Brewing a bad deck?

This entry is a ready-to-use AI prompt — copy it and paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.

## Summary

This is a Marvel Super Heroes set spoiler-reaction stream that pivots into a Commander deckbuilding session, so most deckbuilding value comes from the second half. The builder picks Zahor, Glory's Past as a Mardu (actually Orzhov/black-white) stax commander whose max-speed ability makes a tapped 2/2 zombie whenever a non-token creature dies, which doubles up with gravepact-style effects (Sulthera, Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos). The plan: a low-to-the-ground stax/hatebears build using mass land destruction (Pox, Smallpox, Armageddon, Ravages of War, Cataclysm, Catastrophe), prison enchantments (Winter Orb, The Abyss, Tainted Aether, Contamination, Nether Void), and hatebears (Thalia x2, Drannith Magistrate, Hushbringer). Token engines (Bitter Blossom, Dread Horde Invasion, March of the Canonized, Ocelot Pride) feed the death-trigger payoffs. Key insight: avoid cost-reducers and excess ramp because you're blowing up your own lands—run mana rocks instead so you can still cast spells. Card draw (Necropotence, Night's Whisper, Deadly Dispute, Esper Sentinel, Timna, Starfield Shepherd) is flagged as the build's weak point. Silver Quill rejected because copying Armageddon/Cataclysm does nothing.

## Key Clips

- **[28:14]** A lot of people forget that the best commanders are not the ones that do damage, it's the ones that are hard to remove. With Hit Monkey, if you give it indestructible it's really obnoxious because it has vigilance and deathtouch — it attacks, you can't do anything about it, and you can't swing back because they just block and kill your dude.
- **[44:13]** On finding a specific piece like sneak attack consistently without tutoring for it: if you want consistency, tutors are the thing to do. If you want to randomly draw into it, that's all you got. And if you draw more cards, you'll find more.
- **[45:55]** With grave-pact effects you can double up on Zahor — your creatures all die and make zombies, you stack the zombie, and then it also does that again. That's the engine for building a stax/aristocrats list around him.
- **[57:38]** Picking a deck direction off an open-ended commander: you could go zombies, warriors, cats, whatever. It's casual commander — ultimately the only thing that matters is that you're picking the theme that you like.
- **[67:17]** You don't want cost reducers when you have no lands. In a land-destruction deck running winter orb and Armageddon effects, you want mana rocks that actually tap for mana to rebuild — cost reducers don't help when you can't even cast your commander.
- **[68:16]** Another thing that's very good in stax decks is planeswalkers — they keep generating value while your opponents are locked out, so prioritize good planeswalkers in your colors.
- **[73:50]** The problem with curses is you just slow one player down and then the other players can still win. You need them to be effects that affect everyone so it slows everybody down.
- **[76:58]** No rule-of-law effects in this one, because with a really low curve I'm going to be double-spelling a lot — locking yourself to one spell per turn fights against a low mana-value deck.

## Tags

**Archetypes/Strategy:** stax, tokens, aristocrats, midrange
**Format/Bracket:** Optimized, cEDH
**Card Categories:** tutor, draw, ramp, removal, board-wipe, recursion, protection

Summary

This is a Marvel Super Heroes set spoiler-reaction stream that pivots into a Commander deckbuilding session, so most deckbuilding value comes from the second half. The builder picks Zahor, Glory's Past as a Mardu (actually Orzhov/black-white) stax commander whose max-speed ability makes a tapped 2/2 zombie whenever a non-token creature dies, which doubles up with gravepact-style effects (Sulthera, Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos). The plan: a low-to-the-ground stax/hatebears build using mass land destruction (Pox, Smallpox, Armageddon, Ravages of War, Cataclysm, Catastrophe), prison enchantments (Winter Orb, The Abyss, Tainted Aether, Contamination, Nether Void), and hatebears (Thalia x2, Drannith Magistrate, Hushbringer). Token engines (Bitter Blossom, Dread Horde Invasion, March of the Canonized, Ocelot Pride) feed the death-trigger payoffs. Key insight: avoid cost-reducers and excess ramp because you're blowing up your own lands—run mana rocks instead so you can still cast spells. Card draw (Necropotence, Night's Whisper, Deadly Dispute, Esper Sentinel, Timna, Starfield Shepherd) is flagged as the build's weak point. Silver Quill rejected because copying Armageddon/Cataclysm does nothing.

Key Clips

[28:14] A lot of people forget that the best commanders are not the ones that do damage, it's the ones that are hard to remove. With Hit Monkey, if you give it indestructible it's really obnoxious because it has vigilance and deathtouch — it attacks, you can't do anything about it, and you can't swing back because they just block and kill your dude.
[44:13] On finding a specific piece like sneak attack consistently without tutoring for it: if you want consistency, tutors are the thing to do. If you want to randomly draw into it, that's all you got. And if you draw more cards, you'll find more.
[45:55] With grave-pact effects you can double up on Zahor — your creatures all die and make zombies, you stack the zombie, and then it also does that again. That's the engine for building a stax/aristocrats list around him.
[57:38] Picking a deck direction off an open-ended commander: you could go zombies, warriors, cats, whatever. It's casual commander — ultimately the only thing that matters is that you're picking the theme that you like.
[67:17] You don't want cost reducers when you have no lands. In a land-destruction deck running winter orb and Armageddon effects, you want mana rocks that actually tap for mana to rebuild — cost reducers don't help when you can't even cast your commander.
[68:16] Another thing that's very good in stax decks is planeswalkers — they keep generating value while your opponents are locked out, so prioritize good planeswalkers in your colors.
[73:50] The problem with curses is you just slow one player down and then the other players can still win. You need them to be effects that affect everyone so it slows everybody down.
[76:58] No rule-of-law effects in this one, because with a really low curve I'm going to be double-spelling a lot — locking yourself to one spell per turn fights against a low mana-value deck.