The Ruinous Powers - Upgrade Guide
October 7, 2022 by
Scrap Trawlers 
(Abaddon the Despoiler | Art by Johan Grenier)
Hello all! This is Bert, coming from the Scrap Trawlers channel where we do EDH on a budget. Last time I was here we looked at the Ruinous Powers precon from Warhammer 40,000, giving you an idea on what the deck plays like straight out of the box. Well today, we’re taking you through some of the amazing cards you can add to your deck to increase function and those all-important synergies. All while staying on a budget! Lets get into it.
Here’s the original decklist:
The Ruinous Powers Precon
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Buy this decklist from TCGplayer
Humble Beginnings
The face commander for this deck is Abaddon the Despoiler. He gives Cascade to the spells we cast from our hand with mana value equal to or less than the total life lost by our opponents this turn. There are some cards that help with this strategy but our backup commander Be’lakor, the Dark Master isn't one of them. A great card on its own, but it doesn't help us further our strategy unless we play more Demons, which I think we will be moving away from. Never fear, Blood for the Blood God is here to stay.
So what is the deck missing? What can take it from zero to hero? Well we need ways to deal damage to our opponents outside of combat. The combat step should be used to make our damage greater so that we can get to higher mana value spells, but there are a multitude of spells that can get us to three or four mana value spells easy, so we will be adding a few of those.
There are some creatures and spells that are just screaming to be added. We also need a bit more card draw as well to really make the deck shine like the star that it is. So we are going to add some indirect damage, card draw, and some more aggressive creatures so we can make this deck really hum.
Let’s Get Down to Business
I want this deck to be at its best, Cascading into all sorts of threats and chaos. So let's add some cards that will help us do just that.
High on my list is Descent into Avernus. I know this is a wild pick, but it does everything that we want it to. Direct damage AND Treasures. On its first turn it provides us with an amazing six damage to our opponents. This card isn't without its down sides; we are giving our opponents Treasure and also taking the damage from it ourselves, but the upside is just too good to pass up. In that same vein Court of Ambition not only adds the Monarch to the game, but also forces our opponents to lose three life or discard a card if we aren't the Monarch OR double that if we are. This has some major life loss capabilities and we can expect to be Monarch a good bit of the time. Tectonic Giant can provide us with that all-important card advantage or a total of nine damage to each opponent. Stormfist Crusader is a small but effective creature with evasion, and even though it provides our opponent with a card, it gets us up to three life lost. Bontu’s Monument will give us some life loss every time we cast a creature spell while also providing a bit of life gain.
In: Descent into Avernus, Court of Ambition, Tectonic Giant, Stormfist Crusader, Bontu’s Monument
Next I want to add some more card advantage, most of which I want to synergize with the deck. Protection Racket is a gem and will net us either cards or some life lost by our opponents. Since we have a focus on dealing damage to our opponents, we can run Light Up the Stage and cast it for its Spectacle cost a majority of the time. Keen Duelist gets us an extra card and drains some life from our opponents. We're adding Duskmantle Seer for a similar effect. We'll also add a bit of unconditional card draw. Its not exciting, but necessary to keep up in the game. Chart a Course and Night’s Whisper will aid us in that regard. Valakut Awakening is also an amazing card draw spell that helps us change out our hand.
In: Protection Racket, Light Up the Stage, Keen Duelist, Duskmantle Seer, Chart a Course, Night’s Whisper, Valakut Awakening
Next up are some cards that synergize with our Cascade strategy. Nalfeshnee is a powerful card for our deck that will copy any of our spells that we cast from exile. Even better, our creatures that we Cascade into will gain haste. Wild-Magic Sorcerer gives our first spell cast from exile each turn Cascade. Spawn of Mayhem is just a nicely costed flying trample Demon with Spectacle that deals one damage to each player during our upkeep. Delayed Blast Fireball is a sweet board wipe and damage spell to hit off a Cascade. All of these just make our plays a bit more spicy.
In: Nalfeshnee, Wild-Magic Sorcerer, Spawn of Mayhem, Delayed Fire Blast
All of these cards will cost you less than $20.
