Ishkanah, Grafwidow (Spooder) *primer*

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari)

The_Smurf bntjah Commander_Vlaanderen

Land (29)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Gemstone Mine
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nurturing Peatland
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Snow-Covered Forest
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Food Chain
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Squirrel Nest
• 1x Survival of the Fittest SL
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Wild Growth

Creature (23)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Destiny Spinner
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Scourge
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Grim Flayer
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded *f-pre*
• 1x Runic Armasaur
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Dimir Machinations
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Life / Death
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Commander (1)

Instant (17)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Demonic Consultation
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Mausoleum Secrets
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Plunge into Darkness
• 1x Tainted Pact
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Artifact (7)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Sol Ring

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Maybeboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Imp's Mischief
• 1x Rain of Filth
• 1x Reap
• 1x Slaughter Pact

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Collective Brutality
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Traverse the Ulvenwald

Enchantment (4)

• 1x City of Solitude
• 1x Squandered Resources
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Vessel of Nascency

Artifact (2)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Birthing Pod

Creature (3)

• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Xantid Swarm

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Primer

Hi everyone first of all I'm smurf a big fan of cEDH.
My first cEDH deck was a budget version of sickrobot's Varolz Hulk deck.
Why Ishkanah, Grafwidow ? A friend of me (bntjah) challenged me to build a Golgari Food Chain deck, after some research I came up with a rather mediocre build and asked a little help from a friend (Niels) and he came up with logical changes.

So Ishkanah, Grafwidow is doing surprisingly well in the current meta. it is a fast combo deck that can win in different ways.
The main core of the deck is built around the food chain, dump and reanimate razaketh to achieve the fastest possible victory. This deck plays, fun, familiar and smooth.

The First Sliver may be the best food chain build, this spider is certainly not inferior.

Some Indept Analyses

Getting to the Food chain

How to play :
This deck has a few ways of winning. First of all we need to set up our combo.
This is pretty much decided by your opening hand, because we haven't acces tot Blue,Red and White The FoodChain combo loses some pieces like Misthollow Griffin , Squee, the Immortal .

Create infinite mana + Sac outlet and Delirium to Win the game.
Infinite Creature mana foodchain + Eternal Scourge .

To get Food Chain out as fast as possible we play a lot of mana accelleration.

• Mana dorks like
  • Birds of Paradise
  • Llanowar Elves .
• Rituals:
• Dark Ritual
• Cabal Ritual
• Culling the Weak .
• Mana rocks
• Sol Ring
• Lotus Petal
• Chrome Mox
• Mana Crypt
Also

• Utopia Sprawl
• Wild Growth .

Getting Food Chain and Eternal Scourge .

Getting Eternal Scourge into play/exile.

1. Eternal Scourge in hand : When we have Eternal Scourge in hand we can play him and feed him into Food Chain .Also exiling Eternal Scourge behind Chrome Mox is an option.
2. When Eternal scourge is in our graveyard we can reanimate him with, Necromancy , Reanimate , Animate Dead , Dance of the Dead and Death , Or Exile him with Scavenging Ooze , Deathrite Shaman .
3. Food Chain Tutors : Demonic Tutor , Vampiric Tutor , Mausoleum Secrets , Diabolic Intent , Dimir Machinations , Razaketh, the Foulblooded .
4. When Food Chain gets destroyed recurr him with Eternal Witness or Noxious Revival
5. Eternal Scourge Tutors : Same tutors to get Food Chain + Worldly Tutor , Finale of Devastation , Survival of the Fittest .
6. Searching for key pieces : Tainted Pact , Demonic Consultation , Plunge into Darkness , Ad Nauseam , Necropotence .
7. Sac outlets: Viscera Seer , Altar of Dementia , Phyrexian Altar , Yawgmoth, Thran Physician , Razaketh, the Foulblooded .

To gain Delirium is not that hard, Land-Instant-Sorcery-Creature is easy achievable.
To speed things up We play
• Vessel of Nascency
• Grisly Salvage
• Entomb
• Grim Flayer
• Buried Alive

Win Cons

Food chain

• 1. Phyrexian Altar + foodchain + Eternal Scourge + Delirium.
1. With Eternal Scourge and foodchain create infinite Swamp Forest colored mana.
2. Cast Ishkanah, Grafwidow with delirium and gain 3 spider tokens.
3. Sacrifice Ishkanah, Grafwidow with Phyrexian Altar for B.
4. Recast Ishkanah, Grafwidow with your foodchain mana and gain 3 Spider tokens.
5. Repeat step 3 and 4 until you have infinite B mana + infinit spider tokens.
6. Activate Ishkanah, Grafwidow her ability 3 times.
• 2. Altar of Dementia + foodchain + Eternal Scourge + Delirium.
1. With Eternal Scourge and foodchain create infinite BG colored mana.
2. Cast Ishkanah, Grafwidow with delirium and gain 3 spider tokens.Sacrifice Ishkanah, Grafwidow into Altar of Dementia . Target opponent mills 3 cards.
3. Recast Ishkanah, Grafwidow with your foodchain mana and gain 3 Spider tokens.
4. Repeat step 3 and 4 mill everyone.
• 3.foodchain + Eternal Scourge + Walking Ballista
1. with Eternal Scourge and foodchain create infinite BG colored mana.
2. Cast an massive Walking Balista.
3. Kill everyone


