Commander Collection: Ice Breaker

Commander / EDH* UB (Dimir)

Jurrane

Creature (36)

• 1x Apprentice Necromancer
• 1x Bladestitched Skaab
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Cemetery Reaper
• 1x Champion of the Perished
• 1x Cleaver Skaab
• 1x Cryptbreaker
• 1x Death Baron
• 1x Diregraf Captain
• 1x Diregraf Colossus
• 1x Geralf, Visionary Stitcher
• 1x Graveborn Muse
• 1x Gravecrawler
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Grim Servant
• 1x Headless Rider
• 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1x Lord of the Accursed
• 1x Lord of the Undead
• 1x Midnight Reaper
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Noxious Ghoul
• 1x Plague Belcher
• 1x Razorlash Transmogrant
• 1x Relentless Dead
• 1x Shepherd of Rot
• 1x The Scarab God
• 1x Undead Augur
• 1x Undead Warchief
• 1x Vengeful Dead
• 1x Warren Soultrader
• 1x Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver
• 1x Zombie Master
• 1x Zul Ashur, Lich Lord
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient Tomb P
• 1x Cabal Coffers P
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Faceless Haven
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mutavault
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City P
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 5x Snow-Covered Island P
• 10x Snow-Covered Swamp P
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Three Tree City
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Unholy Grotto
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Urza's Cave
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold P
• 1x Watery Grave

Artifact (6)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Door of Destinies
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance

Instant (5)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Victim of Night
• 1x Withering Torment

Commander (1)

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Cover of Darkness
• 1x Haunted One
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Necroduality
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1x Rooftop Storm
• 1x Tombstone Stairwell

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Gruesome Fate
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Raise the Palisade
• 1x Ravenform
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Sign in Blood

---

{U}{B}{S} Introduction: Winter Is Coming {U}{B}{S}

Show

"The cold gods. The ones in the night. The white shadows."

"Demons made of snow and ice and cold. The ancient enemy. The only enemy that matters."

From the frozen wastes they crawl, endless ranks of wights driven only by a hunger to feed on the living. Silent and remorseless, they steal through winter and darkness, commanded by an undead king of terrible power. Their touch chills to the bone, draining their enemies' life force until only corpses remain. And then those vanquished bodies slowly rise to join the deathly horde, the White Walkers of tales gone by.

“Ice Breaker” is my Snow/Zombies aggro deck. Of all my EDH decks, this is the one I've leant into most heavily in terms of theme. Dimir Zombies decks are ten to a penny at casual tables but I've tried to do something different - with a relatively unusual choice of Commander in the form of Narfi, Betrayer King - by creating an aggressive deck that can attack on various axis and win in several different ways. The result has been really fun to play and I've been refining it over the past year or so by powering it up with stonger cards.

As well as increasing the power level, I’ve focused on the theming. I find the art for all the full art snow- covered lands a bit meh, so I invested in these gorgeous Snow-Covered Swamps and Islands specifically for this deck: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1728392802/set-snow-lands-premium-proxy-mtg-cards

Commander Choice: Why Narfi, Betrayer King?

Show

Build a U/B Zombies deck and you’re spoilt for good Commanders. Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver, The Scarab God and Gisa and Geralf are all great choices but I’ve gone slightly niche – with a tip of the hat to Game of Thrones– and tried for a frozen undead theme, with Narfi, Betrayer King at the helm. Here's his backstory in MtG lore:

"Generations ago, Narfi was the king of Karfell. Narfi's father had signed a pact with the elves and was rewarded with a magical longship that could bring any number of people between realms. Narfi used the longship to ferry his army to new realms and raid at will. His wealth soon overflowed the Port of Marn, and his treasure and military became famous across the realms.

However, when the elves came to collect on their side of the deal, asking Narfi for his armies in their war against the gods, Narfi refused. He intended to run away, but the elves took back their longship until he agreed to help. That night, a strange visitor came to Narfi and offered his assistance. He would lead the army in Narfi's stead against the elves and, in exchange, he and his people would be protected from death. Narfi agreed. This way, he got to stay out of it and his people (and riches) would be safe. However, as his soldiers fell on the battlefield, they rose once more as draugr. The visitor revealed himself to be Egon, future God of the Dead. Narfi realized that he too had been transformed into an undead — forever safe from a death that never comes.

