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THE COLOSSEUM [PRIMER]

Commander / EDH Combo Infinite Combo Jank Primer Theme/Gimmick UBR (Grixis)

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Land (35)

Sorcery (11)

Instant (15)

Enchantment (12)

Commander (1)

Commander: Obeka, Brute Chronologist

Creature (15)

Artifact (11)

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Artifact (1)

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Artifact (3)

Creature (2)

We’re playing a different kind of forced combat. While forced combat commanders are typically Thantis, the Warweaver or Fumiko the Lowblood, we’re running two cards in the 99 instead, Hive Mind + Doomsday. The goal is to get the entire board as low as possible in order to force a combat victory from a player. Everyone is given an equal chance to succeed, being able to choose their gladiators and fight for victory.

However, why Obeka, Brute Chronologist? Because of the already janky nature of her ability, being able to end turns, there are a plethora of decks that look to abuse her ability to stick big creatures onto the battlefield before they expire. We use her to stop infinite combos before they can kill the entire board in order to achieve the above.

"Are you not entertained?"

Gladiator (2000)

Unlike other decks that have strategies that never involve putting their commander onto the battlefield, the entire point here is to use Obeka, Brute Chronologist’s ability in order to push the board into a forced late game. Because of her color identity () the combos we use, such as Precursor Golem + Arcbond are not normally played as we don’t have a lot of access to ‘give lifelink’ spells. This is an example of an unstoppable game-ending combo. This is why Obeka, Brute Chronologist is chosen, so we can use her ability to ultimately stop these combos before they wipe the board. If she is removed during these, everyone loses, so she has the authority to stick on the battlefield.

Not only that but Grixis embodies the fight smart mentality, with other masterminds like Nicol Bolas in the identity. Rakdos + Blue offers us a wider range of utility with Mindmoil, Entomb, the oddly helpful Magus of the Bazaar (no I’m not spending $$$ for the land), and other enchantments that allow us to put cards where we need them; library to hand, hand to graveyard, graveyard to hand, etc.

You will enjoy this deck if you genuinely look to cast your commander multiple times a game for use and/or like the idea of playing a Grixis combo deck and forcing combat in a different way. It excels against other combo decks with the possibility of shutting them out completely in the late game. The Colosseum also works against Voltron decks, as we run a fair amount of removal and usually only need to target a creature (such as Rafiq of the Many).

The deck doesn’t work too well against go wide Gruul decks (as most of my decks don’t), spellslinger decks are also an issue, we don’t have must protection from anything as we’re running a high-risk high reward strategy. So if your local meta has a lot of aggro decks that go wide fast, you may want to look to add more board wipes. Sucks we can’t add Damn.

Strengths

  1. Going Nuclear: Jank decks are often regarded as having some of the more explosive turns, however, we are able to push it to the next level by pulling off multiple combos in succession that ultimately work together to completely alter the board state. We’ll refer to this as going Nuclear, or changing the game in numerous ways during only one turn. While the game can be changed in a drastic way using one combo, such as Arcbond + Zada, Hedron Grinder, we can pair this with a follow up of Hive Mind + Doomsday, or even put all of them together by casting our entire library with Mirror of Fate. These game-changing combos allow us to constantly keep our opponents on their toes, and we have recursion and ways to keep bringing our nuclear arsenal back.
  2. All Roads Lead To The Colosseum: Our ultimate goal is to push the game into this heavily altered stage, and we have a variety of ways of pulling this off. Each strategy has its strength against common deck types. If you are playing against a mill deck, you’ll have a slight advantage, as you are able to luckily get creatures in the graveyard to trigger Necrotic Ooze and draw enough cards to pull another combo. Or if you are playing against a heavy draw deck, play Enter the Infinite combo and cast Doomsday afterward, having them discard to size with a one card library (and hopefully the rest exiled with Planar Void). Aggro? Zada, Hedron Grinder or Precursor Golem for easy blockers and even easier access to chain off into Arcbond. All strategies have their place and are easily accessible, tutorable, or graveyard..able.
  3. Stacking The Fight: While we’ve toted the words ‘equal chance’ earlier, it’s an equal chance for everyone but you, as we’re looking to stack the odds in our favor. Cards like Sneak Attack and Warstorm Surge allow you to ultimately put down whatever creature as a blocker and retaliate, think of them as your royal guard. You may have the decency to take the loss and be a fair and true gladiator, but what fun is there in that? It’s all for show regardless.

