"there are terror's lurking in the unseen Corners of us all" - Tortured existence
Hello everybody, it's been about 2 years since i last posted a deck profile and now i'm BACK! and stronger then ever in my commander crusade, not that anyone plays white in commander anyways. i shall be showing you guys my budget deck lists hopefully for a long time to come, starting with a favorite i've made. Tormod, the Desecrator paired with Ghost of Ramirez DePietro in a deck i've named "The Tomb of Madness. let's go gravedigging shall we?.
NOTE: you won't be able to stomp around in a CEDH table with these budget brews, but in a 4 player pod of moderate level EDH decks, your sure to get a thrill out of it!.
commander legends has swiftly become my favorite commander product ever made and it's probably got the same place in your non-beating heart that it does in mine, assuming you even have a body to begin with. and Tormod, the Desecrator was one of the first to leave me shaking. he is for a 4/2 zombie wizard which states that "whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard, create a 2/2 black zombie creature token tapped.". an important note to keep in mind is that tormod stats CARDS leaving your graveyard, and i do mean ANY card. this can set up for some STRONG synergies and on a very cost effective budget. and Ghost of Ramirez DePietro can send haunting chills down our enemies spines with his presense alone. for we get a 2/3 spirit Pirate who cares not for creatures with toughness 3 or greater, he just walks right past em. he also states that "whenever ramirez Deals combat damage to a player, choose one card from a graveyard that was discarded or milled this turn, return it too it's owner's hand". combine this with tormod who WANTS cards to leave our graveyard and these two make for a deadly duo if left on the field together. but that's not realistic is it?, no no no, we want these two to shuffle between eachother to get the maximum amount of value possible with our deck, this is zombie tribal baby!, with a discard sub-theme to boot. lets see what kind of dirty deeds we can do dirt cheap!.
being a budget zombie deck you'd be surprised how many zombie lords you can get at a cheap price, Diregraf Captain, Lord of the Accursed and Bladestitched Skaab all buff up our zombies power and toughness, are affordable AND have some nice health care benefits attached. Eternal Skylord and Vizier of the Scorpion make it so our zombies become not only difficult to block, but kill anything in their path!. and if you REALLY wanna rev your engines, Undead Alchemist can make it so your zombies can make MORE ZOMBIES!, what fun!. Necromancer's Stockpile lets us discard zombies we don't need in our hand in order to create zombies while Noosegraf Mob lets us make five zombies at any time anyone would cast a spell.
All this talk of making zombies and we haven't even discussed how to use our commander's effectively, i mean tormod MAKES zombies for crying out loud!, but tormod needs some help to do so and Ramirez alone isn't gonna cut it. we need cards that will effectively turn our graveyard into a revolving door, so long as one card(preferably a creature) remains in our graveyard it should be a snap, luckily for us we came prepared. Reassembling Skeleton, Persistent Specimen, Clattering Augur and Master of Death can all bring themselves back from the graveyard whenever we want them too, and since they LEAVE the graveyard, they'll bring a zombie friend with them if tormod sees them leaving. Draugr Recruiter,Grave Scrabbler and Eternal Taskmaster are all creatures that let us grab creatures from our graveyard back to our hand while making a zombie if tormod is out, and Disturbed Burial is a repeatable Gravedigger, but 5 mana is alot for a 2/2 isn't it?. lets reduce it!, Tortured Existence is an absolute all-star of a card in Pauper and here it's even Stronger, for only a single we can make 2/2 zombies at instant speed whenever we want, pair this with Dying to Serve which once a turn makes zombies whenever we discard a card and you'll be laughing all the way to the slab!, hell we even have Drake Haven if you wanna make some flyer's for an extra .
we also have some prime discard outlets with Dreamscape Artist which ramps us while speeding us up, Compulsion which lets us cycle away cards with ease, Zombie Infestation cause get in my deck, and Wharf Infiltrator cause as we all know, Eldrazi are the best!.Laboratory Drudge and Curator of Mysteries give us some card advantage/selection while we're discarding our cards away, and while we're at it, lets get MORE benefits from discarding cards shall we?. Obsessive Search draws us an extra card, Big Game Hunter kills a creature and From Under the Floorboards because YES!. also special shoutout to my favorite counter spell Devious Cover-Up which stops a big splashy spell from killing us, lets us recover AND makes zombies in the process.
but enough about Tormod!, yea he IS the main guy but Ramirez has had NO spotlight what so ever and that won't do!. Ramirez is pure card advantage with how much we're discarding, of course you can do the cycling and my personal favorite basic land cycling trick with Ash Barrens and those can keep you stable, although my personal favorite is Dimir Infiltrator who if used in combination with Ramirez can literally fetch you most of your BEST combo pieces, But ramirez STILL needs to land a hit!, and we have the perfect tools for him to do so. Key to the City draws us cards, is a discard outlet AND makes ramirez unblockable!. Writ of Passage stays in your hand while making Ramirez untouchable, and while Kefnet's Monument doesn't make ramirez unblockable it DOES make him cheaper and help clear the way for his attacks.
Finally we do have a small subsect of cards with the recently re-visited Exploit mechanic that do work with what we are trying to do to an extent via making zombies, drawing cards and some other useful effects. Exploits lets us sac a creature to gain effects upon the keyworded Creature's ETB (which CAN be the exploit creature itself), although be aware that the opponent can kill the exploit creature before it's effect can go off if you sac another creature to the exploiting creature, the 5 most notable are Fell Stinger, Skull Skaab which makes zombies when we explot, Rakshasa Gravecaller makes 2 zombies in exchange for one creature, Repository Skaab which grabs back any instant or sorcery while sacing itself too the graveyard, and Silumgar Sorcerer. Diver Skaab lets us reuse some of our ETB's and Rot-Tide Gargantua is an Edict on legs.
i hope this deck tech made your skin crawl. i know i was DYING to play this deck when i first thought of it, hopefully you all enjoyed and i'll see you guys on the next deck tech ;3.
