MTG: Top Five EDH – Orzhov (BW) Commanders
Oh, so you want to win this game of Commander? Alright…let’s make a deal. I promise it’s for your own good.
Welcome Planeswalkers and Praetors to our ongoing series about the best casual experience in Magic: Commander. For the uninitiated, Commander is a semi-casual format for Magic: the Gathering, where you use a deck of 100 cards led by a legendary creature, your Commander.
Aside from basic lands, you are only allowed one copy of each card in the deck. Moreover, you can only include cards in your Commander’s “color identity” or artifacts. Each color and color combo has a unique playstyle and a wealth of mighty generals to lead your deck to victory. EDHRec.com is a great source for Commander info and can give you ideas to build your next Commander deck or tune an existing one.
Ozhov is the color combination of totally-not-self-serving group hug decks. By combining both of the “extortion” colors in Black and White, these decks make deals around the table while wrapping themselves in a comfortable fort. For Orzhov, life is simply a resource, yours and your opponent’s, and creatures are tools. After all, history is written by the survivors.
Teysa Karlov
Starting off strong, we have the queen of Orzhov herself, Teysa. This is the OG Orzhov face card, and in this iteration, she’s at her absolute best. Not only does she double all your death triggers, but she also makes your tokens deadlier. Combining the sacrifice of Black with the tiny army and life gain of White makes her the perfect two-color commander. If you add a few ETB doublers and token generators, you’ll have a deadly army in no time.
Liesa, Shroud of Dusk
Ah yes, Orzhov in its purest essence: life as a resource. Liesa is a powerhouse, a 5/5 with flying and lifelink that lets you circumvent Commander tax with a little bit of blood. But Liesa shares the love because every player has to pay to cast their spells. This deck wants to cast as few spells as possible, gaining life off tokens and creatures to fuel your power while punishing your opponent. If everything goes well, you’ll never even have to touch your opponent; they’ll do all the work themselves.
Athreos, God of Passage
Athreos is in an interesting place in the Orzhov world. Rather than paying life to get things down, Athreos forces your opponent to pay to keep your creatures dead. You still get the death triggers of cards like Elenda, but if your opponent doesn’t pay their life tax, you get that creature back in your hand, good as new. The best part is that since Athreos is indestructible and occasionally not even a creature, he dodges most traditional board wipes and creature killers. Just watch out for enchantment hate.
Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim
Elas is one of my favorite cards because they’re just so much fun for their cost. They’re a 2/2 with deathtouch, so they’re always a threat as a blocker or attacker. However, they also give you life whenever a creature shows up on your side and drains it from your opponent when your creatures die. In the colors that make tokens and then kill them off as fodder, Elas can potentially drain your opponent to nothing without lifting a finger.
Breena, the Demagogue
Closing out the list we have Breena, the lovely bird that protects you simply by making your enemies a better target. Of course, your OWN creatures are reaping the rewards, but that’s nothing to worry about, right? Whenever any player attacks one of your opponents, as long as they have the most life among your opponents, the controller gets a card, and you get two +1/+1 counters. That’s ANY player, so it benefits you and your opponents. All you have to do is keep your opponents fighting amongst themselves until you have an army to crush them
