Shhh, its an Eldrazi Party {Primer}

Commander / EDH Battlecruiser Casual Eldrazi Mono-Black Primer Reanimator

Free_Iona

Land (38)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cabal Stronghold
• 1x Cathedral of War
• 1x Crypt of Agadeem
• 1x Desert of the Glorified
• 1x Dread Statuary
• 1x Eldrazi Temple
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Ifnir Deadlands
• 1x Leechridden Swamp
• 1x Memorial to Folly
• 1x Mystifying Maze
• 1x Radiant Fountain
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Ruins of Oran-Rief
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1x Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
• 1x Spawning Pool
• 12x Swamp
• 1x Tectonic Edge
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Wastes
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Tokens (9)

• 1x Abhorrent Overlord
• 1x Call the Bloodline
• 1x Carrier Thrall
• 1x Corpsehatch
• 1x Dread Drone
• 1x Open the Graves
• 1x Pawn of Ulamog
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Spawnsire of Ulamog

Life Loss (2)

• 1x Dread Defiler
• 1x Eternal Scourge

VOLRATH IS HERE (1)

• 1x Volrath the Fallen

Eldrazi (23)

• 1x Artisan of Kozilek
• 1x Bane of Bala Ged
• 1x Breaker of Armies
• 1x Conduit of Ruin
• 1x Desolation Twin
• 1x Dread Defiler
• 1x Dread Drone
• 1x Eldrazi Mimic
• 1x Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1x Endbringer
• 1x Endless One
• 1x Eternal Scourge
• 1x It That Betrays
• 1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion
• 1x Matter Reshaper
• 1x Oblivion Sower
• 1x Pathrazer of Ulamog
• 1x Sifter of Skulls
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Spawnsire of Ulamog
• 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1x Void Winnower
• 1x Voldaren Pariah  ^Flip

Removal (9)

• 1x Bane of Bala Ged
• 1x Bontu's Last Reckoning
• 1x Corpsehatch
• 1x Deadly Tempest
• 1x Finale of Eternity
• 1x Gruesome Slaughter
• 1x In Garruk's Wake
• 1x Mutilate
• 1x Never / Return

Graveyard (5)

• 1x Artisan of Kozilek
• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Corpse Churn
• 1x Liliana's Indignation
• 1x Stitcher's Supplier

Commander (1)

Ramp (12)

• 1x Bog Witch
• 1x Bontu's Monument
• 1x Charcoal Diamond
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Dreamstone Hedron
• 1x Endless Atlas
• 1x Magus of the Coffers
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Nirkana Revenant
• 1x Oblivion Sower
• 1x Sol Ring

Card Advantage (11)

• 1x Ambition's Cost
• 1x Ancient Craving
• 1x Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip
• 1x Baleful Force
• 1x Conduit of Ruin
• 1x Dark Prophecy
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Razaketh's Rite
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Wretched Confluence

Titans (3)

• 1x Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion
• 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

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Maybeboard

Other (8)

• 1x Eldrazi Monument
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Ophiomancer
• 1x Rite of Belzenlok
• 1x Tombstone Stairwell
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

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Welcome to my latest and greatest and dumbest idea. smh. Please help!

The Story

Coming Soon

This is a mono-black Eldrazi deck, built around having Whisper, Blood Liturgist as the commander, and designed by a man who has never played mono black before ( Chhris). What an idiot. This deck began as an idea to make a vorthos-centric black ramp deck that focused on hard-casting eldrazi titans with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as the Commander. Over time, play-testing, and actually building in paper this deck, it has transformed into a robust, multi-faceted deck with many solid synergies and an ever-flexible game plan, centered around the abilities of Whisper.

The main strategy is to ramp mana whilst filling the graveyard with Eldrazi cards, and then create tokens to sac to Whisper in order to summon back the Eldrazi titans at instant speed for the cost of a few tokens. Any recommendations or suggestions to power this strategy along smoothly will be much appreciate.

Whisper, Worshipper of Eldrazi

"LOOK AT HOW THEY BEG FOR THE KNIFE"

I have always LOVED the Eldrazi, ever since they were introduced. I came to the party late, since I only began playing around the time of Return to Ravnica, but in my first ever deck, my favourite creature to cast in my green ramp Timmy deck was Pathrazer of Ulamog !! Unfortunately, my friends always knew it was coming, and would keep their counter spells ready for it lmao.

Now, in 2019, I came up with an idea for a mono-black, heavy vorthos deck entered around casting Eldrazi and wreaking havoc. A deck, where I could cast all my favourite massive, tentacled friends. A deck where that sparks fear, a deck that captures the very name of Battlecruiser. All Eldrazi's all day, lots of reanimation, lots of spells, lots of fun. Welcome, to Rehab.

