Mazirek EDH deck, focused on using "sacrifice" effects to make my army huge.
DECK TECH
Be Aware:
A couple things that people don't always realize about Mazirek. First, he triggers on any player sacrificing. Us, opponents, doesn't matter. Second, he triggers on any permanent being sacrificed. Opponent sacrificing an evolving wilds? Yup. Daretti sacrificing an artifact? Yup. Also people seem to not realize that he has flying. Check the wings.
I've built this deck to try to cheaply take advantage of all of these aspects, and I make sure to play plenty of my own sacrifice effects (for a benefit of course) so I don't have to rely on opponents to sacrifice to make my team huge. There's also a small Eldrazi spawn / scion theme because these work great with Mazirek. I've found that this deck can quickly grow a team of monsters, and can do so at instant speed most of the time.
This deck plays 47 cards that sacrifice in some form or another. Some are more repeatable than others. Switch to Custom Categories to follow along.
- Ramp and Fixing Sacrifice:
The first is what I'll consider Ramp and Fixing . In this category we have some simple effects like Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Warped Landscape. For a non-budget deck, throw in Verdant Catacombs and other on color fetchlands like Wooded Foothills which I admit I didn't include because it seems off color identity to me. Also artifacts like Expedition Map, Wayfarer's Bauble, and Horizon Spellbomb. We can use these immediately to ramp to Mazirek, or hold off on them for the sacrifice effect later if we have other things to do. Additionally ramp comes in the form of all the eldrazi minions from Awakening Zone, From Beyond, Nest Invader, and Kozilek's Predator among others, as well as non-Eldrazi creatures such as Sakura-Tribe Elder.
Next there's stuff that allows us to sacrifice other creatures for value. This category includes Disciple of Bolas, Smothering Abomination, Eldrazi Monument, Bloodspore Thrinax, and Westvale Abbey
. These cards all do great on their own, but are even better if Mazirek is adding +1/+1 counters.
In order to support these cards though, we need a lot of tokens, so I've included a lot of cards that make tokens even if the tokens can't sacrifice themselves like eldrazi spawn / scions. This list includes Verdant Force, Abhorrent Overlord, Creakwood Liege, card:endrek sahr, and Mycoloth.
Sometimes we want to get our token, sacrifice, or recursion creatures back. Of course the eternal choice for this is Eternal Witness, who is joined in our deck by it's new snakey friend Skullwinder. Go ahead an politic it up. Next is the new underrated double eternal witness Greenwarden of Murasa, and his zombie beast friend Baloth Null. Have some ETBs you want to abuse? Diabolic Servitude is what you want. And of course there's everyone's new favorite recursion engine Meren of Clan Nel Toth.
We're working with +1/+1 counters here, so we want to maximize the benefit we get from these. Hardened Scales is great for this. Each Mazirek trigger only adds one counter, so adding an "additional" counter is basically doubling them. for actual doubling we have Corpsejack Menace. Obviously if you want to power this up even more, you throw in Doubling Season, and Primal Vigor, but those are not included for budget reasons.
It might seem like a bit of an after thought at this point, but there's a lot in here to force your opponent(s) to sacrifice. From Blighted Fen, and Bearer of Silence to Barter in Blood and Tribute to the Wild. As well as "Fair" sacrifices like Merciless Executioner and Butcher of Malakir. And even unfair sacrifices like Archfiend of Depravity.
I just wanted to take a moment to highlight some combos and synergies which are in here which can be pretty powerful.
Pentavus and Mazirek (plus Corpsejack Menace or Hardened Scales) (plus Ashnod's Altar. Spend two mana to make a pentavite, sac it and put a counter on Pentavus. Everyone gets a counter, Pentavus gets two. repeat until out of mana. With Ashnod's Altar, pay 1 to make a pentavite, sacrifice it to the altar. everyone gets a counter, including pentavus and you have 2 colorless mana. Continue to build mana and counters and pentavites.
Fertilid and Ob Nixilis, Unshackled and Mazirek. This one's pretty mean. Use fertilid's ability to force a player to search their library. Ob hits them for 10 life, forces them to sacrifice, which puts a new counter on fertilid. Repeat. 24 mana to kill a table at full health.
More of a synergy, but Mycoloth and Bloodspore Thrinax. Either mycoloth helps thrinax enter with more counters, or thrinax helps mycoloth enter with more counters, but the end result is a lot of big saprolings. It's way more ridiculous in Ezuri, Claw of Progress, but good here too.
Anyway, this has been a fairly budget brew of Mazirek. I hope it gets you excited about playing this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Thinking of adding:lifecrafter's bestiaryimplement of ferocityfatal pushaid from the cowl?rishkar's expertiseunbridled growthrishkarmonstrous onslaughtwinding constrictor