From the graveyard to the wall they all will fall!
Art: Lord Xander, the Collector
by Martina Fackova
Table of Contents
Welcome to another installment of Brewed EDH:
Todays Featured Commander is:
Lord Xander is a very fun Grixis Commander there are many different ways to build him and I think that Mill is one of the best ways not only does Lord Xander make an impact when he ETB’s or Leaves the battlefield, his attack is deadly in mill strategies. Lord Xander is a very fun mill deck and the addition of red can help us have some creature / artifact destruction to fight back!
The Deck:
Lord Xander Mill!
Why Lord Xander, the Collector?
There are many great options for Mill commanders such as Phenax, God of Deception
and Bruvac the Grandiloquent
. While these are both strong mill commanders we can utilize them in the 99. The main reason we chose Lord Xander is because not only does he disrupt your opponents hands he also mills half their deck rounded down, essentially casting a Traumatize
every time he attacks. Additionally Lord Xander is frustrating from beginning to end on ETB, combat and when he gets removed. Lord Xander being in Grixis also helps us even though we do not play a whole lot of red cards being able to run Blasphemous Act
and cards like War’s Toll. Utilizing cards like Geode Golem
We can cast Lord Xander pretty early and begin the mill! Lord Xander allows us to have all the good stuff the Dimir and mono blue mill commanders have and add a little protection and spice on top!
Deck Overview:
Since we are a mill deck the main purpose of our deck is to mill our opponents, we have some heavy hitters that do that such as Increasing Confusion
,Cut Your Losses
and Breach the Multiverse
. Almost every card in our deck mills whether that be when we are attacked like Riddlekeeper
or when we draw a card like Sphinx's Tutelage
. One of our big mill payoff cards is Zellix, Sanity Flayer
, Zellix not only can mill himself but gives us creatures when creature cards are milled which can give us some much needed blockers against an aggressive strategy. Cards like Bruvac the Grandiloquent are an absolute bomb in this deck and often time can finish out an opponents entire library. Memory Erosion is great against a lot blue decks forcing them to make a choice between there spell and possibly losing a combo piece. We also play three different planeswalkers, Ashiok, Dream Render
is very strong because she not only stops opponents from searching their deck her -1 is a mill four effect with upside.Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
is great because she is cheap to cost has a mill effect on her plus and we can grab opponents creatures with her -X ability. Jace, the Perfected Mind
is a great planeswalker becasue he focuses on mill, with a card like Bruvac on the field being able to play jace for 4 and -5 him and make someone mill 30 cards. All of our mill effects can add up quite quickly especially when we combine our creature suite with Phenax, God of Deception. Consuming Aberration
is one of our creatures that is part of the payoff of playing mill combining your Aberration with a Phenax is deadly to your opponents decks. Mill is not the strongest strategy being very weak against decks like reanimator or aggressive strategies because these decks don’t care, they operate on limited resources anyways. Although we are weak against certain strategies we are strong against a bunch of strategies really anything that needs specific cards.
Strengths of the Deck:
- Can start milling very early
- Control Elements through our Planeswalkers
- Can take out key pieces in opponents decks
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Weak to Eldrazi or any card that shuffles graveyard back in
- Weak to any form of reanimation
- Weak to aggressive decks
Deck Stats:
Sample hands:
Main Win Conditions:
We do not have any infinite combos but we do have a few mill your entire deck combos and our main win condition is milling our opponents.
Some our highlight combos are:
Bruvac the Grandiloquent + Lord Xander, the Collector will mill your opponents entire deck.
Phenax, God of Deception + Consuming Aberration can mill a crazy amount of cards.
Lord Xander, the Collector + Fraying Sanity
will mill our opponents entire deck
Maddening Cacophony
and Bruvac the Grandiloquent A kicked maddening cacophony with Bruvac will mill our opponents entire deck.
Conclusion:
In conclusion Lord Xander is a fun Grixis Mill deck, with a lot of upside and the ability to mill your opponents prety quickly while this may not be the strongest deck it is still a ton of fun! We have many ways to take out crazy portions of our opponents deck!
Thanks for reading to the end!