Etrata and Ramses: Killer Combo

Commander / EDH Assassin UB (Dimir) Unblockable

H1v3l0rd

Land (35)

• 1x Access Tunnel
• 1x Brotherhood Headquarters
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Choked Estuary
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Contaminated Aquifer
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Fetid Pools
• 5x Island
• 1x Jwar Isle Refuge
• 1x Maestros Theater
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Obscura Storefront
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Secluded Courtyard
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Soured Springs
• 1x Sunken Hollow
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Isle
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Unclaimed Territory
• 1x Waterfront District
• 1x Watery Grave

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Aether Tunnel
• 1x Aqueous Form
• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Cover of Darkness
• 1x Double Down
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Revel in Riches
• 1x Rooftop Bypass
• 1x The Revelations of Ezio

Creature (23)

• 1x Achilles Davenport
• 1x Agent of the Fates
• 1x Basim Ibn Ishaq
• 1x Big Game Hunter
• 1x Dark Impostor
• 1x Desmond Miles
• 1x Etrata, Deadly Fugitive
• 1x Evie Frye
• 1x Ezio, Blade of Vengeance
• 1x Guul Draz Assassin
• 1x Jacob Frye
• 1x Kiku, Night's Flower
• 1x Lydia Frye
• 1x Mari, the Killing Quill
• 1x Massacre Girl, Known Killer
• 1x Nekrataal
• 1x Nightshade Assassin
• 1x Ravenloft Adventurer
• 1x Roshan, Hidden Magister
• 1x Royal Assassin
• 1x Stronghold Assassin
• 1x Virtus the Veiled
• 1x Xathrid Slyblade

Artifact (10)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Assassin Gauntlet
• 1x Brotherhood Regalia
• 1x Hidden Blade
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Strixhaven Stadium
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thieves' Tools
• 1x Vorpal Sword

Instant (9)

• 1x Alchemist's Retrieval
• 1x Become Anonymous
• 1x Chain Assassination
• 1x Deadly Derision
• 1x Depths of Desire
• 1x Escape Detection
• 1x Fading Hope
• 1x Fake Your Own Death
• 1x You Come to a River

Commanders (2)

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Artful Dodge
• 1x Blood Money
• 1x Contract Killing
• 1x Crippling Fear
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Distortion Strike
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Grim Bounty
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Profane Tutor
• 1x Raise the Palisade
• 1x Restart Sequence

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Maybeboard

Creature (26)

• 1x Adewale, Breaker of Chains
• 1x Assassin Initiate
• 1x Briarblade Adept
• 1x Brotherhood Spy
• 1x Callidus Assassin
• 1x Cruel Sadist
• 1x Eyeblight Assassin
• 1x Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Hired Poisoner
• 1x Hookblade Veteran
• 1x Hunter of Eyeblights
• 1x Massacre Girl
• 1x Mer-Ek Nightblade
• 1x Merciless Harlequin
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Midnight Assassin
• 1x Repeat Offender
• 1x Roaming Throne
• 1x Rooftop Assassin
• 1x Scarblade Elite
• 1x Skulking Killer
• 1x Termination Facilitator
• 1x Thorn of the Black Rose
• 1x Thrill-Kill Assassin
• 1x Unscrupulous Contractor
• 1x Weed-Pruner Poplar

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Blood Reckoning
• 1x Cloak of Mists
• 1x Coerced to Kill
• 1x Conspiracy
• 1x Hissing Miasma
• 1x Infiltrator's Magemark
• 1x Invisibility
• 1x Protective Bubble
• 1x Reflections of Littjara
• 1x Revenge of Ravens

Sorcery (9)

• 1x Auditore Ambush
• 1x Extract the Truth
• 1x Haunting Voyage
• 1x Insatiable Avarice
• 1x Kindred Dominance
• 1x Sleep
• 1x Slip Through Space
• 1x Stealth Mission
• 1x Taigam's Strike

Artifact (9)

• 1x Adrestia
• 1x Herald's Horn
• 1x Manifold Key
• 1x Mask of Riddles
• 1x Prowler's Helm
• 1x Quietus Spike
• 1x Smoke Bomb
• 1x Trailblazer's Boots
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Instant (6)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Murder
• 1x Shadow Rift
• 1x Shoot the Sheriff
• 1x Veil of Secrecy

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Vraska, Scheming Gorgon

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This deck was originally supposed to be built around Etrata, the Silencer and Mari, the Killing Quill but then Ramses, Assassin Lord hit the scene and I knew what needed to be done.

With Etrata, the Silencer as your commander, swing into your opponent, then put her in the Command Zone, or bounce her back to your hand. Repeat three times, win. Simple as. If you have multiple opponents, then use the tutors to fetch Ramses, Assassin Lord and hold on to him until no one can stop you from playing him, then knock one player out with Etrata, the Silencer and it's GG's immediately. Mari, the Killing Quill and Ravenloft Adventurer both also exile creatures with Hit Counters that count towards an Etrata Win, so you could theoretically knock out multiple opponents with one swing each.

