Killer Whale Burn

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

Update: Decklist!

Decklist

Approximate Total Cost:

Original Post:

Recently, I've been brewing decks faster than I can playtest them. I probably should slow down and get some serious games in with Ebondeath, Dracolich, but self-restraint is for losers, the wheel of progress stops for no man!!!!

Anyways...

Part One, why Orca, Siege Demon is a bad Aristocrats commander

The more I look at Orca, Siege Demon the more befuddled I become. On the surface it looks like a pretty straight forwards aristocrats payoff: play Bloodghast → profit. But if your plan is to only use orca as a payoff for aristocrats, then he's woefully underwhelming. for every 1 creature you sac, you get 1 damage.

Garna, Bloodfist of Keld give you 3 damage per kill, in the same colors for MUCH cheaper. and Juri, Master of the Revue is the same rate, for only instead of a whopping !

So why is Orca so ridiculously expensive to cast? Well, part of it is that he's probably overcosted, he could probably safely be reduced to , MAYBE even without being over-powered. Additionally, Orca has both the ability to hit creatures, AND the ability to divide his damage up, unlike the cards I compared him to. However, the biggest thing justifying that 7MV is the body, he's a 5/5 with Trample.

And the stats also increase the efficacy of his ability, if Juri, Master of the Revue dies before you get any counters on him, you only get 1 damage, if Orca, Siege Demon dies without any counters, you get FIVE damage. So he has to be expensive.

Of course, if you deck is built around your commander, you're going to be getting lots of triggers for your commander, I've seen 20/20 Juri, Master of the Revue's before, so that base +4/+4 on Orca, Siege Demon isn't all that impressive and DEFINETELY not worth

So, running Orca, Siege Demon as a aristocrats commander doesn't make a lot of sense. You could also try running him as a control commander, unlike Juri, Master of the Revue, Orca, Siege Demon triggers off of your opponents creatures dying as well. So, fill your deck with Fleshbag Marauder's and Grave Pacts and spot removal, make a giant Orca, Siege Demon, and fling it at your opponents.

I like this idea more... but it's still laughably inefficient, you're essentially regulating your commander to just being a wincondition, in which case there are so many cheaper AND faster options.

Part 2: The alternatives

ALL of that is to say, I want to build my deck around squeezing as much value as possible out of the second ability rather than the first. A Boulderfall is already a potent effect, so let's try to trigger that ability as many times as possible rather than increasing the damage when it does trigger.

Basically, we play Orca, Siege Demon like he's Kokusho, the Evening Star's little brother. He deals a third of the damage Kokusho, the Evening Star does in a 4-player game, he costs more, and he doesn't gain you 15 life each time he dies, a key aspect for allowing Kokusho, the Evening Star players to fight through the hate they will garner. However, he does have some advantages over Kokusho, the Evening Star as well:

He has a second color. It's pretty much always an advantage to be duo colored over mono colored (it's usually never a disadvantage to have more colors until you're at 4-5 colors, and even then, in a high power format like commander it's debatable). But red is particularly compelling for Orca, Siege Demon since it comes with clone effects and damage doublers.
He can hit creatures, Kokusho, the Evening Star can only burn people's faces as fast as possible and hope that he can ignore everything your opponents are doing. Orca, Siege Demon can kill off anything that's bothering him, and send any remaining damage upstairs.
Even though the focus is on the second ability, the first ability can still be good, Ideally, you can somehow get Orca, Siege Demon back on the battlefield to "see" the creatures he killed die, buffing him up for the next round). The Ozolith is going to be a hero in this deck.
Orca, Siege Demon's second ability only cares about power, that power doesn't have to come from the first ability, meaning we can play equipment/ buff spells to increase his power and therefore his damage as well.

The way I see it, the two main ways to get frequent triggers off of Orca, Siege Demon are Reanimation and clone effects. It also seems to me that you basically HAVE to use reanimation as I don't want to pay commander tax on a 7MV commander everytime my opponents interact with me, so the question becomes should the deck use clone spells at all? I don't think Splinter Twin is a good idea, you get 2-for-1ed if someone removes your commander, and all your reanimation cards are dead in your hand unless your willing to lose the Splinter Twin. Which is too bad, because a Orca, Siege Demon enchanted with Splinter Twin sounds TERRIFYING. I also think running cards like Heat Shimmer is a bad idea, because it's one use only. However, cards like Delina, Wild Mage, and Flamerush Rider seems GREAT, you can still sac-reanimate Orca, Siege Demon and it's a recurring copy effect. Ultimately, I think the reanimation spells are important in order to be more resilient, but the cloning effects are more potent as many of them are recurring, rather than a one-and-done. Additionally, any creatures you kill with the clone buffs the original Orca, Siege Demon, so that, when the original one dies, you get a bunch of damage.

