(Doomsday Excruciator | Denys Tsiperko)

All Your Win-Cons Are Belong To Us

How good is Doomsday Excruciator? Nobody knows until somebody brews it Max Power, so let's get to it.

The previews before the previews are in, and Doomsday Excruciator looks... well, it looks unique, in a probably not-actually-that-great kind of way. Still, there's got to be something to be said for eliminating an entire table's win-cons, right? Trouble is, we're part of the table. Or are we?

"Win-Con-Less"

Not so much these days, but there was a time where there were decks around high-powered tables that tried to win via normal Magic means: swinging with creatures. 

It might seem extreme to the average brewer to call strategies that pursue the most common win condition in Magic to name this strategy "Win-Con-Less", but that is nonetheless what high-powered tables did, and the thought remains: if you don't have a combo in a format that has access to all of them, then you don't have a win condition. Whether it be swinging in with your mana dorks with Jetmir, acquiring infinite mana and swinging in with your mana dorks in Shalai, Voice of Plenty, or just going straight for the old school White Weenie strategy with Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, be prepared for a table to scoff under their breath when you flip your commander.

And honestly, they're right. While Jetmir giving +3/+0 and a slew of keywords to a horde of Llanowar Elves and Hatebears sounds great in theory, it pales in comparison to the average Grixis deck that can end up accidentally drawing their whole deck with an Underworld Breach, or lucking into a Demonic Consultation and a Thassa's Oracle backed up by a Force of Will.

What if they didn't have all those options, though? What if you could, on turn one, eliminate every one of those ultra-resilient, ultra-efficient win-cons at the table?

With a little luck, some aggressive mulliganing, or both, it's extremely possible to acquire four mana on turn one if you're playing at max power in Commander. If not, it's almost guaranteed that you can manage it on turn two. Between fast mana staples, like Jeweled Amulet, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and Dark Ritual, that can instantly net you two-plus mana, and the more mundane fast mana that will all net you one, it's fairly easy to mulligan a few hands until you have something hyper aggressive that can ditch half of your hand to put a K'rrik on the table. From there, Doomsday Excruciator is only a painful 12 life away from hitting the battlefield right behind, putting a triggered ability that will ruin the entire table's plans on the stack.

The only question once we've done that is: how do we win?

Winning!

I see three avenues to winning in a Doomsday environment: Good old "Win-Con-Less" Aggro, some aggressive mill, or by simply not losing.

Aggro

As far as consistency, there's really no contest here. With a fast-growing commander and a 6/6 flier adjoined to a table that has probably made their best effort to dome themselves for 10 in various fast/reliable mana schemes, killing folks should be child's play, no? Well, yes and no. Even if everyone has been nice enough to get themselves to 30 life, and our extra card a turn courtesy of Doomsday Excruciator is letting us steadily pump K'rrik, we're looking at four turns total to deal 90 damage. Combine that with folks still most likely having some lands and interaction to spend post-Excruciator, and that plan is going to be difficult to pull off. Difficult doesn't mean impossible, however. With various abilities we can activate repeatedly for free with our commander, there are avenues that can get a table down quickly while also getting rid of any pesky blockers that would make life difficult for us as the aggro deck.

Chief among those is Pestilence, which will reward us for paying two life to activate it by pinging us and the rest of the table for one in yet another hyper-risky strategy that surely won't blow up in our faces. Even better? Attaching said effect to a 7/6 flier in the form of Pestilence Demon, clearing the battlefield each turn while letting our commander sneak through for precious lifelink damage to keep us alive. This and many other huge beaters are available to accelerate our timeline, either via huge amounts of mana from abusing our commander, or through reanimation effects. Why choose when you can have both, though?

Chainer may not wow by itself on the field of combat, but when you can pay nine life to grab Demon of Dark Schemes, which can then pay two colorless and two life to reanimate the best creature from other player's graveyards, that can add up to some real combat damage, quick. Even better, this can often give you access to other's creature win-cons, as well. The odd Hullbreaker Horror is likely to win you the game via combat and removal, as is waiting until you're down to two cards and snagging someone's milled Thassa's Oracle. Even if all you have access to is someone's Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, though, it's not like that doesn't swing and speed up someone's draw clock by a turn! Speaking of which:

Mill

After a resolved Doomsday Excruciator trigger, the entire table has six cards left. Surely there's just some cards that will end the the table, right?

