Have you considered Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge as a commander? Most recent decks feature her as a competitive card-advantage option, but you can build around using her ability and big fun spells.
I have a fairly outdated deck here that has a basic structure, which was originally themed similar to what you're interested in. Cards like sadistic sacrament can be cast from under Jeleva and you can actually pay the kicker for the additional effect. I used to run cards like lord of the void since the deck had a pile of haste enablers for Jeleva, and remember a few fun games where I was able to resolve a rite of replication on the lord, which really tends to perturb opponents.
An even more enjoyable alternate win-con is to simply sacrifice & recast jeleva multiple times using cards like ashnod's altar. Her exile effect grows with every resolution, and if you've cast + resolved her 7 times in the same game then she would have exiled a total of 70 cards from all players. This should be enough to mill everyone out by that stage of the game, so you can just pass turn and let everyone draw-death.
A word of warning tho - people tend to hate Jeleva due to how the games always play out. People hate exile-piling for you, and once you end up having to remind them it's all down-hill from there.
Yet still you all whine. And you're all so excited to have another excuse to say "whoops, looks like it was a huge mistake!" that you didn't even realize that IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SOLVING THIS PROBLEM. You just immediately knee-jerk "oh, there's a problem that's companion is related to? MAKING COMPANIONS WORK IN COMMANDER WAS A MISTAKE! What was the problem again?"
My problem is not with the companion mechanic. I'm all for exploring new mechanics.
Lutri shouldn't be banned as an optional commander or 99 inclusion. There is zero logical reason why Lutri can't be a commander when Naru Meha, Master Wizard exists. Not defining a use-as-commander vs in-99-specific banlist is getting absurd, because there absolutely is zero reason why Lutri can't be played in the 99.
And really, the currently available companions are not adding too much to the format. Drastically limiting card selection by forcing odd/even only cmc, for a situational furnace of rath that dies to creature removal, or a really bad gamble at a situational reanimation spell? A simic draw spell that means you can't play staples like farseek and sakura-tribe elder? A 5-cmc mana-dork strictly worse than prismatic geoscope?
If any would be banned then obviously it should be yorion, sky nomad, because it's pre-requesits just can't happen.
Lurrus and maybe zirda/keruga have potential, but honestly these cards are just not very helpful for deck creation in this format.
So after considering all this, IMO the easiest fix is simple. Just disable the companion mechanic in EDH.
It would be so much easier to just remove the companion mechanic from edh. Unban the otter and permit the legendary creatures to be used as commanders or in the 99 only. Clean and simple.
In short, according to current rules at the time of this thread, it's possible to put Snapdax "under" an animated object like lavaclaw reaches, to have a 2/2 doublestrike kinda-firebreathing commander, that would be immune to sorcery speed creature removal, and can be activated as the same creature (still known to be commander) for later turns.
While this doesn't seem incredibly powerful, a hard-to-remove double strike commander isn't something to ignore, so now I'm looking to make a deck around this.
Here are some cards I've found that may be playable, some more than others;
There are many other worse options (strictly worse vehicles, cards like Daxos's Torment, useless effects like ghitu encampemnt). Also some of the best cards don't work with mutate (gideon & mutavault being humans).
Being a dega deck the colors we would have to work with, and this somewhat sneaky attack strategy, leans to a low-cmc control heavy deck, full of board wipes & disruption.
If I do some etb hate I could run torpor orb effects and a phyrexian dreadnought for snapdax too, but that seems more like assembling a combo since it needs multiple parts.
I've already started a list but would love to see/hear if anyone else has considered this approach?
I've gone over the rules and also the previous thread here, but I didn't see any comments on what happens if a temporary mutated creature is animated as a creature on a later turn.
For all context in my questions, snapdax is only being used to give double-strike to the animated creatures, thus always "under" the lavaclaw reaches, never actually being the face "top" creature. According to the rules, the mutated outcome would still be considered my commander for commander damage.
Now for the question - what happens after the turn ends? What I've read says the permanent keeps the mutated properties, but if snapdax is "under" then lavaclaw reaches would stop being a creature.
Most importantly - would I be able to re-animate the lavaclaw reaches and would it still be considered mutated, with double-strike, and my commander?
