All Blood No Brakes - Awaken the Blood Avatar EDH

Commander / EDH Aggro Aristocrats Haste Multiplayer Primer RBW (Mardu) Sacrifice Tokens Tokens Value Engine

FourDoughnut

Land (35)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Foreboding Ruins
• 1x Furycalm Snarl
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 2x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 1x Plains
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Savai Triome
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Instant (9)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Final Fortune
• 1x Fury Storm
• 1x Increasing Vengeance
• 1x Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Secure the Wastes
• 1x Twinferno
• 1x You're Confronted by Robbers

Creature (22)

• 1x Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward
• 1x Academy Rector
• 1x Beetleback Chief
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Bloodletter of Aclazotz
• 1x Chittering Witch
• 1x Cloudgoat Ranger
• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Emrakul's Hatcher
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Goblin Goliath
• 1x Isshin, Two Heavens as One
• 1x Karlach, Fury of Avernus
• 1x Marsh Flitter
• 1x Mondrak, Glory Dominus
• 1x Roaming Throne
• 1x Sengir Autocrat
• 1x Siege-Gang Commander
• 1x Sling-Gang Lieutenant
• 1x Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1x Weaponcraft Enthusiast
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
• 1x Jaya, Fiery Negotiator

Commander (1)

 ^Flip

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Assemble the Legion
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x City on Fire
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Dreadhorde Invasion
• 1x Gratuitous Violence
• 1x Impact Tremors
• 1x Skrelv's Hive

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Ghired's Belligerence
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Painful Truths
• 1x Persist
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Sign in Blood
• 1x Sram's Expertise

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Extus who?

This deck is all about Awaken the Blood Avatar   We are focused on using and abusing the triggered ability of the Avatar 3/6 BR tokens that the spell creates to bleed the whole table simultaneously when we declare attackers. We are going to achieve this by:

1. Generating creature tokens to cast Awaken the Blood Avatar   for {R} {B} as early and often as possible.

2. Making extra Blood Avatar tokens by copying the spell on cast, creating double tokens, and through populate effects.

3. Maximizing our damage output with extra combat steps, damage doubling effects and triggered ability copying effects.

4. Having absolute reckless abandon for any sort of resource management etiquette, we are throwing anything and everything we can into getting as many of those attack triggers as quickly as possible. I would pay for the spell with my own blood if I could.

Generating Creature Tokens

This is the lifeblood of this deck. Without enough creature fodder to sacrifice, we can't expect to awaken many Blood Avatars. Cards like Weaponcraft Enthusiast / Sengir Autocrat / Sling-Gang Lieutenant and the like are great for bursting out a lot of creature tokens and getting an early or unexpected Blood Avatar token for as little as 5 mana, which can seriously disrupt your opponents early game. Goblin Goliath will often make us 3 tokens on ETB and can also double our damage output each turn which helps justifies the steep casting cost of this card. They are also creatures themselves, and will be sacrificed to Awaken the Blood Avatar   for value and will later be reanimated for further value with cards like Reanimate Animate Dead Dance of the Dead Persist and Malakir Rebirth  .

Cards like Bitterblossom / Skrelv's Hive / Dreadhorde Invasion and Assemble the Legion give us value turn after turn and will help us cast Awaken the Blood Avatar   more consistently. Planeswalkers like Jaya, Fiery Negotiator and Elspeth, Sun's Champion also fit this role in that they have +1 abilities that generate creature tokens. Jaya has two abilities which may come in handy in a pinch but her ultimate is a game winner if it ever goes off. Elspeth does so much for us with her burst token generation and her ability to board wipe without hitting our Blood Avatar's or token fodder, I don't ever see myself using her ultimate.

Instants like Secure the Wastes and You're Confronted by Robbers can also help us surprise opponents by generating a handful of creatures before our untap step. If we play a mana rock and don't miss a land drop, these spells can let us cast Awaken the Blood Avatar   as early as turn 4 (or turn 3 if we are lucky enough to have a Sol Ring / Mana Vault). Sram's Expertise while not an instant can let us generate value of a free 3 cost or less spell cast.

Making Extra Blood Avatar Tokens

Needless to say with all the creature token generation we will be doing, cards like Anointed Procession and Mondrak, Glory Dominus are absolute all-star's for this deck. Not only do we double our fodder generation, we make two Blood Avatar tokens per cast of Awaken the Blood Avatar   as well. Mondrak can be difficult to come by, but we run a handful of enchantment tutors like Enlightened Tutor Idyllic Tutor and Academy Rector so we can get Anointed Procession or one of our many other game-breaking enchantments.

