Mikaeus Ballista

Commander / EDH*

Roally

Combo (7)

• 1x Bitter Ordeal
• 1x Carrion Feeder
• 1x Disciple of the Vault
• 1x Heartless Summoning
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Zulaport Cutthroat

Maybeboard (4)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Arcbound Ravager
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Grinding Station

Ritual (7)

• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Rain of Filth
• 1x Sol Ring

Draw (1)

• 1x Ad Nauseam

Sideboard (1)

• 1x Triskelion

Commander (1)

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An attempt at a mono black competitive deck with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed as the commander.

Strategy

The goal of the deck is to abuse the combo between Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Walking Ballista. Similar to the Mikaeus + Triskelion combo (Mike&Trike), you utilize Ballista's ability to convert +1/+1 counters into damage and Mikaeus' ability to refresh our Ballista's counters. Unlike the Mike&Trike combo, Ballista only comes in with one counter, meaning it can either shoot itself to make an EtB/dies loop, or it requires a sac outlet to create the loop while dealing damage to your opponents. There are several different cards in this deck that can become outlets for this combo, each with their own pros and cons.

Outlets

As mentioned earlier, Mikaeus plus Ballista isn't quite enough to win games, we need an outlet for the combo and there are plenty of choices. I've tried to pick out the most generally useful options for the deck, so below I'll list out my thought process for which pieces made the cut and which have been left out.

Onboard

• Heartless Summoning: Probably the most useful outlet for setting up the combo, Heartless Summoning both helps us get Mikaeus out faster and negates the buff he gives, allowing Ballista to die on its own.

• Viscera Seer / Carrion Feeder / Disciple of the Vault: Since they only cost , they are easy to play.

• Zulaport Cutthroat: Able to get around Safe Passage effects and Leyline of Sanctity.

• Bitter Ordeal: Exiles opponents' libraries instead of simply milling them, helping us out against Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and other similar effects.

Benched

Arcbound Ravager: A cost of 2 means that it is harder to play than Viscera Seer.

Blood Artist: Because it targets, it's no better off than just pinging with Ballista, and a converted mana cost of 2 makes it harder to play than Viscera Seer.

Altar of Dementia: Simply mills our opponents, so we can't win against Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.

Grinding Station: Simply mills our opponents, so we can't win against Kozilek.

Other cards like Falkenrath Noble were considered, but their converted mana cost was usually too high.

Card Draw

The primary combo this deck runs uses cards with low converted mana costs (CMC). Walking Ballista has a CMC of 0 and most of our outlets are only 1 or 2 CMC. This makes it very easy to run Ad Nauseam as one of our primary draw engines.

Tutors

--Content in Progress--

Disruption

--Content in Progress--

Other Considerations

In the event that Walking Ballista gets exiled, I would like to also include Triskelion in the list. However, I'm not sure if that's too dangerous while playing Ad Nauseam. In its place, I'm considering using Death Wish to grab Triskelion from the sideboard.

Date added	7 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 8 - 0 Rares 7 - 0 Uncommons 2 - 0 Commons
Cards	21
Avg. CMC	2.05