jsnrice on Atraxa, Grand Unifier

1 day ago

Deck Title: Ascension Through Unity – Atraxa cEDH Food Chain

Commander

Atraxa, Grand Unifier
Color Identity:

Introduction

Welcome to Ascension Through Unity, a competitive EDH build centered around Atraxa, Grand Unifier, the ultimate value engine and a uniquely powerful commander that bridges midrange resilience with combo potential. This list leverages the raw card advantage of Atraxa’s ETB trigger to dig for win conditions, interaction, and fast mana — all while supporting a Food Chain combo core.

This deck is tuned for high-level pods and aims to win fast, interact precisely, and grind smart when necessary.

Win Conditions

Primary Wincon:
- Food Chain + Eternal Scourge / Misthollow Griffin / Flesh Duplicate
Infinite creature mana via Food Chain and one of the exile-recurring creatures.
→ Cast Atraxa, Grand Unifier, dig for Thassa's OracleGC or Tainted Pact / Demonic Consultation combo.

Backup Wincons:
- Thassa's OracleGC + Tainted Pact / Demonic Consultation
- Finale of Devastation for lethal with infinite mana
- Displacer Kitten combos with The One RingGC, Teferi, Time Raveler, or mana rocks for infinite value/actions

Notable Synergies

• Atraxa, Grand Unifier ETB + Displacer Kitten: Abuse blink triggers for maximum card filtering and pseudo-storm turns.
• Food Chain + Exile creatures: Efficient engine for infinite mana into Atraxa chains.
• Talion, the Kindly Lord + low-cost spell density = passive draw engine.
• Drannith MagistrateGC, Opposition AgentGC, Orcish Bowmasters: Stax elements that don’t disrupt our own lines.
• Archivist of Oghma, Esper Sentinel, Mystic Remora, Rhystic StudyGC: Passive card draw galore.

Staples and Interaction

This deck plays nearly every blue interaction spell you’d expect: - Free Countermagic: Force of WillGC, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, Mindbreak Trap, Flusterstorm
- Removal: Swords to Plowshares, Abrupt Decay, Chain of Vapor, Toxic Deluge, Culling Ritual
- Tutors: Vampiric TutorGC, Demonic TutorGC, Worldly Tutor, Enlightened TutorGC, Imperial SealGC

And it runs every relevant fast mana: - Mana Crypt, Lotus Petal, Chrome MoxGC, Mox DiamondGC, Mox Opal, Mana VaultGC, Ancient TombGC

Why Atraxa?

While many commanders offer value, Atraxa’s Grand Unifier trigger is uniquely broken in a deck like this. With a proper build, she can hit: - A creature (e.g. Eternal Scourge, Deathrite Shaman)
- A non-creature spell (e.g. Demonic Consultation)
- An instant (e.g. Swan Song, An Offer You Can't Refuse)
- A sorcery (e.g. Finale of Devastation)
- An artifact (e.g. Sol Ring)
- An enchantment (e.g. Rhystic StudyGC)
- A planeswalker (e.g. Teferi, Time Raveler)

This makes Atraxa a one-card value engine that refills your hand and pivots you into a win turn with proper sequencing.

Power Level & Goals

This deck is firmly cEDH (power level 9.5–10). It’s built for pods where interaction is heavy, turns are fast, and wins are clean.

You’ll thrive if: - You can protect Atraxa, Grand Unifier for at least one trigger
- You pilot your combo lines efficiently
- You mulligan aggressively for interaction or ramp

Mulligan Strategy

Look for: - Turn 1–2 dorks/rocks + tutor
- Food Chain + exile creature opener
- Strong card draw pieces + interaction
- Always mull away clunky high-CMC hands

Weaknesses

• Susceptible to Drannith MagistrateGC (unless we remove it)
• Hate for graveyard/exile recursion (Rest in Peace, etc.)
• Heavy counterspell matchups if we stumble on mana

Closing Thoughts

Atraxa, Grand Unifier doesn’t just unify card types — she unifies power, control, and combo under one elegantly devastating package. Whether you’re tutoring with efficiency or slamming a turn 4 Food Chain win, this deck rewards mastery and punishes hesitation. Perfect for cEDH players who love versatility and inevitability.

