Zenos yae GalvusZenos yae Galvus | Art by Alexander Mokhov

Previews are now flooding in for Magic's upcoming Universes Beyond - Final Fantasy set. And with new previews comes new monocolored legends to fuel our deckbuilding frenzy here on The Monolith, the EDHREC series where it's all mono, all the time! Today we're delving into the murky swamps of mono-black to play a deck that your opponents are going to absolutely hate. Oh sorry, did I say opponents plural? I meant opponent singular. Introducing the monstrous new legend that'll be leading our deck today, Zenos yae GalvusZenos yae Galvus.

What Does Zenos yae Galvus Do?

For we get a 4/4 Human Noble Warrior that on entering the battlefield will choose exactly one creature that an opponent controls.

Once your "first friend" is chosen, all other creatures on the battlefield will get hit with a Massacre WurmMassacre Wurm style -2/-2. Now board wipes in the command zone have always been pretty decent, and very handy. Having repeatable access to a card like Massacre GirlMassacre Girl isn't exactly fun and flashy but it can lock down a game of Commander for control minded players.

Til Death Do Us Part

But whilst the soft board wipe attached to our commander is cool and all, that's not why we're here. Oh no no no. Because Zenos has a hidden backside with an absolutely bonkers bit of rules text. One that will have Standard players asking, "Why is this even legal in our format?" and will have Commander players asking, "It does what?!"

When the enemy creature chosen as part of Zenos' ETB dies, our commander will immediately transform into its reverse side. Shinryu, Transcendent Rival is an 8/8 Dragon with flying that will have us instead choose a player as it transforms. Then, and here's nuts the part, when the chosen player loses the game, we win the game.

The Game Plan for Zenos yae Galvus

So the path is clear. In this deck we enter ourselves into mortal combat with one of the other players around the table. Our second and third opponents will no longer matter to us; all we care about is taking one player, and only that player, down. It's a fight to the death!

Or at least, that's the most obvious way to build it. It's also the easiest way to completely telegraph your game plan to the rest of the table. And besides, we're playing mono-black. Why be honorable about it? Let's win the game in a far, far sneakier way.

Whoever Loses, I Win

Because the player we choose to hinge our efforts on is tied to the transform trigger on Zenos' backside, and because that trigger only comes into effect when our chosen creature leaves the battlefield, we have a horrible secret power up our sleeves: we can win the game on a combat trick.

In fact, playing Zenos this way is like taking part in a triple threat wrestling match and winning the champ's belt without even pinning them. We can win the game due to someone else's combat damage. We can win the game without even attacking.

Yes I did make this a wrestling reference, I'm sorry I don't know anything about Final Fantasy. That's about as close as I could get. Feel free to provide your own analogy in the comments.

Trick Shot

Here's the ideal scenario for winning the game at instant speed with Zenos on board. First, we need to have picked a creature when he entered. The ideal target for this is something that's difficult to kill but we have a spell in hand that can deal with it. For example, an indestructible creature that we can cast DefileDefile on.

That helps to prevent our opponents from killing the creature early, or the creature's controller chump blocking with it, before we're ready to make our choice. We want to be able to transform Zenos at the perfect moment.

Then we're going to wait for an opponent's life to be in danger. Maybe they're about to take more burn than they can handle. Or maybe an opponent is swinging in with a tonne of commander damage that they can't block. That's when we strike.

Wait until lethal damage is about to resolve and then kill the creature you chose when Zenos entered the battlefield with some instant speed removal. Doesn't matter if they die, bounce, or exile, as Zenos will transform when that creature leaves the battlefield. If it resolves without interference, Zenos will flip and you'll be able to choose the unlucky target as a dance partner, winning you the game as soon as they die.

Force Their Hand

The truly bonkers thing about all this is that we can force our opponents to accidentally kill each other using a perfectly timed combat trick. The thing about combat tricks is that most of them don't actually specify that they need to be used on a creature you control. For example, if an opponent is about to take unblocked damage from a creature with at least nine power, we can simply cast this:

Even when the other players at the table are perfectly aware of what we're up to and decide to swing on the player with the most health, we can add a lethal edge to their attacks with cards like Tainted StrikeTainted Strike. Now, all of a sudden, their nine damage becomes ten poison counters.

And of course we can do this to our own creatures too! If you've got a big trampler to bundle in with (or your opponent does), watch as they hastily assemble a wall of chump blockers to soak up the damage and then whack some instant speed deathtouch onto the creature.

The absolute best example is Touch of MoongloveTouch of Moonglove, which will not only wipe out every creature with a single point of your trample damage each, but will also drain the blocking player for every blocker that dies in the process. This effectively increases your creature's power by one for every blocker, and then dealing damage as though it were never blocked.

Backup Options

Now this is all well and good but we don't want to spend the entire game just sitting around waiting for someone to die. The quickest and most effective way to cause someone to lose the game is to make them lose ourselves. Lucky for us, there's a nice collection of cards in black that do just that.

That's right, mono-black is one of the best color identities we can be in if we want to make our opponents straight up lose the game. Vorpal SwordVorpal Sword is one of my favorite dumb artifacts that I've wanted a good home for for a while. The activation is super expensive, but you're only one Rogue's PassageRogue's Passage away from slicing down another player for good.

What's extra great about these lose-the-game effects is that they're abilities that will go on the stack. You don't have to reveal your hand until that player is guaranteed to lose the game. Just look out for StifleStifle effects!

Once it's on the stack, you can hold priority and cast your instant speed kill spell to trigger Zenos. This can be much more effective than using cards like the brand new Summon: Primal OdinSummon: Primal Odin. This card definitely seems like it was printed as an intentional combo piece with Zenos, but it's very telegraphed. The first chapter will achieve your transformation for you. But you'll have to wait a whole other turn for the effect you want on the creature to win the game.

Consolation Prize

In general this whole thing is pretty easy to interact with. Someone could hold up removal to kill Zenos. They could play the aforementioned StifleStifle to counter the transform or "lose the game" effect. Or they could just straight up counter the kill spell in the first place.

The thing is though, even if someone stops us winning the game, it's very likely we're still going to take a player out. If we have to win the old fashioned way, we're still one third of the way there. We can add a few additional payoffs to the situation though, to get the most bang for our kill-bucks.

These cards aren't exactly slam dunks but they do fit the theme of assassinating our opponents pretty well. Curse of VengeanceCurse of Vengeance feels like the best of the bunch due to its low cost and insidious nature. The target of the Curse isn't very likely to remove it as it doesn't actually do anything to them until they die. And at that point, who cares? Meanwhile, if we didn't win the game due to their loss, we're flooding our hand and our life points.

My Last Friend

If you want to end your EDH games a little bit quicker, or if you like picking one opponent at the table to absolutely bully, then Zenos yae GalvusZenos yae Galvus might be the deck for you. Just be warned that he's going to be an absolute lightning rod for removal. And I can foresee quite a lot of players not enjoying playing against this deck too much!

Thanks so much for reading The Monolith and I'll see you on the next issue for some more monocolored shenanigans. Until then have a lovely day, and why not check out some of these articles from the wonderful writers here at EDHREC.com: