In this experiment, we punish our opponent, in traditional mono-white fashion, for playing all Swamps—but not until after we’ve forced said opponent into controlling a bunch of the black-mana-producing lands.

One of my Commander decks is an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite deck called The Machine Orthodoxy, named after the white faction of New Phyrexia. It features almost all of the poison-based cards I can play in a mono-white deck, including such all-stars as Tine Shrike and Phyrexian Digester. It’s not a particularly combo-centric deck, but it does have one sweet little three-piece suite.

Despite its clear black association, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth has the distinction of having no color identity—it has a black-aligned land frame, but it has no mana symbols whatsoever, meaning it has the same color identity as a Rupture Spire, Terramorphic Expanse, or Darksteel Citadel. That means it’s perfectly permissible in any setup of Commander list.

With it, each land is a Swamp, and so a Kormus Bell will make those lands 1/1s. And with Elesh Norn, our beloved commander, our opponents’ lands will be -1/-1 while ours are 3/3. I have almost no tutors in my deck—perhaps just a single Expedition Map—and I’ve never executed the combo, but that sweet, sweet day will come.

For today, however, I want to build a sixty-card concoction based on this synergy. Kormus Bell and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will stick around, increasing in numbers of copies along the way, while Elesh Norn stays at a single copy. Our deck today will take the game plan and run with it—rather than just include a couple cards that happen to synergize.

Logical Step 1

We’ll want to find Urborg (but not Urborg), so in addition to running a bunch of copies, we’ll have some Expedition Maps to help find our key card. Weathered Wayfarer will also help—he’s a great little guy who can do a lot of work in mostly-white decks. Without Land Tax or Journeyer's Kite, it can be hard to consistently play lands, so Weathered Wayfarer is a solid Commander card as well.

Finally, we need some kind of replacement for Elesh Norn. Sure, we’ll play one copy of her, but she’s pretty expensive, and we’re already pretty deep into the budget with Urborgs. Plus, she’s 7 mana—that type of expensive, too. Zealous Persecution is like a one-shot, miniature Elesh Norn, and if we have Urborg out in our kinda-mono-white deck, we’ll have both its colors of mana. Just casting it once will wipe out all opposing lands and potentially give us a nice attack.

Logical Step 2

Survival Cache is an odd Rise of the Eldrazi spell that is like a Divination and a Sacred Nectar in one if the game is going not-too-terrible—and you at least always get the Sacred Nectar half. The key here, though, is digging, as finding Zealous Persecution with the Bell—and/or a Karma—is really what the game’s all about.

Speaking of Karma, there’s another way to avoid the symmetrical damage it will be dealing with our Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Wanting to return Urborg to my hand during my upkeep to avoid the damage from the Karma trigger, I looked for permanents that would allow me to do this. Hallowed Ground is a, shall we say, pretty useless old card. You can use it to protect lands from destruction effects . . . unless it’s your Scrying Sheets or Snow-Covered Plains. I guess that means we’ll just be running regular old Plains for this list. However, Hallowed Ground’s superpower will let us return Urborg in our upkeep before Karma’s ability resolves, letting us avoid the damage and then replay Urborg to make sure our opponents continue suffering.

Hundred-Handed One is a fancy new blocker from Theros, and it will help us stave off aggressors as we set up. Finally, Wall of Omens both blocks and digs us deeper into our library, and it does those things for only 2 mana.

Logical Step 3

New Benalia, Kabira Crossroads, the off-color Halimar Depths, Sejiri Steppe, and Windbrisk Heights all offer some kind of power to our deck, so we can run one each of those. Some copies of Temple of Silence embarrass New Benalia a bit, but they’ll provide additional black mana in the event we require it but don’t have Urborg yet.

And why would we need black mana? With all these enchantments and artifacts—and a combo deck built around them—some tutoring seemed in order. Golden Wish performs outside-the-deck tutoring, so we can run a toolbox sideboard with all our key pieces and more. Glorious Anthem, Erebos, God of the Dead, Heliod, God of the Sun, Akroma's Memorial, and Curse of Death's Hold are among some of our potential options—and that’s for when we don’t want to just search up that one Kormus Bell, Karma, or Expedition Map we need.

Finally, just as a blocker or as a potential threat in the air, and to synergize with the landfall resulting from our Weathered Wayfarer, Hallowed Ground, and friends, Emeria Angel is here to give us a bunch of Birds to use to activate that Windbrisk Heights.

"The Ineffable Bell Tolls"

• Creatures (16)
• 2 Hundred-Handed One
• 2 Weathered Wayfarer
• 3 Emeria Angel
• 4 Wall of Omens
• 4 Windborn Muse
• 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

• Spells (21)
• 4 Zealous Persecution
• 3 Golden Wish
• 3 Survival Cache
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 2 Hallowed Ground
• 2 Karma
• 3 Expedition Map
• 3 Kormus Bell

• Lands (23)
• 10 Plains
• 1 Halimar Depths
• 1 Kabira Crossroads
• 1 New Benalia
• 1 Sejiri Steppe
• 1 Windbrisk Heights
• 4 Temple of Silence
• 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1 Curse of Death's Hold
• 1 Kormus Bell
• 1 Karma
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 1 Hallowed Ground
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Glorious Anthem
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Heliod, God of the Sun
• 1 Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1 Spear of Heliod
• 1 Akroma's Memorial
• 1 Mobilization

Buy This Deck

As always, there’re plenty enough Magic cards that do similar things that it’s possible you could switch out cards for similar effects. If you don’t want to run the Urborgs, try blue or G/U with a Donated Prismatic Omen or Realmwright. But otherwise, if you’ve ever wanted to wipe out your opponents’ lands with a bell, the corpse of a Phyrexian god, and a little persecution, this is the deck for you.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com