Commander Overview
Our second commander featured for Strixhaven week is Blech, Loafing Pest, a truly awesome commander who cares about all of the creepy crawlies you can think of, pests, bats, insects, spiders, and snakes all get buffed up by our commander and the life we gain. Playing a Golgari lifegain focused deck does feel pretty weird, but there are a ton of great synergy pieces like Virulent Emissary and Essence Warden that allow us to trigger Blech constantly. Blech is firmly in a primary role within this deck, and they are the reason for a lot of our explosiveness. Because of this, we don’t do a ton without Blech. Opponents typically will target Blech a lot, but we do have some built-in protection. I love Blech because the card is just pure fun, and it focuses on creature types that really don’t get a ton of support in the format. This deck is firmly bracketed 2, but plays very well within that bracket and feels fun and fair.
EDH BRACKET
Beyond the strength of an average precon deck.
- Late Game 2-Card Infinite Combos
- No Mass Land Denial
- Up to 3 Game Changers
- No Chaining Extra Turns
How to Play the Deck
Playing the deck is really easy albeit a bit annoying to track all of the counters when our board gets big, not hard to track but just like when playing cards like Cathars' Crusade there can be quite a bit to track and its important that you bring a pretty big dice bag to track all of our creatures and tokens. Overall, this deck is simple to play, but can be overwhelming to newer players, so I would give this deck to someone who has at least a few games under their belt.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our primary synergy in the deck is our +1/+1 counters. Because of Blech, we can run huge payoff cards like Doubling Season, which is a bit of a double synergy in this deck since we also have a considerable amount of token production within the deck. We also have Hardened Scales and Branching Evolution, which are cheap ways to get extra counters on all of our creatures. We also have a lifegain package within the deck; most of these are solely there to trigger Blech, but cards like Essence Warden can trigger a ton and buff up our board every single time they trigger. One of the most interesting aspects of our deck is that we don’t have a lot of mass lifegain. Being in Golgari, we have a lot of individual triggers, which is a big strength of the deck since we can trigger Blech every time.
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: The early-game is usually pretty good for us, we can establish a lot of our cheap creatures/enchantmetns as well as some of our mana rocks, Blech only being three mana is quite helpful for as well as getting them down early can help us setup even if we only have a few pests or any of the other creatures that Blech cares about. If an opponent is open, we will take some attacks in the early game, but we aren’t particularly aggressive at this stage of the game.
Mid-Game: By this point, we have a few pretty big creatures, and I do try to be pretty aggressive but not stupid. If there are no good attacks, we are very good at holding back and continuing to build up our board. At this stage, where we have extra mana hanging around, keeping Blech on our board is the number one priority for us, as they are the main engine of our deck. Removal flies during the midgame, so make sure you keep up protection.
Late-Game: We are perfectly ok with the game going longer, in fact, we encourage it! We typically outscale our opponents by a pretty wide margin, so being able to go longer means we get bigger. Our deck just makes us a threat in combat at any stage of the game, so we just close out our games through combat.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Even though we are a Golgari deck, we don’t really ramp a ton. Still, we do have some ramp options and good ways to get out our colors and ramp out our best stuff. Classics like Sol Ring, Cultivate, and Kodama's Reach allow us to get ahead early and ensure that we can get all of our colors. I got a ton of value out of Pristine Talisman, which is not only a mana rock but a Blech trigger as well, which is pretty awesome and consistent. While not directly a piece of ramp, Bontu's Monument is a best of both worlds scenario for our deck since we get a discount on a large portion of our deck and some life gain. Ramping isn’t our strongest suit, but we have more than enough to get by.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Phyrexian Arena is a great source of supplemental card draw for the deck, but overall, we don’t have a lot of additional card draw, and that doesn’t affect us that much. Once we have a few creatures and Blech on the battlefield, we can easily build up our board and not much else. Even though we don’t have a lot of card draw, we certainly make it work.
