MTG Salvation

Endrek Sahr has been my favorite legendary creature, and pet Commander deck for years now. It's gone through several iterations, first as a casually generic mono-black, then a stax list that opted to be expensive, apparently at the expense of being good. Then it was a more focused mono-black control, and now it's a better control shell that threatens a handful of combo victories.

The flagship win condition is Endless Cockroaches, Phyrexian Altar and Zulaport Cutthroat with Endrek Sahr in play, or Phyrexian Altar, Smothering Abomination and Blood Artist. Any variation of the above is just dandy. The first iteration bleeds everyone to death and the latter draws and plays every creature in the deck, wherein a Gray Merchant of Asphodel can get the job done. There are variants for each slot in the combo for some redundancy.

It's important, I think, to threaten more tried and true two-card combos, and to make sure your playgroup knows it. I've included Mike+Trike and Sanguine+Exquisite for more traditional game-enders that you want the table to be playing around. Demonic Collusion or Increasing Ambition can theoretically scrounge up any of them in one go, and odds are, you'll draw into one or two combo pieces naturally. Threatening one win while going for another has been a good strategy for me.

While you're waiting for any of that to happen, you'll be playing a grindy attrition strategy. Most of the removal comes in the form of activated abilities on permanents, for synergy with devotion, at the very least, and because I didn't want to flood the deck with all the instants and sorceries I'd need to handle a game's worth of threats. Get yourself safe and ready to combo in one or two ways, and win out of nowhere when folks are paying attention to someone else.



UPDATE Amonkhet: Took out Boots and Blightsteel for Bontu and his monument. I'd never yet won a game with Blightsteel. Bontu and his monument add more of what the deck does. Two prereleases at my LGS and not one Bontu opened, so it might be a bit to fill that sleeve, but I'm confident I'll fill it before release day is done.

Living Death seems like an amazing inclusion.

I think I'd go with Diabolic Revelation over Demonic Collusion or Increasing Ambition, personally.

Otherwise I really like this list and the idea behind it.