Finisher for an abzan control deck

[ilovesaprolings]

I play a Karador deck that has shifted over the years from a reanimator aggro to a control deck. It constantly wipes the board, reset my life total and other things.
The problems is that it doesn't have any way to win. Reanimating a big fatty doesn't really work, it's too slow.
Right now my only way to win is Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord + Lord of Extinction.
Can someone suggest me a similar "combo"? I don't like real combos that win out nowhere, i want something like Jarad+Lord: a synergy that can win on the spot, but still requires resources/board state supporting it.

[TheGildedGoose]

There isn't one.

I started using some aristocrat drains to close games. It fits the attrition-style nature of the deck.

[duducrash]

Aristocrats + Turning things sideways is my way to win. the majority of my wins come from a drain effect such as Zulaport Cutthroat I'm up to 4 such effects in my decks with Teysa Karlov to make it even more of an issue. I'll also note that Field of the Dead is silly. You'll get a body to attack and to sacrifice, its among the best cards in the deck

[PrimevalCommander]

There are 3 of us with Karador decks in the decklist subforum. Each with different variations of aristocrats, control, or reanimator. Might be worth a look. Things that "Win the game on the spot" but aren't infinite in nature lead you in a few particular directions. Here are some that come to mind for me.

Craterhoof Behemoth / Moonshaker Cavalry + creatures; but you wipe the board alot, so probably a no.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers + Torment of Hailfire big mana life drain
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed loops, though those are infinite.
Various aristocrat drain loops already mentioned. Generally not guranteed to win on the spot unless going infinite.

My current two non-infinite win conditions are Kokusho, the Evening Star + ranimation loop to drain the table, and Yosei, the Morning Star + ranimation loop to lock down the board. Yosei only comes out when one or two players have been eliminated. Then I can assemble a soft infinite-turns-esqe lock and win with beats.

My combos revolve around Altar of Dementia + various loops with either Karmic Guide/Reveillark or Sun Titan/Saffi Eriksdotter. All of these cards have high synergy with the deck and usually don't draw too much attention because they are staple inclusions in the reanimator strategy.

[yeti1069]

Syr Konrad, the Grim is probably solid, since it punishes removal/board wipes, mill, discard, and having your graveyard exiled, not to mention triggering on your own reanimation/playing from the yard.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel and Kokusho, the Evening Star are decent finishers.

If you often find yourself with a lot of mana towards the end of the game there are big X spells that can serve as finishers. Maga, Traitor to Mortals is a creature-based version...that's single target, and requires a lot of mana.

[duducrash]

If you want to finish with a combo, you could play some protean hulk lines.

Samwise Gamgee and Cauldron Familiar

Reveillark, Karmic Guide lines could be your thing

[Mookie]

List? Depending on what you're already running, it may be easier to slot in some win conditions than others.

Combo is probably the simplest option - Buried Alive for the loop of your choice (i.e. Karmic Guide + Reveillark + sac outlet / Blood Artist) is pretty straightforward.

The second option I'll suggest is some flavor of Overrun, assuming you can build a wide board without too much difficult via Karador. Craterhoof Behemoth / Moonshaker Cavalry are the obvious ones, but Earthshaker Giant, Jazal Goldmane, and Kamahl, Heart of Krosa are other options (plus plenty of others).

The third option I'll note is drain, possibly backed up with some mass reanimation. Living Death, Nethroi, Apex of Death, or Storm of Souls mixed with Kokusho, the Evening Star or other drain effects can add up quickly, especially if you can loop it with Eternal Witness or other recursion.

[PrimevalCommander]

@Mookie just reminded me of my favorite win condition that is non-infinite. Usually doesn't win on the spot, but self mill + Living Death is probably my most common way of wining. Getting back a field full of fatties that all affect the board in some way will clear all problem permanents, clear all oppponent's creatures, and leave me with bthe biggest board by far. Can't believe I forgot that one. Second would be Altar of Dementia combos, and 3rd would be Spirit dragon loops. I don't think I ever win just swinging with one or two creatures a turn.

Self mill engines include Hermit Druid (obv), Greater Good, Doom Whisperer, Life from the Loam, Entomb, Survival of the Fittest. Add Golgari Grave-Troll if you want to further facilitate the self-mill with Living Death. Or just grind out the table to turn 15, exile the scariest opponents graveyard and then fire it off.

Rise of the Dark Realms works even better, but is much slower.

