Glissa, Traitor of Mirrodin [Artifact Primer] (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Glissa, Traitor of Mirrodin [Artifact Primer]

Commander / EDH Artifact BG (Golgari) Combo Construct Infinite Combo Phyrexian Primer Tokens

UltimateRoxas40

Land (33)

Instant (6)

Artifact (26)

Sorcery (7)

Enchantment (4)

Commander (1)

Creature (23)

Maybeboard

Artifact (7)

Creature (4)

"Flesh is Weak"

Glissa Sunseeker was the first legendary card I ever owned while doing my first draft during the original Mirrodin block. Not the most powerful card, but definitely an important figure in the Magic lore on that plane. She sets out to discover the truths of her world - Mirrodin - and encounters many of the races that had been planted on this artificial plane (created by the Silver Golem Karn). Eventually, she encounters Memnarch, released Mirrodin's Fifth Sun, the Green Sun, from within the core of the plane, and discovers and subsequently relinquishes her latent planeswalker's spark to return the plane to normal after defeating Memnarch. However, her story doesn't end there...

When I first began playing Magic, it only lasted a few years, and was casual, kitchen table-style Magic. Eventually, I stopped playing and didn't pick Magic back up until much later, around the Return to Ravnica Block and then again at Eldritch Moon. To my surprise, I found out that my once favorite card had been corrupted and evolved into something much more . . . dark. More Powerful.

Glissa, the Traitor really hits me hard in the Lore feels. Her story was always interesting to me as a kid (I was obsessed with the Kaldra Artifacts from the original Mirrodin set, it felt like Magic's Exodia the Forbidden One's parallel haha), and seeing her compleation made me want to build her and let her shine. Glissa, the Traitor offers us a unique way to spread the glory of New Phyrexia to everyone.

Her third form from Phyrexia: All Will Be One is Glissa Sunslayer, which is powerful, but more in a toolbox-ey way, not as a combo value engine like Glissa, the Traitor. She then received her (presumably) final form in March of the Machines as Glissa, Herald of Predation, which looks really fun, but the limited support for Incubate makes her less appealing as a commander.

Our Commander

Glissa, the Traitor is three mana for a 3/3 First Stike and Deathtouch Phyrexian Zombie Elf (What a mouthful haha). The combination of First Strike and Deathtouch means that for the most part, any creature she deals damage to will die before it can deal damage back, making her an efficient attacker and blocker depending on what is needed. Her main combo ability that we are planning to abuse states that whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, we may return target artifact card from our graveyard to our hand. We have many ways to kill our opponent's creatures to return our artifacts to our hands.

General Strategy

"Both Vorinclex's and Glissa's beliefs are in line with the fundamental ideology of Phyrexia: flesh is weak. All other lifeforms should be eliminated or subsumed into Phyrexia, the ultimate "species." But unlike other Phyrexians, they believe this should be accomplished through an accelerated natural selection —a monstrous simulation of the predator-prey cycle in which all prey are predators themselves."

This deck aims to grind down the opponents with sacrificial value and artifact recursion throughout the game until you can assemble a combo and eliminate your opponents.

