Oloro's Eternal Bargain

Commander / EDH Artifact Control Infinite Combo Lifegain Multiplayer Primer WUB (Esper)

NinjaKitty778

Land (38)

• 1x Arcane Sanctum
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Deserted Beach
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Esper Panorama
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 4x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 4x Plains
• 1x Raffine's Tower
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Shattered Sanctum
• 1x Shipwreck Marsh
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Vault of Champions
• 1x Watery Grave

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Debt to the Deathless
• 1x Deep Analysis
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Farewell
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Unburial Rites

Artifact (17)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Cosmos Elixir
• 1x Crawlspace
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x God-Pharaoh's Statue
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Pristine Talisman
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Well of Lost Dreams

Instant (14)

• 1x Absorb
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command *list*
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fracture
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Void Rend

Commander (1)

Creature (16)

• 1x Consecrated Sphinx
• 1x Crested Sunmare
• 1x Drogskol Reaver
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Filigree Angel
• 1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
• 1x Psychosis Crawler
• 1x Queza, Augur of Agonies
• 1x Sharuum the Hegemon
• 1x Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
• 1x Sydri, Galvanic Genius
• 1x Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose
• 1x Witch of the Moors

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Sanguine Bond
• 1x Smothering Tithe

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Maybeboard

Creature (6)

• 1x Drana and Linvala
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Liesa, Shroud of Dusk
• 1x Opposition Agent
• 1x Spelltithe Enforcer

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Ashiok, Dream Render
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Aura of Silence

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Oloro's Eternal Bargain

Introduction

Do you like life gain? Well boy-howdy do I have a deck for you! Oloro, Ageless Ascetic is a pre-con commander from 2013, back when EDH was still young and getting off the ground. He basically had an eminence ability before eminence was cool, gaining 2 life every upkeep from the command zone; but, when you put him on the field he had a nifty little draw mechanic every time you gained life WHILE STILL maintaining his passive ability of gaining 2 life on your upkeep. Gaining 2 life for just existing is crazy, and people knew how to take advantage of it. Being Esper also meant that Oloro had access to the most control heavy color trio in the game making him a very desirable commander back in the day. But as MtG has progressed over the years the game has become much faster, and now we have commanders with much lower CMC and doing more things. Much like a lot of the old commanders, Oloro's fall from competitive EDH was inevitable. Now with that being said, Oloro can still be a very strong (and very fun) commander to bring to a table.

I wanted to showcase Oloro because he was the first commander deck I built that didn't have green and/or red in it. Since I'm mostly a green player, Oloro was my attempt at a trying a more control-focused playstyle. Even though Oloro isn't as popular as he used to be, I want show that he can still be a powerful option for anyone who wants to build a combo/control deck.

Side Note: This deck is very much a "casual", high power deck to bring to an EDH night at your local game store or a friends house for some gaming fun; and it is like this by design. I'm fully aware that there are better options for both our land base (like including 9 fetch lands), and there are more potent options for our control cards. However, all of those options are crazy expensive and I didn't want to put money down on them; at least not in this economy lol so before you push up your anime glasses and go "Um actually", I'm aware these options will make the deck more powerful. This deck is meant to be a casual, high power commander deck to just have some fun with. With that being said, let's get into this.

Game Plan

I wanted to honor the Eternal Bargain Commander 2013 deck just enough to pay homage to it. The deck itself was mostly unimpressive. It was filled with cards that had very little interaction with each other aside from either gaining life and/or using life as a resource to cast spells; it also had an artifact sub-theme (which I thought was a fun concept, so I kept it). When making this deck I wanted it to be the embodiment of the shard of Esper, one of the 5 planes of Alara.

The deck's goal is to play a defensive game of pillow fort, and interacting with only the things that directly affect our board state. As we're building up our defenses we're draining our opponents life total; either by slowly whittling them down over time, by casting one big spell, or with one of the infinite combos in the deck. To help us achieve this we have several cards in the deck to help us ramp ahead of the curve, draw power and tutors to get our combo pieces faster, and several spot removal spells to help us deal with our opponents side of the field.

Ramp

While Esper is a particularly punishing color combo, it does have some notable downsides; most notably its ability to ramp ahead of the mana curve. So the obvious answer to this is to use artifacts to help us; and it's in line with the artifact sub-theme the deck is going for. Our options are:

Arcane Signet, Azorius Signet, Chromatic Lantern, Dimir Signet, Orzhov Signet, Pristine Talisman, Smothering Tithe, Sol Ring, Solemn Simulacrum, Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Hierarchy, and Talisman of Progress.

I wanted to make sure that there was at least 50 mana sources in the deck. 38 of them are coming from land and the other 12 coming from a separate source. We want to be getting a land drop every turn and playing mana rocks during the first stages of the game so it's very important that the deck have lots of ramp.

Card Advantage

While Oloro does have a draw mechanic built into him, we need to have 6 mana to play him which is juuuuuuust a bit too high. So, we have to make sure that we have sufficient draw power and tutors to help us get our combo pieces faster.

Alhammarret's Archive not only doubles our draw power but doubles our life gain. Then we have Bolas's Citadel which allows us to play the top card of our library for life instead of mana; amazing trade in a deck with as much lifegain as this one. Consecrated Sphinx, Cosmos Elixir, Deep Analysis, Drogskol Reaver, Erebos, God of the Dead, Rhystic Study, and Well of Lost Dreams all serve as powerful draw engines. Finally, Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, and Lim-Dul's Vault are all amazing tutors for our deck. In the case of enlightened tutor, even though we don't have many enchantments, the ones we do have are powerful combo pieces; so enlightened tutor is a welcome addition.

