Pharika, God of Enchantments

Ruiner · Post by Ruiner 5 years ago

Pharika, God of Affliction and Enchantments

Pharika, God of Affliction

About the deck

Originally, I made this deck as a gorgon tribal deck and it was lackluster to say the least. I enjoyed the concept of Pharika as the commander as she is not a commonly played commander. Enchantments seemed a natural direction to lean as they are an easy way to get devotion and there are quite a few effective enchantments in this color combination. I've enjoyed this deck for quite a few years now. This deck isn't a crazy powerhouse but it tends to hold its own in most games.

The deck either wins through combat damage or one of the Vraskas' ultimate abilities (followed by combat damage). This deck really is just going to win by turning creatures sideways. I suppose it wouldn't be unreasonable to put something like Exsanguinate in the deck as mana production isn't a huge hurdle so you could pull off a moderately sized X value (this deck isn't ramping insanely though but sometimes a card like that doesn't have to be instantly lethal). There are a number of cards that chip away at the enemy life totals like Poison-Tip Archer and Pestilence which can also be a major source of damage over the course of a game.

Cards like Gift of the Deity or Lure can help Pharika pull opponent's blockers for the rest of your field to get damage through. Pestilence also works wonderfully with Pharika as long as you are able to keep her in her creature state you can just keep pumping mana into Pestilence to throw damage around, giving you a clear board to swing through for commander damage. Sometimes the win is just a slow grind of swinging with Pharika, God of Affliction while keeping the board cleared.

Pharika gives you repeatable grave-hate (for creatures), which can be incredibly helpful in many cases. If you are facing graveyard oriented decks, it can be wise to play a little slower and leave mana available for a Pharika activation just in case. Giving the opponent a snake is rarely a big deal and if you get Illness in the Ranks in play then there is no downside.

This deck gets a good amount of card draw from various enchantment ETB effects and runs a health amount of recursive cards as well. Ramp is generally not a huge problem either.

Issues you may have

Problems you can encounter are usually revolving around opponents who use the stack to win. Dealing with a lethal big X spell or storming off is just going to be rough. This is a black and green deck, so your options there are a little more limited, of course you can always focus on that person first to kill them before it is an issue. If someone is trying to pull off a combo win revolving around the graveyard it is generally fairly easy for you to disrupt if you leave mana open for Pharika to remove creatures from graveyards (assuming it is graveyard and creature based).

Further Notes

There are a few other enchantments that can easily slide into the deck depending on how your local playgroup is going lately. If tokens are taking over there are a few other enchantments beyond Illness in the Ranks that can be included. Night of Souls' Betrayal and Engineered Plague can also be reasonable to include if things are getting super creature and/or tribal heavy. City of Solitude is great for messing up decks preferring to operate at instant speed. Being a deck running very few artifacts and no mana rocks, including something like Null Rod is also totally viable as well. Leyline of the Void has been in the deck when graveyard decks have been particularly prevalent.

Living Plane is amazing with Doomwake Giant, I don't have a copy of it myself and don't plan on getting one anytime soon.

At the moment I don't use any of the black tutors like Demonic Tutor. Those cards can absolutely have a place in this deck, probably at the expense of recursive cards, but I haven't really missed them. I'm definitely not opposed to their inclusion (I have those cards in plenty of other decks).

victorsaur · Post by victorsaur 5 years ago

Are you RuinerMTG on Twitch?

It would be cool to look at this deck more in-depth. What are your general win cons?

Ruiner · Post by Ruiner 5 years ago

Nope, never used Twitch before.

I just updated the original post to go over the reasonings for many card choices and some further elaborations (this post here had some stuff but I've moved/edited it into the main post).

materpillar · Post by materpillar 5 years ago

I've been wanting to build Pharika, God of Affliction for a while. Do you find yourself using Pharika on your opponents or yourself more often? Would Eternal Scourge/Entomb +sac outlet be worth it for the ability to always have a target in your graveyard to make snakes?

Why Berserk?

Ruiner · Post by Ruiner 5 years ago

I don't often find myself using Pharika's ability on my own graveyard but a surprise snake with deathtouch can hurt. It is definitely more used to stop opponent recursive stuff in my own experience. I've never explored the angle of really utilizing her ability to make snakes for myself as any sort of engine so I really can't speak much to that idea. It has been more of a use it if needed if I happen to have a creature in the grave that I don't care about recurring later if needed, not something I count on.

