Welcome back to Plot Twist, the series where we build a Commander deck that looks like it'll tell one kind of story only to throw out a twist for our opponents mid-game. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome! I'd encourage you to check out the previous articles in the series to get a sense of the types of stories we're looking to tell.
In our most recent article, we took a breather from Bloomburrow too explore my signature Secret Commander: Wild Pair deck helmed by Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder and Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper. This week, since the set has been almost entirely spoiled as of the time of writing, we're looking at our first new legend from Duskmourn: House of Horror: The Swarmweaver. I was immediately drawn to The Swarmweaver because it's a legendary artifact creature that has black and green in its color identity, something that we don't see very often. I briefly considered building an all artifacts deck with Umori, the Collector as a companion, but I realized that Umori doesn't play well with the Delirium mechanic and had to scrap that decklist early on. Still, I couldn't shake the idea of doing something twisty with The Swarmweaver and Delirium.
How Does The Swarmweaver Work?
The Swarmweaver has a simple enters trigger that creates two 1/1 black and green Insect creature tokens with flying as its first ability. Its second ability, which is going to be key to today's decklist, requires you to have four or more card types among cards in your graveyard to satisfy the Delirium condition. As a reminder, there are nine card types in Magic: The Gathering: artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, instant, kindred (formerly tribal), land, planeswalker, and sorcery. Each of these can count towards Delirium, while supertypes (like basic or legendary) and subtypes (like Squirrel or Food) do not. As long as we meet the conditions for Delirium, The Swarmweaver grants all Insects and Spiders we control +1/+1 and deathtouch.
If we pop over to The Swarmlord's EDHREC page, we can see that though there's a relatively small sample size of The Swarmlord decks built so far (less than 50 as of the time of writing), players are leaning heavily into building Insect/Spider kindred decks, with cards like Grist, the Hunger Tide, Crawling Sensation, Crawling Infestation, and Old Rutstein, each showing up in more than 75% of decks so far. All of these cards help fill the graveyard to trigger Delirium, and we can see players are also leaning heavily on cards like Grisly Salvage and Grapple with the Past that can 'draw' a card and help fill up the graveyard at the same time.
While we're definitely going to be running some Insects and want to trigger Delirium, this wouldn't be a Plot Twist deck if we did either of those things in the expected way. This week's strange decklist is instead going to use cards like Biotransference to make all of our permanents artifacts (even those in the graveyard), while Conspiracy and Maskwood Nexus help us get a critical mass of Insects to make use of The Swarmweaver's Delirium ability.
Doing the Twist
When I got back into Magic in 2016, Eldritch Moon had just come out, and I bought some booster packs because the set was dripping with flavor. While jumping in in the middle of a block (remember blocks?) was perhaps not the best idea, Delirium was one reason that I found myself hooked all over again. While Delirium can be easier to trigger in singleton formats thanks to fetch lands, artifact/enchantment creatures, and even kindred spells, it's never really had the kind of support needed to build a commander deck around it. With the added Delirium support in Duskmourn, and the wide variety of cards that are now multiple permanent types, I think we've finally got the density to do something interesting with Delirium in Commander.
Biotransference is going to be an absolute all-star in this deck (though I wouldn't say it's a Secret Commander like we explored last time on Plot Twist and once before with Yavimaya), because it makes all the creatures we control, in our library, and in our graveyard into artifacts, so with Biotransference in play, suddenly Dryad Arbor, Springheart Nantuko, and Grist, the Hunger Tide each count for three different permanent types towards Delirium.
There are truly some wild ways to trigger Delirium in this week's deck. I did briefly consider loading up on cards with the Adventure mechanic, assuming that they had both card types, but in reading the rulings on Adventure for Beanstalk Giant, it appears that only the permanent type of Adventure cards count because an "Adventurer card is a permanent card in every zone except the stack, as well as while on the stack if not cast as an Adventure." That's kind of a bummer, but that just means we'll have to get more creative! If I'm wrong about my interpretation of this ruling about adventure cards, feel free to yell at me about it in the comments below.
The Core of the Deck: Making Everything Insect Artifacts
Since this deck is relying so heavily on Delirium and Insects, the glue that holds it together is going to be cards that help us add additional permanent and creature types to our other cards. In addition to Biotransference, we're also running Ygra, Eater of All and Mycosynth Lattice to help turn our permanents into artifacts in addition to their other types. We're intentionally not running things like Karn, Silver Golem and Karn, the Great Creator that can create a miserable game state for our opponents, but if you want to power up the deck those are certainly cards worth looking at. Sometimes our opponents are going to have a timely Farewell or Vandalblast that absolutely ruins our day, but I can tell you from personal experience that getting blown out that way is always funny and makes for a memorable game. We're here for a good time, not a long time.