[ilovesaprolings]

Thank you everyone
I play plenty of self mill. This is also the reason why i'm almost playing an all creature list. So i have not Living Death, but i have Magister of Worth. I laso plan to add Bringer of the Last Gift.
I don't run the usual combo pieces because i dislike infinite combos that win out of nowhere. For example i have Karmic Guide and Saffi, but not Reveillark.
Thank you all for the suggestions.
I think i will add some mass drain, starting with Kokusho and then trying Gary too.
Maga is also interesting, i have to see if my deck ramps enought with new Karlov Manor cards added.

[duducrash]

@ilovesaprolings share your list with us?

[ilovesaprolings]

This should be the list. I plan to update it after ages because Karlov Manor give me some bombs like Undergrowth Recon and Aftermath Analyst. I will probably put in Burning-Rune Demon too. And Bringer of the Last Gift of course.
I haven't updated this list in ages. This was my second EDH deck, so there is a lot of nostalgia behind it.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Creature (49)

1 Adarkar Valkyrie

1 Angel of Deliverance

1 Archetype of Endurance

1 Archon of Valor's Reach

1 Ashen Rider

1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope

1 Avatar of Woe

1 Celestial Force

1 Dauntless Escort

1 Doomed Necromancer

1 Elderscale Wurm

1 Eternal Witness

1 Fauna Shaman

1 Golgari Grave-Troll

1 Golgari Thug

1 Gravebreaker Lamia

1 Greenseeker

1 Hallowed Spiritkeeper

1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord

1 Kami of False Hope

1 Karmic Guide

1 Knight of the Reliquary

1 Lord of Extinction

1 Loxodon Hierarch

1 Magister of Worth

1 Magus of the Disk

1 Necroplasm

1 Nighthowler

1 Novablast Wurm

1 Phyrexian Delver

1 Qasali Pridemage

1 Ramunap Excavator

1 Ravenous Chupacabra

1 Reaper from the Abyss

1 Resolute Archangel

1 Saffi Eriksdotter

1 Sakura-Tribe Elder

1 Satyr Wayfinder

1 Shambling Shell

1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

1 Shriekmaw

1 Skullwinder

1 Solemn Simulacrum

1 Splinterfright

1 Spore Frog

1 Stinkweed Imp

1 Sun Titan

1 Underrealm Lich

1 World Shaper

Terre (35)

1 Command Tower

1 Dakmor Salvage

1 Dryad Arbor

1 Fetid Heath

5 Forest

1 Godless Shrine

1 Golgari Rot Farm

1 High Market

1 Isolated Chapel

1 Krosan Verge

1 Marsh Flats

1 Orzhov Basilica

1 Overgrown Tomb

3 Plains

1 Strip Mine

1 Sunpetal Grove

1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb

6 Swamp

1 Temple Garden

1 Twilight Mire

1 Verdant Catacombs

1 Windswept Heath

1 Wooded Bastion

1 Woodland Cemetery

Altro (15)

1 Entomb

1 Buried Alive

1 Dread Return

1 Exhume

1 Final Parting

1 Jarad's Orders

1 Life from the Loam

1 Reanimate

1 Stitch Together

1 Unburial Rites

1 Victimize

1 Vigor Mortis

1 Animate Dead

1 Pernicious Deed

1 Plague Boiler

Approximate Total Cost:

[RxPhantom]

How about a good old Debt to the Deathless or Exsanguinate?

[ilovesaprolings]

How about a good old Debt to the Deathless or Exsanguinate?

I don't ramp that much (i hope that the new Karlov Manor cards will change things a little) and instant/sorceries usually get milled and are so clunky to get out of the yard. I prefer creature cards. I'm gonna try Kokusho.

[Mookie]

Thanks for sharing your list!

Looking at your list, I can definitely see it having issues closing out the game - you have a lot of cards like Ravenous Chupacabra and Novablast Wurm that can slow the game down and disrupt opponents, but not many dedicated to actually closing out the game. Mass reanimation to take advantage of your self-mill is probably the solution that requires the fewest swaps - Eerie Ultimatum and Living Death are both solid ways to close out the game. You don't really have the setup to add in more aristocrats / drain stuff, or the go-wide stuff to benefit from overrun effects.

That said, another solution I'll suggest is to alter your creature package and just include some more aggressive creatures. 'Beat your opponents to death with big flyers' is always a reasonable plan B. Serra's Emissary, Syr Konrad, the Grim, Guardian Scalelord, and Ao, the Dawn Sky are a few options I'll call out - they're all capable of both generating value and lowering your opponents' life totals. Not as splashy as hitting your opponents for 40 in a single shot, but chipping away for 5 at a time certainly adds up and can make opponents more vulnerable to Kokusho, the Evening Star or another finisher down the line.