I have three 5-color decks and would never add coalition victory. Sure my mana in the decks is perfect for the card, but I would have to force myself to include duplicate 5-color creatures next to my general. And if I ever did display a coalition victory win then it's just another approach of the second sun effect where everyone is aware of it's presence and then gangs up on you. Your commander would be kill-on-site, and you make yourself the auto-target for random strip mine effects at all points in the game, which is awful for 5-color to deal with. If you include combo enablers like dryad of the ilysian grove/prismatic omen and chromanticore/transguild courier then building around coalition victory is no longer just an "I-win" card, it's a combo taking multiple dedicated slots in the 99.
I may not be remembering this correctly, but one of the primary reasons braids & erayo were banned was due to complications with multiple ban-lists for MtGO.
I've also gone on many rants about paradox engine already. Yes it's strong, but there were better options to ban for "unfun" situations. PE was one of the few enablers for tap-matters generals, and banning it took a large chunk of creativity and fun away from exploring commanders with tap abilities. The banning of PE opposed to so many other better options was what really shook my primary metas trust and faith in the committee, and was the spark that drove us to house-rules.
When I tested Thassa I piled in a compliment of artifact tutors and etb value and often times just wanted to keep flickering solemn simulacrum. I also ran tezzeret in my list and all-too-frequently would just -4 him for solemn to set up for late game control.
It's 2020. We live in an EDH world where God-Eternal Kefnet infinite turns exists - a near cEDH quality deck that can easily be made obnoxiously consistent and oppressive even when built on a budget since it only requires two expensive cards for the combo to function (JtMS & scroll rack).
There is no current good reason for the mirror to remain banned. There are a number of cards on the banlist that shouldn't be in this day & age (braids, cabal minion when Urza stax is far more oppressive, Coalition Victory which fails to multiple types of targeted removal, Erayo, Soratami Ascendant when stasis & winter orbs are easier to work with, Lutri, the Spellchaser as a commander or in the 99, paradox engine when dramatic scepter is quicker and more powerful)
edit; just to clarify - I'm not for adding cards to the banlist. IMO it should be as small a list as possible.
Hello, and welcome to my more recent experiment! I've been playing and testing this deck for about three months now, and while testing is slow currently, I've continued playing it via zoom. Here I've come up with a combination of various aftermath, flashback, dredge, and various returning cards all able to offset Malfegors hand drop, but more importantly that are all very playable in earlier stages of the game and are not completely crippled by graveyard hate.
The goal of this deck is to operate fully without a hand. Malfegor is a very strong commander sitting in the command zone, suggesting a looming board-wipe to all of your opponents, often times influencing them to not over-commit. In this deck, we don't actually want to rush Malfegor out, but instead play out our recurring resource engines and conservatively play out cards from hand that we can then reuse from the 'yard, focusing more on graveyard antics over in-hand card disadvantage.
I am aware that there are strictly better commanders that do similar effects to malfegor, but I'm choosing to explore and optimize our DemonDragon to his fullest potential.
This is also an utterly average deck in power-level - nothing oppressive, nothing too quick, just a fairly casual deck made for late-game plays.
The primary win-condition in the deck is an eventual flashback of Ribbons using Cabal Coffers mana. Devil's Play and Flaming Gambit can be used similarly against one opponent. Past this our goal is to beat down with a handful of larger creatures, being ours or our opponents from Reanimate/Sepulchral Primordial.
Dragon Breath and Dragon Shadow are some of the most ghetto/classic Malfegor cards I've enjoyed running in the past. Unlike the Sluggishness/Rancor return clause, these two enchantments will continue popping back to play every time Malfegor or another large body hits. Dragon Shadow notably makes our commander a 3-turn clock with a little more evasion, and Dragon Breath can make for an even faster clock. We want to cast these earlier in the game on our own dorks so they may end up in the graveyard by the time Malfegor comes to play. Also do note that we can play political games as these can also be returned on to an opponents large creature.
Some unearth cards were tested, but none were found to be good enough.
Years ago, my attempts at Malfegor ran cards like Past in Flames or even Mizzix's Mastery, but as new cards become available, these are just no longer needed. Recoup was one of the last cuts, and newer alternative threats like Backdraft Hellkite are included as it can simply be an early attacker.