Finally, rather than looping Orca, Siege Demon as fast as I can, I'd rather play Orca, Siege Demon, and hang out, pressuring your opponents with Orca, Siege Demon beat-down, hopefully setting up a cloning engine, then waiting for my opponents to try to remove Orca in order to Sac-Reanimate it. While I do think draining you're opponents removal is a compelling reason to play this way, the main reason it simply a matter of preference, I play slow and patient and I'm planning on building the deck in a way that allows me to do that.

Whew, that was a lot of words, now let me actually brew something.

Cloning Effects

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Decklist

Copy Every Turn

1 Delina, Wild Mage

1 Felhide Spiritbinder

1 Flamerush Rider

1 Helm of the Host

1 Jaxis, the Troublemaker

1 Mirage Phalanx

1 Mirror-Style Master

1 Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink

1 Splinter Twin

Only Copies Once

1 Cursed Mirror

1 Heat Shimmer

1 Twinflame

Only Copies When Orca ETBs

1 Flameshadow Conjuring

1 Minion Reflector

1 Mirror March

1 Molten Echoes

Approximate Total Cost:

First of all, turns out a couple of red copy effects specify non-legendary, so no Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and no Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki, bit of a let down, but Oh well.

All of the copy every turn options look good, except maybe Splinter Twin, I think it still might be okay, but I definitely prefer the other options.

The only one-time copy effect I'll consider is Cursed Mirror as it has a lot of utility, the others are just worse than reanimation spells.

The ETB effects are a bit more complicated, how many times do I expect them to trigger in a game? I already said I'd prefer to wait until my opponents try to interact rather than looping Orca, Siege Demon, as fast as possible. I think I can safely discard the ones that require mana to copy, but Mirror March and Molten Echoes might be good.

Reanimate Orca

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Before diving into individual cards, I have to consider whether I prefer effects like Undying Evil or cards like Reanimate.

On the one hand, Undying Evil effects are generally more efficient, most of them only costing 1. And you can stack the triggers in such a way that the returning Orca, Siege Demon sees the creatures that die to the old Orca, Siege Demon's trigger, so you get a couple "free" +1/+1 counters for your trouble.

On the other hand Undying Evil effects require you have the card and the man up when Orca, Siege Demon is about to die, whereas Reanimate is always rearing to go. Additionally, I see all the Reanimation spells serving double duty as way to get baclk the clone effects, and while both kinds of reanimation can do that, the ability to get back a clone effect in the late game, even if it died in the early game, is very appealing to me.

As I said earlier, slow but resilient is my preferred playstyle, so I'm going to favor the true reanimation effects to the Undying Evil ones. Still, a couple might make the list.

Decklist

One Shot

1 Animate Dead

1 Black Sun's Twilight

1 Dance of the Dead

1 Dread Return

1 Geth's Summons

1 Necromancy

1 Reanimate

1 Stitch Together

1 Tomb Fortress

1 Yawgmoth's Vile Offering

1 Zombify

Recurring

1 Archpriest of Shadows

1 Chainer, Nightmare Adept

1 Havengul Laboratory // Havengul Mystery

1 Palace Siege

1 Phyrexian Reclamation

1 Terror of Towashi

Time Sensitive

1 Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire

1 Thrilling Encore

Approximate Total Cost:

Probably needs a couple more cuts, but I filtered out a lot of the chaff already. Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire makes the list because it can just be a land, Thrilling Encore made the cut cause I bet I can set up some epic plays by saccing Orca, Siege Demon, killing a bunch of stuff, then get him and all the stuff he killed back

Ways to give Orca deathtouch and/or lifelink

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Neither of these keywords are necessary, so I'll only run the ones that can give the clones the keywords, which cuts out a lot of options (when you clone Orca, Siege Demon, one of your copies dies to state-based actions and you never get the chance to do something like equip Basilisk Collar. Heck, you can't even do instant-speed stuff before it dies.

