Into the Underdark | Elfball and Stax EDH
Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Combo Competitive Discard Elves Stax
Creature (24)
- 1x Arbor Elf
- 1x Birds of Paradise
- 1x Boreal Druid
- 1x Deathrite Shaman
- 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
- 1x Elvish Archdruid
- 1x Elvish Champion
- 1x Elvish Mystic
- 1x Eternal Witness
-
1x
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
- 1x Fauna Shaman
- 1x Fyndhorn Elves
- 1x Imperious Perfect
- 1x Joraga Treespeaker
- 1x Joraga Warcaller
- 1x Llanowar Elves
- 1x Magus of the Abyss
- 1x Manglehorn
- 1x Mindblade Render
- 1x Priest of Titania
- 1x Reclamation Sage
- 1x Sadistic Hypnotist
-
1x
Scavenging Ooze
- 1x Twilight Prophet
Sorcery (11)
Land (30)
- 1x Ancient Tomb
- 1x Blooming Marsh
- 1x Bojuka Bog
- 1x City of Brass
- 1x Command Tower
- 11x Forest
- 1x Llanowar Wastes
- 1x Mana Confluence
- 1x Overgrown Tomb
- 1x Phyrexian Tower
- 1x Reflecting Pool
- 7x Swamp
- 1x Tainted Wood
- 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Enchantment (11)
Commander (1)
Instant (13)
- 1x Abrupt Decay
- 1x Assassin's Trophy
- 1x Autumn's Veil
- 1x Beast Within
- 1x Crop Rotation
- 1x Culling the Weak
- 1x Dark Ritual
- 1x Heroic Intervention
- 1x Imp's Mischief
- 1x Nature's Claim
- 1x Noxious Revival
- 1x Reclaim
- 1x Worldly Tutor
Artifact (10)
“Light leads to hatred, dark to delight. The best of all things, are done in the night.”
Our Dark Mother, Lolth, greets you Overworlder. It seems you've managed to stumble your way into Her realm, the Underdark. I assure you, it's no accident that you've survived this long. Lady Lolth has grand plans for you indeed!
While you're here, be sure to make yourself at home and don't forget to introduce yourself to the locals, the Dark Elves. They are quite an industrious race, though their penchant for murder makes some a tad uncomfortable...
“A savage hunter with a prince's bearing."
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf embodies both the beauty and cruelty of a true Dark Elf warrior. The primary goal of this deck is to incapacitate my enemies through forced discard spells and stax effects, then overwhelm them with an Elven army.
Forced concessions are also a legitimate win-condition. Often times, a board lock with cards like Contamination or Possessed Portal will be enough to make the table give up and move on to another game.
This is not a deck for casual metas, its goal isn’t to make friends or play nice with others. The idea is to prevent your opponents from playing meaningful spells of any kind and throw their gameplans into disarray.
“Terror corrupts order and paralyzes instinct."
Priority number one is getting Nath of the Gilt-Leaf on to the battlefield, this establishes an aggressive board and starts the forced discard early on.
Cards like Bottomless Pit , Necrogen Mists , and Painful Quandary stack up discard triggers in a hurry and ensure that I get maximum value from Nath’s token producing ability.
I prefer spells like Bottomless Pit over ones such as Delirium Skeins . Enchantments tend to be harder to remove and accrue greater value over time, where as one shot spells often fall short of their full potential. My only exceptions to this are Dark Deal and Torment of Hailfire .
Dark Deal is a game altering spell when timed correctly. The sheer amount of value you can create off of it is ludicrous, especially with a Waste Not on board.
Torment of Hailfire is chaos incarnate. The high amount of mana producers I have means casting it for = + is typical, and often fatal, for my opponents.
The real discard powerhouses are Sadistic Hypnotist and Possessed Portal . Sadistic Hypnotist hitting the battlefield guarantees that your opponents will never have cards in their hands again. Plus, he’s easy to cheat out at a low cost with spells like Eldritch Evolution .
Possessed Portal ’s “sacrifice a permanent or discard a card at EACH players endstep” ability tends to catch people off guard. By the time this hits the battlefield I’m content to sacrifice Elf tokens and refill my hand with Necropotence , meanwhile my opponents are busy sacrificing lands and reconsidering their life decisions.
“How could anyone survive this? There is some force at work that stifles even the will to go on.”
Contamination is essentially Blood Moon on steroids. This card alone has locked down entire tables. Timing is everything with Contamination , it works best when paired with plenty of producing mana dorks and a Bitterblossom .
Grafdigger's Cage shuts off graveyard decks, specifically reanimator decks. Shoutout to Worldgorger Dragon and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker .
Magus of the Abyss is my broke ass substitute for The Abyss . If you like making creature dependent players hate their lives this is how you do it.
Manglehorn does a decent Reclamation Sage imitation and slows down artifact combo players. Null Rod fills a similar role, it just does it far better.