Easily the most powerful option here is Grinding Station. Well known for going infinite and "drawing" your entire deck with Underworld Breach and a zero-cost artifact, that lane is still open if you manage to snag someone's Breach with Praetor's Grasp or Opposition Agent. After resolving a Doomsday Excruciator trigger, however, you don't really even need to do Breach shenanigans, you can just take your existing artifacts that got you this far and start milling players out directly. At half a player's deck per pop, you only need six total artifacts to kill the table outright. If you can't quite get there, it's easy enough to do three activations and just keep players on the same clock you're on, or go with four activations and attempt to kill the third player via K'rrik and Doomsday Excruciator damage. 

Honestly, though? That all seems a lot like rolling the dice. For me personally, I'd rather have a sure, repeatable activation that can be abused with our commander. Oh, hello, Syr Konrad, the Grim! Konrad is well known throughout the casual space for good reason and will absolutely pressure some life totals, even at a high-powered table. With that said, his mill ability only costs one mana with K'rrik on the board, meaning you just need six mana to win outright, with that number getting lower and lower each turn he survives and the table draws a card. While you also mill, remember that you don't die until you actually end up drawing the card, meaning that activations during your turn that empty the table's libraries should result in other players drawing themselves out before things come back around to you. It's a risk, but a calculated one, and hopefully graveyards are small enough that the odd player lucking into Endurance doesn't add up to more cards in that player's library than mana you have available.

If you're looking for a more sure thing, however, then might I suggest Mindcrank? It combos with one of the best Stax cards available in the game, Bloodchief Ascension, to kill the table outright, but doesn't need a specific second card in a post-Excruciator board state. Indeed, Doomsday Excruciator and Mindcrank together just changes Excruciator's text to "whenever Doomsday Excruciator deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game", more or less. Unfortunately, what you're gaining in late game shenanigans, you're losing in the early game. Put simply, if you don't have a Bloodchief Ascension online, playing a Mindcrank down on a high-powered table is a bad, bad idea. With half of any given table relying on a full graveyard to win, filling opponent's graveyards is risky, so prior to resolving Excruciator, this needed dual win-con is just going to be a dead card in your hand.

"Don't Lose"

The main issue after resolving a Doomsday Excruciator is that the entire table is on a seven-turn clock, except for you. Thanks to Excruciator's draw ability, you only have four turns to live, with that last one being with a nerve-wrackingly empty library. One way to improve things? Kill Doomsday Excruciator. If you have a Sacrifice outlet or a removal spell handy immediately after resolving the trigger, the rest of the table draws first, meaning that you don't actually have to do anything to win, other than survive.

While there are lots of sacrifice effects or removal spells that are free both with K'rrik and without, however, we've lived in Magical Christmasland a lot already today, so instead of relying on having a Deadly Rollick in hand or an untapped High Market in play on the same turn we resolve Excruciator, how about we take a look at another way that we can go the distance?

With our main plan being to win via combat damage, huge, evasive creatures like Asmodeus the Archfiend aid in that goal immensely. With that said, Asmodeus does something else if you can't pull out the win in time: it stops the clock. The actual act that kills you, per the rules, is drawing a card from a library with no cards in it. Since exiling isn't drawing, if you can keep Asmodeus in play, you don't die when you run out of cards. That leaves you free to either win by continuing to swing in, or by simply waiting until the rest of the table draws themselves out, hoping against hope that they don't draw a removal spell. It's not what you'd call ideal, but it's a way you can win if the aggro plan A goes awry.

Fast Mana, Disruption, and Tutors

There's always a temptation when brewing high-powered decks to assure people that there's more to it than just throwing in fast mana and interaction. That's true, but it also isn't. The fact of the matter is, brewing high-powered decks can get a bit boring, because no matter your color combination, three-quarters of your deck is predecided by cards that are just too good to not include. In the case of K'rrik, that other quarter is going to be chock-full of stuff that is either free or heavily discounted due to heavy black pips, but there's still going to be the usual suspects that have to be included.

