An Absolute Death Machine (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

An Absolute Death Machine

Commander / EDH Artifact Voltron

VengefulLobster

Artifact (36)

Land (37)

Planeswalker (4)

Instant (3)

Enchantment (1)

1x Eldrazi Conscription

Commander (1)

Creature (15)

Sorcery (3)

Sideboard

Creature (1)

1x Traxos, Scourge of Kroog

Now if there's one thing you can be sure of, it's that nothing is more powerful than a young boy's wish. Except a Ghirapur ornithpter. A Ghirapur ornitopter has swords and more swords. It is an unbelievably impressive complement of weaponry, an absolute death machine.

So the plan here is to take our plucky little thopter, fill it with as many swords as possible, and crash it into our opponent. If the game drags out and our hopes end up grounded, we have plenty of ways to combo out for the last ditch win.

So how does this deck function?

Mana

Before we can melt any steel beams, we're gonna need jet fuel. Since the only type of mana we'll ever need is colorless mana, we can take advantage of the large amount of ways to produce more than one mana instead of worrying about hitting our colors. Some good choices:

Card Draw

Having tons of mana doesn't help us very much if we don't have cards in hand to spend it on. Colorless isn't the best source of card draw, but we do have some tools:

Mind's Eye: With the amount of ramp we can pull off, paying to draw an extra card on each opponent's turn isn't terribly daunting.

Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, Dreamstone Hedron: As mentioned above, these rocks can be blown up for cards if you don't need the mana.

Memory Jar: A pseudo-wheel effect that gets you a full grip of cards. You'll likely have enough mana to play most cards in your hand, while your opponents are probably gonna discard everything. For maximum fun, keep recurring it from the graveyard!

Mask of Memory: Since we're gonna be smashing a creature into somebody's face, may as well get some cards out of it. We have a few ways to get back anything discarded from this anyways.

Mystic Forge: The top card of your library is effectively in your hand, and you can pay mana to get rid of a card you don't need.

Introduction to Prophecy: It's Preordain for triple the price. Still, drawing cards is drawing cards.

Ugin, the Ineffable: You need to kill your creature to get the card off his +2, but it's card draw with no on-use mana cost. Generating extra blockers to get you cards is nice too, and said tokens can hold swords for even more value.

Sea Gate Wreckage: Conditional reusable card draw... on a land. Spiffy.

Blasted Landscape: Being able to discard this for cards when we have enough mana is nice.

Ring of Three Wishes, Planar Portal, Planar Bridge: Tutors are also technically card draw, so grabbing what we can of those is nice. These cards are expensive, but there's a good chance of getting enough rocks to power them.

Kuldotha Forgemaster: Useful in a pinch to get a particular piece you need RIGHT NOW.

Inventors' Fair: Tutor on a land. Very little reason not to run it.

Sanctum of Ugin: A very situational tutor on a land. Unless your playgroup runs a lot of nonbasic land hate, it's a nice bonus to have and doesn't really cost anything.

War Room: Pay 3 and tap to draw a card.

Swords

Now that we've got a steady flow of mana and cards, we can get to the task at hand: murdering our foes with swords!

Sword of Light and Shadow: The best sword. Pro-black and Pro-white block a large amount of creature removal that could stop your reign of terror, and the free creature from the graveyard isn't shabby either.

Sword of Fire and Ice: Next best sword. Pro-red stops a lot of artifact destruction and threaten effects, while Pro-blue stops you from getting bounced or tapped down or any other form of blue trickery. Then, once you swing, you get 2 damage to take out one of their utility creatures and you get to draw a card. All around worth it.

Sword of Feast and Famine: Give Pro-green, allowing for protection from all colors with all three swords. The discard is kinda meh, and untapping all lands AFTER combat isn't so helpful in a deck without many answers that wants things ready for combat.

Sword of Body and Mind: Also gives Pro-green. Pro-blue tends to be worse than Pro-black in most situations, and the bonus mill is very risky against graveyard strategies.

Sword of War and Peace: Easily the worst sword. Pro-red and Pro-white are nice, but the bonus is borderline useless unless your opponent somehow has their entire deck in hand, at which point you're already dead.

Ghostfire Blade: Just a vanilla +2/+2, but extremely cheap, since you're not likely gonna try putting it on a colored creature in this deck. Good for early game for some quick damage.

Hero's Blade: More vanilla damage boosts, but this one is FREE if we use it on our commander.

Sword of the Animist: AKA Sword of Ramp. Good way to get some acceleration from early aggression.