[PrimevalCommander]

+1 to everything in the above post.

Also having a small handful of instant/sorceries that are part of your win package shouldn't be a big detractor when you can play Eternal Witness, Timeless Witness, and Skullwinder. If you mill Living Death, just cast E-wit from the graveyard with Karador, get back Living Death and let it rip. Even with with the 4 mana witness, the total mana investment is , which is achievable for a grindy Karador deck looking for a way to close the game. Eerie Interlude is more expensive, so try our LivDeath first to give it a try.

Also I'm seeing 8 non-creature reanimation cards, which looks a bit redundant when your commander does that passively. I could see cutting at least 2 of those for wincons that would help finish the game. Vigor Mortis could easily be Living Death that brings back your entire graveyard for only 1 more mana. Also a bunch of tutors that could easily fetch Living Death straight to hand, or the E-wit to get it back. I

Story Time:
When I was working on making my Karador deck more aggressive I was having this exact problem. What would happen is I would be sitting there with 3 answers in my hand HOPING my opponents would play something relevant that I could react to. Basically I couldn't advance my own board without having something else to interact with. Example: hand with Angel of Serenity, Fiend Hunter, Big Game Hunder, and Vindicate. The game would be so painfully long because I could answer every threat, but couldn't put out anything threatening of my own.

What I had to do was consider the fact that I didn't need 20 answers in my deck, and that having a few more aggressive cards that I could just slap on the board turn 5 and 6 is much more useful to me long term. Doom Whisperer is the flagship of this type of card. I removed 3 or 4 creatures that interacted with my opponents for more proactive cards to help me push to a win. Sometimes I can be tough to find a balance between having not enough answers, and having too many. But my experience with Karador, is that I don't need 20 answers in my deck, when I only need to find 2 or 3 and I can just reuse them over and over until my opponents give up.. Once I realized this, I could play more value oriented cards like Kura, the Boundless Sky and Luminous Broodmoth that could help solidify my engines and make the answers that are left that much more potent. Also it helps find and build toward those win conditions faster so we don't have to play 2-3 hour slug fests anymore.

Examples from my own deck.
Out Angel of Despair - In Doom Whisperer
Out Big Game Hunter - In Fell Stinger, now Braids, Arisen Nightmare
Out Fiend Hunter - In Oreskos Explorer, now Scholar of New Horizons
Out Angel of Serenity - In Dawntreader Elk or Morbid Opportunist (haven't decided yet)

[ilovesaprolings]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I have some spare Serra's Emissary and Eerie Ultimatum in my collection. I will add them and Kokusho and see if things get better.

[duducrash]

Dawntreader Elk or Morbid Opportunist (haven't decided yet)

Both are excellent and I run both in my list. I personally would run both and take Scholar of New Horizons out. It seems less good in green

[PrimevalCommander]

@duducrash I looked at my list and am short on card draw, so Opportunist comes in first. My white cards are starting to dwindle with Angel coming out, but Elk is waiting for something to under perform.

I'm currently torn between Elk and Yavimaya Grainger. Grainger doesn't require mana to activate when coming from the graveyard, and can get a land + sac to other abilities for value. That is why it is still in over Elk. But Elk comes down sooner and splits the cost. Tough choice. That's why I like Scholar of New Horizons, it gets the land + sticks around to be eaten by Braids, Arisen Nightmare or Sidisi, Undead Vizier , or Birthing Pod. Having too many self-sacrificing creatures: Dawntreader Elk , Fell Stinger, Vulturous Aven made it difficult to keep enough fodder around to trigger my other sac outlets. So I'm trying to find things that stick. Triarch Praetorian fits in this category where Fell Stinger is more consistent, but Praetorian sticks round to be more useful.

I'm going to copy this into my decklist thread for continued discussion if desired.

[Boros_Blendo]

If you mill Living Death, just cast E-wit from the graveyard with Karador, get back Living Death and let it rip. Even with with the 4 mana witness, the total mana investment is , which is achievable for a grindy Karador deck looking for a way to close the game. Eerie Interlude is more expensive, so try our LivDeath first to give it a try.

Haha, I love E-wit and reanimation for a big play. I do something similar in a Jund deck with Eternal Witness, Twilight's Call, damage reflector creatures, and Blasphemous Act. Too funny. Cards are different, but similar idea to synergize your kill with your recovery.