(Henrika DomnathiHenrika Domnathi | Art by Billy Christian)

Technically Playable - Henrika DomnathiHenrika Domnathi

Welcome to Technically Playable, where our mission statement is "Every commander is Technically playable" (the best kind of playable).

The way this works is every article will have a commander generated using EDHREC's random button, I'll talk through the card and then write about how we can build around it!

This week's random commander is

A Vampire Value Engine

The front of this card is definitely the hardest to leverage in this commander's color identity. The lack of blue and white restricts us on how much we can flicker Henrika, while the lack of red means we're much less able to copy her or take additional combat steps to trigger her multiple times in one turn.

The main goal here is to turn the deck into a Rube Goldberg machine of pieces that help us lock down the board and get as many turns worth of value out of Henrika as possible.

Sacrificing

Henrika's first modal ability is effectively a copy of Innocent BloodInnocent Blood. Sacrificing creatures has always been a powerful ability in EDH. She gets around hexproof, indestructible and can shut down decks that run a low creature count. While you only get one sacrifice from Henrika you can definitely get some value out of her.

One of my favorite sacrifice payoffs is Grave BetrayalGrave Betrayal. While expensive at seven mana, it allows you to really focus your deck on removal while still being able to keep your board healthy enough to both protect yourself and close games out.

You can also pair Grave BetrayalGrave Betrayal with the often disliked Grave PactGrave Pact and Dictate of ErebosDictate of Erebos. These each increase the number of sacrifices from Henrika while also giving you more payoffs from cards like Grave BetrayalGrave Betrayal.

You can also go down the route of Zulaport CutthroatZulaport Cutthroat and Blood ArtistBlood Artist to drain your opponents when creatures die. Blood ArtistBlood Artist is best here as it will trigger off of your opponent's creatures as well as yours.

To get the most out of these kinds of cards we will want some sacrifice fodder like Reassembling SkeletonReassembling Skeleton and GravecrawlerGravecrawler. We can also add to this element of the deck by adding other sacrifice outlets like Ashnod's AltarAshnod's Altar or my personal favourite Yawgmoth, Thran PhysicianYawgmoth, Thran Physician.

Drawing

The second mode you can choose is to draw a card and lose a life. There are tons, and I mean tons, of card draw payoffs. The most typical are cards like Psychosis CrawlerPsychosis Crawler and Sheoldred, the ApocalypseSheoldred, the Apocalypse but there are others we can look at playing instead.

We can run a second (slightly worse) version of Psychosis CrawlerPsychosis Crawler in the form of Starving RevenantStarving Revenant. I love descend as a mechanic and this deck benefits from it a lot too since we will want to run quite a few permanents.

Starving RevenantStarving Revenant gives some top deck manipulation and potential draw when you play it followed by the ability to drain opponents when we draw going forward.

The main drawback of this is that it only hits one opponent so we will be here for a while trying to end the game with this card.

We can also use Gix, Yawgmoth PraetorGix, Yawgmoth Praetor as another card draw payoff. Not only does Gix let us draw when we hit our opponents, it also lets you discard any number of cards to steal cards off the top of your opponent's deck.

If you've been drawing a lot and have a handful of lands you can easily turn that into gas by exiling the top cards of the card deck at the table. Gix also enables any graveyard synergies we might want to use by letting us

While not strictly a card draw card I'd also like to give an honourable mention to Rankle, Master of PranksRankle, Master of Pranks and Rankle's PrankRankle's Prank. These cards both synergise amazingly well with Henrika, fueling any sacrifice synergies while Rankle also allows you to draw additional cards too.

Rankle turns Underworld DreamsUnderworld Dreams and Scrawling CrawlerScrawling Crawler-type effects into some very quick and efficient burn that rivals even Psychosis CrawlerPsychosis Crawler but also pose the risk of giving your opponent's resources making for much more interesting decisions than just casting Psychosis CrawlerPsychosis Crawler into NecrodominanceNecrodominance.

Rebuying

Since we're trying to get as much value out of Henrika as we can we don't want to choose the third mode, to get around this we need to turn Henrika into a new "game object". There are a couple of ways of doing this.