Removal
We are great at removing opponents’ stuff. The only kind of removal we don’t really have is a lot of board wipes, although we do have Withering Curse, which is almost always a board wipe, but can be a great way to devastate token decks as well. Golgari has always been good at single-target removal, and our deck is no different. Assassin's Trophy, Beast Within, and Putrefy allow us to take out a wide variety of things with not much mana investment. Breathe your Last is a little mana inefficient, but having a Blech and a board allows us to buff them up in addition to removing an opponents problematic creature, a great card for our deck.
Protection
Blech is a huge target for our opponents as they typically realize very quickly that they are the gasoline of our deck. Because of that, we need to protect them as much as we can, and luckily for us, Golgari is a great color option for this. Supernatural Stamina, Tamiyo's Safekeeping, and Not Dead After All are all great ways to ensure that we keep Blech, and we can keep buffing up our board. When it hits the mid-game, I always try to hold up protection if I can; our opponents will be coming after Blech hard. Keeping Blech on our board is almost always priority #1.
Utility / Support
Let’s highlight some of my favorite cards in the deck! Duskshell Crawler is only a two-mana creature, but it can be a true powerhouse for our deck, giving nearly our entire board trample is crazy, and this can be a great way to close out games once we get our board big enough, which is pretty easy for us to do. Demon's Horn and Wurm's Tooth are draft chaff in most decks, but in our deck, they represent a ton of counters and a card that is truly out of hand. Triggering spells for all players and buffing up our board can make us even harder to deal with as our opponents play their game. Both of these can accelerate our game plan tremendously. Since we have a large amount of token production in the deck, we can get a lot of value out of Ribtruss Roaster, which gives us token production that also triggers Blech. Even if we only devour a few, we can get pretty crazy with this one.
Mana Base
We have an efficient but simple manabase. We love getting all of our colors out, so Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is a great option for our deck and provides easy mana fixing for us. We also have efficient lands like Overgrown Tomb, Llanowar Wastes, and Undergrowth Stadium, allowing us quick access to our colors easily. Lastly, I want to highlight Radiant Fountain and Adventurer's Inn, which, if drawn and played when we have Blech on the field, are just another opportunity for us to gain counters, furthering the overall game plan. Our mana base performed great in all of my testing games, and I had no trouble with it!
Win Conditions
Our primary win condition in this deck is combat, and it is the only way we win; we don’t have any infinite combos or any other alternate way to end the game.
Strengths of the Deck
Something we do constantly buffs up our entire board; it can be very easy to get huge.
Being at a high life total allows us to be decently strong against aggressive creature-based strategies.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Our deck is considerably worse if we don’t have Blech on the board; our opponents typically constantly target them.
Without our commanders, our creatures are very unimpressive.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Commissar Severina Raine. Matchup Record: 3-1
This was a great matchup for us, we are much bigger and better than them in combat, they are another deck that is very dependent on their commander, and if we can take them out and don’t have to worry about their attack trigger, we should be just fine, hit them hard and don’t let up!
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Breathe your Last, Withering Curse and Blossoming Bogbeast.
Game 2: Vs Will, Scion of Peace. Matchup Record: 3-0
A true lifegain vs lifegain matchup, while they can gain more life, they can’t even get close to the size of our creatures, and how good we are in combat, they can cast their Beacon of Immortalitys all they want, we are going to stomp them down! I didn’t have trouble in this matchup. Always be ready to take out their commander, so they don’t get a huge discount, and you should be just fine.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Breathe your Last, Assassin's Trophy and Root Manipulation.
Game 3: Vs Silverquill, the Disputant. Matchup Record: 1-3
I struggled a lot with this matchup. Silverquill has a crazy ability, and some of the spells they can copy twice can devastate, especially removal spells. I found it quite difficult to keep any of our stuff on the board, especially Blech. I was able to squeeze a win when I had a protection-heavy hand, but overall this is a tough matchup.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Tamiyo's Safekeeping, Arachnogenesis and Supernatural Stamina.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this one. While Blech is certainly a one-directional commander we need on the board, they were still really fun to play and supported a bunch of cool creature types that are overall under supported. Blech is an awesome commander to play, and I had a ton of fun with this one.
