A Guide to Bleeding Them Out in Commander

Posted on May 26, 2023

Three Opponents. One hundred and twenty life.

Commander often sees this obstacle conquered via Voltron'd brawlers or infinite combo wins. The former is helped by Commander Damage, which brings the requirement down to 63 (21 damage per player), albeit inflicted exclusively via your general. The latter couldn't care less what life total everyone's at. Infinite damage/life/creatures/mana/margaritas opens many an easy path to victory. But if we're not suiting up our Commander in power armor or assembling the combo-engine-of-doom, how else might we scale that 120-step ladder?

Exsanguinate by Carl Critchlow

"Tell me, do you bleed? You will."

Today's flavor of choice is the Bleeder strategy in Commander. I'm not talking about Vampires, though many are part of the club. Bleeder strategies are those that slowly drain the life out of opponents, often simultaneously. Death by a thousand cuts. What seems like an early nuisance grows more and more dire as spin-down dice lose digits. This strategy has been with us since Magic's onset, with cards like Cursed Land, Warp Artifact, and Pestilence leeching away at life totals way back in 1993. The thematic feel of the technique suites Black, as creeping infections and growing curses are staples in its arsenal. Work your way up the timeline, and you'll see more examples in Antiquites (Haunting Wind), Legends (Underworld Dreams), The Dark (Curse Artifact), Ice Age (Withering Wisps, Gangrenous Zombies), and heck, even Homelands (Dry Spell).

Jump from past to present, and Bleeder cards still make sanguine waves across multiple formats. Exsanguinate regularly finishes off Commander opponents. Feast of Ravens and Ill-Gotten Inheritance were Limited all-stars. Creeping Bloodsucker from Jumpstart 2022 is a $2+ dollar common. And let's not forget the Phyrexian queen currently reigning over Standard...

"Go right ahead, darling. Draw all the cards you'd like."

Much like the Incremental Burn we discussed in a Guide to Burn in Commander, many Bleeder cards strike creatures and players in equal measure. Thrashing Wumpus, Last Laugh, and Crypt Rats are able to deplete your opponents' armies alongside their life totals. This is key, as once your drain game builds, players will realize how much those small bites add up. This idea of "the best defense is a good offense" is a philosophy the colors share. In this regard, it's no surprise Black overlaps well with Red, as both are skilled at all things death and destruction. Red even got a color-shifted Pestilence in the form of Pyrohemia. Red leans more into the pure Burn (Kessig Flamebreather, Impact Tremors, etc.) than it does some of Black's more life-drain aspects (Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, ect.), but the same gleeful spirit applies. Death approaches slowly, be it ever-growing cinder or spreading corruption. Combine them into pure Rakdos, and you end up with nasty combat (Garna, Bloodfist of Keld, Kardur, Doomscourge) and sacrifice (Judith, the Scourge Diva, Deathbringer Thoctar) Bleeder synergies. All this partying makes for the perfect opportunity to trigger copious Spectacle cards like Theatre of Horrors and Light up the Stage so as not to run out of gas before the night's over.

While we're on Ravnica, we should mention another Guild that enjoys bleeding its victims. Only in the case of the Orzhov Syndicate, the drain is as much financial as it is physical. Conceived in the original Guildpact as a fusion bank/clergy/mafia, the Orzhov play-style boils down to attrition. Enemy life totals are withered away as you collect tithes and "late fees" from players late on their bills. Early examples include Blind Hunter and Agent of Masks, but the guild would eventually get an entire mechanic built around the concept: Extort. Cards like Pontiff of Blight and Blind Obdience provided repeatable sources of drain that scaled incredibly well with three opponents. It's no surprise ample vampires are in the Orzhov Guild, as bloodletting is part of their very business model (Cruel Celebrant, Tithe Taker, Debt to the Deathless). Outside the guild, White/Black in general have made this slow bleed a defining ability (Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Campaign of Vengeance, Drana's Emissary, etc). The lifegain aspect is be vital, as folks are none too happy when your bill collectors come a knocking.

