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Oathbreaker* Combo Control Discard Mono-Black

EldraziEnthusiast

Discard (12)

• 1x Cabal Therapy
• 1x Cunning Lethemancer
• 1x Duress
• 1x Hymn to Tourach
• 1x Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1x Liliana's Specter
• 1x Mind Rot
• 1x Mind Twist
• 1x Raven's Crime
• 1x Stupor
• 1x Unmask
• 1x Unnerve

Lands (20)

• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 18x Swamp
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Win Condition One (3)

• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Shrieking Affliction
• 1x The Rack

Win Condition Three (2)

• 1x Tree of Perdition
• 1x Triskaidekaphobia

When You Hate Everybody (1)

• 1x Myojin of Night's Reach

Removal (5)

• 1x Curtains' Call
• 1x Fatal Push
• 1x Grasp of Darkness
• 1x Smallpox
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Utility (5)

• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Scarab Feast
• 1x Shadow of the Grave
• 1x Thorn of the Black Rose
• 1x Victimize

Discard Benefits (3)

• 1x Liliana's Caress
• 1x Sangromancer
• 1x Waste Not

Tutors (3)

• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Diabolic Tutor

Extraction Effects (2)

• 1x Jester's Cap
• 1x Lost Legacy

Win Condition Two (2)

• 1x Dark Depths
• 1x Thespian's Stage

Commanders (2)

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Freshly updated to fit in the Oathbreaker format as of 12/31/23.

This was the last homebrew I created before dropping the hobby. Originally fitted to work under a broad definition of the Brawl format, it's now been tweaked to fit in Oathbringer. This is a lean and mean discard deck with three ways to kill your opponents, and sufficient discard effects to take care of problematic cards before they reach the field.

This deck is probably too effective for it's own good. Not only will you automatically be considered Public Enemy Number 1 due to how unfun discard is, you'll also be discarding a fair number of cards yourself. There are built in redundancies and effects that grab stuff from the graveyard so that you aren't affected too severely, but I've frequently had just as few cards in my hand as my opponents in most games.

Another weakness of this deck is that the maximum free-for-all group size is 4 (which is probably near the reasonable maximum for any group). This deck only has six creatures, and you cannot win via discard effects only. Should you run out of steam or win conditions, you'll be left at the mercy (or lack thereof) of your opponent. I've yet to have the experience to try this deck out in a team setting.

The Command Zone: Liliana of the Veil & Dark Petition

As good as Liliana of the Veil is, she is not how we win games (see the last three sections for that). Especially so in a multiplayer game, she is prone to damage, direct attacks, and the occasional Hero's Downfall. I have never once gotten her high enough to use her ultimate, although I've never needed it. Most of the value we get out of her before she goes back to the command zone are in her first two abilities. We can guarantee either a card or a creature gone each turn until she leaves the field.

This deck is not creature heavy at all, having just six, seven if including Marit Lage. It is essentially guaranteed that she will return to the command zone at least once. This should not bother us, however, because, as said before, we do not rely on her to win the game. Instead, she is a step in the process to winning the game.

Plan on casting LotV twice in a game: once early on, during turns 2-4, then much later on to help close off the game.

Dark Petition may seem like a peculiar choice as a signature spell. Why not use one of the many discard spells? The way this deck plays, there will basically always be a discard effect either in your hand or within easy reach. It becomes overly redundant to always have one at the ready. Your opponent's hands will drain too fast as a result. Commander tax also applying to a signature spell also means the more times you cast it, the less value you get for the increasing cost. There is also the fact that we always need Liliana of the Veil in order to cast it. Because we do not depend on her to win, this means we have spell out of reach for the majority of the game.

Rather, the signature spell should be something we don't always need, but when we do need it, it has a big effect. Dark Petition's rangeless tutor effect is already great, but the extra BBB means we have a fair shot of immediately casting whatever we searched for. Spell Mastery will always be enabled, as the vast majority of deck is instants and sorceries.

Discard Spells

Cabal Therapy: At worse, you see your opponent's hand and flashback CT to get something in their hand out of it. At best, you have a targeted attack against a critical card, provided you know it's in their hand.

Cunning Lethemancer: In Modern 8Rack, this is used as a budget alternative to Liliana of the Veil. We, however, don't mess around and include both.

Duress: Cheap, common discard spell that at the very least acts as a worse Gitaxian Probe.

Hymn to Tourach: R&D unfortunately promises never to implement random discard in any future set. Shame.

Inquisition of Kozilek: Part of the aforementioned redundancy

Liliana's Specter: An ETB creature that serves as a blocker or as sacrifice fodder for Diabolic Intent.

Mind Rot: Again, part of redundancy.

Mind Twist: A blast from the past that can be nearly as effective as a Wit's End.

Raven's Crime: A quick and easy spell that has additional value during the late game.

Stupor: Mean random discard plus a bad choice.

Unmask: Speaking in terms of card economy, ditching two cards for one isn't very profitable, but it serves as an excellent surprise on turn one.

