The Apprentice's Workshop - Episode 15

The Apprentice's Workshop

KrazyCaley

23 April 2013

1257 views

Hello.

Today we're looking at

If Lazav were a commander...

Commander / EDH* killroy726

SCORE: 4 | 15 COMMENTS | 5612 VIEWS

This is an EDH deck.

So we have a lot of rogues and we have a lot of mill. Rogues tend to be unblockable and do other tricky things, so they go pretty well with a mill deck. Still, we have to be careful. In a deck with both attacking creatures and milling effects, you don't want to spread yourself too thin across both those categories, otherwise you'll find that you've reduced your opponent to 15 life and 10 cards left in the library at the end of the game, when you might have won if you had focused more intensely on one or the other.

This deck is committed admirably to the mill side of the line, so we don't need too many heavy repairs. But there are some suspect cards.

Questionable cards

Deepchannel Mentor - Dude's ridiculously expensive given his effect, a lot of our stuff is already unblockable or can be made so, and a surprising number of our creatures are mono-black.

Duskmantle Guildmage - Too mana hungry to be any good.

Gravelgill Duo - Not a terrible card, but there are better choices than this.

Pestermite - We lack the combos that make this creature really good.

Distortion Strike - Again, a lot of our stuff is already very difficult to block. We don't need to spend cards to make the few things that are blockable unblockable.

Morsel Theft - A potentially cantripping drain life for 3 is not a worthwhile effect in what should primarily be a mill deck.

Aura Graft - Is an extra life for our Corrupted Conscience and Volition Reins, but otherwise will depend entirely on our opponents running auras.

Cancel - Never run Cancel. There is ALWAYS a better counterspell than Cancel.

That's 8 cards to cut. One of these should be a land; this deck is fairly mana heavy and 37 seems to be about the proper number for it. Nephalia Drownyard is excellent for this purpose.

This leaves us with 7 slots to ponder.

First, I note the absence of Lightning Greaves and other protective equipment. This is even more critical a need for this deck than other decks, since cipher cards on unblockable creatures very much demand protection from spot removal. So we'll add a Lightning Greaves, and also a copy of Swiftfoot Boots.

Five spots to go. We could spend these on powerful mill spells like Glimpse the Unthinkable and its ilk, but in EDH such cards lose efficiency given the huge deck sizes. We need recurring sources of mill. We need really good BOMBS, too; our deck lacks a really powerful late-game contingent.

Choice 1 - Keening Stone. Keening Stone is a win condition for any EDH mill deck. Even if you play it as early as turn 6, your opponent will likely be on a five turn (or so) clock. Play it later in the game, and your opponent might have no time at all to prevent the Stone from milling him out.

Choice 2 - Chancellor of the Spires. The game start ability is nice, but he's really here to be a good bomb, and that free instant/sorcery recast is very nice.

Choice 3 - Hedron Crab - Simple, cheap, effective.

Choice 4 - Lurking Informant - A rogue, helps us essentially fateseal our opponent while contributing slightly to the milling project.

Choice 5 - Wrexial, the Risen Deep - Another really nice bomb that our opponents will have to answer.

KrazyCaley's Recommended Changes:

Cut:

Deepchannel Mentor

Duskmantle Guildmage

Gravelgill Duo

Pestermite

Distortion Strike

Morsel Theft

Aura Graft

Cancel

Add:

Lightning Greaves

Swiftfoot Boots

Keening Stone

Chancellor of the Spires

Hedron Crab

Lurking Informant

Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Nephalia Drownyard