Orzhov Power Matters with Ria Ivor

Posted on March 14, 2023

Hello awesome readers! Boy do I have something fun for you today!

An Orzhov leader that just debuted in Phyrexia: All Will be One! This is a new opportunity to take a look at a very different leader which I'll be taking into a very Spike direction. Like really Spike-y! Cannot emphasize that word more! Let's look at Ria Ivor.

A 3/4 for four with battle cry, so she'll swing as a 4/4 and give your team an additional power as well when she swings. At the beginning of your combat, you can choose a target dork. When it smashes a player this turn, prevent the damage and make that many 1/1 Mites with toxic 1 and cannot block, and they are artifacts too. That's pretty strong. Note that she does not need to attack for her latter ability to trigger, it'll happen on turn 4 when you drop her. There are already a 356 decks registered with her over at EDHREC.com which are all about poison kills. And we'll have some synergy with a few of those cards here too, sure. But we are going in a very different direction. Cheap high-power stuff with disadvantages. Ideally this would be Rakdos with things like Ball Lightning, but we'll dig into black things as well as some classic artifact dudes to make this happen. My goal is to make this a very fast clock, making a ton of Mites on turn 4 when you drop Ria.

Here's how I see this deck working:

Turn 1 - Land, Tap for one-drop maybe, but likely nothing. You could cast a tutor for Super Secret Tech.

Turn 2 - Land, drop Super Secret Tech Artifact that will really break this deck. If not, cast Tutor for it or a mana rock or Lightning Greaves

Turn 3 - Land, Drop high power cheap with disadvantage.

Turn 4 - Land, Drop Ria, swing with high power dork, get enough Mites to win very quickly, ideally 10 or more with some dorks here.

Turn 5 - Win with enough Mites to kill one player, and then make enough to kill the other two next turn.

Ready for the decklist? I got you!

High Power, Low Cost Stuff

Alright, let's look at one half of this deck's Vintage winning combo, the Dreadnought. This is a Reserve List that's played in many formats and it costs around $100 here, so that leads me to run not a budget deck. This is a one drop 12/12 with trample. You have to sacrifice at least 12 power in order to keep it out, but my Super Secret Tech can drop this without any issues. The Razorback is a 4-drop 7/7 which cannot swing until the three ice counters it arrives with are removed. It has to block to do so, so it acts like mid-game Wall and no one will attack you. It's very strong at playing keep away while also working with the same card.

Check out the pair of Eater of Days and Leveler! The Eater is a below curve 9/8 with both flying and trample - two evasions on a cheap four mana. Nasty! Then on arrival to the battlefield you skip two turns to give your foe's a while to find answers. You are really paying for it. The Juggernaut is a cheap 5-mana 10/10 with no keywords. When it ETBs, you have your library get exiled. It's a combo with Laboratory Maniac and friends, so you do see it in Commander just as is, but we have a Super Secret Tech way to make this work.

Let's finish this section with Phyrexian Soulgorger and Hunted Horror! The Soulgorger is a three-drop 8/8 that makes you sacrifice many dorks in your upkeep with cumulative upkeep. You can keep that out for a while by sacrificing Mites until you've won. The Horror is mega cheap at just 2 for a 7/7 with trample! But it gives a foe two 3/3 Centaurs with protection from Black to block with on arrival to the battlefield, assuming that trigger fires...cough cough...

Synergies and Win Conditions

Here's my deck's Super Secret Tech: Illusionary Mask and Torpor Orb! Each are searchable by four Tutors in here (Demonic, Vampiric, Enlightened, Grim). Two of which are first turn-able as well as for the Dreadnought if you have these.

The idea here to drop the Mask turn 2, and then use it to drop a Dreadnought turn three with one mana and then face down, then swing and reveal it and it's a 12/12 trampler that gets 12 damage prevented from the Ria combat trigger. And you'll have two mana left for Lightning Greaves to swing for 12, or a mana rock, or the thing below. Or others, you can also drop them without that mana, so the Hunted Horror can be cast with a Sol Ring's mana. The Orb just shuts down all ETB of anything, yours and your foes, so that's also a strong second-turn drop as well. I also have Hushbringer here as a backup. Nasty pair.

How am I going to get my tokens mass damage toxic kill? Unblockable! How do I do that? Filth will give them Swampwalk if in your graveyard and you control a Swamp to be unblockable. I am running Urborg to make sure that happens. How do you get through your big guy with the damage prevented to make them? The Boots of the Trailblazer, this will give them non-basic landwalk which most people are running.

Check out the pair of Corpse Knight and Anointed Procession that plays with the tokens! The Knight is two-drop 2/2 that can force your foes to lose a life each time a dork enters your battlefield. That's nasty here and can win very quickly with normal damage! The Procession is my only enchantment. It will double your token making of any sort, so that would turn the 7 made from Hunted Horror into 14. This was printed onto a white dork in Phyrexia: All Will be One called Mondrak, Glory Dominus and that's here as well for the faster doubling fun times.

Check out these two mono-white options also from this set! Skrelv is a great one drop if you don't have a Sol Ring in your hand and white mana. This has toxic 1, is a 1/1, and cannot block. Then you can tap it with a Phyrexian white mana so it can be mana free, to give your big dork about to have it's combat damage prevented to be unblockable by the color of your choice, and hexproof too to stop targeted removal as well as toxic to get a poison counter now . Nasty! The Soldier is a four drop with first strike 4/2. Then your tokens get +1 power and first strike on your turn, nasty. Then you can spend four mana, one Phyrexian white, to make a 1/1 aforementioned Mite token, so this is a mana sink in the later game or can let your Mites kills with normal damage quite quickly.

