MTG Salvation

Hello,

I've been lurking the forums for the past 4 or 5 months and I finally have decided to post a funny deck I made. The concept is really easy and incredibly simple to play. If you're not winning by turn 5, you've already lost the game and should just concede right away



Pretty simple idea here and I'll show you what every single one of your games is going to look like. You're a 5 turn combo deck that abuses Ad Nauseum and Sickening dreams for a table clearing win.

You will always start off with 7 swamps almost every game (unless you get very lucky and might get one of the 4 other cards in the deck). From here, follow these simple instructions

Turn 1
Play a swamp
Turn 2
Play a swamp
Turn 3
Play a swamp
Play Maralen
Turn 4
Search out Dark Ritual
Play a swamp
Turn 5
Search out Ad Nauseam
Play a swamp
Cast Dark Ritual with 3 black floating
Tap the rest of the Swamps for another 4 black
Cast Ad Nauseam until you draw out your entire deck or enough cards that equal the highest life total of any player. You won't take any damage besides the Sickening Dreams because your lands are 0 converted mana cost.
Play Dark Sphere, tap and sac it
With the final 2 black mana, play Sickening dreams and discard all those cards you now have in hand dealing a huge amount of damage


Dark Sphere stops you from dying to Sickening Dreams while you kill everyone else. Unfortunately, this deck is pretty easy to disrupt, especially if the table has some idea whats coming. And since Maralen is letting everyone else at the table pick and choose their own cards, you'll get stopped fairly easily with either Counterspells or maralen removal. But when it works, its pretty funny watching the faces of everyone around you. And the deck itself is incredible easy to put together too. This deck should only work like once. After that, just use a different deck haha.

Also, I realized that someone has posted a similar deck in the Commander Decklist section in 2010. Ah well, I'm sure people haven't seen it, so may as well just repost it (mine was quicker than theirs anyway).

Hope you enjoy my silly deck and try it sometime

you'd do better to replace as many swamps as possible with cheap or free mana acceleration (lotus petal sol ring cabal ritual etc). you're unlikely to draw them, but if you do then you can win a turn faster

also it's probably better to replace the win condition of Sickening Dreams and Dark Sphere with Skirge Familiar and Exsanguinate. same idea of drawing your deck with ad nauseam and winning, and wins on the same turn, but lets you include more disruption (eg Mind Twist)

edit: here's an example

Quote from TANE

you'd do better to replace as many swamps as possible with cheap or free mana acceleration (lotus petal sol ring cabal ritual etc). you're unlikely to draw them, but if you do then you can win a turn faster

also it's probably better to replace the win condition of Sickening Dreams and Dark Sphere with Skirge Familiar and Exsanguinate. same idea of drawing your deck with ad nauseam and winning, and wins on the same turn, but lets you include more disruption (eg Mind Twist)

I totally agree with the free mana acceleration. Might as well include it considering I'm sitting around for the first 2 turns doing nothing. So far I have: Lotus Petal, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, and Cabal Ritual. Can't think of any "free" acceleration off the top of my head

Maybe I'm not seeing what you're talking about but for the win condition it looks slower than my way. Skirge Familiar for 5 + Ad Nauseam for another 5= 10. You'd have to wait another turn to cast both separately. Mine you its Ad Naueseum is 5 and Sickening is 2. With Dark ritual you are guaranteed to have the combo completed on that turn.

Quote from matty

Maybe I'm not seeing what you're talking about but for the win condition it looks slower than my way. Skirge Familiar for 5 + Ad Nauseam for another 5= 10. You'd have to wait another turn to cast both separately. Mine you its Ad Naueseum is 5 and Sickening is 2. With Dark ritual you are guaranteed to have the combo completed on that turn.

when you cast Skirge Familiar on turn 5 you should have 6 cards in hand (counting ad nauseam), so you can just discard the others for 5 more mana

edit: apparently I counted wrong, so you only have 5 cards in hand when you're going first if you use my method. yours is probably better then!

Maybe including both combo's together might be a good idea? If one gets countered, the other should be able to clean up immediately after the following turn. I don't think it would hurt the deck at all since you will constantly have enough mana in you're hand regardless and gives you extra insurance in case something goes wrong.

Aren't you much better off tutoring for Ad Naseum with Demonic/Vampiric/ect

Seems like everyone just goes and tutors up a counterspell and then you lose with your general.

This deck has been done before, many times and in different ways. The best version I have seen is with lots of 0 mana cost artifacts, ironworks, and exanguanate as the kill. random UB commander as you never want to give your opponents a vampiric tutor before you combo off, and with blue you can include pact of negation and mystical tutor.

Sean McKeown even did an article on the deck, which can be found here:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/commander/23076_Dear_Azami_The_Worst_Thing_You_Can_Still_Do_To_People.html

I have a mono-b version online that makes for pretty boring turn 3-4 kills and a table of opponents who scold you for wasting their time. Fun the first few times, but basically you win 90% of the time and the other 10% you mulligan to oblivion or get your ad nauseam countered.

