Hello happy people! I hope that your day is going incredibly well today!

Today I have something fun for you. Our own Paige wrote an article building a Commander deck around our own good Phyrexian Praetor itself: Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor:

Paige's deck is here, and it has a heavy flavor to it. I want to go into a brand-new direction. Gix is amazing in the Command Zone, since we have a cheap 3/3 and as people deal damage to your foes they draw and lose a life. That's makes this a mono-colored version of the powerhouse Edric. I own a real-life version of that and it runs one drops like Flying Men with evasion. Ideally you want to go turn 1 - land, dork. Turn 2, land, two dorks. Turn 3, Gix or Edric, land, attack, draw three. That's how I want to build around this powerful leader. Also note that I just named this the best Commander Phyrexian Praetor of the 11, which you can check out here.

Ready for my brew?

Early Drops with Evasion

Let's start with this one-drop pair 1/1 commons. The Outcast cannot be blocked, and cannot block either. It's changeling for those decks that matter. I am also running the one drop this is based off of Tormented Soul. Both are pretty nice here. The Swarm has flying naturally and then can be given deathtouch with a mana. That means people are less likely to block since they don't want to trade down their flying Dragon, or Angel or Consecrated Sphinx and thus are more likely to draw those cards from combat damage smashery.

Check out these artifact one-drop 1/1s. The flyer is on curve from anything, and then you can sacrifice to force the foe you just punched to not cast nondorks until your next turn, so that counts their turn as well as everyone else in a multiplayer game. The non-flyer has haste, so you swing and draw a card immediately. Then you can spend a mana to keep it from being blocked by anything without the "haste" keyword evasive and a faster clock with haste to draw another card a turn earlier. Nice artifact duo.

Check out this next pair of two-drops: Vault Skirge and Nullpriest of Oblivion. The common is a 1/1 with flying and lifelink and you can spend two life to drop it on the first turn. Lifelink is very powerful here since you want to gain life to keep yourself from killing yourself. I am also running flyers with lifelink like Daggerdrome Imp. The rare is a 2/1 with menace and lifelink. I added in menace synergies as well like Dreadmalkin. This has lifelink to gain you life and kicker if you have the mana to Zombify a key thing back to the battlefield from your graveyard. Nice!

Check out this pair of Rogues. The Dauthi is a 3/2 with shadow, almost unblockable. It's our best on-curve option, and I also have other shadows here like Dauthi Slayer. Then your foe's dying stuff (not just creatures) gets exiled rather than destroyed and you can cast one for free with a sacrifice of this. Then the Goblin is a one-drop with fear, and we have some fear added to the deck as well, in this case, it can only be blocked by black or artifacts.

More early drops include Vampire Cutthroat and Highborn Ghoul! The Cutthroat is a 1/1 with lifelink and skulk. That means this gains life when it smashes with the synergy mentioned above, and then cannot be blocked by 2 or bigger power with its base power of 1. The Ghoul is a 2/1 with intimidate, the replacement for fear. In this case it cannot be blocked by black and artifacts as well since it's Black.

Signal Pest is an iconic 0/1 one-drop with battle cry. It can only be blocked with flyers and reach, so that's basically flying on attack. Then you can pump all power by one with battle cry to add a much faster clock to the game. So, it will always smash for at least one to trigger Gix. Nice addition to the brew, right?

Like shadow, horsemanship is basically unblockable since it was never printed en masse, making the four-drop Wei Night Raiders tough to block with a nice trigger. This is my only four-drop evasive card, but the card advantage of the discard which forces people to play around it combined with the easier to block something like Hypnotic Specter makes this worth the addition.

Synergies and Win-Cons

Now let's turn to synergies and winning conditions. The first card here is the latter. This two-drop artifact is win con in aggro and token decks, and with it 's colorless identity, it fits into them all. In your end step you'll have your foes lose life equal to your tapped creature count. As long as you are swinging all out, you'll force a few life from your foes each turn, and this is very cheap to drop as early as turn 2. The second artifact here is the Whip and it gives your entire team lifelink. We already talked about how powerful a keyword that is in on your dorks, so we have it here. You can also spend four, tap it, and Zombify a dork with haste from your graveyard and then exile it, and we don't have much recursion other than Volrath's Stronghold, so don't worry about the self-exiling much, when it's good, do it. I mean you are drawing a card.

Gixian Puppeteer is a 4/3 that will turn your second drawn card in any turn into draining your foes of two life, so that's a win con and a life loss break with gain in here. Then when it dies you can Zombify a smaller dork back to the battlefield so it's card equilibrium. Psychosis Crawler is a five drop that has power and toughness equal to your card count in your hand, quite a lot here. Then when you draw, your foes each lose a life. It's game winning in the red zone and with the triggers.

Check out this pair of Equipment. The 'Clamp is a classic that gives a boost to power toughness of one each. Then when it dies, draw two. Note that most of your dorks have a toughness of one, so this is spend one draw two over and over again. This is a backup card draw to Gix, that will draw you more cards without losing your key dorks, but it does have value here. The Blade is a two-drop 3/1 with menace as a creature equipment. So, it's on curve, and has the keyword to keep it from being blocked. Then you can equip for four and the dork equipped becomes a 5/5 with menace. On a one or two-drop that's nasty. Good stuff.

