Commander Top 10: Obosh, The Preypiercer

Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths gives us so many fun legendary creatures to brew decks around, it’s going to keep me busy for a long time to come. Last week I built a sweet Abzan deck with Nethroi, Apex of Death at the helm; this week, I’m going to tap one of the companion cards to lead an oddly terrifying Rakdos deck: Obosh, the Preypiercer!

What’s fun about having Obosh as the commander rather than as a companion is that you have access to even-costed spells, which you can use for things that don’t necessarily cause damage: mana ramp, destroy effects, and utility. We’ll concentrate most of our creatures and damage-dealing spells at odd converted mana costs to maximize Obosh’s superpower.

Speaking of Obosh’s super-power, it would behoove us to pay attention to the rules explanations tied to Obosh:

For spells with {X} in their mana costs, use the value chosen for X to determine the spell’s converted mana cost. If a permanent or card in any other zone has {X} in its mana cost, X is considered to be zero.

If a creature with trample you control would deal combat damage to a blocking creature while you control Obosh, you must assign its unmodified damage. For example, a 3/3 creature with trample blocked by a 2/2 creature can have one damage assigned to the defending player. It will then deal four damage to the blocking creature and two damage to the defending player.

If an effect asks you to divide damage among targets, you must divide the unmodified damage before doubling it.

If multiple replacement or prevention effects try to modify damage that would be dealt to a permanent or player, the player or the controller of the permanent chooses the order in which they apply.

Okay, onward to the Top 10 cards for our Obosh deck!

1. Judith, the Scourge Diva

Odd converted mana cost creatures will punch at twice power, but even better are creatures that also deal damage outside of combat, and I think Judith, the Scourge Diva is the very best of the bunch. Judith pumps your team by one extra power, which is doubly effective if the creature is odd, and if a nontoken creature dies, Judith’s trigger dealing one point of damage to any target doubles to two points.

Syr Konrad, the Grim is an incredibly powerful card in Commander for an uncommon, and what’s really crazy to think about is that its triggered ability is damage rather than life loss, so Obosh will double each trigger! Imagine late-game casting Syr Konrad when Obosh is on the battlefield, and then activating Scavenger Grounds – that could potentially kill all of your opponents!

Skysovereign, Consul Flagship is already playable in some Commander decks, but with Obosh on the battlefield, the attack trigger deals six damage instead of three, and hits for twelve points of damage through the air.  Boom!

Another juicy card to include is Stuffy Doll.  Since it’s an odd converted mana cost, with Obosh on the battlefield, you can tap to deal itself two points of damage, which will then deal four points of damage to the chosen player.  If you can convince a different opponent to attack with something huge, you can block it and deal twice that damage to the chose player.

2. Fight with Fire

We can include some sweet red damaging spells in our deck, but the one I like the best is Fight with Fire. With Obosh in effect, for three mana you can deal a whopping ten damage to a creature, but if you cast it with kicker things get really crazy—that’s twenty points of damage, which you can split up among several targets! Just keep in mind that you have to divide up the ten points of damage first, and then double each damage assignment.

I love that Beacon of Destruction and Red Sun’s Zenith shuffle back into your deck so that either can show up again later for more burning.  Red Sun’s Zenith will be considered odd so long as the X value is even.

Mirrorpool is a card I usually reserve for copying one of my creatures, but with Obosh on the battlefield you might just be able to kill an opponent by copying a burn spell.

3. Angrath’s Marauders

If we’re looking to double damage with Obosh, why not double some more with Angrath’s Marauders? The creature has an odd mana cost too!

I’ve included some other odd-mana-cost creatures that do cool things. Bloodsoaked Champion keeps coming back from the graveyard and hits for four damage with Obosh. Murderous Rider’s lifelink ability looks nicer if it’s hitting for four. And Neheb, the Eternal loves all the damage doubling that we’ll have going on.

Castle Embereth’s activated ability to boost your team by one extra power is doubly effective when you’ve got a bunch of odd-mana-cost creatures on the battlefield. And Extinction Event is pretty easy to make one-sided unless the creature an opponent controls that you desperately need exiled is also odd.

