Really like the idea behind this of reflecting damage from your creatures to your opponents! Seems like it will be a ton of fun to play and provide a tricky puzzle to play against.

Since it looks like you need some trimming I'll give you some suggestions, these are what I would do.

• Greater Realm of Preservation is too situation in my mind unless every deck you play against has either black or red
• Scythe of the Wretched works well because it's any damage instead of combat, but I have a feeling you're just going to use it on Zurgo instead of other guys and in that case there are probably better and cheaper equipment for him.
• Lifelink providers don't seem to be integral to your plan, gaining life is great but I'm guessing many times you'd rather see a massive damage dealer than a second source of lifelink. I'd cut these down.
• Damage doublers again are great and speed you up but I don't think you need so many of them. I'd keep Wound Reflection for sure since it only hits your opponents but maybe only one or two others.
• Redirection spells (Fork, Wild Ricochet, etc.) are a lot of fun and can be crazy powerful or useful such as copying a ramp spell or a kicked rite of replication, but I can't tell you how many times I've left mana up for one of these to have no one cast a good spell to copy. Again I'd cut back on these, and change one to a Dualcaster Mage since that leaves you with a body.
• Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond win the game. If you don't want to be hated for combos I'd take these two out, they're just not interactive.

I'd throw in more card draw (Phyrexian Arena is a staple for a reason) and some more recursion probably to get back your reckoner/spitemare creatures since black is so good at that. Plus if I had a Zurgo deck I'd be hard pressed not to put an Assault Suit in :).

Really like this though, excited to see how it turns out!

Yoooo, that's really great advice, thanks for putting thought into it! I just made a bunch of edits.

• Greater Realm of Preservation was there as a combo with the cards that damage everyone equally, but I realized that was a bad combo.
• Scythe of the Wretched, like you said, would probably have only gotten used on Zurgo. I was getting into Magic Christmasland a little bit there haha.
• I removed Whip of Erebos, since the activated ability wasn't super relevant and it's vulnerable to both artifact and enchantment removal, but I don't want to take out the other lifelink effects. It would suck to see doubles, but lifelink can be super relevant in this build. Makes for an easy infinite-life combo with Indestructibility and a Boros Reckoner ability, or an easy instakill with Volcano Hellion and a Boros Reckoner ability.
• Took out a couple of the less-powerful damage doublers.
• Good call on Dualcaster Mage, I swapped out Fork for it. As for the redirection spells: there are only three, so I don't think that's tooooo much redundancy, but I'll have to make that call once I get a chance to play with it for a while. I can definitely see them being dead cards, but they also seem like too much fun to pass up. Radiate in particular is the heart and soul of EDH to me haha. It can be such a ridiculous card.
• Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond are gone. So is Tainted Strike, for the same reasoning.
• I took out some of the less-relevant removal, creature and utility cards, a few tutors, and a few winmore cards (Strionic Resonator).

Still looking for a way to shoehorn a bit of recursion and Assault Suit (or some other kind of Zurgo support), but we're down to 104 cards!

birdman412 There are a couple more cards I'd like to get your thoughts on.

• Repercussion: does this usually get you targeted? Seems like it would, and it might be worth it anyway, but I don't have any experience with it.
• Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: she's obviously strong, but would she be worth it in this build? I don't have many other solid creature threats, and the effect is relevant, but at seven mana I wouldn't be able to play a combo on the turn she comes down, and she'd be a magnet for removal.

Actually, just made a few more edits -- I'm down to an even 100! We have a deck!

• I had a change of heart about tutors and took out everything except for Sunforger. I left that one because it doesn't tutor up a combo win, which could be viewed as cheap -- it just serves as another rattlesnake, threatening a redirection spell (or Arcbond). Plus it adds power to Zurgo.
• Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is out. I decided that she'd probably just paint a big target on my head, drain all of my mana and die to removal.
• Felidar Umbra is out, on the grounds that it'll likely get me 2-for-1ed with exile removal.
• Council's Judgment is out because I didn't understand how it worked before -- I was thinking that no one could vote for something I controlled! In retrospect that would be totally broken haha.
• Shaman en-Kor is out on the grounds that she's too situational.
• Shunt is out in favor of Reroute.
• Assault Suit, Reanimate and Starstorm are in, as well as three cycling lands.

