Okay, well this is just ridiculous.

Look at this Creature.

For two mana, in a color that likes to Flicker, we have a dude that turns off bad things on cards and makes them evasive, hard-hitting threats. The first thought I had was Razormane Masticore... and that didn't even make the cut.

Let's check her out.

Abigale, Eloquent First-Year | Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Abigale, Eloquent First-Year

• Creatures (25)
• 1 Charming Prince
• 1 Disciple of Bolas
• 1 Egon, God of Death
• 1 Felidar Sovereign
• 1 Fell Stinger
• 1 Flickerwisp
• 1 Haliya, Guided by Light
• 1 Kalakscion, Hunger Tyrant
• 1 Lupine Prototype
• 1 Monoist Sentry
• 1 Moriok Replica
• 1 Nyxathid
• 1 Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd
• 1 Phyrexian Soulgorger
• 1 Plague Reaver
• 1 Relic Golem
• 1 Restoration Angel
• 1 Rot-Curse Rakshasa
• 1 Rotting Regisaur
• 1 Shakedown Heavy
• 1 Sister Repentia
• 1 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
• 1 Waning Wurm
• 1 Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist
• 1 Yargle, Glutton of Urborg

• Instants (15)
• 1 Anguished Unmaking
• 1 Cloudshift
• 1 Crushing Disappointment
• 1 Demon's Due
• 1 Despark
• 1 Ephemerate
• 1 Fell the Profane
• 1 Flicker of Fate
• 1 Generous Gift
• 1 Inkshield
• 1 Parting Gust
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Succumb to Temptation
• 1 Stroke of Midnight
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (11)
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Sign in Blood
• 1 Read the Bones
• 1 Decode Transmissions
• 1 Diresight
• 1 Gruesome Realization
• 1 Pointed Discussion
• 1 Risky Shortcut
• 1 Damn
• 1 Damning Verdict
• 1 Austere Command

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Black Market Connections
• 1 Far Traveler
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Teleportation Circle
• 1 Tocasia's Welcome

• Artifacts (3)
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Panharmonicon
• 1 Phyrexian Processor

• Lands (39)
• 8 Plains
• 10 Swamp
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Brightclimb Pathway // Grimclimb Pathway
• 1 Castle Ardenvale
• 1 Castle Locthwain
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Concealed Courtyard
• 1 Desolate Mire
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Fetid Heath
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Minas Tirith
• 1 Nesting Grounds
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Shattered Sanctum
• 1 Shineshadow Snarl
• 1 Susur Secundi, Void Altar
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Vault of the Archangel

Buy This Deck Export text

We have a deck here which does four things.

1. Makes high-power Creatures with low mana values, often with negative side-effects
2. Flickers Abigale all the time so those Creatures lose those bad side-effects (permanently!) and instead become absurd threats
3. Draws cards
4. Kills stuff

That's it.

For mana, we have 40 Lands. A number of them fetch or produce either of our colors, a few of them (like Rogue's Passage and War Room) only create colorless mana, and we've got a pile of Swamps and Plains. We are running no mana ramp.

(If you've been reading my articles for any length of time, you know this is rare, but in this case, the math is very much with us. With 40 Lands, we have over a 60% chance of hitting Lands up to turn five. This deck really doesn't need more than five mana to function - it has a couple of cards worth more, but most of them are cheaper by a lot. Plus, we have a ton of draw to smooth out rough Land hands. The ramp would sit unused past the first couple of turns of the game.)

Do notice Nesting Grounds is able to move around the counters Abigale makes.

To draw cards, we mostly have versions of Sign in Blood. The days of two-mana draw-twos in Black are over, it would seem, without a sacrifice of some kind, and I don't want to do that because I don't want to have to dump my hand on the table to play. (We lay out a threat or two, attack till we get Wrathed, then we have a couple more threats ready to deploy on the cheap.) So, we have three- and four-mana versions of effectively the same thing: "lose two life, draw two cards". We almost always get something else, like a Blood token or everyone loses the life. A few of them are Instants, so keep that in mind, but my favorite here is a Sorcery called Decode Transmissions, which has Void. Since we're blinking Abigale all the time, we'll very often avoid the life loss.