Note: Another cool aspect to remember about Extort: Despite the presence of a White/Black Hybrid mana symbol in the reminder text, the color identity of your Commander deck isn't impacted by reminder text. Mono-White can run Syndic of Tithes. Mono-Black can run Thrull Parasite.

We've talked a lot about Ravnica, but the star of today's Commander deck dwells in another city. Granted, not by choice. Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin originally came to New Capenna to horde wealth and power, something he's made an entire career out of. Before his spark ignited, Ob Nixilis was a brutal warlord without a trace of empathy. Civilizations fell before his armies, but it was never enough to satiate his thirst for more. More power. More blood. More everything. It was only after he'd literally obliterated every living thing on his own plane that his spark ignited, turning him into Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath. Now free to crush other worlds, Ob eventually came into contact with The Chain Veil, which warped his already dark interior to an equally demonic exterior.

Already at could-easily-be-a-primary-antagonist levels of power, Ob ended up having his spark sealed away on Zendikar, losing his ability to planeswalk away from the plane. This is where we get the spark-free Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. It wouldn't be until Oath of the Gatewatch, where Ob essentially hijacked the Gatewatch's plan to seal the Eldrazi and used the intended energy to restore his own spark (Ob Nixilis Reignited). In essence, he doomed an entire plane to Eldritch oblivion just to get his spark back. Nice guy, huh? Sure, the good guys still won the day, but it's not like Ob cared either way.

It wouldn't be long before angry ole' Ob was stuck once again, this time on Ravnica due to Nicol Bolas's War of the Spark (Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted). Here, the demon managed to avoid losing his spark. Again. But he wouldn't be so lucky once he set sights on New Capenna (Ob Nixilis, the Adversary). New Capenna already played home to demonic crime lords, but Ob only saw this as a challenge. He personally slew Lord Xander, the Collector of the Maetros, and had fully intended on taking down the other four demon lords to claim full dominion, but Elspeth and Vivien put a stop to his plan. After Elesh Norn and her porcelain host breached the walls of the multiverse in the Phyrexian invasion, Ob and many other planeswalkers lost their spark. Now the demon is stuck on another world (again) and without a spark (again), only this time surrounded by very angry crime families hungry for revenge.

Guess it's true what they say: Crime doesn't pay.

"Starting to think I might deserve this."
...

"Nah."

As a Commander, Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin provides the perfect payoff for all the various Bleeder synergies Black and Red have to offer. Though Ob only triggers off of 1-damage increments, this level of damage/life loss has the most repeatable options to work with. That's key, as each instance of 1-life lost makes Ob into a bigger evasive threat while providing card advantage. As such, we're most interested in cards that deal 1 damage repeatedly. Setting up a Bleeder-engine, we'll seek to win via chopping down enemy vitality until a counter-laden Ob Nixilis can fly in for the kill. Our strategy is neither subtle or pleasant, so it's a good thing Rakdos has plenty of removal to keep us alive from counterattacks and retribution as we wither away our enemies.

Let Them Bleed | Commander | Matthew Lotti

Commander (1)
1 Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin

Sorceries (8)
1 Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Blood on the Snow
1 Breath of Darigaaz
1 Burn Down the House
1 Flame Jab
1 Light Up the Stage
1 Mana Clash

Fittingly, we built our Bleeder deck around one of Magic's earliest examples: Pestilence. Pestilence-effects do everything we're interested in: send damage in 1-point increments to all players, scale up to remove enemy armies that get too threatening, and best of all, never kill Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin, no matter how many times we use them. Because Ob gets a +1/+1 counter for each activation, this damage will never be enough to take him down. This nixes the drawback of Pestilence and Pyrohemia while bulking Ob into a lethal threat on a swept-clean board. And that's all before we even consider the multitudes of cards 'drawn' by Ob's exile effect. We can find additional copies of this effect via cards like Thrashing Wumpus, Withering Wisps, and Crypt Rats. With the rats, note that while a single activation will kill them, you can respond to the first activation with a second before the first resolves. Rinse and repeat as many times as you can pay for, and while the rats will indeed bite the dirt, their pile of effects will continue to resolve after the first slays them. The presence of multiple Pestilence-effects also provides a large degree of board control, as each can act as a sweeper with enough mana invested. With ample creatures in play, Last Laugh can also do the job for only four mana. Other board wipes like Breath of Darigaaz and Burn down the House provide flexibility, allowing us to either sweep the board or trigger Ob. All the while, Stuffy Doll and Brash Taunter are only too happy to soak up all this damage and send it elsewhere.