Powerful Creatures

Hangarback Walker - This construct enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it, and when it dies, create a 1/1 colorless Thopter artifact creature token with flying for each +1/+1 counter on Hangarback Walker.
Imotekh the Stormlord - This Necron Lord synergizes really well with Glissa, the Traitor. It's first ability states "Whenever one or more artifact cards leave your graveyard, create two 2/2 black Necron Warrior artifact creature tokens". Since we should hopefully be using our graveyard as a revolving door for our artifacts, we should be getting a lot of 2/2 artifact creature tokens out of it. It can also pump up another artifact creature at the beginning of our combat by +2/+2 and menace until end of turn.
Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter - Allows us to cast our Artifact/Colorless cards at Instant speed. Can also grow in strength as we cast more expensive spells.
Lokhust Heavy Destroyer - A Flying artifact creature with a Fleshbag Marauder effect. Perfect for recurring with Glissa, the Traitor, since each other creature our opponents sacrifice could be used to bring itself back to our hand.
Marionette Master - One of our important combo pieces, she can either enter as a 4/6, or a 1/3 with 3 1/1 Thopter tokens, and whenever an artifact we control dies, target opponent loses life equal to her power. Equipment like Cranial Plating or Tarrian's Soulcleaver can give her a massive Power boost, allowing us to deal with opponents much more quickly.
Noxious Gearhulk - When this creature enters the battlefield, we may destroy another target creature, then gain life equal to that creatures Toughness. And it has Menace, so if we power it up with Cranial Plating or Tarrian's Soulcleaver, it can become a beater that's hard to manage.
Psychomancer - One of our ways to further weaponize our infinite token loops, whenever itself or another nontoken artifact you control dies or is exiled, target opponent loses 1 life and we gain 1 life.
Threefold Thunderhulk - On ETB, this creature creates X 1/1 artifact Gnome creature tokens, where X is its power. It ETBs with three +1/+1 Counters, so it will start with three 1/1 Gnomes. It also generates X 1/1 Gnome tokens when it attacks. With Cranial Plating or Tarrian's Soulcleaver, we can easily start amassing an army of 1/1 creatures, either to attack with or use as sacrificial fodder for our other engines.
Verdurous Gearhulk - When this creature ETBs, we can distribute 4 +1/+1 Counters amongst creatures we control. We can either stack them up on a creature like Glissa, the Traitor to take further advantage of her First Strike and Deathtouch synergy, or put the counters onto a creature like Marionette Master to deal more damage with each artifact that is destroyed.
Walking Ballista - The best outlet for our infinite mana plays, we can pump it up with as many +1/+1 counters as we want, then just rapid-fire ping our opponents to death.
Wurmcoil Engine - Another powerful beater and combo piece. It enters as an impressive 6/6 with Deathtouch and Lifelink, and when it dies we create two 3/3 Wurm tokens, one with Deathtouch and one with Lifelink.
Wurmcoil Larva - "I shall call him...Mini Me!". Not quite as powerful as Wurmcoil Engine, but not as expensive either. And it functions as a redundancy in several of our combo lines, so if an opponent thinks they've stopped us by exiling Wurmcoil Engine, we can surprise them with Wurmcoil Larva

Ramp and Lands

Mana Rocks

Arcane Signet/Talisman of Resilience/Golgari Signet - Gives us colored mana, which is necessary since our commander is color intensive.
Cloud Key - Not really a rock, but on ETB, we can choose between Artifact, Enchantment, Creature, Instant, or Sorcery (Read: Artifact), and reduce that card type (Read: Artifact) spell cost by . That's kinda like ramp, right?
Foundry Inspector - Also not really a rock haha. It reduces all our Artifact spell costs by .
Mox Opal - With Metalcraft active, we can tap for any color. If we don't have Metalcraft active within the first few turns, we are doing something wrong.
Sol Ring - Gives us more colorless mana.
Mind Stone - Gives us colorless mana, and we can sacrifice it to draw a card. With Glissa, the Traitor's recursive ability, we can use this for multiple card draws throughout a game.

Getting lands

Expedition Map - For and sacrificing itself, we can go find any land and add it to our hand.
Moonsilver Key - For and sacrifice to go find a basic land or an artifact card with a mana ability to our hand. This can snag combo pieces like Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar, since they are technically mana abilities, sources of mana like Mox Opal and Sol Ring, or any of our artifact lands like Darkmoss Bridge or Tree of Tales.
Sarinth Steelseeker - When an artifact enters the battlefield, we can look at the top card of our library. If it's a land card, we can put it into our hand. If it isn't, we have the choice to put it back or put it into our graveyard.
Solemn Simulacrum - When this enters the battlefield, we go find a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped.

Sacrificing for Mana

Ashnod's Altar - Sacrifice a creature to gain
Krark-Clan Ironworks - Sacrifice an artifact to gain
Treasure Vault - We can dump some mana and create Treasure Tokens. And since it's an Artifact Land, we can get it back with Glissa, the Traitor.

Card Draw and Tutors

While tutoring for specifically Artifacts is more prevalent in Blue and White colors, we have a few ways to tutor for cards in this deck

Beseech the Mirror - Sorcery speed, search for any card, then Exile it. As part of the cost, we can Bargain (sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token). If we Bargain, and the exiled spell has a CMC of 4 or less, we can cast it for free from Exile. Otherwise, we then move the card from Exile into our hand. A great way to quickly grab a combo piece like Krark-Clan Ironworks or Nim Deathmantle and put it immediately onto the battlefield.
Demonic Tutor - Sorcery speed, search for any card and get it into our hand.
Vampiric Tutor - Instant speed, puts any card on top of our library.
Kuldotha Forgemaster - We can sac 3 Artifacts (including itself if necessary), to go get any artifact card and put it onto the battlefield. Useful to grab a combo piece like Krark-Clan Ironworks/Nim Deathmantle, a powerful beater like Noxious Gearhulk, or Portal to Phyrexia to sound the death knell of our opponents!