Decklist

Deathtouch

1 Archetype of Finality

1 Maze Abomination

1 Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats

Lifelink

1 Raphael, Fiendish Savior

1 Whip of Erebos

Approximate Total Cost:

All of those are really expensive, probably only going to run one of each key-word, no need for duplicates and all

I won't bore you with all the other sections, the rest should be more basic.

Also it's nearly midnight where I am, so y'all will have to wait for the actual deck now, sorry, lol.

Venedrex · Post by **Venedrex** » 8 months ago

When I read the card I automatically added "affinity for something..." but then I had to do a double take when I realized it wasn't there. Yeah, I think 4 mv would have worked for this one.

In fact, maybe even 3 mana. Juri, Master of the Revue might be half as good but.... but.. Yeah, if you build this, you have my respect Stark.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

Venedrex wrote: ↑
8 months ago
When I read the card I automatically added "affinity for something..." but then I had to do a double take when I realized it wasn't there. Yeah, I think 4 mv would have worked for this one.

In fact, maybe even 3 mana. Juri, Master of the Revue might be half as good but.... but.. Yeah, if you build this, you have my respect Stark.

I agree that he is over costed, but a 3 mana 5/5 with trample and upside is ridiculous, 4 would have been pushed, 5-6 seems like what if should have been.

But that's part of why I want to build it, gotta get that street cred.

Venedrex · Post by **Venedrex** » 8 months ago

Dunadain wrote: ↑
8 months ago

Venedrex wrote: ↑
8 months ago
When I read the card I automatically added "affinity for something..." but then I had to do a double take when I realized it wasn't there. Yeah, I think 4 mv would have worked for this one.

In fact, maybe even 3 mana. Juri, Master of the Revue might be half as good but.... but.. Yeah, if you build this, you have my respect Stark.
I agree that he is over costed, but a 3 mana 5/5 with trample and upside is ridiculous, 4 would have been pushed, 5-6 seems like what if should have been.

But that's part of why I want to build it, gotta get that street cred.

Yeah yeah for sure. In my head I guess I figured the stats would go down as well too, so a 4 mana 3/3 or something, since its going to grow big anyway.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

Decklist is up!

I'm a bit disappointed with the final number of clone effects, really feel like the deck could use 2-3 more, but Felhide Spiritbinder is pretty bad (you need to wait 2 full turns before you can use him) and I'm not confident that Molten Echoes and Mirror March will trigger often enough to be worth the card. Still, the deck has a lot of card draw to find clone effects, and a lot of reanimation to keep the clone effects around once we do find them.

I think the Fleshbag Marauder family will be really good here, Orca, Siege Demon can take care of most stuff, but he'll struggle against creatures with high toughness, hexproof, shroud, or indestructible. The Fleshbags get around all of those. Meanwhile, every Fleshbag gives Orca, Siege Demon 4 +1/+1 counters. Finally, we are running a bunch of repeatable reanimation effects anyways, the Fleshbags will make sure theirs always something useful to be reanimating.

The Ramp and Draw packages are extremely cursed at first glance, but I think I might be on to something here:

Orca, Siege Demon costs 7 mana, so we pretty much have to include ramp as a major part of our game-plan. ramping up +1 mana with cards like Arcane Signet is pretty low impact if you are ramping to 7. In Sauron, the Dark Lord I run a bunch of rituals like Dark Ritual and Jeweled Lotus. I don't think those will work nearly as well in Orca, Siege Demon for two reasons: first of all, Sauron, the Dark Lord has a pretty low mana curve, you want to race your commander out, but after that, you don't really need that much mana, this deck, however, has a average mana value of 3.1, which is huge, so we want our ramp to stick around after we get our commander out. Second of all, Sauron, the Dark Lord wheels a bunch, making the lost card advantage negligible, Orca, Siege Demon does not. So instead I'm running a bunch of Sisay's Rings to ramp from 4 ->7 mana.

The question then becomes how do you foresee using turns 1-3? You could ALSO run the Arcane Signets, planning to go from 1->2->4->7, but now you've got a LOT of moving pieces, you're going to need to run a critical number of Arcane Signets AND Sisay's Rings AND lands, and somehow still have a functional deck once you actually hit your target 7 mana, also, the payoff is casting your commander on t4 instead of t5, which is nice, but not worth crippling your deck for.

