Freezing Point: 8/32 - Orzhov
Hello everyone, and welcome to the eighth installment of Freezing Point! In this series I'm going to brew a 75% EDH deck of each color combination from the ground up. The intended meta for these will be a casual meta, though while not built competitively they will be spiked as hard as possible. You may be confused seeing some pricier cards in here like Imperial Seal and Mishra's Workshop but if those help the particular deck they're in then so be it. Really expensive cards supporting really bad strategies. It's like doing crossfit; you have a good support system with the right intentions, but just no.
The title of the series is good and all, but what does it mean or stand for? Well, if you look at the number of possible color identities for decks in Magic then you will notice that there are 32 (one colorless, five single-color, ten two-color, ten three-color, five four-color, and one five-color). I wanted a title that could represent that idea. I wanted to go with calling the series 25 but some websites wouldn't display the superscript properly. Instead of that, I chose Freezing Point as the name as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems to fit well.
While I haven't really ever wanted to be one of those people that had one of each color combination of EDH decks I did get inspired to brew them. I've looked at a lot of lists in my time and I usually enjoy seeing other people's established works and then working off that, either by improving it or making it suit my own style. I've learned a lot about EDH in recent history and decided that I would at least like to make each color combination of deck so that I have one that I can say is my deck and is not just 'the one that I play.'
With that being said, let's get into the deck. (complete list at end of the article)
So, we're playing Athreos, and we've decided to capitalize on his ability. How do we do that effectively? While I'm unable to find the exact post I believe it was a reddit user who said this that put it the best. Without the text verbatim, I will do my best to paraphrase. "If your creatures are too plain then you run the risk of them not actually doing anything for you. If your creatures are too big then you will paint a target on your head and also spend 8+ turns casting your Ashen Rider once and not getting it back again. If your creatures are somewhere in the middle then you will not out yourself and people won't have an issue with giving you your things back." If you know the source, please feel free to tell me so I can update this article!
The first role you play is one of the loan shark. You will be aggressively trying to get people on your side or to hire you. As you are shuffling your deck and building that initial rapport with the people at your table, you are going to make them an offer. You tell people that you are going to keep everyone from getting out of control, but you're going to need their help doing it. We're going to be playing creatures that will keep people from running away with the game. But, if people go back on their word about allowing you to have your creature back, they are going to be your main target from then on. Don't break deals.
We have our general gameplan down, slowly accruing value and hopefully stopping everyone from going crazy. What's next? We have already implemented the idea of the loan shark where you are simultaneously working for yourself and for everyone for the greater good of the game not ending. However, you also tell people that at some point during the game someone can 'hire' you to be their personal assistant. What does this mean? It means that you will always target them with Athreos and they will always give you your creature back, and again if they ever decline to give your creature back you turn on them and don't work with them again. It means they get to decide the targets of your abilities. It means that you run all your ideas through them to make sure they're okay with it, and them to you. It means that the game suddenly becomes a free-for-all with one team of two.
Here's how we do it. You need to get one of your opponents (host potentially included) down to less than three life. That way, when you target them with Athreos' ability they have no choice but to either concede the game or give you your creature back. Feel free to do this at three or more life if you think you can get away with it. We also need to make sure we have a loop we can complete thanks to Athreos. Once we reach that point, we're going to play one of two creatures, Myr Moonvessel or Blood Pet, with a sac outlet on the field. You can substitute one of the two aforementioned creatures for Phyrexian Altar and any one-mana creature, or you can put in an Ashnod's Altar and use a colorless 2-drop-or-less creature. In order to do this loop, sac the creature to the outlet which produces one mana that can cast the creature that was just sacrificed (through either iteration of the criteria), target the low life player with Athreos' ability, get the creature back, cast it with the aforeproduced mana, and repeat the cycle. After a high number of times of repeating this cycle, cast a storm card. Having Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat out also works though is less discreet.
I chose to pick these over having Aetherflux Reservoir because it can easily be countered, whereas our storm cards can be countered but their triggered abilities will still resolve. Yes the storm trigger can be countered but it's much less likely, at least in my meta. I'll mention more about sideboarding later as there's lots to talk about. There are also other ways to end the game with some cards from the sideboard, as well as another loop involving Fiend Hunter in the main, but I'll leave those to you to discover!
Another way to end, which is much more anti-climactic, is to get Mortal Combat to trigger. Yup. It's not as fancy but it works.
Some of the bigger support cards include those that can bring back vast amounts of creatures from our grave if the worst were to happen, like Immortal Servitude and Faith's Reward. Because of this small yet important group of cards I've tried to make sure that as many creatures as possible could be grabbed up by the group x spells. I wanted to have nearly every creature to have the same CMC but there were too many options that I wanted to include. First-world problems!