Weaknesses

  1. Inconsistency: You are never guaranteed in a jank deck to get the most consistent draws, in fact, it’s a blessing if you do, or the deck is not jank at all. The decks are held together with duct tape and raw willpower to keep moving forward. The deck compensates as much as possible with tutors and card draw options with Necrotic Ooze, Rhystic Study, or Razaketh, the Foulblooded, amongst our other tutors. However, due to the many pieces in the deck and overlapping combos, you may be left to dry missing one combo piece in a lot of games.
  2. Slowride: The early game is where we are most vulnerable, the best opener would be a couple of mana rocks, a draw engine like Rhystic Study, and removal. If you are up against an explosive early turn winning deck like Codie, Vociferous Codex hyper ad naus-no-friends Redbull sponsored deck you mine as well pack up. We have our feet on the ground and get to a jog around turn 3-4 and look to combo out on turn 5-6. We need time.

Card Advantage

Card advantage is defined as not just drawing cards but drawing the right cards, or getting to the point of drawing the right cards more often than your opponent. This is done through spells that not only look to slow down our opponents, but also recycle our resources in order to continue digging for said right cards, and in a more literal sense, draw us a lot of cards.

  1. Ponder is a spell that is essentially a better Brainstorm, giving the ability to shuffle the library before drawing. Considering we are often looking for specific pieces in the deck, it's good to play this whenever, even on turn 1 to ensure you are not getting shafted by lands or a card that belongs in the graveyard like Pili-Pala.
  2. Scroll Rack is used for the latter purpose above. While there are certain cards that can be useful on the battlefield, their shelf life is limited, so we need them in the graveyard, which in my meta, usually goes untouched after the first Bojuka Bog. We don't have graveyard protection, but Scroll Rack at least allows us to be more efficient with our draws. Such as using Scroll Rack and then Entombing what we just put on top.
  3. Necropotence insanely powerful. Our life total doesn't matter here since our goal is to get everyone to the same total and there are ways without draining ourselves in the process. The on demand card draw is insanely powerful and is far better than Phyrexian Arena(DO NOT RUN THIS CARD, STOP IT), as we are able to consistently get more value whether we need gas or have all the gas we need in hand. There is no necessity to pay life like Phyrexian Arena too.
  4. Rhystic Study generically good blue staple that can get us an upper hand early on? Need I say more? While we're not a forcefeed deck, we do however expect our opponents to draw more cards on average, at least in my pod, so this becomes far more useful early, especially with an early Reliquary Tower
  5. Consecrated Sphinx this is Rhystic Study on wheels. Another great early play and great stats too, being able to block bigger creatures. Getting this out early or having it come back with Reanimate early on is a huge advantage. We aren't forced to draw either, we are able to stop and start drawing on demand so that we don't mill ourselves out of the Enter the Infinite win con.
  6. Asmodeus the Archfiend is best in the graveyard and paired with Necrotic Ooze and Skirge Familiar. Go to combo section for more details on this card.
  7. Enter the Infinite we are never going to use this without Hive Mind, and this is because otherwise, we can not combo off with Mirror of Fate like normal. Go to the combo section for more information on this card.
  8. Sea Gate Restoration   doubles as mana or draw. This card normally is an auto-include because of the insane value it can get, and while this deck does not exclusively focus on card draw, we can still take advantage of it by pairing it with the Sunbird's Invocation combo for more triggers and stacking Eye of the Storm.
  9. Bolas's Citadel allows us to use our life as a drawing engine. With a lot of expensive cards, it can be hard to dig deep into the Citadel, however, we can pull answers right off the top of our library when necessary.
  10. Mindmoil can be paired with Psychosis Crawler for a good out of the blue win con. Regardless, because of how many cards we need for some combos, it can be hard to find all the pieces. So with Mindmoil we are able to safely dig through our library, and if we play it smart, we can shift combo pieces from one hand to the library with Scroll Rack and draw a stacked hand.
  11. Valakut Awakening   like Mindmoil, wheels our hand. However, the biggest upside to Vakakut Awakening vs Wheel of Fortune (which costs the same) is that we are able to target what cards we want to put onto the bottom, and regardless of how many we choose, we will always get +1 cards. So we can wheel 0 and still draw a card (extremely inefficient but still). So we can keep our combo pieces and draw for more.
  12. Frantic Search These next few cards allow us to get cards into the graveyard. This is important as we are able to play around Necrotic Ooze. Frantic Search is great as we allow ourselves to untap lands and draw cards. It's low cost, high efficiency.
  13. Fact or Fiction even better. Considering we are the only people that understand this deck, they can unknowingly put something into the graveyard that we need. Wherever they put it in fact, we can get back. So no matter what, we get a net gain of +5 cards.
  14. Magus of the Bazaar great on Necrotic Ooze or even on the battlefield as we are able to discard more than we draw, which may end up biting us in the back, and would be better off with Bazaar of Baghdad. However, Magus of the Bazaar doesn't cost a fortune. So we win!
  15. Thrill of Possibility red impulse draw staple red, it's red, and we draw impulsively, and red, impulse and draw, draw, you discard. gud.
  16. Dig Through Time considering we are tossing a lot into our graveyard, we will be tossing some junk in too. To get rid of those unused cards, or set up for a bigger starting library with Mirror of Fate, we can use Dig Through Time to exile those cards and also let us look at a completely fresh hand.