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you want a sideboard package or metagame tweaks.

DemonDragonJ on Why are Worldly Tutor and …

4 days ago

WotC regards Mystical TutorGC, Enlightened TutorGC, Demonic TutorGC, and Vampiric TutorGC as "game changers" in EDH/commander, but does not consider Worldly Tutor or Gamble, the red and green cards in that cycle (not including Demonic TutorGC) to be game changers, as well, so I am wondering why they have that opinion. My best presumption is that Gamble is too unreliable to be a game changer and that searching one's library specifically for a creature card is far more commonplace, and, thus, less impactful, than is searching one's library specifically for an artifact, enchantment, instant, or sorcery card.

What does everyone else say, about this subject? Why are Gamble and Worldly Tutor not considered to be game changers in EDH?

Mortlocke on Commander Sliver Deck

4 weeks ago

Okay Twinships, lets start with the most important thing you must know about Slivers - and repeat after me: "Slivers are a sometimes food.". While they are amazing, and the more show up the more ridiculous the boardstate - you don't need all of them. There are times when you absolutely need room for other things like interaction, engines, you know...an actual deck. First things first - Who is your commander? To designate a Commander for the list on TappedOut you need to tag the card with CMDR when editing your deck list. Depending on the Commander, choices and recommendations will vary.

As of now, your deck has no engines, interaction, or resiliency - all of which are needed as you seem to be suffering from the classic Sliver problem of poor table politics. So, lets start looking at some card recommendations:

• Lurking Predators: You need an engine, and this is as good as any. It also plays into table politics as it disincentivizes other decks from popping off at best, at worst it gets your opponents focusing on it instead of your creatures.

• Intruder Alarm: You need an engine, this one in particular is one of the usual suspects for slivers that help close out games. When Heart Sliver (or any other haste enabler) and Manaweft Sliver (or any other dork) are on the field you can at worst play your whole hand, and at best play your whole deck and close the game on the same turn. Just make sure you only play this when you can effectively end the game as it is an effect that benefits your opponents as well.

• Worldly Tutor: You need tutors.

• Sylvan Tutor: You need tutors.
• Demonic TutorGC: You need tutors.
• Grim Tutor: You need tutors.
• Guardian Project: You need card draw.
• Dormant Sliver: This is an optional card draw suggestion as you need a reliable sac outlet to remove the Defender ability from your Sliver
• Counterspell: You need interaction.
• Mana Drain: You need interaction.
• Strix Serenade: You need interaction.
• Swan Song: You need interaction.
• Kindred Dominance: You need mass removal to slow down faster players.
• Blasphemous Act: You need mass removal to slow down faster players. This also combos very well with Spiteful Sliver as well.
• Cyclonic RiftGC: You need mass removal to slow down faster players and have answers.
• Consider the Talisman cycle: Talisman of Curiosity, Talisman of Dominance etc. You need more rocks and means of fixing your manabase.
• Kodama's Reach: The Sister to Cultivate - you need as many options as possible to fix your manabase in this deck as you are running all 5 colors. 5 Color decks tend to run slow and inefficient if you don't invest heavily in the manabase and/or in many different options for color fixing. On that same note, consider Skyshroud Claim as it is also very similar in nature as long as you have lands with multiple subtypes e.g. Stomping Ground or Breeding Pool which are both Forests but also are other land types. Also on that note - get shocklands. All of them. If you can also afford it get the Kahns of Tarkir/Onslaught/Zendikar Fetchlands as well. An okay cheaper substitute for the previously mentioned would be the Mirage Fetchlands - but they're an incomplete cycle. Sorry for the tangent here.

Now, these are just a start to some suggestions and ideas for your deck. But we can't get started until you designate your commander. Then we can start cutting to make room. Are there any pet cards or ideas you have? Please share.