Unnerve: For the multiplayer match up. Be careful when using this card, as everyone will immediately focus on you if somehow they haven't already.

Myojin of Night's Reach: Quite frankly, you'll almost never be able to cast this unless you draw it in the late game. When you do, however, make sure Waste Not is on the field for maximum bullshittery.

Extraction Effects

Jester's Cap Do you want someone in particular to hate you? Take three important cards out of their deck for good and watch as they magically and instantaneously hate you! All for the low low price of of six total mana!

Lost Legacy: A third of Jester's Cap, except it's half the price and reaches into more places.

Discard Benefits

Liliana's Caress: A better Megrim.

Sangromancer: Useful against aggro decks and/or siphoning decks.

Waste Not: The powerhouse o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶e̶l̶l̶ of the Benefits section. In my experience, opponents almost never discard a land or a creature, so this will get you incredible card advantage.

Tutors

Beseech the Queen: A CMC 6 tutor that we will always cast for 3. The only real downside is revealing the card we searched for.

Diabolic Tutor: Sure, Demonic Tutor would technically be better, but I didn't want to drop $50+ on it.

Diabolic Intent: A Demonic Tutor with the additional cost of sacrificing a creature. This card is a bit of a "right place, right time" case, since we only have 6 creatures to sacrifice in the deck. You're usually safe discarding this to Liliana's +1.

Utilities

Cabal Ritual: Allows a turn two LotV.

Scarab Feast: Useful when up against a deck that has graveyard shenanigans. Completely useless otherwise, so the only good option is to cycle it.

Shadow of the Grave: Only ever included as an emergency get-a-card-back in extremely specific scenarios. Otherwise acts as discard fodder.

Thorn of the Black Rose: Budget Dark Confidant aka Bob. This can backfire on you, however, when a creature gets through, making the battle to keep your opponent's hand empty uphill.

Victimize: The card that ended up replacing Dark Ritual. Creatures aren't the focus of this deck, but sometimes you'll have to make a hard decision for a discard. This'll make the decision easier by either acting as discard fodder, or it will undo a previous hard choice at the cost of a blocker.

Removal

Curtains' Call: Will always cost at most 4B. Therefore this is better the earlier you play it, and is especially effective against an swarming opponent.

Fatal Push: Excellent payback if an opponent removed something you really liked. Also, THIS! IS! SPARTAAA!

Grasp of Darkness: While this has some potential, this card better serves as discard fodder.

Smallpox: The only reason why I didn't use Pox instead is that I thought it was too cruel.

Toxic Deluge: Simply because I don't have a Black Sun's Zenith or Damnation.

Win Condition One: The Clock

This stack of 60 pays homage to my favorite discard deck in Modern; 8Rack. Therefore, we are stealing its two core cards: The Rack, and Shrieking Affliction. We also make use of Mirage Mirror as a second version of either, circumstances depending.

Assuming the player we target with The Rack has no cards, and we have Shrieking Affliction on the field, that's six damage a turn, ending them in 5 turns. If we have Mirage Mirror copying Affliction, that's nine damage a turn, killing them dead in four turns.

Win Condition Two: The Bomb

One of my favorite formats is Legacy. While I could never a deck myself, I enjoy the variety of finely-tuned decks that are played, from Death and Taxes, to Oops, All Spells, to Legacy Lands, which is where I'm going with this introduction.

I steal two cards out of that deck as well, Dark Depths, and Thespian's Stage. These two cards, plus two additional mana and knowledge of 704.5k allows you to get Marit Lage for 6.7% of what it would normally cost. Specifically the process is:

1. With Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage already on the field, use Stage's second ability to make it a copy of Depths.
2. At this point two effects happen: the legendary rule and Depth's sacrifice trigger of having no ice counters. If this happens on your turn, you have control over which effect is resolved first.
3. Sacrifice the original Dark Depths to the legendary rule.
4. Sacrifice Thespian's Stage to the no-ice-counters triggered ability.
5. Place Marit Lage on the field.
6. Watch your opponents cry.

Provided she goes unanswered (which is very likely), she can one shot any opponent.

Win Condition Three: The Giggler

Of the three win conditions here, this one is definitely my favorite one. This may have previously been weak in other formats that tried to make decks around it, but our opponent(s) will have no answers in their hand, as they will have no hand in the first place, which means that this frankly ridiculous combo can go off with little to no doubts.

I am speaking, of course, of Triskaidekaphobia and Tree of Perdition.

Make sure you let your opponent read both of these cards together to make sure they know what the f**k is about to happen.

Unfortunately, this combo only works once, as the tree's toughness will change, but when it does, it is beautiful. This is also why I use this as the winning move in multiplayer games when it is down to me and another person. They usually scoop once they see what is going on, so it technically goes off before your upkeep, but hey, a win's a win.

Thanks for reading!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	10 months
Legality	This deck is Oathbreaker legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 17 - 0 Rares 9 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.87
Tokens	Marit Lage, Monarch Emblem, Monarch Emblem, Zombie 2/2 B