“I haven’t written since they locked me in a cage I was forced to remember it all”
Art:Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted
by Yongjae Choi
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Ob Nixilis is here! And just like Narset (which we featured yesterday!), it is here to make your opponent’s game an absolute nightmare, while we don’t outright outlaw additional card draws we do punish opponents for every card draw, combine that with a ton of sacrifice effects, discard spells and a ton of removal and this can certainly go south for our opponents very quickly. Ob Nixilis allows us to run a deck that can be accurately described as just pure hate for our opponents, removing their best things, and keeping their hands and their creature counts low, which certainly makes our opponents hate us! This deck can be pretty mean but really embodies the spirit of mono-black as a card archetype. Without further ado, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted Sacrifice!
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Why Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted?
Ob Nixilis plays a pretty big part in our deck, while they sadly can’t come out until turn five, they do have quite an impact when they come in, most of their impact comes from their passive, there is quite a bit of card draw floating around the format and being able to punish all draws at the very least guarantees us some damage on every one of our opponents turns. The tough part about Ob Nixilis is that we arent able to protect them much from straight up planeswalker removal, while this isn’t very common within the format it can absolutely ruin our day. Ob Nixilis second ability works pretty well I tend to be careful with this ability as two cards is quite good for our opponent so unless we have another option I typically don’t use this as often as I can. Ob Nixilis is still a great general for this deck and can help us whittle down and put additional pressure on our opponents.
Deck Matchups:
Since this is Pauper EDH, there are an absolute ton of things that can tip a game in your favor or out of it. While an archetype may seem favorable, there are absolutely good and bad commanders for our deck to go up against; I have included both these, which were all played among my testing groups using various decks, and I have included the sample size for clarity purposes. This is just meant to be a guide after testing a bunch of games with this deck!
The information below is notes about specific decks that were featured in our testing pods and how we fared against them. Naturally, Pauper EDH is a multiplayer game, so these are just a summary of my notes against different commanders and strategies. When we test these decks we try to test to its strengths and weaknesses to give a full spectrum of what the deck has to offer. Various commanders and archetypes/strategies are used to get the most accurate information.
Commanders, we have a good matchup against:
Phalanx Leader
Record against Phalanx Leader 3-0
I’m a big fan of this matchup. We tend to just bully them throughout the game; if we keep their commander off of the board, their deck scales really slowly, and they don’t have any removal or recourse against us. This deck can be slow and grindy, but in my testing experience, we were very effective against them in every game.
Lord of the Accursed
Record against Lord of the Accursed 3-1
I like this matchup a lot, cards like Bojuka Bog
are extremely strong in this matchup, but overall, the creatures that we have and our position in combat is just almost always better than our opponents, Lord can be nice, but we can kill them a ton of times and since we are working with a lot of the same cards we often know what they have left and at their disposal, most Lord lists are focused far more on zombies than removal so while they do have some not nearly as much as we do. They can be quick and hit hard, so proper threat assessment is needed here, but overall, I like this matchup.
Patched Plaything
Record against Patched Plaything 4-0
Removal truly is the name of the game in this deck if we can kill their commander and keep killing them everytime there is not much they can do against us. I like this matchup a lot, Patched Plaything can hit really hard so killing them before they can get some of their protection auras like Benevolent Blessing
or some of their big damage boosters like All That Glitters
. Never let your guard down in this matchup that double strike is nasty and they can hit exceptionally hard if given the opportunity.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Kardur, Doomscourge
Record against Kardur, Doomscourge 0-3
Since we can’t interact on the stack, this can be a very tough matchup for us; Kardur is going to come out and shake up our board and the game as a whole. Kardur also can be quite aggressive since they know that they can shake up the board/combat quite easily. This is a rough one and a deck I had a ton of trouble against.
Arabella, Abandoned Doll
Record against Arabella, Abandoned Doll 2-5
An extremely quick and aggressive deck is what makes this deck so tough, even with some of our early-game sacrifice creatures, it can be really tough since they get to choose what they get rid of, our removal can be quite effective, but even without their commander they can still output a ton of damage, removing Arabella early is the only way I was able to get ahead in this matchup and get a win, both of my wins had me removing Arabella early. This is a winnable but tough matchup, I tend to mulligan quite aggressively against this deck.
Tor Wauki the Younger
Record against Tor Wauki the Younger 0-3
In this sacrifice mirror match, we are certainly at a disadvantage. Tor Wauki is cheaper, and overall, with the addition of red just stronger than our deck, I had almost no success in this matchup. It can be quite hard to keep Tor Wauki off of the field, and this deck is quite efficient. This is a very rough matchup for the deck.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck!
Strategy Overview:
Make everything your opponents do more dififuclt.
We are great at taxing our opponent’s lives and removing pretty much all of their creatures; with this amount of removal and discard present within the deck, a successful game sees us making everything our opponents do more difficult.