Berserk can help push some big damage through with Pharika and she doesn't die from it. It is useful with any of the other creatures than get large from Nylea's Colossus or Helm of the Gods type of stuff. If Yavimaya Enchantress is hit with berserk that can be scary. Berserk can also be used when an Opponent A swings at Opponent B as an unexpected damage boost/trample that also kills a threat that might have swung at you in the future. The card has some decent versatility and people generally do not see it coming. It can do some work for just 1 mana. I wouldn't say it is vital to the deck but I would encourage people to give it a shot.

Ruiner · Post by Ruiner 5 years ago

After typing up the initial post I noticed a few things that seemed like glaring omissions I had not previously noticed for some reason. I've changed a few cards out of the deck for things I believe may be better and have updated the original post.

Added Cards
Verdant Catacombs - This should have been in the list years ago.
Strip Mine - Another pretty obvious card I should have already had in the deck.
Song of the Dryads - It is a green staple for a reason and being an enchantment, I don't know how I overlooked having this in the deck for all these years.
Noble Quarry - This fulfills the same role that Ochran Assassin did, but also gives enchantment ETB triggers and has the potential to be an aura. It seems worth testing.
Wound Reflection - I've used this in other decks and the potential for speeding up the clock on your opponents can be totally worth it. I think it should work out in this deck too.

Removed Cards
1 Swamp
1 Forest
Vow of Malice
Ochran Assassin - This has served me well but I think Noble Quarry may be better. Sometimes the deathtouch does make a big difference but we will see. Maybe it gets added back in later.
Vraska, Scheming Gorgon - This has been okay at times but Wound Reflection will probably be better.

I've thought for a while that I should give Last Laugh a shot, I may do that after I get a few games in with the most recent changes. As long as Pharika stays a creature it has good odds of staying in play. It could end up backfiring in some matchups I'm sure though.

Ruiner · Post by Ruiner 5 years ago

A little update to the list:

Added Cards
+1 Sanctum Weaver - Seems like it is made for a deck like this.
+1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth - Color fixing is nice.
+1 Ancestral Mask - Not sure why I never had this in the deck before when it can result in a ton of damage.
+1 Syphon Mind - While enchantress effects result in some card draw, this is always a pretty decent card.
+1 Elemental Resonance - I've had this in the deck before and it is pretty solid at 4 mana for generally 3+ extra mana per turn (assuming you play it on Pharika or something bigger).

Removed Cards
-1 Cursed Totem - It's great and rarely conflicts with the deck but I don't really have ways to search it out when it is needed. It could totally be added back in at a later time.
-1 Vow of Wildness - It's not bad but it's not great.
-1 Prey Upon - I think this was just trying to be a little cute with the chance to use it on Phyrexian Obliterator, but really I've got access to black's entire creature removal suite if I really wanted targeted creature removal.
-1 Pounce - See above.
-1 Vraska, Relic Seeker - Not terrible at all but I wanted to make some room to try stuff so this is leaving for now.

I also happened to notice I was running only 35 lands previously, which occasionally was a nuisance in some games recently so the list is up to 36 lands now.

Ruiner · Post by Ruiner 3 years ago

I've neglected this deck for a little while but not a whole lot of cards have been released lately that seem to fit well. The latest Commander Masters commander decks did have some cards that seem to be pretty good so I've made a few changes.

Added Cards
+1 Composer of Spring
+1 Demon of Fate's Design
+1 Deadly Rollick

Removed Cards
-1 Reclaim
-1 Regrowth
-1 Treasured Find

This was a pretty easy cutting decision. Figured I can replace a few of these okay recursion cards with just new cards.

Sdidonato · Post by Sdidonato 2 years ago

@Ruiner Quite interesting deck. I stumbled upon it as I'm trying to make an old border (1994 - 2003 card pool) version of this. Using Vhati Il-Dal as the commander to get creatures in the grave.

Going to be using Darkest Hour + Compost as a potential card generator, along with them being enchantments. Also looking at Rancor + an Enchantress + tokens + sac outlet also as another limited combo card draw.

Ruiner · Post by Ruiner 2 years ago

Sdidonato wrote: ↑
2 years ago
@Ruiner Quite interesting deck. I stumbled upon it as I'm trying to make an old border (1994 - 2003 card pool) version of this. Using Vhati Il-Dal as the commander to get creatures in the grave.

Going to be using Darkest Hour + Compost as a potential card generator, along with them being enchantments. Also looking at Rancor + an Enchantress + tokens + sac outlet also as another limited combo card draw.

Yeah it's definitely not the most conventional enchantment color combo, but black/green has a really nice selection of options. I do need to go through this deck sometime soon to update it a bit, there are some newer cards that could be pretty sweet here, and some older ones I've neglected to add over the years (like Necropotence).

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