History of the Deck

As I said, this deck originally piloted by Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet . I found that even though Kalitas was very much in-flavour for matching with a mono-black eldrazi theme, it wasn't doing much to power the strategy of the deck. I found that I could ramp out quickly towards being able to hard cast Eldrazi's at 8+ mana, but they were easily removed via targeted exile or kill spells, or through board wipe. After that, it was more challenging to engage with the strategy, as reviving from the graveyard was easy to interact with from opponents view as well. Something needed to change.

VampiricTooter put me onto Whisper, Blood Liturgist , which changed they way I though about playing the deck. It's been a pure joy ever since changing commanders. I was initially disappointed that the deck felt less Eldrazi-themed, but the more I cast them, reanimated them, and plagued my opponents with Titan after Titan, I changed to think, "Actually, this is very much in theme with Eldrazi;" Hard to kill, Fear-inducing, gargantuan, vast. Impossible. Painful. I love it.

Just Quietly; Will You Like This Deck?

This deck plays like a midrange-value engine, with a simple early game strategy, and a mid-to-late game that presents several options and avenues to take. You will enjoy this deck IF:

1. You like Eldrazi
2. You like winning by attacking with massive creatures
3. You like piloting a deck with a commander who powers the core strategy
4. You like a commander deck with lots of tiny little interactions between the cards

You might not like this deck so much IF:

1. You like winning via combos
2. You don't like attacking with your creatures
3. You like playing cheap, efficient creatures
4. You don't like having your creatures killed very, very often.

My Player Philosophy

I have always embraced the "Timmy" style of gameplay. I prefer to win my way, with my creatures, and no other way. I don't like combos (in fact, I despise them :P ) and I don't need my deck to be as optimized as it possibly can be, I always prefer my decks to be fun, synergistic, and most of all, full of Battlecruiser fatties!!

Like a typical Timmy, I like to win big. I want to smash his opponents. In the face, again and again, with big, splashy, unnecessary creatures. For me, those plays are enjoyable. Like so, so, enjoyably, ENJOYABLE. That's the kinda magic game I love to play. That's what magic means to me, to be fun, to be social, I want to have my creatures hated out the game, and then play another one!

I embrace big creatures, I embrace cards that are fun, or janky, or engage with another card I have in a small little way, rather than necessarily playing the most powerful or the most efficient card I can. I tend to embrace the random, and gimmicky, janky effects of MTG, which will be reflected in the deck list here. I care more about the quality of my wins, rather than the quantity.

If you wanna know more about mtg player archetypes, you can read more Here:

Thank you

The Card Choices

Enough about me. Let's talk about the cards I have assembled here to take on the challenge of a mono-black eldrazi deck. I have tried to break down the deck into it's different sections, and talk about each card as much as possible, sometimes there are many interconnecting, small synergies that each card has with each other, so I will try and highlight those as much as possible where applicable. Some may have been missed, please, feel free to mention any missed interactions below in the comments, or, if you want to know more about a certain card choice, please let me know.

ELDRAZI

To begin with, Artisan of Kozilek when cast from our hand, provides a free reanimation to go along with a strong 10/9 body. Coupled with Annihilator 2, it also makes it a strong removal spell as well. If the opponent sacrifices creatures to the Annihilator trigger, It That Betrays brings them back from the dead. Vedalken Pariah wants you to sacrifice three tokens at instant speed so you can virtually wipe your opponent's board before your turn.

Some Eldrazi who offer us advantages over Board State, Card Draw, and Mana: Breaker of Armies is a big body who thrives in combat, clearing the way for our Eldrazi titans to deal big damage, or simply forcing opponents to block and lose their creatures. Having It That Betrays with it will again cause big swings in our favour, in fact when casting Conduit of Ruin , and gaining the card advantage from that card, the main target we want to tutor is It That Betrays the card is just that good. Smothering Abomination gives us lots of cards for sacrificing the many tokens we make. Oblivion Sower gives us advantage of another kind, allowing us gain extra lands by exiling our opponents library; paired with Wasteland Strangler , they can give a creature -3-3 at instant speed with Whisper, Blood Liturgist on the field, and Strangler in your graveyard.

Dread Defiler does some really janky life loss shit over and over and over again with Eternal Scourge .

Distended Mindbender does a bit of discard, and Void Winnower is a great little control unit, but Kozilek, the Great Distortion is a control package onto himself. By discarding cards, we also fuel the reanimation strategy via Whisper, Blood Liturgist , who brings back any creatures discarded to the void, ready to fight again. The Eldrazi titans in general are endgame stuff: Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger WILL win the game for you, and Emrakul, the Promised End does a pretty darn good job of getting close.

