All of this made me want to revisit 1995’s “Sudden Death”, a movie that seems to have a lot going for it. It features a showdown between the Blackhawks and Penguins (a rematch of the 1992 Stanley Cup finals, a series I’d rather not talk about), a kidnapped US Vice President, explosives, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Powers Boothe, and did I mention the Blackhawks? It’s like they made a movie based on my 1995 AOL metacrawler search results. The problem with targeting a movie at basically just me is that it lost money at the Box office in the USA but more than made up for it in Europe where it sold a lot of Laserdisc copies. Critics hated it at the time but in retrospect, it’s probably JCVD’s best movie apart from Kickboxer and Bloodsport. I bet people wish they had been kinder to the movie at the time, not knowing this was the beginning of the end for Van Damme. I mean, 1996’s “The Quest” was pretty cool, but after that he made a movie where he was his own twin and people stopped taking him seriously. After that it was all him trying to appeal to EDH players, making a movie called “Double Impact” the aforementioned twin movie, and then a movie called “Double Team” with Dennis Rodman which may as well have featured him jumping over a shark tank on a motorcycle. So why do I love Sudden Death so much even after all these years? It’s simple.

Powers Boothe.

American Hero, Powers Boothe has been an inspiration to film-going audiences everywhere since his portrayal as “only non-murdered or detained American adult” in Red Dawn. If you don’t like Red Dawn, you may be a Commander player and you’re just used to cringing every time someone mentions “red” because, seriously, when are they going to give Red better Commander cards? Powers Boothe is this generation’s John Wayne and he’ll slap you with his mustache if you disagree. Why is he such a hero of mine? Simple. In Sudden Death, he utters the single best line of dialogue ever uttered in the history of cinema.

“How would you like it if I filled your mouth with spiders?”

I’ve been saying that since 1995. That’s 21 years of quoting the best villain of all time. Bear in mind, he said this to a little girl in the movie, which makes it even more intense. Thank you, Powers Boothe for 21 years of threatening to smite the mouths of my enemies with squirming arachnids. Now that the quote is old enough to drink, I decided to celebrate its 21st birthday by filling something else with spiders. How about the library of a Magic deck? How would you like it if I filled the red zone with spiders? Until now, it involved playing Red and Green so you could play Dragonlair Spider (not a great spider, to be perfectly frank) or B/G. Personally, if I were going to build a spider deck I would have Doran be the commander. I have access to White board sweepers and removal, all of my 7 toughness spiders would be threats on offense as well as defense, plus a third thing. We don’t have to trifle with Doran anymore, or White. The dark reaches of the forests near Hanweir (I mean, probably, I’m not a nerd so I don’t know) have spawned a spider legend so saucy that we have no choice but to drop what we were doing and build around it. I’m, of course, talking about this bad boy.

This puts us in B/G, which provides perfect ways to fill your graveyard with goodies and it is a way to Shaman of the Pack them to death with your spider count. Why are both the number of cards in your yard and the number of spiders in play so relevant? Oh, I don’t know, maybe because of this bad boy that everyone but Brian David-Marshall seems to overlook in commander, to their own detriment.

Apparently Tappedout user _SeriosSkies_ is “the spider guy” at his LGS and everyone was tripping over themselves to bring Ishkanah to his attention. There weren’t as many people clamoring for a legendary spider as there were for a legendary werewolf but spider guys get the last laugh here. Werewolf fans got the legend they asked for but not the legend they wanted. Spider fans got the card they wanted without even having to ask for it. Talk about a win! I like _SeriosSkies_’s list an awful lot and I think using it as a basis for the Ishkanah list I want to build is a good choice. This deck isn’t a Doran-type deck where he’s trying to leverage big toughness, nor is it a Meren combo deck, nor is it a Sidisi dredge deck that happens to murder people in their sensitive face meat like BDM’s Sidisi Spider Spawning deck (not that there’s anything wrong with that). From what I can tell, _SeriosSkies_ wants to summon spiders and summon them hard. I want to be about that life, because I want my commander to come down and I want it (her? Widow referring to a spider whose spider husband died or is a grafwidow like a black widow? There are male black widows, right?) to be a Spikeshot Elder for faces. I think Illusionist's Bracers would not go amiss in the deck I’m envisioning, for example. Our commander isn’t going to be the only way we make our opponents wish they had brought a can of RAID into battle with them, but I sure do want to see the look on an opponent’s face when I smack them for 50 damage for a “mere” 14 mana. EDH should be fun. So if I’m using someone else’s deck as a basis for mine, what does that deck look like?

Doran?s Web ? EDH | _SeriosSkies_ via tappedout

• Commander (1)
• 1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Acid Web Spider
• 1 Aquastrand Spider
• 1 Arachnoid
• 1 Arachnus Spinner
• 1 Archweaver
• 1 Canopy Spider
• 1 Deadly Recluse
• 1 Ember Weaver
• 1 Frostweb Spider
• 1 Giant Spider
• 1 Gloomwidow
• 1 Goliath Spider
• 1 Graverobber Spider
• 1 Hitchclaw Recluse
• 1 Jungle Weaver
• 1 Juvenile Gloomwidow
• 1 Kessig Recluse
• 1 Netcaster Spider
• 1 Nyx Weaver
• 1 Oran-Rief Recluse
• 1 Penumbra Spider
• 1 Pincer Spider
• 1 Plated Spider
• 1 Renowned Weaver
• 1 Rib Cage Spider
• 1 Root Spider
• 1 Sentinel Spider
• 1 Silklash Spider
• 1 Skysnare Spider
• 1 Somberwald Spider
• 1 Spitting Spider
• 1 Sporecap Spider
• 1 Stingerfling Spider
• 1 Tangle Spider
• 1 Watcher in the Web
• 1 Woolly Spider