Card Draw

Braids, Arisen Nightmare - At the beginning of our end step, we may sacrifice an artifact, creature, enchantment, land or planeswalker. If we do, each opponent may sacrifice a permanent that shares a card type with it. For each opponent who doesn't, that player loses 2 life and we draw a card. We can either sac an artifact for value or a creature in hopes to force our opponents to sac a creature and trigger Glissa, the Traitor to get an artifact back from our graveyard.
Deadly Dispute - For and sacrificing an artifact or creature, we can draw two cards and create a Treasure token.
Dross Skullbomb - Only costs , and we can Instant-speed sacrifice it for to draw a card, or Sorcery-speed sacrifice it for to draw a card and return a creature from our graveyard to our hand.
Fanatical Offering - Similar to Deadly Dispute, for and sacrificing an artifact or creature, we can draw two cards and create a Map token.
Ichor Wellspring - We draw a card when it ETBs, and another card when it goes to the graveyard.
Mishra's Bauble - Costs mana, and we can sacrifice this to look at the top card of target player's library, then we draw a card at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep.
Sensei's Divining Top - For mana, we can look at the top three cards of our library, then put them back in any order, and it to draw a card. Good way to manipulate the top card of our library.
Solemn Simulacrum - When this sad robot dies, we may draw a card.
Soul-Guide Lantern - Our big graveyard hate piece, but we can also and sacrifice the lantern to draw a card.
Sylvan Library - At the beginning of our turn, instead of drawing one, we look at the top three, then keep potentially all three cards, if we are willing to pay four life for each additional card beyond the first.
Urza's Bauble - Costs mana, and we can sacrifice this to look at a card at random in target player's hand, then we draw a card at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep.

Removal

Single target

Assassin's Trophy - Destroys any permanent an opponent controls and replaces it with a basic land.
Beast Within - Destroys any permanent and replaces it with a 3/3 Beast.
Haywire Mite - For , we can sacrifice this creature and Exile target non-creature Artifact or non-creature Enchantment. Useful and repetitive, but since it Exiles, it doesn't trigger Glissa, the Traitor on its own, since she cares about creatures dying.
Kaldra Compleat - When equipped creature deals combat damage to an opponents creature, we Exile that creature.
Noxious Gearhulk - On ETB, we can destroy a target creature and gain life equal to that creature's Toughness.
Sylvok Replica - For , we can sacrifice this creature and destroy target Artifact or Enchantment. Useful and repetitive.
Walking Ballista - With enough +1/+1 Counters, we can ping down any creature or Planeswalker on the field.

Board Wipes/Wide Removal

Culling Ritual - Destroys all permanents with CMC two or less, then we add either or for each permanent destroyed this way. This will hit many mana artifacts and cheap ramp creatures, which should allow us to bring back any important artifact pieces from our graveyard that might have been destroyed too.
Damnation - Destroy all creatures and they can't be regenerated.
Deadly Brew - Each player sacrifices a creature or planeswalker. If we sacrifice a permanent this way, we can return any other permanent from our graveyard to our hand.
Grave Pact - When one of our creatures dies, it makes our opponents sacrifice a creature too.
Lokhust Heavy Destroyer - When this creature ETBs, all players must sacrifice a creature. We can immediately sacrifice this creature, then let Glissa, the Traitor trigger off our opponents creatures being sacrificed, and bring the Lokhust Heavy Destroyer back to our hand.
Phyrexian Scriptures - Its destroys all non-artifact creatures. Since only four-five of our creatures are non-artifacts, this could be a one-sided board wipe (unless we are playing against another artifact deck).
Portal to Phyrexia - When this enters the battlefield, each opponent has to sacrifice three creatures.
Tithing Blade - Makes each opponent sacrifice a creature. And since it's a cheap artifact, it's easy to abuse and bring back with Glissa, the Traitor as much as we want. I don't plan on ever transforming it, since we want this cheap and repeatable way to force our opponents to sacrifice a creature.
Toxic Deluge - As an additional cost, we pay X Life. Gives all creatures -X/-X until the end of turn. Great way to get around Indestructible and/or Hexproof creatures.