Seuchenschutz on Sidisi Brood Commander

3 months ago

Thx for the suggestions Andramalech! Im really happy to get some feedback on this deck. In an earlier Version i had 2-3 cheap counters in the deck An Offer You Can't Refuse, Swan Song and a Negate but I took them out, because they became a salt factor in my playgroup. Whatever. Victimize is a great card, but after playing it for a while, I often felt like them coming tapped and leaving me with less blockers for a turn is kind of a big downside. I had some situations, where I just couldnt afford to cast it. As for the Diabolic Intent its the same with the counters. Salty players... But I just couldnt get myself to cut the Demonic Tutor. Plumb the Forbidden however might be worth a shot.

Flarhoon13 on Kaervek the Merciless, Vampires & Doomsday Demons

4 months ago

May 3, 2024 I started a new quest. Having built 52 decks, I endeavoured to play them all, in roughly the same order as I created them.

May 31

Kaervek the Merciless, Vampires & Doomsday Demons loss 8-8 I went for it but vs two blue decks with open mana and I paid the ultimate price. Had Bloodletter of Aclazotz out, cast Rune-Scarred Demon and got Demonic Consultation since I had Mirror of Fate in hand. Consulted for Fraying Omnipotence but that exiled all but three cards of my deck. Cast a five drop demon but the Fraying Omnipotence ate a counter. Blaine's Blue Sun's Zenith finished me off.

Before I had started this play through of my decks, I had gotten a turn 4 win with Bloodletter of Aclazotz and Fraying Omnipotence against these very same opponents in a game last year, tied for fastest victory of any of my decks. Turn one Sol Ring, turn 2 Demonic Tutor, turn 3 played the tutor target, Bloodletter of Aclazotz and turn 4 Fraying Omnipotence ended the game. Kind of. The table just kept playing out the game so Kurtis could show off Ovika, Enigma Goliath's crazy tricks.

_Kane_ on Karlov of the Ghost Council

4 months ago

Sheltered by Ghosts

Celestine, the Living Saint

Charismatic Conqueror

Elenda's Hierophant

Ocelot Pride

Teferi's Protection

Starscape Cleric

Enduring Innocence

Enduring Tenacity

Smothering Tithe

Archivist of Oghma

Dark Confidant

Essence Channeler

Spectrum Sentinel

Voice of the Blessed

Twilight Prophet

Darkstar Augur

Vampiric Tutor

Deadly Rollick

Flawless Maneuver

Galadriel's Dismissal

Final Showdown

Akroma's Will

Demonic Tutor

Farewell

Grim Tutor

Reanimate

The One Ring

Caduceus, Staff of Hermes

Brotherhood Regalia

The Ozolith

The Meathook Massacre

Lunar Convocation

Case of the Uneaten Feast

Shizo, Death's Storehouse

Rogue's Passage

Cabal Coffers

Arcane Signet

Marsh Flats

_AoxomoxoA_ on Veni, Vidi, Vici

5 months ago

10/21/2024 Revisions

Why?

I would consider this update the final trimming of the really fatty parts of this deck. The main goal here was to remove some cards that only semi-synergized with the deck and to replace them with cards that really shine light on where this deck succeeds. These changes massively upgrade the token generation capability and the payoff for having them. The cards removed from here were in no ways bad cards, they just didn't quite see eye-to-eye with what the deck should be doing: Generating tokens and being very aggressive, punishing a lack of removal and interaction while also being resilient to creature board wipes. The legion always has more bodies to throw at the problem. See notes on each removal/addition and my thought process for doing so below:

sdtech58 on sdtech58

5 months ago

Demonic Tutor Grim Tutor Vampiric Tutor Mystical Tutor Entomb

Those would be the tutors I recommend.

If you want to stick with the mill theme, i'd recommend going to edhrec.com and putting in Gisa & Geralf as your CMDR and then you can choose the style of deck (Mill, Zombie, etc.) They will give you many more recommendations for the best cards to add. A few that I run with a different mill themed deck are:

Mesmeric Orb Mindcrank Maddening Cacophony

I personally think The Scarab God is a better Commander for a Mill themed deck because his activated ability can pull a creature from anyone's graveyard. So you can mill the crap out of yourself (and others) then pull their best creatures out of their graveyards