[[Primer]] Step by Step Guide to Having a Thousand Eyes.Hey there Deckstats viewers. Pressed for time at the moment, but I plan to have an in-depth, card-by-card analysis for this deck up by the end of the night. Feel free to leave me any comments, suggestions, or criticisms you may think of!
Link to the original Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/a6w0sj/discussion_a_guide_to_having_a_thousand_eyes_or/I bring you my first (and hopefully not last) EDH Primer! Today, I'll be featuring Izoni - Overcosted and Underwhelming Golgari legend from Guilds of Ravnica. Why spent any time writing a primer on such a worthless card, you ask? Well, because in the past month or so, I've responded to no less than about five threads asking for deckbuilding advice for this... legend. Honestly, I consider the time it took to write this primer as an investment - I expect more threads in the future concerning Izoni, and the amount of time I stand to save simply by commenting a link to this post could be enough to let me watch a few more episodes of [popular show] before I have to hit the sack. Know that I wrote this primer without any sort of collaboration or input. Trust me, not a weird flex. What I mean is that everything here is based purely on my experience with these cards, in my meta. All card choice decisions I've made are based purely off of anecdotal evidence and speculation, and are only tested by a single man, once a week. Without further ado ~
A Short PrefaceFirst off. This is not a budget primer. In fact, I did not consider budget in the slightest while crafting this list, as I just happen to have all this (trash) laying around. That being said, many of the card choices I've made here can easily be substituted for cheaper alternatives, at very little overall impact on the deck's functionality, with only a few exceptions. Why spend so many American Rubles on such a sub-par commander? I just told you that it isn't strictly necessary. In a few places, notably pertaining to some high ticket items, I will offer what I consider to be the best budget alternatives. You'll also notice that there are a few obvious combo's that are conspicuously missing from this decklist. As this is a primer, i.e. meant to be a launching point for a player to build around not an exact 99 to meticulously recreate, I tried to stick to a perceived middle ground between a dedicated combo deck and a battlecruiser or
attrition style of deck. Later in the primer I will discuss changes that can be made to the deck to shift it in either direction. Also note that this is a graveyard Commander with graveyard stuff and a graveyard decklist. I cannot in good faith suggest you run this deck if you expect to play against powerful graveyard hate.
Do play this deck if you want to:Play an extremely Golgari deck, with lots of Golgari cards, because you love the flavor but don't want to sacrifice any of the power
Have the option of playing well into the late game without running out of gas
Play a psuedo-reanimator deck without running one of the typical legends as your commander, like a SHILL
Play a resilient deck with multiple angles of attack
Have a deck that can be easily tailored to suit any playgroup's power level, with few modifications on the fly
Have one thousand eyes
Do NOT play this deck if you want to:- Win as swift as a coursing river
Win through heavy graveyard hate
Play white/blue/red (why are you here)
Card DrawFirst off,
Sylvan Library. Library has a lot of things going for it. At the cost of 1G, it comes down on turn 2, and provides you absurd value every subsequent turn. Note that
Sylvan Library combos with
Underrealm Lich, allowing you to view the top NINE cards of your library, draw three, and bin six. Even more absurd is that not only does
Underrealm Lich protect himself from non-exile based removal, but both cards are perfectly reasonable even separate from each other.
Phyrexian Arena is a fantastic card, and if you value consistency, run it if you have one. In this list, I've opted to instead run
Deathreap Ritual instead. Worst case scenario it can be a completely
dead card (no pun intended), but the upshot is that you have the potential to draw significantly more cards per cycle.
Fecundity similarly can be a
dead card, but more often will draw you a good deal of cards.
Arguel's Blood Fast could reasonably be replaced by
Greed if you have one, as the later is nearly twice as efficient - but at two mana,
Arguel's Blood Fast can draw you out of potentially game losing scenarios where you do not draw a third or fourth land.
