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Scars Left By Time (Obeka EDH)

Commander / EDH Aristocrats Bracket 1 Exile Group Slug Sacrifice UBR (Grixis) Venture Into the Dungeon

Jokulmorder1

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Creature (27)

Enchantment (8)

Land (40)

Instant (3)

Commander (1)

Commander: Obeka, Splitter of Seconds

Artifact (11)

Sorcery (10)

Sideboard

Artifact (9)

Creature (3)

Enchantment (1)

Sorcery (2)

  • Archetype: Group slug
  • Subthemes: Exile, Sacrifice, Morbid, Caves
  • Planar Flavor: Shadowmoor, Grixis, Middle-earth
  • Basic Land Art: War-torn, trammeled, defiled

Initiative is a dense mechanic from the second Commander Legends set. It's a value-accumulation designation like The Monarch, but the reward is room triggers from a special bonus dungeon.

Undercity

Notably, while "you become the monarch" effects are redundant if you're already monarch, additional "take the initiative" effects let you venture again, even if you already have the initiative.

Also, because taking the initiative starts you off on the Undercity dungeon or into the next room of whatever dungeon you're already in, you can play AFR venture cards together with initiative cards. If your goal is to get into the Undercity specifically, timing venture effects with initiative can be a little awkward.

The "optimal" initiative strategy calls for abusing initiative triggers and denying your opponents access to the Undercity's value. This could entail some mix of the following:

Or, ideally,

  • An engine to infinitely loop venture triggers and get all the life loss, mana, cards, and creatures you need to seal the deal

That's how Sefrisfoil usually does it, anyway.

But the "optimal" approach left me cold. This is a neat social dynamic to introduce into a multiplayer game, let's approach it as such!

To land one of the dozen-ish initiative cards early, you can mulligan aggressively OR make use of our bevy of scry and card draw options to find one.

Under Construction

This deck started as a Saruman, the White Hand deck with lots of high-MV but cost-reducible noncreature spells à la Treasure Cruise. The goal was simple: make a giant Orc Army and swing for the fences.

That was cool, honestly no notes, but eventually I made the pivot to the big bad himself.

You may well ask, isn't impulse draw the plaything of colors with crummy card draw? My brother in Christ, you're in blue! To which, dear straw man, I would reply: it's [year you're reading this], every color has good card draw.

I do run some solid early-game cantrips, but my thinking is that card draw becomes a little superfluous once you get cooking with Sauron's temptation wheels. Unless you're storming off and wheeling to refill an empty hand, card draw merely increases the pile you'll be tossing. I mean yes, the wheel ability is a "may," so you could ignore it when you tempt and your hand is already sittin' pretty, but I'm really enticed by the ability to start over with a fresh grip.

Theory Corner

Allow me to explain. I don't have to tell you about that deeply-ingrained Magic player instinct to maximize your turn's mana and card advantage. That said, commander is a complex format for a complex game, and optimizing your game actions burdened by a profusion of choices can be a tall order indeed. I'd wager I'm not alone in occasionally finding myself with an embarrassment of riches—more cards and options than I know what to do with. It sounds like a good problem to have, but falling short of optimal play can be a bummer. Don't set yourself up for failure like that! We're following l'appel du vide, the siren call to live dangerously and discard often. This isn't 4D chess mastermind Grixis, it's something else.

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95% Casual

Competitive

Revision 21 See all

(2 months ago)

+1 Feywild Caretaker main
-1 Light Up the Stage main
-1 Monastery Raid main
+1 Throes of Chaos main