Deckbuilding Contest Finalists - January 2025

(Lord of Tresserhorn | Art by Anson Maddocks)

Happy New Year! In the spirit of New Years and new beginnings, it is my pleasure to announce the first three finalists for the Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest of January 2025.

This is a monthly contest with a different theme each month. Your goal is to build a Commander legal deck that fulfills the prompt in a creative or unique fashion.

At the end of each month, three finalists will be selected for you to vote on. Whoever gets the most votes will be crowned the winner, although all three finalists receive a prize.

As a reminder, this month's prompt was to brew a Commander-legal list helmed by a commander with a drawback that turns that drawback into a strength. The goal was not to mitigate your commander's drawback, but to work with it as much as possible.

We collected submissions from the Archidekt Discord and Archidekt newspost and evaluated them based on how effectively they turn the commander's drawback into an advantage.

Now, it's your turn to decide who will be crowned the winner. Read about each deck list below, then visit your favorite and upvote them on Archidekt.

Whoever has the most upvotes by Wednesday, January 22, 2025 will be the winner, and receive $250 credit to cardsphere.com. Second and third place will receive $150 and $100 cardsphere.com respectively.

Finally, here are the three finalists chosen for this months contest, presented in no particular order. Follow the link in each section header to vote on your favorite!

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Knock, Knock. Who's there? It's the Balrog. Again By Darkwolferum47

The Balrog, Flame of Udûn isn't a great commander. A 7/7 with trample for just is pretty good, but not when it runs away to the bottom of your library any time a legendary creature an opponent control dies. It's that exact tendency that Darkwolferum47 is taking advantage of, however.

The key card of this deck is its only creature, Aspiring Champion. Whenever this Chaos Marine deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice it to reveal cards from your library until you reveal a creature, and put it into play.

If that creature happens to be a Demon, like The Balrog, Flame of Udûn, it deals damage equal to its power to each opponent. To help find Aspiring Champion, this deck is packed with other Polymorph effects like Collision of Realms and Transmogrify, as well as token makers.

Once you get Aspiring Champion into play, you just need two things to set up a repeatable loop every turn. The first are reanimation or copy effects, so you can attack with and sacrifice Aspiring Champion every turn.

Darkwolferum47 has included some classic Feign Death effects, along with Dawn of the Dead and Virtue of Persistence.

Add a Warstorm Surge and The Balrog, Flame of Udûn can probably kill a legendary creature as it enters, sending itself right back to the bottom of your library.

Some of the reanimation effects in the deck, like Lifeline and Endless Whispers even bring those legendary creatures back to life, so you never run out of targets to keep your loop going.

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Dralnu's Gifts by Loserboi

Next up we have a Dralnu, Lich Lord deck by Loserboi. Dralnu, Lich Lord requires you to sacrifice a permanent for every point of damage he would take.

This makes him unkillable in combat, impervious to Lightning Bolts and Blasphemous Acts, but leaves you with no creatures and no lands in play.

Loserboi has taken advantage of that drawback to turn Dralnu into a universal sacrifice outlet in the command zone.

Enchantments are difficult to sacrifice in Magic, but Dralnu easily let's you sacrifice any permanent type. This let's you avoid the downsides of Demonic Lore, and stop yourself from losing to Demonic Pact.

You also get to take full advantage of Hatching Plans and Induced Amnesia, sacrificing them whenever suits you best. Of course, Dralnu, Lich Lord isn't limited to sacrificing enchantments.

He can also get rid of Marina Vendrell's Grimoire or Ugin's Nexus, along with a host of smaller artifacts that give you value when they're destroyed.

All of this requires Dralnu to take damage. Dimir lacks the depth of options for direct damage that Izzet has access to, but it's still got plenty of tricks up its sleeves.

Prodigal Sorcerer, Rootwater Hunter, and Zuran Spellcaster all make appearances as steady sources of damage, but Dralnu, Lich Lord is a spellslinger commander.

Winter's Intervention and Pharika's Cure are perfect for this deck. Your commander can give them flashback, letting you easily make yourself sacrifice two permanents at a moment's notice.

But what if your opponents have their own ways to deal damage to Dralnu, Lich Lord? A Dimir deck could always plan to counter Blasphemous Act, but Loserboi has a different answer.

They'd rather Donate their commander with Reins of Power in response, to make someone else deal with those sacrifices instead.

These Shifting Grifts are also how this deck plans to win. Give someone your Archfiend of the Dross once it's run out of oil counters and force them to lose the game.

The Archfiend will return to your battlefield, where you can use Dralnu, Lich Lord to flash back a Donate effect to repeat the process two more times.

And if anyone tries to stop you, you just ping Dralnu, Lich Lord to send the Archfiend away.

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Korlash, The Grandeur Duke of Death by Stavrogin

Last, but certainly not least, we have a Korlash, Heir to Blackblade deck by Stavrogin. Most Korlash decks focus on ramping out as many swamps as possible, to win through commander damage, but this deck is built to use the commanders Grandeur ability.

Grandeur is a mechanic on some legendary creatures that lets you discard another card with the same name for an effect. In commander this is incredibly difficult to pull off, but Stavrogin as constructed a deck that wins the game by repeatedly discarding Korlash, Heir to Blackblade to it's own Grandeur ability.

The first step in this combo is to make a copy of Korlash, Heir to Blackblade. That copy will sit in play, while you discard your actual commander over and over.

This deck uses Activated Sleeper or Abyssal Harvester for that function, both of which require your commander to have died that turn.

You can achieve that in a number of ways, from Bone Shards and Village Rites, to Soldevi Adnate.

Next, you'll need a way to get Korlash back into your hand. Stavrogin has included a number of spells like Ghoulcaller's Chant that return a creature from your graveyard to your hand once, but you'll need Veinwitch Coven or Phyrexian Reclamation, in conjunction with Amulet of Vigor, to pull of the full combo.

Each time you discard Korlash to his own effect, you'll get two Swamps into play tapped. Amulet of Vigor untaps them, letting you pay the mana for either Veinwitch Coven or Phyrexian Reclamation to return Korlash to your hand. At least, as long as you're gaining life every time you discard your commander.

That's where Retreat to Hagra and Feast of Sanity come in. Each of these drains your opponents every time you discard Korlash, triggering Veinwitch Coven and offsetting the life you pay for Phyrexian Reclamation.

Less importantly, they also slowly kill your opponents. Stavrogin also included Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and Syr Konrad, the Grim for direct damage, and Tormod, the Desecrator and Bone Miser to make an army of tokens as you combo.

The rest of the deck is filled with ways to set up the combo, and survive until the pieces are assembled. Being mono black means there are plenty of options for tutors, draw, and removal.

There's even a few additional ways to take advantage of all the swamps you'll get in play, in case the combo isn't quite enough to win. Consume Spirit isn't a card you see often, but it makes perfect sense in this deck.

And there you have it, the three finalists for 2025's first Archidekt Deckbuilding Contest. Which is your favorite? Be sure to follow the links in the headers of each section to visit the deck pages and upvote the one you think should win! The final rankings based on your votes will be announced on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025.