Erebos, God of the Dead works similarly, and has the upside of preventing your opponents from gaining life AND can sometimes enter the red zone for damage. Redundancy leads to consistancy. Finally,
Smothering Abomination at best draws more cards than you're likely to have the mana available to use, and at worst replaces himself on an otherwise empty board. It also has the benefit of being a body for
Undergrowth, and a not insignificant four power.
Fillin' the 'yardAltar of Dementia can be used to fill your graveyard by sacrificing unneeded creatures, and can also be used to mill out your opponent(s) library once you have an unlimited amount of tokens.
Golgari Grave-Troll has a huge dredge of SIX, and could reasonably be used to beat an opponent to death if you needed to.
Stinkweed Imp is theoretically a decent enough blocker, and
Golgari Thug well... has dredge. Rounding out the dredgers, we have
Dakmor Salvage and absolute all-star
Life from the Loam. Note that any draw you make can instead be replaced with a dredge to fill your library, allowing for more Izoni tokens, and a larger selection of creatures for Whisper and
Hell's Caretaker.
Mulch,
Grisly Salvage, and
Satyr Wayfinder all fill the role of early plays to fill the 'yard and smooth your land drops. Finally, the previously mentioned
Underrealm Lich ALSO can replace draws, and has the tertiary benefit of preventing loss via drawing out, as the cards are put into your hand, not technically "drawn".
Reanimation and
ReclamationEternal Witness,
Skullwinder, and
Greenwarden of Murasa are simply there to
reclaim something from our graveyard that we need to win. If you have nothing better to do with your turn, feel free to use these on a
grisly salvage, or a
Sakura-Tribe Elder for value.
Journey to Eternity should be fairly easy to flip in this deck, and is a great turn three play following the aforementioned
Sakura-Tribe Elder.
Nim Deathmantle can provide occasional value on its own, but is more often useful in conjunction with
Ashnod's Altar. Paired with Izoni or a
Grave Titan, the Deathmantle and
Ashnod's can provide you with infinite death triggers, colorless mana, and more often than not an unlimited number of Izoni tokens.
Oversold Cemetery shouldn't be difficult to enable, and can lead to great plays. Never underestimate the value of playing
Sakura-Tribe Elder every turn.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist and
Hell's Caretaker are perhaps the primary win condition of the deck, allowing you to essentially "go nuts" with your graveyard assuming you have your
Thornbite Staff available, and creatures on your board - which shouldn't be terribly difficult, its what the deck is designed to do.
Victimize and
Phyrexian Delver also make an appearance to grab combo creatures from the graveyard. Meren is included as essentially a second copy of
Oversold Cemetery with upside. Finally,
Soul of Innistrad is included for its second ability, which allows us to activate it from the graveyard in the event that all of our important tools are stuck in the yard, and we have nothing in hand to retrieve them.
RemovalFleshbag Marauder,
Merciless Executioner,
Plaguecrafter, and
Shriekmaw are essentially doomblades, only their bodies are useful postmartum for increasing our
Undergrowth count. I didn't include it here, but depending on how creature heavy your meta is, consider running
Panharmonicon for twice the sadness. Conversely if your meta isn't creature heavy, consider cutting one or more of these.
Avatar of Woe should generally only cost BB, and 'combos' with
Thornbite Staff to keep our opponents boards clear.
Noxious Gearhulk is a respectable beater that gains us life AND has the potential upside of being recurred with Glissa.
Demon of Dark Schemes comes on a relevant body, but may end up being less efficient than we desire in the long run. Only time and testing will tell.
Caustic Caterpillar and
Reclamation Sage are included for artifact and enchantment disruption. Depending on your meta, you may want to include more than just these two, or perhaps cut these entirely. YMMV.
Ramp?For ramp, all I've included is a
Sol Ring, a
Sakura-Tribe Elder, and
Wood Elves. Depending on how you build this deck, you may consider adding more than this, in which case I suggest running more basics, and running
Seedguide Ash and Veridian Emmisary to start. These three are simply the "bare minimum" that I encourage you to run.
