The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society | Art by Rimas Valeikis

Marvel spoiler season is now in full force, and a card with the craziest ward ability ever is catching everyone's eye. The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society is positioned to be the new deathtouch commander after Fynn, the FangbearerFynn, the Fangbearer, but there's a lot more to the card than that.

Most notably: "Ward—Get five poison counters." What are your opponents supposed to do about that? If they target The Serpent Society once, they can never target it again, or it's instant death. But the main course is a Dictate of ErebosDictate of Erebos effect for our deathtouch creatures. That's a really strong ability, but is it stronger than Fynn, the de facto deathtouch general? Let's find out!

The Jankiest Way to Use The Serpent Society

The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society clearly has one main ability, that Dictate of ErebosDictate of Erebos effect, but the ward ability is also extremely alluring. Anything that has the potential to two-shot a player is worth thinking about. Unfortunately, it's entirely dependent on your opponents targeting The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society.

I imagine that a deck built around it relies on forcing the issue by sacrificing deathtouch creatures, then proliferating the rest of the way. We'd make The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society so much of an issue that our opponents have no choice but to take on five poison counters, then, we finish the job ourselves. While this is an interesting direction to take the deck in, it's clearly not too great. We'd have to divide our deck between proliferation and deathtouch creatures, and that would make both aspects far less potent.

Even then, our opponents would surely be wise enough to play around that ward trigger, especially once they saw a single sign of our game plan. This build is janky, but no good.

The Most Evil Way to Use The Serpent Society

Our commander has a way to two-shot an opponent, but it relies entirely on that opponent targeting it. So what if we took the choice out of their hands?

The most evil version of this deck runs MindslaverMindslaver, Worst FearsWorst Fears, and Emrakul, the Promised EndEmrakul, the Promised End. As long as our opponents have two ways to target The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society in hand or on the board, they're dead. That's hardly guaranteed, of course, but if your opponent has anything like a Prodigal SorcererProdigal Sorcerer on their board, it's a pretty safe bet that targeting them with MindslaverMindslaver will end it.

The worst part is that they'll know they're dead the second you activate it, and all they can do is wait. Pretty nasty if you ask me.

The Best Combo With The Serpent Society

The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society doesn't combo with anything directly (as far as I know), but there are some pretty potent combos to pair with it. Say for instance, we had an infinite number of deathtouch creatures dying on our board. Our opponents would never keep a creature again!

Hapatra, Vizier of PoisonsHapatra, Vizier of Poisons is already a great card in this deck, and if we pair it with Blowfly InfestationBlowfly Infestation we can kill deathtouch Snakes over and over again. However, it's a bit unfortunate that Blowfly InfestationBlowfly Infestation doesn't fit too well into The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society's deck.

I was hoping there was a decent combo with Hornet NestHornet Nest, but all those combos require a red card like Warstorm SurgeWarstorm Surge or Terror of the PeaksTerror of the Peaks, and Hornet NestHornet Nest needs indestructible. No good. I'm certain I'm missing a better combo, maybe something involving Pharika, God of AfflictionPharika, God of Affliction, but for now the best I can find is this: Hornet QueenHornet Queen, Ashnod's AltarAshnod's Altar, and Nim DeathmantleNim Deathmantle.

We create four tokens with Hornet Queen, then sacrifice Hornet Queen and one token to Ashnod's Altar, paying the cost for Nim Deathmantle to bring Hornet Queen right back. That gives us infinite tokens and our opponents absolutely nothing. It's especially great because Hornet Queen and Ashnod's Altar are both amazing in The Serpent Society, and Nim Deathmantle is at least more useful than Blowfly InfestationBlowfly Infestation.

Still, I feel as though there's got to be a better combo somewhere. If you know of a sleek, two-card combo that would fit nicely into this deck, let me take a peek!

The Most Competitive Deck for The Serpent Society

It's only been a week or so since The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society was revealed and I'm already seeing players shoehorning infect cards into this deck. At the time of writing, Triumph of the HordesTriumph of the Hordes has a 42% inclusion rate, Infectious InquiryInfectious Inquiry is at 37%, and Venerated RotpriestVenerated Rotpriest sits at 53%!

Let me say right now, these cards are no good here.

If our opponents see that we're playing infect, they're gonna be so wary of that ward effect that it might as well not be there, and then, what's the point of playing infect? Plus, if we're running more infect cards, we're running fewer deathtouch cards, and that makes our commander a lot worse.

That being said, it might be worth playing one or two infect cards just to scare your opponents. Be careful to not be too threatening though, or you'll make yourself the archenemy.

I think the most competitive way to build The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society is just to go all in on the deathtouch scheme, sacrificing creatures over and over to decimate your opponents' boards. Then, you'll have a battlefield full of evasive creatures while your opponents have next to nothing.

Don't worry, the ward ability will do a great job of protecting The Serpent Society from removal even if you don't focus on it. No one wants to get five poison counters at once. But, as it is with most decks, our best option here is just to be consistent and focus on one gameplan. The ward is just a great bonus!

The Worst Deck for The Serpent Society

Usually for this section I try to find a deck that's actively hindered by the card I'm writing about. Unfortunately it's not easy to do that with cards that don't have a clear downside, which is most of them. Since The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society is one such card, instead I'm gonna find a deck that it might seem great for, but in reality it's rather weak.

Funnily enough, I think that deck has a commander that's decent in the 99 of The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society, Hapatra, Vizier of PoisonsHapatra, Vizier of Poisons. She makes a ton of deathtouch tokens, so why not run The Serpent Society to make trades even more advantageous than they already are? Or if we're regularly sacrificing these tokens already, The Serpent Society is an easy way to control our opponent's board.

Hmm, you know what, I'm actually selling myself on this one. I was gonna say some stuff about The Serpent Society narrowing the number of targets for -1/-1 counters, but let's be real, there will always be more creatures in a four player game. The Serpent Society is actually pretty great in that deck.

I'm drawing a blank for this segment, so you'll have to chime in if you've got a better idea. Who would've thought that "Worst Deck" would be the hardest category to come up with an answer for?

Take Five

Welp, that's all I've got today. The Serpent SocietyThe Serpent Society is quite the card for deathtouch creatures, and it might even be good enough to overtake Fynn, the FangbearerFynn, the Fangbearer. Funny how both deathtouch commanders have a penchant for poison. Now if only we could get some more commanders for haste or even menace. Anyways, as always, if you have better picks than me please let me know! And maybe I'll switch out the "Worst Deck" segment for "Most Flavorful" or "Most Unexpected." Tell me what you think!