Updating Eternal Bargain

Welcome, readers, to the second article in my series of updates to the Commander 2013 preconstructed decks. This time we're going to be working on the Esper deck, Eternal Bargan, helmed by Oloro, Ageless Ascetic.

This deck is really good, and fun to play. Oloro seems to be quite a strong General, but doesn't reach the same levels of degeneracy that Prossh does if pushed too hard. Then again, maybe I'm just not pushing in the right directions.

Anyway, for now, I am content to build to the obvious strengths of the new Generals, rather than looking for the most esoteric possible way to build these decks. I encourage exploration and experimentation, and creativity above all, but these articles are meant to be an entry point, not the definitive end point.

So what does the deck do? Take a look at the decklist:


Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Ajani's Pridemate
Augury Adept
Azorius Herald
Disciple of Griselbrand
Diviner Spirit
Divinity of Pride
Filigree Angel
Hooded Horror
Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
Marrow Bats
Myr Battlesphere
Phyrexian Delver
Phyrexian Gargantua
Raven Familiar
Razor Hippogriff
Serene Master
Serra Avatar
Sharding Sphinx
Sharuum the Hegemon
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Stormscape Battlemage
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Tidal Force
Tidehollow Strix
Tower Gargoyle
Vizkopa Guildmage
Wall of Reverence

Act of Authority
Brilliant Plan
Cradle of Vitality
Crawlspace
Curse of Inertia
Curse of Shallow Graves
Curse of the Forsaken
Darksteel Mutation
Death Grasp
Deep Analysis
Dromar's Charm
Famine
Greed
Lim-Dûl's Vault
Nevinyrral's Disk
Nihil Spellbomb
Obelisk of Esper
Order of Succession
Phyrexian Reclamation
Pristine Talisman
Reckless Spite
Sanguine Bond
Sol Ring
Spinal Embrace
Sun Droplet
Survival Cache
Swiftfoot Boots
Tempt with Immortality
Thopter Foundry
Toxic Deluge
Well of Lost Dreams

Arcane Sanctum
Azorius Chancery
Azorius Guildgate
Barren Moor
Command Tower
Dimir Guildgate
Esper Panorama
Evolving Wilds
Island
Jwar Isle Refuge
Lonely Sandbar
Opal Palace
Orzhov Basilica
Orzhov Guildgate
Plains
Rupture Spire
Springjack Pasture
Swamp
Temple of the False God
Transguild Promenade

 Unlike some of WotC's other premade decks, including a couple of the C13 decks, the intent and purpose of this deck should be readily apparent just from looking at this list. Oloro gains life and, when in play, turns that life into life-drain and card draw. Other cards in the deck clearly play off this and turn the incidental life gain into other forms of value, such as life loss, +1/+1 counters, more card draw, etc. There's also a small theme of paying life for stuff, like Toxic Deluge or Phyrexian Reclamation.

Then there's the artifact theme that was clearly forced in to make Sydri less of a dud in this deck. She's cool, but making her work distracts too much from what Oloro wants to do. The tension between these two themes pulls the deck too strongly in differing directions.

But what's not apparent until you play the deck is how well the synergies work. Even the silly-looking Sun Droplet is actually a good deal more playable than you'd think. And Pristine Talisman? Laughably bad, until you realize that, with Oloro in play it's actually a 3-mana Artifact that reads: "Tap: Gain 1 life, each opponent loses one life, and you draw a card." That's actually insanely good value.

And that's what Oloro is all about: turning an incidental and normally irrelevant thing like gaining a point or two of life here and there into value, card advantage and even a win condition outright. And it's great because you are slowly, subtly winning the game or at least taking control of it in such small increments, it tends to fly well under your opponent's threat-detection radar until it's too late.

This is what I mostly tried to keep in mind as I tuned up this deck. Of course a few no-so-subtle blunt instruments of doom made it in as welll...

