Belzen-unlok'd

Commander / EDH Mono-Black

Lorthos

Creature (12)

• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Deepwood Legate
• 1x Dimir House Guard
• 1x Geode Golem
• 1x Hollow One
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Phantasmagorian
• 1x Phyrexian Delver
• 1x Rot Hulk
• 1x Skirge Familiar
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Triskelion

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Demonic Collusion
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Massacre
• 1x Unmask

Land (72)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bottomless Vault
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Ebon Stronghold
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Peat Bog
• 1x Subterranean Hangar
• 61x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Instant (3)

• 1x Makeshift Mannequin
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Soul Spike

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Volrath's Dungeon

Commander (1)

Artifact (5)

• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Paradise Plume
• 1x Sisay's Ring
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Ur-Golem's Eye

---

Maybeboard

Creature (7)

• 1x Bone Miser
• 1x Bone Picker
• 1x Crystalline Crawler
• 1x Dross Golem
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Nim Shambler
• 1x Shriekmaw

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Leyline of the Void

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic Collusion
• 1x Ever After
• 1x Final Parting
• 1x Outbreak
• 1x Thought Distortion
• 1x Twilight's Call

Artifact (4)

• 1x Boompile
• 1x Firemind Vessel
• 1x Helm of Obedience
• 1x The Cauldron of Eternity

Land (1)

• 1x Scorched Ruins

Instant (1)

• 1x Contagion

---

“All hail the Demonlord Belzenlok,
Evincar of the Stronghold,
Scion of Darkness,
Doom of Fools,
Lord of the Wastes,
Master of the Ebon Hand,
Eternal Patriarch of the Cabal …"

Why Are We Here?

After Demonlord Belzenlok, underpowered card and Magic’s only elder demon fell to the hands of zom’bae Liliana Vess and mono-white uber-chad Gideon Jura, he was destined to obscurity. Another mythic rare fated to gather dust in your LGS’s dollar bin and passed over by countless scouring budget commander player's eyes. However, just as Demonlord Belzenlok propagated mainstream media level fake news on Dominaria, so too, dear reader, have you been misinformed. Demonlord Belzenlok and his fearless pilots, have sought reclaim his name, right his unceremonious defeat, and become the bane of all casual players to weak to run counterspells.

What Are We Doing?

This deck seeks to leverage Demonlord Belzenlok’s ETB ability; “When Demonlord Belzenlok enters the battlefield, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card, then put that card into your hand. If the card’s converted mana cost is 4 or greater, repeat this process. Demonlord Belzenlok deals 1 damage to you for each card put into your hand this way,” by running exclusively cards with a minimum converted mana cost of .

This enables us to exile every land in our library, put all cmc 4+ cards into our hand and assemble our winning combo through a long convoluted line of masturbatory card play as soon as we cast Demonlord Belzenlok.

Additionally, because of Demonlord Belzenlok’s high cmc, we utilize all available options to accelerate our mana production and summon the Eternal Patriarch of the Cabal.

How Do We Do It?

1. Cast Demonlord Belzenlok. This is the easy part. Due the decks minimum cmc of 4, The Dooms of Fool's ability allows us to draw our deck, exiling our lands and losing one life for each card draw(~25 life will be lost).

2. Cast Unmask using its alternative casting cost of exiling a black card(an inconsequential one), targeting yourself and discarding Phantasmagorian.

3. Use Phantasmagorian's ability from the graveyard to discard three cards(these should be Dread Return, Skirge Familiar, and another inconsequential card), returning the Phantasmagorian to your hand.

4. Cast Hollow One for . Then cast Deepwood Legate for if any opponent controls a Forest, or Dross Golem for if you control at least 5 Swamp

5. Flashback Dread Return, sacrificing Demonlord Belzenlok "The Lord of Wastes", Hollow One and either Deepwood Legate or Dross Golem targeting Skirge Familiar.

6. With Skirge Familiar in play, we can use Skirge Familiars ability to freely discard cards from our hand to generate . This current build uses Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion as finishers. To do this most effectively, discard Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Triskelion + 10 other cards to Skirge Familiar generating , casting both Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion. Proceed to victory.



Additional Ideas.

Currently exploring a Rot Hulk variant. In this case at step 5, cast Dread Return targeting Rot Hulk, Rot Hulk brings back Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Phyrexian Delver, with a flex spot, explained shortly. Phyrexian Delver brings back Triskelion, you losing 6 life and everyone dies. In the flex spot you could run Gray Merchant of Asphodel, gaining you 27 life. There might be a way to drain everyone out with Gray Merchant of Asphodel but this hasn't yet been explored. A + cmc Zombie sac outlet would be necessary and would replace Triskelion.

Both Rot Hulk and Skirge Familiar are currently played.

Why Does This Deck Suck?

1. Lack of access to good cards. Beyond the usually restrictions of Mono-, this deck must run exclusively or higher cmc cards. This excludes mana rocks, as well as some of the most powerful spells in the game like Demonic Tutor.

2. Too little space and life loss. As black card draw in magic and life loss are inextribably linked, Demonlord Belzenlok's ability pings us for one damage every time we draw a card. This limits the total amount of cards we are able to run to approximately 30. This also makes us weary of our life total, as Demonlord Belzenlok's ability is not a may ability, so if we cast him below our life threshold, we will die.

3. Win-cons can be dependent on our opponents. Not only are our opponents directly trying to prevent us from winning but in the case of Deepwood Legate we need them to control a Forest before we can win. We do run Dross Golem to help this problem but this prevents us from winning before turn 5.

4. Predictability. This deck, like most meme decks only has one primary way to win and frankly doesn't do much else. Therefore, an opponent familiar with the deck and a well timed counter or removal spell will completely wreck you. But hey, at least your library is gone, so you can just shuffle up and play another game!

5. There is undoubtedly more issues with this deck but as of right now, I will leave this here. I fully expect this "Why Does This Deck Suck?" section to become larger than the previous sections combined and look forward to it.

What Do We Need?

This section is purely hypothetical and I am a terrible card designer. However, I want a + cmc, uncounterable Torment of Hailfire type of effect. This would allow us to directly win after casting Dread Return on Skirge Familiar and dumping 20+ cards and allow for some more utility and flexible cards.

Additionally, I would like to spice this primer up with images for the accordion panels but I am unsure how that works, so any help would be greatly appreciated. This deck is a passion project for me and although it's terrible, I am a proud deck father.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 13 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.79
Folders	EDH