Beledros, Matriarch of the End *Primer*

Commander / EDH Aristocrats BG (Golgari) Competitive Lifegain Sacrifice Tap/Untap Tokens

Wolffang988

Creature (23)

• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bloodthirsty Aerialist
• 1x Blossoming Bogbeast
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 1x Deathgreeter
• 1x Dina, Soul Steeper
• 1x Lesser Masticore
• 1x Marshland Bloodcaster
• 1x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
• 1x Nyxbloom Ancient *f-pre*
• 1x Poison-Tip Archer
• 1x Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1x Prosperous Innkeeper
• 1x Savra, Queen of the Golgari
• 1x Slimefoot, the Stowaway
• 1x Thorn Mammoth
• 1x Vampire Nighthawk
• 1x Veinwitch Coven
• 1x Vindictive Vampire
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Willowdusk, Essence Seer
• 1x Woe Strider
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Bastion of Remembrance
• 1x Cryptolith Rite
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Moldervine Reclamation
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Sadistic Glee
• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Trudge Garden
• 1x Vampiric Rites

Land (35)

• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Deathcap Glade
• 9x Forest
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 9x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Undergrowth Stadium
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Witherbloom Campus
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

Instant (11)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Mortality Spear
• 1x Plumb the Forbidden
• 1x Pulse of Murasa
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Sheltering Word
• 1x Snakeskin Veil
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Village Rites

Commander (1)

Artifact (12)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Moonsilver Key
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Resilience
• 1x Venser's Journal
• 1x Well of Lost Dreams

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Damnable Pact
• 1x Deadly Tempest
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Healing Technique
• 1x Pest Infestation
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Sylvan Scrying
• 1x Torment of Hailfire

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Deathreap Ritual
• 1x Font of Agonies
• 1x Moldervine Reclamation

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Farseek
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Three Visits

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Updates

11/21/21 A Small Sacrifice to Make Show

Minor update to add more synergy and optimize further, strengthening the theme of the deck!

Removed:

-Greed

-Vampiric Link

-Ulvenwald Hydra

Added:

-Blood Artist

-Skullclamp

-Swiftfoot Boots

Greed was a decent source of card draw, but for less mana Skullclamp works much better for the deck, allowing us to kill off the pests generated by Beledros Witherbloom and net the benefits of card draw from the Skullclamp and the life gain from the pests! This method of killing pests also ties in with our death trigger creatures, such as the newly added Blood Artist and others such as Poison-Tip Archer. And finally, Swiftfoot Boots was added in as further protection for Beledros and other key creatures!

11/16/21 The Founders are Assembled! Show

It's here! Beledros Witherbloom leads the 5th and final of my Strixhaven founder dragon decks and it was a lot of fun to build! Working on getting the full primer typed up, hope you all enjoy the deck!

The Beginning

"They called me a madman"

You knew it was coming, I couldn’t stop at 4 out of 5 of the Strixhaven Elders! Beledros Witherbloom was the perfect end to my Strixhaven decks, and I had a lot of fun building her (although my wallet certainly didn’t)! This deck is focused on the synergy of sacrificing creatures and the pests generated by Beledros for various benefits such as lifegain and card draw while simultaneously draining our opponents to death, a pretty straightforward strategy. We have some useful tools at our disposal and some pretty neat combos, which I’ll cover in the tabs below!

The Experience

This section covers the core strategies and key pieces of the deck! As mentioned above the main theme of the deck is token generation, sacrifice and gain/drain, and there’s many ways included in the deck to accomplish this!

Life is Fleeting (Sacrifice) Show

Beledros Witherbloom creates a ton of pests for us to sacrifice, so we want to make sure we’re making the best use of them! The deck includes some great sac outlets to provide a method of killing the pests such as:

Ashnod's Altar

Viscera Seer

Priest of Forgotten Gods

Vampiric Rites

Additionally, we have the classic “bleed” creatures in the form of:

Zulaport Cutthroat

Vindictive Vampire

Poison-Tip Archer

and more!

Death can be Sudden (Lethal Combos) Show

If you’ve seen my other Strixhaven decks then you know I love to work strong combos into the existing synergy of the decks! Beledros is no different, offering us some classic Golgari combo goodness while staying in the theme of the deck or even actively comboing off of the pest’s generated by Beledros!

Key Combos

Ashnod's Altar + Lesser Masticore + Melira, Sylvok Outcast + any death trigger creature (such as Zulaport Cutthroat): A lethal game ender, Melira, Sylvok Outcast prevents -1/-1 counters being placed on creatures you control, allowing you to sacrifice Lesser Masticore with Ashnod's Altar or any other sac outlet an infinite number of times as Lesser Masticore will continue to be brought back by it’s persist ability but not receive the -1/-1 counter due to Melira, Sylvok Outcast, resulting in infinite death triggers. With a creature such as Zulaport Cutthroat or Poison-Tip Archer on field this means infinite life drain against your opponents and an easy win if they have no instant response! (Lesser Masticore can be replaced by any creature with persist as needed).