Gladiators

Considering we have gotten this far, we do need heavy beaters to put up our own fight during the last moments of the game. We're looking for bodies that are strong, are able to block in a moments notice, and have some other added benefit, whether low cost or an ability to help seek answers to close the game out.

  1. Death's Shadow is our #1 Gladiator! We will be low health, so we will always be able to play it for 11/11, 12/12 or such. Most people in the late game will not be able to cast a creature that big for , so we also get to hold up more mana for removal or an overloaded Cyclonic Rift.
  2. Phyrexian Dreadnought is our #2 Gladiator! Or, Assistant Team Captain. Regardless, for 12/12 at the same cost of Death's Shadow, the only draw back is having to end the turn before the ETB triggers. Putting him out there first as a target for removal and then following up with Death's Shadow is a good idea (nothing personal Dreadnought)
  3. Razaketh, the Foulblooded now we enter the expensive last hope blockers. He is big, but he is not as bulky as the previous two, and in fact, he's far more expensive. His arts cool! Looks like he could put up a fight, but on the fly, he's an awful choice of Gladiator. Next!
  4. Consecrated Sphinx Something that is slightly cheaper and has the added benefit of flying! That's a trait the previous 3 don't have. Regardless, on the fly, it's still a really expensive cast that most likely cannot transpire unless you have Omniscience on the field. You get the added benefit of drawing cards, but by now you should have Mirror of Fate and Mind's Desire to solve those needs.
  5. Psychosis Crawler is our #3 Gladiator! Why is he down here? I wanted to end on a high note. The reason he's #3 is because of his inherent ability for when we draw cards we do damage to everyone. We essentially will need to do a maximum of 4 damage to an opponent before they die at this stage, so just having something like Frantic Search or even Mindmoil can kill everyone for a last second victory.

Tutors

Although sparse, our tutors are very important in order to find combo pieces in a moments notice. It's incredibly powerful compared to generic card draw and considering our combos are generally on the more convoluted side, these are far more valuable here than in a standard Breya, Etherium Shaper combo deck.

  1. Entomb considering we have graveyard play, I'm considering this a tutor. If you just replaced the word 'graveyard' with 'hand', this would just be a Demonic Tutor, and it essentially is for combos involving Necrotic Ooze. It can also target cards that seem to have no purpose being there, such as Dockside Extortionist and then using Reanimate on them.
  2. Buried Alive same as above except you can put full combos into the graveyard! Any of the ones in the combo section below that involve Necrotic Ooze are what you are going to want to look at.
  3. Demonic Tutor tutors any one card into our hand. The one downside is that it is at sorcery speed, however, it can grab a combo piece if we are missing it, or whatever the situation needs.
  4. Mystical Tutor same as above except puts it at the top of your library. Once again, smart play with Scroll Rack + Mystical Tutor can stack your library to ensure you draw what you need. It's also at instant speed so you can tutor something before your turn so you can draw an answer immediately.
  5. Razaketh, the Foulblooded while needing to sacrifice a creature, there are certain cards that die when they hit the field, Dockside Extortionist being a one trick pony without blinking. So killing him can also turn into a Reanimate, more mana, another sacrifice, another tutor. Flexible and a good way to put combo pieces like Palladium Myr in the graveyard.

Counters and Removal

As said above, the early game is our weakest point in the game and so we need to survive and undo our opponents early games by any means necessary. With a variety of spells for removing permanents of all kinds to removing their graveyard resources, we have enough to last us to the end.

