Mogis cEDH Primer (Work-in-Progress)

Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos) Competitive Prison

Wowaunicorn

Land (33)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 8x Mountain
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Wasteland

Creature (12)

• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Eidolon of the Great Revel
• 1x Goblin Sharpshooter
• 1x Harsh Mentor
• 1x Kederekt Parasite
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Rampaging Ferocidon
• 1x Scab-Clan Berserker
• 1x Simian Spirit Guide
• 1x Sin Prodder
• 1x Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

Artifact (18)

• 1x Ankh of Mishra
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mindcrank
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mycosynth Lattice
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Pithing Needle
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Trinisphere

Instant (9)

• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Price of Progress
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Pyroclasm
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

Commander (1)

Enchantment (16)

• 1x Ancient Runes
• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Bloodchief Ascension
• 1x Chains of Mephistopheles
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Nether Void
• 1x Painful Quandary
• 1x Pyrostatic Pillar
• 1x Spellshock
• 1x Spiteful Visions
• 1x Splinter Twin
• 1x Stranglehold
• 1x Sulfuric Vortex
• 1x The Abyss
• 1x Waste Not

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Liliana of the Veil

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Zo-Zu the Punisher

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Price of Glory

Artifact (1)

• 1x Ensnaring Bridge

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Overview

Introduction

Do you enjoy playing prison? How about setting the world on fire? Bored of playing blue cards because you can't see the color blue? This is the deck for you! Mogis and his followers believe that everyone should be able to play EDH... at a price. We are playing a deck that asks the question of "Well? How do you deal with this nuisance?" We aggressively pressure life totals (which in cEDH is not done enough) to make our opponents' decisions difficult, resulting in mistakes. We also do a great job of slowing everyone else down so we can all enjoy the burn together! **

So why should I play this deck?

** This is the deck for you if you:
-Enjoy playing to the board
-Enjoy prison-style decks
-Love playing burn decks
-Hate playing blue cards
-Like to end the game in a timely fashion
-Are a sadist

You might not like this deck if you:
-Hate Land Destruction
-Mulligan poorly, or don't like to mulligan for hate pieces.
-Love blue too much to not play it (then why are you here?)
-Want to have friends afterwards
-Are a pansy (flowers burn too easily)
-Are expecting to play Worldgorger combo in here (we will discuss why we don't later)

Gameplan

Our ultimate game plan is to reduce our opponents' life totals to 0 by choking their ability to play so tightly that they can no longer play the game and inevitably die to simply existing. We accomplish this by playing life taxing effects for various aspects of playing magic. "If an action can be made in magic, then our opponents can pay in blood" is the philosophy of this deck. We can punish people for drawing cards, existing (i.e. Upkeep effects), casting spells, activating abilities, having artifacts, having creatures, tapping their lands, not tapping their lands, or for simply playing lands. We can punish any decision, any action a player makes with a myriad of cards.

What this deck does well

This Mogis deck does a great job of locking people out of games by shear brutality. We have stacks pieces like Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, and Nether Void alongside of the amazing hate pieces in Null Rod, Cursed Totem, and Torpor Orb to make the game come to a grinding halt. We also have cards like Spellshock and Pyrostatic Pillar to punish greedy play from our opponents, bringing them ever closer to the guillotine's rope being released. Ad Naus decks tend to have many issues dealing with their life totals being pressured so aggressively. Furthermore, we stop most combos dead in their tracks due to them having too many moving parts or relying on many abilities or actions that we punish. We do have some interaction at instant speed, but that is not really our plan.

Do we have combos?

We do! We have 4 in the deck:
1) Bloodchief Ascension + Mindcrank
After Bloodchief is online, any life loss or card put into graveyard will kill your opponent. With Mogis on the board, he sets up the quest counters quickly (1 turn cycle if no one sacrifices anything to him) and when Bloodchief is online, your opponent's choice of sacrificing or not does not matter as they die one way or the other. (Sacrificed creature goes to GY and triggers Bloodchief, loops with Mindcrank, OR they take 2 from Mogis, triggering Mindcrank, triggering Bloodchief and looping) .
2) Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose + Exquisite Blood
This combo is just Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood combo but 2 mana cheaper. If an opponent loses life (which they will in our deck), then everyone dies.
3) Karn, the Great Creator/Null Rod + Mycosynth Lattice
If you can keep the board clean of creatures (which you usually can), you lock your opponents out of being able to activate anything (even lands). Null rod also locks yourself out, but with Mogis and other triggers on the battlefield, it is an inevitable end to the game. Don't forget that your opponents can't Force of Vigor you for free with Mycosynth Lattice as Lattice makes all cards, even cards in hand, colorless.

