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Ghen's Necropotent Near-Death Experience [Primer]

Commander / EDH* Combo Enchantment Necropotence RBW (Mardu) Sacrifice

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Lands (35)

Recursion (5)

Win Conditions (3)

Draw Power / Tutors (13)

Spot Removal (10)

Protection (6)

Stax / Defense (4)

Commander (1)

Commander: Ghen, Arcanum Weaver

Self-Mill (12)

Ramp / Anti-Ramp (7)

Wipes (4)

Maybeboard

Stax (16)

Other Draw (9)

Other Wipes (9)

Other Spot Removal (14)

Playable from Grave (10)

Other Ramp / Fixing / Tax (7)

Other Recursion (7)

Blocking (11)

Other Protection Effects (10)

Other Mill (9)

Ghen recklessly mills and selectively revives, toolboxing the grave for combo wins.

-- Thousand-Year Elixir and Magewright's Stone

Ghen’s effect is deceptively mana-intensive to use more than once per round. Employing one of the above cards requires , but a non-doubled up Ghen only uses and saves that extra to let you cast a card for turn. It's more efficient to build your deck around only needing one Ghen activation per round, with Illusionist's Bracers as nice bonus if you draw into it. If you find your own build hungry for more Ghen activations, consider Far Traveler instead of the above cards.

-- Starfield Mystic, Transcendent Envoy, Cloud Key, Starnheim Courser, and Danitha Capashen, Paragon

Not much to say here; These only shine if you're casting more than one spell per turn, which this deck doesn't aim to do. They also don't color fix, which is important for a three color deck. Generators of colored mana is better for this build's purposes.

-- Overwhelming Splendor, Cruel Reality, and other high-impact Curses

Most Curses have high CMCs that are difficult to cast normally Certainly a Ghen deck can go for glory by dumping, pitching, and reviving Curse cards, but such builds only target one player and have few early game plays. They also struggle to recover resources when a player dies and takes four or five of your Curses with them. While this deck can certainly employs utility Curses like Curse of Silence, Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor a more dedicated Curse Commander than Ghen.

-- Sluggishness, Fiery Mantle, Despondency, Spirit Loop, and Brilliant Halo

These functionally alter Ghen’s ability from “pay 3 and sac to revive” to “pay 5 to revive.” It's good card economy, but these auras do little without Ghen’s dedicated attention. There are also certain other Enchantments in this build actually WANT to be sacced, like Parallax Wave, nearly spent Sagas, and redundant/unwanted Stax pieces. Certainly there are Ghen builds that utilize the above auras in ETB and Constellation strategies, but this one would rather have independently impactful Stax or Removal cards. And if you have a Rule of Law effect in play, these cards lose most of their value.

So now that we’ve gone over what plays this deck DOESN’T make, let’s look at what plays it actually DOES.

Per the deck's name, Near-Death Experience is your most straightforward path to victory. As an Enchantment, it's easy to get to via tutoring or milling to be recurred by Ghen. Once it is on standby, simply pay down to 1 life with Necropotence or Soul Channeling (two other recurrable Enchantments) right before your upkeep. If your meta has decks that might ping you to death mid combo, Nine Lives is a potential safety net.

An alternative combo, also consisting of recurrable Enchantments, comes from infinitely triggering Grim Guardian. Use Starfield of Nyx or Opalesence to turn all your enchantments into creatures, then have Parallax Wave, Touch the Spirit Realm, or Journey to Nowhere infinitely exile and return themselves, pinging all opponents to death.

One final way to win via combo is with Warlock Class's Level 3 ability. Any effect that halves the table's life totals will trip Warlock Class during the end step to finish all your opponents off. At time of writing, the only cards that can do this are Heartless Hidetsugu and Fraying Omnipotence, neither of which are Enchantments. This makes the combo difficult to assemble via your regular milling /recursion line of play, with Yawgmoth's Agenda and Underworld Breach your only ways the get them back. I run Fraying Omnipotence, pending the release of an Enchantment in the future that can replace it.