Alternatively, you can run Ramses, Assassin Lord as your commander and play this as a tron deck. Stack defensive and evasive effects on him with the plethora of enchantments and artifacts and swing for lethal Commander damage. This is a more midrange strategy, requiring a little more setup for the payoff, but you only have to focus on one other player and your main concern will be boardwipes instead of targeted removal and counterspells for a number of fragile combo pieces. Consider fun options like Vorpal Sword and Strixhaven Stadium to catch people by surprise.

Jacob Frye and Evie Frye could be played as the Partner commanders, they have a fun gimmick with the Hidden Blade or creatures that already have First Strike. You'll have to rely on the tutor spells to dig up your win cons, so they're probably better in the 99 where one can dig up the other, but their abilities together let you cheat out token copies of your creatures. If the Commander Tax on Ramses, Assassin Lord has gotten too high because your friends have gotten wise to your instant death technique, or he was only in the 99 of Etrata, the Silencer, you can use Jacob Frye's ability to copy him out onto the battlefield before Etrata, the Sword, or the Stadium go off, in between first strike and regular damage. This combo also allows for an additional use of ETB creatures like Big Game Hunter and Nightshade Assassin as well as spells with Free Running like Chain Assassination and Restart Sequence.

Mari, the Killing Quill + Revel in Riches is a good way to force a checkmate, where blocking the First Strike+Deathtouch creatures (if they even can) will stack Hit Counters towards Etrata, the Silencer but not blocking them could turn the creatures with Hit Counters already exiled into Treasure and card advantage, and those Treasures will win the game next turn. Revel in Riches is easy to remove, and easier to see coming, the least reliable win-con in this deck, but the mana ramp and card draw could spell the difference between victory and defeat, and if Ramses, Assassin Lord isn't on the battlefield, it becomes a choice for your opponents between helping you knock one of them out of the game so the others get to live longer and find a solution, or scrambling to remove your enchantment before they all lose on the next turn. There are Treasure generating instants that can turn a 9-Treasure miss into a 10-Treasure victory on their end steps as well, so be sure to keep them guessing.

For the above reasons, there's some less-than-mana-efficient spells like Contract Killing and Depths of Desire that still play into the general overall theme of the deck (It may be a Johnny 5 It's Alive combo deck, but I'm a Vorthos at heart) and since ramp is not the easiest thing to come by in Dimir, the treasure can prove useful down the line even if Revel in Riches gets taken out, especially against counterspells that can be paid away and creatures with Ward. It's a pretty flimsy pretext to deliberately choose objectively "bad" (read: not competitive) cards for the deck, but you could do just as well by taking out Mari, the Killing Quill and Ravenloft Adventurer and Revel in Riches and the handful of Treasure generators and even Etrata, the Silencer herself replacing them with Kindred/Tribal/Creature Type cards built around Ramses, Assassin Lord

There's also some support to run the other Etrata, Deadly Fugitive as an alternative commander, mainly in the form of Roshan, Hidden Magister and Become Anonymous, but as mentioned above, for a proper Assassin Tribal, it would benefit from swapping out some of the bounce cards that would give opponents their cards back for things like Conspiracy and Herald's Horn (although, who's out here heralding the arrival of an assassin?) To round this deck out better with Kindred Synergy is a goal, but it needs to be tested to see which combo pieces work and which are too clunky, and can be replaced with utility goodstuff and targeted removal.

Lydia Frye and Basim Ibn Ishaq can both function as Commanders of this deck, although apart from pure beatdown unblockable damage, they don't bring much else to the table. Lydia Frye works well with her grandfather Jacob Frye and his sister Evie Frye by predicting the cards Evie is going to draw and filling the graveyard with things for Jacob to reanimate. Basim Ibn Ishaq only costs 2 mana and makes a great early showing in a deck that's pretty sparse on low CMC creatures. As a commander, there are more than a few Historic spells in this deck, plenty of legendary creatures and even a saga, but you would want to avoid normally clever things like Sol Ring into Arcane Signet because he only becomes unblockable when you cast a Historic spell. If you do decide to run him as commander, though, consider switching out the over-cost Treasure support for Vraska, Scheming Gorgon and things like Trailblazer's Boots and Whispersilk Cloak to guarantee more unblockable damage when you need it, and a big payoff for getting it through.

Date added	2 years
Last updated	4 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 34 - 0 Rares 28 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.92
Tokens	A Mysterious Creature, Assassin 1/1 B w/ Menace, Copy Clone, Dungeon: Undercity, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Skeleton 4/1 B, The Initiative, Treasure