First off, the fast mana. For those unfamiliar with high-powered brewing that don't already have this list memorized, I'd highly suggest cEDH-Analytics Metagame Cards page. As for the stuff that's different about a K'rrik deck specifically, the short answer is that it's the most ramp-hungry deck out there. Even if it means aggressive mulligans that are likely to blow up in our face, we need to have K'rrik down by turn two, or we have no hope of winning. With that in mind, on top of the obligatory Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Chrome Mox, Gemstone Caverns, Lotus Petal, Ancient Tomb, Mox Diamond, Mana Vault, and Jeweled Lotus, we're going to be playing every black ritual possible. We also want to get up to the point where we're playing enough artifacts that Mox Opal can be utilized, so Grim Monolith is in order, along with Fellwar Stone and Mind Stone. That's quite the ramp package, but it's what's necessary to get us to an early K'rrik, which again can be followed immediately by our main gameplan of Doomsday Excruciator. No more hoping to untap with K'rrik, we should be able to make a table have a Counterspell or be playing our version of the game immediately!

For the other side of the coin, interaction is going to be our weakest point. Mono-black can remove creatures, but outside of Imp's Mischief, can do little else. Still, getting rid of creatures for "free" isn't nothing, so let's take a look!

At high-powered tables, pretty much everything except reanimation targets and commanders is going to be a small creature. With that in mind, then, all three of these removal spells should do work, and are easily castable by K'rrik's ability. As previously stated, this is our weak point, but getting creatures off the board so that we can not lose and swing in for damage and life gain is going to be paramount.

Finally, to our biggest strength in black (at least until Doomsday Excruciator hits the board): tutors. The usual suspects are all here, and with us not playing a dedicated combo as our win condition, we can even delve into casting Demonic Consultations and hoping that we don't hit what we're looking for in the first six. Outside of known good quantities like Tainted Pact, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, and Praetor's Grasp, however, there are a few more unique tutors that we'll want to throw in the list.

First off, anything with a lot of black pips and not much else in it? We're in. Beseech the Queen is easily the best of these for us, as it will allow us to immediately go find a Mana Crypt once we get K'rrik in play, extending our crucial turn. Beseech the Mirror ain't so bad either, only costing a single generic mana with K'rrik in play, whether you're able to utilize the cast ability or not. Only slightly worse are the more mundane tutors that usually get edited out of higher-powered lists. Grim Tutor just isn't making the cut much these days, but it will with K'rrik in play. In the same vein, then, Netherborn Phalanx allows us to tutor for Doomsday Excruciator if we haven't done "the thing" yet, Bolas's Citadel or Asmodeus the Archfiend if we need card draw, or Demon of Dark Schemes if we need to get some blockers out of the way or get a couple of big creatures on the field. Finally, the best tutor in our deck may not be due to its tutoring ability at all. Insatiable Avarice is a new card out of Outlaws of Thunder Junction that allows you to either pay three mana for a Vampiric Tutor at sorcery speed, to pay three black pips to have target player draw three cards and lose three life, or to do both at once. In other words, it's the only tutor in our deck that has a good use after we've gone and played a Doomsday Excruciator, allowing us to draw a player out of the game if need be. As for the rest? They're a decent way to find out what's left in your six cards and get a counter on K'rrik. You might even grab one of them if you think it'll help more to have the card in hand than it will to have the extra turn it represents by leaving it in your library.

The List

I'm aware of how much of a hot take this is, but I do actually think that this list is stronger than the average K'rrik cEDH list. The ratio of graveyard tutors and reanimation spells probably needs some fine tuning, but overall it feels easy to get a K'rrik down on turn two and have an immediately impactful turn. As with all K'rrik decks, someone having a counter for our commander is going to feel back-breaking, but that is still harder with the majority of high-powered counterspells saying "noncreature" on them. All of which applies to Doomsday Excruciator as well, I might add. 

But what I think hardly matters. So instead of ending on what I think, why don't we instead end on what you think about today's list?