Sword of Vengeance: First Strike, Vigilance, Trample, AND Haste, all on one card? Simply beautiful.

Worldslayer: The Friend Maker. Nukes everyone back to the stone age. Have a game plan when you drop this, because the entire table WILL hate you.

Argentum Armor: Technically not a sword, but gives a whopping +6/+6, AND lets you destroy a permanent. It's almost like a mini Eldrazi Conscription!

Eldrazi Conscription: Notable for being the only non-equipment card listed here, it's (I'm pretty sure) the only colorless enchantment in the game, and certainly worth using even if it's much harder to reuse than anything else. +10/+10, trample, and annihilator 2 are just way too good to pass up.

Champion's Helm: +2/+2 and hexproof are great.

Bloodforged Battle-Axe: Just straight power, but the axe replicates itself. If you can keep up with or otherwise mitigate the rising costs of equipping the axes, you can get very scary very quick. For reference, an opening hand with this, Sol Ring, and at least two lands can deal lethal damage to someone by turn 5 without any other cards.

Fireshrieker: Double strike is always amazing. Don't forget: since you're doing combat damage twice, effects that activate when you deal damage trigger twice!

Loxodon Warhammer: Trample is always a good way to push through damage, and lifelink is just gravy.

Nim Deathmantle: +2/+2, a form of evasion, and a form of recursion, all on one card! If you're using this on Hope, it also reads ": Target player you've dealt combat damage to can't cast noncreature spells until your next turn."

Golem-Skin Gauntlets: a budget option that scales with how much equipment you have.

Sword of Kaldra, Shield of Kaldra, Helm of Kaldra: The shield and helm are strictly worse than Darksteel Plate and Sword of Vengeance, respectively. The sword is usable but kinda wonky (ideally anything that blocks you is already dead), and being able to combine the three is a cute gimmick, but requires you to have three specific cards in a deck with limited tutors.

Sword Wielders

Swords are useless without anyone to hold them. Ideally we've got Hope to lead the charge, but it's always good to have a backup plan.

Hope of Ghirapur: One mana, flying, and only needs to deal 21 damage instead of the usual 40. This is the card you want to focus on. The sacrifice ability is spiffy, but it's only really useful if a.) you can easily get the thopter back, b.) you're gonna do something big on your second main phase, and b.) the target is likely to counter you or win the game before your next turn.

Traxos, Scourge of Kroog: An alternative commander for the deck. Traxos has a lot more power on hitting the table, comes with built in trample, and his untap condition can be abused easily in a deck with as many artifacts as we run. However, trample is arguably a worse form of evasion than flying, he costs noticeably more despite still being very cheap, and being able to threaten the sacrifice ability tends to make some players behave better. Besides, it feels much better to beat someone with a tiny 1/1 thopter than a giant hulking monstrosity.

Darksteel Colossus, Blightsteel Colossus, Colossus of Akros, Metalwork Colossus: Giant stompy things that get even more scary if you throw some swords on them. Blightsteel can end a player by himself if you can give him some sort of evasion.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion: A 12/12 with pseudo-evasion, card draw on cast, and the ability to counter spells? Great card. He's too slow to helm this deck, but definitely worth running in the 99.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: Very similar to his newer version. Butcher is more immediately terrifying, gets you four cards guaranteed, and can recycle your graveyard. I wouldn't run both, but there are strong arguments in favor of each one.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: Absolutely terrifying when it hits the board... but we only have room for one Eldrazi titan in the deck, and it's hard to argue against the ones that draw you cards.

Armory Automaton: Voltron-in-a-can. If you've got a source of haste on the board, he can very suddenly dent an opponent's face that wasn't expecting it.

Wurmcoil Engine: Deathtouch isn't really evasion, but even if it dies you still get two wurms out of it. Always a good card.

Blinkmoth Nexus, Mishra's Factory, Mutavault, Stalking Stones: Manlands. If someone wipes the board of creatures, you can always animate a land and sword it up.

Inkmoth Nexus: Another manland, but notable for having both evasion and infect. A very sudden, very cheesy way to knock someone out.

Protection

Now that we've duct-taped our payload to our brave little thopter or other monstrosity, we can push it off the runway and into our enemies' faces. However, our foes will not just sit back and accept their fates. They will resist, and we will need to protect our craft if it is to see victory

Sword of Light and Shadow, Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of Body and Mind, Sword of War and Peace: As listed above, each sword gives us protection from two enemy colors, which should slow down attempts at removal.

