View of Haarlem with Bleaching Fields by Jacob Van Ruisdael (1665-70). Pillage by Jesper Ejsing.

I build a lot of decks, but of late I haven't been building many of them in paper. I've been assembling decklists and occasionally playing them online, but my paper EDH game has been lagging a bit. I play once or twice a week and I love shuffling up a new stack of 100 Magic cards for a game. My expectations vary from deck to deck and every once in a while, a shiny new deck ends doing just what it was built to do in its very first game.

That might sound strange, but not every deck is able to consistently deliver the kind of game you expect out of it. Sometimes you hit a matchup where you can't execute your game plan. Sometimes you just have bad luck. Today's build gave me one of those delightful games where everything came together right away on baby's first day out.

Am I crazy for waxing poetic over a single game?

Yes, yes I am, but I still maintain that it's a wonderful feeling and one worth sharing.

The deck I'm going to share with you today only came together because I finally pulled apart an old Rakdos deck that I simply wasn't excited about playing any longer. Sometimes that's the impetus I need to roll into building a new one.

The only problem with today's list is that it probably isn't a lot of fun to play against.

Mahadi, Emporium Master is a 3/3 Cat Devil in Rakdos. He has a fairly simple party trick: at the beginning of my end step I get to create a Treasure token for each creature that died this turn. This only happens on my turn, but Majadi doesn't have to be on the battlefield when the carnage goes down. He can show up after the bloodshed is over and on the end step I'll still get my treasures.

The game plan for this deck is incredibly simple. Kill a lot of creatures. Make a lot of Treasure. If I can't win through having a lot of treasure, use all that treasure to make a lot of mana. If I can't win through having a lot of mana, go back to killing a lot of creatures and hope things work out.

A Bevy of Boardwipes

To get this plan to work, I need to run a lot of spells to wipe away as many creatures as possible. Being in Red goes a long way towards making that easy.

I'm running Blasphemous Act and Chandra's Ignition to be sure, but I stopped short of throwing in Anger of the Gods and Star of Extinction. I think I have enough spells to do the job. Chain Reaction will do X damage to each creature where X is the number of creatures on the battlefield. Incite Rebellion will do damage to each player and each creature that player controls equal to the number of creatures they control. Volcanic Vision lets me bring back an instant or sorcery and deal damage equal to that card's mana value to each creature my opponents control. I'm also running Magmaquake, which is an X spell that deals damage to each creature without flying and each planeswalker.

You might be wondering how I'll manage to recover if I'm wiping away my own creatures with every boardwipe.

The short answer is that I don't have a great way to dodge these wraths. I'm not in White, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. Black Market will end up giving me so much mana when combined with Mahadi's Treasures that I might not mind losing my board. Thrilling Encore gives me a reasonable shot at bringing all those creatures back and under my control. Neither of those is as sweet as having an Avacyn, Angel of Hope on my board, but they'll sure soften the blow of losing my creatures.

My single favorite way to deal with a steady drumbeat of boardwipes is to tutor up and equip Magebane Armor to my commander. This equipment will prevent Mahadi from taking any damage that isn't combat damage. My wraths are all damage-based and if I'm able to profit off at least one of them, it would be trivial to make the mana to recast my commander. If I'm able to entirely avoid losing my commander, that should set me up nicely for a series of very profitable turns if my opponents keep trying to build back up and I keep sweeping their creatures into the bin.

Ways to Win

This deck is designed to be able to make a ton of mana. I'm supplementing my Mahadi treasure with a few other treasure token generators you should be familiar with.

Dockside Extortionist and Revel in Riches can both give me extra Treasure tokens and the latter could easily turn into a wincon. Wiping out lots of creatures should make it hard for my tablemates to just kill me with combat damage before my next upkeep comes around and I win by having 10 or more treasures. Hellkite Tyrant needs me to have twenty or more artifacts on my upkeep but I'm optimistic that this deck could get me closer than I've ever gotten before to hitting that particular wincon.

Exsanguinate will drain my opponents and gain me a bit of life. With enough treasures or if my opponents are at low enough life totals, this could simply win the game. Torment of Hailfire is even more deadly, often resulting in players just conceding even when it doesn't kill them outright. Comet Storm and Earthquake can both kill the table, but I'll do well to be at a higher life total than anyone else if I'm trying to win with Earthquake as it hits every creature without flying and every player.

All The Treasure

If you're thinking these plans need more mana than I'm likely to be able to generate, I understand. It's hard to kill a table with Comet Storm if you've only got a dozen treasures. I'm running Cabal Coffers and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help with making black mana, but some spells just really want a ridiculous amount of mana.

Fortunately, I've got a tried and true plan for that.

There are a lot of creatures that can go infinite with Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle. Sling-Gang Lieutenant, Siege-Gang Commander, Emrakul's Hatcher, Beetleback Chief and Mogg War Marshal can all make enough creatures to let me loop them with Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar. Dockside Extortionist will usually work as well, but Dockside's viability depends upon how many Treasures my opponents control.

An arbitrarily large number of deaths during my turn, even if the loop doesn't make infinite mana, should give me the same number of Treasures on my end step. I can then funnel mana from those Treasures into any of my various X spells to try to win.

Even a non-infinite number of death triggers could be worth the effort, so sacrifice outlets like Viscera Seer, Skirk Prospector and Thermopod are in the mix. Looping a Burnished Hart will get me some extra lands and looping a Gray Merchant of Asphodel can both pump up my life total and put real pressure on my opponents' life totals.