Segues are weird. Anyway, the list of cards that I would like to include but didn't is almost as long as the regular deck list! How is this possible? Has science gone too far? Probably. But the reason the sideboard is so big is because of all of the possibilities that can be provided for this strategy. There are so many creatures and other cards here that are potentially useful that you can include based on your meta. Have someone that plays enchantments? Put in Felidar Club and Kami of Ancient Law. Want to have a lifegain aspect? Add in Ayli and Disciple of Griselbrand. Need some tokens? Xathrid Necromancer and Skirsdag High Priest. The number of possibilities is simply finite but high! I had an insanely difficult time narrowing down the list of choices, but I've included what I believe should give you at least one piece of interaction for the vast majority of situations. Tutors also help too with finding what you need. Ranger of Eos should probably be in the main deck but I just can't figure out what to take out in its place.
The title of the series is good and all, but what does it mean or stand for? Well, if you look at the number of possible color identities for decks in Magic then you will notice that there are 32 (one colorless, five single-color, ten two-color, ten three-color, five four-color, and one five-color). I wanted a title that could represent that idea. I wanted to go with calling the series 25 but some websites wouldn't display the superscript properly. Instead of that, I chose Freezing Point as the name as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems to fit well.
While I haven't really ever wanted to be one of those people that had one of each color combination of EDH decks I did get inspired to brew them. I've looked at a lot of lists in my time and I usually enjoy seeing other people's established works and then working off that, either by improving it or making it suit my own style. I've learned a lot about EDH in recent history and decided that I would at least like to make each color combination of deck so that I have one that I can say is my deck and is not just 'the one that I play.'
With that being said, let's get into the deck. (complete list at end of the article)
Overview
While I usually like to explain my thoughts on the various commander options available in the colors I'm going to keep it short this time as there's a lot to talk about this time around. I've chosen Athreos as my Orzhov commander, though he is still second in my heart to Selenia. Her ability to drain your own life sets you up perfectly for some life-swapping shenanigans which is usually met with laughter when the game ends as opposed to frustrated groaning. I've been meaning to sit down and work on her for a while but life tends to keep me busy, and by that I mean I usually work on other Magic-related projects.
So, we're playing Athreos, and we've decided to capitalize on his ability. How do we do that effectively? While I'm unable to find the exact post I believe it was a reddit user who said this that put it the best. Without the text verbatim, I will do my best to paraphrase. "If your creatures are too plain then you run the risk of them not actually doing anything for you. If your creatures are too big then you will paint a target on your head and also spend 8+ turns casting your Ashen Rider once and not getting it back again. If your creatures are somewhere in the middle then you will not out yourself and people won't have an issue with giving you your things back." If you know the source, please feel free to tell me so I can update this article!
The way that user put it was much more elegant but the point comes across the same. How do we accomplish this? In my opinion there are two things that we need to do. First, we play creatures that individually are only minor annoyances to as few people as possible; that way, if and when they do die then someone is willing to give us our creature back. How do we make sure that they do that? The second thing we need, which is to play politics very hard.
This deck is all about politics, and you are playing multiple roles throughout the course of the game. I will go through the different roles you will be playing, what you should be doing and maybe what you should be looking for while playing those roles, and how to close out the game.
Loan Shark
The first role you play is one of the loan shark. You will be aggressively trying to get people on your side or to hire you. As you are shuffling your deck and building that initial rapport with the people at your table, you are going to make them an offer. You tell people that you are going to keep everyone from getting out of control, but you're going to need their help doing it. We're going to be playing creatures that will keep people from running away with the game. But, if people go back on their word about allowing you to have your creature back, they are going to be your main target from then on. Don't break deals.
Our deck is full of creatures that are only minor annoyances. Player A plays a mana dork and you offer to kill it with your Fume Spitter. You turn to Player B and tell them, "I want to kill that mana dork so he's not a turn ahead of everyone else, so I'm going to target you with Athreos' trigger so you can give me back my creature. Sound good?" Then the dork dies, you have your creature back, and the tempo of the game is unchanged. Allegedly.
How do we get people to not keep our creatures in the graveyard? Aside from playing the loan shark, you target people who will be least affected by you getting that creature back. Did your Thalia die? Target the person playing only creatures. Keeping the storm player in check with the Hope of Ghirapur? Target anyone else but that player. Need your Necrotic Sliver to kill more stuff? Target someone who most hates what other people are doing. Want to stop someone from dying? Offer to activate Kami of False Hope as long as they give it back to you. You get the idea.
Symbiotic Parasite
We have our general gameplan down, slowly accruing value and hopefully stopping everyone from going crazy. What's next? We have already implemented the idea of the loan shark where you are simultaneously working for yourself and for everyone for the greater good of the game not ending. However, you also tell people that at some point during the game someone can 'hire' you to be their personal assistant. What does this mean? It means that you will always target them with Athreos and they will always give you your creature back, and again if they ever decline to give your creature back you turn on them and don't work with them again. It means they get to decide the targets of your abilities. It means that you run all your ideas through them to make sure they're okay with it, and them to you. It means that the game suddenly becomes a free-for-all with one team of two.
