Get out there and Celebrate!
Art: Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant
by Billy Christian
Welcome to another Installment of Brewed EDH!
Todays Featured Commander is:
It’s Bilbos 111th birthday and you are invited! Bilbo is a really fun commander who is an awesome abzan lifegain commander with a super strong ability! Bilbo’s colors allow us to play a bunch of amazing cards and has a lot more range than typical lifegain decks. Bilbos first ability allowing us to gain 1 more life per lifegain instance is always helpful as well. Lets get into it! We are packing various ways to combo off and a combo win is absolutely possible and truthfully pretty easy to assemble!
The Deck:
Bilbo Lifegain!
Why Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant?
Bilbo is a really fun card, not only does he give us +1 life to every instance of gaining life, his second ability can be a real game-ender especially if Concordant Crossroads
on the field. Bilbo is overall just a great card him being in G/B/W allows us to play a wide range of cards that many typical lifegain decks cannot play. We are able to play a great amount of lifegain ramp and interaction which allows us to be prepared and well-rounded for many situations! Bilbo having black in his mana cost allows us to play Exquisite Blood
and Sanguine Bond
combo lines as well as Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose
as an additional copy. Bilbo is really strong and a ton of fun to pilot!
Deck Overview:
Our creature package is highlighted by our lifegain and utility creatures. Some of the best creatures that I want to highlight are Serra Ascendant
which is an absolute bomb on turn 1 and with our constant lifegain is almost never bad! Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn
is one of our best payoff cards for gaining life as it helps us buff are creatures, in testing this gets out of hand super quickly! Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
can be devastating depending on the deck we are going against and is just a really great card for the deck gaining up to 3 life per card when Bilbo on the field and taxing our opponents for drawing is just a win / win! We have many easy ways for us to gain life especially when creatures ETB Soul's Attendant
and Soul Warden
as well as Auriok Champion
all of which are great on their own and even better when Bilbo is on the field! Accomplished Alchemist
is especially great in the late game since it can produce mana equal to the life we gained this turn which can snow ball out of hand very quickly! One of the best creatures in our deck is Sunscorch Regent
since it can trigger a crazy amount of times and make itself bigger! As far as game-enders / late game creatures we have Craterhoof Behemoth
which is never bad and Nykthos Paragon
who is absolutely perfect for our deck and can snowball us to victory very easily!
Our planeswalker package is small but has 3 very impactful cards that allow us to gain life and get some buffs! Ajani, Strength of the Pride
is an easy to cast planeswalker that allows us to gain life, create an Ajani's Pridemate
token and his 0 ability acts as a great board wipe and is almost always active! Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord
gives all of our creatures / planeswalkers so we can gain a ton of life and he can deal direct damage and his most important ability is that Sorin can recur creatures from the graveyard so we can get back key permanents if needed. Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
is great because he buffs a creature can grab a creature and if we are able to get him to 8 loyalty we can gain 100 life which makes it crazy easy to activate Bilbo’s ability!
Our spell package is where almost all of our interaction comes from packing format staples like Toxic Deluge
, Generous Gift
Path to Exile
and Damn
. We do have an X spell that is great for us to dump mana into in Debt to the Deathless
which can be a late game mana-sink. Kaya's Wrath
is an expensive destruction spell but allows us to gain life so it fits perfectly into our deck! Approach of the Second Sun
is another way to win but is typically a last resort to win with it but there is nothing wrong with gaining life and beginning the clock on our opponents! Another great spell is Beacon of Immortality
this spell is great at any stage of the game and is really crazy with one of our gain-life payoff cards in play and it shuffles itself back in!
Our artifact package is extremely basic we have Sol Ring
, Arcane Signet
and Chromatic Lantern
. We have a really basic mana rock package as we have a pretty low overall curve and dont need to ramp a ton. Our two main artifacts are Aetherflux Reservoir
and Alhammarret's Archive
. Aetherflux Reservoir is almost always active for us and can end the game pretty easily on its own, and Archive is never bad since we are pretty much constantly gaining life!
Our enchantment package is full of ways to buff our creatures and gain some life as well as protect ourself! For buffing are creatures we have Whip of Erebos
and True Conviction
. Both of these cards make gaining life and combat a ton easier!Ajani's Welcome
and Authority of the Consuls
both allow us to gain life on creature ETB and Authority of the Consuls forces our creatures to ETB tapped so that is great for combat as well! Ghostly Prison
is a great way to protect us against any deck that is trying to attack with a ton of creatures. We also have Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond are mostly there for combo shenanigans but also can be good when on the battlefield and can definitely have an impact on the game!
Our land base does not really have any noteworthy to speak about, there is no lands I think that need to be highlighted its a very basic Abzan mana base with nothing too crazy or spicy going on there! The only lands we have that are worth highlighting are Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
which are great at any stage of the game and make the need for mana-fixing non-existent.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Hard to kill
- Easy to gain life quickly
- Bilbo’s ability can easily end games
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to spellslinger / combo strategies
- Bilbo’s ability can be hard to activate
- Not a ton of non-creature interaction
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Main Win Conditions:
Our main win condition is to gain 111 life to activate bilbo’s ability and put all of our creatures including Craterhoof Behemoth with a Concordant Crossroads in to play! We also can typically win through combat without any effects like craterhoof! We can also easily win with Approach of the Second Sun in a typical game we can frequently win with Aetherflux Reservoir even without any infinite combos since we are gaining a ton of life!
We are also packing a few infinite combos:
Exquisite Blood + Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose
Result: Infinite lifegain. Infinite lifegain triggers. Infinite lifeloss. Requires: All permanents on the battlefield. You have a way to gain life or a way to cause an opponent to lose life. Steps: Gain life. Vito triggers, causing target opponent to lose life equal to the amount you just gained. Exquisite Blood triggers, gaining you life equal to the amount of life the opponent lost. Repeat from step 2.
Beacon of Immortality + Sanguine Bond
Result: Target opponent loses the game. Requires: Sanguine Bond on the battlefield. Beacon of Immortality in hand. You have an equal or higher life total than an opponent. 5W available. Steps: Cast Beacon of Immortality by paying 5W, doubling your life total and shuffling Beacon of Immortality into your library. Sanguine Bond triggers, causing target opponent who had an equal of lower life total than you to lose life equal to the life you gained. The opponent loses the game due to having zero or less life.
Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond
Result: Infinite lifegain. Infinite lifegain triggers. Infinite lifeloss. Requires: All permanents on the battlefield. You have a way to gain life or a way to cause an opponent to lose life. Steps: Gain life. Sanguine Bond triggers, causing target opponent to lose life equal to the amount you just gained. Exquisite Blood triggers, gaining you life equal to the amount of life the opponent lost. Repeat from step 2.
Exquisite Blood + Marauding Blight-Priest
Result: Infinite lifegain. Infinite lifegain triggers. Infinite lifeloss. Requires: All permanents on the battlefield. A way to gain life or cause an opponent to lose life. Steps: Gain life. Marauding Blight-Priest triggers, causing each opponent to lose 1 life. Exquisite Blood triggers for each opponent that lost life. Resolve one of the Exquisite Blood triggers, gaining 1 life. Repeat from step 2.
Exquisite Blood + Aetherflux Reservoir
Result: Infinite damage. Infinite lifegain triggers. Requires: All permanents on the battlefield. You have at least 51 health. Steps: Activate Aetherflux Reservoir by paying 50 life, dealing 50 damage to target opponent. Exquisite Blood triggers, gaining you 50 life. Repeat.
As you can see there are many different ways for us to combo so it can be very easy to end games!
Conclusion:
In Conclusion Bilbo is a super fun commander and him being in Abzan allows us to play a lot more variety than the typical lifegain deck! There are a ton of ways to end game within the deck and the multiple avenues of play allow us to play the game differently a lot of the time! Bilbo is really fun and one of my favorite cards from the new LOTR set!
Thanks for reading to the end!