Cards like Outpost Siege and Prophetic Flamespeaker are very good, but not nearly as good as direct to-hand draw from what black offers in Phyrexian Arena/Bloodgift Demon/Underworld Connections. It's tempting to load up on the top-exile effect, but typically one needs to consider the %chance the exiled card is actually playable. In our deck we have a large compliment of fairly useful utility cards, but oddly do have a slightly lower %chance to see playable cards. The deck wins by amassing a large toolbox available to use, not by shooting off every available card. Only Stromkirk Occultist and Ignite the Future have remained in this deck.
While some card advantage like Phyrexian Arena is obvious, a card like Dead Man's Chest is a source for potentially large card advantage. With this card in-hand we often want to sandbag our Malfegor for as long as possible until a nice juicy target becomes available.
Self-mill was tested, but seemed like running it was just making this a weaker spell-slinger/Mizzix's Mastery deck. Many dredge cards have also been tested, but without a focused reanimation strategy, only the best utility ones have remained (Stinkweed Imp, Dakmor Salvage and the new Shenanigans).
This deck does struggle against three things;
1 - sustained graveyard hate (rest in peace/leyline) - the deck has been tuned to function without the 'yard as most cards are still normally playable, but graveyard-centric cards tend to be overcosted, and there are a number of cards that do nothing without a graveyard.
2 - opponents with zero creatures or too many creatures - the deck is designed to use malfegor as a looming board wipe and play off opponents plays of commitment. If an opponents win-con doesn't include creatures, or if they go wide with 10+ tokens, the core parts of this decks strategy fail.
3 - generic rakdos concerns - primarily enchantments.
Changes:
April 2020
~ Removed flaming gambit for azra oddsmaker, 3rd x-burn spell which was the worst of them all, required the opponent to not have a creature, replaced with semi-card advantage and a situational discard outlet.
~ Removed Strands of Night for Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger - highly costed reanimation ability is great from my childhood, but often times the deck runs in to too many raise dead or reanimate effects when there isn't anything to target yet. Kroxa seems like a reasonable tool.
~ Removed Insult / Injury[/c[ for Chainer's Edict - a bad shock from the graveyard replaced by a overcosted edict. Chainer's Edict has been in & out of so many of my madness decks - it's typically one of the go-to-swap cards for testing.
~ Removed Revive the Fallen for Morgue Theft - Similar to chainer's edict, morgue theft has been in & out multiple times, often cut due to the excessively high flashback mana cost. When seeing the deck actually play out, Revive the Fallen is better in late game when holding cards for multiple malfegor casts, but clash is such a whimsical mechanic. I may put this back after the quarantine issue is over as this is just difficult to play out over zoom.
~ Yawtmmoth's Will - an extremely expensive card. While it may not seem necessary to run it in a deck already full of aftermath & flashback, Yawgmoth's Will does reduce the cost of casting most flashback cards since it takes their original mana requirement, and would also allow for late-game large replays of bulk permanents. If you can afford it, plug it in.
~ Memory Jar is a source of possible cards for a turn, even offering the chance to enable madness at the end of that turn, but is financially expensive and may end up just being a card played-out only to be destroyed before it can be used to it's best potential.
I do run over 30 EDH decks, and simply can't afford to crush all available fetch lands in every deck. This deck does run Crucible of Worlds, although there are only 5 budget fetch lands.
Retrace sounds like the dream mechanic here, but unfortunately there are not many on-color playable ones for what our deck is trying to do. Throes of Chaos is really the only one that stands out, but is more of a fun casual storm card.
Both of my major groups and other local friends I've talked with have all agreed that it's a forgettable mechanic and the legendary creatures should just be used as a commander instead of card #101.
I do forsee possible unhappy game politics when different metas collide although - where someone with a companion that ends up being fairly consistently useful to an obnoxious degree starts playing with us, and we all view it as a semi-cheat since we don't use the mechanic.
That's the cost of our group coming to a landslide agreement but still willing to play with outsiders. It's happened before and it will continue to happen as long as r&d devise cool new mechanics that were not intended for commander.
I love this idea, but from experience I've found it hard to keep all of the decks running smoothly and updated. If any single deck starts to feel stagnant or too weak to play, then you may be inclined to dismantle the deck, ignore updating/improving, or just leave it forgotten. Because of this I would be inclined to suggest either very fun commanders that lend themselves to chaotic & enjoyable games, or stronger decks with a higher win-rate.
