I keep a list of ideas for articles on my phone. Sometimes an idea pops up or someone suggests something and I'm not ready to do it right then, so it makes sense to hold on to those ideas. I was looking at that list recently and noticed my editor had suggested today's Commander as a possible interesting one. I took a look today and agreed - and in fact, I think it might be fun to spend some time with some of the lesser-known Phyrexians, starting with this one.

While I wouldn't want to live in a world like this, I enjoy the idea from a storytelling perspective of everyone being out for themselves. Vraan is this little 2/2, but I like his spunk - "...I will stand alone as the true Father of Machines." Dude is cocky.

From a mechanical standpoint, though, he's a reasonable Aristocrats Commander. No built-in sacrifice effect, even for mana, and he only triggers once per turn, but he hits each opponent for two and he only costs two mana. We can work with this.

We've got 40 Lands. That should get us to three almost every game without missing a drop, and often to four, at which point we're rolling just fine, so we don't need to devote a bunch of slots to ramp. We do have a little, but mostly it's for other reasons: Crowded Crypt can become a whole bunch of Creatures to sacrifice, Transmogrant Altar is a sacrifice outlet, Burnished Hart sacrifices itself, and Solemn Simulacrum is Solemn Simulacrum.

The more Commander I play, the more I value card draw, and this deck is no exception. The nice thing is, the vast majority of card draw helps us in some other way. Vampiric Rites is probably one of the best draw spells we've got; we pay two mana and sacrifice a Creature (which we want to do anyway), plus we draw a card and gain an additional life. And we can do this as much as we have mana. We also have some one-off spells which do similar things like Corrupted Conviction, plus a couple of Exploit Creatures like Vulturous Aven which can Exploit themselves for cards. Either way, most of the time we're drawing by sacrificing Creatures, which keeps our engine running.

This is a good thing, because there are kind of two obvious ways to go with Vraan - tokens and reanimator - and this deck sort of does neither. I mean, it makes some tokens, but it doesn't make a ton of them. It also reanimates a little, but it isn't doing a ton of reanimation. Mostly, it counts on grinding out value by churning through the deck, keeping people off threats with Fleshbag Mauraders and the occasional kill spell, and driving life totals down just by existing. We have some Creatures which bring themselves back like Reassembling Skeleton, and Victimize is too good a spell to not run, but for the most part we're going to play stuff from our hand, sacrifice it, and never see it again. That's okay, though, because more often than not we'll draw a card or two to replace it, plus we'll often make a token or something as it goes.

We can target the occasional threat. Annihilating Glare will almost always be a cheap spell for us, and we have stuff like Silumgar Butcher and Shriekmaw to attempt to hold off anything huge. We can also block a lot, because our blockers will mostly die, which will trigger Vraan. It's also worth noting we'll be gaining a fair bit of life as the game goes on, making us harder and harder to kill; we'll die to an unanswered combo, but so will everyone else, right?

We have a number of sac outlets, mostly because I find people tend to target them, and many of ours are on Creatures, so they die all the time. It's important to figure out what your board presence should be as you go along - don't play out a sacrifice outlet just because you have it. However, if you draw a free one, it might be worth playing that even if you have a non-free one because you need to save the mana. Additionally, you might want to play out a Creature-based outlet one because you actually need the Creature to sacrifice. You don't want to be greedy, but don't be overly miserly either - keep rolling through Creatures, drawing cards and forcing life totals down.

Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools is our only Planeswalker, and a solid one in this build. He can make Creatures to sacrifice, he can function as a sacrifice outlet, and if we manage to hit his Ultimate we probably win the game. Seems like fun.

We do have a few additional effects to go with Vraan. Agent of the Iron Throne is the Background Vraan should have but doesn't. Drivnod, Carnage Dominus doubles up on Vraan's ability, and Syr Konrad, the Grim is a great guest at this party. I find any of those three will accelerate the clock substantially; more than one and it really starts ticking.

We also want to watch our triggers. Dreadhorde Invasion is our Bitterblossom; make sure you sacrifice or kill that token every turn so we get another one. (This is an excellent use of Skullclamp, by the way.) Ghoulish Procession is surprisingly effective. Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia keeps us in tokens as well, and works especially well with Braids, Arisen Nightmare, since we can stack our End Step to make the Zombie, then sacrifice it to Braids and force everyone else to sac or let us draw. Butcher of Malakir turns all our Creatures into Fleshbags, and Gray Merchant of Asphodel is now a rather classic way for a Mono-Black deck like this one to push over the finish line.