Our other spells might not hit everything on the board, but they'll provide repeated 1-damage increments for no additional mana invested. Stormfist Crusader, Creeping Bloosucker, Gibbering Fiend, Kederekt Parasite, Soot Imp, Barbed Wire, Roiling Vortex, and Forsaken Wastes continually chip away at opponents, with the latter even preventing them from gaining life back. Other repeat-damage effects are more punishing in nature, essentially taxing our opponents with damage if they want to tap lands (Manabarbs), draw extra cards (Zurzoth, Chaos Rider, remove our creatures (Blood Artist, Syr Konrad, the Grim, Dreadhound, Flameblade Angel, Garna, Bloodfist of Keld, Judith, the Scourge Diva), or dare attack us (Marchesa's Decree). Or heck, why bother making our opponents tip-toe around these effects when we can generate free bleeds just by playing the game? Plenty of 1-damage bonuses fire off by simply playing lands (Tunneling Geopede, Sunscorched Desert), attacking opponents (Hellrider), or playing out our spells (Defiler of Instinct, Urabrask // The Great Work).

Before we get too warped up with all this bloodletting, let's not overlook Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin's habit of putting cards into the exile zone for us to cast later. This synergizes perfectly with the likes of Prosper, Tome Bound and Wild-Magic Sorcerer. We've additional card advantage via Garna, Bloodfist of Keld and Stormfist Crusader, but it's our Commander that'll provide the most. Ob's presence as both source of card-advantage and gigantic threat warrant copious protection via the likes of Whispersilk Cloak, Swiftfoot Boots, and Lightning Greaves. That each of these equipment make our general even faster or more evasive is delicious gravy.

But just in case Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin can't get through to deal the final points of damage, we've a few combos to seal our opponents' fate. All Will Be One is the simplest, yet most devastating of these. With this Enchantment in play, our commander needs only a single instance of 1-life lost to start a chain reaction. He'll get a counter, All Will Be One will deal 1 damage, Ob will get a counter in response, and All Will Be One will deal another damage, giving Ob yet another counter. In short order, everyone's very, very dead. Alternatively, we can do away with our commander entirely and rely on the talents of Master of Cruelties. Clear the board or get him in for damage, and he'll only need to connect once for every bleeder source to become an immediate KO.

For any threats who shrug off or are immune to damage, we bring in some Rakdos classics like Terminate, Bedevil, and Rakdos Charm. Note that while Rakdos Charm can deal a lot of damage, it adds up all instances from each creature and deals it all at once, meaning Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin won't trigger unless an opponent has exactly one creature in play. The rest of our removal only dishes out 1-damage bites, but comes with recursion. Both Death Spark and Flame Jab allow for repeated casting, resulting in multiple counters and exiled cards for Ob, or dead 1-toughness critters for opponents.

Plenty of life-loss options dwell among our mana, as well. Spikefield Hazard // Spikefield Cave, Sunscorched Desert, Piranha Marsh, Keldon Megaliths, Shivan Gorge, Leechridden Swamp, and Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance all provide bleeding that doesn't eat up a spell slot. We even managed to find a vampiric mana rock via Cryptolith Fragment, which will once flipped, drains players for 3 while still allowing us to trigger Ob Nixilis off its 1-power evasive body.

Kederekt Parasite by Dan Scott

Next time your opponents shuffle up at the Commander Table and see Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin staring back at them, their concerns are most likely to revolve around the demon. In reality, it's all the little bites of life lose that'll do the majority of the work. Ob will simply bat cleanup. That's the dark beauty of the Bleeder strategy: No one worries about the loss of 1 life here and there. At first. But as the game progresses and numbers tick ever steadily downward, your foes will come to respect how frightening this strategy can be. A thousand cuts cleave deeper than a single laceration.

Thanks for reading, and may you never underestimate 1 point of life lost.

-Matt-

@Intrepid_Tautog