Protect Ob Nixilis:
Ob Nixilis is an awesome source of non-combat damage for the deck and can help us whittle down those life totals and set us up very nicely for a huge win with something like Gray Merchant of Asphodel
because of that, we need to keep Ob Nixilis on the field, we don’t have any ways to interact on the stack but protecting them in combat is key, we have some recursion in the deck so sacrificing creatures to keep Ob Nixilis on the field is absolutely worth it.
Pick your Battles:
We are not a deck that wants to go to combat every single turn, and that’s perfectly ok; I like to wait for more ideal combat situations or one of our cards being in an advantageous position. Its perfectly ok in this deck to just build up our board and let the game play out. In testing, I wanted three or four turns in games without attacking and was still successful in those games.
Creatures:
We have so many awesome creatures in this deck, my personal favorite and almost always a way we finish off opponents is the legendary Gray Merchant of Asphodel, which is a true powerhouse in this deck and can really swing the game in our favor, with our commander being double black and a whole host of other cards we can have a ton of devotion very quickly. I also love our creatures that just pester and annoy our opponents, like Blood Seeker
, which works really well with Ob Nixilis and can punish our opponents quite a bit. We can continue to destroy our opponent’s boards with cards like Chain Devil
, and Fleshbag Marauder
, which can be super effective at pretty much any stage of the game, and I really like being able to ruin Voltron strategies or pretty much any deck that focuses on one or just a few creatures. Since we sacrifice so many creatures for ourselves and our opponents, we should absolutely take advantage of it, and we do with cards like Falkenrath Noble
. The drain and gain from Falkenrath can be super strong for us. We do have a decent amount of card draw in our deck, but I especially like Nefarious Imp
, which can help us filter out bad draws depending on the situation and how many creatures die with us at the table this triggers quite a bit.
Instants:
As someone who brews a decent amount of mono-black decks, I am still loving Crypt Incursion
. This card is effective against so many decks, and with how quickly we fill the graveyards, it can be a huge life gain swing for us. While we love filling our opponent’s graveyard we don’t really want to fill our own, which is why we are running Feign Death
and Not Dead After All
these are both very strong in a ton of different situations and provide a great amount of options for us. Beyond that we are packing a ton of removal, there isn’t much that we cant kill, if they have indestructible we have Tragic Slip
and Grasp of Darkness
and a whole bunch of other awesome removal.
Sorceries:
Even within our sorcery package, we are quite mean! Starting very mean with Arms of Hadar
, which can devastate an aggressive deck and is great if we begin to fall behind. We also have Drown in Sorrow
, which targets the whole board, and if we really fall behind, this is basically our panic button, In testing, I was able to come back from games where I was super far behind, and leveled the playing field with Drown in Sorrow. If we do end up falling behind, we also have some strong sorcery speed removal to back us up, like Eaten Alive
; I like this card a lot, and in this deck, it one-mana to exile a creature, which is just insane. Final Vengeance
is essentially an additional copy of this effect, and being able to exile instead of just destroy can really hurt opponents who rely on a single creature or a combo creature. We round out our sorcery package with Unearth
, which is a great way to get back our sacrifice creatures or just something we need back.
Artifacts:
Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher
is actually the perfect card for our deck, sacrifice, and drain and gain on one card is actually perfect, if we could run ninety-nine of these, we probably would. We do have a little bit of ramp/card draw with Infernal Idol
and Mind Stone
both of these help us get out Ob Nixilis early, which is always nice for us, and the card draw can be great if we draw them in the late-game or don’t have a use for their mana.
Enchantments:
Our enchantment package has a little bit of everything we have some removal with Oubliette
, which is absolutely perfect to use against a deck that relies on its commander. We also have some buffs in Endless Scream
and Shade's Form
, which are both great ways to push some extra damage and hit our opponents a lot harder. And lastly we have Ill-Gotten Inheritance
, which is a very nice source of drain and gain for the deck and helps a ton against more aggressive strategies.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are very strong against most creature decks; we are not as great against decks that put a ton of creatures on the board, but a good midrange deck that aims to play just a few creatures every couple of turns is good for us.
- We have a ton of removal, so we are able to effectively remove problematic creatures/commanders pretty easily.
- We have a good matchup against decks that try to draw a ton of cards as we can ding them for a decent amount of damage.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- Aggressive decks can be quite good against us; we aren’t usually committing any creatures until we turn two or three.
- Our commander is a huge removal target, and since they cost five, if they die a couple of times, they can go out of reach for recasting.
- We have tough matchups into decks that don’t care about dealing damage through combat or decks that just don’t run very many creatures.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks so much for reading to the end! This deck has been a blast to play, and just like Narset, which we featured yesterday, it feels good to punish opponents for drawing cards, combining that with a mono-black shell that allows us to keep their creatures/commanders off of the board and make them discard as well allows us to absolutely tear up their gameplan and just be really strong against a lot of the decks in the format. Stay tuned and TAP IN!