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Curse of the Webweaver

Commander / EDH BRG (Jund) Casual Pillow Fort

AceVonDuck

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Creature (30)

Enchantment (17)

Instant (6)

Artifact (4)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Thantis, the Warweaver

Land (35)

Sorcery (5)

Planeswalker (2)

Maybeboard

Creature (23)

Enchantment (16)

Sorcery (5)

Artifact (12)

Instant (5)

Planeswalker (1)

First two paragraphs hidden as they are no longer relevant. Read the description update at the bottom!
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The four main goals of this deck are:

In case our choice of commander wasn't an indicator, we want to force everyone (especially our opponents) to swing with all of their creatures as much as possible. There are two major reasons for this:

Firstly, forcing all creatures to swing every turn means it should be much easier for everyone else to retaliate while most of that player's creatures are tapped from combat. We then usually only need to worry about their creatures with Vigilance or Defender, plus any creatures that player may cast or obtain after the combat phase. In a majority of cases (at least in my playgroup), this won't leave them very many blockers, if any at all.

Secondly, forcing all creatures to swing means players have to be far more cautious with their utility and combo creatures. For example: one player in my playgroup runs an Esper artifact deck and utilizes multiple creatures to enable his deck and to set up several different win-cons, such as Padeem, Consul of Innovation , Grand Architect + Pili-Pala , Chief Engineer , etc. Normally he would never attack with those creatures as it would put them at risk of being blocked and dying, but now he is forced to either swing them into potentially deadly situations or to tap them using other means to protect them; the latter is still better than nothing as it means he would then be unable to use those creatures as blockers.

Example cards: Fumiko the Lowblood , Goblin Spymaster , Thantis, the Warweaver .

Some would argue that targeted removal is practically a mandatory inclusion in virtually every non-jank EDH deck, and in this particular deck it is especially important. Thantis forces our own creatures to swing as well, and there will be times when one or more of our opponents will have reasons we don't want to swing, such as having blockers with deathtouch, or effects like Revenge of Ravens , No Mercy , Lightmine Field , Riddlekeeper , etc. We need some removal to make sure it is safe for our own creatures to attack, in addition to the ability to remove high-threat permanents and combo pieces.

Example cards: Hull Breach , Putrefy , King Macar, the Gold-Cursed .

Defender is a keyword that has the reminder text, "This creature can't attack." When we start forcing combat, our defender cards will not be able to attack and can therefore be used freely as blockers. Additionally, we also have cards that can improve our defenders' toughness levels, as well as make them deal damage with their toughness instead of power. Abusing this mechanic means we will usually be a less appealing target to swing at, due to the number of available blockers we will usually have compared to everyone else.

Example cards: Amaranthine Wall , Assault Formation , Treefolk Umbra .

We have a number of enchantments and creature effects at our disposal that encourage our opponents to attack / target each other instead of us. Thantis, for example, gets a +1/+1 counter for every creature that's declared as attacking you, and she gets them before you even get to the damage step. This can sometimes result in her getting big enough to safely block and kill most creatures in the game (that don't have deathtouch or indestructible) after just one or two declare attacker steps. In addition, we also have a number of enchantments that can make swinging at us less appealing (or impossible), and curses that can make swinging at our other opponents more appealing.

Example cards: Curse of Opulence , Vow of Wildness , Aspect of Gorgon .

Please note that my sideboard is being used for cards that I think I should definitely try making room for in the 99. My maybeboard is for any card that I think may be able to function well in the deck, but that I'm unsure what cards to remove in exchange for. If you have the time, please look through them, leave a comment below, and give me your opinions and suggestions.

That's all for the deck description. Thanks for checking it out! This deck is one that I've put much more effort into building compared to my other decks, so I truly appreciate you taking the time to read this and for commenting. Also, feel free to ask me for the reasoning behind me listing any cards that might be confusing or intriguing to you, so that I can make sure I'm not crazy and/or stupid for including or considering those cards. Check the spoiler at the bottom of this description for my current priorities for the deck in roughly descending order. Once again, any and all feedback/critique/suggestions/inquiries are eagerly welcomed and greatly appreciated! Thanks very much for checking out my deck, and I hope it entertains you!