The first is to utilise colorless flicker effects to exile and return Henrika every turn to be able to use the same ability multiple times. Conjurer's ClosetConjurer's Closet is most people's go-to colourless card for this kind of effect but there are some other alternatives.

The majority of these effects are single-use - Cold StorageCold Storage, Safe HavenSafe Haven and Voyager StaffVoyager Staff in particular come to mind however Henrika does also synergize strangely well with Golden ArgosyGolden Argosy as you can choose her third ability and then crew it to flicker her in the same turn.

This is definitely a very slow way to do this (as it puts you another turn behind) but it does give you a second repeatable way to flicker in a colour that struggles with doing that.

While not technically the same as other "flickers", the aforementioned Mimic VatMimic Vat does a really good impression of flickering Henrika by allowing you to exile her when she dies (or even when you sacrifice her to her own ability) and then allowing you to make token copies which can be replaced by activating Mimic VatMimic Vat again.

This does run the risk of permanently losing your commander however as she has to remain exiled for you to make a token copy and if the Vat is destroyed before you put another creature into it Henrika will remain exiled forever.

Another alternative to flickering Henrika is an inspiration from Modern. Before the deck was hit with a number of bans "Rakdos Scam" was a deck that utilised an interaction between evoke and cards like Not Dead After AllNot Dead After All. The best of these effects is probably Malakir RebirthMalakir Rebirth.

I'm a big MDFC fan and having one help towards you core mechanic really helps. I'd also be tempted in this deck to run something like Guildless CommonsGuildless Commons so you can bounce the land side of Malakir RebirthMalakir Rebirth back to your hand, effectively drawing a card when you play the land.

The last way to get extra value would be to try to take additional combat phases. Unfortunately in mono-black there are no cards that let you do this making extra turns the only way to do this.

There are some much slower cards that do this like Magistrate's ScepterMagistrate's Scepter or ones that require you to jump through more hoops like Ugin's NexusUgin's Nexus but realistically the best options are definitely Rise of the EldraziRise of the Eldrazi (given that you run enough colourless sources) and Temporal ExtortionTemporal Extortion, a great extra turn/burn spell.

Flicker reanimation extra turns/combats copy triggers

Keyword Soup (Delicious)

Probably the stronger of the two sides, and certainly the easier one to build around. The flipped version of Henrika cares about three keywords, flying, deathtouch and lifelink. Luckily these are the three keywords that Vampire NighthawkVampire Nighthawk has and are the ones that Vampires across the board tend to lean towards.

The idea of this side of Henrika is to flood the board with creatures saturated with these keywords and then use Henrika's Ability to buff the power of your entire board.

I'll focus more on the individual keywords in a moment but the main game plan here is to be able to evade your opponent's creatures while gaining life and holding back deathtouchers to block any key threats that may try to kill you when your shields are down.

These keywords work really well in tandem and being able to leverage the mana generation of cards like Cabal CoffersCabal Coffers, Cabal StrongholdCabal Stronghold and Crypt GhastCrypt Ghast allow us to sink tons of mana into Henrika's ability.

Lifelink

Probably the most "Vampire-y" of the keywords that Henrika cares about, lifelink has some really good synergies with Vampires themselves as well as just having strong synergies with low costed aggressive cards.

Nullpriest of OblivionNullpriest of Oblivion is a very strong card in the mid-to-late game that allows you to play a 2/1 lifelinking threat with some minor evasion that also returns another creature from the graveyard to the battlefield.

What is really good about this card in this deck is that some of our really strong aggressive creatures are fairly cheap so you will have played them before Nullpriest. Cards like Markov BaronMarkov Baron and Cordial VampireCordial Vampire.

Similarly, Bloodline NecromancerBloodline Necromancer does not get menace and can't be an early threat with optional modes later on but it is slightly cheaper than Nullpriest of OblivionNullpriest of Oblivion and if your version of Henrika focuses heavily on Vampires can be easily as powerful.

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk RoseVito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose is this deck's real finisher, and arguably one of the most powerful cards in the deck as it not only gives any of our creatures that don't naturally have lifelink the keyword but also deals direct damage whenever we gain life through Vito's passive which makes him effectively a three mana Sanguine BondSanguine Bond or Defiant BloodlordDefiant Bloodlord.

