Kroxa - cEDH (EDH / Commander)

PRIMER:

This deck is a midrange version of Kroxa which aims to strip your opponents hands early while accumulating value off cards like Waste Not and Geth's Grimoire, effectively allowing you to get ahead whilst your opponents are slowed down. This deck version double downs on the Worldgorger Dragon combo as opposed to running various win conditions by running strong stacks pieces and powerful creatures which allow you to nullify your opponents win conditions and build a strong board state into the mid game. This deck could easily be turned into a turbo Ad Nauseum deck but we already have Insidious Dreams and Final Parting which are our main mana ramp targets. I may consider playing Ad Nauseum turbo at some point instead and taking out Vilis and putting in Dualcaster Mage + Twinflame as an alternate win condition.

24/04/21 - I have been playing Tymna, the Weaver and Jeska, Thrice Born and these commanders are a far superior shell for Ad Nauseum which further convinces me to build Kroxa as a midrange deck.

The main combo in this deck is assembling Worldgorger Dragon with Animate Dead / Dance of the Dead or Necromancy and then sinking all that mana into Kroxa, Titan of Death's hunger to kill all your opponents. There are many tutors to assemble this combo and you can cast it at instant speed with Necromancy when Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger is already in play for infinite flickers of Kroxa (just make sure you stack the ETB triggers correctly). However, I would like to point out that this is a DANGEROUS combo. Let us assume that you have Worldgorger Dragon in the graveyard and cast Animate Dead. No one counters animate dead and Worldgorger Dragon enters the battlefield. At this point Worldgorger's ETB is on the stack and someone casts Terminate, this will cause the stack triggers to happen in the following order - Terminate's effect goes off and Worldgorger Dragon is sent to the graveyard; Worldgorger Dragon leave the battlefield trigger goes off and it tries to return all your cards in exile to the battlefield (you won't have any cards in exile); then finally Worldgorger Dragon ETB goes off and he will exile your entire board (not good). Therefore, it is important that you have somewhat emptied your opponents' hands before you go for this combo.

Notable card explanations given below as well as some combo lines:

Creatures:
Skirk Prospector - serves as quick ramp and also allows you to sacrifice dockside so you can later reanimate him for extra value
Blood Pet - quick ramp
Dark Confidant/Azra Oddsmaker/Mindblade Render - card advantage
Opposition Agent - no explanation needed
Magus of the Moon - Excellent stacks piece
Sire of Insanity - good reanimate target for your discard cards like Tormenting Voice, Thrill of Possibility and Buried Alive
Vilis, Broker of Blood - Excellent reanimate option which can help you storm off and win; combos well with Plunge into Darkness, Necropotence etc.
Tinybones, Trinket Thief - Combos excellently with Oppression and gains you value off Kroxa and other discard effects; almost like a creature version of Waste Not

Instants:
Culling the Weak - great for ramping into Insidious Dreams and Final Parting; you can sacrifice Kroxa by stacking his ETB effects correctly and casting cull before he sacrifices himself

Gaining value with discard:
1 - Waste not or Greth's Grimoire in play
2 - Cast Kroxa and use your cheap discard/reanimate spells including Unearth, Claim // Fame, Vicious Rumours to gain value
3 - Oppression will gain you value throughout your opponents turn with either Waste Not or Geth's Grimoire
4 - Chains can be quite confusing as it seems to hurt you as well, but keep in mind that if you have at least one card in hand then each time your opponents are discarding this allows you to sift through your deck for your Worldgorger Dragon setup; basically you want to eventually dump Worldgorger and hang onto a reanimate effect when it comes round to your turn

Insidious Dream stacks (cast dreams on your end step and note that there are many more possible stacks depending on your hand, graveyard and the board state):

Worldgorger #01 - requires 3 discards and 4 mana available on turn:
1 - Ransack the Lab
2 - Worldgorger Dragon
3 - Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead
--> reanimate and win the game

Worldgorger #02 - requires 3 discards, 3 mana available on turn and 1 card in hand:
1 - Faithless looting
2 - Worldgorger Dragon
3 - Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead
--> reanimate and win the game

Vilis, Broker of Blood #01 - requires 3 discards and 3 mana available on turn:
1 - Ransack the Lab
2 - Reanimate
3 - Vilis, Broker of Blood
--> reanimate and draw 8 cards --> storm off

Vilis, Broker of Blood #02 - requires 3 discards and 2 mana available on turn and 1 card left in hand:
1 - Faithless looting
2 - Reanimate
3 - Vilis, Broker of Blood
--> reanimate and draw 8 cards --> storm off

Underworld Breach Loop - requires 4 discards, 4 mana available and 1 card left in hand:
1 - Ransack the lab
2 - Underworld Breach
3 - Lion's Eye Diamond
4 - Wheel of Fortune
--> Keep Underworld Breach and get the wheel going, what you are trying to do here is find Chains of Mephistopheles (cast it so that your opponents have no hands next time you wheel) and to dump your Worldgorger combo into the graveyard