4. Tainted Strike

Giving infect to a creature that doesn’t normally have it is already quite powerful, but when there’s damage doubling involved thanks to Obosh this can kill an opponent out of nowhere with poison. Target one of your unblocked four-power creatures, give it an additional power and infect, and with Obosh that’s game over!

Outside of Obosh shenanigans, Tainted Strike is a very flexible spell that can target any creature on the battlefield, so if your opponents’ creatures are involved in a combat, you can give one of them infect to permanently shrink a huge threat that’s blocking or even get rid of something that has indestructible.

I’m including some other ways to boost our creatures. The lifelink from Shadowspear and Basilisk Collar is quite helpful when so many creatures deal damage directly outside of combat, but the deathtouch with Basilisk Collar gets crazy if it’s equipped to Judith or Mayhem Devil.

5. Whip of Erebos

Speaking of giving our creatures lifelink, Whip of Erebos gives all of our creatures lifelink which will lead to some huge lifegain! And in a pinch, we can bring a creature back from the graveyard for one last run at an opponent’s life total.

I’ve included a smattering of other “good stuff” cards too. Emergence Zone can lead to some crazy turns where cards that shouldn’t be cast at instant speed start getting added to the stack. Final Fortune is a high-risk, high-reward spell that can finish out a game given how explosive our deck can be with Obosh. Liquimetal Coating combines with our plentiful artifact removal spells in red to deal with things that may otherwise be problematic for Rakdos such as enchantments. Mogg Maniac does a nice job of waving away a huge attacker on the ground, and even though it’s an even mana cost and doesn’t benefit from Obosh, it does combine with some of red’s spells that deal large amounts of damage to all creatures such as Blasphemous Act or Star of Extinction. Last is Anger—if it’s in the graveyard and you control a Mountain, all your creatures having haste can be huge!

6. Oblivion Stone

Rakdos can cover a lot of removal bases—creatures, planeswalkers, and artifacts—but for the holes in our removal suite Oblivion Stone (and Nevinyrral’s Disk) fills that need quite nicely.  Playing Oblivion Stone early can also cause your opponents to slow their roll, which can give you enough time to set up a big turn with Obosh.

Steel Hellkite and Ugin, the Ineffable are two more nice colorless ways to deal with problem permanents too.

Even though Enchanter’s Bane being two mana means we can’t double up with Obosh, the fact that our opponents are going to be taking a lot of damage means they’ll be much more likely to sacrifice target enchantment rather than taking the extra damage.

7. Underworld Breach

All good Commander decks need ways to keep the cards flowing, and one of the best ones printed for red recently is Underworld Breach.  Depending on how stocked your graveyard is with extra cards, you can get back a critical permanent or two, or go nuts and cast Lightning Bolt over and over and over again with Obosh in effect to burn a player out. 

I’ve included quite a few of the usual suspects when it comes to drawing cards in Rakdos. The cycling lands allow us to keep the land count high enough to cast Obosh on time when we need to, or to cycle away late-game when we’re looking for action.

8. Deadly Rollick

When it comes to pinpoint creature removal, it’s hard to beat Deadly Rollick from Commander 2020. The gold standard is Swords to Plowshares, which costs just one mana to exile a creature and has a minor drawback that is usually more than worth it. If you control your commander, Deadly Rollick costs no mana and has no drawback: wow! Even if you don’t control your commander, exiling a creature at instant speed is going to be worth four mana a lot of the time.

As we can see, Rakdos has many, many ways of killing creatures!

9. Deflecting Swat

When you reveal Obosh as your commander, your opponents are already going to be on edge since it’s obvious that your deck is going to be set up to deal large amounts of damage. Once you cast Obosh, it’s very likely one of your opponents will have an answer at the ready, and since Obosh costs five mana the commander tax to recast it will be quite painful. Deflecting Swat gives us a measure of protection from pinpoint removal aimed at Obosh for no mana, and that is very welcome!

I’m including some other ways to interact with our opponents:

10. Darksteel Ingot

Since we’re in Rakdos nearly all of our mana accelerants will be artifacts, and since we’re playing Oblivion Stone and Nevinyrral’s Disk, the indestructible Darksteel Ingot is reliable ramp that won’t typically be destroyed.

Okay, so here’s how the deck ended up:

What do you think?  Are there any cards I’ve overlooked?  If you see any new cards from Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths or Commander 2020 that should find a home here, let me know!

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