__________
Every line with a sac outlet can work with Blood Artist .
Viscera Seer is an aditional sac outlet

Squirrelcraft

• 1. Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest + Phyrexian Altar .
1. Enchant basic land with Squirrel Nest .
2. Create infinite squirrel tokens.
3. Sacrifice the squirrel tokens into Phyrexian Altar for ifinite BG.
4. Cast Ishkanah, Grafwidow with delirium and gain 3 spider tokens.
5. Activate Ishkanah, Grafwidow her ability X times.
6. Alternative step : Sacrifice Ishkanah, Grafwidow with Phyrexian Altar create infinite Spider tokerns.
7. Alternative step : Activate Ishkanah, Grafwidow her ability 3 times.
• 2. Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest + Altar of Dementia
1. Enchant basic land with Squirrel Nest .
2. Create infinite squirrel tokens.
3. Sacrifice the squirrel tokens into Altar of Dementia Milling everyone


__________
Every line with a sac outlet can work with Blood Artist .
Viscera Seer is an aditional sac outlet

Consultation

• 1. Demonic Consultation / Tainted Pact + 2U
1. Cast Praetor's Grasp search Thassa's Oracle
2. Cast Demonic Consultation / Tainted Pact
3. Cast Thassa's Oracle => you know what happens next :D

Razaketh

The razaline win.

1. what do we need 2 Lands 1 dork and Razaketh, the Foulblooded in play.
2. Tap the dork to add 1 green or black mana to your mana pool.
3. Pay 2life sac your dork fetch Life .
4. Cast Life
5. Tap your 2 lands for 2G mana.
6. Pay 2 life sac a land that became a creature with Life search for Lion's Eye Diamond .
7. cast and Crack Lion's Eye Diamond adding 3G to your pool. Now we have 5G in our pool and the following cards in our graveyard : artifact,land,creature,sorcery.
8. With the 5 Mana we cast Ihskanah, the grafwidow.
9. When Ishkanah enters we have 4 creatures because the delirium trigger excluding Razaketh, the Foulbooded in play.
10. Pay 2 life sac a land to fetch for Noxious Revival
11. 2 life Cast Noxious Revival put Lion's Eye Diamond on top of your library.
12. 2 Life sac a Spider Token fetch the Lion's Eye Diamond .
13. Cast Lion's Eye Diamond crack Lion's Eye Diamond add 3G to your mana pool.
14. Pay 2 life sac an other Spider token to fetch foodchain.
15. pay 2 life sac the last spider token to fetch Eternal Scourge
16. with the 3G from Lion's Eye Diamond cast Food Chain
17. Cast Foodchain using the 3G in your mana pool.
18. Exile Ishkanah, Grafwidow with foodchain giving us 6G
19. Cast Eternal Scourge Exile Eternal Scourge into Food Chain to make 4G.
20. Recast Eternal Scourge and repeat.
21. Recast Ishkanah, Grafwidow + 3spider tokens.

Then we have 3 options.

Option #1

1. Pay 2 life and sac a spider token to fetch Walking Ballista
2. Play Walking Ballista using Food Chain mana.
3. Remove +1/+1 counters from Walking Ballista to machine gun your enemies.
4. This costs 16 Life.

Option #2

1. pay 2 life sac a spider token fetch Eternal Witness
2. Play Eternal Witness return Lion's Eye Diamond to hand play and activate to add 3G to your mana pool.
3. pay 2 life fetch for Phyrexian Altar .
4. Play Phyrexian Altar make an large amount of spider tokens using Food Chain mana.
5. Sac 21 Spider tokens into Phyrexian Altar adding 21B to the mana pool.
6. Activate 3 times the Ishkanah, Grafwwidow abillity to kill our 3 opponents.
7. This costs 18 Life.

Option #3

1. pay 2 life sac a spider token fetch Viscera Seer
2. pay 2 life sac a spider token fetch Blood Artist
3. Play Viscera Seer and Blood Artist using Food Chain mana.
4. make a large amount of spider tokens using Food Chain mana.
5. Sac into Viscera Seer and get Blood Artist triggers.
6. Cost 18 Life

Credits

• Big thanks to bntjah for helping me helping me with the struggle with the TappedOut Formatting and lending me some cards IRL
• Oni thanks for your Shared Golgari love, support and advice that led to this build

Revisions

03/2020 Theros Beyond Death

OUT : Birthing Pod

OUT : Cabal Ritual

OUT : Cabal Pit

OUT : Grisly Salvage

OUT : Mana Vault

OUT : Altar of Dementia

OUT : Vessel of Nascency

OUT : Utopia Sprawl

IN : Destiny Spinner

IN : Lion's Eye Diamond

IN : Mana Crypt

IN : Mox Diamond

IN : Force of Vigor

IN : Yawgmoth's Will

IN : Runic Armasaur

IN : Grim Tutor

Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 48 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.96
Tokens	Spider 1/2 G, Spirit 1/1 C, Squirrel 1/1 G