The Scarab King

Commander / EDH* BR (Rakdos) Combo Counters Infect Value Engine

Poly_raptor

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Blasted Landscape
• 1x Blood Crypt
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Canyon Slough
• 1x Cinder Marsh
• 1x Dragonskull Summit
• 1x Foreboding Ruins
• 1x Forgotten Cave
• 1x Grasping Dunes
• 1x Graven Cairns
• 1x Ifnir Deadlands
• 1x Karn's Bastion
• 1x Luxury Suite
• 3x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Mire
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Rakdos Carnarium
• 1x Rocky Tar Pit
• 1x Shadowblood Ridge
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 1x Sulfurous Springs
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Peak
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Instant (5)

• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Grim Affliction
• 1x Splendid Agony
• 1x Terminate
• 1x Torment of Venom

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Liliana, Death Wielder

Creature (20)

• 1x Banewhip Punisher
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Carnifex Demon
• 1x Deathbringer Thoctar
• 1x Fume Spitter
• 1x Grim Poppet
• 1x Hateflayer
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Kulrath Knight
• 1x Lockjaw Snapper
• 1x Merciless Javelineer
• 1x Midnight Banshee
• 1x Necropede
• 1x Necroskitter
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Shambling Swarm
• 1x Skinrender
• 1x Soul-Scar Mage
• 1x Soul Snuffers
• 1x Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

Enchantment (13)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Blowfly Infestation
• 1x Crumbling Ashes
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Everlasting Torment
• 1x Fevered Convulsions
• 1x Glistening Oil
• 1x Grave Betrayal
• 1x Grave Pact
• 1x Intimidation
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Nest of Scarabs

Commander (1)

Sorcery (14)

• 1x Behold the Beyond
• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Demonic Collusion
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Diabolic Revelation
• 1x Diabolic Tutor
• 1x Incremental Blight
• 1x Liliana's Influence
• 1x Mastermind's Acquisition
• 1x Razaketh's Rite
• 1x Reanimate
• 1x Retribution

Artifact (12)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Altar of the Brood
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Contagion Clasp
• 1x Contagion Engine
• 1x Gnarled Effigy
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Phyrexian Altar
• 1x Rakdos Locket
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring

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Maybeboard

Artifact (4)

• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Skull of Orm
• 1x Sol Ring

Creature (1)

• 1x Psychosis Crawler

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The inspiration

I got back into playing magic at around the time of Amonkhet, after a very long break. I loved the art and the mechanics and tried building a -1/-1 counter deck but could never quite get it right. Then I discovered the EDH format, (iid always just played 60 card casual decks with my friends) and thought I’d have a much better chance at making the list work in that format. But I still struggled to make a list I was happy with.

Enter Yawgmoth, Thran Physician ...

The Commander

When looking at a way of building around Yawgmoth I wanted something that wasn’t just going to be Mono black because I thought there’d be a lot of those builds.

After looks through some different ideas I opted for The Scorpion God

It works well as it benefits from creatures being killed with counters, it also allows you to put counters on things & refills our hand as we’ll be discarding a lot with Yawgmoth.

The Engine

We’re using a 3 card engine that can outright board wipe if it goes off without interruption. One card of the three being the commander so it’s quit easy to get on board running several tutors. The Scorpion God + Yawgmoth, Thran Physician + Nest of Scarabs You can use this to pay life to life to put a negative one counter on a creature, creating a scarab, then pay sac the scarab and discard a card to proliferate. This will then create a heck of a lot more scarabs, which can all be sacrificed to proliferate again and again and again. Phyrexian Altar lets you sacrifice two scarabs to create the mana needed to proliferate indefinitely as each time you proliferate you will create more scarabs. You will keep drawing cards from The Scorpion God to refill your hand to keep discarding to keep proliferating.

Controlling the board & Win conditions

Once the engine is in full swing you want to draw into either Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos this will finish off the board wipe as each time you have to sacrifice a scarab, another creature will have to be sacrificed.

- Grave Betrayal or Necroskitter will then bring everything back under your control.

The other way to win is by using Intimidation or Kulrath Knight essentially makes all our scarabs unblockable so they can just swing through for lethal.

- Purphoros, God of the Forge

- Psychosis Crawler

These two will either machine gun everybody by drawing card after card with The Scarab God or creating infinite Scarabs

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Slight revision

I have cut out a couple of instants that would put a single counter on a creature, to add in some reanimate effects if somebody kills yawgmoth. I have also added in Purphoros, God of the Forge as an alternative win condition with the infinite swarm of scarabs. Once the board is wiped of all apposing creatures you can stop use the engine to kill your own scarabs, creating the same amount of scarabs. I’ve added Blood Artist to abuse the scarab sacrifice engine even more. After play testing I’ve realised yawgmoth just needs one scarab to sacrifice to put a counter on a creature, which makes another scarab and can be repeated, the only down side to this combo is that you lose 1 life each time you activate that ability, adding blood artists negates the loss of life. I would also consider adding in the eldrazi titans to shuffle the graveyard back into the library when it starts running low.

I’ve removed Ruthless Sniper & Archfiend of Ifnir , whist good cards, they don’t actually synergies that well with the deck as it doesn’t have much other discard triggers, I know yawgmoth does but in playtests I’ve found his first ability to be better.

Protection

I’ve also realised that if nest of scarabs gets destroyed then it really hoses the deck and black doesn’t have an awful lot of enchantment protection/recursion.

I’m considering switching the commander to Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons as green gives a lot more options here.

If you have read this far then thank you! I have spent the day brewing up another version of this deck, adding in and cutting the

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The Scarab Queen

Commander / EDH* Poly_raptor

SCORE: 2 | 3 COMMENTS | 45 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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If you want to take a look and let me know which you think is better then I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks for reading,

Peace

Top Ranked	Achieved #23 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #15 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BR (Rakdos) 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Combo 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 33 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.73
Tokens	Insect 1/1 B
Folders	Decks I want to (and hopefully will) build