Recursion

Deadly Brew - Each player sacrifices a creature or planeswalker. If we sacrifice a permanent this way, we can return any other permanent from our graveyard to our hand. This is a nice two/three/four-for-one, since if we have Glissa, the Traitor, she will see all those other creatures die, and we can get even more cards back to our hand.
Glissa, the Traitor - Our commander! As stated above, she has an impressive recursion engine built into her, allowing us to get back any artifact card from our graveyard when an opponent's creature dies.
Myr Retriever - When this creature dies, we return another target artifact card from our graveyard to our hand.
Nim Deathmantle - A powerful piece of equipment and a key piece to many of our combo engines. Whenever a nontoken creature is put into our graveyard from the battlefield, you may pay . If you do, return that card to the battlefield and attach Nim Deathmantle to it.
Portal to Phyrexia - When this enters the battlefield, each opponent has to sacrifice three creatures, then at the beginning of our upkeep, we can put any creature card from any graveyard onto our battlefield under our control.
Scrap Trawler - Whenever this creature or another artifact we control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return target artifact card in your graveyard with lesser CMC to our hand. A good way to passively generate value off of sacrificing our artifacts.
Reanimate - The classic. For just , we can put target creature card from any graveyard onto the battlefield under our control, then we lose life equal to its CMC. A good way to get some of our rare non-artifact creatures back into play, like Marionette Master
Vat of Rebirth - Whenever a creature or artifact we control is put in the graveyard from the battlefield, we can put an oil counter on it. Then at Sorcery-speed, we can and pay to return target creature card from the graveyard to the battlefield! Another great card to just play and let it passively generate oil counters for value.

Combo Loops and Synergies

The Mantle of Thunder

Nim Deathmantle + Threefold Thunderhulk + Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar

By sacrificing Threefold Thunderhulk and at least one of the 1/1 Gnome creature tokens created on ETB to either Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar, we get the mana needed to trigger Nim Deathmantle. This will bring back Threefold Thunderhulk and will net us at least one Token that the creature can make. We can repeat to get infinite creature tokens. Also generates Infinite Mana by sacrificing those creature tokens to Krark-Clan Ironworks/Ashnod's Altar since all the tokens created this way are also artifacts.
We can add Marionette Apprentice or Psychomancer to drain out our opponents in the process.

Marionette of Death

Nim Deathmantle + Marionette Master + Ashnod's Altar

By sacrificing Marionette Master and at least one of the 1/1 Servo creature tokens created on ETB to Ashnod's Altar, we get the mana needed to trigger Nim Deathmantle. This will bring back Marionette Master and will net us at least one Token that the creature can make. We can repeat to get infinite creature tokens, draining out the entire table, since she will see each of the artifact tokens die, and each opponent will lose life equal to her Power.
Also generates Infinite Mana by sacrificing those creature tokens to Ashnod's Altar, or Krark-Clan Ironworks if it's also in play.
Not that we need it, but we can add Marionette Apprentice to drain out our opponents in the process. (Psychomancer and Marionette Master are a non-bo, since Psychomancer only cares about nontoken Artifacts, so unless Biotransference is in play to turn Marionette Master into an Artifact creature, Psychomancer wouldn't trigger on any of these creatures).

Crushed beneath an onslaught of Wurms

Nim Deathmantle + Wurmcoil Engine/Wurmcoil Larva + Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar + Either Mana available or another Artifact/Creature to Sacrifice

This loop is similar to the above two, but the main difference is that the Tokens created by Wurmcoil Engine/Wurmcoil Larva are death triggers, not ETB triggers. So to start this loop, we need either mana available or another Artifact/Creature to sacrifice to either Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar.
Once we have that mana, we can sacrifice Wurmcoil Engine/Wurmcoil Larva to get the mana needed to trigger Nim Deathmantle, as well as creating the two creature tokens. This will bring back Wurmcoil Engine/Wurmcoil Larva.
Now we have Wurmcoil Engine/Wurmcoil Larva and two creature tokens, and the loop can continue, repeating to get infinite creature tokens and mana.
We can add Marionette Apprentice or Psychomancer to drain out our opponents in the process

Descent of the Stormlord

Nim Deathmantle + Imotekh the Stormlord + Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar + Mana available and a Nontoken Artifact Creature to Sacrifice

Another similar loop, but because the token creation trigger is when an artifact leaves the graveyard, a little more setup is required.
We need to have mana available and a nontoken Artifact creature. We sacrifice the artifact creature to either Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar. This gets us the mana needed to trigger Nim Deathmantle, bringing back the nontoken artifact creature. Imotekh the Stormlord sees that artifact creature leave the graveyard, and creates two 2/2 Necron Warrior artifact creature tokens.
We can now sacrifice one of those Necron tokens and the nontoken Artifact creature to either Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar, generating the mana needed to trigger Nim Deathmantle, and repeating the cycle.
This will generate Infinite 2/2 Necron Warrior Creature tokens, infinite mana, and infinite ETB/LTB triggers, depending on what nontoken artifact creature was used for the loop.
A good creature to use for this loop would be Psychomancer, since in the process of the loop, it would trigger, draining an opponent of one life and gaining us one life, over and over until we've drained the entire table.