As with the last update article, I'll start by dissecting the starting decklist, and categorizing all the cards into three classes. Once again, those are PASS, FAIL and NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.

Cards that fall into the PASS category are those that I highly recommend keeping in the deck. For this deck, the following cards get a grade of PASS:

Augury Adept
Divinity of Pride
Serra Avatar
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Vizkopa Guildmage
Wall of Reverance
Cradle of Vitality
Crawlspace
Death Grasp
Deep Analysis
Lim-Dul's Vault
Phyrexian Reclamation
Pristine Talisman
Reckless Spite
Sanguine Bond
Sol Ring
Sun Droplet
Swiftfoot Boots
Toxic Deluge
Well of Lost Dreams

The NEEDS IMPROVEMENT category contains those cards that are acceptable but not ideal; you won't mind playing them if you must, but there are generally better options available. For this deck, those cards are:

Ajani's Pridemate
Azorius Herald
Disciple of Griselbrand
Myr Battlesphere
Phyrexian Delver
Phyrexian Gargantua
Raven Familiar
Razor Hippogriff
Sharuum the Hegemon
Tidehollow Strix
Curse of the Forsaken
Darksteel Mutation
Greed
Nihil Spellbomb
Obelisk of Esper
Spinal Embrace
Survival Cache
Swiftfoot Boots

And finally, we have the cards that receive a FAIL mark for being terrible or in some cases just unfortunately non-synergistic enough to just be a dud. Those cards are:

Diviner Spirit
Filigree Angel
Hooded Horror
Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon"
Marrow Bats
Serene Master
Sharding Sphinx
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Tidal Force
Tower Gargoyle
Act of Authority
Brilliant Plan
Curse of Shallow Graves
Curse of Inertia
Dromar's Charm
Famine
Nevinyrral's Disk
Order of Succession
Tempt with Immortality
Thopter Foundry

The number of cards in this deck that at least hit the not-completely-garbage mark is actually quite impressive. It's a well-thought-out deck for a precon. And a few of the FAIL cards, like Tempt with Immortality and Sydri, Galvanic Genius are actually pretty good cards overall, they just don't fit well enough into THIS deck to be worth keeping.

Unlike with Prossh, there weren't very many really obvious direct upgrades, but there were a few. We'll get those out of the way first.

Greed --> Erebos
This one is simple enough. Erebos is an indestructible Greed that ultimately draws you more cards for the same amount of mana and half as much life. And every once in a while (but probably not super-often in this deck), he becomes a 5/7 beatstick too. That's a shitload of upside for only one more mana in the casting cost.

Tidehollow Strix --> Baleful Strix
What's better? +1/+0 or Draw a card?

Raven Familiar --> Mulldrifter
Honestly, I'd run both but my General is a card-drawing engine too, so I don't want to overdo it. Really this one is just a matter of preference, but I think Drifty McMulls is just slightly better value overall. It could go either way, really.

Brilliant Plan --> Sphinx's Revelation
This should require little explanation. Kind of a big "duh", really.

Tempt with Immortality --> Beacon of Unrest
Same CMC, but way more versatile and open-ended. Just all around more reliable and powerful

Phyrexian Delver --> Obzedat's Aid
Turns out recurring artifacts is actually a little more desirable than just recurring creatures, for this deck. Also, any planeswalkers you might add get value from this upgrade.

Act of Authority --> Return to Dust
The problem with Act of Authority in this deck is that we're always going to have more juicy targets than our opponents, and while we might really, really want to get rid of that Doubling Season, we can guarantee that our Well of Lost Dreams is going to be toast shortly thereafter. 

Now that we've gotten the 1 for 1 upgrades covered, one of the first things I'll address is the ramp package. Probably, this is no surprise. Standard MO for EDH improvments is to make sure you can reliably cast your spells. Otherwise, what's the point?