Ashnod's Altar + Doubling Season + Slimefoot, the Stowaway : Another infinite death trigger loop, you can use Ashnod's Altar to sacrifice 2 pests and use the 4 mana generated or pay 4 regular mana to activate Slimefoot, the Stowaway’s ability and create a saproling, which would also create an additional saproling due to Doubling Season. Once you have the two saprolings you simply sacrifice both with Ashnod's Altar to generate 4 mana and trigger Slimefoot, the Stowaway’s first ability twice, then use that 4 mana to create 2 more saprolings with Slimefoot and Doubling Season to again sacrifice and continue the loop. This creates infinite life gain for you and infinite life drain against your opponents with Slimefoot, the Stowaway’s first ability with the saprolings getting sacrificed!

Either of these combos can be used or combined with any of the various death trigger creatures or enchantments in the deck (EX: Vindictive Vampire and Bastion of Remembrance) to kill your opponents instantly, and the Ahsnod’s Altar + Melira, Sylvok Outcast + Lesser Masticore combo can be used with Prosperous Innkeeper for infinite lifegain from the Lesser Masticore entering the battlefield over and over again or Moldervine Reclamation for “unlimited” card draw and life gain though you’ll have to stop before you draw your library out!

Some other variants of these combos include

Ashnod's Altar + Blood Artist + Trudge Garden : Infinite death triggers/Immediate Kills, as you can sacrifice one of Beledros’ pests or another minor creature to Ashnod's Altar, which triggers Blood Artist with the death trigger and allows you to drain a player for one life and gain a life for yourself. When you gain life from this trigger you can pay the 2 floating mana from sacrificing the pest/creature to Ashnod's Altar to activate Trudge Garden, creating a 4/4 green fungus beast. You then sacrifice this fungus beast to Ashnod's Altar to make 2 more mana, get another Blood Artist trigger, and then pay the 2 mana into Trudge Garden again to make another 4/4 fungus beast after you gain the life from Blood Artist, then simply loop this process until every opponent is dead. Blood Artist can be replaced by any other permanent that has a similar effect, such as Zulaport Cutthroat, Vindictive Vampire, Bastion of Remembrance, etc!

In addition, you can use the simpler combo of Ashnod's Altar + Prosperous Innkeeper + Trudge Garden by sacrificing a pest to Ashnod's Altar and using the resulting 2 mana plus the life gained from the pest to activate Trudge Garden, creating the 4/4 FB (fungus beast). When the FB enters the battlefield it triggers Properous Innkeeper and gains you another life, so that you can sacrifice the 4/4 FB to Ashnod's Altar for 2 more mana, activate Trudge Garden again and continue the loop indefinitely for infinite life gain.

A Fight for Survival (Thorn Mammoth’s Thunderdome) Show

Alright this one deserved it’s own panel because I always think this interaction is hilarious!

Beledros Witherbloom + Thorn Mammoth is a fun pairing that can effectively deprive your opponents of creatures as Beledros Witherbloom will create a pest at each upkeep, which enters the battlefield and triggers Thorn Mammoth! You can then have Thorn Mammoth fight up to one target creature you don’t control, meaning you can effectively fight one of your opponents creatures every turn for free! This can be a devastating way to keep your opponent’s field clear of low power synergy creatures or mid-sized threats, marking Thorn Mammoth as an MVP include.

The End

Building a deck for each of the Strixhaven founding elder dragons has been a ton of fun and I consistently enjoy running them! As soon as I saw them I was interested in them but had no idea I’d end up building the full collection! You can find the other decks in my Strixhaven series below, and if you enjoyed this one I hope you’ll check out the others!

Shadrix, Ambassador of Ultimatums *Primer*: A deck themed around politics, lifegain, and building an army! Shadrix Silverquill leads this deck filled with fun synergy, life manipulation and strong combos. Full primer!

Velomachus, Air Raid Bomber *Primer*: A deck more balanced between competitive and casual, built for getting Velomachus Lorehold onto the field quickly and utilizing his ability to drop everything from removal spells to big boardwipes! As the name suggests, this deck’s playstyle is all about clearing the board and dealing heavy commander damage to your opponents! Full primer!

Galazeth, Magitech Beam Cannon *Primer*: A fun deck focused on playing to Galazeth Prismari’s ability to tap artifacts for mana to cast huge X spells and deal massive amounts of damage! Features a full primer with combos and synergies, breaking down the playstyle and goals of the deck!

Tanazir, Quandrix Conundrum *Primer*: The 4th of my Strixhaven decks with a full primer! Focused on +1/+1 counters and adapting to the board, this deck can swing wide or tall and comes packed with Simic strategy!

As always if you enjoyed the deck please feel free to leave an upvote and/or comment! You may also leave a link or name drop if you have a similar deck or deck you’d like input on and I’ll give it a look!

Top Ranked	Achieved #2 position overall 2 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH 2 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	2 years
Key combos	Ashnod's Altar + Doubling Season + Slimefoot, the Stowaway Ashnod's Altar + Blood Artist + Trudge Garden Ashnod's Altar + Lesser Masticore + Melira, Sylvok Outcast Beledros Witherbloom + Thorn Mammoth Ashnod's Altar + Prosperous Innkeeper + Trudge Garden
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 33 - 0 Rares 30 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.91
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Fungus Beast 4/4 G, Goat 0/1 W, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Pest 1/1 BG, Saproling 1/1 G, Treasure
Folders	Strixhaven Series, decks I like hehe, EDH Commander, MTG Tabletop, Want to Build, Love for the Golgari, Cool Builds, Favorite Decks:, Golgari BG, Cool Deck Ideas