Not Your Average Blink Deck | $50 Shilgengar, Sire of Famine Budget EDH Deck Tech

Shilgengar, Sire of Famine

| Illustrated by Chris Rallis

Sanctuary Warden

| Illustrated by Johannes Voss

Hello, everyone! Welcome to another installment of BathoomBrews. In last week's article, I ran a poll to see which commander you lovely nerds wanted me to build around and at the time of writing Shilgengar, Sire of Famine

The Game Plan

If you couldn't tell from the name of the deck or if you skipped my intro, I decided to build Shilgengar as a blink commander. Now, you might be wondering why I did that instead of an Angel or more traditional sacrifice deck. I decided to make a blink deck because of their reanimation ability. They return creatures with finality counters, which can be removed by blinking the creatures, and what does reanimating creatures do? Brings them back into play, triggering all of their ETBs again, effectively blinking them. I also wanted to note that you can use Shilgengar's ability at instant speed if someone tries to exile your graveyard. 

The Blink Package

Let's kick off the key cards with the blink package of the deck. The easiest way to remove all of the finality counters from creatures is to blink your entire board, and we can do that with Eerie Interlude

While not a blink spell in the traditional sense, Cosmic Intervention can be a powerhouse in the deck. It allows you to sac a board with finality counters and still return them to play because both the finality counters and Cosmic's effect are replacement effects, so you get to pick which one resolves first. 

The remaining noncreature blink spells are pretty standard. They consist of staples, like Ephemerate

As for creatures that can blink, we have Charming Prince

Blink Payoffs - Ramp, Draw, and Removal

Of course, we need creatures that benefit from being blinked and reanimated. First up is our ramp package, with Claim Jumper

Utility Creatures

Next, let's talk about the utility creatures. These creatures don't necessarily benefit from being blinked or reanimated, but instead provide some other function for the deck. For example, Fain, the Broker

Blood Token Support

Before we get into the win conditions for the deck, I wanted to talk about the Blood token support: Voldaren Bloodcaster

Win Conditions

Unlike Azorius blink decks, I've found winning with Shilgengar easy. You include some aristocrat cards, such as the new Marionette Apprentice

The Upgrades

If you're looking to spend a little bit more on the deck, there are solid upgrades you could make. My first two choices would be Solemnity

Conclusion

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the deck in the comments down below, or over on Twitter @BathroomMTG. Let me know if you think I missed any cards, got any rules wrong, or want to suggest another deck for me to brew up.