Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest - April 2025 (Locked)

{"ops":[{"insert":"My submission is a \"Nonoblue\" Tasigur deck that runs as Golgari Dredge to close out the game with a wide board or Sickening Dreams. Sacrifice everything you have and cycle your graveyard repeatedly. Special appearance by Hogaak. \n\nhttps://archidekt.com/decks/12314650/nonoblue_tasigur_golgari_dredge\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Sefris, Her Ways Renounced"},{"attributes":{"header":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12312893/sefris_her_ways_renounced\n\nIf, like me, you read the little deck guide insert that came in the Dungeons of Death commander precon which Sefris helmed, you know that her little bit of backstory is that she was trained as one of the Red Wizards of Thay before turning on her evil masters to become an adventurer who uses her admittedly dark magics on the side of good. Hence the color identity, abilities, and name. Her ways are hidden because \"necromancy, but for non-evil\" is something of a tough sell. But, what if she had turned from her ways completely? What if instead of continuing in arcane necromancy, she achieved the same effects through a conversion to one of the many benevolent faiths of Faerun, and became a powerful cleric. What if she dropped the black part of her color identity... entirely?\n\nSefris is the card that got me into playing Commander. She's been my pet deck for the entire time I've been playing, and I love to run her out whenever I can. Her effect combines several things I like in my decks; incremental advantage achieved through strategic sacrifice (her dungeon triggers), and graveyard recursion (the payoff effect that brings a creature back into play). But, in my current default brew with her, I use plenty of black. It makes sense, of course—there are powerful reanimation and removal effects, and plenty of cards that are just plain fun. Or nasty. Or both. However, casting cost aside, she doesn't actually *need* black in order to do anything, and so when I saw this contest, I thought it would be a fun challenge to myself to brew the deck in a way I hadn't before. The result is a blue-white control deck that can drop some powerful combo turns. \n\nI think a lot of the deck will be straightforward to viewers. Value ETBs, blink effects, some powerful noncreature cards to add backup as additional value or removal, and several cards in the \"dungeon\" category to help speed up Sefris' reanimations. There are a few things I want to point out directly, though:\n\nFirst off, Shorikai, Genesis Engine. This card is absolutely insane for any Sefris deck. It is cheap, repeatable draw and token generation, but the *discard* is just as nice. See, it's not just that you want to put creatures in your graveyard for Sefris to recur (although you do, of course); Sefris also has an important condition: her ability to venture into the dungeon triggers whenever a creature is put into your graveyard from anywhere, but only once per turn. In order to make her go faster, you can use effects that put cards into the graveyard on your opponent's turns in order to trigger her effect then as well. With the right set up, you can trigger her reanimation once per turn cycle, completing the Lost Mine of Phandelver in one rotation around the table, which, in addition to reanimating a creature will let you scry, make a token, drain some life, and draw a card.\n\nSecond, the sac outlets. Ashnod's Altar and Altar of Dementia may seem a little strange at first, since this deck doesn't make all that many tokens, but they serve the same purpose as Shorikai. They also allow you to dodge exile removal—as long as your creature is in the grave, Sefris can get it back, and recurring the ETB on one of your haymakers like Diluvian Primordial can be backbreaking. Additionally, they can set up for recurring several ETBs at once with Revivify and Faith's Reward. I added those in large part because they fit the newly-reimagined Cleric Sefris, but they work well as insurance against board wipes or as a combo with the sac outlets.\n\nFinally, the sac outlets perform one other function: they serve as an integral piece in a convoluted semi-infinite. If you want to try to figure it out yourself, please do take a moment, but otherwise, read on. It works like this:\n\nWith Radiant Solar on the field, each creature entering causes you to venture into the dungeon. Thus, if you have him, Sefris, Karmic Guide or Sun Titan, any 1 creature they can bring back in your graveyard, either sac outlet, and one of three trigger doublers (Elesh Norn, Panharmonicon, Virtue of Knowledge), you can drain your opponents for as much life as you have cards left in your deck. \n\n1) Do anything to place your final dungeon trigger on the stack. This could be Sefris, it could be one of your dungeon creatures or Tome of Sarevok, it could be Radiant Solar entering, it could be Radiant Solar seeing something else enter. Doesn't matter. \n2) Before resolving those triggers, sacrifice your Karmic Guide or Sun Titan\n3) Resolve the dungeon triggers, complete the dungeon.