Let's finish off my synergy section with these two dorks. The Traitor is a two-drop 1/1 with haste and shadow, so basically unblockable. With both it can attack out of nowhere and smash away. Then when another dork dies, you return it to the battlefield for more smashing.

The Hireling is a 3/2 with two abilities. When you deal combat damage you make a pair of Treasures, but just once per attack, no matter how many dealt. It rewards the same infrastructure you have, and you can make Treasures for triggering Gix's second ability. You can also sacrifice them to this to kill an opposing dork.

Answers

Now let's turn to answers and start with removal. I am running as cheap as possible mana wise for removal. The Mastery is a four-mana instant that exiles any dork or planeswalker, which is nice since you can also answer indestructible, regeneration, or graveyard abuse. Then you can cast it for just two and let your foe draw a card. The Rollick is a four cost, also exiles, but is free if you control Gix. I am also running the free Snuff Out for four life and the one mana and four life if it needs to cast one creature removal spell Dismember.

Now let's look at ways of saving a key creature. Malakir Rebirth is a one mana instant that costs two life when you cast it, but then will save a targeted dork from death and recur it to the battlefield for another go around the bin. You can use this for mass removal like Damnation, targeted removal like Murder, or just as a combat trick. Rush of Vitality is a two-mana instant that gives a target dork indestructible, lifelink, and a power boost of one. This is a great combat trick with the power boost, a life gain break, and then indestructible to save something. It's very flexible here.

Mana and Ramping and Lands

Now let's turn to the mana stuff. To make the mana for The Big G's second ability, we are running things that make a lot of mana. Check out this artifact pair. The former will give your Black things +1/+1 in size, so that's strong with your going wide team. And then when you tap a land for black, make another mana of that color, not just Swamps. Then the latter will drop your black stuff cost by a generic mana. Nice in an aggro and card draw deck like this that is trying to drop its cards to get below the discarding of 7.

Check out this pair. The Map is a one-drop, tap and sac with two to tutor your library for any land. There are several you might want to tutor. I am running the mono-colored mana making masterpiece Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. I have the recursive Volrath's Stronghold. You can get one half of the Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth combo. I also have Demonic Tutor to grab another key land or a key synergy. You can also get the Bog. This black tapping land ETBs tapped which is rare but worth it here. It'll remove a key opposing graveyard which is another break on graveyard use an abuse here in addition to the Voidwalker we looked at earlier. It'll also tap for two black with the Caged Sun above.

Let's finish with this land pair. Since we are drawing so many cards, wouldn't it be nice not to be forced to discard your hand? I think so as well! Enter the Tower, which taps for colorless and arrives untapped for on curve mana tapping. Then I also am running the mana rock Thought Vessel that also skips discarding. Check out Shizo! This black tapping land doesn't enter tapped, so you can drop it turn one and tap for any one-drop like Eyetwitch. Then later you can tap it and a mana to give your leader or another legendary fear. I also tossed in Access Tunnel and Rogue's Passage to help force through some key attacks for cards.

And there we are! Ready for my decklist?

Mono-Black Gix Aggro | Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor

• Creatures (44)
• 1 Order of Midnight
• 1 Basilica Screecher
• 1 Battlefly Swarm
• 1 Blade of the Oni
• 1 Blight Keeper
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Cabal Therapist
• 1 Changeling Outcast
• 1 Crypt Ghast
• 1 Daggerdrome Imp
• 1 Dauthi Horror
• 1 Dauthi Marauder
• 1 Dauthi Slayer
• 1 Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1 Dreadmalkin
• 1 Duskhunter Bat
• 1 Eye Collector
• 1 Eyetwitch
• 1 Forsworn Paladin
• 1 Ghastly Gloomhunter
• 1 Gingerbrute
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Gixian Puppeteer
• 1 Grim Hireling
• 1 Highborn Ghoul
• 1 Hope of Ghirapur
• 1 Nether Traitor
• 1 Nightshade Stinger
• 1 Nirkana Revenant
• 1 Nullpriest of Oblivion
• 1 Pilfering Imp
• 1 Prickly Boggart
• 1 Psychosis Crawler
• 1 Signal Pest
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Stirge
• 1 Stronghold Confessor
• 1 Tormented Soul
• 1 Unwilling Ingredient
• 1 Vampire Cutthroat
• 1 Vampire Nighthawk
• 1 Vault Skirge
• 1 Wei Night Raiders
• 1 Wei Scout

• Instants (7)
• 1 Baleful Mastery
• 1 Deadly Rollick
• 1 Dismember
• 1 Hero's Downfall
• 1 Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire
• 1 Rush of Vitality
• 1 Snuff Out

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Demonic Tutor

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Jet Medallion
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Throne of the God-Pharaoh
• 1 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (37)
• 26 Swamp
• 1 Access Tunnel
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

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Since most of my decks costs one or two, and you'll be drawing tons of cards early and often, I am just running 37 lands plus the modal land we looked at earlier. What did you think of my take on Gix? Anything in here that moves you? Did I miss something obvious?