Vilis Ad Naus

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Mono-Black Primer Suicide Black

Rell

Artifact (31)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Astral Cornucopia
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Chromatic Sphere
• 1x Chromatic Star
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Defense Grid
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Helm of Awakening
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Jeweled Amulet
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mishra's Bauble
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Paradox Engine
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Springleaf Drum
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Bubbling Muck
• 1x Deathmark
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Exsanguinate
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Creature (10)

• 1x Basal Thrull
• 1x Blood Celebrant
• 1x Blood Pet
• 1x Bog Witch
• 1x Deepwood Ghoul
• 1x Mischievous Poltergeist
• 1x Overeager Apprentice
• 1x Priest of Gix
• 1x Skirge Familiar
• 1x Walking Ballista

Instant (9)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Plunge into Darkness
• 1x Rain of Filth
• 1x Slaughter Pact
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Commander (1)

Land (33)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Ebon Stronghold
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Lake of the Dead
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Peat Bog
• 22x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Necropotence

---

So, I saw Vilis, Broker of Blood , at first ignoring him as some random massively expensive legend for a core set.
However, then I noticed a VERY relevant piece of text
Whenever you lose life, draw that many cards
This is very clearly, a ludicrously powerful mechanic.
Our only issue now is properly exploiting it.
Welcome to my newest abomination before WoTC.
Magic as Richard Garfield intended.

Making (black) Mana

The bane of our deck here is generating enough black mana. Our buddy Vilis costs an insane 8 mana, and with 3 black pips in the mix, he's definitely not easy to cast.
However, we will attempt to mitigate this as best we can, using:
- Blood Pet
- Bubbling Muck
- Dark Ritual
- Rain of Filth
- Cabal Ritual
- Bog Witch
- Overeager Apprentice
- Skirge Familiar
- Priest of Gix
- Chrome Mox
- Chromatic Star
- Chromatic Sphere
- Jeweled Amulet
- Lion's Eye Diamond
- Lotus Petal
- Mox Diamond
- Mox Opal
- Prismatic Lens
- Springleaf Drum
- Basal Thrull
- Astral Cornucopia
With this much fixing, we should be able to make colorless mana into black mana well enough to cast our guy.

Matchups

We do not want to need to race
This is very important.
Most cEDH decks go off a turn before us, however, we will occasionally have TREMENDOUSLY explosive early turns.
I'd advise mulling to a hand with some acceleration, while we can play without our commander, we do generally want him to come to the party.
Combo decks without Blue
Should have a decent matchup, although we can't race the fastest decks in the meta. Be aware that interacting with many of these decks creatures will often heavily slow them.

Combo Decks with Blue
Often a bit slower than other combo decks, we can usually keep pace with them.
If you are afraid of a counterspell, it's going to be rough for us if we lose Vilis without other draw power/ infinite mana.
Stax Decks

Honestly, we don't particularly care about most tax effects or untap restrictions, but effects like Rule of Law do cause us some problems. Cursed Totem is only an issue if we're relying on creature-based life sinks.

Life Sinks

These cards are like mana sinks, but instead meant to spend our life, so that our commander can draw us a number of cards equal to however much life we pay.
No-restriction life sinks
Sinks that have no restrictions on usage or number, requiring only one or two life with no limits.
- Blood Celebrant . Our best life loss effect. Draw any number of cards you want, down to a single one. All at the cost of one black and one life per card. Pay a black and one life, produce a black mana, do it again. Genuinely everything we want.
- Mischievous Poltergeist . See above text. There's this really nice 6 mana enchantment called Yawgmoth's Bargain , really really good card. This with our commander? Same effect.
- Deepwood Ghoul . Pay 2 life, draw two cards, regenerate your dude.
Will the regenerate be relevant?
No idea, doubt it though

Conditional life Loss
Life loss with more strings. Limited in quantity over 3, restrictive timings, or tap requirements.
INCLUDING:
- Ad Nauseam Our favorite way to draw 70 cards! Our curve is very low, we draw cards for each life we lose, win-win situation.
- Boseiju, Who Shelters All Only 2 life per turn and we have no way to untap it. Definitely a bit restrictive.
- City of Brass make a mana, draw a card.
- Grim Tutor Find a card, get two bonus cards for stapled onto it.
(disclaimer: Please do not staple anything to your grim tutor, it is very expensive)
- Imperial Seal Puts your favorite card on top of your deck and you get it draw it.
- Mana Confluence . see City of Brass.
- Necropotence . The odds that we exile all our relevant threats is very low.
You basically pay one, exile 1, draw one. So you always get the second card from the top.
- Night's Whisper . For a generic, a black, and two life, you too can draw four cards. Enjoy!
- Plunge into Darkness . Would not advise using for more than ~20 life. Risk of exiling relevant cards farther than that is too high. 20 is a nice butter zone.
- Reanimate . Often a very cool effect is reanimating a large, dumb card, that just draws you a bunch of cards when you lose the life. Or you can get your mana accelerants, which is actually much better.
- Snuff Out . Cast on literally anything, lose your life, draw your cards for 0 mana.
- Toxic Deluge . Can be messed with to avoid our creatures, if that's not an issue for you, I wouldn't recommend going above 35. Once you get to there it's just too easy to die incidentally.
-Card:Walking Ballista. Any target includes yourself. Hidden mode, remove a counter, Yawgmoth's Bargain.

Ending the Game

So, we need a win condition, which we have a few of.
First:
Produce infinite mana, not super concerned how, but definitely want to try to start here.
Second:
Find your mana sink of choice!
(I've included three of my favorite black/colorless mana sinks, but if you have an alternate one, go to town)
Exsanguinate
Torment of Hailfire
Walking Ballista
Notably, we can also take advantage of Aetherflux Reservoir with our abundance of low cost artifacts.
This will let us gain a ludicrous amount of life, and then deal an insane amount of damage.
HOWEVER, this does require us to find a way to get rid of our Vilis, or else we will attempt to draw 150 cards and find we can't do so.

Thanks for stopping by.
Suggestions are always appreciated!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	WURG
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 31 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.84