Here's how we work towards victory.

Ghen is unconventional for an Enchantment Matters card. He does not hoard advantage like Tuvasa the Sunlit or swing out like Daxos the Returned. Nor does he elevate niche cards in same way as Estrid, the Masked does. He is simply a utility booster for cards already in your Hand and Grave, so the deck feeds him with Enchantments that mill, sacrifice, and/or discard themselves.

Ghen's ability is also deceptively slow; he lacks Haste, and he makes precision trades for neutral card advantage once every rotation around the table. This isn't to say Ghen is weak, but it's important to make every activation count. Quality over quantity is how Ghen, Arcanum Weaver pursues victory.

Divine Presence protects your life total and makes your creatures with 4 or more toughness into invincible blockers. Since neither of this deck's game-winning combos rely on dealing huge damage, this card can sit on your field comfortably. Ashling's Prerogative is best played declaring "Odd", since it grants Haste to Ghen and causes opposing token swarms to enter tapped.

Ghen can sacc your own Enchantments that interfere with your own plays, so this deck can run symmetrical stax pieces like Stony Silence, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Lethal Vapors and Ashes of the Abhorrent. Simply ditch them once their utility is spent.

Make every card count when tweaking your Stax suite, both from the bloated maybeboard and from your own cards tailored to your local meta. Up against a lot of Utility Lands? Blood Sun and Alpine Moon have your back. Lots of removal coming your way? Play Karmic Justice or Martyr's Bond. Lots of creatures tapping for value? Smoke them out. Planeswalkers? Play Eidolon of Obstruction and Flame Blitz.

This section of the deck can (and should) be customized to fit your playgroup. My only advice to not stray too far into 4 CMC or higher. You still need to hold open for Ghen's ability.

This deck primarily mills itself to gain advantage, since Ghen can revive key pieces by saccing the Enchantment that did the milling. You should aim to have a self-mill effect in your opening hand. If not any of those, Gamble, The Creation of Avacyn, Gravebreaker Lamia, or Colfenor's Plans can can considered acceptable substitutions.

Mardu struggles with mana. Doubly so in an Enchantment-heavy strategy. Land Tax and Lithoform Blight can correct your colors, but they only provide draw power and fixing, not true ramp.

Fires of Invention is one of the deck's best cards, allowing you to cast Enchantments for free while holding up the lands to pay for Ghen's ability.

This deck also leans into cards that punish opponents for getting out ahead of you. Stony Silence disables opposing mana rocks. Aura of Silence ups the cost of opposing spells. Alpine Moon and Blood Sun hate on nonbasic lands. Custody Battle on a Commander slows that player down regardless of which choice they make. Less direct are Rule of Law effects like Spirit of the Labyrinth and High Noon to keep spellslingers under control, while Price of Glory and Tectonic Instability make it hard to hold mana open.

This section of the deck is flexible and highly dependent on your playgroup's permissiveness of oppressive effects. Catch-up abilities like Monologue Tax and Smuggler's Share may draw you less hate in casual play, or you could go whole hog with mass land destruction like Impending Disaster or Fall of the Thran.

With all the self milling, these are the best cards to draw into or revive via Ghen's effect.

Court of Ardenvale can be gotten back via Ghen before your turn, granting you its Monarchy bonus effect. Otherwise, it can be used to recur lands (a trick shared only by Ripples of Undeath or smaller enchantments to be recast.

Starfield of Nyx is a passive but powerful value engine. Its clause that turns all your Enchantments into creatures can potentially allow for finishing swings (and a few combos discussed in the Win Condition tab), but under most circumstances they'll just be blockers contributing to your pillow fort. Go ahead and get greedy with your revivals; Ghen can always sacc the Starfield to remove the creature-izing clause and keep you safe from a board wipe.

Underworld Breach saccs itself "at the beginning of the end step," which means if Ghen recurs it during the end step of the turn before yours, Breach will not sacc itself that turn. This means you untap on your own turn with the Breach open, allowing you to cast whatever you need from grave. Then sacc Breach itself with the freshly untapped Ghen to recur something else. You would have lost Breach at the end of turn anyway.