Instead, I've decided to play a bunch of 2-3 mana card draw engines. This gives the deck something to do in the early turns of the game, allows the deck to hit 5 lands + a Sisay's Ring (a tall order) much more consistently (if you play the engine on t3, it should have drawn you 2 cards, which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you sit down and do the math, you'll find it's a pretty significant increase in your odds for everything to come together), and means you're all set up on mana and card draw, and have you commander out, on t5. Which isn't going to knock anyone's socks off, but should be able to hang at most tables.

So Phyrexian Arena and Black Market Connections are great cards in this deck, but the rest of the options for CA engine at <4 mana are slim pickings. Most of them are creatures, that give you CA by dealing combat damage. These aren't great in most decks, because you're hinging you card advantage on 2 weak links: the creatures can easily be killed, either by direct hate, or simply being swept up in a wrath, and the creatures can simply be blocked.

Those are two big downsides, it's possible I've gotten lost in the sauce, and this is a terrible idea which I'll realize the moment I actually sit down with this deck. However, I really think this deck can largely mitigate both downsides: The deck is already full of a bunch of reusable reanimation effects, so we can pick our CA engines back up later when they die, And the whole deck is built around turning Orca, Siege Demon into a creature machine gun, so even as the game goes long, we should be able to keep punching holes in our opponents defenses to allow our creatures to get in for their triggers.

After mapping all that out, I also decided to try to keep all of the deck's sac outlets to <3 mana, so that we can cast them without interfering with our target play-pattern. It's probably not necessary, as you don't really need the sac outlets until AFTER Orca, Siege Demon is out (heck, you can probably function without a sac outlet entirely, but I don't want to lose my triggers to a Swords to Plowshares), but the deck has a high enough MV as is, so some mana efficient cards will probably be good for it.

So the game map is:

T1-2 Make land drops, maybe cast a tutor/sac outlet/whatever other cheap spells you have.
T3 cast a card advantage engine
t4 cast a Sisay's Ring
t5 cast Orca, Siege Demon

I goldfished a couple times and double checked everything in a hypergeometric calculator, it should run pretty smoothly but what do I know.

At any rate, probably will be a few weeks before I can get any games in, but stay posted if you are curious.

TheGildedGoose · Post by **TheGildedGoose** » 8 months ago

Corpse Dance seems good.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

TheGildedGoose wrote: ↑
8 months ago
Corpse Dance seems good.

Maybe, I don't like the "until end of turn" reanimators in this deck, but Corpse Dance is the best one.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

Alright, I lied, I actually decided to go online and get two games in (using discord to voice chat makes these games a heck of a lot more tolerable).

Deck ran great! ramp package panned out exactly as planned, the combat-based CA engines WERE clunky, and I occasionally had to miss a trigger, but I was mostly able to work around them, and the payoff of cheap CA was worth it IMO. I didn't draw any Fleshbags both games (which is really weird, both games I saw a lot of cards, and I run a lot of them). but the reanimation engines had plenty to do just picking up stuff that had died/gotten milled.

I'm convinced cloning was the right direction to take the deck, I had consistent creature removal and an ever-growing Orca, Siege Demon, I only killed one person with commander damage, but it was a looming threat in both games.

At times like these, I begin to think I might actually have learned a thing or two about deck brewing since I started playing Magic.

Game 1 was only three people, one player was playing Thalia and The Gitrog Monster stax, and so everything was slow to get going, and I took a lot of damage before I had Orca, Siege Demon out, once I got Orca, Siege Demon and Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink up though, I absolutely massacred all the opposing stax over 2 turns. Which further solidifies my opinion that stax is not only annoying as %$#%, but it's not even that good. The turn after I got rid of all the stax, I was able to use Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink's second ability (I had a Thran Dynamo and a Everflowing Chalice with 2 counters that I had unlocked by killing an opposing Collector Ouphe, unlocking all my mana). This practically completely wiped the field (the other opponent had a hexproof+indestructible Tom Bombadil, everything else dies though) and set my commander to 25/25. I killed the Thalia and The Gitrog Monster with commander damage. the Tom Bombadil player had a Swords to Plowshares for my Orca, Siege Demon on his turn, but I sacced my commander in response and domed him for 25, setting his life total to 9. The game got really scrappy at that point, but he was so low that I managed to kill him by burning him for another 5 with my commander, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer beatdown over the next 2 turns.

