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Sengir and Kediss - Dark Privilege (v1.6)

Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos) Partner Sacrifice Tokens Tokens

KBK7101


Maybeboard


Updated - 12/9/23

TOP RATED and MOST VIEWED Sengir and Kediss deck on Tappedout!!

Hello and welcome to another Commander Legends partner deck! I've been in a deck-building frenzy lately and Commander Legends has been a set that I've really been looking into. The amount of possible partner combinations is in the thousands now and I've been working on a few that I think are really underrated and really deserve some more attention. The deck in question today is the partner pairing of Sengir, the Dark Baron and Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar. Baron Sengir is an infamous character from Magic's early days and his newest card is a wonderful callback to his first card from the Homelands set that capitalizes on creature deaths and buffing him with +1/+1 counters. Kediss is the red representative of the Familiar cycle of partners that is basically a Sower of Discord in the command zone that hits all players but only applies to commander damage. The focus of this deck will be make a boat load of tokens, sacrificing them all and then swinging in with Sengir while Kediss is on the field to potentially end the game in one turn.

NOTE: As pointed out in the comments, the damage that Kediss applies to our opponents is NOT commander damage. Sengir can only one-shot the table if their life totals are low enough.

Before we get into the deck itself, a little bit about me (feel free to keep scrolling past this part if you want, I really don't mind!). I've been playing Magic since early 2019 and have been playing mostly Commander/EDH since around the release of Throne of Eldraine. My usual playgroup consists of my two brothers with the rare fourth player being my brother-in-law. When I first started playing Magic, the idea of going to a FNM/some sort of LGS event seemed crazy to me and I was content to just play at home. Once I started playing EDH, though, the urge to play and meet new people started to grow. I was about to dive into my LGS scene right around the time the covid-19 pandemic started. Because of that, I still haven't played with anyone outside of my own house, so please keep that in mind when commenting. I'm an avid deck-builder and I build decks around themes, lore and/or characters. I have a LOT of decks but I've only posted a few of them on here because I don't feel like I have anything to new or unique to add to, say, Kykar, Wind's Fury or Korvold, Fae-Cursed King lists. The decks that I post on here are mainly for commanders with little to no decks to their name and by posting them I hope to inspire others to find more obscure commanders to experiment with. The partner pairing of Kediss and Sengir, for example, only has 11 decks to their name on EDHREC. 11! If that's not obscure, I don't know what is! Also, this deck may not necessarily be "budget" as that term means many things to many people, but please do not recommend things like Yawgmoth's Will or Wheel of Fortune. Cards like that are far out of any budget I may have. With all that out of the way, let's get into the deck!

***Note : All cards choices came from research using Scryfall, EDHREC and here on TappedOut.

CUSTOM CATEGORIES FEATURES CARDS IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS. THEY ARE NOT DUPLICATES. DECK CONTAINS 100 CARDS.

This deck was inspired by various Rakdos sacrifice decks from Standard/Historic/Pioneer over the past year or two. At first glance, it bears a passing resemblance to most typical aristocrats decks. Play creatures/make tokens, sacrifice them, repeat. This deck is a little bit different, however. It has ZERO Blood Artist style ping/damage effects ((Other than Mayhem Devil which is almost exclusively for creature removal). The purpose of the armies of tokens that this deck produces is not to die in battle or to whittle away at our opponents life totals. Their deaths are EXCLUSIVELY to benefit Baron Sengir himself. The sole purpose of their existence is to buff our vampire baron to one shot levels in the matter of a turn or two.

Sengir, the Dark Baron has flying and is 4/4. Flying is always useful and is especially useful because our plan is to knock out all our opponents at once. As long as one of them doesn't have a flier, we're good to go. His first ability says that whenever a creature dies, he gets two +1/+1 counters. His second ability, while powerful, is mostly irrelevant as the life gain won't matter because all our opponents will be dead.

Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar may seem innocent at first. He's just a tiny 1/1 lizard that makes everyone take commander damage when your commander connects. Pretty straightforward. His strength is pretty much equal to his partner's. Luckily, Sengir's power levels are gonna be at near one shot levels and thanks to Kediss, we won't have to worry about knocking our opponents out one by one. We'll be doing it all at the same time in one, maybe two turns at the most.

Our basic game plan goes something like this :

  • Ramp/Make lots of tokens
  • Get a haste enabler out alongside Kediss
  • Play Sengir, sac the tokens, swing and win

This deck features two planeswalkers. First is the absolute powerhouse that is Liliana, Dreadhorde General. She literally does it all. Tokens? Card draw? Removal? A game-ending ultimate? Check, check, check and check!

Chandra, Acolyte of Flame is a cheap way to guarantee us tokens and death triggers. Her -2 could also come in handy sometimes, too, I guess. Very straightforward and reliable card that is super cheap mana wise and also money wise (currently around $1)!

Being a massive fan of Amonkhet, God-Eternal Bontu is one of my favorite cards and I'll take any excuse I can get to put it in as many decks as possible. It works really well with this deck as it basically functions as a sacrifice outlet to potentially end the game with Sengir and also draws us lots of cards at the same time. A key card in the deck.

Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder is another key card in this deck as it, with access to some sort of sac outlet, could potentially make multiple tokens every turn.

Purphoros, God of the Forge with deal massive amounts of damage to each opponent due to the amount of tokens we're gonna be making.

Krenko, Mob Boss is a token making machine. There are other cards that make goblin tokens in the deck so he isn't gonna be doing all the work by himself. Can get out of control very quickly.

Mayhem Devil and Nadier's Nightblade are the closest thing this deck has to Blood Artist effects. Devil is used for creature removal and Nightblade is a bit more balanced than Artist as it only focuses on tokens and it whittles our opponents life totals so Sengir can be closer to potential one-shot territory.

Sedgemoor Witch, Sengir Autocrat, Weaponcraft Enthusiast and Young Pyromancer are our creature based token generators. Any combination of these or others are a must include for this strategy. The most important part is to make sure that the mana that we're spending is worth the amount of tokens that we get out of them. Still working on finding a good ratio.

Torch Fiend is sac-based artifact removal.

Bloodsworn Steward, Torch Courier and Generator Servant are for haste for Sengir.

Smothering Abomination and Liliana's Standard Bearer are for card draw. Abomination lets us sac a creature every turn and lets us draw with every sacrifice. Extremely useful when we have a sac outlet. Standard Bearer lets us refill our hand after a board wipe or mass sac to an outlet.

Woe Strider and Viscera Seer are our creature based sac outlets. Debating adding one or two more.

Black Market is a great ramp card for sacrifice decks. Creatures will always be dying, so getting massive amounts of black mana every turn is pretty easy.

Dictate of Erebos helps to keep other creature based decks in check.

Dark Privilege is a great card for this deck as it provides a sac outlet for us and helps to keep Sengir safe. A key card in the deck.

Kaya's Ghostform is protection (mainly for Sengir).

Goblin Bombardment serves the same purpose as Mayhem Devil which is to clear the way for Sengir to connect. It's also a sac outlet which helps us buff Sengir to potential one-shot levels. Could potentially whittle away some life totals so the table enters one-shot territory.

Impact Tremors is another Purphoros. We're gonna be making tokens so we may as well benefit from creating them as much as possible.

Tombstone Stairwell is a fantastic card in certain decks. It's updated text reads "At the beginning of each upkeep, if Tombstone Stairwell is on the battlefield, each player creates a 2/2 black Zombie creature token with haste named Tombspawn for each creature card in their graveyard." All the tokens die at the end of turn or if Stairwell leaves play for one reason or another. I'm not entirely certain that this deck is the best place for it but if Sengir is on the field and our any players have even just a few creatures in graveyards then Sengir's power levels will SOAR.

The newest additions are Uncivil Unrest and All Will Be One. Unrest grants nontoken (Sengir!) creatures haste and doubles their damage if they have +1/+1 counters on them (Sengir!!) and All Will Be One deals damage to an opponent, creature or planeswalker every time counters are placed on a creature of ours. Both of these were definite includes in the deck.

