Abaddon the Despoiler - From shame and shadow recast...

[Dragonlover]

... in black and gold reborn!

Welcome to what is likely to be the final deck I build. It takes me to six, which given I get about two games a week in, means I get to play each deck 3-4 times before a new set drops, which is both enough to keep the variety up but also not a huge amount of upkeep. I have lowered my ambitions considerably since my dream of doing the full suite of 32 a few years ago.

I own 10-15,000 points of Chaos Marines and associated armies like Death Guard and Thousand Sons. I've played the faction since I started the hobby in 1998 and it was just Codex: Chaos, which had Abaddon the Despoiler in all his technicolour glory as the cover. 40K is even more a part of the fabric of my life than MtG, so when the UB decks were announced there was no chance I wasn't getting the Chaos one. I've also been looking for a cascade based commander, so Abaddon the Despoiler immediately piqued my interest, since he can generate some serious value but also there's some hoop jumping involved. I always enjoy having to work a bit to get my decks to do things, so I grabbed the deck, played the precon a few times unaltered to see what I liked and then got to modifying.

Now, anyone that's seen my other decks will know I like to have a restriction in place for my deckbuilding, and I decided this deck needed one otherwise it was gonna go just that bit too far compared to my meta. So, taking inspiration from the lead in quote to the thread, all the cards in the deck are going to be either mono-black or gold, reflecting the colour scheme of the Black Legion. I'm exempting colourless artifacts from this restriction so that I actually get the full suite of rocks I want cause man, you need Abaddon out as early as humanly possible. The first few passes of rebuilding were partially to get on theme, and partially to shore up weaknesses. The precon has a lot of high cost stuff, so what tends to happen is you play Abaddon, cascade into something next turn, get wrathed the turn after and then you're just sad. I've added in some wraths of my own, some draw and some passive life loss so I don't *have* to swing. Also the five multicoloured counterspells that have another mode so you can cascade into them and not feel bad.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander:

1 Abaddon the Despoiler

Creatures:

1 Be'lakor, the Dark Master

1 Chaos Defiler

1 Duskmantle Seer

1 Ertai Resurrected

1 Florian, Voldaren Scion

1 Great Unclean One

1 Helbrute

1 Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos

1 Keen Duelist

1 Lucius the Eternal

1 Magnus the Red

1 Mishra, Claimed by Gix

1 Mortarion, Daemon Primarch

1 Murderous Rider

1 Mutalith Vortex Beast

1 Obosh, the Preypiercer

1 Phyrexian Dragon Engine

1 Plague Drone

1 Poxwalkers

1 Tallyman of Nurgle

1 The Scarab God

1 Twilight Prophet

Instants:

1 Bile Blight

1 Bituminous Blast

1 Chaos Mutation

1 Dark Ritual

1 Deadly Dispute

1 Dimir Charm

1 Drown in the Loch

1 Hero's Downfall

1 Izzet Charm

1 Kill! Maim! Burn!

1 Murder

1 Nurgle's Conscription

1 Profane Tutor

1 Silumgar's Command

1 Tainted Indulgence

1 Terminate

Artifacts:

1 Chromatic Lantern

1 Commander's Sphere

1 Cryptolith Fragment

1 Drach'Nyen

1 Sol Ring

1 Talisman of Creativity

1 Talisman of Dominance

1 Talisman of Indulgence

1 Wayfarer's Bauble

1 Worn Powerstone

Sorceries:

1 Blight Grenade

1 Decree of Pain

1 Deny Reality

1 Drag to the Bottom

1 Invoke Despair

1 Mandate of Abaddon

Enchantments:

1 Agent of the Shadow Thieves

1 Nurgle's Rot

1 The Lost and the Damned

1 The Ruinous Powers

Planeswalkers:

1 Angrath. the Flame-Chained

1 Geyadrone Dihada

1 Ob Nixilis, the Adversary

Lands:

1 Barren Moor

1 Blackcleave Cliffs

1 Blood Crypt

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Command Tower

1 Crumbling Necropolis

1 Dismal Backwater

1 Evolving Wilds

1 Exotic Orchard

1 Foreboding Ruins

1 Forgotten Cave

1 Maestros Theater

1 Path of Ancestry

1 Polluted Delta

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Sulfurous Springs

1 Shivan Reef

1 Steam Vents

1 Sunken Hollow

1 Swiftwater Cliffs

1 Temple of the False God

1 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Tramway Station

1 Watery Grave

5 Island

5 Mountain

4 Swamp

Approximate Total Cost:

There's some obvious stuff like Pestilence that I just haven't got around to picking up yet, but I'm going to the LGS soon with singles purchasing in mind so there'll be some holes plugged after that hopefully. I'm also looking at cutting the remnants of the spellslinging package they put in the precon and replacing it with reanimation as extra protection against wraths. Other requirements at this stage are the shocks I don't already have and possibly more mana rocks. Considering splashing out for some of the 0 cost ones like Mana Crypt, if nothing else they'll give my 1 drops cascade targets.

Any thoughts, criticisms and suggestions are gladly received, it's a while since I built a deck and 'here, have lots of value but no clear goal' is not something I've done for ages so I've probably missed tons of stuff. Just please bear the only black and gold cards restriction in mind.

Dragonlover

Changelog

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10/01/22
Out: Chaos Terminator Lord, Khârn the Betrayer, Seeker of Slaanesh, The Horus Heresy, Hostile Takeover, Glamorous Outlaw
In: Profane Tutor, Hero's Downfall, Duskmantle Seer, Angrath, the Flame-Chained, Keen Duelist, The Scarab God

14/01/22
Out:Tzaangor Shaman, Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch, Pink Horror
In: Florian, Voldaren Scion, Agent of the Shadow Thieves, Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos

05/02/23
Out: Swamp
In: Blackcleave Cliffs

18/02/23
Out: Venomcrawler, Ghastly Death Tyrant, Sloppity Bilepiper, Murder
In: Geyadrone Dihada, Cryptolith Fragment // Aurora of Emrakul, Murderous Rider // Swift End, Twilight Prophet

[Dragonlover]

Quick bump as I've now cleared out all the monocolours I didn't want and started the tuning process.

Dragonlover