Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest Shenanigans

Commander / EDH Aggro BG (Golgari) Combo Counters Infinite Combo Multiplayer

IpCrash3r

Creature (27)

• 1x Abhorrent Overlord
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Disciple of Bolas
• 1x Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fertilid
• 1x Flesh-Eater Imp
• 1x Fleshbag Marauder
• 1x Genesis
• 1x Ghoulcaller Gisa
• 1x Grave Titan
• 1x Greenwarden of Murasa
• 1x Korozda Guildmage
• 1x Mycoloth
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Puppeteer Clique
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Smothering Abomination
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Woodfall Primus
• 1x Yavimaya Elder

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Blighted Woodland
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Command Tower
• 6x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x High Market
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Petrified Field
• 1x Phyrexian Tower
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Awakening Zone
• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Evolutionary Leap
• 1x From Beyond
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Sylvan Library

Artifact (8)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Nim Deathmantle
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

Instant (7)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Harrow
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (15)

• 1x Army of the Damned
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Death Cloud
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Hunting Wilds
• 1x Killing Wave
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Pox
• 1x Reprocess
• 1x Scapeshift
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Tooth and Nail

Commander (1)

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Sheoldred, Whispering One

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Primal Vigor

Artifact (1)

• 1x Sensei's Divining Top

Instant (1)

• 1x Chord of Calling

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Curse of the Cabal
• 1x Hunting Wilds
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Wave of Vitriol

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1st Official Mazirek Deck on Tapped Out. I began making him the second the card was revealed on Reddit/EDH

This is my (EDIT: 3RD) draft of the new black/green general from the Commander 2015 set. In my list, I am attempting to abuse multiple sacrifice effects (on both myself, and my opponents) to buff my creatures and board state. I also use tokens as fodder towards my sacrificial engines of doom.

I do understand that this deck is absolutely reeking of infinite combos, and could easily be turn into a T3-T4 infinite combo deck. However, I am trying to keep this deck tuned to be more of a battle-cruiser deck that does more damage the later the game goes on.

Criticism and card suggestions are highly encouraged.

Why Mazirek?

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest is one of the newly announced commanders available in the Commander 2015 sets. Out of all of the generals released, I wasn't very impressed with what I saw. In my personal opinion, experience counters looked like cheese, and the other commanders simply looked lackluster.

However, Mazirek seems to be a different story. For the first time we were giving a FLYING black/green legendary who was based around sacrificial effects. At first I wasn't impressed, but then I realized that her ability is triggered WHENEVER an opponent sacrifices a permanent. Holy crap?

You're telling me that if I am in a four player game, and Death Cloud for 3 (assuming my opponents have 3 creatures out each, along with myself), Mazirek is going to put 24 +1/+1 counters on herself, and each creature I control?

How does it work?

The deck is fairly straight forward. You battlecruise until you have a decent number of creatures in play, or have a few token generators that you can activate on a moments notice. Playing sacrifice-synergistic effects such as Smothering Abomination , Disciple of Bolas, and Birthing Pod allow us to ramp/tutor up quickly, and make sure we have an engine to abuse with Mazirek when we decide to play her in the next following turn(s).

Once our board is in a state that would benefit from +1/+1 counters, the goal is to cast Mazirek and use a repeatable sacrifice source to buff our board into kingdom come. A well placed Avenger of Zendikar with a sac outlet can give us the game. Alternatively, we use our sacrifice effects to slowly wear down the board until we can swarm them with A) Tokens or B) Creatures from hand.

Combo Plays

I am personally trying to avoid making this a purely combo deck, as I already run multiple combo decks which my playgroup despises. Most of the combo's that you'll see in this deck are not fully intended, or are simply too good to not play with. (EG. Persist)

1) Nether Traitor + Phyrexian Altar + Golgari Germination (UPDATE: NO LONGER RUNNING GOLGARI GERMINATION. THIS HAS BEEN REMOVED)

How does it work? When Nether Traitor and Golgari Germination in play, you can sacrifice Nether Traitor to the altar to make yourself a single black mana. When the sacrifice trigger ends, Golgari Germination triggers putting a 1/1 creature into play. You can then sacrifice this token for another mana of your choice. When the token hits the graveyard (and then leaves play permanently), you can use your floating black mana to bring back Nether Traitor, leaving you with any mana of any color in your pool.

