Ad Mortem Aeternam

Commander / EDH* Competitive Infinite Combo UB (Dimir)

TheBlueTitan

Lands (30)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 11x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave

The Doomsday Pile (11)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Gush
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Predict
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Unearth
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Faster (6)

• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal

Deny Them Hope (16)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Countersquall
• 1x Delay
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Hurkyl's Recall
• 1x Liliana of the Veil
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Negate
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Snap
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Phylacteries (11)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance

More Resources (4)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Doom Engine (14)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Candelabra of Tawnos
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Doomsday
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Helm of Awakening
• 1x Hurkyl's Recall
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Mind's Desire
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Paradox Engine

Find It (10)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

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Introduction

When given the opportunity to live forever, mortals oft leap at the chance. Ironically, when eternity is gained, life's novelties, experiences, and interests all dissipate, as time crumbles all things.

Left with truly nothing existentially intriguing, Dralnu seeks one final experience. Unable to die, if the world ends , will he?

"When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

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Why Dralnu?:

TL;DR I like the Lich mythos, think Dralnu has super metal art, like storm and doomsday playstyles, and like Johnny-style rube goldberg machine decks that win out of nowhere. Blue and Black are my favorite colors. And flashback is my favorite mechanic in magic. It's a match made in wherever.

I've always been a fan of storm as an archetype, but felt as if the linked deck was slightly too binary in how the games happened. I won or lost big, because the deck was trying to do degenerate things, but the commander was casual, so I couldn't play at casual or competitive tables. I was looking for something more resilient and cutthroat, but have had a strict self-imposed rule that I wont build a deck with the exact color combination of another one of my commander decks. This ruled out Sultai and Grixis.

How to Play/Philosophy of Deck Show

How to Play:
In the first few turns, you have a lot of flexibility, but need to be sure that you're doing something actively. Cast spells, counter spells, play mana rocks. The most important thing to be sure you do is to increase your mana resources, be it through land drops or mana rocks. The goal is to make sure that you are ahead on mana. Once you have established a few mana rocks, you want to actively be searching for a win condition . This deck is fast and rewards superior planning for the turns and moments ahead.

Philosophy:
It's a widely held notion that commander is a "casual format". Despite this fact, there will always be those people who are interested in making things more efficient - making things better is part of the human condition! So if you don't like "competitive edh", then you don't have to read this.

Despite the counterspells, Dralnu isn't a control deck. Your goal is to use these spells only to thwart immediate threats to your win conditions , that cause your opponents to gain almost irreversible advantage, or that outright win them the game. Dralnu is a commander that almost no one takes seriously when they first see him, due to his "obvious weakness" . Use this! This is fantastic for you, and the better you get at playing the multiple lines of play, the harder it'll be to ever remember the first line of his textbox, because it'll be like it's not even there.

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You'll enjoy Dralnu if:

• You're the kind of player that likes to win through multiple lines of play and try to find the most efficient "out" in any given scenario


• You like to tap and untap things during your turns


• You enjoy winning the game through alternate win conditions


• You like challenges with meaningful choices that reward practice and require skill to play , else you lose yourself the game


• You've saved the game a few times to let Vivi do his thing


• You think the end of the world is something to sing about

You'll hate Dralnu if:

• You like to attack with creatures.


• You hate keeping track of triggers, floating mana, storm count, and total sighs exhaled per turn


• Your playgroup has a mono red burn player who doesn't like you


• The idea of exiling your own library for a chance at winning makes you shake your head


• You think this is what true evil looks like


• You want your friends to actually fear your deck, instead of seeing your attempts at evil as kind of cute

The Name of the Deck

The deck name is Latin, and it loosely translates to mean "To Eternal Death" or "To Death Everlasting". I thought it appropriate as he's old and the connotations of old magic or mysticism in our culture's associations with the dead language.

Soundtrack for the Deck

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Win Conditions

Doomsday/Lab Maniac

The real intention of the deck is to win with this card and this card . It's the reason I built the deck in the first place. It's a very different experience from all other win conditions I've ever played and feels incredibly rewarding when a win is earned.

Aetherflux Reservoir

Sometimes you just have to build up the Aetherflux Reservoir and nuke your opponents with an ion cannon.

Paradox Engine

This doesn't techically win the game by itself, but the ability to cast a spell from the graveyard with Dralnu means that if you cast a spell from your hand, you can untap Dralnu and then cast it from the graveyard, and then untap Dralnu, and then untap Dralnu, and then you can actually untap Dralnu.

Dramatic Scepter

If you're not familiar, there's a combo between Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter . If you put the spell under the scepter, you only need to have mana rocks in play that create three or more mana, and you instantly have infinite mana. This is sometimes a good thing in EDH.

Ad Nauseam

As the phrase goes about Dark Confidant , this card gets better the better your deck gets. This deck plays a lot of low cost cards, which in turn allow the Ad Nauseam to dig incredibly deep into the deck at the end of an opponent's turn, often fueling the hand with exactly what's needed to end the world (game, whatever).

Mind's Desire

Sometimes you can squeeze out a victory through pure value by casting this for ten mana and resolving two or three other win conditions, and you can also use if you have surplus mana to win with Doomsday in a stylistic conclusion. A very potent, if slightly variable win condition.

Help/Suggestions?

1.) If you know of any more combos or tech that could easily fit into this list while remaining serviceable draws outside of the specific combo, let me know.

2.) Tell me what you think about the deck!

3.) You've tried out the deck yourself, what do you think?

Updates

6.17.18

First Public Release.

Deck was massively overhauled to be my first competitive deck as a Doomsday / Storm list, with many changes from the original. As such, there's no need to show a card list update, as this is basically a new base deck. Changes to this list will be listed in the future.

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Archived Information

3.20.17 Show

Aesthetics updated, and layout created for future use. Card-by-Card Breakdown for Win Condition cards. Deck Philosophy created as well as explanation of other peripherals.

Cards Removed Show

1x Darkslick Shores traded, but it'll return

Cards Added Show

1x Ancient Excavation
1x Baleful Strix
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Careful Consideration
1x Crush of Tentacles
1x Cryptic Command
1x Command Tower
1x Countersquall
1x Chainer's Edict
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Doomsday
1x Dig Through Time
1x Evacuation
1x Extract from Darkness
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Fathom Feeder
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Force of Will
1x Increasing Ambition
7x Island
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Monastery Siege
1x Millikin
1x Mystic Confluence
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Rise from the Tides
1x Sky Diamond
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Spellskite
1x Syphon Mind
6x Swamp
1x Tidespout Tyrant
1x Time Spiral
1x Time Stretch
1x Unearth
1x Underground River
1x Worn Powerstone

10.10.16 Show

Found the first template for deck creation that's ever resonated with me.

While reading the /r/MagicTCG and /r/CompetitiveEDH subreddits, I came across the "8x8 Theory for EDH". This deck follows that theory. Start with one Commander and pick 8 themes that you want to present in the deck (for example "Mana Rocks" or "Card Draw"). After you've chosen 8 themes, find 8 cards in each category. 8x8=64, and now you've got 64 (+1 Commander) = 65 cards. The remaining 35 cards are lands! It's a pretty simple idea, but a template was a nice scaffolding device as I already had experience with cards that I liked, and knew what effects I'd prefer to include for my themes.

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Date added	8 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	WRG
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	26 - 0 Mythic Rares 25 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.09
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U