MTG's Baba Yaga

Commander / EDH UBR (Grixis)

Malicious

Land (37)

• 1x Blazemire Verge
• 1x Blightstep Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Gloomlake Verge
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Haunted Ridge
• 1x Island
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Riverglide Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stormcarved Coast
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Training Center
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Xander's Lounge

Wheel (14)

• 1x Day's Undoing *f-etch*
• 1x Echo of Eons
• 1x Incendiary Command
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Molten Psyche
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Teferi's Puzzle Box
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Wheel and Deal
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Whirlpool Warrior
• 1x Whispering Madness
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Winds of Change

Damage (9)

• 1x Fate Unraveler
• 1x Liliana's Caress
• 1x Megrim
• 1x Orcish Bowmasters
• 1x Razorkin Needlehead
• 1x Scrawling Crawler
• 1x Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1x Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
• 1x Underworld Dreams

Utility (9)

• 1x Double Vision
• 1x Glacial Chasm
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Pendrell Mists
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Sangromancer
• 1x Waste Not
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Tutor (5)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Commander (1)

Mana Ramp (11)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Decanter of Endless Water
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Obelisk of Grixis
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Thought Vessel

Removal (9)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Feed the Swarm
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Withering Torment

Boardwipe (5)

• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Chain Reaction
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Damnation *f-etch*

---

Maybeboard

Other (3)

• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Cabal Conditioning
• 1x Containment Construct

---

The Boogey Man Cometh

The nice thing about a deck like this, is there are cards like Fate Unraveler or Underworld Dreams that do essentially the same thing as your commander, so you can still manage to win without your commander ever hitting the table.

Megrim and Liliana's Caress are there to take advantage of people discarding their hands to wheel effects, so in a small way this is also a discard deck of sorts. While a wheel like Time Reversal does get your opponents to draws seven cards, they aren't discarding their hand so you've missed out on potential damage. Do you want to deal 7 damage from Nekusar, the Mindrazer when you cast Time Reversal, or do you want to deal a possible 21 damage casting Reforge the Soul with Nekusar, the Mindrazer & Megrim on the table.

With that said i have kept a couple wheel cards in the deck that shuffle hands and graveyards into each players library, this is primarily so i don't deck myself and I won't need to include cards like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to do the same job. These few "shuffle" wheels that i did keep in the deck also have extra abilities which are useful, for example Molten Psyche has the metalcraft ability for extra damage, Time Spiral has the untap lands which could turn into more wheels with the new hand of 7 cards, Echo of Eons has the flashback so it can be re-used and lastly Winds of Change because it's super cheap to cast.

Archfiend of Ifnir also benefits from the discard, and lets face it there aren't many creatures we want to be putting up as blockers. This is just another synergy that helps keep the board state in our favour.

Waste Not is arguably the strongest card in a deck like this just from the value engine in can provide, also adding to the reason we want more discard based wheel effects.

What some people also need to take into consideration is the disruption wheel cards have on peoples game plan, yes i could play cards like Howling Mine or Kami of the Crescent Moon but that is rather slow damage, not to mention it also helps them find their win conditions with little downside. While wheels can get players to draw a lot of cards, if they also have to discard their hand, then they have to keep changing the game plan based on the new hand of cards. If an opponent is playing a combo deck and needs 2 or maybe 3 cards for the combo, It's far less likely they will have all the pieces of the combo at the same time.

The one downside to this deck (other than having so few creatures) is the large amount of non-basic lands, so cards like Blood Moon are a pain. Which means you have to hope you can find Feed the Swarm, either by a lucky wheel pull or tutor for it. Another option is Chaos Warp, however this is just a temporary solution as they could draw into it again with each wheel effect. I just added Withering Torment, which may also find a permanent home here to deal with troublesome enchantments.

Obviously this isn't a combat style deck, so board wipes and creature control as stated above are important to being able to stick around long enough to get the job done. I've also included Glacial Chasm to buy me a few turns. I don't have kind of money to include a tabernacle in this deck, however there is a cheaper alternative in the form of Pendrell Mists. I don't mind spending a couple of mana during my upkeep to maintain the few creatures i might have, to put a real hurt on my opponents mana economy to upkeep their board state.

I personally don't like going down the infect route for Nekusar, however it is a perfectly viable way to play the deck. At that point you would just have Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Fate Unraveler, Orcish Bowmasters and Razorkin Needlehead for your damage dealers, paired with creature enchantements like Glistening Oil, Tainted Strike or Phyresis etc. Like i said i personally don't like to win like this, because it (A) telegraphs how your going to win, so once people see you do it once or twice they know what to remove, (B) It also kinda pigeon holes you into winning that one way, and the deck would become boring and stale over time. I think if you wanted to throw 1 of those enchantments into the deck as a backup win condition, in case someone has gone infinite life then for sure you can tutor for it. But I wouldn't base the decks win condition around it.

Really not happy with the banning of Dockside Extortionist, but there isn't much i can do about it.

Date added	10 months
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 0 Mythic Rares 59 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.13
Tokens	Orc Army, Zombie 2/2 B