Bedevil, Deadly Rollick, Feed the Swarm, Astarion's Thirst and the new Pile On are for removal. Pile On can usually be cast for free or close to it, which is nice. Probably need more removal, though.

Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Grim Tutor and Diabolic Intent are tutors to help find removal, token generators or sac outlets.

Corpse Explosion, Eliminate the Competition, Chandra's Ignition and Mogg Infestation are this decks version of board wipes. Explosion is a new card from New Capenna that lets you exile a creature from your graveyard to do damage to each creature equal to the exiled card's power. It's a board wipe that's exactly as big as you want it to be! Competition can work as a sac outlet and lets us destroy as many creatures as we can sac. Ignition wipes the entire board if Sengir is big enough. Infestation wipes out an opponents board and replaces it with twice the amount of goblin tokens. It says "Target player", so don't be afraid to use it on yourself if you're in need of tokens!

Stinging Study and Body Count Might need more card draw effects here. May re-evaluate later.

Burnt Offering is an old card from Ice Age that lets us sac a creature to get the CMC of that creature added to our mana pool in another combination of red and black. Great card. Should totally be more popular.

Szat's Will, Thatcher Revolt and Hordeling Outburst all make more tokens. (Note that the tokens from Thatcher Revolt sac themselves at end of turn)

Deflecting Swat is an incredibly powerful card from the Ikoria-themed Commander 2020. It redirects a target spell and can be played for FREE if you have a commander out. Perfect for keeping Sengir safe from targeted removal.

Jeska's Will is another incredibly powerful card and is from Commander Legends. It can help us ramp or can exile us a few cards off the top of our library that we can play the turn we cast it. If we have a commander out, it does both!

Reprocess and Plumb the Forbidden are operate like sac outlets. Reprocess does the same thing that God-Eternal Bontu does and lets us sac permanents to draw cards. Plumb the Forbidden that lets us sacrifice any number of creatures to copy it and draw cards but can be used at instant speed to get the most out of our board before it gets wiped. Both are key cards in the deck.

Mainly split between a typical assortment of mana rocks and Greaves/Boots. Special mentions go to Skullclamp and Genesis Chamber. Skullclamp has obvious synergies and is always a key card in literally any deck with tokens. Chamber gives us and our opponents more tokens which is just more stuff to kill to buff Sengir. Blade of the Bloodchief essentially doubles Sengir's counters making him able to one-shot the table all that quicker. Shadowspear can turn off any hexproof or indestructible abilities our opponents creatures may have. Currently debating adding The Ozolith to retain the counters in case Sengir gets killed but that card has gotten pricey and I only have one and it's in another deck.

Almost evenly split between red/black sources. Special mentions go to Malakir Mire   as you can cast it as Malakir Rebirth   to save Sengir if needed, Rogue's Passage because of it's ability to make Sengir unblockable to end games and Command Beacon to recover Sengir if he gets killed. Extra special mention goes to Forbidden Orchard as it taps for any color and gives our opponents spirit tokens for us to kill!

I've also added in both of the relevant legendary lands from Neon Dynasty, Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance and Takenuma, Abandoned Mire. These lands work really well with partner decks thanks to their Channel ability caring about legendary creatures.

Like most decks, the land base is entirely up to you. Use your favorites!

The basic land art for this deck is Swamp because it looks like the castle in the background of Sengir, the Dark Baron and Mountain because it looks like a path that would lead you up to a secluded vampire castle that Sengir would live in.

Tana, the Bloodsower would be another great partner for this deck and it was a pairing I tested with Sengir for a bit but I ultimately felt like the deck pulled in too many directions. Ramp, tokens, combat, voltron, aristocrats... it was just a little bit too much and needed to be trimmed. Removing green from the equation and focusing on the token sac to buff Sengir helped to streamline the deck.

Korvold, Fae-Cursed King is the king of sacrifice commanders and I do have a Korvold deck (mainly Eldraine/food/treasure themed) but he's a bit too oppressive for my liking. His draw a card ability is just a bit too powerful in my opinion.