Looking for love in all the right placesTo increase the deck's consistancy, I'm running
Fauna Shaman, Suvival of the Fittest,
Green Sun's Zenith, and
Woodland Bellower. Obviously
Survival of the Fittest is the most powerful card here, but its a hot 100 dollars or a bit coin last time I checked. In its place, consider
Evolutionary Leap, or a random black tutor, the deck will function just fine without it. Green Sun is deceptively powerful given the amount of card draw the deck can theoretically pull off. Never be afraid to just grab a
Sakura-Tribe Elder.
Token GenerationPersonally, I think running a token doubler in this deck would be overkill, but if you have one laying around, feel free to jam it and see what happens. For my deck, I've included
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder,
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, and
Tendershoot Dryad. Tendershoot can sometimes win a game by itself if left unchecked, and Nath is bonkers with
Sadistic Hypnotist. Note that if you're less inclined to combo decks, or have an open slot,
Avenger of Zendikar is a great inclusion.
Bread and ButterThe bread and butter of the deck, how you're ultimately going to achieve victory. Kokusho and/or
Gray Merchant of Asphodel can be recurred over and over again with Whisper/
Hell's Caretaker and a
Thornbite Staff, which should kill all of your opponents. Kokusho and Gray Merchant also have the upside of just being good, even if you can't combo out at the moment.
Poison-Tip Archer and
Zulaport Cutthroat are my chosen
Blood Artists for this deck. If you want to lean away from comboing, include more
blood artist effects, and cut Thornbite and Glissa.
Savra, Queen of the Golgari and
Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest reward us for playing out our gameplan, and just happens to be a good creature to sac a few times.
Other ConsiderationsIf you're more interested in a sort of battlecruiser or
attrition based victory, begin by cutting
thornbite staff and Glissa. The staff is what allows most of the degeneracy in this deck, and Glissa for the most part exists to get Thornbite back from the graveyard if it
ends up there. Classically,
Avenger of Zendikar and
Craterhoof Behemoth are fantastic in decks such as this, and the list wouldn't be hurt by the inclusion or more
blood artist effects.
Triumph of the Hordes will easily allow your tokens to kill players in combat. And finally,
Tombstone Stairwell is a personal favorite of mine. If everything is going correctly, you SHOULD benefit more from your graveborn tokens than your opponents, half of your deck is creatures. Note that the tokens are sacrificed at end of turn, not exiled, so each
blood artist effect you have on board makes each token spawned more deadly, and makes your opponents tokens less threatening. If you find yourself getting beat down on the regular, consider adding
Grave Pact and
Essence Warden, which cull your opponents creatures, and gain you life for enacting your
game plan. Alternatively, if you want this deck faster and more combo centric, begin by increasing fast mana density, and
seek to combo with Mikaeus and
Triskelion/
Walking Ballista off of a
Protean Hulk loop or
Tooth and Nail.
The general strategy of the deckTry your best to never miss a land drop, and spend any extra mana you have either drawing cards, or filling your graveyard. Your goal is to find one of your combos as quickly as you can.
Thornbite Staff and either
Whisper, Blood Liturgist or
Hell's Caretaker will allow you to recur creatures from your graveyard over and over again, which will either result in a win, or put you in a position where your raw advantage will set you up for a win shortly. Your secondary combo set is
Ashnod's Altar and
Nim Deathmantle. These two paired with either Izoni or
Grave Titan will net you infinite colorless mana, and infinite tokens. With any
blood artist effect on board, this results in a win, otherwise, you should be in a position where you will win next turn via combat. Nath and
Sadistic Hypnotist, along with a never-ending
Raven's Crime and a plethora of removal will hopefully slow down your opponents long enough to find a way to win. Barring a combo, you're still playing creatures, which you could (and are encouraged to) beat your opponents to death the old fashioned way.
I appreciate you making it to the end of this, and I hope this helps someone out there. I welcome comments, critique, and criticism!
*Editted for strange forum formatting and to meet character limit.
**Minor changelog, in:
Skullclamp and
Necrotic Ooze --- Out: TBD
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