Initial Thoughts

Most decks I endeavor to build, come from something I’ve seen in a game or an interesting mechanic or play-style that I witnessed. The Scorpion God is not one of those decks. I decided to build this deck strictly because he is an almost unstoppable being of insane power (within the Magic the Gathering story that is).

The Character, The Scorpion God, comes from the plane Amonkeht and the set Hour of Devastation. Amonkeht is a desert plane first revealed in April of 2017. The set Amonkeht brought into Magic five gods that each represented a color of the color pie. Hour of Devastation brought with it three more gods, each a grixis pairing (red/blue, blue/black, red/black). The Scorpion God is the Red/Black god from Hour of Devastation.

The one part of the story that made me want to build around The Scorpion God was when Rhonas, the Indomitable steps up to challenge The Scorpion God and is absolutely destroyed by The Scorpion God.

When looking for a new deck idea, I remembered this part of the story and wondered what a deck built around him would look like. This is my take on a -1/-1 counter and proliferate Scorpion God deck.

-1/-1 Counters

First thing to look at, would be the fact that the commander itself can throw around -1/-1 counters, but the issue is that its rather pricey to do that. At red, black and one generic, the counters can be a little expensive, if you want to fling six or seven counters onto creatures, it’ll take a lot of mana. The following cards, allow us to drop several counters at once without much mana cost.

Cauldron of Souls is a card that not only allows us to protect our creatures, but also allows us to make use of The Scorpion God’s draw ability. By bringing our opponents 1/1’s back, this allows us to gain additional card draw.

Serrated Arrows allows us to throw a single -1/-1 counter on another creature each of our turns. While it is limited to 3 counters total, we can proliferate the arrow counters on it to increase our counter strategy.

Incremental Blight is a sorcery that allows us to affect 3 creatures with varying amounts each.

Splendid Agony allows us to place two counters on creatures at the same price as a single one from our commander.

Harbinger of Night is a creature that places counters on all creature each of your upkeeps.

Grim Poppet allows us to fling more counters at other creatures without additional cost. Unfortunately, this creature is seven mana to cast.

Soul Snuffers is a creature the enters the battlefield and places a -1/-1 counter on each creature.











Each of these spells have great synergy with the next group of spells we will be discussing.

Proliferate

While each of the last cards were great at placing counters, our next cards allow us to increase the amount of counters on each creatures once they have a counter.

Contagion Clasp and Engine each enter the battlefield and place either a single counter on a creature or place counters on each creature a player controls. after they are on the battlefield, each allows us to use a mechanic called proliferate. When you proliferate, you choose any number of permanents and/or players and add an additional counter of each type they each have. this allows us to increase all the -1/-1 counters on our opponents creature without increasing the ones on our creatures.

Spread the Sickness is a sorcery that destroys a creature, then proliferates.

Grim Affliction is an instant that adds a -1/-1 counter to a creature, then proliferates.











These cards are special in this deck because they increase the “damage” we can impose onto our opponents creatures.

Wither

Each of the next cards turn our deck into a super deck! The allow do damage done to be wither damage. Wither damage is damage that instead of regular damage to creatures, it deals damage in the form of -1/-1 counters.

Everlasting Torment is an enchantment that prevents players from gaining life, prevents damage from being prevented, and turns all damage into wither damage. This allows for even your opponents damage to draw you cards with your commander.

Corrosive Mentor is a creature that turns black creatures you control into wither creatures.





These cards will allow our commander to really shine.

The Good Stuff

Every deck needs its pretty things (great cards) and this deck is no exception. The following cards will take advantage of our counters or create their own unique ones!

Necroskitter is a creature that lets us take control of creatures our opponents control that have -1/-1 counters on them when they die. This is a crazy ability to say the least. This card will turn the tide of a game quickly.

Kulrath Knight will prevent your opponents from attacking or even blocking with creature with counters on them. This is very powerful. You can make it to where one opponent cannot defend themselves, giving you other opponents an easier target.

Nest of Scarabs will give you a bunch of insects to block with or to use as -1/-1 fodder.

Blowfly Infestation is actually a board wipe for 1/1 creatures or even stronger ones for you get several at once with a single cast.

Obsidian Fireheart is the only card that does not really deal with -1/-1 counters. It puts blaze counters on lands your opponents that will then cause them damage every upkeep they have. One blaze counter on each of your opponents’ lands will really speed up the game.











This deck took longer than anticipated to construct due to the fact as it was so hard to make the cuts for each of these pieces.