Mogis, God of the Slaughter is another really cool sacrifice commander but his playstyle isn't a good fit for the theme we're going for with this one.

I am by no means an expert in deckbuilding and I definitely encourage everyone to build your own way but in my experience with the deck so far, these couple of cards are ones that I'd DEFINITELY recommend and I think would be staples in this type of deck. :

vs. Tormod, the Desecrator/Esior, Wardwing Familiar vs. Feldon of the Third Path

L

My brother ran this deck for this game, so I don't know exactly what his gameplan was or what cards he had in hand, but seeing it as an opponent (I ran Tormod/Esior) was pretty terrifying. He had a board full of tokens when Sengir made his first appearance and quickly sacrificed them all to Woe Strider making him 28/28 by the end of his next turn. Sadly, Feldon was basically a non-factor this game due to not drawing any lands, so it was basically over for him when Sengir came in swinging. The hit for 28 also hit me for 28 thanks to Kediss being on the field. The lifegain ability actually came in handy for Sengir as knocking out Feldon pushed him back up to over 50 life. Unfortunately for him, I recast some removal from the graveyard and took out Sengir. Sengir made a comeback with a board full of tokens (again!) but it was too little too late as a copied Army of the Damned led me to swing in with about 30 3/3 zombie tokens (thanks to the buff from Death Baron). All in all, the deck worked really well, he just lacked some protection at the right time. Really happy with it, regardless!

Proxies - 0

Sleeves - Dragon Shield Matte (Jet)

Deck Box - Ultimate Guard Boulder 100+ (2020 Exclusive Black/Red) and Ultimate Guard 40+ (Ruby) for tokens

Playmat - 3rd party Black Lotus (Vintage Masters art)

That's everything! The deck has some real power and can end games seemingly out of nowhere but does seem to be a bit... hit or miss. Would love some feedback and recommendations to make it more reliable. Keep in mind that I've never played commander with anyone outside of my own house.

Thanks for viewing!

Suggestions

Updates Add

OUT - Hidetsugu Consumes All  Flip, Chittering Witch, Eat to Extinction, Hedron Archive, Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools, Vicious Betrayal

IN - Grim Tutor, Song of Totentanz, Pile On, The Irencrag, All Will Be One, Uncivil Unrest

Hello, all! Been a while since I updated this deck! The lightning pace of releases has given me some overwhelming decision paralysis when it comes to this game so the updates for this and other decks are pretty sparse these days. But! This batch of upgrades I think makes the deck a bit smoother and I'm really excited to test it out! Making cuts is really hard, though. Thoughts? Comments?

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

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99% Casual

Competitive

Revision 19 See all

(4 months ago)

+1 All Will Be One main
-1 Body Dropper maybe
-1 Cathartic Pyre maybe
-1 Chittering Witch main
+1 Drivnod, Carnage Dominus maybe
-1 Eat to Extinction main
-1 Eaten Alive maybe
-1 Flay Essence maybe
+1 Grim Tutor main
-1 Hedron Archive main
-1 Hidetsugu Consumes All  Flip main
-1 Mind Stone maybe
+1 Mirkwood Bats maybe
+1 Not Dead After All maybe
-1 Orca, Siege Demon maybe
+1 Pile On main
+1 Song of Totentanz main
-1 Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools main
+1 The Irencrag main
+1 Uncivil Unrest main
and 22 other change(s)
Top Ranked
Date added 2 years
Last updated 4 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

7 - 0 Mythic Rares

49 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

14 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.00
Tokens Elemental 1/1 R, Goat 0/1 W, Goblin 1/1 R, Human 1/1 R, Myr 1/1 C, Pest 1/1 BG, Rat 1/1 B w/ Can't Block, Serf 0/1 B, Servo 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 C, Thrull 0/1 B, Thrull 1/1 B, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Haste
Folders All Decks, Ideas, Commander Legends Partners, Commanderz, EDH Decks, definitely, Partner Commanders, Cool EDH Decks, Commander, Cool Decks
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