The Scarab's Fist (Bracket 4)

Commander / EDH* Bracket 4 WUB (Esper)

Poly_raptor

Lands (34)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Bazaar of Baghdad
• 1x Bleachbone Verge
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Contaminated Landscape
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Floodfarm Verge
• 1x Gloomlake Verge
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 2x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Raffine's Tower
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Urza's Saga
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Watery Grave

Board Wipes (4)

• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Damn
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Stax pieces (2)

• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Monastery Siege

Ramp (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome MoxGC
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Lion's Eye DiamondGC
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana VaultGC
• 1x Mox DiamondGC
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Skirge Familiar
• 1x Smothering TitheGC
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Progress

Discard Outlets (10)

• 1x Ghostly Pilferer
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Likeness Looter
• 1x Magus of the Bazaar
• 1x Mind Over Matter
• 1x Putrid Imp
• 1x Restless Dreams
• 1x The Underworld Cookbook
• 1x Thought Courier
• 1x Tortured Existence

Removal (7)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Deadly Rollick
• 1x Despark
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

Utility (4)

• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Silence

Win Con? (1)

• 1x Laboratory Maniac

Commander (1)

Counterspells (10)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Fierce GuardianshipGC
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of WillGC
• 1x Misdirection
• 1x Mystical Dispute
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Rewind
• 1x Swan Song

Card Advantage (9)

• 1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Jin-Gitaxias, Core AugurGC
• 1x Ledger Shredder
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Rhystic StudyGC

Tutor (5)

• 1x Demonic TutorGC
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Vampiric TutorGC

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Maybeboard

Other (2)

• 1x Demonic Consultation
• 1x Thassa's OracleGC

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This is in the process of a first draft build around the new card from Aetherdrift Hashaton, Scarab's Fist

On first thoughts it looks a very powerful commander, I have already seen a lot of chatter online about its potential in CEDH. My pod doesnt really play CEDH, but we do have very high power and tuned decks that would all probably sit in the 4 bracket. I have had a Dimir zombie deck for a while, but to be honest I just found that a little too repetitive, "oh look, another Gravecrawler infinite combo” Hashaton looks to be, on the other hand, a very powerful effect that as pretty difficult to interact with and a far more interesting build around.

In my opinion, there are two main avenues you could go down with this commander, one being a very high powered CEDH list, that works around trying to pull off a very quick win with Thassa's OracleGC, the other is focussed on copying some very nasty creatures very quickly and closing the game out from there. I am undecided which way I will lean.

If I do build this deck I will most likely proxy the cards I don't have, because who is going to buy a Lion's Eye DiamondGC for some kitchen table magic?

Any feed back or suggestions are welcome.

Deck aims

The design of the deck so far is to try and ramp into a quick activation of Hashaton. Due the ability being a triggered ability it is very hard to interact with, very few Stifle effects are really around in comparison to counter spells.

The deck runs a lot of interaction, fast mana, free counter spells, and discard outlets to get Hashaton online as quickly as possible.

I'm in the process of writing a primer, which I will update over the coming days.

So far in the process of play testing it seems very strong. Consistently getting Jin Gitaxias out on turn 3-4 and drawing 7 cards.

Ramp

There a 14 ramp cards in the deck, I am toying with the idea of cutting Land Tax as I'm not running a huge amount of basics. there are 9 pieces of what I would say is fast mana, Sol Ring, Signets, talismans, moxes, etc. this means you have about a 50% chance of having a piece of fast mana in your opening hand, and around a 65% chance of having any ramp piece in your opening hand. The other ramp options are:

1. card: Somethering Tithe to either ramp us quickly or slow everyone else down if they choose to pay the {2}
2. Skirge Familiar synergises well with Hashaton, adds mana and gives us a free discard outlet, so it actually ticks off two different boxes.
3. crad: Gilded Lotus works well as a nice big mana rock but also combos with Mind Over Matter, potentially to force a win, as it can be untapped by Mind Over Matter to float the mana to create a copy of whatever was discard to MOM.
4. Lion's Eye DiamondGC gives you three mana and discards a fat stack of creatures to choose from. Again very much combo enabler.

Interaction

I have added in quite a lot of interaction, as I have said above, the pod I play in runs lots of interaction so it feels necessary to have access to lots of removal and counterspells, you could tweak these down if you thought that would be better for your play group. Although I do think running free counters like Force of WillGC and co is essential in this deck, play testing it seems to get into a winning position quickly and needs good defences, as often you are tapped out on maybe 5 or 6 lands.

Win con

Currently the win condition I am running is Thassa's OracleGC & Demonic Consultation, however, I am wondering if it would actually be better to run Laboratory Maniac as a win condition due to how quickly the deck seems to draw itself out.

Top Ranked	Achieved #5 position overall 2 weeks ago Achieved #4 position in Commander / EDH 3 weeks ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH WUB (Esper) 2 weeks ago
Date added	1 month
Last updated	3 weeks
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	21 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	101
Avg. CMC	2.54
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Construct 0/0 C, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Food, Manifest 2/2 C, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Treasure
Folders	Commander Decks