Ghen, Arcanum Weaver

[Ertai Planeswalker]

Among all the new commander legendaries in Commander Legends, Ghen is the one I kept coming back to in my head. The idea of the deck is to recur powerfull enchantments early and use their advantage together with a token subtheme to control the game and win. This can be done by donating someone who can't get rid of it a Captive Audience , smack a player down with living enchantments (courtesy of Opalescence and Starfield of Nyx or tokens, all the while keeing the last player locked down with Overwhelming Splendor and Ethereal Absolution. I hope this deck will play in such a way that it can adapt to the game while slowly riding the value to a win. I'm looking for any input or advice before I start collecting the cards I don't own yet, in particular for cuts to make as the list is 105 cards long at this point.

Ghen, Arcanum Weaver

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander

1 Ghen, Arcanum Weaver

Sacrifice Fodder

1 Brilliant Halo

1 Cessation

1 Fiery Mantle

1 Sluggishness

1 Spirit Loop

Ramp

1 Boros Signet

1 Orzhov Signet

1 Rakdos Signet

1 Smothering Tithe

1 Sol Ring

1 Starfield Mystic

1 Talisman of Conviction

1 Talisman of Hierarchy

1 Talisman of Indulgence

Removal

1 Act of Authority

1 Aura of Silence

1 Doom Foretold

1 Elspeth Conquers Death

1 Oblivion Ring

1 Seal of Cleansing

1 Seal of Doom

1 The Eldest Reborn

Boardwipes

1 Merciless Eviction

1 Planar Collapse

1 Ruinous Ultimatum

Card Draw

1 Land Tax

1 Liliana's Contract

1 Mesa Enchantress

1 Phyrexian Arena

1 Sunbird's Invocation

1 Treacherous Blessing

Consistency

1 Academy Rector

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Gravebreaker Lamia

1 Idyllic Tutor

Graveyard filling

1 Cathartic Reunion

1 Faithless Looting

1 Thrill of Possibility

1 Tormenting Voice

Enchantment creatures

1 Aegis of the Gods

1 Agent of Erebos

1 Archetype of Finality

1 Doomwake Giant

Tokens

1 Ajani's Chosen

1 Archon of Sun's Grace

1 Ethereal Absolution

1 Heliod, God of the Sun

1 Luminarch Ascension

1 Sigil of the Empty Throne

Wincons

1 Captive Audience

1 Debtors' Knell

1 Eldrazi Conscription

1 Grave Betrayal

1 Opalescence

1 Overwhelming Splendor

Recursion

1 Emeria Shepherd

1 Replenish

1 Silent Sentinel

1 Starfield of Nyx

1 Sun Titan

1 Tiana, Ship's Caretaker

Defense

1 Fountain Watch

1 Ghostly Prison

1 Greater Auramancy

1 Martyr's Bond

1 Sphere of Safety

Land

1 Arid Mesa

1 Blood Crypt

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Boros Garrison

1 City of Brass

1 Clifftop Retreat

1 Command Tower

1 Dragonskull Summit

1 Fetid Heath

1 Geier Reach Sanitarium

1 Godless Shrine

1 Graven Cairns

1 High Market

1 Isolated Chapel

1 Marsh Flats

4 Mountain

1 Nomad Outpost

1 Orzhov Basilica

1 Path of Ancestry

6 Plains

1 Rakdos Carnarium

1 Rugged Prairie

1 Sacred Foundry

1 Savai Triome

5 Swamp

1 Vault of the Archangel

Approximate Total Cost:

[Ertai Planeswalker]

Anyone?

[NZB2323]

I would say you can cut a lot of the recursion. Your commander already does recursion, you have sacrifice fodder, and Replenish and Starfield of Nyx are the 2 that you want to keep.

Doom Foretold gives your opponents options. They may want to sacrifice or discard a card, they get to chose, and a 2/2 and a 4 point life swing isn't a lot. I'd cut this card.

Seal of doom I'm not a big fan of just because there's so many good black creatures in commander.

Aegis of the Gods I don't think is worth a spot. There are a few cases where player hexproof matters, but they're pretty niche.

I would also say Merciless Eviction isn't a great card for Orzhov because it messes up your recursion strategy. I like Austere Command better.

So that's 7 cards you can cut. I'd recommend adding Vampiric Tutor and Enlightened Tutor.

