Mazirek demands sacrifices!
And sacrifices he will get (hopefully!), for this is a deck that, you guessed it, involves sacrificing a lot of things. The main game plan is to fetch a lot of lands early on with Nissa, Vastwood Seer
, Tempt with Discovery, Evolving Wilds + Crucible of Worlds + Summer Bloom and the like, following which you play Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest and lay down a large creature base.
You want creatures like Sylvan Safekeeper (or an artifact like Zuran Orb) who can sacrifice lands at will, because if you sacrifice ten lands, Mazirek gives creatures 10 +1/+1 counters. But wait, there's more! There are six cards in this deck which are designed to make our commander absolutely busted: Corpsejack Menace, Doubling Season, Hardened Scales, Primal Vigor, Winding Constrictor, and then to top it all off there is Strionic Resonator.
Now if we have all six cards out on the battlefield (which will likely never happen because blue is a thing), a truly magical thing happens. Everytime we sacrifice to the great lord Mazirek, all of our creatures get not just one +1/+1 counter, they each get ((((1+1+1)2)2)*2) counters, or +24/+24 on each creature, or once a turn you can activate Strionic Resonator to make it a +48/48. This alone is amazing, but because Kalonian Hydra is a card that exists, after getting your +24/+24 if you attack with the hydra, everything suddenly has +208/+208. Use the Strionic now to get +416/+416 on all of your creatures. Neat!
Sometimes we'll need to sacrifice creatures to achieve our win condition, which is big creatures. I'm sensing a problem here... Luckily, there's a fabulous card known as Cauldron of Souls that can help us out in a situation like this. By abusing the stack, we can sacrifice almost the entire board to have them persist back, gaining the benefit of their own sacrifice.
The rest of the deck is extra creatures and spell to get us where we want to be. And a little stax. Just so that people know we are a little bit evil. :D
Cards I am considering for the deck. Show
Archaeological Dig: If I can easily landcycle such as by Crucible of Worlds, then this card practically becomes
: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool. If things aren't going quite that well, it's just colourless mana.
Astral Cornucopia: With enough mana, this can become pretty disgusting. Doubling Season + Strionic Resonator + Winding Constrictor would absolutely break this too. For only , we could get an artifact that reads : Add 8 of any one colour to your mana pool.
Avenger of Zendikar: The main downside is that because I like to sacrifice lands with this deck, his effect may not be as strong. However, if I can get a lot of plants on the field, his landfall trigger works off of all of my counter boosters.
Birds of Paradise: Pretty good ramp?
Black Market: If I'm sacrificing my creatures and bringing them back effectively, this provides a lot of mana; it just seems a little winmore IMO.
Bog Initiate: Makes all my colourless land sources effectively and thereby more useful.
Commander's Sphere: Mana, plus a good sacrifice trigger to help me get to where I need to be or to combo off.
Creeping Renaissance: Gives me a fall back just in case the deck isn't quite working. Maybe I've sacrificed all my lands or creatures and lose my way of getting them back. It could potentially save me.
Death's Presence: This could potentially be the nail in the coffin for an opponent, but it seems a little too winmore to put into the deck. Unless I've already gone off to an extent, it doesn't seem like it'll do too much work for me.
Demonic Tutor / Vampiric Tutor / Diabolic Intent: Gets me to my win conditions faster (Could also consider Diabolic Tutor as a budget option)
Forgotten Ancient: Racks up counters extremely fast, especially with the counter boosters in the deck. It can then distribute them, which then triggers the boosters once again. It can be an effective replacement for Mazirek, and stop my opponents casting their spells as readily.
Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury: Creatures and ramp, destruction, and card draw. All in all, a solid card for the deck.
Ghirapur Orrery: Additional land per turn, plus some card draw if all else fails. Also works for the opponent, though.
Grave Pact: Stax to the max, which is probably not quite what we want. Definitely sub it in if you want to go whole hog on the aggression thing, but this card will easily make people hate you. I said earlier we were a little evil, not this evil!
Gyre Sage: Hahahaha.
Hissing Quagmire: It enters tapped, which is the main flaw especially if I want to landcycle it. The benefit; however, is that land creatures can be sacced to anything in the deck.
Overgrown Tomb: A good dual land, but the life cost could become pretty bad if I'm repeatedly cycling it (Playing OT could also potentially give Verdant Catacombs a chance at being put in, with the same life cost detriment).
Reassembling Skeleton: It can come back, regardless of anything. It does come in tapped though, and it's ability doesn't help the deck as a whole.
Sacrifice: Yeah, I know it's half of this decks namesake but I just don't think it's 100% viable for the deck. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at any time we should be averaging 7 or so lands, and if everything is hunky dory we should also have a crucible up for our various hijinks. So mana costs may not be a big enouugh problem to justify this card.
Seal of the Guildpact: It drops our costs by 1 or 2 for most cards, but I don't think it's quite worth the slot to put it in.
Stone-Seeder Hierophant: This card could be disgustingly potent and allow me to play a few taplands, but I'm uunsure just how much effect it would really have in practice.
Volrath's Stronghold: Basically a tutor for creatures in the graveyard, plus it doesn't ETB tapped.
Combo cards I am considering for the deck. Show
Ashnod's Altar +
Nim Deathmantle: This combination has a lot of uses, especially in our deck. Because a creature such as
Kitchen Finks or
Puppeteer Clique can be used with these cards to infinitely sacrifice and revive, we can not only benefit from their intrinsic benefits but also from an infinite amount of Mazirek triggers.
Cathodion is also a possibility, netting
that couuld be converted through a card such as
Bog Initiate into infinite
.
Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Lots of mana, and potentially on turn 3. Only problem is if I'm constantly landcycling it won't be as effective.
Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage: Marit Lage on turn 2? Yes please.
Entomb + Reanimate: Entomb on its own does wonders with Meren and Glissa in the deck, letting me almost fetch creatures and artifacts. The combo lets me play any creature in my deck for .