game 2 was a four player game. Opponents were Athreos, God of Passage, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, and Hylda of the Icy Crown. Hylda is scary AF, had a giant army very quickly. I managed to get Helm of the Host and Mirror-Style Master set up with my commander, so the two of us were in a headlock for a while, but I was falling behind. Trostani, Selesnya's Voice then started going OFF with and assembled a token army bigger than Hylda of the Icy Crown in a single turn. I had a The Ozolith with 10 counters on it, and a Prophetic Flamespeaker, So I was going to put all the counters on the flamespeaker swing at Trostani, Selesnya's Voice for 22, convince Hylda of the Icy Crown to tap a couple key blockers then Hylda of the Icy Crown could finish Trostani, Selesnya's Voice off on his turn. Instead, Hylda of the Icy Crown decided to be spiteful. He tapped down my army, killed me on his turn, then Trostani, Selesnya's Voice won on his turn, Ugg. It's not even like his antagonism towards me caused him to misjudge the situation. I pointed out that he was dead on board if he didn't help me kill Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, and he said "I know." He said he just wanted to kill me because he would have already won if I hadn't been stopping him. I didn't want to get in a fight, so I just shrugged and took my lumps. Top-tier throwing, as Hylda of the Icy Crown would have definitely been in a winning position if he had gotten rid of Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, but oh well.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

Decklist

In

1 Ressurection Orb

1 Nim Deathmantle

Out

1 Worn Powerstone

1 Stitch Together

Approximate Total Cost:

Somehow forgot Nim Deathmantle despite being an aristocrats staple, it's particularly great because it can be used multiple times a turn (this deck easily gets to 8 mana). In some ways, the new kid on the block, Resurrection Orb is even better, as it gives our commander lifelink, and we can slap it on and forget about it, rather than having to perpetually hold up 4 mana. Of course, both of them are time sensitive, but they are the kind of power you are willing to over look awkward sequencing for.

There's nothing wrong with Worn Powerstone or Stitch Together, but I decided I needed fewer mana rocks and 1 use reanimation spells, and they are the worst ones I was running.\

The deck could really use some more Deathtouch effects. I've yet to draw Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats, but I find myself wanting him every game. The question is what do I cut to make room for Archetype of Finality.

Alternatively, I have been thinking about good old Basilisk Collar. It doesn't help the Orca twins, but it provides both lifelink AND deathtouch on Orca, for a great price.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

Another game, another win for Orca, Siege Demon!

I got the ideal Mindblade Render + Mana Crypt to get my commander out on time and have a card draw engine. One opponent was playing Okaun, Eye of Chaos and Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom. They cast Frenetic Efreet pretty early, but the Memnarch countered it. The Thantis, the Warweaver player got their commander out next and life totals started dropping fast. a couple turns go by, I've got Orca, Siege Demon equipped with Helm of the Host and one non-legendary Orca, Siege Demon, both of them at 10/10. Okaun, Eye of Chaos // Okaun, Eye of Chaos goes to his turn at 6 life, casts his other commander, wins 3 flips to set Okaun, Eye of Chaos at 32 (it had +1/+1 from something, though i don't remember what). He swings at and kills Memnarch second main proudly proclaims he wins while windmill slamming Chandra's Ignition down....
...
I just sacced the Orca, Siege Demon token and killed him in response, lol. He was really pissed, he hadn't realized I had an on-board way to kill him and said I shouldn't have led him on by not doing anything, I said I was hoping he'd hurt my opponents some more before I finished him off (which worked, he took out Memnarch for me), he said that was a scummy move, but Idk, seems like normal EDH politics to me.

Am I the Asshole? lol.

(made short work of the Thantis, the Warweaver shortly after).

Changes

In:

1 Drivnod, Carnage Dominus

1 Chaos Warp

Out:

1 Fiery Emancipation

1 Splinter Twin

Approximate Total Cost:

I have gone on the record many times saying I don't like trigger doubling effects like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, Panharmonicon, or Drivnod, Carnage Dominus. But Drivnod, Carnage Dominus doubles both of Orca, Siege Demon's triggered abilities, so it's kind of like a damage quadrupler. Little less flexible than Fiery Emancipation, but it's also cheaper + is a creature so can be reanimated. Also combos with random things like Jaxis, the Troublemaker and Dictate of Erebos.

