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Kess, Doom Storm

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Infinite Combo Spellslinger Storm UBR (Grixis)

_MOX3N_

Instant (30)

Planeswalker (3)

Enchantment (2)

Land (28)

Sorcery (15)

Commander (1)

Commander: Kess, Dissident Mage

Artifact (16)

Creature (5)

Hello! If you are reading this welcome to my favorite little cEDH list! While the infamous Dissident Mage needs very little introduction I will attempt to give you the brief gist of this cEDH heavyweight! What I have assembled here is little more than your generic Storm//High Tide shell with the added beefiness of a full blown Doomsday package! Many people building Kess choose not to include a doomsday package in their list and would rather focus solely on achieving the bread and butter combination of Aetherflux Reservoir + Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter as their exclusive win condition. While I don't see anything inherently flawed with that line of thinking I have chosen to incorporate the Doomsday package for a few different reasons which I will now briefly dive into. For starters I enjoy having a completely separate series of cards that can win me the game that have nothing to do with the primary or "standard" win condition of the build. For instance our opponent may believe they have us completely hosed when they choose to exile our Isochron Scepter, Dramatic Reversal, or Aetherflux Reservoir and may even presume that by exiling one of these key combo pieces have functionally put the "Storm" deck out of business (Or at least limited us to Swan Song + Copy Artifact shenanigans if all they were able to do was remove our Reservoir)...but Au Contrare Mon Frere we are not your average Storm list...this is DOOM STORM! Just imagine the distraught expression of your flabbergasted opponent(s) as their delusions of security and confidence are suddenly stripped away while your Library becomes a dreaded five card pile of absolute dream crushing win sauce! Now it is true that often times it can be disruptive to our overall gameplan to include extraneous combos in our list however I will now go over a few of the reasons I believe that this is NOT the case with the inclusion of our glorious Doomsday package! I would like to begin by talking about the card Gush . On a good day Gush is a card that can be responsible for 4/6 draws we require to smash through our DD pile and get on with shuffling up for the next game (hopefully for the small investment of 0 mana). This kind of raw draw power is EXACTLY what we are looking for in this type of deck and is an absolute main stay of DD piles everywhere! The single downside of this gracious and giving power house of a draw spell is it relies heavily on the concept that we MUST have islands in play. I repeat: WE MUST HAVE ISLANDS IN PLAY! Now even in the worst case scenario this would be a small price to pay for the ability to draw 4 free cards but that price shrinks down to nearly nothing when we consider that we are already playing the card "High Tide" (aka God's Gift to Storm Lists) which also requires us to be extremely mindful of including plenty of access to Islands in our mana base to gain maximum advantage while trying to execute our storm plan; making Gush a nearly painless inclusion to our list. Furthermore we wouldn't be caught dead with our Grixis Storm list not including our trusty Black ritual spells that have the dual purpose of allowing us to cast our Doomsday on virtually any turn we desire and also helping us to power out the resources we will inevitably need if we have any hopes of putting our foes to the laser. Lastly I would say that Doomsday is simply a very fun and highly skill intensive card to play and with Kess's ability has proven to work quite nicely in my experience. While Doomsday may not be an auto-include in every Storm players mind it has certainly become so in mine. So that being said let's review what we have discussed:

A. Doomsday is both enjoyable and powerful while pushing it's wielder to think deeply about their decision making (particularly in reference to creating your piles.)

B. In this particular list it is minimally disruptive to our overall gameplan and I have personally found making space for the package to be easily managed with VERY little drawback to the other spells we will require to win the game.

C. The card text on Kess is highly synergistic with this strategy as it gives us that little extra wiggle room that is absolutely invaluable in a Doomsday situation. (provided she is on the battlefield of course).

D. Doomsday will provide you with improved social skills as you spend 20 minutes begging your opponents to help you build a half way passable pile to kill them all with (quite a feat eh?)

E. Doomsday will give your cards that nice worn in appearance as you hurl your deck against the wall repeatedly due to your complete inability to create DD piles on even a 4th grade level.

F. You will become far more humble as you stare down at your failed pile of sadness which you know to be a direct reflection of who you are as a human being.

G. You will gain the ability to express yourself emotionally with utter confidence as you spend your Friday nights sobbing in front of your friends because this card has broken your confidence as a Mage completely.

H. When you inevitably sell all your Magic cards in frustration you will in fact have a lot of money.

In summation it is due to the reasons above as well as a few left un-discussed here that I believe to my core that no Kess Storm list is truly complete until it becomes...you guessed it...D00M ST0RM!!

P.S. In all seriousness if you've made it this far I commend you for both your perseverance as well as your total lack of better judgment and as a reward will provide you with possibly the only useful bit of information you are likely to glean from this self indulgent monologue. If you are interested in becoming a Doomsday player yourself or simply a BETTER player of the card it is my most sincere recommendation that you checkout the Doomsday primer. I repeat: READ THE F@#%ING PRIMER! Read it until your eyeballs are melting down your cheekbones and you are quivering alone, clinging to the shredded scraps of your ruined mind!! It is, in all seriousness, a masterfully curated document and I owe whatever small degree of status I hold as a competent Doomsday player entirely to it and a smidge of practice. I hope you have enjoyed my Ted Talk and feel free as you will to discuss this list or your own similar lists in the comments below! Happy Storming <3

vv(Doomsday Primer Link)vv

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-edh-doomsday-primer/

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 5 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

11 - 0 Mythic Rares

51 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

15 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 1.92
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Folders Inspirational card choices
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Revision 14 See all

(5 years ago)

+1 Arcane Signet main
+1 Ashiok, Dream Render main
-1 Chaos Warp main
-1 Talisman of Dominance main