More than a quarter of this week's deck consists of cards that that are multiple card types. We're also running a suite of fetch lands and plenty of ways to mill cards directly into our graveyard. We shouldn't have any issue triggering Delirium normally, but we want to be able to do it as reliably as possible.
Once we've gotten the benefits of Delirium, we'll definitely want have plenty of Spiders and Insects to buff with The Swarmweaver. We're running more than 20 Insects and Spiders, a few ways to make additional token creatures, and Conspiracy and Maskwood Nexus to turn the rest of our creatures into Insects or Spiders depending on which is more beneficial at the time. In general, it seems like it is usually correct to name Spider rather than Insect since there are more cards that care about the number of Spiders we control, like Ishkanah, Grafwidow and Rotwidow Pack, but time will tell if naming Spider is the correct choice. We could consider running some additional changelings to go with Metallic Mimic or some of the lower-powered Spiders, but the card quality for Insects and Spiders starts to drop off pretty dramatically.
Using & Abusing Artifacts
One thing about The Swarmweaver that immediately stood out to me is that we can get up to some Breya, Etherium Shaper-esque tricks with it. Since The Swarmweaver generates two Insect tokens every time it enters the battlefield, we can combine it with Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle to generate infinite enters and dies triggers. The combo itself is relatively easy for our opponents to interact with and see coming, but it will end the game with one of Marionette Apprentice, Marionette Master, or Zulaport Cutthroat out.
The TL;DR version of the combo is: we equip Nim Deathmantle to The Swarmweaver, then we sacrifice one of the two Insect tokens and The Swarmweaver to Ashnod's Altar to generate , when The Swarmweaver dies, Nim Deathmantle triggers and we pay to return The Swarmweaver to play; The Swarmweaver enters with Nim Deathmantle attached to it and creates two new Insect tokens. We can repeat this loop as many times as we want, generating dies triggers with Marionette Apprentice, Marionette Master, or Zulaport Cutthroat in the process. We can even keep one of the Insect tokens around each loop if we want to build up a board of creatures if we can't otherwise win on the spot.
If we're able to make all of our creatures into artifacts with Biotransference, Ygra, Eater of All, or Mycosynth Lattice, things get really nutty because we can add more combo pieces like Krark-Clan Ironworks into the mix. If winning via combo isn't your cup of tea, you can easily cut Nim Deathmantle, Ashnod's Altar, and/or Krark-Clan Ironworks to power this deck down. I know that combo decks like our earlier Nick Valentine deck aren't everyone's cup of tea.
Baba Lysaga, Night Witch is an amazing value engine when we can make everything an artifact by allowing us to sacrifice one fewer permanent. In case you've never seen it, Joey from EDHREC has his amazing Baby Lasagna deck that shows off the true beauty of Baba Lysaga. On a similar note, it gets much easier to accumulate value with Braids, Arisen Nightmare when all of our stuff happens to be an artifact in addition to its other permanent types. If an opponent has a crucial Equipment, like Mithril Coat, or other artifact, like The Great Henge, out, we can sacrifice any of our now artifact creatures to keep the pressure on them or draw some extra cards for ourselves. In general, cards like Braids, Arisen Nightmare and Baba Lysaga, Night Witch force our opponents to make tough decisions, which always leads to interesting games. It's also worth noting that with either Ygra, Eater of All or Mycosynth Lattice in play, we can get tons of value out of Viridian Revel, which is a very Plot Twist card that I've long sought to find a home for, because nearly everything on the board will suddenly be an artifact that triggers Viridian Revel when it goes to the graveyard.
Creepy Crawlies
Let's take a look at some of the payoffs in the deck for Insects and Spiders. We have more than 20 Spiders and Insects in the deck, plus a handful of cards like Canoptek Scarab Swarm, Grist, the Hunger Tide, Grist, Voracious Larva, Scute Swarm, Spider Spawning, and Springheart Nantuko that can create an army of Insect and Spider tokens. The deck is running more than 40 creatures total, so when you add in the ability of Conspiracy and Maskwood Nexus to turn our remaining creatures into Insects or Spiders, we shouldn't have any issues accumulating an intimidating force.