I've been doing a little playtesting and I think this iteration works pretty much exactly how I wanted it to! Happily removing the "needs help" tag :)

This is a cool concept. Are you completely against tutors?

Here's some non-tutor suggestions: Deflecting Palm, Sanguine Bond, Exquisite Blood, Eye for an Eye, Simulacrum

EDIT: sorry i didn't see the other comments until now

Looking good! Looks like you focused it a lot which is awesome. To your questions:

Repercussion I'm actually considering taking out, not because I get targeted because of it but because it kills me as often as other people haha. Ruhan being the drunk he is has to attack so there's a lot of opportunity to hand me some pain. The cards that will get you targeted are Lightmine Field style, weenie decks pretty much can't handle them.

Still testing out Gisela, she dies pretty quickly so I'm not sold on her yet.

Just so you know, Council's Judgment does actually say that no one can vote for something you controll. It's a fantastic card that is also interactive and gets around hexproof/shroud.

How has it been playing?

no Reverberate?

Since you play Sudden Spoiling, Massacre Wurm might be good in this deck. Anyway, this deck looks very fun to play, +1.

Serfax: Thanks! Not sure if your edit means that you already caught this, but there's a section in the description called "Cards I'm Avoiding" that talks about why I'm not running several of those. Of the ones not mentioned there: Deflecting Palm is good, but I'm still testing what level of redundancy I need with redirection spells -- it might end up in the deck if I need more redirection, which is why it's in the maybeboard; Eye for an Eye is interesting, but you still take damage, which makes it a lot more risky than the other redirection spells (and not a redirection spell at all, actually); Simulacrum is a card that I really love -- it wasn't in the list for the same reason as Deflecting Palm, but I'll go ahead and add it to the sideboard.

canterlotguardian: Reverberate and Fork were both in this deck originally, but the effect of those cards is a little narrow; there just aren't a lot of single-target spells in EDH, and Wild Ricochet, Radiate and Dualcaster Mage all hit the same cards. I'll keep it in the sideboard in case I do end up needing some more redundancy with that effect.

Scorpy: That would make a pretty killer combo! Massacre Wurm is a killer creature in general, but I don't think it has a lot of synergy with the rest of the deck though. For one thing, he would DEFINITELY get me targeted haha. I don't think it's worth running just for one 9-cmc combo, but I'll keep it in mind if I end up needing more threats.

Um... Reverberate and Fork don't matter how many targets there are. It's any spell. Supreme Verdict, Demonic Tutor, Incremental Growth... As long as it's an instant or sorcery, it can copy it.

facepalm

Don't mind me, just an idiot trying to make a magic deck. Totally wasn't paying attention. I was half-right at least, since Dualcaster Mage still has the same effect and Wild Ricochet copies. Probably could use a third, or maybe fourth, copying effect in there though. Shoehorning it in right now. Thanks!

How much would you lose if you dropped black all together? It seems this could become a Gisela or Tajic deck fairly easily. The advantage of Tajic, Blade of the Legion would be indestructible all the time instead of your turn only. Some combos would work off blocking in that case, and he's harder to remove.

You would lose your black card draw (3 cards), which is a fairly big deal, but could be replaced with a few artifact versions. It would simplify your manabase though, which could help with all those instants.

You would also gain style points for building a deck in the hardest two colors for EDH.

I keep coming back to that thought! Boros is definitely the core of this deck, it doesn't necessarily need the black, but it does have a lot of advantages for the splash. Like you mentioned, the card draw spells are a pretty big deal, but I'd lose more than that. Black gives:

• The removal suite: Sudden Spoiling, Utter End and Vindicate, all of which are really strong, versatile ways to take care of threats and keep combo players from going off.

• Reanimation effects: these let me to bring back a roasted Boros Reckoner, or steal an opponent's creature from the yard, which feels in line with the redirection spirit.

• Rakdos Charm and Erebos, God of the Dead: both offer a lot of flexibility and value.

• The card draw suite: black card draw is fantastic compared to red and white. I'm not familiar with what the artifact equivalents for cards like these would be, but I feel like I'd end up having to just play a higher threat density if I cut these.

• No Mercy: I haven't playtested with this build enough to know whether this card is critical, but it seems really good here.

• Phyrexian Obliterator: I'm a bit on the fence with this anyway because of its restrictive mana cost, but damn the combos are there with this card.

