Death's Lament (Horobi, Death's Wail EDH)

Commander / EDH Control Eldrazi Goodstuff Mono-Black Multiplayer Tron

Xenhelga

Land (40)

• 1x Arcane Lighthouse
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Desert
• 1x Eye of Ugin
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 17x Swamp
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Tower of the Magistrate
• 1x Urborg
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Warped Landscape

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Contamination
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Retribution of the Ancients
• 1x The Meathook Massacre
• 1x Unspeakable Symbol

Creature (18)

• 1x Blightsteel Colossus
• 1x Bloodgift Demon
• 1x Crypt Ghast
• 1x Duplicant
• 1x Emrakul, the Promised End
• 1x Hex Parasite
• 1x Inversion Behemoth
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Massacre Wurm
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Myojin of Night's Reach
• 1x Phyrexian Obliterator
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Scuttlemutt
• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
• 1x Triskelion
• 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

Sorcery (11)

• 1x All is Dust
• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Life's Finale
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Karn Liberated
• 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms
• 1x Sorin Markov
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Commander (1)

Artifact (12)

• 1x Cauldron of Souls
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Oblivion Stone
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Squee's Toy

Instant (7)

• 1x Lose Hope
• 1x Sudden Spoiling
• 1x Touch of Darkness
• 1x Tragic Slip
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Withering Boon
• 1x Word of Command

---

Maybeboard

Creature (5)

• 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 1x Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Witch-king of Angmar

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana of the Veil
• 1x Liliana, the Last Hope

Enchantment (1)

• 1x No Mercy

Artifact (2)

• 1x Ensnaring Bridge
• 1x Portal to Phyrexia

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"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat upon him was Death and Hell followed with him."

-"What the Hell is this?"

-"Why would you build something like this, there is no way that thing is even fun to play."

-"This game is impossible, it's just impossible. Mid-tier my ***."

-"Ahhhh yes, those are snow swamps with Extraplanar Lens. **** you."

-Live quotes gathered from testing/playing.

Welcome one and all to my Tron/Control decklist for Horobi, Death's Wail, a list that has very quickly become one of my favorites to pilot simply due to the sheer intensity of salt it generates. Forget everything you know about targeting a creature in MTG, and be prepared to flip it on its head to create infuriating locks, controlled boards how you see fit, and massive threats that will leave your opponents begging to make deals with you. Horobi, Death's Wail is a fascinating commander, and he has proven to be an extremely entertaining one at that, due to his ability to turn any targeting spell or ability into an effective nuke for the intended target. This ability from the beginning opens up many interactions that were previously impossible, and turns previously unplayable or questionable cards such as Touch of Darkness, Lose Hope, Squee's Toy, Scuttlemutt, Hex Parasite, Tower of the Magistrate, and Urborg, just to name a few, into rediculous control and removal pieces your opponents will never see coming.

The game plan in this list is very simple, as each card, including the mana base, has been tuned to fit these goals. This deck first and foremost, is a control deck, and while it does run normal mass board wipe cards such as Damnation, Toxic Deluge, The Meathook Massacre, Oblivion Stone, and Massacre Wurm to name a few, the control aspects of this deck that make it the most oppressive are the small individual instances of targeting that will trigger Horobi's destruction ability, and nuke whatever creature you find yourself on the buisness end of; many of these targeting spells are able to be used at instant speed, making them the perfect deterent for any unwanted teamwork that may result in a pod scenario, and the perfect chokehold to guarantee victory in a one on one scenario. Retribution of the Ancients, Hex Parasite, Unspeakable Symbol, Mirage Mirror, Maze of Ith, Cauldron of Souls, and Tragic Slip are examples of this instant speed removal, by paying mana, life, and/or both we are able to control our opponent's boardstate on a whim, producing threat after threat on our own board. My go to early threats usually being Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, or Blightsteel Colossus, which brings me to our next game plan. Mana, and lots of it. Horobi is unfortunately a mono black commander, which means that our potential for hard ramp is relatively limited to that of mana doublers such as Crypt Ghast or Extraplanar Lens. Or is it? With the help of Modern, before it became an absolute snore fest, the idea for this decklist changed to follow one of my favorite old Modern decks, Tron. The idea of Tron in Modern was always simple, it wants to to generate large amounts of mana via the three "Tron" lands, ( Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant, and Urza's Tower ) and then drop down massive threats ranging from Eldrazi titans, to Karn Liberated, to Walking Ballista, to Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. By taking a page from Modern's playbook, and incorporating the colorless ramp banned in Modern such as Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and Grim Monolith, once again to name a few, we find ourselves running a hard control deck capable of picking apart our opponent's strategy creature by creature, and permanent by permanent while consistently playing massive Tron threats and keeping them safe from Horobi's interference, as his ability does not discriminate between the destruction of your opponent's creatures, and yours. All with the additional help of Horobi, Death's Wail's black color identity, which only helps improve our gameplan via cards like Myojin of Night's Reach, Word of Command, Sheoldred, Whispering One, and Necropotence.

With all of this being said, this is NOT a cEDH list, and it isn't supposed to be. This deck has been purposely designed to have a slower start, and then control the mid to late game to look for a win. The only combo lines that I run in this list are the two main Mikaeus, the Unhallowed lines with either Triskelion or Walking Ballista + Viscera Seer. If you're looking for some Phyrexian Altar, Gravecrawler, Bolas's Citadel, or Torment of Hailfire nonsense, look away. This deck is not tuned for them. You technically could add hard meta cEDH cards in here if you really wanted to, there was a point where I tested them just for the fun of it, but I found that at that point even running Horobi, Death's Wail as the commander was just....weird.

Overall and to sum up, I find this list to be very fun, very interactive, and ultimately just a gigantic toolbox style deck that rewards critical thinking and successful mind games. I love playing it, and while it did take a large amount of tuning to get it to the point that it is, I think it turned out fantastically engaging and entertaining, at least for me. I will warn anyone who might think of building this list that it does generate a....pretty decent amount of salt when being piloted correctly, by pretty much everyone at the table. Who would have ever thought that harcore board control would be a noob-killer archetype? While I will continue to swear up and down that, at best, this is a mid-tier (6-7) EDH list at its best, a lot of new/casual players might/will disagree and get irritated quickly. So please be aware walking into a pod that this list is a salt magnet and might not get you invited back.

One more quick thing, I did decide to take out the snow covered swamps that made up the basic lands of this list, only because as soon as the Dracula themed basic swamps released I couldn't NOT run them. They just fit too well...This is simply a disclaimer that snow basics are still better in this list for making people angry via their synergy with Extraplanar Lens.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 months
Exclude colors	WURG
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	36 - 0 Mythic Rares 32 - 0 Rares 8 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	4.13
Tokens	Emblem Liliana of the Dark Realms, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B
Folders	Commander decks