Atraxa, The Exalted

Commander / EDH Enchantment Exalted Jank Voltron

skoundrel

Land (36)

• 1x Arcane Sanctum
• 1x Blossoming Sands
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Cathedral of War
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 1x Forest
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Island
• 1x Jungle Hollow
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Rupture Spire
• 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1x Scoured Barrens
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Enlightenment
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Temple of Plenty
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Thornwood Falls
• 1x Tranquil Cove
• 1x Transguild Promenade
• 1x Vivid Creek
• 1x Vivid Grove
• 1x Vivid Marsh
• 1x Vivid Meadow
• 1x Windswept Heath

Creature (23)

• 1x Akrasan Squire
• 1x Archetype of Finality
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Dawnray Archer
• 1x Duty-Bound Dead
• 1x Fathom Mage
• 1x Fog Bank
• 1x Fountain Watch
• 1x Frontline Sage
• 1x Giltspire Avenger
• 1x Guard Gomazoa
• 1x Guardians of Akrasa
• 1x Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 1x Mesa Enchantress
• 1x Mystic Snake
• 1x Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis
• 1x Qasali Pridemage
• 1x Silent Arbiter
• 1x Sovereigns of Lost Alara
• 1x Sublime Archangel
• 1x Umbra Mystic
• 1x Verduran Enchantress
• 1x Waveskimmer Aven

Instant (10)

• 1x Absorb
• 1x Ancient Excavation *list*
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dromar's Charm
• 1x Murder
• 1x Naturalize
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Springsage Ritual
• 1x Swan Song

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
• 1x Kiora, the Crashing Wave
• 1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
• 1x Ob Nixilis Reignited

Commander (1)

Enchantment (16)

• 1x Alpha Authority
• 1x Angelic Benediction
• 1x Archmage Ascension
• 1x Ardent Plea
• 1x Armadillo Cloak
• 1x Battle Mastery
• 1x Bear Umbra
• 1x Choking Restraints
• 1x Curse of Exhaustion
• 1x Finest Hour
• 1x Phyresis
• 1x Protective Bubble
• 1x Righteous Aura
• 1x Seal of Primordium
• 1x Snake Umbra
• 1x Spirit Mantle

Artifact (6)

• 1x Astral Cornucopia
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Vedalken Orrery

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Duneblast
• 1x Open the Vaults
• 1x Skyshroud Claim

---

What is this deck?

This deck is a mid-range Atraxa, Praetors' Voice deck that is built around enchantments and the exalted mechanic. The deck can, however, with a little editing become a very oppressive control deck, or a hard-hitting aggro deck. the deck was built with 1v1 in mind, but again, with a few additions it can adapt.

What does it do?

In it's current state this deck aims to win via a voltron strategy of putting a ton of enchantments on Atraxa, Praetors' Voice. However there are other win cons built into the deck. Phyresis will allow you to spread infect around the table and kill everyone with Atraxa, Praetors' Voice's proliferate triggers. In 1v1 games a potential win con would be casting Curse of Exhaustion and getting your emblem from Jace, Unraveler of Secrets to force them to scoop out of fear of sitting at a table and not playing magic for an hour. However, the most common win condition that this deck runs into is killing the table in one turn with commander damage using a super enchanted Atraxa, Praetors' Voice and getting an extra combat or two off of Finest Hour / Clever Impersonator

How does it do it?

Understanding the Mechanics Show

Exalted Show

This deck relies on cards with the keyword Exalted like Ardent Plea. Exalted is a mechanic that buffs an attacking creature for each card with Exalted under your control. *NOTE: the creature has to attack alone for the exalted trigger to happen.

To take full advantage of this mechanic we want things like Silent Arbiter and Alpha Authority so that our opponents can't easily double block and kill our creature, and to potentially disrupt any combat based strategies our opponents might try to bring to the table.

*This keyword represents a trigger, which means that after attacks are declared our opponents have a chance to kill the attacking creature with out of hand burn like Lightning Bolt before the stat increase.

Enchantments Show

Since the deck is going to be relying on just one creature to swing in at a time, we need some things to make sure it all goes off without a hitch. Enchantments like Spirit Mantle, Protective Bubble, and Armadillo Cloak help to ensure that we are doing damage every combat; and enchantments like Finest Hour, and Battle Mastery make sure that we are hitting hard enough.

