Mathas, Curse-Maker

Commander / EDH Casual Multiplayer Pillow Fort RBW (Mardu)

TheSpiritombEnthusiast

Land (34)

• 1x Akoum Refuge
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Bloodfell Caves
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 5x Plains
• 1x Scoured Barrens
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 9x Swamp
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Wind-Scarred Crag

Artifact (12)

• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Crawlspace
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Sunforger
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence

Enchantment (19)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Assemble the Legion
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Aurification
• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Black Market
• 1x Curse of Disturbance
• 1x Curse of Misfortunes
• 1x Curse of Opulence
• 1x Curse of Stalked Prey
• 1x Curse of Vitality
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x Marchesa's Decree
• 1x Overwhelming Splendor
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Sphere of Safety
• 1x Tainted Remedy
• 1x Torment of Scarabs

Instant (10)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Crackling Doom
• 1x Deflecting Palm
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Rakdos Charm
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Terminate

Commander (1)

Creature (16)

• 1x Bounty Hunter
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 1x Karlov of the Ghost Council
• 1x Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
• 1x Kulrath Knight
• 1x Merciless Executioner
• 1x Mogis, God of Slaughter
• 1x Orzhov Advokist
• 1x Queen Marchesa
• 1x Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
• 1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 1x Windborn Muse
• 1x Zurgo Helmsmasher

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Beacon of Unrest
• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Vindicate
• 1x Wrath of God

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Introduction

Welcome, one and all, to the grand showcase of TheSpiritombEnthusiast's politics deck! Can we get some fanfare? No? Okay, I'll stop. Anyway, this is my second deck that breaks my budget rule of $115, and is, thusly, the second deck I intend to purchase. Yay! Jumping in, this is a pillowfort politics deck helmed by Mathas, Fiend Seeker, a card I love very much. Hopefully you'll love him too by the time you're done reading through this! The goal is to set up a fort while making your opponents fight each other, preferably ignoring you entirely, what with the incentive of bounty counters and the monarchy. Enjoy!

Hunting Our Prey

So, how does Mathas function effectively? Mathas works by incentivizing your opponents to attack each other, by means of his bounty counters, which offer both lifegain and card advantage. In order to prevent players from catching on to our machinations, I've left out all damage doubling enchantments and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. They absolutely scream "I'm up to something, come stop me!" Instead, I've taken a more passive route. We've got the standard slew of pillowfort enchantments expected in a politics deck, and a whole lot of curses that further improve the benefit of attacking players other than ourself, like Curse of Opulence. Also included are a bevy of destroy effects, as exiling does not trigger Mathas' counters, unfortunately. Using these, the idea is to slowly wear down opponents as something of an 'outside influence,' staying under the radar until it's too late for anyone to attempt to counterattack you. With this in mind, Sphere of Safety is usually the first thing you should tutor for, given that this deck is 1/5 regular enchantments and a slew of enchantment creatures. Dump curses on opponents, outdraw them, outlast them. That's the name of the game!

The Hunters

I wanted to take an approach on legendary tribal here, but there were too many good non-legendary options to choose from to make it work. However, here I will list all of the (legendary)beings in Mathas' employ:

Mogis, God of Slaughter: Mogis is a logical inclusion in this type of deck. He works fantastically with Tariel, Reckoner of Souls(who will be mentioned again later), adds to our enchantment count for Sphere of Safety, has a solid 7/5 power/toughness, and is just useful overall.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar: Taxes! Wonderful! Excellent! And so, so very subtle! This Thalia was chosen over her Thraben-Guarding counterpart because she's so much more under the radar. Spell tax draws hate. Everyone knows this. Everyone knows the collective groan that happens when a Grand Arbiter Augustin IV hits the board. That's why this one was chosen. ETB tapped effects tend to be more overlooked, so this plays into our 'under the radar' strategy.

Erebos, God of the Dead: More enchantment creatures! Yay! Erebos helps us break even on Mathas' bounty counters by negating the lifegain for opponents. We still get it, of course! His card draw is also a good thing to sink all of our excess life into. He is, as well, along with Mogis and Iroas, an addition to the enchantment count and a fairly large creature with Indestructible, which is never, ever a bad thing.

Kambal, Consul of Allocation: Yay! EVEN MORE TAXES! Kambal is more active than Thalia, actively draining our opponents under most circumstances. He functions wonderfully with Karlov of the Ghost Council, as well. He's great to have out under any circumstance, so try and keep him alive!

Karlov of the Ghost Council: Removal! Damage! Karlov has it all! Repeateable removal is never a bad thing, and repeated exile is amazing. Our dear Karlov unfortunately doesn't trigger Mathas' bounty counters, but he does help against dangerous Indestructible creatures. Not only that, he gets absurdly big very quickly.

Zurgo Helmsmasher: He hits things hard, and he hits them fast! Being indestructible on our turn is just icing on the cake! That's everything you need to know about him!

Queen Marchesa: One of the ways we can improve our card draw! Wizards, can you get on colorshifting Notion Thief? I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, we can use the Monarch mechanic! In addition to the cards it provides, the Monarchy also introduces another level of politics to the game, and gives opponents even more incentive to fight each other over the crown. The Deathtouch tokens are a big bonus, too.

Tariel, Reckoner of Souls: And here we come to the subtheme of this deck: Reanimation! Tariel provides this, albeit with a certain randomness to it, very well, in addition to having a high toughness to take hits with. Tariel is the main reason this deck packs all of the destroy effects that it does, and of course we have a few other reanimation spells to avoid an over-reliance on Tariel.

Ninja edit: I should be finished updating the description at some point, given I have time! College is so time consuming! I'm always looking for suggestions, though! Thank you for your patience(though does anyone really care?)!

Top Ranked	Achieved #70 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 0 Rares 31 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.23
Tokens	Assassin 1/1 B w/ Haste, Gold, Ogre 3/3 R, Soldier 1/1 RW, Spirit 1/1 C, Monarch Emblem, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Interesting Builds from Tappedout, Mathas Decks, Interesting Decks