Why does this combo matter? You can use this to give yourself infinite mana, or more importantly - use it as a infinite sacrifice engine to give your general and your creatures infinite +1 counters. Once you have infinite mana, you can use the same combo with a card such as Mind Slash to eat your opponents hand, etc.

2) Woodfall Primus + Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest + Any sacrifice Outlet

How does it work? This is a unintentional combo. I always run Woodfall in any deck that is primarily green - the fact that this is a combo is completely unintentional. When both your general and a creature with persist are in play, you can sacrifice the persist creature - when it comes back into play, a +1 counter is put on the creature which effectively removed the -1 counter that persist gave the creature.

Why does this combo matter? If you haven't already noticed, this is a infinite sacrifice engine as the creature will keep coming back indefinitely. Used with a sacrifice outlet such as Phyrexian Altar, Woodfall Primus will destroy every non-creature permanent of your choice, AND give you infinite mana and +1 counters. Brutal.

3) Puppeteer Clique + Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

How does it work? Same as above. Only difference is you steal every creature in opponents graveyards, instead of blowing up the board.

4) Titania, Protector of Argoth + Any Land Sacrifice Effect

How does it work? Pretty straight forward. I'm running all of the fetch lands, and a TON of other sacrificial lands in order to help abuse Mazireks ability. Fortunately these land sacrifice effects also work well with Titania.

Why does it matter? If you have 8 lands out and use Scapeshift or Reprocess while Titania is out, you're going to be putting x8 5/3 tokens into play. Read the freaking card, man!

5) Genesis + Survival of the Fittest (or) Evolutionary Leap

How does it work? You chuck a creature card to Survival of the Fittest, or sacrifice a creature on the board to Evolutionary Leap. On your next upkeep, you can return that card to your hand for (3) if Genesis is in your graveyard.

Why does it matter?* It's a trick to help you tutor for what you need, or filter through your deck, which is VERY important when your deck needs to have what it needs to survive the upcoming sacrificial slaughter from Pox.

6) Killing Wave for 0.

How does it work? Killing Wave can be used as removal against our opponents, or as a sacrifice engine for ourself. Let's assume we played an Avenger of Zendikar and put 8 0/1 tokens into play. We can then play Killing Wave for a single black mana (Not paying for X) and cause all players to pay 0 life for their creatures. When it comes to our priority, you can choose not to pay 0 for as many creatures as you want, allowing those to be sacrificed, buffing the rest of our creatures. I recently discovered this play, and figured it was definitely worth mentioning!

Why does it matter? It's a way to have a sacrifice engine that our opponents cannot remove, or will expect. (Unless they eat our hands away). It's a sleazy way to jump someone out of nowhere!

7) Avenger of Zendikar + Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest + Scapeshift

How does it work? This is another funny play I found by accident. If you play an Avenger of Zendikar, you will put X tokens into play. The same (or next) turn, play Mazirek, and then play Scapeshift. This will cause you to sacrifice X lands, and will put X lands in play. As long as no one removes the Avenger of Zendikar, Mazirek will put a +1/1 counter on each creature, and Avenger will also put a +1/1 on each plant creature for each land sacrificed.

Why does it matter? I was able to sacrifice 9 lands, putting +18/18 on each plant token I had. I was able to get my x9 0/1 plant tokens to become 18/18 weapons of mass destruction out of nowhere to swing for lethal at each opponent. Like mentioned previously, this deck strives on "shotgun" style plays, which no-one expects.

8) Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder + Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

How does it work? I often tutor for Endrek as soon as I have about 5-7 mana at my disposable. The goal is to play Endrek, and then another creature until we have about 5-6 creatures. It is important to NOT go over 7. As soon as we hit 5-6 creature tokens, we cast our general which spawns us an additional 5 tokens. This causes Endrek to sacrifice himself, immediately triggering Mazirek to put a +1/1 counter on each token that is in the battlefield.

