Call of the void (EDH / Commander)

The first thing you might notice might be the commander, the fact it’s five colors or the relatively low price tag. That was not the intent, but is a consequence of the construction process.

The deck was created with the intent of both creating a five-color deck, and using no “Staples” of the commander format. It was made shortly before the release of Battlebond, and slightly tweaked since, but no major changes has been made, Kaya and Game Plan being the two big additions.

So, let’s start with the commander… O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami was chosen because he is one of the least played five colors commanders. In fact, according to EDHREC’s data, he’s the third to last official five color commander, only better than Atogatog and Sliver Legion. As both of those are clearly aimed at something, and I wanted the theme of the deck to be somewhat original, O-Kagachi it was. Now, O-Kagachi is used by most as the commander of Spirit tribal for people that want to use all five colors, but as I said before, I was trying to be somewhat original here.

So, I focused on a specific part of his ability… The fact that he exiles. In fact, he’s the only five-colored commander that exiles anything, and as such is the better suited for an exile-focused deck. From there, my mind leaped to some very specific exile cards, the processors from Battle for Zendikar, bringing back exiled cards of your opponent’s to get effects. Around them, the deck grew a colorless/eldrazi/devoid subtheme, and has some really powerful interactions. A parallax wave with a processor is very powerful, and a parallax tide is just mean. In addition to that, our removal very largely exiles, which happens to shut down more than a few strategies and graveyard shenanigans from our opponents.

Overall, the deck is not the most powerful thing out there by far, but it is very unique and I have never seen anyone else using this deck. Every time I used it in a new playgroup I got asked questions about what exactly was that? Now, for a few specific elements…

The Manabase and fixing
A five color deck using no staples still needs a manabase that allows it to actually cast spells. Due to our restrictions, this was particularly rough. We have more lands, more ramp, more card draw, and some dedicated mana fixing slots to help us get there. For nonbasics, we trade a lot of speed for consistency. We’re playing the old Lairs, all the variants of shimmering grotto and the slow fetches to allow us some kind of fixing in the manabase… And talking about those… Let’s talk about the exceptions.

The ‘Staples’ that slipped through
You know what? Building a deck from scraps lying around is hard. And I am a dirty cheater. This deck is playing some Staples (your definition may vary). It is playing the Amonkhet Cycle of Bi-Cycle lands because it really, really needs typed duals to be somewhat consistent thanks to the slow fetches and the typed-searching fixing. It is playing Grand Coliseum despite it being fairly played, and the slow fetches themself see play in more than one deck.

It is also true that Ashiok, Sire of Stagnation and Oblivion Sower see play in a lot of decks, but they fit the theme to a t, are very good and still aren’t anywhere near what I would call ‘staples’. There’s a few other cards that see some play in a deck or another, but I don’t think I’ve betrayed the spirit of the building exercise.

Winning
Winning is slow and definitely not a given. There’s no dedicated combo to win the game or particularly powerful win-con. Never underestimate O-Kagachi, as a 6/6 flying trampler can and will sneak in some commander damage as well as be a dissuasion tool for attacks. Despite its slowness, the manabase is surprisingly consistent, even though you’ll often be a turn behind the rest of the table as a price.