OUT: 1x Land, Thopter Foundry, Tower Gargoyle
IN: Solemn Simulacrum, Land Tax, Orzhov Keyrune

40 Lands still seems to high, but we need to hit those land drops, so for now it'll do. Land Tax is super obvious, and Orzhov Keyrune might be overly cute, but Solemn Simulacrum is so undeniably perfect for this deck... meanwhile Tower Gargoyle is a 4 CMC dude that does literally nothing. Thopter Foundry is cool for a more Artifact-centric build, but we don't have enough expendable Artifacts right now.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we want to explore the decks main themes a bit and add a sampling of cards that either gain us life, or turn that life gain into a resource we can use, or add more value to the life gain. Bonus points for finding cards that do both!

OUT: Azorius Herald, Diviner Spirit, Hooded Horror, Marrow Bats, Tidal Force, Sharding Sphinx
IN:  Serra Ascendant, Rhox Faithmender, Archangel of Thune, Vampire Nighthawk, Drogskol Reaver, Wurmcoil Engine

Out come six relatively terrible cards, and in come 6 rather more useful ones. Archangel of Thune hit that sweet spot of being life gain cards, but also do something super in addition to gaining life. And their synergy with Oloro is gravy. Faithmender just doubles down on the lifegain, which is cute but not exactly necessary. I like it. And Nighthawk just makes a more convincing blocker than Marrow Bats. Wurmcoil Engine is obviously good, but also plays really well with the Trading Post we're about to add... Oh, we're not done yet...

OUT:  Disciple of Griselbrand, Kongming, Curse of the Forsaken, Swiftfoot Boots, Order of Succession
IN: Blood Artist, Obzedat Ghost Council, Chalice of Life, Sword of Light and Shadow, Trading Post
Blood Artist and Obzedat are on-theme ways to kill our opponents by slowly bleeding them dry. Chalice of Life is hilariously techy and surprisingly effective, and bleeds opponents dry rather less slowly. Sword is pretty obvious good stuff, but happens to be on-theme and quite useful. Trading Post is in because, well, it makes Goats, gains life and recurs artifacts. All of which are useful to varying degrees. It's a surprisingly versatile engine of value and cute tricks.

Another thing Oloro seems to be clamoring for is an Extort package. I was disappointed in the offerings we had - there were some gems, but not as many as I'd hoped. Here's the scoop:

OUT: Curse of Shallow Graves, Serene Master, Phyrexian Gargantua
IN: Blind Obedience, Tithe Drinker, Treasury Thrull

More useless junk gone. Blind Obedience and the Thrull were the first and most obvious choices for Extort. I wanted Pontiff of Blight but didn't feel he'd actually work for my build all that well and was a bit too expensive besides. Crypt Ghast is awesome, but not so much in a three-color deck. I'd have to shoehorn in an Urborg+Expedition Map package to suppport it. Finally I wanted one cheap, expendable Extort dork and Tithe Drinker beat Kingpin's Pet on grounds of being 1 mana cheaper and having WAY sexier art (a subjective statement, I know, but if you happen to disagree, please keep it to yourself!).

WotC, please print more Extort cards, ASAP!

Next we need to bolster our staying-alive powers. Gaining all the life ever won't save us from dying to General Damage for one thing. I want this deck to feel fairly control-ish, so the removal suite is going to be pretty extensive. Actually I want it to be even bigger, but for now I have too many ideas competing for space. First I want some utility creatures to take advantage of our Phyrexian Reclamation tech.

OUT: Razor Hippogriff, Spinal Embrace, Stormscape Battlemage, Sydri Galvanic Genius, Famine
IN: Windborn Muse, Duplicant, Shriekmaw, Fleshbag Marauder, Kagemaro

We have three black creatures that scale upward in devastation. Shriekmaw for precision, Fleshbag for the 3-for-1 value play, and Kagemaro for a "nuke from orbit" option. Muse takes a more political tack, which can be valuable, and Duplicant shuts down recursion on problematic creatures while being highly recurrable himself.

