Ready for some salt? Ready for some classic mono-black nonsense?
Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon has quickly become one of my favorite decks to pilot. The guy gets a decent amount of shine in 1v1 Commander but I wanted to try him out in multiplayer. Originally I thought this deck wouldnt be too powerful in my playgroup. We have TOP TIER generals and the like at our table, including Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, Marath, Will of the Wild, Zur the Enchanter, and Animar, Soul of Elements. Even the generals like Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Avacyn, Angel of Hope are capable of busted OP plays. Infinite combos, mass sweepers and such are commonplace. Even with this murderers row Skithiryx gets a fair amount of wins despite rarely being the most powerful deck in the pod.
This deck has no pure infinite combo (such as Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith) and almost always must win through the redzone. Of course there is nothing stopping you from putting infinites into your Skithiryx deck, but then there are far better options in the command zone. *Cough cough Sidisi, Undead Vizier or Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed.
This deck is for you if:
-You dont mind being the boogeyman at the table (despite no infinite combos in the list).
-You want a general that can kick some serious butt on his own, but the deck isnt totally reliant on him.
-You love playing with a tutor stack and a bunch of silver bullets.
-You love the color black despite some of its shortcomings.
This deck is NOT for you if:
-You think the infect mechanic is cheap and killing players off 1-by-1 is not really your thing, you nice guy you.
-You dont like the combat step.
-You hate the color black.
Skithiryx is a bit of a hybrid deck, taking some of the best aspects of aggro, ramp, control, and voltron decks. The deck can be aggro by getting efficient threats into play and always pressuring your opponents with Skithiryx. The deck can be ramp by creating oodles of mana even by Commander standards Caged Sun Cabal Coffers Nirkana Revenant. For the control aspect, this deck can sit back, draw lots of cards, and it has six tutors that can search for a host of relevant answers Damnation Infernal Darkness Sudden Spoiling Worst Fears. Finally, adding some powerful equipment to Skithiryx is one of the best voltron strategies you can ask for: dealing 10 damage instead of 21.
On the surface the main strategy appears to be: put Skithiryx onto the battlefield as soon as possible, attack with Skithiryx. Rarely is it that simple. If you play against the kind of broken decks that I do, they will be prepared to deal with an early-ramped Skittles.
Your starting hand should have plenty of ramp/acceleration, maybe a tutor and a card-drawing engine (like Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena) for some ideal starts. As you ramp you can start to deploy threats. Normally its a better idea to run other creatures onto the battlefield before Skithiryx himself, as you can draw out opponents removal/hate before making way for the big guy.
As the game progresses in the mid-game, you need to be adaptive and ready to switch gears as you see fit. Normally you can amass a ton of mana, and whenever an opponents guard is down you can drop Skithiryx with haste and swing, potentially with a one-shot. I dont recommend swinging for less than 5 infect in a single combat, you dont want to use more than 2 combat steps to kill one opponent.
If the game goes deep into later turns, you should have killed off at least 1 player. Use your tutorstack to find the missing haymakers that put the game away. Besides recasting Skithiryx and equipping a Lashwrithe etc, you can use cards like Yawgmoth's Will, Worst Fears, Myojin of Night's Reach, even Army of the Damned in various ways to get the job done.
A key point is not loading the deck with a bunch of crappy infect creatures. Besides Skithiryx, do a gatherer search for black/colorless creatures with infect. Trust me, they arent good. This leads to an interesting nonbo, where the creatures in the deck, while powerful, dont add poison counters. This isnt the worst though. Pressuring the opponents life totals can matter in a lot of situations. Also you can grant your Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or Rune-Scarred Demon infect with Grafted Exoskeleton or Tainted Strike.
Using your life total as a valuable resource is the hallmark of broken formats and of the color black itself. You will spending upwards of 15-20+ life each game for various effects Vampiric Tutor Necropotence Ancient Craving Mana Crypt. It's for this reason that I exclude certain cards like Dark Confidant and Dark Tutelage.
You will often be the boogeyman at the table despite the myriad of combo decks others are playing. However unlike a solitaire combo deck that has little defense, its not necessarily easy for others to attack you and take you out of the game. Besides if they go out of their way to present a huge threat to your existence, there is always the specter of Skithiryx hovering in the command zone, ready to alpha-strike a bitch.
On a final note, the biggest weakness of black is its inability to remove annoying artifacts and enchantments. Thankfully with the stack of tutors in this deck, you can find Steel Hellkite, All Is Dust, Karn Liberated, or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon as you need.
Get your motha****in salt on!