Alongside Vito we can also run Marauding Blight-PriestMarauding Blight-Priest and Bloodthirsty AerialistBloodthirsty Aerialist to close out our lifegain package. These cheap creatures allow us to really leverage every single point of life that we gain to our advantage to try to close out games before the midrange and control decks that rule the format are able to get too far ahead of us.

Deathtouch

Of the two keywords so far this is definitely my favourite as I've been slowly building a Virtus the VeiledVirtus the Veiled and Gorm the GreatGorm the Great deathtouch deck (almost purely because their lore makes them sound exactly like Team Rocket).

While most of the payoffs for lifegain decks are the same as any other form of life gain, deathtouch has some cool payoffs that don't fit anywhere else. Probably my favourite is Hooded BlightfangHooded Blightfang.

This Anake lets us drain our opponents simply by attacking, and since you're attacking with super cheap creatures like Gifted AetherbornGifted Aetherborn your opponent isn't going to want to trade their more expensive creatures for them by blocking allowing our deathtouchers to attack indiscriminately.

The second ability is really what helps this deck out though, you don't want to be committing a lot of attackers to destroy planeswalkers because as an aggro deck, we need to make sure as much damage as possible is going to reduce the mountain that is our opponents 120 combined life totals.

Allowing us to destroy planeswalkers by hitting them with a single deathtouch creature, even something like a snake token from OphiomancerOphiomancer allows us to continue to focus on defeating our opponents.

The main issue with deathtouch decks is that they struggle when it comes to fighting decks that generate lots of resources (which is why a lot of the decks I've seen try to incorporate green in some way such as using Gorm the GreatGorm the Great or Vraska, the SilencerVraska, the Silencer) but [e]Mari, the Killing Quill[/el] does a great job at turning our ability to instantly kill opponents creatures and cheap removal in black; in combination with their reluctance to block to allow us to draw more cards.

The other other issue these decks have is actually closing out games. And while Hooded BlightfangHooded Blightfang is great we're still attacking with a bunch of Typhoid RatsTyphoid Rats into someone with 40 life.

Dire Fleet RavagerDire Fleet Ravager is one of a bunch of different cards that can allow us to bring down big chunks of our opponent's life total to get them low enough that our small creatures are able to end the game.

These effects also work well with cards like Wound ReflectionWound Reflection to double up the amount of life our opponents lose (that's not even to mention the interaction between Wound ReflectionWound Reflection and cards like Quietus SpikeQuietus Spike).

Flying

I always find that outside of decks like Errant and GiadaErrant and Giada and other similar commanders it's always really tricky to specifically build around flying as a keyword. For this deck, I'd focus much more on using it as a way to push through lethal damage to opponents.

All of your Vampire NighthawkVampire Nighthawk-adjacent cards will have flying as well as deathtouch and lifelink so focusing on those keywords is much more useful and will help the deck be much more streamlined in general.

In terms of cards that this deck should run with flying but not deathtouch or lifelink I've compiled a small list below:

• Drana, Liberator of MalakirDrana, Liberator of Malakir
• Necropolis RegentNecropolis Regent
• Twilight ProphetTwilight Prophet
• Bloodletter of AclazotzBloodletter of Aclazotz
• Vein RipperVein Ripper
• High-Society HunterHigh-Society Hunter

These cards all help to further the aggressive gameplan while but don't have the other keywords that Henrika cares about. You'll also notice that a lot of these cards also benefit from the Vampire synergies that you'll accidentally end up with by focusing on these specific keywords.

As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at Henrika DomnathiHenrika Domnathi as a commander, and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with Henrika as the commander tick.

Let me know in the comments below if you play Henrika DomnathiHenrika Domnathi, if you want to build a Henrika DomnathiHenrika Domnathi deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!

Paul Palmer

Hey there, I'm Paul. I've been writing about magic for a really long time. I love to write about obscure commanders (one of my really early articles back in 2015 was about Skeleton Ship) and how you can make decks around them work, no matter how unplayable they are. I love Gruul, I love Mountains and I love casting Lightning Bolt.