From the Brim to the Trim - Targeting Opponents and Budgets alike
(Horobi, Death's Wail| Art by Rorubei)
In Kamigawa, No One Can Hear You Scream
Greetings and salutations, my dear readers, from a place where for once I have absolutely no idea how to begin with a witty phrase. I'm Arnaud, and I'm thrilled to take you to the dark alleys of creature removal, creature removal and... well creature removal.
It's been a while, what with the absolute horrors of Duskmourn and all the reviews. On the bright side, this has given you all quite some time to answer the two questions I submitted on our last iteration.
Let's start with the first poll.
An overwhelming majority of you (85%) gave a favourable answer to my offer of reviewing past Trims. So then, from now on I'll add a small section at the end of the article to see if subsequent adjustments are required for old brews.
On to our contenders. It's been a fun journey. Out of curiosity, I took a look at how the poll evolved in the first days.
The least I could say is it was a rough ride. Each of the three commanders came ahead at some point, breathing on each others' necks.
In the end though, and despite leading the way for quite some time, Azami, Lady of Scrolls came last, with 93 votes (31%).
Second came Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, with 100 votes (33%). Our winner, therefore, is Horobi, Death's Wail, whose cry of pain is probably an echo of the ordeal I'll be undergoing trying to build an interesting deck with him. Let's take a closer look.
The original Champions of Kamigawa set was released in October 2004, almost 20 years ago. Back in those days, a 4/4 flyer for 4 mana needed to have serious handicaps to justify its stats and keyword.
Chisei, Heart of Oceans had an annoying upkeep trigger, Iwamori of the Open Fist gave a major advantage to your opponents, and Horobi... Horobi horribly died.
Granted, Commander was nowhere near what it has become today, but still, it was hard to find a room for these creatures even in 1v1 formats, appealing as their stats may be.
See, Horobi's ability is its own demise. Anything targeting him will instantly act as a killswitch. This also precludes most forms of protection, as the simple act of trying to attach, say an Aura or an Equipment would be equally lethal.
This is the reason why I'm dreading this build. It's all but an easy task. On Horobi's page, there are little to no decks following a definite theme.
Despite there being, at the time of writing, 1,589 decks to its name, there are also only 32 Aristocrats decks, 21 Reanimators, 10 Spirits and 10 Cantrips. Before we focus on the direction we want to take the wailer, let's proceed in order.
Combining both Normal and Cheap lists, we reach 338 cards, commander not included. Let's get to it.
First Trim - The Cardboard Chainsaw Massacre
There's a lot of stuff going on here. After getting rid of anything worth more than $2, we're left with 240 cards.
Don't worry, we'll still abide by our $1 rule, but there are already some interesting toys here that could provide an inkling on the direction we'll navigate to.
Here's a few picks worth a second look:
- Dingus Staff: Old school outlet for Aristocrats, right in the footsteps of Massacre Wurm.
- Boggart Trawler: Unless Wizards reprints this in future precons (which I kind of doubt), I expect it to rise in price in the years to come.
- War Room: In my opinion, a must-play in every monocolor deck.
- Massacre Wurm: Can you believe this finisher has dropped down to $1.24? And here in Europe you can grab one for less than €1. Times change.
- Palace Siege: Ours will be a heavy death toll, and we need all the recursion we can get.
- Sepulchral Primordial and Gisa, Glorious Resurrector: If we're bent on killing our opponents' creatures, we might as well try getting them back.
- Gift of Doom: One of the very few ways you can protect your Commander. This would have been a no-brainer.
- Nowhere to Run, Glaring Spotlight and Detection Tower: Because being able to target anything is key.
- Exsanguinate: Yes, it's a boring staple, but in a deck like this that's probably going to be all over the place, I wouldn't have minded this finisher.
- Dread Presence: Every time I see this card I love it a bit more. Versatile and effective in anything it does. And it's a killer with Horobi.
- Thaumatic Compass: Get some lands to hand, but more importantly get at worst a Maze of Ith, and at best a land that kills any attacker.
