EDH Ishkanah, Queen of Spiddies! v2

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Combo Competitive Multiplayer Tokens Tribal

Bou

Land (35)

• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dakmor Salvage
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 9x Forest
• 1x Golgari Rot Farm
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Strip Mine
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Swarmyard
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Tree of Tales
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Instant (12)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Grapple with the Past
• 1x Grisly Salvage
• 1x Harrow
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Naturalize
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Reclaim
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Artifact (22)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Cloudstone Curio
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Doubling Cube
• 1x Gemstone Array
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Golgari Signet
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Paradox Engine
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Abundance
• 1x Cryptolith Rite
• 1x Deadbridge Chant
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Journey to Eternity  ^Flip
• 1x Mana Reflection
• 1x Parallel Lives
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Vessel of Nascency

Commander (1)

Sorcery (19)

• 1x Benefaction of Rhonas
• 1x Commune with the Gods
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Fortuitous Find
• 1x Grow from the Ashes
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Mulch
• 1x Nature's Spiral
• 1x Primal Growth
• 1x Recollect
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Seasons Past
• 1x Sylvan Scrying
• 1x Treasured Find

Creature (1)

• 1x Nyx Weaver

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (16)

• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Diabolic Revelation
• 1x Far Wanderings
• 1x Gather the Pack
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Kruphix's Insight
• 1x Life's Finale
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Rampant Growth
• 1x Restock
• 1x Revive
• 1x Sadistic Sacrament
• 1x Scout the Borders
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Verdant Confluence

Artifact (11)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Chromatic Sphere
• 1x Chromatic Star
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Conjurer's Closet
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mimic Vat
• 1x Skeleton Shard
• 1x Terrarion

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Choke
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Necrogen Mists

Instant (2)

• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Sudden Reclamation

Land (1)

• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

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More aggressive, competitive version of my original Ishkanah deck with a ton more graveyard tricks.

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EDH Ishkanah, Queen of Spiddies!

Commander / EDH Bou

SCORE: 141 | 72 COMMENTS | 24983 VIEWS | IN 83 FOLDERS

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The win condition I always envisioned for Ishkanah is to use the arachnophobia-inducing amount of spiddies and win by the numbers, so like the original, this deck is geared towards getting her out there and making a billion spiddies. Unlike the original, it includes a lot more graveyard interactions and combo.

Tactics

The premise is simple; you have to put your Ishkanah, Grafwidow on the table.

Ideally, you should have some cards in your graveyard, triggering her Delirium condition and making little spiddies. Then you make mana so you can use the activated ability: - Target Opponent loses 1 Life for each Spider you control.

Aside from the pure damage she'll deal with her ability, an alternative wincon could be milling opponent's decks. Stumbled on this when I included Altar of the Brood for fun, but you can do some serious damage!

The spiddies you create are permanents that activate Altar of the Brood, and if you keep enough green open and sacrifice for them for mana using Ashnod's Altar, you can make XX tokens in just one turn. Naturally, the more token doublers you have in play (Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, Panharmonicon), the more tokens you get and the more you can repeat the combo. Even if you don't go infinite, you can easily mill for 100 tokens with just ~ 7+ mana and 1-2 doublers.

Cloudstone Curio helps with this as well as you get to take Ishkanah back into your hand as soon as the tokens enter the field, which makes her a lot easier to recast. Similarly, Journey to Eternity   and Conjurer's Closet allow you to bring her back for free as well, but add a Nim Deathmantle and that's where things start to get wonky.

Ishkanah, ad infinitum

Ah but Bou, Didn't you write on your original deck that you and your group don't allow infinite combos? I see you have ... and ... in your list, What's up with that?!

True, my group banned infinite plays (I was one of the most vocal supporters of this actually as I didn't, still don't, want to be forced into blue counterbounce hell), so it's been a little weird thinking about all these fancy interactions. The thing is that I initially built this variant deck with a cEDH setting in mind - and how to win faster at all costs.

Luckily, the playtests I ran here showed very promising results already without having to resort to infinites, but they do provide a more stable environment. If not playing Nim Deathmantle means you don't get to go infinite and keep the group happy... myeh - you can still manage to produce XXX amount of tokens without it, killing everyone anyway. So just because they're there doesn't mean you actually have to put them in play.

• Ashnod's Altar + Nim Deathmantle:
  You sacrifice Ishkanah, Grafwidow + 1 Spider token for mana (in your pool) with Ashnod's Altar, to pay the revival fee for Nim Deathmantle, after which you bring Ishkanah, Grafwidow back and get 3 new tokens. Repeating this process gives you two new tokens each time, for as long as you want to do it. More if you have Parallel Lives and Doubling Season in play.

• Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth / + Mana Reflection:
  Tap and use the mana from Basalt Monolith to untap, then use Rings of Brighthearth on the stack to copy the untap effect. This requires 2 mana from somewhere else to start the loop, whereas Mana Reflection simply doubles the original 3 to make 6, netting you an extra 3 mana without any initial investment.

• Paradox Engine + Strionic Resonator + Basalt Monolith + Sol Ring / + Gilded Lotus / + Doubling Cube:
  This one takes a lot more setup but could work as well, you basically need to cast anything to trigger Paradox Engine and put it on the stack. Then - in response - tap all your mana permanents for mana in the pool, use 2 mana to copy the trigger with Strionic Resonator, resolve the copied trigger.. untap all your tapped artifacts or creatures (Cryptolith Rite) - and tap em all again! Unless I'm very much mistaken this nets you infinite mana as long as you keep the first paradox trigger on the stack. I included Gilded Lotus as it lets you tap for color, and Doubling Cube because well.. for 3 mana you can double whatever is in your pool, so as long as you make an extra 3 mana somewhere you can combo off with this as well.

With infinite mana, Gemstone Array allows you to filter for color where required.

Optional combinations

Another quite common combination that is used in tribal decks is done with Cloudstone Curio + Cryptic Gateway. Here you have to cast and trigger Ishkanah's delirium, then take her back to your hand when the spiddies enter the battlefield as they all share the same type. Tapping two of the freshly spawned spiddies lets you put Ishkanah back in the field, which triggers the whole thing all over again.

Like Phyrexian Altar (possible replacement for Ashnod's Altar), Cryptic Gateway will not be included until they get a reprint, as I can't stand the older look. And in the event of infinite spiddies, Altar of Dementia, similarly to Altar of the Brood, would add infinite mill as an optional wincon.

If you disregard the tribal theme, these came recommended down in the comments;

Umbral Mantle + Magus of the Coffers: Infinite (Black) mana

Umbral Mantle + Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: Infinite (dedicated) mana

Ashnod's Altar + Blood Artist / +Zulaport Cutthroat / + Falkenrath Noble: Drain enemies per each sacrificed token. Notably, the zulaport hits each opponent while the noble and artist target a single player

There could be more! let me know what I missed in the comments.

Solitary spider, Nyx Weaver

With all the artifacts and enchantments and delirium-inducing spell-slinging goodness this deck dabbles in, one might wonder; why is Nyx Weaver the only creature in the deck? Why not go creatureless? Or why not play more creatures?

More creatures means less goodies to interact with, this problem became painfully evident in my original iteration of the deck. True, there are a couple of creatures that would work very well in a dredge/delirium setting, but this is Tribal, and none of those creatures are Spiders. Of all the spiders we can use, Nyx Weaver is probably the best spider to be paired with Ishkanah. You get to mill yourself, return a card from your graveyard to your hand, and on top of that he has both enchantment and creature types, perfect for delirium if he does end up in the graveyard.

That sounds pretty reasonable right? But if there are so many nice other things we can play, why bother with creatures at all?

Sadly, we have to run at least 1 creature because in addition to mass counterspelling and (near-)infinite bounce-loops, I guess somebody figured that particular color just wasn't annoying enough yet and had the bright idea to create Telemin Performance...

Current status and improvements

Currently manage (in the playtests on the left side of the page) to get Delirium and have Ishkanah out T6/7, with lethal damage on her ability by T8-10.

It's a lot faster than my original deck, but vulnerable to (spot) removal and aggro, though to be fair even if they blow up Ishkanah you can just recast or revive her and make more tokens, and there is usually enough damage you can do in the same turn you play her.

I'm a little low on removal and the deck lacks real draw, but has a bigger focus on the graveyard and recursion. There are enough graveyard-filling spells here to mill yourself for ~50 cards, and quite a few ways to get things back into your hand. Artifacts, enchantments, and lands can all be brought back unless exiled, but doing so will slow the deck down considerably. All things considered, I still need to find some form of defense, especially against with those annoying bounces and counters. Choke might be a nice option...

Comments and suggestions very much appreciated - Let me know if you think I missed anything!

(Be sure to mark cards as suggestions so I can give you helper points/good card recommendations if I like the suggestion)

Top Ranked	Achieved #46 position overall 6 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 33 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.75
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Spider 1/2 G
Folders	i Like Dis, Deck Goals, Following, Deck references, edh, Interesting Commander Decks, Aspirations, EDH Decks, Possible Deck Ideas, Good Spider, Bro
Based on	EDH Ishkanah, Queen of Spiddies! Bou EDH