Last time I did this, the white deck was my weakest link and the inevitable reason it all came down. I have a passion for the Akroma's and refused to run anything other than Akroma, Angel of Wrath, even tho the friends I was playing with at the time made running the deck always a guaranteed loss.
After talking with my two major groups, we have all decided that the companion mechanic is basically forgettable. We are all considering these new companion cards as just another possible legendary to pick as a commander only. We will be ignoring the fact that Lutri is banned because in our group it could serve as a commander.
None of us actually like the idea behind the companion mechanic and we are all just going to ignore it.
I have an all Russian Izzet watermark deck I play on drinking nights, with the goal of getting completely trashed due to the "rules" the deck has when playing. Even tho the deck is horrendously underpowered, in my mind I'm still winning every time I play it
I don't have the original list saved but I also had a deck built when Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge first came out designed to make as many unique exile piles as possible, using cards like Pyxis of Pandemonium and Praetor's Grasp, just to clutter up the table and irritate all of the opponents. I'm sure this one could be updated with newer goodies like Gonti.
When I first started getting in to edh Jenara, Asura of War was a common commander amongst friends and the two local shops near me, but now I can hardly think of the last time I've seen her.
I think for her time she was terrifying - an amazing control commander that would come out fast, and if the player didn't need to counter or answer something they just grew their commander at eot. But now-a-days I suppose control players and bant players just have better options.
I ran a white border grixis deck a few years ago (video) that is similar to what your describing here. The biggest issue is, the older the cards you pull from, the weaker the creature options you have. In my deck for example something like blaze was the best wincon.
The second biggest issue you will run in to will be your mana. You will get a handful of non-basics to work with, but the lack of good fixing will be noticeable, so be careful with how many double/triple pip' cards you include. I ran necropotence but recall multiple games where I just couldn't resolve it due to my lands.
You will have way more options in your cardpool than I did, so can try a creature based combo like pali, but there isn't too many creature combo interactions that can help win a multiplayer game from a pre-modern cardpool. Like you have access to hermit druid/breakfast lines, but none of the payoff wincons.
I think you may be better off with that empower artifact/monolith combo, along with some x-spells set to your color. While this may be the more optimal route, it will suck to build on price as a few cards that dramatically increase consistancy are pretty expensive (empower artifact/transmute artifact/imperial seal/yawgmoth's will).
Esper would be the ideal color combination for all those older cards to tutor up combo parts and stroke of genius yourself to win with some mana-sink.
Grixis would be better if you just needed more creature removal, or you needed more fireball or blaze wincon cards.
I have a fairly outdated deck here that has a basic structure, which was originally themed similar to what you're interested in. Cards like sadistic sacrament can be cast from under Jeleva and you can actually pay the kicker for the additional effect. I used to run cards like lord of the void since the deck had a pile of haste enablers for Jeleva, and remember a few fun games where I was able to resolve a rite of replication on the lord, which really tends to perturb opponents.
An even more enjoyable alternate win-con is to simply sacrifice & recast jeleva multiple times using cards like ashnod's altar. Her exile effect grows with every resolution, and if you've cast + resolved her 7 times in the same game then she would have exiled a total of 70 cards from all players. This should be enough to mill everyone out by that stage of the game, so you can just pass turn and let everyone draw-death.
A word of warning tho - people tend to hate Jeleva due to how the games always play out. People hate exile-piling for you, and once you end up having to remind them it's all down-hill from there.
My problem is not with the companion mechanic. I'm all for exploring new mechanics.
My problem is with how they handled Lutri.
I'm an advocate for shrinking the banlist and giving the format cards like Braids, Cabal Minion/Panoptic Mirror/Coalition Victory/Iona, Shield of Emeria/Paradox Engine/Erayo, Soratami Ascendant to work with. IMO none of these cards should be banned.
Lutri shouldn't be banned as an optional commander or 99 inclusion. There is zero logical reason why Lutri can't be a commander when Naru Meha, Master Wizard exists. Not defining a use-as-commander vs in-99-specific banlist is getting absurd, because there absolutely is zero reason why Lutri can't be played in the 99.