The remaining three cards, all costing less than $1.10, are:
- Underworld Dreams: $1.01, so sure. Plus this is a pet card of mine, reminds me of the days when I played kitchen-table Legacy decks. I'm willing to keep it. For now.
- Barad-dûr: I'm not entirely sure how good amassing Orcs with it can be, but there will be plenty of dead creatures to trigger it, so why not.
- Shelob, Dread Weaver: A sneaky way to benefit from your opponents' creatures dying.
After all these cuts, we're down to 217 cards, with about a third of our original list off the boards. And still a long way to go.
Second Trim - Cardward Scissorhands
This is an uncanny one. We have about a million removal spells, a large quantity of draw outlets, a single board wipe worth its salt and a decent amount of ramp. This should probably sweep another good chunk of our excessive cards.
While Draw and Ramp will probably remain in the usual range, I'm going to keep a decent amount of removal spells, that can be either recursive or that can aim at multiple targets. There's a lot of weird things that I'll be happy to axe.
Here we go, get ready for the table of Doom.
| Draw | Ramp | Removal |
Much, much better. I don't think I recall ever seeing a list with so many removal spells bundled up. Following these cuts, we still have 15 of these, in addition to 12 ramp and 14 draw spells.
This should be more than enough to get going.
Sorting out removals was harder than expected. After getting a good makeover to the land base, we're down to 162 cards. And now to the fun part.
Third Trim - Cutting Off the Rough Edges
Now that the tedious homework is out of the way, let's have a look at the different categories populating our deck, and the potential strategies therein.
- First, the obvious: there's a massive amount of cards with the sole purpose of targeting stuff either for cheap or repeatedly. While we're going to keep a decent amount of those, as they are what makes our deck tick with our Commander. Yet, they still need a good shaving. More specifically, I want to keep mostly cards that can do stuff on their own, and not there only to work in conjunction with Horobi. I'll still try to keep some janky spells, if only for the pleasure of playing something which will bewilder the table.
- Second, there's a hefty Reanimation/Recursion package. As creatures will die repeatedly, it's a good idea to keep a few around, just to make sure our beaters can make a stunning comeback.
- Third, tutors. You know how I feel about these in clunky decks, and this is no exception. Off with them.
- Last, there's a bunch of pingers. These I'll probably keep altogether, as they work towards our end goal and make for a more than decent plan B.
I will also probably cut off a bunch of miscellaneous stuff which don't belong to a specific category and are in excess.
Finally, there's also a few cards which I feel are cruel omissions from this list and that I might try finding a spot for.
Which brings us to our main strategy. Horobi is a weird one, as he's basically a kill-on-sight threat. He's also extremely easy to dispose of, since a single targeting action from anything will trigger its ability, sending it to its demise.
Therefore, I see this more as a political deck than anything. You'll want to hoard assets, keeping your Commander at hand as an ever-available kill-switch.
Given the deck's structure, you should have at least a couple of ways to dispose of the biggest threats, if not more.
Granted, it's likely someone will target Horobi the moment it hits the field. Just remember to hold priority to chain your targets. And cross fingers for sorcery-speed or enter-the-battlefield (ETB) activations.
There are also a couple of pseudo-combos that can basically wipe the table with Horobi out, with Ogre Slumlord in conjunction with Orc Sureshot or Shadow Alley Denizen to name a few.
As a side note, it's funny how many instants giving indestructible have been included, useless as they are with Horobi out. Cast spell targeting something, Horobi triggers, kills something before original spell resolves.
Granted, they are not totally useless overall, but I think there's a hint of nonbo here.
Timing will likely be quite tricky. This is not an aggressive deck. You'll probably wait for other players to tear each other to shreds, gathering enough resources to keep most menaces at bay consistently, and then swoop in to steal the win.
It's also a deck that won't rely too much on its Commander, which can be seen both as an advantage or a drawback, depending on your vision.
Let's get some trimming done.
| Target | Reanimation/Recursion | Tutors | Misc. |
Right. 110 cards. Finally. On to the last stretch, with a few surprises along the way.
