Commander - Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

15 55
20 44 0 35

Ok man, let's dive into what I have brewed up. It's got some pretty nasty stuff here. First things first, I want to be clear with the general direction that I took the deck.

General Gameplan

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With Wilhelt, the Rotcleaverimage as the commander, I think we have a fairly straightforward game plan. We want Zombies to die and we want to generate value from those deaths. We're also going to want to have plenty of"Zombies Matter" and Zombie payoff cards to help our attacks be more powerful. So, nearly every card in the deck was evaluated through this lens. We have lots of cards that drain opponents when things die, to help get across the finish line as well as quite a few spicy combos. I'll break this down into a few categories below.

Zombie Payoffs

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If you skim through the list you'll find several cards that say "whenever a zombie you control...", on them. Every single creature in the deck (other than Drivnod, Carnage Dominusimage) is a Zombie, so it won't be hard to generate value by simply playing the deck. Many of the deck's core needs (card draw, removal, etc) are all generated from our zombie payoffs and tied into the overall theme of having them die. Here are some examples:

Card Draw

Ramp

Removal

Life Loss

As mentioned, I wanted to have plenty of ways to win besides combat damage. Here are a few of the other cards that I included to move the deck toward victory.

So far I've been trying to illustrate the key elements and the cards that work toward them. The cards mentioned above, along with the army of zombies and lords/evasion granting cards, and the general ability to out-value opponents all fit together like a puzzle toward victory. However, I saved the most potent stuff for last - The combos! And there are quite a few. It may seem like overall but many of them naturally combo with others in the list.

The Combos

What I love about each of these combos is that all of the cards in each one can be played very innocuously too. All of them are good but not overpowered by themselves and each card has a purpose outside of a combo. This means that a. you'll never be drawing dead cards and b. if you want the deck less powerful just don't actually combo off. All the cards will still be a-ok in the deck.

That said, I included a few tutors to help grab combo pieces for you. First, we have Profane Tutorimage and Grim Tutorimage which are straightforward. Then I added a copy of Brainspoilimage too. It can tutor for any five drop in the deck and there are quite a few utility creatures at that CMC. As far as combos go, this can grab Gray Merchant of Asphodelimage or Havengul Lichimage which I'll cover below.

1. Gravecrawler + Rooftop Storm + Carrion Feeder

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For this one, you'll need all of the cards mentioned above on the battlefield. Then, sac Gravecrawlerimage to Carrion Feederimage. When you do, you'll put a +1/+1 counter on Carrion Feeder and get any death triggers you have in play. Gravecrawler's ability allows you to cast it from the graveyard and thanks to Rooftop Stormimage casting him this way costs zero mana, so you can do it in a loop. This will create infinite enter the battlefield triggers (great with Death Matchimage), infinite death triggers (you win with cards like Diregraf Captainimage in play), and infinite +1/+1  counters on the Carrion Feederimage.

The combo works the same way with Phyrexian Altarimage or Ashnod's Altarimage in place of Carrion Feeder and will generate infinite mana in addition to the other things. Furthermore, if you execute any of these with your commander in play you'll generate infinite tokens as well.

As I mentioned though, I didn't set the deck up especially to make use of the infinite mana. If you wanted to gear it more toward that we would add in some nasty x spells. As of now, Phyrexian Altarimage andAshnod's Altarimage are here just because they are good cards... They just happen to fit into the combo.

Rooftop Storm also combos very well with Bolas's Citadelimage. With both in play, you can cast massive amounts of zombies off the top of your library by paying life equal to their mana cost, which, again, is zero thanks to Rooftop Storm.

2. Havengul Lich + Rooftop Storm + Ashnod's Altar + Gray Merchant of Asphodel

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You may already see where this is going - You'll start with everything in play and sac Gray Merchant of Asphodelimage to Ashnod's Altarimage and gain two colorless mana. Now you can pay one of them to activate Havengul Lichimage allowing you to recast your Gray Merchant of Asphodel, which cost zero thanks to Rooftop Storm. Not only do you net one mana each time you do this but you'll also be draining your opponents equal to your deviation to black each time. So, infinite mana, life loss/gain, ETB, and LTB triggers.

3. Gray Merchant of Asphodelimage + Rite of Replicationimage

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This one is perhaps my favorite. To pull this off you'll need Gray Merchant of Asphodel on the battlefield
Rite of Replication in hand, and nine free mana to cast a kicked Rite of Replication. When you kick it and target the Merchant you'll create five copies of it... This means your devotion to black is at a minimum of 12. And you'll drain and gain that much for each copy. So, this is nine mana "each opponent loses 60 life!

 Conclusion

It's a little hard to go over every card but I hope this gets the bulk of it across. Skim through the list a few times and makes some notes and we can go over anything that catches your eye that I didn't happen to cover. Overall, the deck played well for me in testing. And if I may say this without too much tooting my own horn, I think this is one of the cooler Wilhelt lists I have seen.

Again, as far as power level, it can be as powerful as you play it. Even though it may seem stacked with combos many are somewhat coincidentally there. For the budget, I believe I am slightly under what we talked about if you take out the price for the cards you already have. If the price does need to come down let me know... I have budget options waiting lol.

 

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Genoslugcs
Last Updated: 03 Apr 2023
Created: 03 Apr 2023
716 100 0

Commander - 1 cards (1 distinct)

$6.081.00

Mainboard - 99 cards (77 distinct)

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$0.35€0.35
$1.47€1.050.07
$0.30€0.27
$0.27€0.20

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