And really, the currently available companions are not adding too much to the format. Drastically limiting card selection by forcing odd/even only cmc, for a situational furnace of rath that dies to creature removal, or a really bad gamble at a situational reanimation spell? A simic draw spell that means you can't play staples like farseek and sakura-tribe elder? A 5-cmc mana-dork strictly worse than prismatic geoscope?
If any would be banned then obviously it should be yorion, sky nomad, because it's pre-requesits just can't happen.
Lurrus and maybe zirda/keruga have potential, but honestly these cards are just not very helpful for deck creation in this format.
So after considering all this, IMO the easiest fix is simple. Just disable the companion mechanic in EDH.
In short, according to current rules at the time of this thread, it's possible to put Snapdax "under" an animated object like lavaclaw reaches, to have a 2/2 doublestrike kinda-firebreathing commander, that would be immune to sorcery speed creature removal, and can be activated as the same creature (still known to be commander) for later turns.
While this doesn't seem incredibly powerful, a hard-to-remove double strike commander isn't something to ignore, so now I'm looking to make a deck around this.
Here are some cards I've found that may be playable, some more than others;
1x Aradara Express
1x Chimeric Mass
1x Darksteel Brute
1x Demolition Stomper
1x Ensouled Scimitar
1x Fleetwheel Cruiser
1x Foriysian Totem
1x Glint Hawk Idol
1x Guardian Idol
1x Haunted Plate Mail
1x Heart of Kiran
1x Kolaghan Monument
1x Mirage Mirror
1x Mirror of the Forebears
1x Mizzium Tank
1x Orzhov Keyrune
1x Parhelion II
1x Phyrexian Totem
1x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
1x Smuggler's Copter
1x Thunder Totem
1x Dread Statuary
1x Inkmoth Nexus
1x Lavaclaw Reaches
1x Mishra's Factory
1x Shambling Vent
1x Spawning Pool
Planeswalkers (1)
1x Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker
Enchantments (1)
1x Genju of the Fens
1x Genju of the Spires
There are many other worse options (strictly worse vehicles, cards like Daxos's Torment, useless effects like ghitu encampemnt). Also some of the best cards don't work with mutate (gideon & mutavault being humans).
Being a dega deck the colors we would have to work with, and this somewhat sneaky attack strategy, leans to a low-cmc control heavy deck, full of board wipes & disruption.
If I do some etb hate I could run torpor orb effects and a phyrexian dreadnought for snapdax too, but that seems more like assembling a combo since it needs multiple parts.
I've already started a list but would love to see/hear if anyone else has considered this approach?
For example I'm considering a snapdax, apex of the hunt commander deck built around sticking it on man-lands such as lavaclaw reaches or other temporary things such as orzhov keyrune and haunted plate mail.
For all context in my questions, snapdax is only being used to give double-strike to the animated creatures, thus always "under" the lavaclaw reaches, never actually being the face "top" creature. According to the rules, the mutated outcome would still be considered my commander for commander damage.
Now for the question - what happens after the turn ends? What I've read says the permanent keeps the mutated properties, but if snapdax is "under" then lavaclaw reaches would stop being a creature.
Most importantly - would I be able to re-animate the lavaclaw reaches and would it still be considered mutated, with double-strike, and my commander?
I have three 5-color decks and would never add coalition victory. Sure my mana in the decks is perfect for the card, but I would have to force myself to include duplicate 5-color creatures next to my general. And if I ever did display a coalition victory win then it's just another approach of the second sun effect where everyone is aware of it's presence and then gangs up on you. Your commander would be kill-on-site, and you make yourself the auto-target for random strip mine effects at all points in the game, which is awful for 5-color to deal with. If you include combo enablers like dryad of the ilysian grove/prismatic omen and chromanticore/transguild courier then building around coalition victory is no longer just an "I-win" card, it's a combo taking multiple dedicated slots in the 99.
TLDR - a half good approach of the second sun deck will function far above a very good coalition victory deck.
I may not be remembering this correctly, but one of the primary reasons braids & erayo were banned was due to complications with multiple ban-lists for MtGO.