Hundreds of years later, Narfi is still a cruel king driven by a lust for power and wealth."

Apart from the obvious flavour win of being able to use Snow-Covered Islands and Snow-Covered Swamps, Narfi, Betrayer King is a hyper-efficient Zombies commander as we can re-cast him from the graveyard to power up our deathly horde, by only spending {S}{S}{S} instead of paying commander tax over and over again. Having access to a repeatable lord effect is a big plus for an aggressive creature deck that wants to run over its enemies.

Power Level

Show

I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

Power level-wise, this is a tricky deck to classify. When I first built it, it was definitely one of my Tier 4s as it was a pretty linear aggro deck that was relatively easy to shut down. Nowadays, it's probably somewhere between one of my Tier 2 and Tier 3 decks. It's fairly well tuned and has access to cards that become infinite combos. I'm also planning to add Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor as a way to search for its combo pieces, which will probably then edge it into Tier 2 territory.

Budget

Show

The average price for this deck on Card Kingdom is now over $500. It started life as a budget build but over time I've added some more expensive cards like Cavern of Souls, Cyclonic Rift and Phyrexian Altar. At its heart though, it's still just a kindred/tribal deck so if you're on the lookout for a budget version, it's absolutely viable to build Zombies tribal with minimal investment.

Ways To Win

Show

Broadly speaking, we have three ways to win games. These are as follows:

First, as an aggressive creature-based deck, we often end up winning through combat. We create lots of nasty undead creatures, pump them up with various tribal/lord effects and swarm our opponents. Rinse and repeat. Zombies being zombies, we can get them back from the graveyard relatively easily. If the old fashioned ground assault doesn’t work, we can turn to evasion abilities like giving our Zombies flying with Geralf, Visionary Stitcher, menace with Lord of the Accursed or swampwalk with Zombie Master and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Our plan B is to drain away the life of our opponents with all our zombies on the battlefield. Playing (and/or recurring) Gray Merchant of Asphodel is one way, or we can do it steadily and incrementally with aristocrats effects and The Scarab God. Gruesome Fate or Shepherd of Rot can also finish the game in one go if we have enough creatures on the board. Later on, when graveyards tend to be full, Tombstone Stairwell can be lethal if Blood Artist, Plague Belcher or Zulaport Cutthroat are in play.

Finally, we have access to an infinite combo plan. Central to this is Gravecrawler. With access to a sacrifice outlet such as Warren Soultrader, Phyrexian Altar or Carrion Feeder (the latter if Rooftop Storm is in play), we can sacrifice and re-cast Gravecrawler over and over again. All we then need is an Aristocrat like Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat or Plague Belcher to drain our opponents each time Gravecrawler dies. With this win condition, we have great resilience against stalled board states, or if attacking with creatures isn't viable due to enemy defences.

Other Key Cards

Show

We run many of the key cards that are typically included in Dimir Zombies builds so I won't explain them all here. However there are a few worth mentioning.

Tombstone Stairwell: It tends to get slept on by newer players as it's such an old card but pair it with Blood Artist or Vengeful Dead for explosive results. With full graveyards, you're potentially making dozens of Zombie tokens each turn cycle, leading to large amounts of enemy life loss with Blood Artist's or Vengeful Dead's drain effects (the tokens will all hit the graveyard briefly). Zulaport Cutthroat and Plague Belcher also work here too but aren't quite as powerful as they'll only trigger when our own Zombies die.

Haunted One: An excellent power boost for our undead horde when combined with Narfi, Betrayer King. The undying ability makes us more resilient to board wipes and we'll still get the death triggers where relevant. Well worth including.

Raise the Palisade: Doubles as our second copy of Cyclonic Rift because we'll obviously name Zombies and send all other creatures back to their owners' hands. Great for clearing the way for a final alpha strike or for clearing clogged up board states. And it's cheaper to cast than an overloaded Cyclonic Rift.