Interaction

Esper has the best card interaction in the game, ranging from powerful removal spells to counterspells. We have to be able to deal with a wide range of threats cause we don't know what sort of decks we'll be up against, that means that the type of removal matters. Destroy spells are great but they're easily defended by making things indestructible. That's why exile spells are necessary to deal with indestructability; as well as -X/-X spells.

Fracture, Generous Gift, and Void Rend act as our single target destroy spells, with Anguished Unmaking and Swords to Plowshares serving as our exile spot removal. Our counterspell package includes Counterspell, Cryptic Command *list* (which can also be used to either bounce something or freeze our opponent's creatures), Disallow, Dovin's Veto, and Render Silent; all powerful counterspells. Finally we need some board wipes to deal with the army of creatures we're inevitably going to face. Cyclonic Rift is a game ender in and of itself, but can also be used as a spot removal in the early game. Supreme Verdict is one of the best field wipes cause it can't be countered. Farewell and Toxic Deluge are powerful board wipes that help deal with indestructibility.

Building the Pillow Fort - Protection, Recursion, and Lifegain

As I said in the introduction, our game plan is to turtle up and protect ourselves while we slowly whittle down our opponents life. So how do we turtle up? By making ourselves hard to attack while we sit there and gain life every turn. That means we need to protect ourselves from our opponents creatures; we also have to be able to bring back the things they do manage to destroy.

Authority of the Consuls slow our opponent's creatures down enough for us come up with a plan to protect ourselves; and also gives us life. Crawlspace will bottle neck our opponent's creatures, making it so only 2 can attack us each time. That means that what they do send is going to be potent; so they'll likely be a green/red creature. Those that get through Crawlspace will be met with Sphinx of the Steel Wind, a classic Esper creature that can hopefully prevent the big, bad green/red creatures from dealing damage (assuming they don't have trample) and will still be alive after combat. Ghostly Prison and Propaganda force our opponents to be very choosy with their mana if they want to attack us, as it imposes a tax of 2 mana for each one that does. Teferi's Protection is one of the best protection spells in the game and saves us from anyone that's looking to board wipe us or kill us with a big spell.

Crested Sunmare produces horse tokens every turn and gives them indestructible; giving us an army of our own that can be used against our opponents or as a means to protect us from their army of creatures.

Our recursion package includes Sharuum the Hegemon, Unburial Rites, and Witch of the Moors. Sharuum is right on theme with our artifacts and witch of the moors is guaranteed to proc each turn. Unburial rites serves double duty with its flashback ability. Buried Ruin brings back one of our many artifacts and Hall of Heliod's Generosity brings back an enchantment.

Besides the constant 2 life we get on our upkeep, the deck has several other sources of lifegain that we need to talk about. I've mentioned a couple of them already, and I'll mention more below, since most of them serve more important functions other than just gaining life. Exquisite Blood is a powerful card that nets us life the more life our opponents lose; that means that it combos with any of our drain spells (more on that later). Filigree Angel is another classic Esper creature that combines our lifegain strategy with our artifact sub-theme while also being an evasive flyer. Finally, Venser's Journal gains us more life on our upkeep while giving us no maximum hand size; a welcome ability.

Launching Attacks From Behind the Fort - Drain and Damaging Spells

Ok so we're sitting on a throne of lifegain and pillow-forting. That's all well and good, but we still need to win the game. We achieve this by whittling our opponents life slowly and painfully with drain spells; and the deck has several:

Besides our commander, we have Sanguine Bond and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose; both serve as the deck's most obvious source of drain. Then we have Psychosis Crawler, one of my favorite creatures that pairs beautifully with Consecrated Sphinx (and any draw card in our deck really). Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Queza, Augur of Agonies, and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse all drain our opponents while simultaneously giving us life. Aetherflux Reservoir serves double duty as a source of lifegain AND acts as our giant catapult behind the fort. Its able to be activated at instant speed, which means that it serves as a powerful deterrent to discourage our opponent's from targeting us; it's like holding everyone at gun-point. Finally, Debt to the Deathless is our big, one-off spell to siphon our opponents life while raising our own.

The Dust Settles on the Battlefield - Win Conditions and Infinite Combos

We have a few of combo pieces and win conditions that we can rely on if our pillow fort "gain and drain" strategy doesn't work out; or if we manage to tutor the combo pieces early in the game. Either way, these combos are game winners.

Felidar Sovereign is the most obvious win condition in the deck (since it literally says "you win the game" if you start your turn with 40 or more life). Aside from being a win condition, he's actually a fairly potent attacker.

The three Infinite Combos in the deck are:

1) Sydri, Galvanic Genius + Aetherflux Reservoir: All you have to do is animate Aetherflux Reservoir and give it lifelink to activate its ability infinitely.

2) Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond/Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose: The infamous infinite combo that gains and drains life as soon as something triggers the combo.

3) Drogskol Reaver + Sheoldred, the Apocalypse + Psychosis Crawler/Queza, Augur of Agonies: Infinite life gain and card draw, and for every card you draw your opponent(s) lose 1 life.

CAUTION: This combo can kill you. If Drogskol Reaver and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse are both on the field but you do not have the other combo piece(s), you will mill yourself to death. Use with CAUTION.

Conclusion

Oloro was a fun project for me. It took me out of my comfort zone to try something new and I'm fairly happy with the results. I'm still playtesting a few cards (maybe leaning to include a couple more stax cards to really hamstring my opponents ability to cast spells) but if I decide to include those I'll update the deck. Even though this deck isn't as competitive as it can be, it's still a fun deck to play in a casual setting. If you like the deck +1 and leave a comment please :)

Date added	1 year
Last updated	1 day
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 22 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.65
Tokens	Elephant 3/3 G, Horse 5/5 W, Treasure
Folders	Control