Lost in the Hunter's Maze

Hangarback Walker/Walking Ballista for + Grave Pact + Glissa, the Traitor

When the cost creature enters the battlefield, it will die to state-based actions. This in turn will trigger Grave Pact, forcing our opponents to sacrifice a creature, which in turn triggers Glissa, the Traitor, allowing us to get that artifact creature back. Repeatable board wipes for everyone but you, basically soft-locking our opponents from playing creatures. Very mean, and will cause you to become the archenemy almost instantly. Can be used as a political tool if necessary (wipe out an army of tokens then stop using it in exchange for not being immediately hated down haha).

Glissa and Kaldra, Reunited at Last

Glissa, the Traitor + Kaldra Compleat

As Glissa Sunseeker, the hope of Mirrodin, she and her companions collected the various pieces of the Kaldra Set: The Sword of Kaldra, the Shield of Kaldra, and the Helm of Kaldra, which when brought together would form the Kaldra Avatar. However, after completing the set and confronting Memnarch, he quickly took control of it and used it to attack Glissa and her companions. It was thought destroyed when Mirrodin's Fifth Sun, the Green Sun, erupted from the core of the world during the first fight between Glissa Sunseeker and Memnarch which annihilated the Kaldra Avatar. However, after Mirrodin was corrupted by the Glistening Oil and compleated into New Phyrexia, Glissa found the Kaldra artifacts and grew her own Germ creature to wield the artifacts again and become a champion of New Phyrexia.
By equipping Glissa, the Traitor, she becomes an 8/8 First Strike, Deathtouch, Trample, Indestructible, Haste, and "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a creature, exile that creature". Because of the interaction between Deathtouch and Trample, we only need to assign 1 point of lethal damage to a blocking creature, after which it will either die to Deathtouch, and the rest of the damage will go through.

Rain of Death(touch)

Glissa, the Traitor + Viridian Longbow

Gives Glissa, the Traitor , Deal 1 damage to any target, and with Glissa, the Traitor's Deathtouch, we can easily turn it into , destroy target creature.

Endless Forge

Sensei's Divining Top + Mystic Forge + Cloud Key or Foundry Inspector

Allows us to draw our entire deck! Use Top to draw a card and put itself on top of our library. Use the Forge to cast Top off the top of our Library, and either Cloud Key or Foundry Inspector can reduce that cost to , allowing us to draw our library.
With all of our library in our hand, the first thing to do is play out all the and drop artifacts, since they're free. Then we can play out the other artifact cost reducer (Cloud Key or Foundry Inspector), to make things even cheaper. From there, it should be easy to find the necessary combo pieces needed to win.
This can (usually) be done even if we are tapped out. We have several cheap mana rocks that can tap for colored and colorless mana. And if we are low on colored options, we can use Culling Ritual to generate enough colored mana to cast the necessary spells.

Cards Considering

Wishclaw Talisman - A repeatable tutor that can either be abused or utilized for political gain. If we have an Artifact sac outlet, we can sac it in response to activating its own ability, thus preventing an opponent from using it. But currently, I don't have enough ways to sac my own artifacts aside from those that can sac themselves or as part of an infinite combo, at which point I probably wouldn't need it. Shout out to Sandwitcher for reminding me about this card even though it's in my Aminatou, Fateshifter Insidious [Blink Primer]

Notable Exclusions

Mindslaver - I'm not a fan of the Mindslaver lock combo. If I use an infinite combo, I'd like it to try and either win the game outright or affect the entire table, not mess around with one person, one turn at a time as this combo does.

Thank you very much for checking out my deck! If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up and leave any comments or suggestions below. It's been both fun and challenging to build an artifact deck without Blue or Red.

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Revision 19 See all

(1 month ago)

-1	Marionette Apprentice	maybe
+1	Nazgul Battle-Mace	main
-1	Wurmcoil Larva	maybe

Top Ranked	Achieved #23 position overall 1 year ago Achieved #20 position in Commander / EDH 1 year ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) 1 year ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 39 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.79
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Construct 0/0 C, Gnome 1/1 C, Map, Necron Warrior 2/2 B, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Phyrexian Wurm 1/2 C, Phyrexian Wurm 2/1 C, Servo 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
Folders	My Deck Creations, Golgari Ideas, Build, Cool EDH Decks, Deck Ideas That I Enjoy, considering
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