I love me an alternate win condition! The idea that I can do something to win a game beyond the usual damage or mill options makes things fun! It means that I am operating on a different axis from my opponents which means what I'm trying to do is often something they are not prepared to try and stop. This tends to make for bizarre games with weird strategies and crazy results and there is nothing I love more in my Magic games than weird strategies and crazy results!

Given all that, I naturally gravitated toward Etrata, the Silencer. Get three hit counters and an opponent loses the game! This sounds like a ton of fun! Then I started to put the deck together and discovered a few problems.

I need to hit an opponent three times. This means that I'm casting Etrata, the Silencer, then waiting a turn, then swinging. Then recasting Etrata on the second main phase. Then on my next turn I'm swinging, then recasting Etrata on the second main phase. Then on my next turn I'm swinging, before I can claim my victory. This means that I'm spending four, then six, then eight mana, to kill one opponent. This is assuming no one wipes the board, that I have the mana to do this on three consecutive turns, and that the opponent in question is kind enough to have a creature (not a token creature, but a creature card) on the battlefield for three consecutive turns that I can target.

The next problem lies with the multiplayer nature of my Magic games. Perhaps if you are only interested in killing a single opponent, this will work, but most fun decks I've played with and against are looking to try to win the game against all the opponents, not just one. Taking down three opponents with this plan simply takes too long and is unfeasible. Once a player has a second hit counter on cards in exile, Etrata will be the target of every bounce or removal spell available, since she'll just be able to eliminate that player in a single combat and there will be little your board state can do to stop that. Given that, you'll want to focus on one player at a time, because if one player focusing everything on Etrata (and you) sounds like a nightmare scenario, imagine how much worse it would be if two or more players found themselves in that position?

So are there ways around this? Of course! Helm of the Host and other assorted ways around the legend rule would let you swing at one opponent with multiple Etratas! Myriad would let you create copies of Etrata that swing at everyone. Even something as mundane as Swiftfoot Boots can increase the pace at which you eliminate an opponent. Some well-timed bounce spells can get around the going to the Command Zone or getting shuffled into the library issues, so you would just have to recast her every turn. Another option is running her with Doomsday. Soon enough your library will be tiny and drawing her wouldn't be an issue.

While I appreciate the joy of putting together a Rube Goldberg machine as much as anyone, I've already done that with my Grenzo, Dungeon Warden deck (that's another article), and I don't really feel the urge to do it again.

The problem is that I really like Etrata, the Silencer! I started to wonder if the problem I was having with her was due to a focus on a part of the card. What if I took out the whole "player loses the game" line of text? Now I have an unblockable creature that hits for three, with 5 toughness, that can take out the most troublesome creature on the battlefield? What if I put Etrata into play and left her to sit there like a rattlesnake? She would warn away plenty of attacks if players thought they were going to lose their best creature. She would likely leave some players reluctant to play their good creatures until they had a way to deal with Etrata. These are all valid solutions, but I decided to try something dramatically different.

What if we put her in a deck that wasn't even a Commander deck? A 60-card casual deck would allow us to run four copies of her so she would go into the library and we'd never have to deal with a Commander tax! I'm still not looking to use her alternate lose condition, but if that happens to take out a player, so be it! A 60-card casual deck also means a starting life total of 20, so things can move along nicely!

Etrata, the Puzzle Solver | Casual | Bruce Richard

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Baleful Strix
• 2 Chasm Skulker
• 2 Psychosis Crawler
• 2 Tandem Lookout
• 2 Toothy, Imaginary Friend
• 4 Dream Eater
• 4 Etrata, the Silencer

• Instants (7)
• 1 Commit // Memory
• 3 Arcane Denial
• 3 Hero's Downfall

• Artifacts (11)
• 3 Teferi's Puzzle Box
• 4 Dimir Locket
• 4 Swiftfoot Boots

• Lands (24)
• 4 Swamp
• 8 Island
• 2 Drowned Catacomb
• 2 Rogue's Passage
• 4 Fetid Pools
• 4 Temple of Deceit

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The true joy of the Puzzle Box is the difficulty it puts on your opponents to try to play Magic from their hand! They can't hold their tricks and surprises in hand for the perfect moment, since they know they will disappear on their next turn. This means the likelihood of your spells being successfully cast goes way up!

Given the "rotational" nature of the deck, I've kept our instants and sorceries to a minimum. I chose Commit and Arcane Denial as they both offer some card draw and surprise opponents when we have them. If we have them, don't play that desperation game our opponents are playing; wait for our opponents to play their key spells before we try and counter them. If it means that we don't have the counters in hand, then we don't. Don't focus too heavily on that. Remember that we do have an extra card in your hand, which means we'll see Etrata, or another way to deal with their spell just a little faster.

Psychosis Crawler, Chasm Skulker, and Toothy, Imaginary Friend all use the card draw from the Puzzle Box to their advantage. Chasm Skulker will get massive very quickly when we are drawing six or seven cards on each of our turns. If our opponents manage to take it down, we'll be getting a stack of tiny squids that can overrun them very quickly. Toothy offers much of the same, except when Toothy leaves, we'll have massive card draw! Psychosis Crawler may not get as big as the Skulker but most players are aware of the danger of leaving this card in play for too long. If it sticks around through our draw step with a Puzzle Box on the battlefield, they will all be losing seven life, so the Crawler can end games in a hurry! It will be interesting to see how your opponents handle Toothy and either the Crawler or the Skulker on the battlefield at the same time! They'll need to be very careful about the extra damage the Psychosis Crawler will do when Toothy leaves the battlefield or the extra 1/1 squids from the Chasm Skulker! It may even make sense to use our Hero's Downfall on Toothy, just to give us a ridiculous Skulker or pile up damage on our opponents with a Psychosis Crawler! Finally, take note that these creatures don't have trample or other evasion, so the Rogue's Passage will be needed to make things particularly miserable for opposing players who were hoping their token creatures would be able to chump block.

Tandem Lookout is a card you don't see in decks very often, but with Etrata being unblockable, the Lookout offers some easy card draw. The extra cards are there to keep our hand up at seven cards. Etrata will get targeted so we'll want Teferi's Puzzle Box working hard for us to find the next one and Tandem Lookout helps with that. When Etrata isn't around, you can pair it with virtually any other creature. The Rogue's Passage can work here as well! Hitting an opponent for 13 with a Chasm Skulker that slipped through a Rogue's Passage while soulbonded with a Tandem Lookout adds another counter to the Skulker and another card to your hand!

The lands in this deck shouldn't be ignored either. Use the scry effect on the Temple of Deceit to get an extra card deeper into our library while searching for Etrata. Fetid Pools can be cycled, adding another card draw for the deck. Most importantly with our lands though: don't just dump them on the battlefield! Obviously, in the early turns we want to get our lands into play so we can play our spells. Just keep in mind that our most expensive spell is five mana, so once we've reached that plateau, keeping our lands in our hand may be a better move. Teferi's Puzzle Box only moves as fast as the number of cards we have in our hand. If we are dropping our ninth land to go down to five cards in hand and that land isn't doing anything for us, we should think about hanging on to it so we can draw an extra card on the next turn. There will be plenty of turns when we have too many cards in hand and dumping a land will make sense. Our hand size is very important with this deck so keep that in mind.

I hope you enjoyed this look at Etrata, the Silencer in a 60-card casual deck; if you run her in your own 60-card list, I'd love to see it! If you decide to take the plunge and run her in a Commander deck, I'd love to see your list too! These kinds of commanders often produce very creative lists as players try to get around the limitations and make them work! I hope my list suggested a few cards that will work for you!

Bruce

@manaburned