  1. Bedevil I love my instant removals, and the ability to destroy nearly any non-land permanent is a blessing. A lot of removal spells specifically target creatures or enchantments, so we get the added benefit of slowing artifact decks or other planeswalkers completely.
  2. Dismember easily the worst removal, needing to pay , gross. Just kidding! This is great, abusing the Phyrexian Mana, we can destroy nearly any creature on the board with -5/-5. Just like we have free counters, we basically have free removal.
  3. Toxic Deluge even more playing with health, if Dismember didn't wipe out a threat, use more health! The worst part of this spell is that it's at Sorcery speed.
  4. Counterflux If I'll be 100% honest, I put this card in here because of a Secret Lair I ordered. But regardless, it's a more expensive Flusterstorm, or a counterspell that cannot be countered. Both have their added benefits, but if you are looking for more general efficiency, put in Flusterstorm.
  5. Pact of Negation is for when you are all tapped out, or if you want to concede early on in style. Although the cost can be high, if you are protecting an essential piece, like Mirror of Fate or countering someone's Approach of the Second Sun, it's worth the upkeep cost.
  6. Force of Negation is another free counterspell, and while Force of Will is better, I don't own this one yet. Once again, the ends justify the means, allowing to pitch a spell like Mind's Desire or another combo piece that can no longer be used for whatever reason.
  7. Cyclonic Rift while you aren't looking to cast this for its cost, there are situations where you might need to, and that's okay. But for the most part you are looking to overload this to target everyone's permanents once you combo off. You will need to pay the overload cost because Omniscience will only pay the original CMC.
  8. Vandalblast great against heavy artifact decks that look to ruin the fun. But also great to overload and clean up the board before you get to the end stages of the game.
  9. Planar Void general graveyard hate. A cool note! Cards still go to the graveyard, but once they hit it, they are immediately exiled. So if you have any fun interactions you want to add with that, go ahead! Otherwise, it's mostly to combo off with Mirror of Fate.

What we are looking to do here is get everyone down to super low health to push into the Colosseum. We are damaging ourselves here too so that we are playing a fair game, as we could easily taunt our opponents with higher health, but that'd result in no fun, and this deck never being played again. You will need to take damage for this so don't expect people to block all of a sudden! Being attacked and blocking is a far better way of getting this to work!

  1. Have Zada, Hedron Grinder and Obeka, Brute Chronologist on the field
  2. Cast Professor's Warning on Zada, Hedron Grinder and take any amount of damage
  3. After taking damage, cast Arcbond targeting Zada, Hedron Grinder
  4. Because Zada, Hedron Grinder has any spell that targets him target all creatures, Obeka, Brute Chronologist also got indestructible from Professor's Warning
  5. Arcbond now jumps in between both, pinging everyone for increments of whatever damage was taken by Zada, Hedron Grinder
  6. Before you are about to die, use Obeka, Brute Chronologist's ability, stopping all activations of Arcbond on the stack and ending your turn
  7. On a sidenote: You can include Whip of Erebos into this combo in order to gain lifelink and not die from Arcbond. This can be used as a 'Hail Mary!' wincon.

What we are looking to do here is get everyone down to super low health to push into the Colosseum. We are damaging ourselves here too so that we are playing a fair game, as we could easily taunt our opponents with higher health, but that'd result in no fun, and this deck never being played again. You will need to take damage for this so don't expect people to block all of a sudden! Being attacked and blocking is a far better way of getting this to work!

  1. Have Precursor Golem and Sundial of the Infinite on the field
  2. Cast Professor's Warning on Precursor Golem and take any amount of damage
  3. After taking damage, cast Arcbond targeting Precursor Golem
  4. Because Precursor Golem has any spell that targets him target the other two golem tokens, those also got indestructible from Professor's Warning
  5. Arcbond now jumps in between them, pinging everyone for increments of whatever damage was taken by Precursor Golem
  6. Before you are about to die, use Sundial of the Infinite's ability, stopping all activations of Arcbond on the stack and ending your turn
  7. On a sidenote: You can include Whip of Erebos into this combo in order to gain lifelink and not die from Arcbond. This can be used as a 'Hail Mary!' wincon.

What we are looking to do here is get everyone down to super low health to push into the Colosseum. We are damaging ourselves here too so that we are playing a fair game, as we could easily taunt our opponents with higher health, but that'd result in no fun, and this deck never being played again. The upside to this combo in specific is that we are drawing cards while this happens, and we can even leave our opponents a little higher health here if we do not have removal for Phyrexian Tyranny. Because after Doomsday resolves everyone will need to draw a card, so leave them all at 6-8 health instead.