Ishkanah, Grafwidow and Rotwidow Pack both have activated abilities that can quickly knock out one or all of our opponents under the right circumstances in addition to generating Spider tokens themselves. Both of these effects remind me of Lathril, Blade of the Elves in that they will quickly close out the game if left unchecked. Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest and Amzu, Swarm's Hunger both help make our Insects into lethal threats and reward us for sacrificing permanents and having cards leave our graveyard, two things we're going to be doing a lot of anyway. Giant Adephage speaks to the child in me who thought Thorn Elemental was the best card in the world and always seems to become a huge threat when it's cast. Last, but not least, Shelob, Dread Weaver can occasionally steal an opponent's best creature and then return it to the battlefield on our side. If you ever manage to steal an opponent's Hellkite Tyrant with Mycosynth Lattice in play and steal all of their permanents, you'll be telling that story at every Commander Night for the rest of time.
A Few Additional Twists for Good Measure
We get to triple-dip on weird cards this week by looking at both zany interactions with permanent types and two niche creature types. Bane of the Living caught my eye as a morph creature that also acts as a board wipe. With even more cards that create face down creatures than ever thanks to the new manifest dread mechanic from Duskmourn, people are soon going to have to not assume that every face down card is Willbender. I don't know why I don't see more Lignify in Commander given how devastating effects like Darksteel Mutation and Imprisoned in the Moon can be, but it might be the best kindred card for this deck, and I want to find room to add it to my Yeva deck now. Monumental Corruption is both a great card draw spell and a way to potentially knock out an opponent if we have enough artifacts in play. It's like Sign in Blood on steroids!
Gleancrawler is a really interesting card advantage engine for aristocrats decks like this one. It might be too slow because it has to survive till the end of our turn to trigger, but the fact that it's an Insect means this The Swarmweaver deck is the perfect home for Gleancrawler. I also want to shout out Stag Beetle even though it was one of the final cuts because it could become absolutely massive in a tokens deck. Perhaps if we had more ways to give Stag Beetle trample or evasion it would be worth revisiting. Last but not least, Arasta of the Endless Web is such a strong value engine that generates Spider tokens when our opponents cast instants and sorceries. I run it in my Chatterfang tokens deck and am always happy to draw it because it accumulates so much value seemingly every turn.
Here's the full decklist for you to peruse:
Creatures (41)
- 1 Amzu, Swarm's Hunger
- 1 Arasta of the Endless Web
- 1 Arcbound Ravager
- 1 Baba Lysaga, Night Witch
- 1 Bane of the Living
- 1 Braids, Arisen Nightmare
- 1 Broodspinner
- 1 Canoptek Scarab Swarm
- 1 Courser of Kruphix
- 1 Destiny Spinner
- 1 Dryad Arbor
- 1 Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
- 1 Giant Adephage
- 1 Giant Ankheg
- 1 Gleancrawler
- 1 Greater Tanuki
- 1 Grist, Voracious Larva // Grist, the Plague Swarm
- 1 Haywire Mite
- 1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
- 1 Marionette Apprentice
- 1 Marionette Master
- 1 Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest
- 1 Metallic Mimic
- 1 Necron Deathmark
- 1 Necron Overlord
- 1 Nyx Weaver
- 1 Pitiless Plunderer
- 1 Rendmaw, Creaking Nest
- 1 Roaming Throne
- 1 Rotwidow Pack
- 1 Scute Swarm
- 1 Shelob, Child of Ungoliant
- 1 Shelob, Dread Weaver
- 1 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
- 1 Silklash Spider
- 1 Skyfisher Spider
- 1 Springheart Nantuko
- 1 Twitching Doll
- 1 Ygra, Eater of All
- 1 Zask, Skittering Swarmlord
- 1 Zulaport Cutthroat
Roll the Credits
I hope you enjoyed reading the latest edition of Plot Twist featuring The Swarmweaver. Next time you sit down for a game of Commander, see what sort of plot twists you can add to take the game's narrative in a new direction.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's deck and what cards could find a home in it in the comments below or on Archidekt. The Maybeboards of my decklists are always filled with cards I thought could work but didn't make the final decklist.
You can check out my other articles here or see what decks I'm currently playing here. I recently took apart two decks (my Isshin, Two Heavens as One Deck and my Killian, Ink Duelist Reanimator Deck) because they no longer sparked joy, and I built a Karador, Ghost Chieftan Cycling-Reanimator Deck that has been a complete blast to play. I'm constantly toying with new ideas like this Colorless Combo deck and would love to hear your thoughts on them there.
Stay tuned to see what other twists and turns are headed your way in the next edition of Plot Twist.
