Remember, fun is a zero sum game.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Oloro Pillowfort, where your spells don't matter and your creatures are useless! This deck has been a personal project of mine for just over a year, and I believe that it's finally tuned enough to be the perfectly oppressive deck. Read on to learn how to lose all your friends and make people quit EDH!
Philosophy and Strategy
This deck's journey began when I realized that I wanted to build a deck focused on making your opponent(s) as miserable as possible. I've always had a penchant for annoying and controlling strategies, but with Oloro I decided to create a full-on prison build, focused on denying resources, taxing everything, and preventing my opponents from interacting. With that in mind, take a look at some of the key pieces to locking out opponents.
Tax Effects
Much like the government, the more taxes I have, the better. There are more than 15 different tax effects in the deck, but here are some of the most useful.
Tutors
There are a total of 8 different tutors in the deck, with Muddle the Mixture and Perplex pulling double duty as both Counterspells and tutors.
- Demonic Tutor - Old school, whatever you want tutor with the only downside being it's at sorcery speed (Leyline of Anticipation helps with that).
- Vampiric Tutor - Extremely efficient and the downside is almost non-existent thanks to Oloro's passive lifegain.
- Beseech the Queen - Probably the worst tutor in the deck, but effective none-the-less (also way better than Diabolic Tutor).
- Enlightened Tutor - Grabs all of our relevant enchantments at instant speed. Combos well with Rhystic Study.
- Idyllic Tutor - Downside of being sorcery speed and 3 mana, but grabs all of our relevant enchantments.
- Lim-Dul's Vault - Oddly enough, this is one of my favorite tutors. Not only does it help you find the card you need, it let's you set up what you'll be drawing a few turns down the road.
Card Draw
Card draw is important in any deck, but especially so in one where we're trying to control the board completely. Luckily, we have a number of different ways in which to get cards.
- Rhystic Study - Wonderfully powerful. Oftentimes, opponent's will skimp on paying the mana in favor of playing out more creatures or furthering their own game plan. Rhystic Study often keeps our hand full for the rest of the game.
- Soothsaying - Not card draw per-se, but it does let us shuffle and act as a Divining Top that can dig a lot deeper, albeit at a much higher price mana-wise.
- Phyrexian Arena - All around wonderful card. Life-loss is negligible, and it helps us get one card deeper. Combos especially well with Soothsaying.
- Greed - More versatile than Phyrexian Arena in some ways, as the draw can be at instant speed, but has a significantly higher downside. At minimum, acts as fuel for Sphere of Safety
- Alhammarret's Archive - The Archive can be incredibly powerful. Combined with a Paradox Haze and Phyrexian Arena, we have the potential of drawing 3 cards and gaining 8 life per turn. Also makes Greed substantially better. Be warned, however, that The Archive is a double-edged sword. Decks that wheel a lot, such as Nekusar, the Mindrazer can quickly empty your library and obliterate your life total.
Utility
The deck has a number of different cards that provide utility, whether that be copying enchantments, preventing damage, or serving all-around useful purposes.
Winning
At this point you're likely thinking "yeah, it's annoying, but how does it win?" I'm glad you asked. Not only is the overall strategy of the deck to be grindy and annoying, but so are the win-cons!
- Bloodchief Ascension - Can take a while to get turned on, and is probably the slowest and least powerful win-con in the deck. Still, every little bit helps.
- Sanguine Bond - Drains the opponent ever so slowly on its own. Combined with Exquisite Blood, however, and you win on your upkeep.
- Test of Endurance - Oftentimes it's a smart idea to wait to play this card, as it will make you public enemy #1 if you play it on turn 4. However, with the game locked-up sufficiently, it will be an almost immediate win.
- Subversion - The slowest of the slow win-con's, but one that works none-the-less, and is incredibly annoying to lose to. Has the added benefit of gaining us life as well.
- Triskaidekaphobia - Ha.
Playing the Deck
Like any control deck, this one can be difficult to master, especially with the number of different play lines that EDH presents. Willy-nilly removal and countering will oftentimes put you in a tight spot, so knowing others playstyles and strategies will help you pilot this deck to its full potential. This is also not a deck that can be political. All of your enchantments are going to affect the board, so you won't be able to make friends with anyone for the most part. Be prepared to go at it alone and become everyone's main target at some point in the game. Fortunately for you, however, by the time this happens, your opponents likely won't be able to do much about your forthcoming victory.
Why Don't You Play (x)?
- Why don't you play mana-ramp like Sol Ring? - In short, because of Stony Silence. I've had multiple games where opponents have kept hands that lean heavily on artifact ramp, only to have their plan shut down by a turn 2 stony silence.
- Why don't you play Wraths? - As counter intuitive as it may sound, the deck actually wants its opponents to be playing creatures. Many of our enchantments rely on our opponents playing things and taxing them out of the game. Plus, we have psuedo-wraths in the Humility + Night of Souls' Betrayal
combo.
- Why don't you play 'X' creature? - Creature-heavy decks get punished hard by this deck. With all of our effects being symmetrical, that would mean we get punished as well.
- Why don't you play more fetches/OG duals? - I'm cheap and the mana base is already very consistent.
Thank you so much for checking out the deck! If you liked it, +1, add to a folder, comment, or show your appreciation in any way you wish!
Now, go forth and make your opponents miserable!