We also have Phyrexian Arena and Black Market Connections to draw every turn, Tocasia's Welcome because so many of our Creatures are cheap, and Disciple of Bolas.

That said, we don't really care about the life loss, because we're going to gain a lot of life if we manage to connect with a Creature now and again. We have a bunch of huge and cheap Creatures to play out, strip for parts, and attack with. Consider:

• Rotting Regisaur - a 7/6 for that says "At the beginning of your upkeep, discard a card." Instead, we flicker Abigale and have a three-mana 7/6 flying, Lifelink, First Striker.
• Phyrexian Soulgorger - a 8/8 with a Cumulative Upkeep. I don't think so!
• Lupine Prototype - a 5/5 for with an Attack limitation... or not.
• Monoist Sentry - a 4/1 for Black. It has Defender when we cast it, but not after Abigale puts her wings on it.

The list goes on. Nyxathid is a 7/7 for three. Rot-Curse Rakshasa loses Decayed. Traxos, Scourge of Kroog is one of the least good deals we have because it's actually , even though it loses its inability to untap!

Sometimes someone has the audacity to create a Creature that can actually slow down or stop our giant flying first strikers, and when that happens, we need to be able to get rid of it. So, we do with classics like Swords to Plowshares and Anguished Unmaking. Generous Gift and Stroke of Midnight are both catch-all problem solvers, and we have Damn and Austere Command as wipes. Oh, and Damning Verdict, which slaps here because we'll normally only lose our Commander - which is fine 'cause then we can recast her. Inkshield is the only non-removal trick we've got, but it's a doozy.

In terms of getting Abigale in and out of the Battlefield, Cloudshift is sort of the Standard. One mana to flicker a Creature works great. So, we have it, and several others like it. Ephemerate does it twice, Flicker of Fate costs one more, and Parting Gust will give her a little boost in the form of a +1/+1 counter.

On the Enchantment side, we have Far Traveler and Teleportation Circle, for Creatures it's Restoration Angel, Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, Charming Prince, and Flickerwisp, and of course Conjurer's Closet from Artifacts. All in all, we shouldn't have too much trouble flickering her when we want to, and we can always target the same Creature twice if we don't want to help out one of our opponents.

Finally, three other cards are worth mentioning.

Felidar Sovereign is here as an "oops, I win" card. We have so much Lifelink we'll very often have a high life total, and the Sovereign making it around the table once will sometimes just mean you win. You don't have to play it!

Second is Phyrexian Processor. I like this here because, again, we gain so much life. So, feel free to pour 20 or 30 life into the Processor, then pump out 20/20 Creatures and target them with Abigale so they fly and stuff. Should be a good time.

Panharmonicon makes sense in theory, but it's one I'm not quite sure of yet. I left it in because it seems like it would be good, but honestly, you don't want to overextend with this deck, so it's unlikely you'll have multiple Creatures time after time to target with Abigale. More testing is required.

The one card I cut for money is Sword of Hearth and Home, another strong flicker. The deck doesn't need it, but if you want to run it, drop Flicker of Fate and put the Sword in. It'll be a little bit better.

Another important thing - Abigale's effect is permanent. Once a Creature loses all its abilities, they're gone, whether or not Abigale is on the 'field. Also, if a Creature gains an ability after Abigale's ability resolves, it will keep that ability.

This deck will be surprisingly strong. It will be decently consistent and throw real power around the table, often quite early with the right draw. Turn-4-attack-for-9 Lifelink won't be unusual, and playing out another huge Creature that turn or just drawing cards will be common as well. I'd call this deck Bracket 3, but with some good self-control and a willingness to not play the optimal line, it would deal nicely with a group of Bracket 2s.

Thanks for reading.