Tokens, tokens, tokens. Sifter of Skulls , Blight Herder , Carrier Thrull, Pawn of Ulamog , and Dread Drone not only give us tokens that produce mana for summoning our big boss creatures like Endless One , but also those tokens can be used for reanimation via Whisper.

Lastly, there are the big ender creatures who pack a big punch alongside the titans. Desolation Twin , Void Winnower , Spawnsire of Ulamog are all big creatures that smash your opponents for big life chunks. Swing big, smile big, have big fun. Eldrazi Mimic can copy them all, and make itself titanic-sized, especially if it copies one one of the Eldrazi titans.

CARD ADVANTAGE & GRAVEYARD

I've included these two together, because technically both sections perform the same function. They both offer card advantage, either by fuelling cards into my hand, or tossing them into the graveyard, where they can be reanimated via Whisper's ability. The graveyard is just as much a resource as your hand, it should always be treated as available, and having cards sitting there is a boon to you as much as the seven you have in hand.

Many of these are self explanatory:

Draw cards with Baleful Force , Arguel's Blood Fast  , Disciple of Bolas and reap the benefits. These are the main draw power-cards in the deck. If Baleful Force dies, reanimate it. Disciple of Bolas alongside big Eldrazis is a value machine. Reanimate whenever you're short of magic.

Final Parting is important for the tutoring for the graveyard. Buried Alive , Corpse Churn , Liliana's Indignation and Stitcher's Supplier also fill the graveyard. It's not hard to find them with the level of cards we draw.

Don't sleep or skimp on your draw effects. MTG is a game of resources, and whoever has the most controls the tempo of the game, and usually ends up winning. Making sure we always have another play, another strategy, or an answer in hand is key to piloting your way through a game of EDH.

RAMP & LAND

Again, this is another section that is pretty much self explanatory. Nothing is really worth focusing on in too much detail. Other than to say, Bog Witch , Crypt Ghast and Nirkana Revenant are your MVP's here. They are huge, huge juice to the strategy, and double mana is never nothing to smirk at, especially at such a low cost.

My land package presents a few questions for me. I do not play a huge amount of black in my decks, as a result, I don't know much about the different land packages that mono-black really wants to run. If you have any suggestions / recommendations for the lands I am running, please leave them in the comments below.

TOKENS AND OTHER STUFF TO REANIMATE

Abhorrent Overlord is one of our favourite friends to recast, as he can provide great value over and over in producing 2-4 tokens for us consistently. Baleful Force is another good target, as is Torgaar, Famine Incarnate for punishing our friend's life totals over and over and over again.

A lot of our token creators double as Eldrazi summons, and the eldrazi tokens they create are terrific for performing multiple uses: they can block, they can be sacrificed to Whisper, Blood Liturgist and reanimate a titan, or It That Betrays , or they can used as mana to hard cast something we want to hard cast like Conduit of Ruin . Pawn of Ulamog , if he sticks around long enough, can give us immense value for his cost.

Sifter of Skulls and Spawnsire of Ulamog are our two main Eldrazi token creators. Reanimating Dread Drone for repeated Eldrazi tokens isn't a bad move either.

Corpsehatch kills a creature and gives us tokens. Awesome.

REMOVAL

Bane of Bala Ged is terrible for your friends, and Bearer of Silence makes your friends need to sacrifice. Gruesome Slaughter makes sense with so many big, colourless creatures running around, and there's no fight effect, so you needn't worry about losing any.

Bontu's Last Reckoning helps you catch up considerably, don't worry about the untap thing, you'll usually cast it lat game with plenty of mana available. Mutilate is practically prerequisite with all the swamps we play. Never / Return is a good 2-for-1 and for the mid-late game, Finale of Eternity , In Garruk's Wake , and Deadly Tempest do a good job against creature heavy decks. We gain so much mana, that casting is not an issue

Piloting the Deck

This section is broken down into three areas;

EARLY GAME & THE PERFECT HAND

Our early game strategy is quite simple: we wanna ramp, and we want fuel our hand and graveyard. The perfect hand consists of between 3-5 land cards and/or mana doubler (eg. Crypt Ghast ) and mana rock (e.g. Sol Ring ). Ideally in this hand is a card that will give us some kind of card advantage or graveyard advantage. If you have a hand full of Eldrazi or even 3-4 of them, consider taking a mulligan unless they are reasonably costed. Make sure you hit your land drops and draw cards for the first 4-6 turns, and consider if playing Whisper, Blood Liturgist is the right move. If you have managed to dump an Eldrazi or two in the Graveyard, consider playing her to gain an early advantage and reanimate them. By now, you should have the creatures to do. We don't really need to apply to much pressure early, but keep a watchful eye on the enemy board states and apply a kill spell or Bontu's Last Reckoning if you deem it wise.