Quote from slylie

This deck has been done before, many times and in different ways. The best version I have seen is with lots of 0 mana cost artifacts, ironworks, and exanguanate as the kill. random UB commander as you never want to give your opponents a vampiric tutor before you combo off, and with blue you can include pact of negation and mystical tutor.

Five colour as well would work I assume for optimal build. People do criticise Ad Nauseam with Hermit Druid for most broken plays.

You were very blunt, but you summarised the issue with this style deck well, not exactly interative or ideal outside a very competitive meta.

Seems like it may work once and every time after that your playgroup will just tutor for removal.

A real life spike friend of mine who I successfuly got addicted to Commander asked to see me play the deck online. The game he watched I turn 4 killed everyone and he was ecstatic and demanded the decklist, building it then improving my list. He was super excited to tell me he was 5/5 with the deck, but only a few games later admitted it was amazingly boring to play once the novelty wore off. He since has built a 'fun' Edrick Elves deck and has almost retired the deck.

Sean's list is ok but a lot of un-needed stuff like o-stone and infernal tutor. You don't even need to go infnite.

this has been done many times with better, more consistent decklists. maralen is THE WORST tutor you can use, and anyone with a brain will tutor up something to kill her, often a bant charm, completely destroying you.

My take is:



Tutor up ad nauseam, play it, draw your deck, play 0-drops, play tendrils of agony. if needed play yawgwin and play tendrils again.

also runs dark sphere + sickening dreams

I think Sean's list runs Miralen just as its a last resort tutor, and is especially good with Winding Canyons.

Actually in a mono black build with Miralen maybe fitting in expedition map as a second canyons, lake of the dead, or other utility land you might need.

Runningbear, where is your LED? Also tendrils might not do it in a big ffa, id fit in an exanguanate and krak-clan ironworks. Culling the weak is another ritual which you could run, and all the 0 cc artifact creatures.

Quote from slylie

I think Sean's list runs Miralen just as its a last resort tutor, and is especially good with Winding Canyons.

Actually in a mono black build with Miralen maybe fitting in expedition map as a second canyons, lake of the dead, or other utility land you might need.

Runningbear, where is your LED? Also tendrils might not do it in a big ffa, id fit in an exanguanate and krak-clan ironworks. Culling the weak is another ritual which you could run, and all the 0 cc artifact creatures.

Winding canyons looks good with maralen, even though you then need 6 mana to use it.

Im not sure where my led is, i guess i forgot it, although i do have iron works in there. completely forgot about exsanguinate.

Tendrils is great, although i actually think dark sphere + dreams is better. Theres 36 0 drops, and you can play all of the 1 drops, all of the 2 drops, and probably all of the other cards too, to get a storm count of 90-something damage, then play yawgwill, replay your rituals, then play tendrills again for 100-something damage.

Would the B/U version just run all the transmutes and tutors with counters and Oona as the general?

The general really isn't important, basically anything will do in the colors. Oona might be ok as a backup plan, though.

run as many of the better tutors as possible, as you can only really keep a hand with Adnausem itself or a tutor, or possibly top. Brainspoil transmutes for ad nauseum but its 5cc which you don't want unless you can't get a hold of cheaper tutors.

For this deck in order of best to worst, imo..


1. Demonic Tutor
2. Vampiric Tutor
3. Imperial Seal
4. Mystical Tutor
5. Grim Tutor
6. Diabolic Tutor
7. Brainspoil
9. Infernal Tutor (only good with LED or if you can dump your hand)
10.Cruel Tutor
11. Long-Term Plans
12. Personal Tutor
13. Rhystic Tutor

Taking into account Mana cost, speed, if it goes in your hand or top of library, if you have to reveal (I hate revealing).

Im thinking about a few of the lower cost transmutes to get me to a tutor too.

Wil try to put a decklist together.. as for protecting ad nauseum, i think boseiju is the best protection with a pact of negation backing up the exanginate or dreams. Opinions?

Quote from slylie

The general really isn't important, basically anything will do in the colors. Oona might be ok as a backup plan, though.

run as many of the better tutors as possible, as you can only really keep a hand with Adnausem itself or a tutor, or possibly top. Brainspoil transmutes for ad nauseum but its 5cc which you don't want unless you can't get a hold of cheaper tutors.

For this deck in order of best to worst, imo..


1. Demonic Tutor
2. Vampiric Tutor
3. Imperial Seal
4. Mystical Tutor
5. Grim Tutor
6. Diabolic Tutor
7. Brainspoil
9. Infernal Tutor (only good with LED or if you can dump your hand)
10.Cruel Tutor
11. Long-Term Plans
12. Personal Tutor
13. Rhystic Tutor

Taking into account Mana cost, speed, if it goes in your hand or top of library, if you have to reveal (I hate revealing).

Here's my first stab at this with BU. Thoughts?