Vilis Suicide Black cEDH Primer

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Infinite Combo Mono-Black Primer Suicide Black

QU1NJA

Ramp (27)

• 1x Basal Thrull
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Blood Pet
• 1x Bubbling Muck
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Fractured Powerstone
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Honor-Worn Shaku
• 1x Jeweled Amulet
• 1x K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
• 1x Lotus Bloom
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Manifold Key
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Combo (8)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Faith of the Devoted
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skirge Familiar
• 1x Torment of Hailfire

Interaction (17)

• 1x Dismember
• 1x Hex Parasite
• 1x Hope of Ghirapur
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Infernal Darkness
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Not of this World
• 1x Pestilence
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Raven's Crime
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Sadistic Sacrament
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Thoughtseize
• 1x Withering Boon

Card Advantage (9)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Greed
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Other (4)

• 1x Glacial Chasm
• 1x Ivory Tower
• 1x Spellbook
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

Commander (1)

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 1x Ebon Stronghold
• 1x Ifnir Deadlands
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Peat Bog
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 18x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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Maybeboard

Other (19)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Caged Sun
• 1x Doomsday
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Font of Agonies
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Nirkana Revenant
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Shred Memory
• 1x Sickening Dreams
• 1x Sudden Spoiling
• 1x Unmask
• 1x Volrath's Dungeon
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Words of Waste

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Vilis, Broker of Blood cEDH Primer

About the Deck

What's the plan?

Utilize your formidable ramp package to power Vilis, Broker of Blood out early, enabling absurd draws and utility plays to grab your infinite combo pieces and win. Use your denial pieces to shut down other players at the table. This deck plays the race best, but still plays the long game well - if you can't outpace them, outlast and outvalue them with lifegain and draws.

Why Vilis?

Vilis, like all competitive commanders, is very, very good at getting you to your important pieces quickly and consistently. His triggered ability is incredibly powerful and versatile, abusing the most underutilized natural resource in commander - your high life total - to set up absurd turns. Something as simple as a Night's Whisper or Sign in Blood , which are already solid enough includes to see play in some competitive decks that lack blue, become a pay two, lose two, draw four. Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal suddenly both tutor cards to your hand and draw you an extra card. Vilis dies? Don't worry, you can Reanimate him from the yard and draw eight cards. Lose your Mana Crypt trigger? That sucks - but hey, at least you get to draw three from it. Vilis even has an activated ability that kills annoying, small-bodied utility or stax creatures and draws you cards at the same time.

Vilis takes what was meant to be a balancing act - losing life for low cost, powerful spells - and sits on your end of the scale. He is powerful, flavorful, and most importantly, he is the most fun I've ever had in mono-black EDH, cEDH or otherwise.

Should I play this deck?

You will enjoy this deck if:

• You like powerful, bursty turns.
• You like using the cards in your hand as a resource.
• You like games that end quickly.
• You like having multiple ways to win a game.
• You like interesting interactions between cards.
• "Risk begets reward" is a statement you tend to live by.

You will not enjoy this deck if:

• You like winning with combat damage most games.
• Getting in the "red zone" of your life total scares you.
• You try to avoid infinite combos and loops.
• Combos that require precise timing and responses between cards give you a headache.

How does this deck hold up against other competitive decks?

This primer is a work-in-progress, and currently the budget version of Vilis has kept up wins in cEDH pods against:

Pre-ban Paradox Engine Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

Pre-ban Paradox Engine Selvala, Explorer Returned

Krenko, Mob Boss Infinite Combo

The Chain Veil Teferi, Temporal Archmage

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim Infinite Combo

Urza, Lord High Artificer Infinite Combo

Kykar, Wind's Fury Infinite Combo

It's important to take into account that the now-complete version of this deck is new, and still needs tuning. While I'm very impressed with it so far, there's room for improvement in all things. Please let me know where you see room for improvement - we can always stand to get better!

In addition - while I am trading my way up to hard copies, some proxies are in use for certain cards above $20. You can see which cards these are in the acquireboard for the deck.

How Do I Win?