DESCRIPTION UPDATE: This deck, moving forward.

This deck has become one of my absolute favorites to play, and as such I want to remove my $10 per card restriction and begin replacing sub-par and filler cards with better alternatives, as well as include some cards that I really wanted to include in the original build but was forced to skip due to price points. As such, I will be removing this version from the Budget hub. Aside from that one major change I will be trying my best to keep the same four main goals listed above going forward. I've created a copy (which can be found here) of the original decklist in case others would like to try out the budget version for themselves. As always, thank you for reading!

Current To-do List (in rough order of descending priority):
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Original Build Results (Wall of Text Warning!) — June 18, 2020
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Alright, so I've had this deck for a few months now and I have to say that I really enjoy it a whole lot. It has quickly become one of my favorite decks that I've ever built just because it has forced my playgroup (myself included) to change how we play EDH. I enjoy the deck so much that I'm going to start looking into purchasing better, more expensive alternatives to cards and ignore my initial price-per-card limit. As for my experience with piloting the deck, it does everything I wanted it to do when I first put this decklist together. However, it definitely has room for improvement, which is to be expected of a deck with a <$10-per-card price limit, and I feel there are now a few things I know it needs to do better.

There are four overarching flaws/weaknesses in this deck. They are listed and detailed in the sections below. My hypothesized solutions for each problem and my requests to you are in bold at the bottom of each section, which serve as tl;drs of sorts. Fair warning: if you intend to read all four sections in full, prepare for some walls of text.

The fewer number of players there are during the first five - ten turns, the poorer this deck tends to perform on average. If the game begins with only two players other than me, or if before or during that range of turns another player loses or drops out of the game and only three of us are left, it's far more likely that either, a.): someone will give me unwanted attention, or b.): it will be easier for opponents to shut down or slow down my progress or for them to secure a bigger lead. I believe this is a direct result of being, on average, a somewhat slow deck in the early game (which is the second point I'll discuss below). This is also a product of how the deck is designed, however; many of the cards included in the original build of this deck are largely situational or purely for defense. Many of my own spells and effects require planning ahead, cautious preparation, and optimal timing in order to avoid screwing myself over with my own effects, and to ensure I don't inadvertently send another opponent rocketing into the lead. This means my first few turns might be spent preparing, rather than making plays.

All of these factors combined means that, unless I get lucky with my opening hand and get some good draws, ramp, and/or mana fixing, my early game can be somewhat slow. That said, after a variable point between turns five and ten, I will have usually built up a reasonable defense, gathered a better mana base, and/or prepared some responses for if my opponents begin focusing me. Obviously this means that, by whichever turn it happens to be, receiving more attention is not quite as significant as in the early game, and it is more difficult for opponents to halt my progress.

Unrelated to the speed of the deck or what turn it is, but still very much related to the number of players, is the fact that the deck doesn't have many options for win conditions in its current state. Victory is primarily achieved when opponents reach 0 life, and in this deck that mostly occurs through combat and a handful of loss-of-life effects. There are a few cards included that make reducing my opponents' life totals easier or faster (Assault Formation, Tree of Perdition, Curse of Bloodletting, either of the two Garruk bombs, etc.). However, an unfortunate side effect of opponents reaching 0 health or receiving 21 commander damage being my only win-cons, is that sometimes reaching those conditions can be largely dependent on my opponents going after each other. Therefore the fewer the number of players, the harder it is to reach my only real win conditions since there will be fewer opportunities for my opponents to whittle each other down and more opportunities for them to screw up my plans.

On the other side of the coin though, the more opponents there are at any given moment, the better this deck performs (so long as I don't play too aggro and turn the entire table against me), since more opponents means more people for others to send their aggression at. This gives me more time and leeway to build up a defense before playing cards that force attacks, it gives me the freedom to more evenly and effectively distribute curses, and it ensures I'm getting closer to my only win-con so long as my opponents are also swinging at each other.

