Braids, Arisen Nightmare
I took a hiatus from Magic when I started going to college in 2010 since there was no LGS in that city. That means I completely missed the rise of Commander. Since at my new LGS the biggest crowd are the people playing Commander, I decided to try it out despite my aversion against free-for-all formats.
Looking at the ban list, I realized that this would be the chance to play some of my favourite cards that were either banned (Necropotence) or too weak (Pox) when I was playing Legacy. To play those cards, I also would have to be mono black or at least heavily black.
Since effects that affect all players looked strong in a multiplayer format I decided to use Braids, Arisen Nightmare as my first commander. Because her effect is a may ability, I was hoping that she wouldn't look too threatening for other players.
To make Braids as effective as possible we need cards that
- are cheap so we can sacrifice something the turn Braids comes into play,
- have some payoff for being sacrificed itself or sacrificing other cards, and
- cards with card types that are less common such as artifacts and enchantments to reduce the possibility that other players can sacrifice a card.
With a mono black deck we get to play Cabal Coffers and Cabal Stronghold so we need a lot of (basic) Swamps and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
Current Decklist
Changes
Replace Myriad Landscape with War Room.
I got a War Room which obviously is great in a mono-colored deck. It was clear that I don’t want to remove a Swamp as I need a lot of those for Cabal Coffers and Cabal Stronghold. Out of all the other non-Swamp lands, Myriad Landscape seemed to be the weakest but I wasn’t able to test the current list yet.