Final Trim - Heart-Wrenching Choices
To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit at a loss on what to cut here. So instead, let me first tell you about the four cards I want to add.
- Drain Life and Consume Spirit: This is a mono-black deck, so the mana restriction shouldn't be too much of an issue. Given the relatively low power level of this deck, I wouldn't be surprised if games dragged for a while, enough for these spells to finish someone off. After all, we're already playing Profane Command!
- Darksteel Juggernaut: Prior to the final cuts, there are 21 artifacts in this deck. So this could be at worst a decent blocker, and at best a savage beater. Granted, it sorely lacks trample. But it's indestructible. With our commander, that counts.
- Guiltfeeder: I'm a bit surprised it's not on Horobi's page at all. This will often hit like a truck, and fear makes it almost unblockable.
Now that we've added a few pet spells, let's see what we can do to reach the fated 100.
As usual, at this point of the brew, there are no bad choices, so feel free to swap any of these with something else or criticise me fiercely for a critical interaction I may have missed.
- Kuro, Pitlord: I like the big guy, with its ability to gatling down a board, but the upkeep is too steep, the mana cost too hefty, and it has no evasion.
- Accursed Marauder: I removed the other sacrifice outlets, might as well get rid of the last one.
- Black Sun's Twilight: Cute, but too mana intensive to truly shine.
- Thought Vessel: Colorless mana, and I doubt we'll have that much card overflow.
- Kothophed, Soul Hoarder: Should provide decent value in this deck, but is too expensive for my taste. Harvester of Souls is enough.
- Overseer of the Damned: Yes, it's a 5/5 flyer. Yes, it kills. Yes, it could pop tokens out like there's no tomorrow. But it's also .
- Squee's Toy: Cute, but a bit situational for a single activation.
- Victimize: I love the spell so much, this is a hard decision. But among the recursion package, this is the one I feel less inclined to keep.
- Retreat to Hagra: Of the remaining targeting outlets, this one feels the most underwhelming (not counting the fun jank stuff).
- Corrupted Conviction: Either this or Village Rites. Brings us to 12 draw spells, should be enough.
- Vadmir, New Blood: He could grow big, but let's be real, he'll probably be dead before he can grow to a significant size.
- Liquimetal Torque: Colorless, and we don't really care about turning stuff into trinkets, do we?
- The Eldest Reborn: Not exactly in the theme, despite a lovely package of abilities.
- Wail of the Nim: Because to hell with caution.
And there we have it. 100 cards of Horobi's despair.
Additional Trim - A Look Into the Past
As promised, let's investigate the third deck in the series.
This time, we're returning to Phyrexia, with Ovika, Enigma Goliath.
Things have indeed changed since the inception of this deck, but it could be worse, by a lot. Here are the cards worth more than $1.10 at the time of writing:
- Battle Hymn: $1.11
- Swiftfoot Boots: $1.76
- Sorcerer Class: $1.89
- Emergence Zone: $2.99
So, a couple of ramp spells, a protection outlet and a flash enabler.
Here's what we're replacing these with.
- Izzet Signet: Not as efficient as the Hymn, but still a solid rock.
- Impact Tremors: The card is currently listed at $1, and while no Purphoros, God of the Forge, it can quickly deal massive amounts of damage with our Commander.
- Molten Gatekeeper: For exactly the same reasons.
- Temple of the False God: To replace the land we lost.
In order to not overload the page, I'll avoid posting the entire list once more. You can find the updated list here.
Conclusion
So, we made it, despite all the efforts from our dear Horobi to impart death onto our decaying brain. What do you think? Would you play this list? Would you have gone another direction altogether?
Let me know in the comments below, and I'll see you in two weeks!
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Arnaud Gompertz
Arnaud Gompertz has been playing Magic since 4th Edition, back in 1995. He's been an assiduous EDH enthusiast since 2012, with a soft spot for unusual and casual Commanders. He'll always favour spectacular plays against a boring path to victory. Aside from mistreating cardboard, he's a dedicated board games player, loves a challenging video game and occasionally tries to sing with his choir.
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