Torpor Orb hoses decks that rely on creatures like Craterhoof Behemoth or Bane of Progress . It can also completely shut off specific commanders like Brago, King Eternal or Roon of the Hidden Realm .
Winter Orb is one of the biggest salt inducing cards in all of Magic. It's sole objective is to slow down over zealous players and punish them for tapping all their lands.
“This is our land. We will not allow eyeblights to poison its beauty.”
Basically every game I play begins with a turn one mana dork, which sets up future turns for explosive plays. Elvish Archdruid and Priest of Titania are the big time mana producers, with the right board state they set me up for insane Torment of Hailfire plays.
Deathrite Shaman doubles as graveyard hate which makes him the most versatile mana dork, there’s a reason this guy is banned in modern and legacy. Joraga Treespeaker is often overlooked, getting her to level one is all you need to set yourself up with a dork that ‘s for .
Elf lords like Elvish Champion and Imperious Perfect pump up my Elves and make them much harder to deal with. Imperious Perfect can also create tokens which is a nice way to build up an army or create extra sac fodder.
Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Joraga Warcaller are my game ending Elves. With enough mana available they can make puny 1/1’s into formidable 4/4’s or 5/5’s. Ezuri, Renegade Leader can also be used as a defense mechanism to protect important elves from removal.
Fauna Shaman is a handy way to tutor for any creature in my deck. Discarding mana dorks late game and turning them into a Sadistic Hypnotist or Twilight Prophet is exactly the kind of utility I want at my disposal.
“Don’t fear the dark... fear what’s in it.”
I prefer targeted removal that can hit a wide variety of permanents, is difficult to disrupt, and fits nicely on my curve. Generally speaking, too much targeted removal can be a bad thing. It prevents you from furthering your board progression because you get tied up removing other players’ problem cards. For this reason I’ve gone light on my removal and focused on making it as efficient as possible.
Bojuka Bog is perfect instant speed graveyard hate when played off of Crop Rotation , this is a play that will catch a lot of people off guard. Scavenging Ooze , otherwise known as Scooze, is self explanatory. Set him to work munching up problem graveyards and call it a day.
Damnation and Toxic Deluge are my big time bailout cards. When things start to go south, these two spells help me reset the board state. Deluge also circumvents problem creatures like Gaddock Teeg which is a nice bonus.
Dark Tutelage is a budget version of Dark Confidant . Tutelage is criminally underrated and definitely needs to be played in more decks. My low mana curve means it’s rare that I damage myself in any significant way with the upkeep reveal trigger.
Speaking of Dark Confidant , Mindblade Render and Twilight Prophet also do a decent imitation of him. Mindblade gives Nath of the Gilt-Leaf and his warrior Elf tokens added card draw value, while Twilight Prophet is a flying beater that gives me extra cards and drains my enemies life totals. Talk about value!
Night's Whisper and Read the Bones are simple but very efficient. I always love drawing into these spells, especially Read the Bones, the added scry effect is awesome.
Skullclamp is straight up broken at times. Murdering 1/1 creatures to draw cards is easy money in a deck that mass produces Elf tokens.
Sylvan Library and Necropotence are the best of the card draw bunch. Giving up life to keep a hand full of cards is exactly what every good black deck should excel at. Necropotence has the added bonus of being able to play around Stax pieces like Possessed Portal that shut off card draw of any kind.
Most of the mana ramp here is basic stuff (cough Sol Ring cough). The main difference between my ramp package and many others is Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak . These two ritual spells make for some insanely big plays. I’m talking turn one Necropotence or turn two Nath of the Gilt-Leaf or Painful Quandary . It might not seem like much but trust me it makes a huge difference.
Ancient Tomb and Phyrexian Tower are great at accelerating my plays in the early game and as an added bonus both can be fetched with Crop Rotation . Thanks to the reprints in Ultimate Masters I was able to snag both of these lands on the cheap!
Beastmaster Ascension and Eldrazi Monument help me press my creature advantage and overrun my opponents with combat damage. Eldrazi Monument’s sacrifice trigger can easily be played around during my upkeep by stacking Nath of the Gilt-Leaf ’s trigger to happen first. This sets me up to permanently have a board full of indestructible flyers.
Living Death is a pet card of mine that can be absolutely backbreaking for my opponents, if timed correctly. Board wipes are common place in Commander, so having a way to completely reset my board while simultaneously disrupting my opponents’ creatures is a win-win in my book.
Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest creates an infinite combo that nets me infinite squirrel tokens and infinite mana of whatever color basic land I enchant with Squirrel Nest. This is an easy way to cast a Torment of Hailfire for infinite mana or just swarm the board with an unbeatable squirrel army. Activating the combo at the end step before my turn starts is an easy way to make sure I can swing in with the squirrel horde right away, instead of giving the table a chance to board wipe.
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Casual
90% Competitive
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 6 years |
| Last updated | 3 years |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 5 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.21 |
| Tokens | Beast 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Squirrel 1/1 G, Zombie 2/2 B |
| Folders | compare with mine, decks-to-watch, Test |
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