Oblivion Nibblers

Posted on August 24, 2015

In this experiment, we make our opponents lose their sanity checks.

I’ve sat on this idea for a while, but with Duel Decks: Zendikar vs. Eldrazi coming Friday, it’s time to investigate some possibilities with Oblivion Sower. I’m sure Battle for Zendikar will bring more options for this kind of concept, but let’s get a good starting point.

Exile a Lot

Exiling the top four cards of an opponent’s library is interesting, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more Eldrazi that take advantage of opponents’ exiled cards. But that effect on its own is not too impressive. The 5/8 body for 6 is pretty nice and can hold the ground or kill in four swings while being very hard to kill.

The part I want to work with, though, is the gift of lands. The more cards exiled from an opponent’s library, the more lands we can put into play when we cast Oblivion Sower. Of course, by the time we’re gaining free lands, we need to have already paid 6 for the Sower, so the deck has a bit of an identity crisis. But we can use the excess mana to close out a game with a card like Army of the Damned—or Villainous Wealth, which will exile even more cards!

Sadistic Sacrament — As much as I wanted this to be a home for Denying Wind, I had to go with Sadistic Sacrament instead. It only costs 3 mana and gives us the option of the doubled Denying Wind mode for 10 mana instead. That means we can cast it early—or after a good Sower trigger.

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver — Ashiok seems right in line with what these new Eldrazi are trying to do. With Ashiok’s +2, we can exile more and more cards every turn. And the minus ability only checks for the current instance of Ashiok (not cards exiled by any other means), but that can still give us some options if we need more on the battlefield.

Stolen Goods — This takes a bit of a different spin on the idea. Essentially, we cast a random spell from our opponent’s deck, and we can hope to hit at least a couple lands (for later Oblivion Sower action) along the way.

Circu, Dimir Lobotomist — Circu should help us control the game along the way. In addition to being able to block 2/2s, he will exile our opponent’s cards as long as we keep casting spells, and every card exiled will restrict our opponent’s options for playing future spells.

Scrib Nibblers — Scrib Nibblers is pretty exciting here, letting us exile cards from our opponent’s deck repeatedly for just a tap each time—and the landfall means our land plays let us repeat the exile effect. Finally, of course, Oblivion Sower can generate multiple landfall triggers, helping us to loop into even more exile while gaining some life.

Earwig Squad — Earwig Squad falls into the attacking-in-chunks-of-5 game plan along with Oblivion Sower, but it can also exile three of our opponent’s cards for 3 mana while also serving as a 5/3 body. We may be tempted to Extract powerful nonland cards, but if we’re able to steal enough lands, it can really set someone back, leaving him or her unable to cast bigger spells. Of course, having all those lands exiled is also great for our Sowers later on. Now, I said we could cast Earwig Squad for 3, but that means we’ll need to prowl—let’s take a look at some Rogues.

Love Crafty Rogues

In order to pay the prowl cost for Earwig Squads (and the Thieves' Fortunes I snuck in), we’ll need to hit with Rogues. Let’s take a look at some Rogues with at least 1 power that will help us in our game plan.

Disciple of Deceit — Once I knew I wanted to run the Disciple, I picked a mana cost and tried to find as many cards at that cost to run. Sadistic Sacrament, Thieves' Fortune, Scrib Nibblers, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, and Villainous Wealth all fit this category and can be traded one for another with the Disciple’s inspiration.

Looter il-Kor — This unblockable Rogue serves as a Merfolk Looter that also lets us prowl.

Rathi Trapper — Though it can serve as a strong tapper to keep opposing creatures out of the red zone, it also has 1 power so we can hit for the point of damage we need.

Surveilling Sprite — Its evasion lets us hit when we need to, and it can chump-block without losing us card advantage given the right circumstances.

Rootwater Thief — This is pretty mana-inefficient, but it is a Rogue with 1 power, and it happens to fit with our theme. This would be the perfect card for the deck if it didn’t require that we pay 2 every time we want to actually exile a card.

Also note that all these Rogues are 2-drops—that just helps us make sure we have the ability to curve into Earwig Squad with a turn-two Rogue and a turn-three prowl.

Crunched Numbers

I already mentioned Denying Wind, and Lobotomy was another card I wanted to make room for. I’d have liked another Scrib Nibblers, another Ashiok, another copy or two of Circu, and more copies of various Rogues—testing would have to tell which cards prove worthy of their spots. But I like starting decks with more singletons and less consistency because it lets me give more cards their chances.