Any deck with key artifacts needs to have a way to get them back so I threw in Trash for Treasure and Buried Ruin. Feldon of the Third Path is also in the list, but he'll only give me artifact tokens of creatures in my graveyard. That could work nicely with a Rune-Scarred Demon, but it won't get my Magebane Armor, Ashnod's Altar or Nim Deathmantle back from the bin.

The Backup Backup Plan

If my first plan is to use some fancy wincon like Revel in Riches or Hellkite Tyrant and my backup plan is to load up on treasures and hit an Exsanguinate, Torment of Hailfire, or Comet Storm, it's worth having another backup plan in case those plans fall through.

My backup backup plan is simple. Have a ton of Treasures lying around and use them to make a minor threat into a much bigger threat.

Nettlecyst and Cranial Plating will turn a big pile of Treasure tokens into a big pile of hurt for someone, especially if I have an evasive threat like a flying Demon or Dragon on the field. I've gone on about Cranial Plating before and the fact that you can equip it at instant speed for two Black mana should not be underestimated. It makes blocking very tricky and with enough creatures on the field and enough treasures, there's a very good chance you'll be able to hit someone for a big chunk of damage.

Murdercat, Incorporated

The question that begs to be asked is whether this kind of deck is fun for anyone but the person playing it. I think it's not the kind of list I would suggest to someone looking to build their first Commander deck. If you play Mahadi I would treat it like any other oppressive deck that runs a lot of wraths, counters or removal. I would play one game with it and then switch to another deck so I'm not just wiping the board in every game, all night long. That doesn't mean this deck is going to give you easy wins, but if it does what it wants to do it might not be a lot of fun for other players in a casual meta.

Murdercat, Incorporated | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mahadi, Emporium Master

• Creatures (29)
• 1 Ancient Brass Dragon
• 1 Audacious Reshapers
• 1 Beetleback Chief
• 1 Bloodfire Colossus
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Combustible Gearhulk
• 1 Crater Hellion
• 1 Deathbringer Regent
• 1 Dockside Chef
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Emrakul's Hatcher
• 1 Feldon of the Third Path
• 1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1 Harvester of Souls
• 1 Hellkite Tyrant
• 1 Iron Myr
• 1 Leaden Myr
• 1 Mogg War Marshal
• 1 Noxious Gearhulk
• 1 Rapacious One
• 1 Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1 Siege-Gang Commander
• 1 Skirk Prospector
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Sling-Gang Lieutenant
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Thermopod
• 1 Thunder Dragon
• 1 Viscera Seer

• Instants (6)
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Deflecting Swat
• 1 Magmaquake
• 1 Soul Shatter
• 1 Thrilling Encore
• 1 Vampiric Tutor

• Sorceries (14)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Chain Reaction
• 1 Chandra's Ignition
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Devil's Play
• 1 Earthquake
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Grim Tutor
• 1 Incite Rebellion
• 1 Jaya's Immolating Inferno
• 1 Mob Rule
• 1 Torment of Hailfire
• 1 Trash for Treasure
• 1 Volcanic Vision

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Black Market
• 1 Revel in Riches

• Artifacts (9)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Cranial Plating
• 1 Magebane Armor
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Nettlecyst
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (39)
• 13 Mountain
• 13 Swamp
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Cabal Stronghold
• 1 Canyon Slough
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Foreboding Ruins
• 1 Haunted Ridge
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Luxury Suite
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Buy This Deck Export text format

This list sits in a pretty good spot budget-wise. If you wanted to tune it down or at least drop the price tag, you could simply drop out Dockside Extortionist and Deflecting Swat. If you wanted to tune it up, you could add fast mana and probably run more targeted removal. My plan is just to get Magebane Armor out and then go about wiping the board as often as seems necessary or profitable. I don't think this deck has a high ceiling in terms of power level, but it might be able to hang at higher-powered tables. I expect there will end up being good and bad matchups, much like any other deck.

I'm sure there are cards that could make this list better. Neheb, the Eternal might be a good fit and Cauldron of Souls could play really well in a list with this many ways to wipe the board and deal damage. A theme of creatures that force my opponents to sacrifice a creature makes a lot of sense, but I generally lean away from that strategy. This deck seems oppressive enough, but I could see adding in a few Fleshbag Marauder types if I wind up having trouble with indestructible or gigantic creatures.

Final Thoughts

This deck may have won its first game, but I have a confession. It wasn't even a four-player game. I don't like three-player matches very much, as it always seems like someone gets out ahead and there is less of a chance that a tablemate will be able to find a way to stop them. That's what happened in Mahadi's first game, so while I'm optimistic that this deck will be fun and will play well, its first real test wasn't even that valid a test.

This deck seems to have a lot of similarity with my old Aegar, the Freezing Flame list. I wrote about it last year (Aegar tries to turn overflow damage into card draw, which is an equally powerful motivator to run lots of Red damage spells.

Today's list is probably a bit lacking in one key thing: card draw. I'm going to play it a few more times and adjust it accordingly. There are ways to turn creature deaths into card draw, but my gut feeling is that draw might be the weak spot in what I think is generally a pretty solid mid to high powered decklist.

If you build and play Mahadi, I would urge you to pay attention to how much fun your tablemates are having. I've always maintained that it's fine to play an oppressive deck in a game, but if you're playing oppressive decks all the time you may find that people don't really want to play with you. On the other hand, they might like that kind of challenge - every meta is different but be aware that a night of EDH is about everyone having fun, not just you.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!