potentially kill the persist combo. 'Nuff said.
4) It's expensive. My CMC is about 3-4 for the deck, because I try to have a full board state by turn 6-7 with potential for lethal by turn 7 at latest. The CMC of 5 is slow for me personally.
5) I simply don't see the value of it in this deck. Tokens are pawns to be sacrificed to our lord and savior Mazirek. I'm honestly fine with having only 4-6 on the board at the time, as this has always been enough to kill someone with lethal damage.
Doubling Season would work in a deck that is based around counters/tokens, however I don't consider this deck a pure token deck. Our tokens are more about utility - we only need enough to do what we need to do. There's no reason to flood the board with them, unless somehow we can do so easily. (EG. Avenger/Endrek plays)
November 20, 2015 12:36 p.m. Edited.
TheSquirrelLord says... #9
@IpCrash3r well said!
However, @AKBZ EDH lists always need to be modified, depending on your playgroup. If you really feel that something would make your experience more fun, do not hesitate to give it a try.
November 20, 2015 1:44 p.m.
TheSquirrelLord says... #11
First post after most recent purge :D
Also, just wanted to say I love this deck and play it all the time. Good work!
November 20, 2015 6:52 p.m.
Well if your the first I'll be the second and I'm happy to see that you took my suggestion to heart and added Hunting Wilds over Ranger's Path +1!
November 20, 2015 7:45 p.m. Edited.
You need to add Altar of Dementia for you puppeteer clique combo, infinite mill and creatures galore!
November 22, 2015 1:02 p.m.
Addressing your issue with creature less decks a little bit, have you considered running things that give your opponents tokens? It's understandable if you don't want to use valuable spaces for some of these, but it seems like it would at least be easy enough to fit a Forbidden Orchard into your land base.
November 23, 2015 6:39 p.m.
TheSquirrelLord says... #15
@Apocolisp I really like the Altar of Dementia addition to CliqueCombo, a very strong win con.
I am not sure what to cut, but I will test it out and let you know what I find.
November 24, 2015 7:28 a.m.
I used to have the Altar in here, however I didn't find it very useful. Like myself, most of my group run a single Eldrazi to make mill effects moot. It's a good sac engine though, and definitely a good choice, but not one I'll be adding.
November 25, 2015 2:44 p.m.
DarthSpader says... #17
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord mayhaps? I must admit I'm a bit biased because Jarad's my boy, but he might fit well in a sac deck.
November 25, 2015 5:12 p.m.
TheSquirrelLord says... #18
@DarthSpader This deck tends to like free-sac outlets (Viscera Seer,Ashnod's Altar,etc) because we can activate as many times as we like. As mentioned often, graveyards tend to be hated on a lot, so the +1/+1 for creatures is not outstanding. Also Jarad is a little bit color-picky. While that in itself is not terrible, all those factors put together make Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord a sub-par pick for me.
Mastertoa says... #1
fair enough
November 20, 2015 1:46 a.m.