Gift of Immortality is actually a combo card when attached to an Enchantment creature; Ghen saccs the creature to recur another Enchantment, then the creature returns alongside Gift of Immortality so the creature can be sacced again. This is especially economic if the enchantment creature has an ETB effect, such as Gravebreaker Lamia, or the ability to sac itself for alternative value, like Alseid of Life's Blessing.

Spirit-Sister's Call is basically another Ghen.

Sevinne's Reclamation and can be played from the Grave if milled.

Enchantments in general provide lingering blanket effects, not instant-speed interaction. But that doesn't men this deck is completely helpless.

Ghen's effect grants pseudo Flash to your Enchantments in the graveyard. He can recur Night of the Doctor right before your turn, triggering the first chapter via its ETB and the second chapter on your upkeep. Divine Presence can also be played from the grave on its own.

Outside of Ghen, Sinister Concoction, Seal of Cleansing, and Act of Authority are rattlesnakes; Having them out and threatening to use their sac effects is actually more effective than actually following through.

Planar Chaos is often scary enough to deter opponents from risking big plays.

Cast Out and Touch the Spirit Realm are best used to enchant Commanders, since opponents will most likely opt to put them in the Command Zone. This means you can sac these cards later and your opponent won't immediately get their card back.

Special mention must also go to Parallax Wave. With Ghen untapped and ready, you can remove all Fade Counters on Parallax to target that many problem creatures you need gone. Then, while those impending exilings are still on the stack, sacc Parallax with Ghen. Due to a complicated rule convention, Parallax's clause to "return the creatures" will trigger before the creatures actually leave the battlefield, fizzling upon resolution and resulting in all of the targets staying banished for good. Starfield of Nyx enables a stronger version of this combo, turning Parallax Wave into a creature and enabling a creature-only variation of the classic Opalesence lockdown.. Add Grim Guardian to the mix, and you have an instant win combo detailed in the above Win Condition tab.

New cards with the "Constellation" keyword get released periodically. If a particularly value-oriented one gets released, mass ETBs can be achieved with Replenish, Resurgent Belief, and Brilliant Restoration. Other keywords to look out for are Dredge, Mill, Surveil, Descend, Escape, Disturb, Aftermath, Flashback, Jump-start, retrace, Unearth, and Collect Evidence.

More Enchantment Creatures and ways to fill your graveyard are always welcome. Mill, Explore, Surveil, Cycling, Channel, looting, self-saccing effects, etc.

Finally, there are plenty of other two card Enchantment combos to build around:

Axis of Mortality + Form of the Dragon.

Assemble the Legion + Descent into Madness.

Havoc Festival + Wound Reflection.

Another way to achieve infinite Enchantment etbs for Grim Guardian is with Animate Dead, Necromancy, or Dance of the Dead + Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward or Worldgorger Dragon.

Forgeborn Oreads, Doomwake Giant, and Boon of the Spirit Realm allow alternative infinite ETB payoffs.

If all else fails, Eldrazi Conscription on Ghen makes him a Voltron two-shot.

You can also mill your entire library (including the above cards) with Underworld Breach, Smothering Tithe, and Reforge the Soul / Wheel of Fortune

To refresh, this deck mills itself to recur valuable enchantments. Value comes from Starfield of Nyx or a Gift of Immortality on an Enchantment creature. Your best plays come from to saccing Enchantments that would have spent themselves anyway, like Lingering Death or Sagas on their final chapter. Assemble your combo cards and stax opponents out from their win cons while you ponder your Mesmeric Orb and aspire towards a Near-Death Experience.

Always stay striving to craft better Enchantment synergies. Ghen certainly does.

Excelsior!

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Date added 3 years
Last updated 3 months
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

8 - 0 Mythic Rares

57 - 0 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.78
Tokens Spirit 3/2 RW, The Monarch, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
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