Deck & Commander Strategies
Xantcha, Sleeper Agent
A Rakdos group slug deck that aims to manipulate combat to force opponents into attacking each other, while using Xantcha's card draw ability to maintain advantage and keep pressure on the board.
Karametra, God of Harvests
A classic enchantress strategy leveraging enchantments to ramp and generate tokens, focusing on building a board presence of angels and value through enchantment synergies.
Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis
A group hug deck tuned for MTGO that accelerates mana production and card draw, aiming to create a broad board state with multiple token producers and incremental advantages.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
A mono-black reanimation and graveyard value deck focusing on casting Gonti multiple times, recurring powerful creatures from graveyards, and using sacrifice and blink effects to generate continuous value.
Gameplay Insights
- 1
Gonti's player repeatedly blinked and sacrificed Kakusho and Runescar Demon to maximize reanimation triggers and card draw, extracting significant value through recursion loops.
- 2
The use of Blasphemous Act as a board wipe reset the game state and allowed Gonti to stabilize and execute a powerful graveyard-based comeback.
- 3
Players strategically chose when to pay or not pay for Smothering Tithe triggers, impacting mana availability and tempo.
- 4
Kynaios and Tiro's group hug-style mana ramp enabled the generation of multiple angels, creating a threatening board presence but also drawing attention from opponents.
- 5
The final lethal came through Insanguinate, capitalizing on the life drain effect paired with a large board presence created by Gonti's reanimation strategy.
Notable Cards
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Blasphemous Act
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Rise of the Dark Realms
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Fleshbag Marauder
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Conjurer's Closet
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Phyrexian Reclamation
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Sterling Grove
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Horn of Greed
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Cabal Coffers
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Darksteel Plate
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Necromancy
Gameplay Summary
The game started with all four players developing their boards and setting up their strategies based on their commanders.
Karametra ramped with enchantments and generated a swarm of angels, while Kynaios and Tiro focused on group hug-style mana and card advantage.
Gonti aimed to exploit graveyard recursion and reanimation, repeatedly blinking and sacrificing creatures like Runescar Demon and Kakusho for value.
Xantcha played a Rakdos slug deck, leveraging combat damage and card draw to pressure opponents.
Early board states saw multiple value engines and token generation, but a key turning point was a massive board wipe with Blasphemous Act that dramatically reset the battlefield. Following the wipe, Gonti executed a powerful reanimation sequence, including casting Rise of the Dark Realms to bring back a large graveyard and threatening the board with overwhelming presence.
Despite some missed opportunities and suboptimal plays, the game culminated with Gonti casting an Insanguinate that drained life to win the game at 25 life.
The gameplay showcased a dynamic midgame with strategic sacrifices, recursion loops, and combat damage politics, eventually highlighting Gonti's graveyard-centric value and a final lethal drain combo.
![Commander VS Special: Kresh vs Xantcha vs Rhys vs Atraxa [EDH] thumbnail](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3F2CvGLBGvw/sddefault.jpg)
![Commander VS S14E7: Sharuum vs Jhoira vs Melek vs Kynaios and Tiro [EDH] thumbnail](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1vD3yLJEw7E/sddefault.jpg)
![Commander VS S5E2: Gonti vs Rashmi vs Depala vs Kambal [MTG Multiplayer] thumbnail](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_F3J0UWKyac/sddefault.jpg)
