Readers!

I have had a lot of fun playing with creatures that exile my opponents' creatures only to allow me to play them myself. I say this a lot, but I think it's absolutely reasonable to turn all of your basic lands into Snow-Covered basic lands for Draugr Necromancer. I feel similarly about Gisa, Glorious Resurrector and Dauthi Voidwalker, at least about whether they're playable, not whether you should change up your basics for those cards. You can, it's not illegal. Realistically, if you're playing one of those cards, I advocate playing all of them. It is a little messy if you entirely shut down someone's graveyard deck, but considering Draugr Necromancer really shuts down loops rather than exiling cards from their deck or hand, you're stopping the most annoying and unfair kind of graveyard deck and leaving the rest unscathed. Let's see Leyline of the Void do that.

I bring up my favorite ways to turn their creatures into my creatures because the new way to let their dead creatures fuel our endeavors just dropped and while it's not as much fun as putting a bunch of creatures into play, it does give us other advantages, it starts out in the Command Zone and it lets us play Rogues and Mercenaries and a tribe that has never gotten enough love, Assassins. Sound good? It does to me!

Similar to the other cards I listed, Mari is only going to exile creatures that die, meaning it's far from a maindeck Leyline of the Void and will play very similarly to Gisa. If we have multiple of these effects out, we choose which one we'd like to resolve, meaning it's not a nonbo with a card like Draugr Necromancer, a card whose name you'll hear again, I'm sure. The payoff for exiling a card with Mari rather than Necromancer is that you can get some cards and some treasure to play the stuff out of your hand and leave your lands from Drauganigans. Necromanigans? Draumfoolery? To play stuff with Gisa and Voidwalker. Those shenanigans.

I never get to play with Assassins and I decided maybe I should since they seem to do double duty in a deck like this - they are great at pinpoint removal on their creatures which lets you put a hit counter on their creatures and get those sweet, sweet card draw triggers but they also let you draw those cards if you draw blood with them. That said, in a world where Rogues exists, I can't imagine trying to hit someone with a three-mana 1/1 with no evasion and that has to tap to kill creatures. How do I make building this deck fun when it basically builds itself? The answer is to build it Assassin tribal, obviously. You don't need me to tell you how to build the stock Rogues list, EDHREC exists. You come to me for crazy nonsense, and considering you said "I bet $100 he puts a copy of Ritual of the Machine in this deck" when you clicked on the link to this article, I shall deliver on the crazy nonsense you crave.

Insert Assassin Pun Here | Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mari, the Killing Quill

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Agent of the Fates
• 1 Big Game Hunter
• 1 Changeling Outcast
• 1 Cruel Sadist
• 1 Dark Impostor
• 1 Dauthi Voidwalker
• 1 Draugr Necromancer
• 1 Garza's Assassin
• 1 Grim Hireling
• 1 Guul Draz Assassin
• 1 Kiku, Night's Flower
• 1 King's Assassin
• 1 Massacre Girl
• 1 Massacre Wurm
• 1 Morbid Opportunist
• 1 Nekrataal
• 1 Notorious Assassin
• 1 Rathi Assassin
• 1 Royal Assassin
• 1 Scarblade Elite
• 1 Serpent Assassin
• 1 Silent Assassin
• 1 Silumgar Assassin
• 1 Stronghold Assassin
• 1 Suq'Ata Assassin
• 1 Tsabo's Assassin
• 1 Virtus the Veiled
• 1 Vraska's Finisher

• Instants (8)
• 1 Defile
• 1 Dismember
• 1 Feign Death
• 1 Go for the Throat
• 1 Hero's Demise
• 1 Malicious Affliction
• 1 Supernatural Stamina
• 1 Undying Evil

• Sorceries (9)
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Feed the Swarm
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Pact of the Serpent
• 1 Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1 Ritual of the Machine
• 1 Sign in Blood
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Toxic Deluge

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Black Market
• 1 Cover of Darkness
• 1 Grave Pact
• 1 No Mercy
• 1 Palace Siege
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1 Revel in Riches

• Artifacts (12)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Charcoal Diamond
• 1 Glaring Spotlight
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sunstone
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Vorpal Sword
• 1 Whip of Erebos

• Lands (35)
• 30 Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Detection Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage

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This seems like a lot of fun. Some of our creatures are clunky, but I cut the truly dreadful creatures and just jammed some fun Enchantments rather than play a 5-drop that can only kill a creature that was already dealt damage. That said, cards like Suq'ata Assassin and Changeling Outcast seem perfect for this deck.

Decks like this, I usually like to make sure I can't be hit but I am killing enough of their creatures that No Mercy and Dread can be enough on top of Sunstone. If it's not, you can consider a few cards like Crawlspace, or maybe just kill more creatures. I don't like board wipes as a rule, but if you have to run them, cards like Supernatural Stamina can keep your commander alive so you can benefit.

That does it for me this week, readers. Don't forget to share this on social media and leave a comment below. Thanks for reading - until next time!