SO Strixhaven
- bonzaientertainmen
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
This week I take the Witherbloom Pestilence deck, Maximize the potential of Dina Essence Brewer by tightening the focus to grow counters, looping persist creatures, and affecting life totals without needing to attack.
Here is the Moxfield Page
Welcome back to Stripped Out! The series where I take a Commander Precon, strip out the off theme cards, and make some additions to strengthen the core theme. The new Secrets of Strixhaven is ready to release with 5 new commander precons. This is the perfect opportunity to get them at MSRP or at least without a huge markup. As always, these decks come ready to play, but there are some easy changes to make to really push the deck forward. Today I’ll be looking at the Witherbloom Pestilence deck, highlighting the strengths of the deck, choosing a direction to build it, identifying the cards to Strip Out, and picking replacements.
The best place to start is with the Commander. Dina Essence Brewer is a 3 mana 2/3 with a triggered ability to draw cards and an activated ability. The deck really takes shape around these 2 abilities. Every turn, when you sacrifice a creature, Dina rewards you with drawing A card. Big emphasis on 1 per turn. The second ability lets you pay 2, tap her, and sacrifice a creature. You get to gain life and put 1/+1 counters on a creature equal to the sacrificed creature’s power. Any time a commander has abilities that feed off of one another, you should take notice.
A sizeable portion of the deck lends itself to this sacrifice strategy. Cards like Viscera Seer provide a free sac outlet so I can maximize my draw potential against the 1 card limit set by Dina’s triggered ability. The fact that the Seer also allows me to Scry means I can sift away non impactful cards first. The deck also includes Yahenni, Undying Partisan. This Aetherborn Vampire is even less fragile than Viscera Seer. It’s also a free sac outlet, and when it eats another creature Yahenni gains Indestructible and gets a +1/+1 counter, making it a threat opponents have to plan around. With all the cards that produce tokens every turn, often predicated on the token not being present on the field, you’re going to want to remove those tokens regularly and reliably. I’m talking about Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia, Eccentric Pestfinder, and Ophiomancer.
There is some discordance with the deck though that helped me identify my cuts. I cut Gilded Goose in part because it has 0 power. Yes, it comes with a food token to sacrifice and generate mana, but at 0 power it has no added value to Dina. If the goose sacrifices the food, there is no additional value through Dina, since it’s not a creature token. If Dina uses her tap ability to sacrifice the Gilded Goose, I get no counters on any other creature since it’s power is 0. I also cut Elvish Mystic. There are plenty of tokens with 1 power, why devote a card slot to this one? The other mana producer I cut was Sol Ring. I think you’ll find the rocks I added in are much more interesting for what the deck wants to do.
There are other cards that I felt aren’t value added for the deck. Smothering Abomination forces me to sacrifice a creature every turn. I don’t like cards that force me into an action. I can’t guarantee I’ll have a suitable option by the turn comes back to me. Immoral Bargain looks like a supped up Bone Splinters. I’m not looking for mass sacrifice effects as Dina caps me at 1 card per turn. I’m better off with a board wipe, so it’s out. Priest of Forgotten Gods is doing a lot, but just sticking more conditions on a creature does not make it better. She’s slow and cumbersome, the 2 life isn’t threatening, and letting opponents choose which creature to remove means I’m never hitting their real threat.
Here are the cards I cut.
The next question is how to improve what the deck wants to be doing. In trying to maximize what Dina is doing, there is a class of cards that I feel should not have been overlooked. Creatures with Persist are generally worse than ones with Undying. Coming back with a -1/-1 counter is worse for a creature than coming back with a +1/+1 counter. In this deck, Persist shines. It’s because the +1/+1counters Dina places on a creature negate the -1/-1 counters from Persist. This way I can create a small engine of sacrifice and recursion with these creatures. Let’s take a case study. I have Persistent Constrictor and Woodfall Primus on the battlefield. I tap Dina and sacrifice Woodfall Primus. I get to draw a car, gain 6 life, and put 6 counters on Persistent Constrictor. Woodfall Primus immediately comes back with a -1/-1 counter and blows up a noncreature permanent. After that, on another turn when I untap Dina I sacrifice Persistent Constrictor, draw a card and gain 11 life. More importantly, the 11 counters I put onto Woodfall Primus reduce by 1 and the -1/-1 counter goes away and I’m free to repeat the process with an ever increasing number of counters.
With the power of Dina on full display here, why limit myself to one activation a turn cycle? I’m incentivized to activate her every turn if I can. My limiting factor is Dina being untapped, so I’m adding in untap effects. Instill Energy is arguably my best option. It provides haste so Dina can tap right away in addition to the no cost activated ability to untap her once per turn. Another great repeatable option is Umbral Mantle. You don’t see the untap symbol often, but when it’s out there pay attention because it can be abused. Magewright's Stone is another great addition to this suite.
Here are the cards I want to add
My mana sources are a net positive for the deck. Victory Chimes is great here with all the untapping effects I have. The ability to untap it every turn means I’m halfway to paying for Dina’s tap ability. Patriar’s Seal switches between ramp and untap, both noble causes for the deck. Yavimaya Elder offers me land and cards if I sacrifice it to its own ability. If I don’t, meaning I sacrifice it to Dina’s ability, I still get the land in addition to the life and counters.
I don’t usually mess with land bases much, but I think the biggest oversight in this deck is Westvale Abbey. Sure, it makes a colorless land, which people like to avoid. More importantly, it wants me to sacrifice creatures to flip it.
What does my version of the deck look like? Like this.
Instill Energy | ||
Casualties of War | ||
Morbid Opportunist | Final Act | |
Arcane Signet | ||
Pawn of Ulamog | Awakening Zone | |
Pest Rescuer | Blight Mound | |
Ohran Frostfang | Springbloom Druid | Feral Appetite |
Mycoloth | Veinwitch Coven | Moldervine Reclamation |
Blossoming Bogbest | Woe Strider | Witch of the Moors |
Tendershoot Dryad | ||
Creakwood Liege | Dina. Soul Steeper | Arachnoid Adaptation |
Westvale Abbey | Bojuka Bog | Command Tower |
Exotic Orchard | Fabled Passage | Festering Thicket |
Grim Backwoods | Haunted Mire | High Market |
Llanowar Wastes | Necroblossom Snarl | Path of Ancestry |
Study Hall | Temple of Malady | Terramorphic Expanse |
Titan's Grave | Turbulent Fen | Vernal Fen |
Witherbloom Campus | Woodland Cemetery | |
Swamp x8 | Forrest x8 |
Of the 63 non land cards from the deck I stripped out 15 cards for a keep rate of 76%. I did cut 2 lands and only replaced 1 and thus gained an extra slot in the deck. My last few articles I had a keep rate of 72% for Blight Curse, 76% for World Shaper, and 71% for Creative Energy. I'm on the high end, but the deck was pretty tight to start with.
This version feels more focused, specifically around Dina. It can function without her, but once she’s on the field and supported, it’s game over for opponents. I think Dina is the most versatile and therefore interesting of the Commander deck options. You could make a great combat trick deck where you sacrifice big creatures and put a ton of counters on an unblocked creature. This lends itself to an infect strategy or commander damage kill. Or even go the life gain combo route with Exquisite Blood/Sanguine Bond combo pieces.
Thanks for reading and all the support to date. I have affiliate links with Mana Pool and TCG Player to help fund these off the wall strategies. It's what makes all this possible,
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