Vraan, Executioner Thane | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Vraan, Executioner Thane

• Creatures (34)
• 1 Braids, Arisen Nightmare
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Butcher of Malakir
• 1 Carrier Thrall
• 1 Carrion Feeder
• 1 Cult Conscript
• 1 Drivnod, Carnage Dominus
• 1 Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
• 1 Fell Stinger
• 1 Fleshbag Marauder
• 1 Graf Reaver
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Grim Haruspex
• 1 Gutterbones
• 1 Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia
• 1 Loathsome Curator
• 1 Merciless Executioner
• 1 Midnight Reaper
• 1 Morbid Opportunist
• 1 Pawn of Ulamog
• 1 Persistent Specimen
• 1 Plaguecrafter
• 1 Rakshasa Gravecaller
• 1 Reassembling Skeleton
• 1 Rot-Tide Gargantua
• 1 Scorn-Blade Berserker
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Silumgar Butcher
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 Vermin Gorger
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Vulturous Aven
• 1 Woe Strider

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

• Instants (8)
• 1 Altar's Reap
• 1 Body Count
• 1 Corrupted Conviction
• 1 Costly Plunder
• 1 Deadly Dispute
• 1 Plumb the Forbidden
• 1 Reckoner's Bargain
• 1 Village Rites

• Sorceries (2)
• 1 Annihilating Glare
• 1 Victimize

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Agent of the Iron Throne
• 1 Dreadhorde Invasion
• 1 Ghoulish Procession
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Vampiric Rites

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Altar of Dementia
• 1 Crowded Crypt
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Spawning Pit
• 1 Transmogrant Altar
• 1 Transmogrant's Crown
• 1 Vat of Rebirth
• 1 Witch's Cauldron
• 1 Witch's Oven

• Lands (40)
• 27 Swamp
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 High Market
• 1 Leechridden Swamp
• 1 Memorial to Folly
• 1 Mortuary Mire
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 The Dross Pits
• 1 War Room
• 1 Witch's Cottage

Buy This Deck Export text format

I made a number of decisions for budgetary reasons. Despite not giving myself a budget for this particular build, I often find myself frustrated with Magic content which seemingly gives no concern to budget at all. If you are building an $800 deck, at least mention it so someone knows what they're getting into. I once read an article about getting into competitive Oathbreaker - the article spun itself as "competitive Oathbreaker is super fun! You should give it a try!" That, to me, sounds like a great way to encourage someone to test it with an inexpensive deck. The cheapest of the four decks listed was over $1500, and the two most expensive both included Timetwister and clocked in at $6000 each. And Timetwister wasn't even mentioned.

So, I'm going to continue to build with cheaper cards and mention more expensive updates at the end. And if I put an expensive card in the deck - a relative thing, to be sure, but on average anything over $10 or $15 is, in my mind, expensive, and a common worth $5 is worth a mention - I'll at least mention it and note why it's in the deck.

There are a few cards which would go in this deck nicely, though. Boosting Butcher of Malakir with Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos would be good. Crypt Ghast is always an excellent inclusion in a Mono-Black deck, and frankly the Extort goes with the theme. Pitiless Plunderer, of course, is fantastic in a deck which sacrifices a bunch of Creatures. I like Ashnod's Altar as a sac outlet, but it needs a reprint, I guess. And Liliana, Dreadhorde General, with her token creation, card draw, and forced sacrifices, would be fantastic.

The final card I really want is Sidisi, Undead Vizier. Sidisi is interesting; they're a face-down tutor, which is kind of a no-no in casual Commander, but they are also costly. We have to pay five mana, we have to sacrifice a Creature (which granted, we're using to our advantage, but still), and we get a whopping one card in a deck where individual card quality is not, actually, all that high. I have decks where Sidisi is the only tutor I run because I feel like they're the only actual fair one out there, though it gets sticky if you're reanimating them or if your group is particularly touchy about tutors, so think on this one a fair bit before you stretch your budget for it.

As always, I'd love to hear from you on social media. Please feel free to reach out - how do you feel about this kind of synergistic deck? How about face-down tutors? What about budgets - should content creators be more forthcoming about budget of decks? Or does it matter? Please let me know!

Thanks for reading.