Commander's Plate: +3/+3 and protection from all colors. Absolutely nuts. It's even cheaper to play and equip on the same turn than the swords, with the downside of not having an on attack effect and being more expensive to equip on other creatures, but this is an amazing card.

Darksteel Plate: Indestructible makes it a lot harder to wipe you off the field.

Hammer of Nazahn: A more expensive, yet otherwise better in every way Darksteel Plate. It attaches for free and lets all of your future equipment attach for free. However, if your sword bearer gets exiled or otherwise gets their equipment knocked off you'll need to pay to put everything back on. Still an amazing card.

Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots: Staples of the format. Make your creature untargetable and hasty.

Champion's Helm: Again, Hexproof. Ask your local Narset or Uril player how useful that ability is.

Conqueror's Flail: A good way to stop your opponent's combat trickery and counterspells. Unfortunately, you won't get any power from it.

Warping Wail: NOBODY EXPECTS THE COLORLESS COUNTERSPELL! Sure, it's extremely narrow, but at least it gives you a way to stop those overloaded Vandalblasts and Shatterstorms. You'll probably never use the other modes, but they exist just in case.

Not of This World: Again, narrow counterspell, but if you've got enough swords, it's free.

Soul of New Phyrexia: Boardwide, reusable protection. Can also hold swords.

Darksteel Forge: Costs a whopping , but if you stick this, your opponent is basically screwed. You can combine this with Worldslayer or Nevinyrral's Disk, but don't forget to dodge when your opponents flip the table on you.

Rogue's Passage: Unblockable on a land. Good way to avoid blockers.

Removal

Unfortunately, you won't be the only person at the table trying to win the game. Your opponents are also going to further their own game plans, and they will require answers.

Spine of Ish Sah: There's a common theme in colorless of "Pay destroy a permanent". is a lot of mana, but this deck can usually float it if the target is dangerous enough. Each form of this has it's own advantage. Spine gets brought back to hand if it's destroyed, which we can't really exploit all that well. Still, it's an option.

Scour from Existence: Pay destroy a permanent, but now it hits at instant speed and it exiles. Being a colorless instant is unique, and exiling is a valuable effect.

Introduction to Annihilation: Same as above, but in exchange for paying two less mana the target's owner gets to draw a card. and you can't hit lands. Generally you can only really afford to use removal on things that completely ruin you like a Null Rod or Stony Silence, so them getting a card isn't completely terrible.

Unstable Obelisk: Pay destroy a permanent, but it's a mana rock. It's a bit too expensive to be all that great as a mana rock, and unless you want to pay is loudly telegraphed.

Meteor Golem: Pay destroy a permanent, but it's a creature and it can't hit lands. Getting a potential blocker with your overpriced spell is nice, and the ability to hit lands isn't always the biggest selling point.

Karn Liberated: Pay destroy a permanent, but it exiles and, if you manage to keep him alive for an entire go around the table, you get a second free use. Going for the ultimate tends to be a bad idea: your opponent gets to choose what card gets exiled with the symbol: +4, and the finale just resets the game with you having a couple added permanents.

All Is Dust: Pay destroy a LOT of permanents. Sacrifice beats indestructible, and this card will hit nothing on our side of the field.

Duplicant: Exile target creature, and get a body for blocking. Slightly cheaper than the typical removal in exchange for being more narrow.

Steel Hellkite: Needs to swing and not be blocked to do anything, and can only hit a single CMC. Still amazing.

Nevinyrral's Disk: Nuke the board. Hits us too, unless we've got Darksteel Forge or other protections. Still, if the opponent gets too scary, sometimes there' no other options.

Oblivion Stone: Another way to burn down the table if things get hairy, with the option to save some things from its wrath. Just remember: the more stuff you try to save, the more time your opponents have to just blow up the stone.

Strip Mine, Wasteland, Ghost Quarter, etc.: Trade a land for a land. Definitely worth it if you're staring down a Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: Mass exile that doesn't touch you. The ultimate is nice if you can get it off, but don't count on it.

Ugin, the Ineffable: The single target destruction is meh compared to other planeswalker options, but everything else this walker also does makes it worth running. It's also cheaper.

Disruption

Sometimes speed is not the answer. You can be fast, but your opponents with their wider variety of spells can sometimes be faster. If you hold the advantage in the early game, the solution is to keep the game in the early stages for as long as possible.

Winter Orb, Storm Cauldron: Most of your mana comes from your mana rocks as opposed to your lands. Thus, limiting everyone's access to lands puts you in a much better position than your opponents.

