Horobi (EDH / Commander)

Overview

Keep the board clear of opposing creatures and whittle your opponents down.

Strategy

There are a number of cards that can efficiently target enemy creatures so that [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] can kill them. There are three main attributes to a card that can target enemy creatures:

• Mana investment
• Number of targets
• Repeatability

Each card can shine in different situations. For example, [[Squee's Toy]] can only target 1 creature per turn, but it costs no mana to do so. [[Touch of Darkness]] can target any number of creatures, but it can only be used once. [[Tetzimoc, Primal Death]] can target many creatures per turn, but it costs more mana. Despite the fact that some targeting cards are more or less useful than others, it's good to have a mix. The cards in this deck are among the most efficient or best in their class for the attributes listed above.

No matter what targeting card is used, the goal is to control the battlefield by essentially locking out your opponents from playing any meaningful creatures. For example, [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] with [[Cauldron of Souls]] basically locks everyone out of playing creatures until they can get rid of one of the two pieces.

Speaking of getting rid of [[Horobi, Death's Wail]], it dies to a stiff breeze. This is why it's important to make sure not to play [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] until you have a way to use it. You should not be casting [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] with no leftover mana and no way to target anything. Wait a couple more turns until you can pull off a devastating combo or get a few activations from something like [[Retribution of the Ancients]].

Winning

The main methods of winning the game are

• Reanimating big stuff that was killed by [[Horobi, Death's Wail]]
• Draining opponents with [[Exsangunate]], extort, [[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]], and other similar effects
• [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] beatdown

If nobody else can attack or block because their creatures don't stick on the battlefield, then it's kind of trivial to win at that point.

Combo
Besides just comboing [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] with a targeting card, there is one other specific combo in the deck. [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] forms a loop with [[Shadow Alley Denizen]] and [[Orge Slumlord]] to infinitely kill all opposing creatures. The loop can be ended by targeting one of the rats with the final [[Shadow Alley Denizen]] trigger. There are a couple other cards that do similar tricks ([[Orc Sureshot]] and [[Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet]]), but they aren't in the deck because this combo isn't all that necessary.

Individual Card Notes

• [[Arcane Lighthouse]] and [[Detection Tower]] can help get around hexproof/shroud when necessary.
• [[Basilisk Gate]], [[Desert]], [[Shizo, Death's Storehouse]], [[The Black Gate]], [[Tower of the Magistrate]], and [[Urborg]] are lands that can target creatures.
• In case it's not obvious, abilities of cards like [[Hex Parasite]], [[Retribution of the Ancients]], and [[Grim Hierling]] can be activated for X = 0 to target creatures.
• [[Gift of Doom]] is sweet because when it is unmorphed, it can be attached to [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] without targeting anything. This is one of the only ways to actually protect [[Horobi, Death's Wail]] from dying, since it can almost never be equipped by anything directly or saved with a reactive spell.