Copying Awaken the Blood Avatar   with cards like Reverberate Twinferno Increasing Vengeance is another way we can make more Blood Avatar tokens without the added cost of having to sac creatures or increase our commander tax and with the added benefit of making our opponents sac more creatures. Fury Storm is king among these cards, even casting it on our second cast of Awaken the Blood Avatar   gives us 3 additional copies of the spell, causing our opponents to sacrifice four creatures while we make four Blood Avatar tokens. Game ending if unanswered.

Populate effects such as Ghired's Belligerence can also help us make more Blood Avatar tokens. This card is also great because we can often target our own 1/1 creature tokens to get more populate triggers if our opponents don't have any low-toughness creatures on the board.

Maximizing Damage Output

Maximizing our damage output can be done in a number of ways, primarily with enchantment effects like Gratuitous Violence and better yet City on Fire which has the added benefit of having Convoke, which will often let us cast this for less mana, if any. These effects also synergize with cards like Impact Tremors and Syr Konrad, the Grim to deal extra damage to our opponents. While not technically a damage multiplier, Bloodletter of Aclazotz also works as a pseudo-multiplier to double our damage output.

We typically deal damage in increments of 3, so having a bit of extra incidental damage/life loss effects can often help us close out a game a turn or two before we would otherwise be able to. The aforementioned Impact Tremors and Syr Konrad, the Grim fall in this category, along with aristocrat staples like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat. While Blood Artist doesn't hit each opponent, there is often one player at the table who poses a greater threat to our game than the other, so some target life loss is also welcome.

Cards like Isshin, Two Heavens as One and Roaming Throne also help by doubling the amount of Blood Avatar token triggers we get which accounts for the majority of our damage output. Karlach, Fury of Avernus gives us an extra combat step which synergizes well with the two aforementioned cards and Final Fortune is a last ditch, Hail Mary play when you just need that one extra turn to close out a game. The fact that it costs only {R} {R} also means we can spend a bit more mana setting up for our final explosive turn.

Other Cards

It wouldn't be a commander deck without some type of ramp and card draw. We run a slew of decent mana rocks to help us accelerate our ability to cast spells that are not Awaken the Blood Avatar  . We also run a handful of card draw spells like Sign in Blood / Night's Whisper / Painful Truths and Black Market Connections to keep our hand full of cards. Black Market Connections also just does absolutely everything we want and is a great early game tutor option if Anointed Procession or City on Fire aren't for whatever reason.

Notable Cards and Interactions (Besides Anointed Procession)

Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward + Animate Dead

Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward hasn't come up in this discussion yet but he is an absolute godsend. You can float mana off of your mana rocks, exile them when Abdel ETB's, creating a 1/1 soldier for each one, sacrifice him and the soldiers to Awaken the Blood Avatar   and then get the exiled mana rocks back, untapped. Better yet, if we have Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead in hand, we can create a loop with Abdel for infinite mana from non-land sources and infinite 1/1 soldiers, which should more often than not win us the game on the spot, though this is more of a happy accident outcome and we're not trying to pull this off consistently.

Chittering Witch / Siege-Gang Commander / Sling-Gang Lieutenant

Not only do these generate tokens when they ETB, their secondary abilities can sometimes be used for a bit of spot removal, or dealing that last bit of damage to an opponent

Black Market Connections

This is incredible early game, it just does everything we want it to for three mana. I usually only do the first two modes to mitigate the life loss, but sometimes being able to make that one extra creature token to cast the spell will be worth it.

Goblin Goliath

Same as above, does two of the things we rely on most, although comes at a much steeper mana cost. More valuable having this in play for it's activated ability as well, so likely won't be sacrificing this guy unless we need to to win, in which case we can hopefully activate it before we sac it.

Syr Konrad, the Grim

Another card that synergizes so well with so much of our deck. Not only when we sacrifice our own creatures but when we force our opponents to sacrifice creatures, each opponent takes one damage for each creature that died. This will help us do a ton more damage to the table simultaneously, possibly more than we can do with our Blood Avatar attack triggers. This is also incredibly powerful with effects like Gratuitous Violence / Goblin Goliath and best of all City on Fire which takes this out of control.

City on Fire

The best card in the deck hands down, tripling our damage output on just two Blood Avatar's is 18 damage to each opponent plus 18 on the ground somewhere. If you get a second turn with this in play it's game over if it hasn't ended already. The synergy with Convoke is the icing on the cake that puts this over Fiery Emancipation, I've never cast City on Fire for more than 5 mana, and often times is what I will get with Academy Rector as long as I have a few Blood Avatar tokens.

Notable Exclusions / What I'm Considering Adding

Mirkwood Bats

With the amount of tokens we create and sacrifice, this thing is a no brainer! This will be the next card that makes it into the deck.