When I originally brewed this deck, it was supposed to be a silly gimmick, where I'd manage to blast someone for 30+ damage off of Orca, Siege Demon triggers once, then retire the deck. However, it's actually a lot of fun and much more consistent than I thought it would be, so I might keep playing with it for a bit longer. If I do, however, I'll need to add some removal, since decks without interaction are lame, obviously, Orca, Siege Demon IS our removal, so we don't need much, but for the sake of being responsible, I'll need some non-creature removal as well, so in goes Chaos Warp, and I'll probably look to add Wild Magic Surge as well.

Splinter Twin is fine, but attacking with Orca, Siege Demon is kind of a big deal, having to lose out on attacks AND getting two-for-oned whenever Orca, Siege Demon get's destroyed makes it not-great. I really should be running a few more clone effects, but I'd rather run too few clone effects than bad clone effects. Maybe I'll try Mirror March, sure it might whiff and give me 0 tokens, but it might also give me a whole bunch of tokens (I mean, TECHNICALLY, I could just win the game on the spot). Plus it works nicely with all the Fleshbag Marauders as well.

Moxnix · Post by **Moxnix** » 8 months ago

I really like the ozlith idea I'm not sure what other bioshift type cards there are but that's pretty cool. I had someone on puraphos get a war elemental to 80/80 in two turns last night granted its puraphos but it grew fast enough to make Tauren mauler look like a kitten. Wonder if something like that would be bad for pumping a one shot.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

Moxnix wrote: ↑
8 months ago
I really like the ozlith idea I'm not sure what other bioshift type cards there are but that's pretty cool. I had someone on puraphos get a war elemental to 80/80 in two turns last night granted its puraphos but it grew fast enough to make Tauren mauler look like a kitten. Wonder if something like that would be bad for pumping a one shot.

War Elemental would probably be amazing when I have The Ozolith out, but I can't imagine it being worth while whenever I don't, the deck is only running 3 tutors, so I don't think adding cards under the assumption that I'll have The Ozolith out is a good idea.

Though, your comment did remind me that Urza's Saga is a neat way to grab The Ozolith. The deck is SUPER colored-mana hungry, however, their are a lot of double, even triple pips in the deck, and all of my ramp is colorless, so it's not without it's downsides.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

A bunch of small edits that I don't really remember, lol.

Most of the changes were mana base tweaks, this deck, as I've said before, is SUPER colored mana hungry, so I took out a lot of the colorless lands, sure Havengul Laboratory // Havengul Mystery is very on-theme for the deck, but I've literally never actually transformed it, and only used it to draw a card once. It had stopped me from casting a spell because it was colorless on more than one occasion, however. The Shadowblood Ridge cycle is a cycle of lands I am normally very suspicious of, but it makes a lot of sense in this deck, it filters some of that colorless mana for us, and the deck doesn't run too many 1 colored mana cards or abilities, so it shouldn't cause any awkward situations. The big downside is that it + another dual land can't provide rr or bb, Which is a real downside, but I think it's ok. Also just threw in a bunch more duals, even the kind of deep cuts like Sulfurous Springs, which I'm pretty sure is still the right call in the deck.

The deck has a lot of colored pip symbols, and a lot of Rob the Archives draw, the first means colored mana is important, the second means untapped lands are important. Combine those two factors and their really isn't much room for tech lands, our mana base needs to reliably provide us mana before we ask anything else of it. Having said that, some tech lands are too good to pass up:

Witch's Clinic can gain us a lot of life, both by simply swinging with a giant orca, or, if we really want to gain a lot of life, by swinging AND saccing Orca.

Urza's Saga, the constructs aren't that important, but the tutor can grab us a Sac Outlet or a The Ozolith, or, if nothing else, it can just grab Sol Ring/Mana Crypt. Two tutor targets and two mana rocks doesn't sound like a very impressive tutor package, but The Ozolith is one of the best cards in the deck, and a sac outlet is basically required every game for the deck to function smoothly.

Phyrexian Tower/High Market/Hostile Hostel // Creeping Inn are all sac outlets, obviously we'd rather have a real sac outlet like Goblin Bombardment, but these can stand in when we don't have one, and aren't dead cards if we already have a different Sac outlet (Sac outlets are weird in that you practically NEED 1, but the second one is nearly useless, the sac-lands are nice because they can just be tapped for mana once you find a real sac outlet, that's also why I like Culling Dais so much).