Cut from Chaos
Now that we have the cards we want to add, let's talk about some of the cuts, which hurts in a deck like this, due to the sheer number of new cards that it has. However, some of the cards just don't synergize with our main strategy.
To start there are a ton of Demons that don't quite enable what we want to do in the deck. Be'lakor, the Dark Master, Heralds of Tzeentch, and Lord of Change are all perfect examples of that. All wonderful cards in their own right, but they don't reinforce what we want to do in the deck. In a similar respect to our Demons, Magnus the Red is a great commander on its own, but doesn't quite go with the theme of chaos and Cascade.
There are a ton of board wipes in the deck and one of the weirdest ones is Let the Galaxy Burn. Its designed so that it doesn't hit creatures that we Cascade into, but it is just too expensive for what it does. Decree of Pain is another hefty board wipe that draws us cards as it resolves, but I feel that the deck would prefer to have its board wipes and card draw separate so that you hit them most consistently off of the Cascade.
Nurgle’s Rot and Dark Ritual are low cost cards with the former returning to your hand once the creature it's attached to dies and the lattr giving us a burst of mana. Nurgle’s Rot doesn't really coincide with making our opponents lose life or empowering our spells and creatures. Dark Ritual just feels like the mana would be wasted most of the time as we can't really control when we would fall into that mana.
Venomcrawler would be an amazing card for an aristocrats deck, but as that's not what we're working towards, I think it is safe to cut. I mentioned in my primer article that I got to cast a Reverberated Blood for the Blood God, but up until that point Reverberate had been a dead card in my hand, so I am cutting it to make some space. The Horus Heresy is a very awesome Saga, but the modes don't enforce what we want to do in a game. Bile Blight is a meta dependent card mostly effective against tokens. Since I don't know how great it will be on its own I will go ahead and give it a cut. Lastly is Kharn the Betrayer, which is reminiscent of Humble Defector. It gives you a bit of card draw, but unless you have made a deal with an opponent, it's unlikely you would be getting it back.
Out: Be'lakor, the Dark Master, Heralds of Tzeentch, Lord of Change, Knight Rampager, Magnus the Red, Let the Galaxy Burn, Decree of Pain, Nurgle's Rot, Dark Ritual, Venomcrawler, Reverberate, The Horus Heresy, Bile Blight, Kharn the Betrayer
No Price Too Steep for Chaos
So let’s say you wanted to invest in some high dollar cards to make your deck just a bit stronger. Here are some cards that can be used to power up your deck should the prices not bother you. The easiest place to start are the lands. We can add Blood Crypt, Steam Vents and Watery Grave, then work through the crowd lands such as Training Center, Luxury Suite and Morphic Pool so that you can get a more varied mana base.
Now let's talk about some general good stuff cards. Neheb, The Eternal also cares about how much life our opponents have lost, except he makes mana equal to that amount in our second main phase, which we love. Terror of the Peaks deals damage to any target whenever we have a creature come in, making it easy to get damage through if the board is clogged up. Same thing with Twilight Prophet, after we get the City’s Blessing we can make each opponent lose some life so we can get some quality Cascades in. Ancient Copper Dragon is just the kind of beater that we love to see. On combat damage we have the potential to make up to 20 Treasures and that's just some upside we can use to cast more of our spells and keep the good times coming.
I’m sure there are some super sweet cards that you can continue to add to the deck, but I will let you figure that out on your own.
An End to Chaos
Here is a peak at the upgraded deck list:
Abaddon Chaos
View on Archidekt
Buy this decklist from Card Kingdom
Buy this decklist from TCGplayer
Well I had a ton of fun building this list and finding ways to deal damage to our opponents during our turn. From here it's up to you to come up with upgrades and synergies. Were there any that I missed? Please let me know in the comments.
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Scrap Trawlers
Scrap Trawlers is a Magic: The Gathering budget EDH streaming and video group, with gameplay, deck techs, chats, and more. Catch our videos at youtube.com/scraptrawlers. Andy, Lenny, and Bert.
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