Charismatic Conqueror

An efficient creature that either helps us by generating creature tokens or slowing down our opponents. This is the next card after Mirkwood Bats that I plan to add to the deck.

Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation  

Obviously, with the importance of Anointed Procession type effects in this deck, this seems like an auto-include, it should even be easy enough to flip it back from it's land form since we rely on attacking with creatures. However, six mana is steep enough that we probably wont be casting anything else on the same turn, and this probably wont stay on the board until our next turn, so I'm hesitant to add it in, despite it's obvious synergies. Notably, this only triples creature token production, so treasure generators would not benefit from this.

Rootborn Defenses

Protects us from a board wipe and more importantly can populate another Blood Avatar token.

Pitiless Plunderer

We sacrifice enough creatures that being able to create a treasure for each one we do seems like an auto-include type ability.

Call the Coppercoats

Instant speed creature token generation similar to Secure the Wastes and You're Confronted by Robbers is good, but it is also dependent on whether or not your opponents are playing creature heavy decks. Probably still worth running more often than not.

Storm-Kiln Artist

Magecraft, make a treasure? Combo potential with Fury Storm? Why not include this card!? Because it's 4 mana, and we don't really have too many other instant/sorceries to get magecraft triggers outside of casting the spell.

Worldgorger Dragon

We're already running Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward + Animate Dead why not include Worldgorger Dragon? Infinite mana will win us the game, but that's not the feel I want to go for. Animate Dead and Abdel are both good in the deck on their own, regardless of the combo. So the fact that there is the added potential for the combo is just a bonus. Worldgorger Dragon doesn't have a place outside of the combo, so it doesn't need to take a slot in the deck.

Prosperous Partnership

Makes tokens on ETB, can make treasures with a convoke-like effect, synergizes really well with Anointed Procession / Mondrak, Glory Dominus and a reasonable mana cost? Why not run this?

Grand Crescendo

Similar to Secure the Wastes and You're Confronted by Robbers, for an extra {W} this card can dump out a ton of creature tokens at instant speed, with the added benefit of being able to protect our creatures from a board wipe, which is arguably the more valuable aspect of this card.

Whip of Erebos / Teysa Karlov

Lifelink is a notable ability that is absent from this deck, giving our Blood Avatar's can gain us an absurd amount of life, which is especially useful in a deck that often uses life to pay for effects and is likely not making any friends at the table. Whip of Erebos comes with the added benefit of being able to recur token generating creatures or key pieces that have gotten removed, while Teysa Karlov also gives us vigilance and doubles our death triggers. I don't run a lot of death trigger type effects, so Teysa falls out of favour for that.

Exquisite Blood

Similar to lifelink abilities, this could allow us to gain a ton of life when we attack with our Blood Avatar's.

Court of Embereth

Generates a creature token each turn and can deal some extra damage if we're still the monarch. Is it worth 4 mana though?

Bond of Discipline

Giving our creatures lifelink AND tapping out our opponents seems like an auto-include type ability, but 5 mana is a lot, so it's in this category for now.

Deadening Clarion

One-time lifelink for our creatures, and respectable board wipe for 3 mana? Seems playable.

For the Emperor!

Lifelink and vigilance for our Blood Avatar tokens is good, and +2/+2 is a nice bonus, but is it worth 4 mana for a one-time effect??

Lantern Scout

One-time lifelink for 3 mana and a 2 mana reduction on our next cast of Awaken the Blood Avatar   could be ok...

Nesting Dovehawk

An extra Blood Avatar token each turn and a Big/Big flier? Seems good but is 4 mana worth it?

Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

a 4 cost Planeswalker with a +1 ability that makes a creature token? Seems like a good include, on par with Jaya, Fiery Negotiator is it better? Is it worth running both? Who knows.

And honestly so many other cards, this section could be long enough to make two decklist, and we would still only talking about half of this card, Extus, Oriq Overlord   would make a really cool commander himself.

There are so many different avenues you can go down with this deck it's hard to narrow it down and have it be playable. I'm always looking for new cards to include, or ways to upgrade cards in the deck, so I'm interested in any and every suggestion or recommendation available.

Thanks For Reading :)

Date added	1 year
Last updated	1 year
Key combos	Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward + Animate Dead
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.14
Tokens	Avatar 3/6 BR, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Emblem Jaya Negotiator, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Goblin 1/1 R, Goblin Rogue 1/1 B, Kithkin Soldier 1/1 W, Monk 1/1 R, Phyrexian Mite 1/1 C, Rat 1/1 B, Serf 0/1 B, Servo 1/1 C, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Soldier 1/1 RW, Soldier 1/1 W, Treasure, Warrior 1/1 W, Zombie Army 0/0 B