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Maybeboard


EDH and PDH legal

This deck has a focus on sacrificing Cormela and bringing her right back to the battlefield with different payoffs (infinite mana, untapping, pumping creatures, direct damage, card draw). I love how versatile this commander is!

Because she is a thief (rogue), I thought cards that steal from opponents and treasures would be flavourful and I generally like evasion on my creatures (deathtouch, flying).

How to win with this* (no guarantees given)

  • Infinite Mana: Cormela + Ashnod's Altar + Demonic Gifts (though Ashnod's Altar is expensive...). Mana could be used for Rolling Thunder or some of the red burn spells which take out single players (Combo pieces can be tutored with the Transmute ability of Drift of Phantasms, Perplex, Shred Memory, and Dimir Infiltrator). I was also thinking about pump spells with X (e.g. Howl from Beyond) but the deck is more defensively oriented.
  • Banishing Knack/Retraction Helix combo (inspired by the PDH primer on combos)
  • I am currently trying to find a way to cycle the deck by repeatedly casting Deadly Dispute (sacrifice Cormela and get Deadly Dispute back) and using any "When this creature dies, return it [...]" spells. This might also work with Viscera Seer and sacrificing her to scry repeatedly until hitting missing combo pieces. It costs 3 mana to activate Cormela's ability and cast Deadly Dispute, but gives access to UBR floating and a treasure plus card draw; the main issue is: only Demonic Gifts has her enter untapped. Maybe combined with any of the Helix untap combo, the other spells allow her to be activated again (e.g. Merrow Bonegnawer, Cinder Pyromancer, Merrow Levitator, Thermo-Alchemist should all trigger to the other spells of the combo).
  • Witty Roastmaster might be an interesting alternative for damage and an alternative to way-too-posh uncommon spells like Blood Artist - what leaves the battlefield, enters the battlefield again for the same effect.

Mulligans: From playing around with this, you do want to hit your land drops for the four first turns to get UBR by turn four. A minimum of three lands with one colour missing is not ideal but can play out if you manage to draw or have a mana rock. Cormela can come out on turn four or five (i.e. with mana for activating her ability).

Suggestions

Updates Add

After some testing, I decided to streamline the deck a bit by removing some flavour cards and replacing them with something more functional. This also affected the mana base which is now slightly less red:

Removing 2x Mountains and 1x Island for Rakdos Carnarium, Izzet Boilerworks, and Dimir Aqueduct.

Out: Price of Loyalty Sticky Fingers Shackles of Treachery Elemental Summoning

In: Witty Roastmaster Fortuitous Find Carrion Feeder Argivian Restoration

The thief cards were intended for flavour and added some variety for dealing with opponents, whereas Elemental Summoning simply does not do enough even with Cormela's discount. Instead of these reactive cards, there are now a new sac outlet in Carrion Feeder, a pinger in Witty Roastmaster and two recursion spells that can also get our key piece Ashnod's Altar back from the graveyard.

Comments

98% Casual

Competitive

Date added 2 years
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

11 - 0 Uncommons

65 - 2 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.45
Tokens Elemental 4/4 UR, Foretell, Fractal 0/0 GU, Goblin Wizard 1/1 R, Soldier, Treasure
Folders Aktuelle EDH, Pauper Commander
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