I've also gone on many rants about paradox engine already. Yes it's strong, but there were better options to ban for "unfun" situations. PE was one of the few enablers for tap-matters generals, and banning it took a large chunk of creativity and fun away from exploring commanders with tap abilities. The banning of PE opposed to so many other better options was what really shook my primary metas trust and faith in the committee, and was the spark that drove us to house-rules.
When I tested Thassa I piled in a compliment of artifact tutors and etb value and often times just wanted to keep flickering solemn simulacrum. I also ran tezzeret in my list and all-too-frequently would just -4 him for solemn to set up for late game control.
There is no current good reason for the mirror to remain banned. There are a number of cards on the banlist that shouldn't be in this day & age (braids, cabal minion when Urza stax is far more oppressive, Coalition Victory which fails to multiple types of targeted removal, Erayo, Soratami Ascendant when stasis & winter orbs are easier to work with, Lutri, the Spellchaser as a commander or in the 99, paradox engine when dramatic scepter is quicker and more powerful)
edit; just to clarify - I'm not for adding cards to the banlist. IMO it should be as small a list as possible.
The goal of this deck is to operate fully without a hand. Malfegor is a very strong commander sitting in the command zone, suggesting a looming board-wipe to all of your opponents, often times influencing them to not over-commit. In this deck, we don't actually want to rush Malfegor out, but instead play out our recurring resource engines and conservatively play out cards from hand that we can then reuse from the 'yard, focusing more on graveyard antics over in-hand card disadvantage.
I am aware that there are strictly better commanders that do similar effects to malfegor, but I'm choosing to explore and optimize our DemonDragon to his fullest potential.
This is also an utterly average deck in power-level - nothing oppressive, nothing too quick, just a fairly casual deck made for late-game plays.
1x Malfegor
Creature (20)
1x Azra Oddsmaker
1x Bloodgift Demon
1x Burnished Hart
1x Disciple of Bolas
1x Dockside Extortionist
1x Erebos, God of the Dead
1x Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1x Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
1x Magma Phoenix
1x Magus of the Wheel
1x Merchant of the Vale
1x Order of Midnight
1x Ox of Agonas
1x Phoenix of Ash
1x Runehorn Hellkite
1x Sepulchral Primordial
1x Shard Phoenix
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Soul of Innistrad
1x Stinkweed Imp
Sorcery (18)
1x Army of the Damned
1x Call to the Netherworld
1x Chainer's Edict
1x Cut / Ribbons
1x Damnation
1x Devil's Play
1x Dread Return
1x Faithless Looting
1x Ignite the Future
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Increasing Ambition
1x Morgue Theft
1x Never / Return
1x Reanimate
1x Seize the Day
1x Sever the Bloodline
1x Shenanigans
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Dead Man's Chest
1x Dragon Breath
1x Dragon Shadow
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Phyrexian Reclamation
1x Underworld Connections
Planeswalker (2)
1x Chandra Ablaze
1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
Artifact (16)
1x Charcoal Diamond
1x Commander's Sphere
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Fire Diamond
1x Hedron Archive
1x Journeyer's Kite
1x Mind Stone
1x Rakdos Cluestone
1x Rakdos Locket
1x Rakdos Signet
1x Sol Ring
1x Talisman of Indulgence
1x Thaumatic Compass Flip
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Whip of Erebos
Land (37)
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Canyon Slough
1x Command Tower
1x Dakmor Salvage
1x Dormant Volcano
1x Dragonskull Summit
1x Drownyard Temple
1x Everglades
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Graven Cairns
1x Lavaclaw Reaches
1x Luxury Suite
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Rakdos Carnarium
1x Rocky Tar Pit
1x Smoldering Marsh
6x Snow-Covered Mountain
6x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Sulfurous Springs
1x Tainted Peak
1x Temple of Malice
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Converted Mana Cost
0 cmc = 37 (lands)
1 cmc = 8
2 cmc = 16
3 cmc = 13
4 cmc = 14
5 cmc = 5
6 cmc = 4
7 cmc = 2
8 cmc = 1
Notes on cards included & excluded;
The primary win-condition in the deck is an eventual flashback of Ribbons using Cabal Coffers mana. Devil's Play and
Flaming Gambitcan be used similarly against one opponent. Past this our goal is to beat down with a handful of larger creatures, being ours or our opponents from Reanimate/Sepulchral Primordial.Dragon Breath and Dragon Shadow are some of the most ghetto/classic Malfegor cards I've enjoyed running in the past. Unlike the Sluggishness/Rancor return clause, these two enchantments will continue popping back to play every time Malfegor or another large body hits. Dragon Shadow notably makes our commander a 3-turn clock with a little more evasion, and Dragon Breath can make for an even faster clock. We want to cast these earlier in the game on our own dorks so they may end up in the graveyard by the time Malfegor comes to play. Also do note that we can play political games as these can also be returned on to an opponents large creature.