• Spells (25)
• 1 Arachnogenesis
• 1 Eaten by Spiders
• 1 Gloomwidow's Feast
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Increasing Ambition
• 1 Jarad's Orders
• 1 Primal Growth
• 1 Spider Spawning
• 1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 1 Arachnus Web
• 1 Assault Formation
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Behold the Beyond
• 1 Deadbridge Chant
• 1 Descendants' Path
• 1 Evolutionary Leap
• 1 Lurking Predators
• 1 Necropotence
• 1 Spider Umbra
• 1 Birthing Pod
• 1 Eldrazi Monument

• Lands (38)
• 16 Forest
• 9 Swamp
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 High Market
• 1 Hissing Quagmire
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Swarmyard
• 1 Tainted Wood
• 1 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

Buy This Deck

This is a very solid list and a good basis. However, I want to focus a little bit more on getting stuff into the yard, getting it out, and spiderblastingTM them into bolivian. I think we have an excellent base and with a few modifications, I think we could have a pretty decent 75% spider deck. Here’s what I would do with this base plus our new situation.

Arachnophilia ? EDH | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Acid Web Spider
• 1 Aquastrand Spider
• 1 Arachnus Spinner
• 1 Archweaver
• 1 Deadly Recluse
• 1 Frostweb Spider
• 1 Gloomwidow
• 1 Goliath Spider
• 1 Graverobber Spider
• 1 Jungle Weaver
• 1 Juvenile Gloomwidow
• 1 Kessig Recluse
• 1 Netcaster Spider
• 1 Nyx Weaver
• 1 Oran-Rief Recluse
• 1 Penumbra Spider
• 1 Pincer Spider
• 1 Plated Spider
• 1 Renowned Weaver
• 1 Rib Cage Spider
• 1 Sentinel Spider
• 1 Sewer Nemesis
• 1 Silklash Spider
• 1 Skysnare Spider
• 1 Somberwald Spider
• 1 Spitting Spider
• 1 Splinterfright
• 1 Sporecap Spider
• 1 Stingerfling Spider
• 1 Tangle Spider
• 1 Watcher in the Web
• 1 Vulturous Zombie

• Spells (29)
• 1 Arachnogenesis
• 1 Eaten by Spiders
• 1 Gloomwidow's Feast
• 1 Golgari Charm
• 1 Grapple With the Past
• 1 Grisly Salvage
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Eldritch Evolution
• 1 Increasing Ambition
• 1 Living Death
• 1 Mulch
• 1 Patriarch's Bidding
• 1 Primal Growth
• 1 Rise of the Dark Realms
• 1 Shared Trauma
• 1 Spider Spawning
• 1 Arachnus Web
• 1 Assault Formation
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Deadbridge Chant
• 1 Descendants' Path
• 1 Evolutionary Leap
• 1 Lurking Predators
• 1 Perilous Forays
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Birthing Pod
• 1 Eldrazi Monument
• 1 Illusionist's Bracers

• Lands (38)
• 15 Forest
• 9 Swamp
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 High Market
• 1 Hissing Quagmire
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Svogthos, The Restless Tomb
• 1 Swarmyard
• 1 Tainted Wood
• 1 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

Buy This Deck

My second version leans a bit more toward self-mill and I cut a few cards I think were just in the deck because they were spiders (or said “spider” on them in the case of spider umbra). I still tried to preserve the core of being a spider tribal deck but I added a few creatures that help us mill ourselves or benefit from doing so. I also added a few spells like Mulch and Grisly Salvage to both help us find our mill and mill ourselves. I feel like the deck needs a few mana rocks, and since I increased the average mana cost of the deck with my tinkering (I took out weaker spiders and left in one that would make a bigger impact, which might end up being a mistake) and I think this will take some serious play-testing before it resembles a pile you want to sleeve up for realsies. I think what this deck represents is how I would steer a workable, fun spider deck that someone else built until I have completely hijacked it and made it into something a little different. Since _SeriosSkies_ updated tappedout to say he’s well aware of the new spidery overlord and is adjusting his list accordingly, I’m very excited to see what he comes up with.

I jammed a few cards from the new set into this pile half because I like how they fit in the deck and half to give us a chance to play-test them a bit. I think Grapple with the Past works pretty well in this deck and I think Eldritch Evolution is a good way to turn a spider into a better spider and put a spider in the yard. These cards are likely both good enough to make the finished deck. Nephalia Academy may very well become a Commander staple but it’s not what we’re about here, although I looked at all of Eldritch Moon’s spoilers so far looking for inspiration. I think the cards we’re using are what has been spoiled so far that we’ll like.

Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding are a very explosive way to benefit from filling our board full of spiders. If we get a Spider Spawning off followed by a bidding, we could very easily have enough spiders to 1-shot people with our commander for only 7 mana. That’s the dream, isn’t it? As much as I have added a few non-spiders like Vulturous Zombie, I haven’t added non-spiders like Craterhoof Behemoth. I think we have enough SpidernanigansTM for a victory. If we get our board wiped, a Living Death, a Bidding or a Rise of the Dark Realms can put us right back into the hunt.

I like how easy it will be to trigger Delirium, how fun it will be to make hella spiders and how hard we’re going to crack people with Ishkanah’s activated ability. I wish Brainstorm Brewery had made a ½ spider token in advance of this card’s revelation, but maybe that can be the next one we do. Enough cards make ½ spiders and we’re going to make a ton of them with this deck.

What do we think? Should I have left the original deck alone? Did I not go far enough toward making this a dredge-type deck? Would you have made lots of different choices? Are you way more excited about Ishkanah than you are Ulrich, like I am? Leave it in the comments section. Join me next week where we’ll have more cards to brew with and more ideas than ever. Until next time!