I like Spinal Embrace a lot, and it's certainly worth keeping if you have room. I just had to cut it, but it kind of hurt to do so. The other stuff was definitely not hard to cut.

But we're not done with the control elements. We've got more removal on the way.

OUT: Darksteel Mutation, Dromar's Charm, Deep Analysis, Nevinyrral's Disk, Myr Battlesphere
IN: Swords to Plowshares, Vindicate, Curse of Swine, Merciless Eviction, Spine of Ish Sah

A few things... first I picked Swords over Path mainly because their may come a time when I want to Swords my own Serra Avatar with Sanguine Bond on the battlefield. You know, for the lulz. Second, I love Deep Analysis, but I feel card draw is well covered, and "Hamnation" is just way too good to pass up. Third, I know I don't have enough ways to sacrific Artifacts to make Spine really good, but getting a loop going via Trading Post isn't that hard to do. Still it's an area of improvement for me to look into. Anyway, Vindicate and Merciless Eviction are generic, but amazing at what they do.

That gets us down to the last three changes I want to make before we overhaul the Lands.

OUT: Survival Cache, Curse of Inertia, Filigree Angel
IN: Demonic Tutor, Phyrexian Metamorph, Magister Sphinx

Cache is cute, but Tutor just cuts to the chase. I'm getting Trading Post quite often, but there are truthfully a ton of good targets for this. Metamorph's ability to copy Artifacts as well as Creatures will be far more useful and relevant here than normal, making him much more techy than his usual generic good stuff status. Magister Sphix is another ubiquitous staple folks get tired of seeing, but he's here for a very specific reason. It's actually kind of hard to Extort someone to death from 30 or 40 life... Magister Sphinx makes their slow, painful bleed-out less slow but more painful. It's a dick move in some circles, but with this deck, you're rarely ever going to play the Sphinx and then one-shot them the same or next turn.

We're almost through, now; we just have to spruce up the mana base a bit.

Mostly this involves the usual suspects: Better dual lands, etc. But there are a few utility lands that we want to include.

The Springjack Pasture included is a little slow and clunky, but I've found it to be useful in a pinch and it has good synergy with the Trading Post we added. I've actually played a game where my opponent and I had fought for control of goat-based resources for several turns and my managing to untap with more goats than him was a critical turning point in the game. It was quite hilarious.

Anyway, I'd keep it, but your mileage may vary.

The one land that jumped out at me as being the most urgent to add ASAP while playing the deck was Academy Ruins. Even though we have shied away from an "Artifacts matter" theme, we still managed to actually increase the number of high-profile Artifacts in the deck. Sharuum is a great one-shot way to recur them when they get blown up, but we want the Ruins as a persistent and repeatable way to keep our Trading Posts and Wells of Lost Dreams coming back for more value. And, as a Land with a cheap activation the opportunity cost is extremely low, which is a huge benefit.

Two other important lands I have added are: Vault of the Archangel and Ancient Tomb. I like the Ancient Tomb here because we have a high density of colorless cards so it shouldn't color-screw us like it might in some decks, and the 2 damage it deals is practically meaningless with Oloro doing his thing. It's basically another copy of Temple of the False God, but doesn't suck to drop on Turn 2.

Vault of the Archangel might seem a bit redundant or pointless. After all, this deck isn't really that concerned with creatures and beating down, and a lot of the creatures we DO have already have lifelink. And, sometimes it will sit there all game and never do anything besides tapping for 1. But this deck is highly defensive and Vault can be a really potent "Rattlesnake" with just a few expendable creatures out. Just threatening the Deathtouch + Lifelink combination for your blockers is often enough to ward off attackers. I also like it as a way to give Serra Avatar Lifelink, which gets out of hand REAL fast.