Some unearth cards were tested, but none were found to be good enough.
Years ago, my attempts at Malfegor ran cards like Past in Flames or even Mizzix's Mastery, but as new cards become available, these are just no longer needed. Recoup was one of the last cuts, and newer alternative threats like Backdraft Hellkite are included as it can simply be an early attacker.
Cards like Outpost Siege and Prophetic Flamespeaker are very good, but not nearly as good as direct to-hand draw from what black offers in Phyrexian Arena/Bloodgift Demon/Underworld Connections. It's tempting to load up on the top-exile effect, but typically one needs to consider the %chance the exiled card is actually playable. In our deck we have a large compliment of fairly useful utility cards, but oddly do have a slightly lower %chance to see playable cards. The deck wins by amassing a large toolbox available to use, not by shooting off every available card. Only Stromkirk Occultist and Ignite the Future have remained in this deck.
While some card advantage like Phyrexian Arena is obvious, a card like Dead Man's Chest is a source for potentially large card advantage. With this card in-hand we often want to sandbag our Malfegor for as long as possible until a nice juicy target becomes available.
Self-mill was tested, but seemed like running it was just making this a weaker spell-slinger/Mizzix's Mastery deck. Many dredge cards have also been tested, but without a focused reanimation strategy, only the best utility ones have remained (Stinkweed Imp, Dakmor Salvage and the new Shenanigans).
Instead of all optimal mana-rocks like Gilded Lotus and whatnot, we are running Mind Stone/Commander's Sphere/Rakdos Locket/Rakdos Cluestone/Hedron Archive to act as cash-in-later effects.
It's also important to stress why to-hand card advantage is very important, as we are compiling cards like Phyrexian Arena along with Thaumatic Compass, Journeyer's Kite, and even all 3 karoo lands in Rakdos Carnarium/Everglades/Dormant Volcano. This is for the inevitability of casting Malfegor multiple times.
What this deck struggles with;
This deck does struggle against three things;
1 - sustained graveyard hate (rest in peace/leyline) - the deck has been tuned to function without the 'yard as most cards are still normally playable, but graveyard-centric cards tend to be overcosted, and there are a number of cards that do nothing without a graveyard.
2 - opponents with zero creatures or too many creatures - the deck is designed to use malfegor as a looming board wipe and play off opponents plays of commitment. If an opponents win-con doesn't include creatures, or if they go wide with 10+ tokens, the core parts of this decks strategy fail.
3 - generic rakdos concerns - primarily enchantments.
Changes:
April 2020
~ Removed flaming gambit for azra oddsmaker, 3rd x-burn spell which was the worst of them all, required the opponent to not have a creature, replaced with semi-card advantage and a situational discard outlet.
~ Removed Strands of Night for Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger - highly costed reanimation ability is great from my childhood, but often times the deck runs in to too many raise dead or reanimate effects when there isn't anything to target yet. Kroxa seems like a reasonable tool.
~ Removed Insult / Injury[/c[ for Chainer's Edict - a bad shock from the graveyard replaced by a overcosted edict. Chainer's Edict has been in & out of so many of my madness decks - it's typically one of the go-to-swap cards for testing.
~ Removed Revive the Fallen for Morgue Theft - Similar to chainer's edict, morgue theft has been in & out multiple times, often cut due to the excessively high flashback mana cost. When seeing the deck actually play out, Revive the Fallen is better in late game when holding cards for multiple malfegor casts, but clash is such a whimsical mechanic. I may put this back after the quarantine issue is over as this is just difficult to play out over zoom.