Tomb Fortress, honestly, even this one is suspect, but it does tap for colored mana, and another reanimation spell is frequently handy in the late game, so it strays for now.

Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire Everything I said about Tomb Fortress also goes for this one

And that's it, that's 7 tech lands, 5 of which tap for c, and 2 of which enter tapped. I think that's a pretty responsible number of concessions.

In other news, I found room for Wild Magic Surge which gives us 2 any permanent removal spells, which is honestly good enough IMO, our commander/fleshbags do a lot of the removal heavy lifting, these are incredibly versatile. We have 3 tutors and a lot of value to dig for them, heck Florian, Voldaren Scion is practically a tutor once Orca gets big enough.

Vona's Hunger got cut, I REALLY like Vona's Hunger as a generically good removal spell in EDH, but the other Fleshbags have a lot more synergy with this particular deck.

PrimevalCommander · Post by **PrimevalCommander** » 8 months ago

Following this thread as I like big commanders with splashy effects. I don't get to play decks like this as much, but I enjoy hearing about them. Sounds like a strategy I would enjoy. With enough sac and recursion you wouldn't have to cast it from the command zone near as much as some. I don't have much to add beyond stating that I am reading along.

Maybe look at Hellkite Courser? Good way to get Orca from the command zone if he cost 11. Command Beacon too?
Stinging Study and Morbid Curiosity for a big hand refill mentioned in another thread.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

PrimevalCommander wrote: ↑
8 months ago
Maybe look at Hellkite Courser? Good way to get Orca from the command zone if he cost 11. Command Beacon too?
Stinging Study and Morbid Curiosity for a big hand refill mentioned in another thread.

I really think Stinging Study is a bad card, and will tell anyone who will listen to me (which is no one) that it i. Morbid Curiosity is fine, but we already have plenty of draw that isn't dependant on our commander.

Hellkite Courser, however, is interesting, I'd much rather have myh commander in the graveyard than the CZ, but hellkite can take it from the CZ and (with a sac outlet) put it in the graveyard if that's what I want.

PrimevalCommander · Post by **PrimevalCommander** » 8 months ago

Dunadain wrote: ↑
8 months ago
Hellkite Courser, however, is interesting, I'd much rather have myh commander in the graveyard than the CZ, but hellkite can take it from the CZ and (with a sac outlet) put it in the graveyard if that's what I want.

Exactly my thoughts. Sometimes Orca will get exiled from GY or Field and he will end up costing more than we would like. With a commander that cost 7 and likes to cycle between field and GY it never hurts to have a backup plan. I suspect with the emphasis on sac outlets it wouldn't be difficult to slap Orca in the GY before the return trigger.

FoxHybrid · Post by **FoxHybrid** » 8 months ago

Have you considered Tainted Strike or the enchantments that are adjacent to it Phyresis and Glistening Oil? I'm not sure if the enchantments fit in with your reactive plan of popping Orca, Siege Demon, but I feel like Tainted Strike fits in really nicely and could let you achieve table killing Orca triggers sooner rather than later. I do understand that you might not want to run it in order to minimize your threat profile or just for preference reasons, but I felt I should bring it up here.

Dunadain · Post by **Dunadain** » 8 months ago

FoxHybrid wrote: ↑
8 months ago
Have you considered Tainted Strike or the enchantments that are adjacent to it Phyresis and Glistening Oil? I'm not sure if the enchantments fit in with your reactive plan of popping Orca, Siege Demon, but I feel like Tainted Strike fits in really nicely and could let you achieve table killing Orca triggers sooner rather than later. I do understand that you might not want to run it in order to minimize your threat profile or just for preference reasons, but I felt I should bring it up here.

I have, and I'm just not sure, the difference between Orca, Siege Demon and commanders that love Tainted Strike, like Nekusar, the Mindrazer is that Orca, Siege Demon is also a giant tramply boy.

In order to kill the table with Orca, Siege Demon, I'd need to already have 19 power, which, considering I only need 21 power to start one shotting people, It's usually only shaving a turn or two off the clock. I really don't think it justifies itself as a finisher.

However, it becomes a lot more appealing if you don't expect it to kill the table, Tainted Strike + sac Orca, Siege Demon after combat can one shot an opponent even if Orca, Siege Demon has no counters on it.

Overall, I think they are decent to good, but man is it hard to find cuts in this deck, lol.

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