Cards to Try

One of the things that I have started to do is choose two cards that i haven’t really used before. Each of these cards i choose before building and I force myself to put them in the deck even if the strategy of the deck changes as I build. I wanted to put a restriction on my deck-building that wouldn’t pose too much of an issue with building but would still be hard to finish the deck with. Some criteria I use when picking these cards is that they cannot be the same card type, at least one must be in the colors of the commander if possible (no adding a land and a colorless artifact), at least one needs to have some sort of synergy with either the commander or the general theme of the deck, and I must have not used it as the two cards of another deck.

This may seem fairly easy to do, but this all happens before I start building the deck. So, if my strategy changes halfway thru building, I still need to make sure it works with at least one of the strategies in the deck. The two cards I chose for this deck are Enchanter’s Bane and Tome of Legends. Each of these cards have interesting affects and abilities. The Tome of Legends works with the proliferate theme of the deck so it satisfies that criteria. Enchanter’s Bane is the red card. One is an artifact and the other is an enchantment, so, that criteria is fulfilled.

Tome of Legends is an artifact that enters the battlefield with a page counter and gets a page counter whenever your commander enters the battlefield or attacks. You can then use a page counter to draw a card. With The Scorpion God coming back to your hand from the graveyard at the end of the turn the turn he dies, this really allows you to abuse the page counters.

Enchanter’s Bane is an enchantment that force the controller of an enchantment to either take damage equal to the enchantments converted mana cost or sacrifice the enchantment. This is an effect in red that players don’t usually get. Its almost a joke at this point, everyone know red CANNOT deal with enchantments.





Deck List

archidekt.com/decks/382577#The_Scorpion_God

Artifacts

1 Animation Module

1 Arcane Signet

1 Astral Cornucopia

1 Cauldron of Souls

1 Coalition Relic

1 Commander’s Sphere

1 Contagion Clasp

1 Contagion Engine

1 Empowered Autogenerator

1 Endless Atlas

1 Everflowing Chalice

1 Genesis Chamber

1 Heartstone

1 Mercadian Atlas

1 Rakdos Signet

1 Seer’s Sundial

1 Serrated Arrows

1 Sol Ring

1 Swiftfoot Boots

1 Talisman of Indulgence

1 Tome of Legends

Planeswalkers

1 Angrath, Captain of Chaos

1 Ob Nixilis Reignited

Enchantments

1 Animate Dead

1 Black Market

1 Blowfly Infestation

1 Enchanter’s Bane

1 Everlasting Torment

1 Illness in the Ranks

1 Kaya’s Ghostform

1 Necropotence

1 Nest of Scarabs

1 Sadistic Obsession

Creatures

1 Carrion Feeder

1 Corrosive Mentor

1 Fallen Ferromancer

1 Grim Poppet

1 Harbinger of Night

1 Judith, the Scourge Diva

1 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs

1 Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin

1 Kulrath Knight

1 Loyal Subordinate

1 Necroskitter

1 Night Incarnate

1 Obsidian Fireheart

1 Reassembling Skeleton

1 Sickle Ripper

1 Soul Snuffers

1 Squee, the Immortal

1 Thorn of the Black Rose

Lands

1 Blood Crypt

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Bojuka Bog

1 Canyon Slough

1 Command Tower

1 Dragonskull Summit

1 Foreboding Ruins

1 Graven Cairns

1 Luxury Suite

13 Mountain

1 Rakdos Carnarium

1 Smoldering Marsh

13 Swamp

Sorcerys

1 Chain Reaction

1 Demonic Tutor

1 Diabolic Intent

1 Incremental Blight

1 Last One Standing

1 Reforge the Soul

1 Spread the Sickness

Instants

1 Chaos Warp

1 Grim Affliction

1 Rakdos Charm

1 Splendid Agony

Conclusion

While with this deck, I did not take my typical route with building it, due to the original idea coming from the story. The deck itself is actually one of my absolute favorite new decks. The Scorpion God is an interesting card due to the several abilities on him but because he has a few different routes to go with him.

This deck could have taken a very different turn into group slug or could have gone into voltron. With my deck building, there was no telling. I like to do the unexpected, until I don’t (meant as a joke, everyone).

The best part of the deck is that it is a solid deck without being a table stamper. This deck can sit down with just about any casual table and have a great time!

Please Subscribe to the Site and follow us on Twitter @mtgstandoff

Feel free to reach out with other great ideas for strange and weird decks.

We will be posting 3-6 times a month with other blog topics, such as card comparisons, deck techs, and top 10’s.