May 20 2020
~ Removed Lantern-Lit Graveyard, Stromkirk Occultist, Backdraft Hellkite, Magus of the Will, and Sensei's Divining Top, added Order of Midnight, Merchant of the Vale, Ox of Agonas, Phoenix of Ash, and Phyrexian Tower for testing
Untested or budget considerations;
~ Awaken the Erstwhile & Fraying Omnipotence are similar to the mutual-hand-hate like ill-gotten gains and chandra ablaze. I may explore these. I have also been considering taking this more towards a death cloud win-con approach.
~ Yawtmmoth's Will - an extremely expensive card. While it may not seem necessary to run it in a deck already full of aftermath & flashback, Yawgmoth's Will does reduce the cost of casting most flashback cards since it takes their original mana requirement, and would also allow for late-game large replays of bulk permanents. If you can afford it, plug it in.
~ Memory Jar is a source of possible cards for a turn, even offering the chance to enable madness at the end of that turn, but is financially expensive and may end up just being a card played-out only to be destroyed before it can be used to it's best potential.
I do run over 30 EDH decks, and simply can't afford to crush all available fetch lands in every deck. This deck does run Crucible of Worlds, although there are only 5 budget fetch lands.
Retrace sounds like the dream mechanic here, but unfortunately there are not many on-color playable ones for what our deck is trying to do. Throes of Chaos is really the only one that stands out, but is more of a fun casual storm card.
Some adventure cards seem interesting, since I can cast from-hand and have access to them after I dump from Malfegor. I'll soon give Order of Midnight, Merchant of the Vale, Murderous Rider, and Bonecrusher Giant some play.
Some jump-start cards like Risk Factor may be tested, but as above there do not seem to be EDH-quality playable ones to play here.
Escape is a newer mechanic, and cards like Cling to Dust and Ox of Agonas may be tested for more late-game effects.
Still need another Thawing Glaciers for this deck, may replace the bad karoo's with more basics if I pick it up.
As always, thoughts suggestions & opinions are all welcome!
I do forsee possible unhappy game politics when different metas collide although - where someone with a companion that ends up being fairly consistently useful to an obnoxious degree starts playing with us, and we all view it as a semi-cheat since we don't use the mechanic.
That's the cost of our group coming to a landslide agreement but still willing to play with outsiders. It's happened before and it will continue to happen as long as r&d devise cool new mechanics that were not intended for commander.
For fun decks I'd suggest Etali, Primal Storm & Gonti, Lord of Luxury. For stronger decks with a higher win% I'd suggest Purphoros, God of the Forge or Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion in red, and K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician in black.
Last time I did this, the white deck was my weakest link and the inevitable reason it all came down. I have a passion for the Akroma's and refused to run anything other than Akroma, Angel of Wrath, even tho the friends I was playing with at the time made running the deck always a guaranteed loss.
None of us actually like the idea behind the companion mechanic and we are all just going to ignore it.
I don't have the original list saved but I also had a deck built when Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge first came out designed to make as many unique exile piles as possible, using cards like Pyxis of Pandemonium and Praetor's Grasp, just to clutter up the table and irritate all of the opponents. I'm sure this one could be updated with newer goodies like Gonti.
I think for her time she was terrifying - an amazing control commander that would come out fast, and if the player didn't need to counter or answer something they just grew their commander at eot. But now-a-days I suppose control players and bant players just have better options.
The second biggest issue you will run in to will be your mana. You will get a handful of non-basics to work with, but the lack of good fixing will be noticeable, so be careful with how many double/triple pip' cards you include. I ran necropotence but recall multiple games where I just couldn't resolve it due to my lands.
You will have way more options in your cardpool than I did, so can try a creature based combo like pali, but there isn't too many creature combo interactions that can help win a multiplayer game from a pre-modern cardpool. Like you have access to hermit druid/breakfast lines, but none of the payoff wincons.
I think you may be better off with that empower artifact/monolith combo, along with some x-spells set to your color. While this may be the more optimal route, it will suck to build on price as a few cards that dramatically increase consistancy are pretty expensive (empower artifact/transmute artifact/imperial seal/yawgmoth's will).
Esper would be the ideal color combination for all those older cards to tutor up combo parts and stroke of genius yourself to win with some mana-sink.
Grixis would be better if you just needed more creature removal, or you needed more fireball or blaze wincon cards.