Commander - Gisa's Apostle

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This is a deck I made for a customer on Fiverr. If you have deck ideas that you'd like built you can find me on Fiverr as genoslugcs.

The Deck

Shadowborn Apostle meets Gisa here. The idea here is to generate a lot of extra value off of sacrificing the Shadowborn Apostles by making the opponent sacrifice a bunch of stuff when we do and then getting it all back with Gisa, Glorious Resurector]]. That's a general idea, so let's look at it more in-depth.

Make Em Sac

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Obviously, with Gisa we want things to die. So, I included a lot of things that for players to sacrifice their things as well as cards that make them sacrifice whenever we do. When you ditch six apostles to go fetch a demon, you can get quite a lot of triggers off some of these. Each card in this category helps opposing creatures die or benefits when they do,

Pain Equals Good Stuff

With the death triggers flowing, here are some of the main ways we'll cash in on them. 

Shadowborn Apostle + Demon Package

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We have a ratio of 27 Apostles to five Demons. It may seem like too few Demons but the Apostles can cheat them out for free and drawing a lot of them feels bad. So, in my experience, fewer is better. I tried to select demons that are impactful to make the most of having them present in the build.

Ob Nixilis, Unshackledimage is a nice hate piece for other players who are tutoring/fetching and can get big quickly. Funnily enough, I had an opponent reanimate it from my graveyard and kill me with it haha. So, definitely demonstrated how lethal it is... Just not in the way I had in mind.

Abhorrent Overlordimage is probably my favorite demon to grab out. The deck is mono-black after all, and every game when I cast/tutored this out it did really well. Obviously, it does depend on the board/situation but overall, I was beyond impressed. Moving on Archfiend of Depravityimage and Reaper from the Abyssimage both work well with Gisa's ability.

Honestly, I would probably include a copy of Archfiend of Despairimage over one of the ones mentioned above but it's a $50 card, so I opted for something else. But if you have a copy or want to spend the extra money, it's very good in the deck. Here's an example of how he would have made a good play into a great one.

I had two Blood Artistimage effects out and sac'd six Apostles, which drained the table for 12 life each. If Archfiend of Despairimage were in the deck in this situation, you could grab it and double up the damage to 24 to each opponent. It's a good play without it but a better one with it. Plus, stopping your opponents from gaining life is always nice. Not 100% needed but I wanted to mention it.

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If you're familiar with Shadowborne Apostle decks you're probably familiar with these as well. But if not, I'll go over them. Thrumming Stoneimage gives each spell you cast ripple four - Allowing you to dig four cards deep and cast spells any spells with the same name as the spell being cast, for free. What's more, you cast the ones you get for free, so they also have ripple. This can allow you to chain a large amount of Apostles together at times.

I also wanted to mention Echoing Returnimage. I've seen people run of a ton of effects like this for Apostles decks but I think a singleton is better. After all, the deck has other things it cares about as well, and you won't always have a critical mass of Apostles in your graveyard. It does however, make it a lot easier to count up to six. By this I mean you can feel free to chump block with a few if you really need to if you have this in hand for later.

Commander Shenangains

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Gisa's ability is very good all by itself but I still wanted to add a few ways of abusing it/supporting it. Essentially, everything in the deck that kills opposing creatures contributes. I included a small (and I mean very small) package to allow you to keep some of the things you reanimate with Gisa. You'll be familiar with Conjurer's Closetimage and why it's here. And Kaya's Ghostformimage is a similar, one-time-use card that can also save your commander if needed.

It may seem like you would want more of these effects (and maybe you would in a more devoted build) but even then, I've found two things to be true. First, having a ton of these effects leaves them often stuck in your hand without use. And secondly, most of the time a lot of the stuff you'll be stealing isn't worth keeping.

To elaborate, I usually ended up with a pretty motley crew of creatures that had little to no synergy with this build aside from attacking. I could it much more beneficial to include more sac outlets to generate value off of the reanimated creatures. And that Closet and Ghostform were enough to keep the bombs you really want. There is also a copy of Demonic Tutorimage to search up what you need, when you need. Speaking of that, let's move onto the combo.

Combo Win

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Aside from whatever wins you'll pick up through combat/commander damage and massive mass drains like the one mentioned above there is also a way to combo and win. Here's how it works if you're unfamiliar with it:

This will result it:

  • Infinite colorless mana
  • Infinite ETB
  • Infinite LTB
  • Infinite death triggers
  • Infinite sacrifice triggers (which can wipe the board at times)
  • Infinite lifegain
  • Infinite lifeloss

The Mana Base

There's a total of 35 lands, 25 of which are basics. Some noteworthy things is the Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmothimage + Cabal Coffersimage package to generate a ton of mana and a few tech lands that range from token generation and card draw to sac outlets and extra removal. Just skim through and you'll see what I mean.

In Closing

Overall, the deck played great for me. That said, I do feel like this could be polished more with further testing and tinkering. Let me know what you think and we'll go from there.

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Genoslugcs
Last Updated: 22 Mar 2023
Created: 22 Mar 2023
201 72 0

Commander - 1 cards (1 distinct)

$2.14€1.350.02

Mainboard - 99 cards (49 distinct)

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$2.36€1.910.04
$0.59€0.340.02
$0.76€0.69
$7.00
$3.54€2.330.02
$0.27€0.25
$3.00
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$1.39€0.65
$4.43€2.530.02
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$1.30€1.550.03
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$1.50€0.69
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Land (35)
$6.13€4.820.02
$0.30€0.17
$42.32€29.80
$0.150.03
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$39.99€35.7815.47
$5.150.84
$0.45€0.360.03
$5.04€3.58
$4.28€3.575.20
$21.86€13.550.52

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