Why does it matter? Just by casting our general, we can have (up to) 11 creatures that are 2/2's. If we have a sacrifice outlet, we could sacrifice the 5 tokens with summoning sickness to do some shenanigans, AND add +5/5 to out existing 6 creatures in play, giving us 35 damage worth of attackers that can attack the same turn. This can typically one-shot a player if they are unable to block!

9) Necrogenesis + Ashnod's Altar

How does it work? You pay (2) colorless mana to exile a creature from a graveyard, spawning a 1/1 token. You then sacrifice that token for 2 colorless mana.

Why does it matter? You can constantly exile tokens from opponents graveyards until there are no other creatures to exile. Works well with Mazirek, and shuts down anyone playing reanimation based decks. (LOL KARADOR)

What is this decks weakness?

I have built this deck to work with or without Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest in play. This is why I don't run a few cards such as Corpsejack Menace which are COMPLETELY useless without our commander in play. (I had this same issue with my Ghave deck).

Obviously the deck has a few plays that rely on the commander. This isn't a deck that you cast Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest the second you hit 5 mana. It's important to play him ONLY when you're ready to go balls to the wall.

Decks that are creatureless are tough, as they typically pillowfort into victory. This deck strives on playing against other agro decks, as creatures in play don't stand a chance.

I am trying to stay away from a re-animator based deck for a few reasons - to begin with, I already have one. Second, my playgroup has a LOT of re-animator decks, so we all run graveyard hate. As the deck is not based around reanimation, we don't have to worry about people exiling our graveyards.

The one thing that can really hurt this deck is bounce/heavy removal of our tokens or sacrificial offerings. If we're trying to make our opponents sacrifice their permanents, and we have no throwaways to use, we're in the same boat as them.

Why don't you run X card?

This list will be growing with card suggestions I am not interested in running, and an explanation as to why.

Wave of Vitriol I am very mixed on this. It's an amazing card with our general, however the deck is only running 10-12 basic lands. This can SEVERELY screw us. Also, my playgroup actually uses removal, so the chances of Mazirek sticking while I have 7 mana to cast this is pretty much slim-to-none. I recommend it for those who are running over 20 basic lands, but I am hesitant at the time being.

Creakwood Liege Just doesn't do it for me. He's an OK token generator at best, but I feel that there are better things available. He's an OK replacement for Bitterblossom in a budget build.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed A lot of people ask why I don't run this guy. Simply put, this guy is absolute crap with our general. Unlike persist, the Undying mechanic returns a creature to play if it had NO +1/1 counters on it when it died. As our general gives creatures +1/1 counters, Mikaeus is not in our best interests. He works much better in decks such as Marchesa, where you can abuse his ability indefinitely.

Cauldron of Souls I had Cauldron of Souls in the deck in one of my first drafts. It seems good in theory, but I had a few issues with it:

1) It's a one trick pony. You can use it a single time for the turn, and then it becomes obsolete quick.

2) Once your opponents see what you're doing with it, it'll be destroyed instantly. As it costs 5 mana, that can set us back significantly. (Mind you, this can be said about any of our engines)

3) I'm trying not to rely on effects that enter my graveyard. When I play a black deck, I assume my opponents will be running effects such as Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus, etc, as they usually (almost) will be. Making a black/green deck that doesn't rely on the graveyard is pretty rare, particularly as this is a deck based around sacrifices. This obviously may be different in your own particular playgroup.

4) In my playtesting, it doesn't work as good as you ever think it will. I had the same issue with Mimic Vat. It sounds (and looks great) in theory, but by the time I have a creature I want to abuse, I usually have another type of card draw or sacrifice engine in play that's much cheaper and resilient to abuse.

Mimic Vat As with Cauldron of Souls, I found this to be a card that just wasn't quite reliable in the deck. It's easily destroyed as it is an artifact, and can draw a ton of attention to yourself if you do not have a sacrifice train set-up in place already. In most games that I had this card, whenever I finally had a creature worth exiling under Mimic Vat, I had my counter or card draw engine set-up and had better things to play, or I was already a turn away from victory, making it mostly purposeless.

