EDH Deck Time: Virtus + Gorm

The idea here is pretty obvious. Gorm acts as the Tank while Virtus makes the kill.

Since the images don’t show yet, here’s the text:

Virtus the Veiled
2B
Legendary Creature – Azra Assassin
Partner with Gorm the Great (When this creature enters the battlefield, target player may put Gorm into their hand from their library, then shuffle)

Deathtouch

Whenever Virtus the Veiled deals combat damage to a player, that player loses half their life, rounded up.
1/1

Gorm the Great
3G
Legendary Creature – Giant Warrior
Partner with Virtus the Veiled (When this creature enters the battlefield, target player may put Virtus into their hand from their library, then shuffle)

Vigilance

Gorm the Great must be blocked if able, and Gorm must be blocked by two or more creature if able.
2/7

What can we do with this?

I do have ideas…

You could also just make Virtus unblockable, but where’s the fun in that? This strategy I’m proposing is kind of problematic. It isn’t very good, but at the same time, it’s not going to be very popular either. Taking these huge chunks of life just seems scary, even though it actually isn’t that effective. I mean, it’s 19, 9, 4, 1, 0. That’s five attacks. How many Commanders can do the same with less attacks? Not necessarily starting turn four, but still. The difference isn’t huge. At the same time, losing most of your life early does make you vulnerable to many, many other things, where as simple Commander damage just makes you vulnerable to that Commander in the future.

Again, since just making Virtus unblockable would be unfun for us, we would rather use other methods to get him through. Gladly, this is under green’s perview. [scryfall]Lure[/scryfall] has been around since Alpha (and I know players who still love the old [scryfall]Thicket Basilisk[/scryfall] + [scryfall]Lure[/scryfall] combo).

Let’s just call this our “never thought I’d see this in Commander” -package. (Although, seeing unusual cards in Commander is not a rare occurance.) For me, this is a reason to play cards. I don’t want to overdo this, however. Pushing this theme more than needed will leave us vulnerable to removal. We’d just have a bunch of these effects in our hand without anything to play them on.

Not that I’m going to use many more creatures. Some, yes, because there are other effects that are good when opponent has a hard time blocking them.

Then there’s [scryfall]Phage the Untouchable[/scryfall], but we’re not going to go that far. We’re not going to play all of the others either. Their curve is just too high for my taste.

You know what else works well, when you are fairly sure you can get through blockers?

Besides these, I want to play my usual early card advantage package.

Our creatures can grind out the rest quite nicely. The point of these is mostly just to help with finding lands early.

Some ramp. Although, since our commanders are a 3- and 4-drop, I’m not sure if we’ll need these. Double spelling and fixing are still both good, so maybe we can skimp on lands just a bit by playing these. I would like to stick to ones that actually give card advantage, meaning that they find at least two lands, but I also want to make sure I hit my landdrops, so this leaves us in a bit of weird spot, but I’ll put these in.

Otherwise, we need some removal and other utility cards.

We’ll need to make some cuts, so I’ll take out [scryfall]Fell Shepherd[/scryfall], [scryfall]Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni[/scryfall], [scryfall]Sword of Body and Mind[/scryfall], [scryfall]Sword of Light and Shadow[/scryfall], [scryfall]Graveblade Marauder[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Ruin Raider[/scryfall]. That leaves us with…

[deck]
[commander]
Virtus the Veiled
Gorm the Great
[/commander]
[creatures]
Archfiend of Depravity
Noble Quarry
Fibrous Entangler
Satyr Piper
Ashling, the Extinguisher
Banshee of the Dread Choir
Bone Dancer
Demon of Wailing Agonies
Dreamstealer
Emperor’s Vanguard
Fiend of the Shadows
Giant Adephage
Grim Flayer
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper
Liliana’s Reaver
Lord of the Void
Ohran Viper
Okiba-Gang Shinobi
Raving Dead
Spawnwrithe
Urgoros, the Empty One
Pain Seer
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Wood Elves
Farhaven Elf
Bane of Progress
[/creatures]
[spells]
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of War and Peace
Go for the Throat
Hero’s Downfall
Ultimate Price
Cast Down
Doom Blade
Victim of Night
Tragic Slip
Bile Blight
Malicious Affliction
Relic Crush
Rain of Thorns
Cultivate
Kodama’s Reach
Khalni Heart Expedition
Explosive Vegetation
Rampant Growth
Farseek
Search for Tomorrow
Read the Bones
Night’s Whisper
Driven // Despair
Vraska the Unseen
Ward of Bones
Tainted Aether
Gift of the Deity
Deadly Allure
Destined // Lead
Roar of Challenge
[/spells]
[lands]
Command Tower
Blooming Marsh
Bojuka Bog
Myriad Landscape
Thawing Glaciers
Golgari Rot Farm
Hissing Quagmire
Llanowar Wastes
Overgrown Tomb
Temple of Malady
Twilight Mire
Woodland Cemetery
14 Forest
14 Swamp
[/lands]
[/deck]

Well, there’s more creatures than initially planned, but I don’t see that’s a problem since they are usually the most fun things to play.

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