Enchantments don't only provide our deck with offensive capabilities but also help us defend and control the pace of the game. Cards like Righteous Aura, angelic benediction, and choking restraints help us to mitigate any and all incoming damage. and support creatures like Umbra Mystic and Fountain Watch let us protect our board with our auras.

Additionally Archetype of Finality acts as a pillow fort card much like a Propaganda might with the added benefit of making attacking much easier.

Infect Show

This deck runs one card with infect and for good reason. Phyresis gives a creature infect, which means that it deals damage to other creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters. If a player reaches 10 poison counters they lose the game. Now for the reason I believe you should take Phyresis out of the deck before playing it the first time: Infect is an infuriating mechanic when you are not playing it in your deck and commander is largely a casual format. And while I am not against it, some playgroups have house rules that outright ban it. Therefore if you are playing a deck with infect I feel it is always a good idea to ask your playgroup if they are okay with it, because the last thing anyone wants is for you to not get invited back to a game night just because you were running an infect card.

What if I don't want to play mid-range?

Changing the Shell Show

Aggro Show

Basically: infect.

Running too much infect can get you focused out of almost any game that you don't win by a landslide (and some people think any is too much) so you have to be careful when doing this. Essentially swinging in with Atraxa, Praetors' Voice is no longer the goal, but rather getting out an early infect creature like Glistener Elf or Blighted Agent and swinging in to get a poison counter on each player so that when you proliferate in the end step you put everybody closer to death. To fit these cheaper infect creatures into the deck you should remove cards like Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Fog Bank, and Armadillo Cloak. Think of infect as a replacement for auras in the deck, because we don't care about swinging in with huge enchanted creatures, but rather small creatures with infect. The Exalted theme of the deck takes a back seat with this strategy for the first few combat steps which are arguably the most important. if you see an opportunity to swing with two or three creatures to get some uncontested poison counters, that would be the correct line of play in most cases. The exalted undertones of the new shell more or less serve to speed up the process of getting your primary target to 10 poison.

Control Show

A strong control option for this deck plays more heavily into the already present enchantment theme.

Basically, you want to be running curses. Curses and pillow forts. The main idea is to get everyone at the table so focused on swinging at each-other that they forget about you until you win the game. Now this play style is remarkably different for 1v1 games but the ideas are still there.

You will want cards like Curse of the Forsaken and Curse of Predation to reward attacking a player of your choice(*Note: all the curses from C17 go great in this shell and fall under this category).

Additionally pillow fort cards like Ghostly Prison, Marchesa's Decree, and Propaganda will make it difficult for anyone to attack you.

Since we will be running more enchantments and focusing less on exalted cards, cards like Daxos the Returned will help you get creatures on the battlefield. And to lessen the gap between you and your opponents, you want things that cause them to sacrifice creatures or permanents. Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis certainly helps you to achieve this goal, but Sheoldred, Whispering One works this effect brilliantly, and if you are running sheoldred you will find an ashnod's alter or any sac outlet for that matter has a new-found home in this deck. Additional cards worth mentioning to complete the shell and round out the control theme are Rule of Law (which should be run with a Sigil of the Empty Throne), Blind Obedience, and Painful Quandary make your opponents have a rough go of things against your deck.

Your win condition in this version of the deck is a little less specific than any other build covered here. You can tech heavy into mill with things like Curse of the Bloody Tome and Sphinx's Tutelage, kill your opponents over a long game with cards like Cruel Reality, go infinite with the good old Exquisite Blood Sanguine Bond, kill your opponents with combat damage, or a mixture of any of these. The control shell is the most varied of all the versions of the Atraxa Exalted Deck because in redless there are so many ways to oppress a game of commander. This simple fact makes it hard to build this deck control if you do not pick a specific win condition. In other words: if you are going to mill your opponents out of the game, tech heavy into it; if you want to combo off, put in more tutors; and if you want to play curses, play enchantments wherever you can.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 0 Rares 30 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.25
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Emblem Kiora, the Crashing Wave, Emblem Ob Nixilis Reignited, Kraken 9/9 U, Plant 0/1 G