I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done regarding this first flaw without completely overhauling the deck or by only playing when there are a certain number of players (which sounds lame), but resolving the second flaw may help mitigate this problem. I should also look into adding alternative win conditions (Triumph of the Hordes, etc.) to give myself more opportunities to win. If you know of any ways to make the deck perform better against fewer opponents in the early (or even mid) game, or of any alternative win conditions that aren't overly specific (such as 3+ card combos with no reliable ways of tutoring for pieces) please fire away in the comments!

As I mentioned above, although the deck can put up a pretty effective defense, it's usually not particularly fast at doing so. When playing this deck, my initial priority during the early turns of every match is usually to get out spells and abilities that will give me more / better value the earlier I utilize them. This includes cards that mana ramp or fix, as well as cards that perform better when opponents have fewer and/or smaller creatures (such as Cultivate, Garruk Relentless  Flip, King Macar, the Gold-Cursed, or a number of others). If for some reason I'm not concerned with the benefits that those cards provide, or if I don't have any good card choices that fit that first priority criteria, my second priority is to begin preparing my board for later turns. During this time I focus on setting up my defenses and diverting attention onto other players by casting spells such as Hornet Nest, Assault Formation, Curse of Opulence, etc. As I mentioned in the first flaw, this is unfortunately part of how the deck is designed: I have to spend time planning and preparing one or two turns ahead to make sure I don't accidentally screw myself with my own abilities or give another opponent a bigger advantage. In the early turns this obviously relies heavily on me having the right colors of mana, and ramping helps so that I can play more stuff per turn and prepare my board faster. It's primarily because of this design that, as I'll cover in a moment, I may want to consider adding cards that can cheat stuff out even faster.

I should first mention that with this initial build, unless I get a bit lucky with my ramp and depending on my hand, I usually wind up casting no more than two (or three cards if I'm really lucky) per turn until my fifth turn. I will at times refrain from playing even that many cards per turn in order to observe how my opponents' early games develop, and so I can see who appears to have the earliest advantages or disadvantages. I've developed this habit after multiple separate instances of playing more than one curse on a single person early on as well as putting out "forced combat" effects too soon, both actions which may make me a target if I'm unprepared or can lead to another opponent snowballing. However, if I add some cards to speed things up and cheat things out, I would be able to shift from a defensive, preparatory, mid-range play style to a more aggressive, preemptive play style (albeit still mostly mid-range).

So that explains the early turns, but rebuilding is a little different. By the time someone has the mana to return all of my nonland permanents to my hand (short of Devastation Tide for the miracle cost, god forbid), I usually have enough mana to replay most of my board in one or two turns. Maybe three turns if I had any of my CMC 5 or higher cards on the field. The real problem arises when my board gets destroyed or exiled somehow. The deck currently doesn't have any quick, reliable ways of rebuilding a board state from scratch, which is a huge problem when most of the other players in my playgroup tend to run decks that excel at either getting big board states quickly or at functioning just fine without big boards. To successfully rebuild, the deck needs a.) more card advantage to gather more things to rebuild with (see the fourth flaw), and b.) cards that can cheat out not just curses, but creatures too.

As for mana ramp, I have eight cards that are consistent, reliable ramp and three cards that require certain conditions to be fulfilled. This means I have eleven ramp cards total, which considering my mana curve seems to me like it should be more than enough; however, I often find that I'm not casting and activating abilities as much as I would like, or that I'm struggling to keep pace with my opponents' mana curves. I need to find out if there are better alternatives to my ramp cards to make the first few turns less consistently slow. It's possible that remedying the fourth flaw might also fix the slowness of the opening turns.

It may be necessary to look into more or better ramp, as well as cheat effects that I can rely on when I need a head start or in the event that I need to rebuild. I initially avoided Birthing Pod when building this deck, as it was over $10, but now that I'm dedicated to improving the deck, it may be worth including after all. The difficult choice will be choosing a card to replace with it. I should also try to remedy the fourth flaw first to see if my number of ramp cards is already sufficient. Additional suggestions are welcome.