Card Flow

Now let's turn to card draw, starting with Night's Whisper. Black has a bunch of draw-two-for-two-life cards and they're all here. Nice! Skullclamp also is nasty here, as it can drop on turn 1 without the Sol Ring, and then equip a Mite for one mana to kill it with its +1/-1 and then draw two cards for each one mana spent and dork killed. That's nasty card flow after you've got some Mites to spare!

Check out this pair of three-drops. The Wizard is an uncommon that when dorks arrive to your battlefield you scry 1, so that's big just there. Then your second creature each turn will draw instead. That's really strong, also note the synergy with this mass scrying and the next section... The Vampire is a powerful 2/3 that draws you one card when one 2 power or smaller dork ETBS, but just one per turn, so that's free but not abusable. I like it with instant token makers on other turns like the Mite Overseer.

Answers

Alright, now let's turn to answers and removal. Once we've set up, we need a couple of turns to kill everyone and make enough Mites to do so. So what I need are ways to ensure that we'll win against the key answer here in the 4 -5 mana range - mass removal like Damnation. Enter the next few cards! These are what I want to dig for with all of the scry 1 of Rumor Gatherer. The Protection is the best. Three mana, instant, all of your permanents phase out, your life total cannot change, and you get protection from everything to play keep away. Nasty. The Rebirth is a one-cost instant in Black that loses you two life and then returns a key dork from dying for a turn. Since we have key win cons in creature form like the Dreadnought, this will keep them alive. Or if you need a land, you can drop it.

Sejiri Shelter is another two-drop modal spell land. Then you can give a dork protection from any color this turn, another key way to save from targeted removal, damage based mass removal like Blasphemous Act, and then you can also use it to swing through a mono-color defense, so it has three key uses here. Flawless Maneuver is a three-cost instant that gives your team indestructible for the turn. Strong! Control your Commander? Then it's free! Stronger! That lets you tap out to do stuff while having this as a key answer to removal.

Now let's turn to removal. Here I always went with the cheaper version, even if it comes with a disadvantage. For example, Vindicate's three mana sorcery status versus Utter End's four-mana instant status. I also tossed in the sometimes-free Deadly Rollick, as well as Snuff Out that destroys a non-Black dork, so it's a Doom Blade for two more mana. But if you control a Swamp it's free for four life. And remember you have Urborg here too so even if you don't have an actual Swamp, you still might. Strong free answer pair here!

Ramp and Lands

Now let's turn to mana and lands. This deck needs mana to go off as fast as possible. I don't normally run this pair since they are pricey on the secondary market, but they do great things here speeding up your combo and thus kill by turns. A first turn Sol Ring or Tomb or Crypt will drop a Torpor Orb or Illusionary Mask on turn one. Then you can drop the Dreadnought or anything else on turn 2, and then Ria and swing and make 12 tokens on turn three. See why they are here? They have to be.

Check out a pair of colorless lands in Mirrex and Karn's Bastion. The Sphere taps for any color on arrival to the battlefield, so you can drop it, and then tap it for Skrelv with White. Then you can tap for colorless on later turns. Then you can spend 3 and tap it to make a 1/1 Phyrexian Mite artifact with toxic that cannot block just like your leader, from your land. This is great at triggering Welcoming Vampire on other turns, or to make another one to kill after a mass removal swept your board or to get that tenth Mite at the end of a foe's turn from a 9-power dork before untapping and attacking. The Bastion is a colorless tapping land. With four mana and a tap you can proliferate. If someone starts taking the poison damage, then sweeps the board, then you can finish them off with this and time, as lands are harder to answer.

Check out this mana rock. This three-drop taps to lose life for four things. It can tap for 2 life to make any mana. Then you can tap for 3 life and proliferate, so, again, it's a win con in mana form. And you can untap it, so that's tap, pay three, untap for five, and get two triggers each turn rather than the one with the Bastion. Nasty stuff at winning, and then we also can pay four to tap and draw. Four life, not mana, so this is a three drop that can tap and draw a card on turn 3. This is also tutorable with all four Tutors here to finish off damaged players. This is my only three mana tap for mana card here, since the rest are two-drop Arcane Signet style things.

Check out this pair of fun lands that arrive untapped. The Orzhov one taps for colorless, and then can tap with four mana to give all your things lifelink and deathtouch for the turn. The first is very strong to gain a ton of life with your Mites and big cheap guys. The second is strong to make bad trades with your Mites prior to blocking. Also note that this is very mana intensive early, but can make tons of trades of tokens with creatures in card form very strongly. The Passage taps for colorless, and then adds to your unblockable suite and then getting another option for an unblockable beater for the Mite making later. Ideally you want to be swinging early before they have set up a defense, but it's nice to have other options too.

Shizo, Death's Storehouse arrives untapped and taps for Black. For just one mana and a tap you can make a legendary have fear for the turn, which works on a few key cards here like Ria to swing for Battle Cry against a board without black dorks or artifact ones. Inkmoth Nexus is a colorless, arrives untapped, and can turn into a 1/1 flyer with infect for just one mana. This will help you add the last few poison hits out of nowhere on a blank board to finish off a poison wounded foe.

Check out this pair of Orzhov lands. The Caves tap for colorless, or pain for your colors, and then ETBs untapped. The Vault ETBs untapped if you have at least two foes, likely. Then it taps for both of your colors. I didn't want to take early turns off with an ETB tapped land, so only Bojuka Bog ETBs tapped, and it's too valuable to ruin graveyards not too. I also have one ETB tapped mana rock, Charcoal Diamond, but getting black from my mana rocks was too valuable not too.

Decklist?