When can they take you up on the offer? Whenever they want. Sometimes it's early, because they don't want to deal with what you have going on. Sometimes its late, after having seen your services for a while and want to augment themselves. Sometimes it's after you play Serra Ascendant on turn 1 and they don't want to get hit by it.
This phase is pretty simple, and is outlined above. They want you to exile some big creature? Fiend Hunter it. Need to keep Atraxa Walkers in check? Vampire Hexmage can do that. Someone have a card in hand that doesn't need to hit the stack? Black Cat can handle that.
Like any good symbiotic relationship, you will need to keep your host in check too. Some cards do affect everyone, so like before when something like that dies then target someone else except your host. We keep everyone in check.
So how does the game end? With us at the top.
Ending
Aside from when you want to get back something that is keeping your host in check, this is the only time you break the contract. The only reason I say that is because if you ask your host if you can cycle a creature an arbitrarily large number of times they might deny you; if you think you can get away with it though then please do.
Here's how we do it. You need to get one of your opponents (host potentially included) down to less than three life. That way, when you target them with Athreos' ability they have no choice but to either concede the game or give you your creature back. Feel free to do this at three or more life if you think you can get away with it. We also need to make sure we have a loop we can complete thanks to Athreos. Once we reach that point, we're going to play one of two creatures, Myr Moonvessel or Blood Pet, with a sac outlet on the field. You can substitute one of the two aforementioned creatures for Phyrexian Altar and any one-mana creature, or you can put in an Ashnod's Altar and use a colorless 2-drop-or-less creature. In order to do this loop, sac the creature to the outlet which produces one mana that can cast the creature that was just sacrificed (through either iteration of the criteria), target the low life player with Athreos' ability, get the creature back, cast it with the aforeproduced mana, and repeat the cycle. After a high number of times of repeating this cycle, cast a storm card. Having Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat out also works though is less discreet.I chose to pick these over having Aetherflux Reservoir because it can easily be countered, whereas our storm cards can be countered but their triggered abilities will still resolve. Yes the storm trigger can be countered but it's much less likely, at least in my meta. I'll mention more about sideboarding later as there's lots to talk about. There are also other ways to end the game with some cards from the sideboard, as well as another loop involving Fiend Hunter in the main, but I'll leave those to you to discover!
Another way to end, which is much more anti-climactic, is to get Mortal Combat to trigger. Yup. It's not as fancy but it works.
Support
The bulk of the deck is creatures added specifically to take advantage of Athreos and our opponents' lack of caring if you got them back, and then our lands. There's not much shocking or note-worthy there (I encourage you to check out the non-basics in the deck) but there are some interesting cards outside of these two categories.
Some of the bigger support cards include those that can bring back vast amounts of creatures from our grave if the worst were to happen, like Immortal Servitude and Faith's Reward. Because of this small yet important group of cards I've tried to make sure that as many creatures as possible could be grabbed up by the group x spells. I wanted to have nearly every creature to have the same CMC but there were too many options that I wanted to include. First-world problems!
Skullclamp and Reprocess can draw us a lot of cards. Black Market can be an incredible source of mana if it sticks around for long. Lifeline can save us from board wipes if we have a sac outlet or Mirror Entity out. Abyssal Persecutor is a surprisingly political card! How? No one wants to die, so everyone should give him back to you. Finally, while I've put no sneaky way into playing her Elesh Norn is here because the beatdowns can get real. This is further amplified when we try to lock out people's mana with a Contamination lock or with Elesh Norn, Urborg, and Kormus Bell.
What's that? You don't see Kormus Bell in the main deck? Well then now is the perfect time to talk about sideboards!
Sideboard
Segues are weird. Anyway, the list of cards that I would like to include but didn't is almost as long as the regular deck list! How is this possible? Has science gone too far? Probably. But the reason the sideboard is so big is because of all of the possibilities that can be provided for this strategy. There are so many creatures and other cards here that are potentially useful that you can include based on your meta. Have someone that plays enchantments? Put in Felidar Club and Kami of Ancient Law. Want to have a lifegain aspect? Add in Ayli and Disciple of Griselbrand. Need some tokens? Xathrid Necromancer and Skirsdag High Priest. The number of possibilities is simply finite but high! I had an insanely difficult time narrowing down the list of choices, but I've included what I believe should give you at least one piece of interaction for the vast majority of situations. Tutors also help too with finding what you need. Ranger of Eos should probably be in the main deck but I just can't figure out what to take out in its place.Conclusion
And that's all I wrote! Click on the word 'Conclusion' above to be taken to the full deck. I would love to see your interpretations of this deck tailored to your meta. I know that I will definitely be taking a pile of these sideboard cards with me to my LGS so I can swap cards around prior to game time. Thank you again for taking the time for putting up with my words based on colorful pictures printed on cardboard. Join the notification squad to get notified of the next installment of Freezing Point!
All cards owned and all rights reserved by Wizards of the Coast. I'm just some nerd who spent too much time staring at them.
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