4) Goblin Sharpshooter + Splinter Twin
So this one is a little more complicated and requires a target to die to start the loop. First you make a copy of sharpshooter, then the copy needs to kill any target (or have a bolt or something to kill another target that isn't the original sharpshooter). This will untap both sharpshooters and now you have infinite damage online. Make another sharpshooter. One of the copies shoots an opponent and the other shoots itself untapping the other 2 sharpshooters. Repeat the process.

Mulligans

This deck can be difficult to pilot for many reasons, but mulliganing has to be the hardest part. Deciding whether or not to mulligan takes a lot of knowledge about the decks around you. One hand that is perfectly keepable against one group can be a hand that has to be thrown away in others due to the nature of playing to the board and not having any form of interaction (our hate spells) for what is present at the table. We will discuss some of the match-ups later and what cards are match-up appropriate. That all being said, sometimes you have enough generic hate cards that are proactive and start the clock early to keep the hand anyways.

Other Difficulties of playing Mogis

You must accept that it is very easy to become the villain at the table, and therefore eat a lot of the ire of the rest of your pod. It happens frequently. You cannot get annoyed by that fact. Politics are still a part of cEDH. You may need to point out to your angry opponents that someone else is the actual threat at the table, even though they can't see it and they can clearly see what you are putting down. Keep calm, I get it, you are probably a red mage if you are here. I am too.
Another issue that arises is that you don't have a lot of stack interaction. There are times where you literally can't interact with your opponent that's trying to combo. It happens. Get over it. Play another game - they go by pretty quickly!

Matchups

This is hard to say as we are a prison deck, we have cards to deal with most situations. Generally our bad match up is ourselves (insert sarcasm here)! In all seriousness, the biggest weakness is when someone can win before you can actually do anything. Now that flash hulk is dead, we are better positioned to deal with the meta at hand.
-Any combo that can gain loads of life can be an issue, but we have answers for that. Ideally we can t2 a stacks piece and hold people off until we can stop them entirely.
-We are also a Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon Deck... So that means those pesky 3-4 color decks will have pretty big issues if they aren't holding removal/counter magic to stop you from turning their non-red mana base to mono red (that's right, I'm looking at you Tymna/Thrasios decks).
-Against other prison decks, we have a coin toss really, we tend to have a better clock, but it's possible they lock us out before we go on our merry ways, on the other hand, they may have the same issues we have.

Deck Building Decisions

To be Added

Changelog

6/3/20
Out: Imp's Mischief
In: Deflecting Swat
Reason: Direct upgrade, will continue to play test to see if we miss Imp's Mischief
6/5/20
Out: Jokulhaups
In: Pyroclasm
Reason: Needed more reliable removal for mana dorks early.
6/7
Out: Spreading Plague, Angrath, the Flame-Chained, Lavaclaw Reaches
In: Subterranean Tremors, Stormfist Crusader, Experimental Frenzy
Reason: Taking out slower cards for more Proactive and card advantage cards. Just testing for now.
6/10
Out: Exquisite Blood
In: Rampaging Ferocidon
Reason: Blocks well, stops life gain, is also a clock. Will likely revisit exquisite blood once Vito comes out.
6/23
Out: Stormfist Crusader
In: Waste Not
Reason: Waste Not seems like a better choice and has more synergy with the rest of the deck.
6/30/20
Removed this for being too slow. Keeping here as an archive Havoc Festival + Wound Reflection
This is a 12 mana combo if you get both out at once, but either way both are just great to have on field independently regardless. This is not instant kill, but gives you opponent one last turn before they die at their end step. Havoc Festival takes half their life rounded up on upkeep and at end step Wound Reflection will repeat that life loss.
Also Out: Experimental Frenzy
In: Splinter Twin, Goblin Sharpshooter, and Dark Confidant
Reason: Frenzy felt often like a 4 mana do nothing, that Confidant replaces well and lowers curve. On the topic of lowering the curve we cut an expensive combo for a cheaper one that either piece can be used on their own well.
7/1/20
Out: Subterranean Tremors, Manabarbs, Citadel of Pain, Night of Souls' Betrayal, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, Chalice of the Void
In: Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Exquisite Blood, Dark Ritual, Arcane Signet, Sin Prodder, Scab-Clan Berserker
Reason: Added a bit more ramp and another combo to the deck.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.36
Tokens	Copy Clone, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Decks I like!, Mogis Deck Inspiration