Winning Infinite Combo 1: Skirge Familiar, Faith of the Devoted, and Vilis

1. Have Skirge Familiar , Faith of the Devoted , and Vilis, Broker of Blood on the field.
2. Pay into Vilis' activated ability, losing two life.
3. Draw two cards off of Vilis' triggered ability.
4. Use Skirge Familiar's activated ability to dump one card and float one black mana.
5. Use Skirge Familiar's activated ability again, using the mana from the previous activation to pay into Faith of the Devoted's trigger, draining the table for two life and gaining two life.
6. Use the mana from the second Skirge Familiar activation to repeat from Step Two as necessary. Dump Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre into the graveyard to reset the deck.

Note that paying into Vilis' ability will only work as long as there are creatures on the field. While most multiplayer games will give you enough targets to win, in duels you may need to cast another source that lets you pay life like Hex Parasite , Greed , etc, in order to continue getting activations.

Winning Infinite Combo 2: A Similar, Much Sillier Combo Involving Necropotence

Necropotence allows for an incredible amount of card advantage, but each card that is discarded, including those discarded during the course of the Skirge / Faith combo, will go into exile as long as Necropotence is on the field. Under normal circumstances, this would mean that using Necropotence for said combo would drain the table for an amount of life no greater than the number of cards left in your library, and would end with all of your cards in exile. However, as long as you have Ulamog in hand or in the deck, the combo can continue, even with zero cards left in your library.

1. Have Vilis, Broker of Blood , Skirge Familiar , Faith of the Devoted , and Necropotence on the field, as well as Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre in library. If Ulamog is in hand, skip to Step Four.
2. Pay life into Necropotence, triggering Vilis and drawing a card for each life paid. Note that this happens before the exile-from-top of library effect resolves.
3. Keep paying life and drawing until you draw Ulamog. If your life total starts to look too low, dump whatever non-Ulamog cards are currently in your hand to Skirge Familiar, using the mana from each prior discard to pay into Faith of the Devoted. Once Ulamog is in hand, allow the Necropotence activations to resolve.
4. Discard Ulamog using Skirge Familiar.
5. Ignore the Faith of the Devoted trigger, but stack the Necropotence and Ulamog triggers so that the Ulamog trigger resolves first, and your graveyard is shuffled into your library. This will cause the Necropotence trigger on the stack to fizzle, as it no longer has a valid target.
6. Skirge Familiar's activation will resolve, adding one black mana to your mana pool.
7. Repeat loop from Step One, paying into the Faith of the Devoted trigger during Step Five using your floating mana from the first loop.

This will loop indefinitely, draining the table for two life per card discarded on every loop. You can use it to essentially draw out your deck, dump your entire hand, and reshuffle everything back in before any of the nasty side effects of Necropotence resolve. If you have Necropotence and Vilis on the field already, it's sometimes the right call to just pay life until you have the pieces you need to make it work. I've found that this is one of my favorite combos in the deck, and it often feels very silly to pilot once it's in action.

Winning Infinite Combo 3: Citadel, Reservoir, and Top Combo

Bolas's Citadel + Aetherflux Reservoir + Sensei's Divining Top

1. Have Bolas's Citadel and Aetherflux Reservoir on the field, with Sensei's Divining Top either on the top of the library or untapped and on on the field. If Top is on the field, activate its second ability to move it to the top of your library.
2. Cast Top from the top of your library using Bolas's Citadel, triggering Aetherflux Reservoir and gaining life.
3. Repeat until you have enough life to laser the table using Aetherflux Reservoir's activated ability.

This is one of the easier combos to achieve, as each segment of the combo is a valuable utility piece on its own. If Vilis is out, each cast of Top will also draw you one card, since you're paying a life to Citadel to cast it. If an opponent has infinite life or a high enough life total, you'll want to either kill Vilis or use one of your discard outlets to dump Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to the 'yard and keep going.

Winning Infinite Combo 4: Mana Mia, Here We Go Again

Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth

OR Cabal Coffers + 4 Swamp + Deserted Temple + Rings of Brighthearth

OR Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx + 4 Devotion + Deserted Temple + Rings of Brighthearth

+ Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire

Standard infinite mana combos ending in a fat spell. Not the most original, but definitely effective. You could also consider using Skirge Familiar to just dump a full hand of cards for the X cost, though that's a tad riskier in the event of an opponent having a counterspell at the ready.

Help me make this deck (and this primer) even better! Leave comments and suggestions below!

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 32 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.53
Folders	Motivation, mono black