Torpor Orb: Many players rely on ETB effects on their creatures for value. Especially troublesome for this deck are those that destroy artifacts. This card really messes with people's gameplans. Do note that this stops artifact creatures you play from untapping Traxos if you go that route.

Karn, the Great Creator, Null Rod: Stops your opponents from taking advantage of their own mana rocks. Can ruin the game in your favor if you play one of these with Mycosynth Lattice on the table, but it's hard to pull that combo off in a deck with no tutors.

Silent Arbiter, Crawlspace: You likely are shoving all of your swords onto one creature in an effort to get through as much damage as possible. These cards force your opponent to contend with your one monster threat rather than get around it with horde tactics, which this deck can have problems with.

Meekstone: This shuts down strong creatures from untapping. You have other methods of keeping your creatures untapped, however.

Recursion

Artifacts are really nice in that they are very easy to fish back out of the graveyard. Sure, red has a lot more ways of pulling this off, but there's plenty of colorless means of doing so.

Nim Deathmantle: Save your creatures as they're dying.

Myr Retriever: Brings something back to your hand when it dies. Simple, cheap, effective.

Junk Diver: As above, but with wings. Can hold a sword in a pinch.

Scrap Trawler: Making EVERYTHING a Myr Retriever is ridiculous, even with the restriction.

Scarecrone: Only hits creatures, but goes straight back to play and can be reused.

Buried Ruin: One-time recursion on a land. Otherwise taps for mana.

Utility

Not everything fits in a neat pile, yet still deserves a spot on the list.

Clock of Omens: Tap two pieces of equipment to untap a mana rock or creature. Equipment doesn't care if it's tapped or not, it's just as effective either way.

Staff of Domination: Can tap down blockers, draw cards, untap our blockers and mana producers, and combos with some other cards to generate infinite mana. We can't do much with infinite mana, but we don't have enough tutors available to reliably get off a combo anyways. At the very least, you can fill your hand.

Voltaic Key, Manifold Key: Untapping artifacts for fun and profit! Using this with Mana Vault makes it a lot less cumbersome. Manifold is strictly better with the ability to grant unblockable, but the untap ability is useful enough on its own to justify running both.

Arcane Lighthouse: Hexproof and shroud are annoying. Make friends by suddenly making that scary creature very vulnerable.

Mirrorpool: Niche use, but can copy one of your scary colossi to threaten multiple players.

Nephalia Academy: Can be useful if your playgroup is fond of discard or wheels.

Phyrexia's Core: Sometimes people like to try and steal your stuff. Blowing it up and gaining 1 life is usually better than letting it fall into your opponent's hands.

Brass Squire: Equip stuff at instant speed. Let's you very quickly snap that Sword of Light and Shadow to your Metalworker so avoid your opponent's Path to Exile.

Karn, Silver Golem: The walking swiss army knife. Can block things with up to 7 power without risk, and offers an alternate win condition: if you can't smash through your opponent with a single creature, you can animate all your swords and rush them to victory. Another strong contender for commander in a more combo-focused deck.

Karn, the Great Creator: Arguable how useful this is. The static ability makes it a fantastic hate piece as long as you don't get it stolen somehow, the + ability lets you animate a single artifact until your next turn, and the minus ability lets you recur things from exile. Really useful if you lean heavily into stax strats, but not as much in a deck that wants to go fast like this one.

Silent Arbiter: You're generally gonna be swinging with just a single creature, so locking combat down to a single creature per player is gonna help you a lot, especially if your opponent is more for horde tactics.

Treasure Keeper: An OK body with a mini-cascade effect on death. Good value.

Wandering Archaic : It's not really fair that your opponents get to play sorceries and instants much more often than you do, so this lets you borrow some of their spells if they don't pay the tax. Won't save you from an overloaded Vandalblast, but can get some value off of opponent's ramp spells and spot removal. Never, ever play the other side - you don't have the tools to break parity with your opponents, and your opponents are going to have a much higher density of instants and sorceries than you will.

Mycosynth Lattice: I'm explicitly mentioning this card to point out how horrible it is in this deck. The first ability makes your lands vulnerable to artifact removal, while the second ability has no effect on you and only slightly hinders your opponents (It ruins things like Natural Order and devotion). The third ability actively hurts you: not only does it do absolutely nothing for you, you just fixed all of your opponent's mana for them. It's not worth running this card, even for the time-honored Forge/Lattice/Disk combo.

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95% Casual

Competitive

Date added	7 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 1 Rares 31 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.79
Tokens	Copy Clone, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Spirit 2/2 C, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
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