pie chart

The Phyrexian Undead

Commander / EDH Counters Proliferate Sacrifice UBR (Grixis)

D2Vincent

Upvote 0
0

Land (36)

Planeswalker (1)

Creature (28)

Instant (5)

Sorcery (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: Marchesa, the Black Rose

Artifact (16)

Enchantment (8)

The Phyrexian Undead
Death is temporary, Phyrexia is eternal!

This deck focuses on the Proliferate mechanic, buffing up creatures that fling themselves when they die, only to be reanimated by Marchesa, the Black Rose

The Grand Vision

Standing atop the tallest point in all of New Phyrexia under the Black Sun, perched at its highest point in the sky, you look out amongst the great armies of undead ready and willing to serve your every command and to be sacrificed to fuel your desires. At its core stands the true Phyrexian Queen; Marchesa d'Amati. Great machines have been created to fuel an infinite source of power using the Phyrexian Oil, in which to spread upon every single plane of existence. You feel the immense power that you control waiting to be unleashed upon any and every foe that crosses your path.

The Grand Design

So, how does one win with this deck? Overall it's a take on the classic "Aristocrats" strategy, however we're going more for a "Power Matters" type of approach here. We'll be utilizing creatures and/or effects that deal damage to our opponents equal to their power when they die or otherwise leave the battlefield. Since several of our win-con cards benefit from dying or from other creatures dying, we've got various cards that can do things like provide recursion, be sac outlets, or just provide counters to creatures so Marchesa can bring em back

Phyrexian Power (it matters!)

The main creatures we want to get out as fast as possible are

  • Scorn-Blade Berserker - Allows us to pay 1 to draw a card every turn (including our opponents) whenever Marchesa is on the field
  • any of our early proliferate cards like Thrummingbird or Blightbelly Rat so we can start getting our counters stacked early
  • Juri, Master of the Revue - gets +1/+1 counters from creatures dying, is also really cheap, and is part of a 3-card infinite combo with Animation Module + Ashnod's Altar.
  • Stalking Vengeance - this basically gives EVERY creature we have on the field the same secondary ability as Dreadhorde Butcher

We've also got ways to enhance the damage that we're throwing, and tools that accelerate the pumping process like our proliferators or Rakdos Riteknife.

Killer Combos!

Pumping up creatures past rookie numbers ain't the only thing we're doing here though, we've got combos and synergies!

This Synergy allows for some really good resiliency against wraths for your non-human friends! If you manage to get a +1/+1 counter on the both of these, this synergy even brings itself back!

Abusing both Undying and Persist, this is probably the closest to a 2-card combo I'm using in this deck. Lets me counter any and all noncreature spells I don't like. If given a sac outlet, it becomes an infinite death trigger combo. Is an opponent playing Solemnity? they just spelled their own doom! Preventing counters just means we'll get to trigger Undying/Persist without putting the counter on, allowing for an infinite death loop provided you have but 1 sac outlet!

This one works with any creature that gets a +1/+1 counter any time one of your creatures die or something similar. What you do is to sacrifice a creature to Ashnod's Altar, which if there is a creature on the field that get's a +1/+1 counter off a creature death, you pay to Animation Module's triggered ability, creating a 1/1 servo token. You may then proceed to sacrifice the token to loop this effect infinitely. The Following creatures allow you to use this combo:

that last one is especially useful if you're looking for a way to quickly pump up a creature that deals damage to its power as it dies

Since we're using Marchesa's Dethrone ability anyway, we're gonna use our life as a resource to make sure we're getting those dethrone triggers! Unspeakable Symbol allows you to simply put +1/+1 counters on creatures for the cost of 3 life each use, which will allow us to constantly recur anything we want and still be able to trigger Dethrone. This also sets up the next synergy on this list...

What we want to do here is use both of the sacrifice abilities to essentially get 3 additional cards each turn + 3 life to use on Unspeakable symbol. I'm not talking every one of YOUR turns, I'm talking EVERY. TURN. Here's what you do:

  1. have Marchesa, the Black Rose, Unspeakable Symbol, and Disciple of Bolas out with a +1/+1 counter
  2. play Spark Double, copying Disciple of Bolas, the ETB will trigger, sac Disciple, draw 3 and gain 3 life
  3. EoT, Disciple returns via Marchesa ability, sac Spark Double which already ETB'd with a counter anyway, gain another 3 life and draw another 3 cards
  4. before next EoT, make sure to use Unspeakable Symbol's ability to put a new +1/+1 counter on Disciple

All Will Be One applies 1 damage every time we put a counter on something. Night Dealings Gets counters on it every time a source you control deals Damage. If you can do either of both, you pretty much win the game on the spot

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Revision 157 See all

(1 year ago)

-1 Agatha's Soul Cauldron main
+1 All Will Be One main
-1 Anduril, Narsil Reforged main
+1 As Foretold main
-1 Chandra's Ignition main
-1 Commander's Sphere main
+1 Contentious Plan main
-1 Dreadhorde Butcher main
+1 Flux Channeler main
-1 Havengul Lich main
+1 High Market main
-1 Lagomos, Hand of Hatred main
-1 Mask of Griselbrand main
+1 Mask of the Schemer main
+1 Mausoleum Secrets main
+1 Molten Slagheap main
+1 Night Dealings main
-1 Pawn of Ulamog main
-1 Relic of Sauron main
-1 Rogue's Passage main
and 26 other change(s)