So, not that many cards are black, but those cards are doing a whole lot. I'm still undecided about it. On one hand, this build would definitely lose some power and versatility without black, but on the other, it could serve to focus the deck. None of these cards are really central to this deck's main game plan.

The other consideration is the commander. I really like Zurgo -- I just think he's a fun commander. I also really like Gisela, and I feel like she's what this deck really wants, but I'm wary of having a 7cmc commander -- also, she's a bit of a nonbo if I'm trying to damage my own creatures. Tajic, like you said, could combo off of some blocks, is harder to remove, and is less likely to get me targeted. But he's just so mehhhhh, especially considering that I'll practically never get to take advantage of that Batallion trigger.

It's a lot to think about! I am thinking about it though.

Absolutely love this! I'm trying to put together a very similar deck, but replacing black with blue and going a little more spidery, with a bit more spell redirection as well as the damage redirection - Jeskai Aikido . I will definitely be stealing some of your ideas though, awesome list!

Thanks, glad you like it =D

Like I was talking about a couple of comments up, black is definitely the least central color here -- I think going into blue is an awesome idea. You get the extra copying effects, plus more chances to steal things and generally be tricky. I also really like that Ruhan plays similarly to Zurgo! Looks like fun.

I won't be going blue because I'm a hater, but if I'm being honest that's probably the best way to go with a build like this. It'd probably be worth it just to run Telepathy.

I did snag a couple of card ideas from there though -- they're in the maybeboard until I get some more time to think about slotting them in.

Love it. So much thought.

Thanks! Haven't revisited this page in a while, but the deck's been a blast to play irl :)

There haven't been many relevant spells printed for this deck over the past year, so the only significant change I've made has been to add some of the new duals and cut back on basic mountains to make Tainted Pact better -- just updated with that.

Super fun deck, though I am having some difficulty with the lack of creatures. I've added Stonehewer Giant as a form of tutor. But again with only 8-10 creatures, it's hard to find something to start the (targets) combo off. I often start out with no creatures even by turn 5 or 6 I'll get 1 MAYBE 2, and even then I'm susceptible to spot removal before there is a chance to make them indestructible (I've thrown in a few more indestructible cards like Shielded by Faith and Avacyn, Angel of Hope ). I would suggest adding more creatures for some more consistent defense/combos. Any tips / Suggestions?

Haeus Thanks for the suggestions, and it's so cool to me that you're playing the deck! I don't get on here often anymore, but I do still own / play this as my only paper EDH deck. I just updated the list with the changes I've made over the past year or so. You were totally right about Stonehewer Giant, can't believe I'd missed him before -- it's basically a one card combo since it can tutor Darksteel Plate --> Pariah's Shield --> Sunforger --> Arcbond over three turns!

Re: the creature count, the deck is definitely a glass cannon, and it's not the most powerful commander deck. More creatures would be nice since that'd make it less glass cannony and more valuey, but I don't know how I'd fit all the tutors and combo pieces with a higher creature count. Also, the types of creatures we're interested in often don't do enough on their own to be worth anything if you draw too many of them. I feel like I'd probably run about three more Boros Reckoners if they existed. It helps a lot that they printed Truefire Captain! I was finally able to cut Coalhauler Swine, which was truly a terrible card, lol. Six mana is just so much for a creature that doesn't have any kind of protection or immediate value built in.

It kinda depends on what decks you're playing against as to when you play your creatures too. If they're likely to have spot removal, you want to get the creature out and protected asap. But if they're likely to have mass bounce / mass exile / edict effects, you want to hold creatures in your hand until late game when you can get the whole combo off in a turn (which usually takes about ten mana). If it gets to a point where you've played / protected a creature and they've removed it, you're looking at an uphill battle for sure. There's always the Zurgo beatstick plan and the silver bullet plan though, and in the late game you'll usually have most of your combo pieces on board just waiting for a payoff.

It also helps a lot if your opponents don't know what you're up to. If you're playing with a regular group they can definitely start to hate you out. But, that's EDH ¯_(ツ)_/¯ You can always focus on your backup wincons and run hate cards of your own in that case.

The other new card I'm excited about is Chance for Glory. Getting an extra turn and making a creature indestructible seems like a fantastic way to accelerate the combo -- and it's tutorable by Sunforger and Dimir Machinations!

Haeus How has Avacyn been btw? Love her, I'm just scared of how expensive she is.