\n4) Completing the dungeon triggers Sefris, so target your Guide or Titan with her ability.\n5) The creature Sefris targeted enters. This puts its own trigger and Radiant Solar's trigger on the stack twice each thanks to your trigger doubler.\n6) Resolve those triggers, entering Lost Mine of Phandelver. Put two new Radiant Solar triggers on the stack for the creature your Guide or Titan reanimates.\n7) Sacrifice your Guide or Titan then resolve the Radiant Solar triggers, going through the Dark Pool to drain your opponents for 1 life each and then to Temple of Dumathoin to complete the dungeon\n8) Go to step 4\n\nIf you don't have one of the three trigger doublers you can also do a slightly different version by doubling Sefris' reanimation trigger with Roaming Throne or Spark Double. In this case, you also need one of the dungeon creatures aside from Radiant Solar in your graveyard or on the field.\n\n1) Do anything to place your final dungeon trigger on the stack. This could be Sefris, it could be one of your dungeon creatures or Tome of Sarevok, it could be Radiant Solar entering, it could be Radiant Solar seeing something else enter. Doesn't matter. \n2) Before resolving those triggers, sacrifice your Karmic Guide or Sun Titan. If you have a dungeon creature that isn't Radiant Solar on the field but not in your graveyard, also sacrifice that creature.\n3) Resolve the dungeon triggers, complete the dungeon.\n4) Completing the dungeon triggers Sefris *twice*, so target your Guide or Titan with her ability. Target the dungeon creature with her other trigger. \n5) Sefris' trigger resolves for the first time. Radiant Solar sees whatever you reanimated with her and puts a venture trigger on the stack. If you reanimated a dungeon creature that says \"take the initiative,\" make sure you stack the triggers so that Radiant Solar's resolves *first.* This is because if you start a new dungeon with the take the initiative trigger, you *must* go to the Undercity, which is five rooms long instead of four. \n6) Resolve your two dungeon triggers, entering Lost Mine of Phandelver. The stack should now be back to the *other* Sefris trigger. Bring back the Guide or Titan, put a Radiant Solar trigger on the stack for it and for the creature it reanimates. \n7) Sacrifice your Guide or Titan and your dungeon creature, then resolve the Radiant Solar triggers, going through the Dark Pool to drain your opponents for 1 life each and then to Temple of Dumathoin to complete the dungeon\n8) Go to step 4\n\nIf the above combo sounds complicated and unwieldly... it is! It is an *alternate* win condition. The primary win condition is simply to repeatedly drop decently statted ETB creatures and outvalue the opponent while removing their threats. But the combo will probably happen more often than you might think; except for Radiant Solar, every piece has at least one redundancy or is your commander, and the final room of the Undercity—which you can complete fairly quickly by using Sefris and playing/replaying dungeon creatures—allows you to dig through the top 10 cards of your deck and pull out any one creature. This is strong on its own, but will also help you find the combo pieces if that's what you're trying to do. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Aristocrat Blue White Bane, Lord of Darkness \nhttps://archidekt.com/decks/12314477/do_i\nwanted to try making something and be as annoying about asking if you allow something to happen with things you don't get a choice on happening in the background.\n\nnot a serious deck-builder but love to have fun with MTG \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Kenrith doesn't believe in pips, he's mono-white and that's all!"},{"attributes":{"header":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12313693/kenrith_doesnt_believe_in_pips_"},"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12313693/kenrith_doesnt_believe_in_pips_"},{"insert":"\n\nSo I picked the commander who is well known for being the 5 colour good stuff commander, or the 5 colour whatever you want commander. But as he's technically mono-white, I decided to go all in on that and make a deck build wholly around his white activated ability to gain 5 life.\n\nThe deck is entirely mono white (While technically some of the lands can produce other colours, Kenrith does not believe in pips!)\n\nThe deck has several ways to tutor up Zirda the dawnwalker, to enable his ability to become gaining 5 life for one white mana. On top of that, the deck is a heavy lifegain theme, with particular emphasis on gaining big chunks of life frequently with cards such as angellic accord, resplendant angel, and Nykthos paragon. \n\nThe ramp too is wholly mono-white outside of sol ring, relying on reducing your own landcount with cards like lotus field, lotus vale, bouncelands and extraplanar lens so we can make best use of knight of the white orchid and similar effects. It can make a lot of mana to throw into activating Kenrith's ability as often as possible. \n\nSo yeah, my 5 colour monocolour attempt!