  1. Have Phyrexian Tyrant, Obeka, Brute Chronologist, and Hive Mind on the field
  2. Cast Enter the Infinite, which all players create a copy of and cast for free
  3. Because everyone is drawing cards equal to their library, Phyrexian Tyranny is dealing 2 damage to everyone for each card unless they pay .
  4. Before you are about to die, use Obeka, Brute Chronologist or Sundial of the Infinite, stopping all draws from Enter the Infinite on the stack and ending your turn.

This is a classic Necrotic Ooze combo that looks to get infinite mana generated in order to cast copious amounts of cards from our hand (which I'll assume is full) and can act as a replacement for Mirror of Fate/Omniscience if you have played your Enter the Infinite combo.

  1. Have Necrotic Ooze on the battlefield
  2. If Palladium Myr and Pili-Pala are not in your graveyard, cast Buried Alive and you may choose one more creature to put in the graveyard (Asmodeus the Archfiend or Razaketh, the Foulblooded are recommended)
  3. Because Necrotic Ooze now has both of their activated abilities, tap Necrotic Ooze for
  4. Now using Pili-Pala's ability, untap Necrotic Ooze for of any color.
  5. Do this infinitely for infinite colored mana

Like the combo before, we are going to be abusing an interaction between these cards to generate near infinite mana and near infinite card draw. We are essentially doing this in order to draw a combo that allows us to further our plans. The great part about this is that Necrotic Ooze doesn't pick up Asmodeus the Archfiend's static pact ability, so we don't get the downsides that normally come with playing this card.

  1. Have Necrotic Ooze on the battlefield
  2. If Asmodeus the Archfiend and Skirge Familiar are not in your graveyard, cast Buried Alive and you may choose one more creature to put in the graveyard
  3. Because Necrotic Ooze now has both of their activated abilities, pay to draw 7 cards from Asmodeus the Archfiend's ability
  4. Next, discard 3 cards you just drew, generating from Skirge Familiar's ability
  5. Draw your entire deck and use that black mana to cast answers like Mirror of Fate

A rather expensive combo but very fun to pull off. It allows you to draw your entire library and cast it for free with Omniscience. If you do not have Omniscience, you can put Mind's Desire in Eye of the Storm and get a lot of free casts from the top of your library, which isn't infinite, but you do get 1 from casting the original spell, casting from Eye of the Storm, casting Mind's Desire specifically from Eye of the Storm, and then a cast from Sunbird's Invocation, for a total of 4 storm. Next spell is 8 storm, 12 storm, add 4 each time.

  1. Have Sunbird's Invocation, Eye of the Storm, and Omniscience on the battlefield
  2. Cast Dig Through Time, exiling it under Eye of the Storm and triggering Sunbird's Invocation
  3. Resolve Dig Through Time, putting an instant or sorcery into your hand.
  4. Resolve Sunbird's Invocation, casting a free spell that is CMC or lower.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4, casting your entire library for free with Omniscience

This combo's credit goes to tstorm823. The combo involves having Eye of the Storm casting Mind's Desire over and over again in order to build storm and get free casts off your library that you stack with Mirror of Fate. As said numerous times in this piece, we are going to be using Mirror of Fate in order to build our colosseum and get as many pieces on the board as we need. We will also be able to do this after we cast Doomsday on everyone so we ensure that we are prepared for anything.

  1. Have Planar Void, Mirror of Fate, and Eye of the Storm on the field
  2. Cast Mind's Desire, this will get exiled with Eye of the Storm, which then casts a new copy. The storm count is now 2.
  3. Crack Mirror of Fate, this gets exiled because of Planar Void, and so does Mind's Desire. Because Mirror of Fate and Mind's Desire are the only things in exile, you can only choose those cards to put back in your deck.
  4. Mind's Desire from Eye of the Storm resolves, casting Mirror of Fate and the original Mind's Desire for free. The storm count is now 4.
  5. You can now stack your library. Crack Mirror of Fate again and choose 2 more cards (since Mirror of Fate allows you to "Choose up to" meaning we don't have to choose 7), but you must include Mind's Desire and Mirror of Fate always.
  6. This will result in an infinite storm, an infinite cast of any card in your library that you so choose, etc. Cause all the chaos you want, and it's all free because of Mind's Desire!

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Casual

90% Competitive

Revision 7 See all

(2 years ago)

+1 Whip of Erebos side
Top Ranked
Date added 2 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

11 - 0 Mythic Rares

51 - 1 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

6 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.63
Tokens Copy Clone, Golem 3/3 C, Treasure
Folders My Babies, Jank, Do You Play Commander?, A Very Cool EDH Folder
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