[shermanido37]

My guess is that you started just from seeing how you can best abuse the commander's ability. I am, in general, disappointed by your choice in enchantments. They don't add up to a cohesive game plan.
You don't have a lot of creatures, but have plenty of auras, as well as cards that care about them.
Also, to me Opalescence just opens up all your enchantments to a board wipe.

You also have a bunch of enchantments that just return to your hand when you play them. While that can certainly be abused, it is very hard and inefficient to do so. Fiery Mantle seems to be the worst of them. Frankly, the only one that seems considerable to me is Glistening Oil. I'd rather just play cheap enchantments that reward you for having them in play, like Authority of the Consuls or Blind Obedience or Chained to the Rocks or Curse of Opulence.
In addition, you really don't seem to have a lot of enchantments that are worth bringing into play. Where's your Black Market? Crackdown? Mogis, God of Slaughter? Erebos, God of the Dead? Curse of Misfortunes? And for god's sake, where's your Necropotence???

Speaking of which, I recommend you make an active choice on your game plan. While these plans don't rule each other out, it's best if you decide on one primary plan that your deck will usually try to go through.
You can go super power expensive enchantments like Baneful Omen, Fires of Invention, Null Profusion, Havoc Festival. You can mess up the board with Confusion in the Ranks, Endless Whispers, Impulsive Maneuvers, Pandemonium, Wild Evocation. You can build on your shroud sources by having combos like Solemnity + Delaying Shield/Phyrexian Unlife/Force Bubble or maybe play Solitary Confinement. You can go hyper stax by playing cards like Contamination, Blood Sun, Call to the Grave, Descent into Madness, Fall of the Thran, Lethal Vapors, Tainted Aether... I can go on.

Additional cards other than those mentioned, that feel good in any version of the deck: Phyrexian Scriptures, Bitterblossom, Dreadhorde Invasion, Awaken the Sky Tyrant, Daxos's Torment, Daxos the Returned, Dictate of Erebos, Grasp of Fate, Karmic Justice, Oath of Liliana, Revel in Riches, Spiritual Asylum, Stony Silence, Stranglehold, Vicious Shadows.

Let us know what you're looking for.

[snowfox54119]

Parallax Wave could be a cool form of creature removal. Remove four counters and put four targets on the stack, then sac the enchantment with Ghen, Arcanum Weaver to recur something else. Since the LTB effect triggers first, all of the creatures you targeted become permanently removed.

And guess what, you have a commander that can easily recur Parallax Wave for another round of exiles.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

I would say you can cut a lot of the recursion. Your commander already does recursion, you have sacrifice fodder, and Replenish and Starfield of Nyx are the 2 that you want to keep.

Yeah I recognize those two are the best, especially the Starfield. I wouldn't throw Opalescence out just willy nilly, but the ability to add a few good bodies to the board in a pinch (post boardwipe for example) is a nice ability to have.

Doom Foretold gives your opponents options. They may want to sacrifice or discard a card, they get to chose, and a 2/2 and a 4 point life swing isn't a lot. I'd cut this card.

That is true, but the way I see it, they have their development hampered either way. And if my opponent ever has no nonland permanents and no cards in hand... well that's good to right? I mean I have no actual experience from playing with the card but it seems to me as a decent but fair stax piece?

Seal of doom I'm not a big fan of just because there's so many good black creatures in commander. Aegis of the Gods I don't think is worth a spot. There are a few cases where player hexproof matters, but they're pretty niche. I would also say Merciless Eviction isn't a great card for Orzhov because it messes up your recursion strategy. I like Austere Command better.

Seal of Doom is indeed one I went back and forth on. On the one hand, it's use can be a bit narrow. On the other hand, it's also easy to overlook the basic effects as not being fance enough but the cleanest, most unsexy way of doing things can often be the most efficient.

My guess is that you started just from seeing how you can best abuse the commander's ability. I am, in general, disappointed by your choice in enchantments. They don't add up to a cohesive game plan.
You don't have a lot of creatures, but have plenty of auras, as well as cards that care about them. Also, to me Opalescence just opens up all your enchantments to a board wipe.

Actually, I just started by including the cards I already owned but could never find a deck for even though the Timmy in me enjoys playing them. I can second the fact that they don't add up to a streamlined gameplan, though the overall plan was to have an attrition war and be the one coming out on top. Though maybe I should go more into the enchantment creatures with Grave Pact effects kind of deck for that.