One thing I have not yet been able to do, but will be doing soon enough, and I definitely recommend, is adding a High Market. It's a small bit of utility but saving your guys from Control Magic effects, while possibly triggering Oloro is solid. I recommend cutting the Opal Palace for it, as the Palace just doesn't do much here. Making Oloro bigger is sometimes useful, but we have Cradle of Vitality for that. In general, though, I almost never want to spend the extra mana on the Palace to get a few counters for Oloro. There are just more important ways to spend that mana most of the time.

Finally, the Guildgates are a bit of a liability in this deck. It's a slow deck that likes to take it's time, so they aren't a huge weakness, but they can be a bit of a stumbling block now and then. I'd recommend swapping those out too, but I haven't gotten around to that either. The old Core Set painlands (Adarkar Wastes and the like) are a good pick as the damage they inflict will hardly be felt in this deck. The Shadowmoor/Eventide filter lands are always great, but are less great if you have a bunch of colorless-only lands. The Odyssey filter lands are a fine option as well.

And that about wraps it up for now. The decklist I'm currently working with after all the above changes looks like this:

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Serra Ascendant
Ajani's Pridemate
Wall of Reverance
Rhox Faithmender
Windborn Muse
Archangel of Thune
Serra Avatar
Phyrexian Metamorph
Mulldrifter
Blood Artist
Fleshbag Marauder
Vampire Nighthawk
Erebos, God of the Dead
Shriekmaw
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Baleful Strix
Vizkopa Guildmage
Tithe Drinker
Augury Adept
Obzedat, Ghost Council
Divinity of Pride
Treasury Thrull
Sharuum the Hegemon
Drogskol Reaver
Magister Sphinx
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Solemn Simulacrum
Duplicant
Wurmcoil Engine

Swords to Plowshares
Land Tax
Blind Obedience
Cradle of Vitality
Return to Dust
Curse of the Swine
Phyrexian Reclamation
Demonic Tutor
Toxic Deluge
Reckless Spite
Beacon of Unrest
Sanguine Bond
Lim-Dul's Vault
Vindicate
Obzedat's Aid
Merciless Eviction
Death Grasp
Sphinx's Revelation
Sol Ring
Nihil Spellbomb
Sun Droplet
Pristine Talisman
Obelisk of Esper
Crawlspace
Orzhov Keyrune
Chalice of Life
Sword of Light and Shadow
Trading Post
Well of Lost Dreams
Spine of Ish Sah

Hallowed Fountain
Watery Grave
Godless Shrine
Glacial Fortress
Drowned Catacomb
Isolated Chapel
Sejiri Refuge
Jwar Isle Refuge
Azorius Chancery
Dimir Aqueduct
Orzhov Basilica
Azorius Guildgate
Dimir Guildgate
Orzhov Guildgate
Command Tower
Arcane Sanctum
Opal Palace
Evolving Wilds
Academy Ruins
Vault of the Archangel
Ancient Tomb
Temple of the False God
Springjack Pasture
Secluded Steppe
Lonely Sandbar
Barren Moor
Plains x 5
Island x4
Swamp x5

So that's the deck. There are many ways to focus the build, and I didn't want to be too narrow with mine. Instead of going full-bore on any one theme, I wanted to include a little of everything. You could push it further in whichever direction suits you, be it Pillow Fort or heavy Control, or even more Aggro. You could let the life cushion from Oloro be your primary defense, and just beat down with Archangel of Thune and an army of pumped-up guys.

I always like to include a list of alternate suggestions, and things I considered but couldn't fit in. So here are some of those ideas:

Angelic Accord
Necropotence
Ghostly Prison/Propaganda
Pontiff of Blight
Scholar of Athreos
Open the Vaults
Exsanguinate/Debt to the Deathless
Bloodchief Ascension
Etherwrought Page
Suture Priest
Circle of Affliction
Hatred
Moonlight Bargain
Righteous Aura
Luminarch Ascension
Dread
Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
Miren, the Moaning Well

Hopefully this article will give you some ideas and help get you started on your own Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck. Let me know in the comments if you have any secret tech to share, or if I just missed something really obvious.

Enjoy!