In the event that one or more people decide to focus their aggression on me, the deck is lackluster at defending itself from continuous attention, especially from multiple sources at once. I don't necessarily mean from combat though, since once I get a good creature presence, attacking me is often either pointless or not worth the consequences (their creatures dying, Thantis getting bigger, etc.). I also have a few fog spells just in case. No, as opposed to combat, the deck is virtually defenseless against targeted spells and abilities, and to sweeping effects that affect my board state or me, such as Terminate, Darksteel Mutation, Cyclonic Rift, etc. The biggest defenses I have from such effects are the characteristically high toughness that creatures with defender tend to have (which only helps against damage effects), and Ring of Xathrid which I can use to regenerate ONE creature, if it's equipped with the ring. Neither of those factors protect against any of the three cards I just mentioned, not to mention a multitude of other similar spells and abilities.

In the deck's current state, the moment I or my board become the center of someone's attention, the game becomes much more stressful and difficult for me.

I may need to find ways to better protect against targeted spells and abilities, and from cards that affect the entire board. I didn't include Heroic Intervention when I built the deck due to the price point, but I am now likely going to include it. One single card will not be enough, however, so please give me your suggestions.

This one is pretty straightforward. I frequently find myself late game with no cards in hand, topdecking, and only being able to play one card per turn as a result (and many times the card is not even something that helps me). In the entire deck, there are currently only three cards that give me card draw: ETBs from two different creatures and one sorcery for a total draw of four cards. While it's true Wall of Blossoms can trigger repeatedly with Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker's trigger, this is unreliable and difficult to set up. Being able to cast any of them again is also unlikely and unreliable. Additionally, there are only two cards that let me scry. One is a sorcery and can typically only be used once, but Shadows of the Past is an enchantment and has a repeatable triggered ability. In terms of tutoring, other than Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, and fetch lands, there are only three cards in the deck that can tutor, and none of them are particularly easy to utilize. One of them is a 5 CMC creature who has to die before you can tutor (typically meaning only one use), one of them is Garruk, who has to not only transform first but also makes you sacrifice a creature and roll him down to tutor (can be difficult to get him to that point, but it's a loyalty ability so can be repeated), and the other is a 5 CMC enchantment with a triggered ability at the beginning of each of your upkeeps that lets you tutor for a curse and put it directly onto the battlefield, but I have to wait a full turn rotation before being able to utilize its ability. On top of that, the new curse can only target whichever player the card letting you tutor is attached to, meaning no flexibility if a different opponent begins to take off. Despite its downsides, I think it's currently worth keeping in the deck.

The deck is obviously in desperate need of card draw, preferably something that can be repeated. I've considered including Lifecrafter's Bestiary and Harmonize, but for each one I'm not sure what I would replace. I should also look into more scry, which the bestiary also helps accomplish. Opinions on more or better scrying, more or better tutoring, and all additional suggestions are welcome!

If you read all of that, seriously, kudos. I know it's a lot to read, but those are the biggest things the deck consistently struggles with. I already have a few cards that I would like to replace for a number of reasons, and new cards have come out since I created the original decklist that seem like they may be good additions (Agitator Ant, for example). I've updated the deck's sideboard and maybeboard. The cards in the sideboard are cards that I feel may be safe bets to include, but I'm open to arguments against them. The maybeboard is full of cards I've come across that I believe may be able to synergize well with the deck or that I feel may be necessary inclusions in order to buff the deck but haven't figured out what to replace yet. If you have a moment, please leave a comment. Again, thanks very much for reading, and thanks for any suggestions or feedback you can offer.

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92% Casual

Competitive

Revision 1 See all

(3 years ago)

Date added 4 years
Last updated 3 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

6 - 0 Mythic Rares

18 - 0 Rares

24 - 0 Uncommons

22 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.52
Tokens Beast 3/3 B, Construct 6/12 C, Copy Clone, Dragon 2/2 R, Dragon Egg 0/2 R, Emblem Garruk, Apex Predator, Goblin 1/1 R for Goblin Spymaster, Gold, Human 2/2 G, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Lightning Rager, Plant 0/2 G, Survivor 1/1 R, Wolf 1/1 B, Wolf 2/2 G, Wurm 5/5 G, Zombie 2/2 B
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