MIDRANGE

After preparing wisely and getting the land and cards we need, the midrange game is where we start to hit our stride. By now, we should have enough mana to begin attempting to hard cast some of our Eldrazi, especially those such as Conduit of Ruin who's ability trigger once the spell is cast. Meanwhile, whilst we apply pressure to the board with ever-larger Eldrazis, we should actively be looking to search out our titans, and protect our graveyard. Be wary if one deck packs a lot of gy hate, wait to play Whisper, Blood Liturgist until it's absolutely necessary. I need to stress: THIS DECK WILL PUT A TARGET ON YOUR BACK. Be patient, and rest easy knowing that if your titans and gargantuan creatures are stymied, they can be easily revived. During the mid game as well, we should be preparing lots of tokens for Whisper, use them to block or sacrifice for the big reanimation effect. Applying enough pressure to the board should see your creatures hated out or kill at least one or two opponents. Be wary of the control players, but again, don't get frustrated if you lose big creatures, they are one Whisper, Blood Liturgist away from being back on the battlefield. Speaking of whisper, you will want to be activating her ability at instant speed only -- make sure you do in reaction to a spell or big attack by an opponent, or in the end step of the player before you (This will give you a fatty that can attack on your turn). The ever-present threat of the Whisper activation is a good tool if your hand is poor and you need to politic with the table.

LATE GAME

If the game stretches into the late game, stay with your strategy. Prepare big draw spells to refuel your hand, and keep an ever-watchful eye on the player who keeps dropping Wrath of God . In those situations, make sure you have Whisper ready, but not committed, having an active hand of cards will be your friend, and the longer the game drags on, and the more our graveyard fills, the harder it becomes for our opponents to match our resources. Keep pushing and using the removal in your deck and creatures, to little away at the opponent's game. Whisper shines in the midrange, but her ability is incredible in the late game where she can consistently keep the deck functioning. She is a resource onto herself: use her. It will get trickier over time to keep her alive as opponents cotton-on to her value. Make sure to play smartly and confidently, and cast her only when necessary; you don't want to needlessly lose her when someone casts Damnation on the GW token player.

Summary and Feedback

Like I said, this deck was a pipe dream and a real ball-buster for some time. I don't play a lot of black, so I struggled to find a way to make an effective strategy out of mono-black that stayed true to my play style. I can happily say that I feel the deck is on the right track. This deck is not intended to be 100% competitive and efficient. I want it to be silly, flavourful, fun and full of big fatties whilst still having a cohesive strategy and plan to the card choices. It's beginning to fee that way.

I also want to thank again all the people so far who have lended a hand in building this deck, some of whom have already been mentioned but also Retsok909 and Noa for being my playgroup so many years, and to the latter for literally highlighting the pros and cons of every mono-black commander out there when I was feeling lost. Cheers.

This deck is early days, but I'm enjoying it a lot. Who knew. I want to thank bushido_man96, LordBlackblade and VampiricTooter for their help early on with advice and guidance with this deck.

Having said that, there's always room for improvement. I'm still not 100% happy with the mana base, and I know there must be redundant cards in the list that can be replaced with better effects: I'm still new to Mono-black!! leave a comment down below so I can add it to the maybe board. I also need to cut down the win-more cards and focus on cards that will help me rebuild from behind or catch up to parity.

And Hey! If you like the deck, and if this has inspired you to build a Whisper, Blood Liturgist deck of your own, or if this deck captured the Eldrazi theme for you, please give it a +1! It really makes me feel good. :) Please check out my other paper decks:

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The Safari Zone {Primer}

Commander / EDH Chhris

SCORE: 49 | 34 COMMENTS | 5063 VIEWS | IN 19 FOLDERS

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Get the Most Out of Your Myr in Three Easy Steps

Commander / EDH Chhris

SCORE: 4 | 376 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS

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Thanks for reading! Please +1 for Whisper, Blood Liturgist , and help me make this the number 1 Whisper list on TappedOut!

Top Ranked	Achieved #3 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #2 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 29 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	5.02
Tokens	Eldrazi 10/10 C, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Harpy 1/1 B, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Vampire Knight 1/1 B, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	A Very Cool EDH Folder, EDH, Other's EDH Decks, Decks, Weeeh, Pew, Cool Deck List, References, Deck Idea, Good EDH