Door of Destinies: Our most powerful tribal buff. Cast a few Zombies with this in play and our creatures go from annoying to terrifying. If you cast it early and it manages to stick, you're probably going to win the damage race.

Black Market Connections: Hardly a sleeper card but now far more accessible due to its reprint in ACR and with a much lower $$ price too. Like many aggro decks, it's easy for us to run out of gas, so the extra cards it creates and bodies it generates (which are essentially Zombies) are a good way of keeping the pressure going. Just watch your life total and have a Gray Merchant of Asphodel handy if needed.

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: Not a Zombie so he doesn't benefit from our tribal synergies but he'll spew out a lot of tokens if left unchecked. He's also a handy sacrifice outlet if we need another of those.

Notable Omissions

Show

Zombies is one of the most supported tribes in the game and we can only run 100 cards so there are lots of options we have to leave out. Here are some examples of cards that didn't make the cut.

Endless Ranks of the Dead: Too slow and a bit of win-more card. It's great when you're already ahead but it's a dead card (no pun intended) if you've an empty board. It takes too long to get going and we have more impactful cards than can affect the game more quickly.

Army of the Damned: Too expensive. Its casting cost makes it prohibitive and its payoff isn't worth the investment. There are better things we can do once we get to eight mana.

Zombie Apocalypse: I've lost to Zombie decks that play this card so I'm well aware of its power. However it's only situationally useful and its boardwipe aspect is rarely relevant. I'd rather have Cyclonic Rift and Raise the Palisade.

Counterspell (etc): Early versions of this deck included a counterspell package but I decided to cut it. We're not really a Dimir tempo build (I already have one of those) and when playing the deck, I found I was rarely able to leave mana open for counters. It's shame as a well placed Counterspell can sometimes been the difference between winning and losing, but I've doubled down on our key strengths instead.

Taplands: I've seen too many Zombie tribal decks (and too many aggro decks in general) relying on lands that always ETB tapped for their mana. Don't do it. It'll mess up your curve and slow you down. I want my lands to always at least have the chance of entering uptapped (eg. Shipwreck Marsh, Choked Estuary etc), even if that won't always happen in practice. So no Path of Ancestry, Guildgates etc - it's just not worth it.

Strengths

Show

Ruthless Aggression
With over a dozen different lord effects - including one that's easily recurred - our creatures are capable of packing a serious punch. We can take opponents out of the game very quickly with combat damage and enemy blockers can be rended useless by the various evasion abilities we have access to (menace from Graf Harvest and Lord of the Accursed; flying from Geralf, Visionary Stitcher; and swampwalk from Zombie Master and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth). Often we can overwhelm the board and present inevitability with sheer numbers, focusing our attacks on one player until they're dead, before moving to the next one - and then the next one.

Resilience
We're resilient to board wipes and creature removal (unless it exiles) because we have plenty of ways of bringing our creatures back. As mentioned above, we're diverse enough that we have other ways to win if combat doesn't do the trick. This all adds up to a powerful and resilient deck that attacks on different axis, having a number of advantages over a pure aggro deck.

Card Draw
We run the two best colours for card draw in the game. Repeatable draw effects like Necropotence, Mystic Remora, Black Market Connections, Graveborn Muse, Midnight Reaper and Undead Augur mean we rarely run out of cards. We supplement these with other one-off draw effects such as Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper and Read the Bones. Other aggro decks might run out of steam but it's not usually an issue for us.

Weaknesses

Show

Artifacts & Enchantments
Blue and Black are the weakest colours in Magic for enchantment and artifact removal, so it follows that we're weak to these card types. We run Feed the Swarm for enchantments and Ravenform for artifacts but that's about it. Consequently we can be easily shut down by defensive decks that rely on artifacts and enchantments, such as pillowfort strategies. We probably scoop to Glacial Chasm as soon as it hits the table.