\n\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12313883/rograkh_wears_monowhite_after_labor_day"},"insert":"Rograkh Wears Mono-White After Labor Day"},{"insert":"\n\nNot only does this boros deck not run any red mana symbols in the 99, but it also doesn't even run them in the command zone! Rograkh and his ever faithful companion, Yoshimaru go on a wild legendary themed run in this commander build. The deck is legendary creature themed with a nod to the keyword soup that this pair brings to the table as well.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/11571199/angels_over_innistrad\n\nA deck I built to get out of my own color comfort zone. Use Mangara's Tome to control your miracles and final cards.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12288442/cosmic_imposter"},"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12288442/cosmic_imposter"},{"insert":"\n\nThis Black-Red "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Jodah, the Unifier"}},{"insert":" has 1 main focus: "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Valki, God of Lies // Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor"}},{"insert":". Because Jodah doesn't actually use cascade, you can cast one of the many 3 cost legends in this deck and boom: Seven cost planswalker for free. This deck is a deck that is based around mostly tibalt and not Jodah so that is why it is only 2 colors instead of 5.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Presenting "},{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12309180/esika_dfcs"},"insert":"Esika Naya DFCs"},{"attributes":{"header":2},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nRecently on the CardSphere discord, another member posed the question \"Could you construct a Commander deck that runs only DFCs?\" I thought that sounded interesting, tried my hand at brewing it, and it turns out...you can! This is a bracket 1 deck in which "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"every "},{"insert":"card is a DFC - both transforming DFCs and modal DFCs, the latter being critical because they include the lands of the deck!\n\nEsika is the commander because she herself is a DFC and her 5-color identity lets me run the needed number of lands. All of the Pathways and all of the hybrid tap lands from MH3 are included. The spell sides of the tap lands are technically all five colors, but per the rules of the contest, their hybrid costs do not "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"require"},{"insert":" the two colors I'm omitting to cast them if I do opt for the spell side instead.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12308591/rashgavan_oops_no_simic\nBehold! Too many decks these days are just simic value engines, using mana advantage and strong board states to crush casual tables. The solution? A deck cleansed of the Simic menace, and thus, Rashmi and Ragavan are returning to their roots, and becoming a mon-red deck.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Black "},{"attributes":{"strike":true},"insert":"Adam"},{"insert":" Tayam, Eater of Forbidden "},{"attributes":{"strike":true},"insert":"Apples"},{"insert":" Counters"},{"attributes":{"header":2},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12284158/black_tayam_of_sore_counters"},"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12284158/black_tayam_of_sore_counters"},{"insert":"\n\nLet me present "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Tayam, Luminous Enigma"}},{"insert":" , the "},{"attributes":{"strike":true},"insert":"Abzan"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"strike":true},"insert":"Golgari"},{"insert":" Monoblack Commander known for his reanimation skills as many commanders of this color are. Indulge with sadistic sacraments of sacrificing various species at Altars of graveyard expansion and enjoy sweet fumes and warm mud of numerous Swamps you can visit.\n\nTayam uses counters placed on creatures to fuel its ability and both Green and White support him numerous effects and synergies especially in +1/+1 department. Black is the least proficient in that but not entirely deprived of options especially if we focus on detrimental effects. "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Stun"},{"insert":" counters, "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Finality"},{"insert":" counters, "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"-1/-1"},{"insert":" counters, +1/+1 ones with "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Undying"},{"insert":" - all those crave for being removed which Tayam gladly obliges. Add sacrifice rituals for mana and there goes mono-black combo machine. Aside of combos listed in deck's stats, introducing likes of "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Mikaeus, the Unhallowed"}},{"insert":"  +"},{"insert":{"card-link":"Plague Belcher"}},{"insert":"   / "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Chainbreaker"}},{"insert":" with sac outlet as well as Tayam itself pairing with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Weaponcraft Enthusiast"}},{"insert":"  / "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Deadly Grub"}},{"insert":"  and Altars there are many more interesting combos and synergies to discover. Details in deck's description.