It That Betrays sounds good in theory, but under-performs greatly. Typically if I have 12 mana to waste on it, I don't have enough mana to follow it up with something such as Pox etc. I'm not a fan of playing cards that makes the entire board look my way UNLESS I know I can protect the card, or win the same turn. (Or at least severely mutilate someone). Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is an indestructible, colorless removal spell (can get rid of Iona, or bullshit color-lock cards), with Annihilator 4 who shuffles our graveyard. This protects the deck inherently from having to throw away massive card advantage due to Reprocess and Scapeshift, opponents playing mill decks, and any other type of "mill" based combo.

If we need our graveyard back, we can also chuck Ulamog via Survival of the Fittest. Alternatively, we can sacrifice our creatures and tokens to an altar, letting us drop an Ulamog as early as turn 4-5, which can be a game ender by itself.

It's overall a ton more flexible than It That Betrays, which I found to be more important then a hard to pull off combo that rarely worked.

Strip Mine Strip Mine was in the deck, but was removed to add additional basics to the deck. Due to the amount of sacrifice lands I have, I was commonly being mana screwed with colorless lands such as strip mine. As for the fetchlands - just because I run them, doesn't mean I want to use them right off the bat. Their primary objective is to help us buff our field out of nowhere with our general, or Titania. The Strip Mine/Crucible combo is simply not needed in this deck as I am already running cards such as: Grave Pact, Pox, Infinite Woodfall Primus, and Wasteland. This is not a land destruction deck, it's a control deck.

Burgeoning As for land acceleration, I am running Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Ranger's Path, Skyshroud Claim, Harrow, along with nearly every fetchland (at least over 10), and multiple creatures that put lands into play (Yavimaya Elder, Solemn Simulacrum, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Burnished Hart). On top of that, Awakening Zone and From Beyond can be used as mana acceleration if needed. Why the heck would I run something such as Burgeoning. It's a cute card that lets you accelerate for a whole 2-3 turns, and then you run out of cards and it's useless. This isn't an Omnath deck.

How do I make this budget?

Honestly, most of the value comes from the duals and fetches. Replace these with basic shocks, and run the other sacrifice lands that search for basics, etc. You can also take out Crucible of Worlds and decide to NOT use a land sacrifice theme, which might save you a couple hundo by itself.

Possible replacements for fetch and duals:

Bad River , Evolving Wilds, Grasslands, Mountain Valley , Rocky Tar Pit , Terramorphic Expanse, Bant Panorama, Esper Panorama , Grixis Panorama, Jund Panorama , Naya Panorama

Possible replacement for bitterblossom: Creakwood Liege, Breeding Pit

Possible Replacement for Grave Pact: Butcher of Malakir

Possible Replacement for Damnation: Mutilate, Life's Finale, Toxic Deluge

For additional value, remove the Mana Crypt and throw in a Darksteel Ingot or Golgari Signet. Lillianna can be swapped out with any of the token spawning Garruks, and the tutors can be left out (to let the deck be slightly more casual), or replaced with any of the 4CMC - 6CMC tutors on the market.

If you make these changes, you can easily get the cost of the deck down significantly.

Conclusion

We're all going to learn a lot about Mazirek, and the new C15 generals as we have more time to play with them. I am confident that this deck will evolve tons over the new few months as we begin to realize new plays that we have never thought of.

I hope this guide helps you with your own deck-building, and gives you a reason to run the king of counters - Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest!

If you like this deck, and enjoy making your opponents cry

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 9 years ago
Date added	9 years
Last updated	8 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	14 - 0 Mythic Rares 52 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.67
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Eldrazi Scion 1/1 C, Eldrazi Spawn 0/1 C, Elemental 5/3 G, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Harpy 1/1 B, Plant 0/1 G, Saproling 1/1 G, Thrull 1/1 B, Zombie 2/2 B
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