Graveyard Hate
As a Zombie deck, we're going to interact with the graveyard because that's what we do. Gravecrawler, Gisa and Geralf, Lord of the Undead, Unholy Grotto and Relentless Dead are all examples of resilient cards that can either bring themselves back from the graveyard, or enable other cards to do so. It's also how we get efficiency from Narfi, Betrayer King as, after the first time he's cast, he'll only ever cost {S}{S}{S} to bring him back from the graveyard over and over again. Removing our graveyard, or limiting our access to it with grave hate cards, eliminates a key advantage of our deck.

Mana Curve
One of the challenges of Zombie tribal decks is many of our best creatures are clustered around the 3MV or 4MV range. This can result in some awkward opening hands when we don't have much to do in the first couple of turns. I've tried to smooth out the curve with some lower mana value creatures - plus mana rocks, Zombie cost reducers and Dark Ritual can help - but we don't always come out of the blocks as quickly as we might. If WotC print some more cheaply costed Zombies, it would help a lot (but force some tough decisions about what to remove).

Future Improvements

Show

No further changes currently planned following the recent addition of Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Three Tree City.

---

All My EDH Decks

{W} Giada, Font of Hope {W}
S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal

{U} Talrand, Sky Summoner {U}
Blue Streak: Mono-Blue Spellslinger

{U} Orvar, the All-Form {U}
Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters Combo

{B} Sidisi, Undead Vizier {B}
Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Goodstuff

{B} Syr Konrad, the Grim {B}
Black Hole: Mono-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats

{R} Torbran, Thane of Red Fell {R}
Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug

{R} Rionya, Fire Dancer {R}
Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens

{G} Titania, Protector of Argoth {G}
Timber Terror: Mono-Green Stax

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IV {W}{U}
Control Freak: Azorius Control

{W}{U} Elminster {W}{U}
Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry

{U}{B} Oona, Queen of the Fae {U}{B}
Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal

{U}{B} Narfi, Betrayer King {U}{B}
Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies

{B}{R} Rakdos, Lord of Riots {B}{R}
Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss

{B}{R} Juri, Master of the Revue {B}{R}
Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice

{R}{G} Hallar, the Firefletcher {R}{G}
Trailblazer: Gruul Kicker

{R}{G} Wort, the Raidmother {R}{G}
Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire

{W}{G} Sigarda, Heron's Grace {W}{G}
Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal

{W}{G} Captain Sisay {W}{G}
Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

{W}{G} Sythis, Harvest's Hand {W}{G}
Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

{W}{B} Daxos the Returned {W}{B}
Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation

{W}{B} Kambal, Consul of Allocation {W}{B}
Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain

{U}{R} Firkraag, Cunning Instigator {U}{R}
Dragon’s Fury: Izzet Dragons/Goad

{B}{G} Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons {B}{G}
Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch

{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Prime Speaker Zegana {U}{G}
Wicked Twister: Simic +1/+1 Counters

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
Toxic Garden: Simic Infect

{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts

{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
Riddler’s Revenge: Esper Topdeck

{U}{B}{R} Marchesa, the Black Rose {U}{B}{R}
Revenge of the Mummy: Grixis Dethrone/Combo

{B}{R}{G} Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire {B}{R}{G}
Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal

{W}{R}{G} Pantlaza, Sun-Favored {W}{R}{G}
Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal

{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker

{W}{B}{G} Karador, Ghost Chieftain {W}{B}{G}
Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator

{W}{U}{R} Kykar, Wind's Fury {W}{U}{R}
Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens

{W}{U}{R} Hinata, Dawn-Crowned {W}{U}{R}
Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Spirits Tribal

{U}{B}{G} Yarok, the Desecrated {U}{B}{G}
Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers

{W}{B}{R} Kaalia of the Vast {W}{B}{R}
Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons

{U}{R}{G} Omnath, Locus of the Roil {U}{R}{G}
Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

Date added	2 years
Last updated	1 week
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 44 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.78
Tokens	Bird 1/1 U, Copy Clone, Foretell, On an Adventure, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Decayed, Zombie 2/2 B w/ Haste, Zombie */* U
Folders	Decks