You also have a bunch of enchantments that just return to your hand when you play them. While that can certainly be abused, it is very hard and inefficient to do so. Fiery Mantle seems to be the worst of them. Frankly, the only one that seems considerable to me is Glistening Oil. I'd rather just play cheap enchantments that reward you for having them in play, like Authority of the Consuls or Blind Obedience or Chained to the Rocks or Curse of Opulence. In addition, you really don't seem to have a lot of enchantments that are worth bringing into play. Where's your Black Market? Crackdown? Mogis, God of Slaughter? Erebos, God of the Dead? Curse of Misfortunes? And for god's sake, where's your Necropotence???

Actually, my Crackdown was in another deck but that's probably not what you mean. But maybe you're right about the return to hand aura's. I added additional recursion to the deck to provide some redundancy for when Ghen would be killed too often, but this is the other way around: leaning to heavily on him Without an active Ghen, these do nother usefull.[/quote]

Speaking of which, I recommend you make an active choice on your game plan. While these plans don't rule each other out, it's best if you decide on one primary plan that your deck will usually try to go through.
You can go super power expensive enchantments like Baneful Omen, Fires of Invention, Null Profusion, Havoc Festival. You can mess up the board with Confusion in the Ranks, Endless Whispers, Impulsive Maneuvers, Pandemonium, Wild Evocation. You can build on your shroud sources by having combos like Solemnity + Delaying Shield/Phyrexian Unlife/Force Bubble or maybe play Solitary Confinement. You can go hyper stax by playing cards like Contamination, Blood Sun, Call to the Grave, Descent into Madness, Fall of the Thran, Lethal Vapors, Tainted Aether... I can go on.

Additional cards other than those mentioned, that feel good in any version of the deck: Phyrexian Scriptures, Bitterblossom, Dreadhorde Invasion, Awaken the Sky Tyrant, Daxos's Torment, Daxos the Returned, Dictate of Erebos, Grasp of Fate, Karmic Justice, Oath of Liliana, Revel in Riches, Spiritual Asylum, Stony Silence, Stranglehold, Vicious Shadows.

Let us know what you're looking for.

I want to play Overwhelming Splendor. And Captive Audience. Because those two cards ignite the Timmy in me. My meta packs quite some interaction so I will need Greater Auramancy, Fountain Watch etc no matter what route I take, bu thinking that that would somehow allow me to pay a combo-ish deck is a folly. I play almost exclusively with the same group and they just won't let me assemble anything over 2 cards as a combo.

I think I would like a deck that runs a lot of attrition pieces like the Doom Foretold, maybe also that Call to the Grave that was mentioned and maybe also Kuon, Ogre Ascendant // Kuon's Essence? A staxy deck, but one that actually allows my opponents to play the game? Playing the good engine cards like Necropotence etc is all fine and dandy, but once you got your cards and ramp in order, what do we do? that's why I thought of the intersection of enchantments and enchantment creatures, to also allow the deck to pivot a bit based on the circumstances. How would you build such a deck?

Parallax Wave could be a cool form of creature removal. Remove four counters and put four targets on the stack, then sac the enchantment with Ghen, Arcanum Weaver to recur something else. Since the LTB effect triggers first, all of the creatures you targeted become permanently removed.

And guess what, you have a commander that can easily recur Parallax Wave for another round of exiles.

That is a good recommendation, thanks.

[NZB2323]

@Ertai Planeswalker, Doom Foretold I just don't see a lot of value in. The next turn your opponent could discard a card they want to and then for 4 mana you get to draw 1 card, gain 2 life, get a 2/2, and 1 opponent loses 2 life. If you're looking for cards to cut, I think this is a card to look at.

@shermanido37, Opalescence shouldn't open this deck up to board wipes because in response to a board wipe you could activate Ghen's ability and sacrifice the Opalescence.

[Ertai Planeswalker]

@Ertai Planeswalker, Doom Foretold I just don't see a lot of value in. The next turn your opponent could discard a card they want to and then for 4 mana you get to draw 1 card, gain 2 life, get a 2/2, and 1 opponent loses 2 life. If you're looking for cards to cut, I think this is a card to look at.

After reading the card 5 more times, I realize I misread it. I thought it forced the opponent to either sacrifice or discard, and if they can't then blah blah. You guys are right, it's not a good card.