\n\nTayam also includes classic tools of monoblack players, namely Urborg, Coffers, Ghast, Defile etc. The deck itself is classified as low as Bracket 2, using no Game Changers, extra turns, land-denial, 2-card combos and only one tutor. It can be quite expensive money-wise though especially if it comes for its manabase but a budget version can be as much effective.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":{"card-link":"Alela, Artful Provocateur"}},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" I love my punk rock faerie!"},{"attributes":{"header":2},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12276039/alela_nearly_colorless\n\"Nearly Colorless? How can you be nearly colorless? Like so!\"\n-Someone, probably.\n\nAlela, if all you wanted to do was drop artifacts, make faeries, and maybe run a few cheeky combos people don't typically see coming. (No spoilers here.) I love Alela as a commander, so when I saw an excuse to change her up and push the bounds of this contest, I took it and built this. Please enjoy!\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12288740/monoblank_ring_of_tayam"},"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12288740/monoblank_ring_of_tayam"},{"insert":"f\nMono Black Tayam \ntayam is an amazing commander and all you need to make them incredibly powerful is a good way to get counters on youre creatures and this in mono colours that cost 3 or less ( to reanimate them with tayam s activated ability) enter the nazgul since there’s 9 of them in the deck they can put an absurd amount of counters on each other wraith or shapeshifter that happens to be there it can be a bit slow but if you get the engine to start you’ll win \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12291119/slime_against_humanity\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"does running a WUBRG commander with artifacts that can create all 5 colors at once fit the rules? I read the rules as the excluded color(s) cant be in the casting or activating cost but feel i have to ask as you mentioned land only for the commanders cost coverage, also what if the color(s) is/are phyrexian? does the option to use an excluded color prevent this card to be used or no? \n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"The game's best mono-black discard dragon: Crosis, the Purger."},{"attributes":{"header":1},"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"link":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12307144/monoblack_discard"},"insert":"https://archidekt.com/decks/12307144/monoblack_discard"},{"insert":"\n\nOverview"},{"attributes":{"header":2},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"What is Elder Dragon Highlander without a Dragon deck? Crosis is technically Grixis, but the only thing that really matters is that 2B to pay for the triggered ability, so why not trim the confusion of the Izzet and go straight mono-black? This deck seeks to provide a strong way to deprive your opponents of resources, while not stalling the game at the same time. All of it’s discard effects and payoffs are centered on dealing damage to your opponents, or at the very least stapled to a chunky body. If they don’t die to all your draining, a 6/6 flying commander might be able to finish them off.\nGameplan"},{"attributes":{"header":2},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"The main ways this deck uses the discard effects are by draining. Crosis can discard a grip at a time so we want cards that count every single card going into the bin. Liliana’s Caress, Megrim, Fell Specter and Raider’s Wake punish them 2 life per discard, while cards like Painful Quandary, The Rack, Wheel of Torture and Prickle Faeries deal even more if we fully cause them to go mad. Bloodchief Ascencion and Syr Konrad, the Grim hit when they discard but they also damage your opponents for the things they lose from other places than their hand. Lastly, Rottenmouth Viper and Torment of Hailfire fuel your other effects but can also deal additional damage when they run out of cards to lose.\nTorment and the Viper aren’t the only heavy discard effects. We’re also running Stronghold Rats, Banshee of the Dread Choir and Bladecoil Serpent to make them ditch their hands. Mind Slicer and Dark Deal are full hand wraths as well, but they’ll hit you too so be careful. \nIf we’re causing so much discard we might as well make a little profit off the top right? Tourach, Dread Cantor, Haunt of Hightower and Abyssal Nocturnus grow with each discard. Sangromancer and The Raven Man reward you with a little life and bodies respectively. Bone miser and Waste Not help out in a variety of ways, but in our case cards especially along with Tinybones, Trinket Thief.\nAll this work is wasted if we lose Crosis at every turn so we’ve got Mithril Coat, Lightning Greaves and Whispersilk Cloak (the last of which also helps it get through blockers), We add in a bunch of classic mono black card draw and ramp along with a medley of removal to round it out and we’ve got a deck sure to make everyone stand up and move to another table. \n"}]}