Black Market Connections

Enchantment

At the beginning of your precombat main phase, choose or of more —

• Create a Treasure token. You lose 1 life. (It's a colourless artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any colour.")
• Draw a card. You lose 2 life.
• Create a 3/2 colorless Shapeshifter creature token with changeling. You lose 3 life. (It has every creature type.)

Tokens

• Shapeshifter 3/2 C
• Treasure

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

1 day ago

Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.

The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.

When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.

Initial thoughts

So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).

So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.

So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?

Redundancy

Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.

One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander: Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye. Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai. Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.

Wincon

Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.

Tutors

This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.

Protecting the combo

So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.

I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.

glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.

Typical stuff

There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.

For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.

Special notes

A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.

Lands

Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)

I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.

DemonDragonJ on Clash of the Titans

1 week ago

I have replaced Crystal Ball and Pain Magnification with Black Market Connections and Mayael's Aria, since I feel that those cards are better suited to this deck.

legendofa on Which Card Should Replace Pain …

3 weeks ago

If you can reliably hit a 20-power creature, Mayael's Aria is an upkeep win condition. So it's slow, but if you keep your board stable and protected, it wins games. Black Market Connections is more generally useful, but doesn't close out a game by itself.

If you feel like the deck is well-covered in fundamentals like card draw and mana fixing, and can reliably go tall enough, Aria can win games that have stalled out. The +1/+1 counters and lifegain are useful, but may not be able to completely recover a losing game or break open a stalled game. If draw or mana are consistent or even occasional problems, I recommend BMC.

DemonDragonJ on Which Card Should Replace Pain …

3 weeks ago

I have a copy of Pain Magnification in my Progenitus EDH deck, but I intend to replace it, as it is a fairly useless card in that deck, and I am currently considering two different cards as potential replacements for it: Black Market Connections and Mayael's Aria, as I believe that either of those cards would be a far better match for this deck, but I am not certain which of those two cards I should choose, so I certainly shall appreciate the feedback of other users, here.

What does everyone else say about this subject? Which card is the better replacement for Pain Magnification?

wallisface on How is Black Market Connections …

3 weeks ago

Keep in mind Black Market Connections is printed directly into an eternal-legal set, where as the other cards you mention were printed into standard. Context matters.

Added to that, that the life-loss from this is a lot higher than the other cards you mentioned. I wouldn’t consider this card busted until I saw some playrate data to back up these claims.

DemonDragonJ on How is Black Market Connections …

3 weeks ago

Black Market Connections is an amazing card, and I have copies of it in several of my decks, but I wonder how it is at all balanced, given that it produces so much value for a relatively small and one-time payment of mana. It heavily outclasses both Bitterblossom and Phyrexian Arena in a significant number of situations, and has a very lenient mana cost, so I think that it would have been perfectly balanced at 4 mana (with a heavier color weight in its cost; i.e., {2}{B}{B}).

What does everyone else say about this? How is Black Market Connections at all balanced?

DiscoPanda1803 on I... Cry... When Angels Deserve to DIEEEEEEE!!!!

1 month ago

Thanks DemonDragonJ, they are my favorite as well, it's always great meet another angel enthusiast.

Regarding your considerations:

For Deathbringer Liege, he is in a very crowded slot, the five mana spot have a lot sweet angels, if you put him next to Baneslayer Angel, he is strickly a better creature, but again... ANGELS. Also still hurts me take Witch of the Moors out, if a could fit her back in, i probaly will. But is something to consider, the removal built in is very intresting.

As for Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower, i din't feel the need for expand my hand size, never really bothered me. Aside from the moment that i put in Necropotence for a little while, than i needed those cards kkk, but i moved to another deck.

As for Greed, i whanted to put it, in a early version of the deck, but i alredy own Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip, so used insted, and it put a lot of work, that i decide to stick with it. When Black Market Connections realease, i make the change for that. I personaly believe that you can't have such think as "too much draw", so i don't know what i take it out for put Greed in, but i not shure if is that much better than Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip.

As for Debt to the Deathless, i don't think is that much efficient, the way i see it, you have to sink in a lot mana to make count, the only way my deck can make that much mana is with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, so i don't know if is a good idea dedicated a slot for that card, with a small chance to make a splash.

As for your question regarding Fellwar Stone it never was a problem to me, it fix my mana somethimes, but most of the times i alredy have the lands to do that, it is in there mostly because of the limited amount of mana rocks that exists for only 2 mana, but if i feel the need, Thought Vessel is a solid replacement, as you suggested.

Sorry for the long ass response. Again, i appreciate the love for the deck, feel free to give more suggestions, flavor choices are welcome too.

DoctorMunchiesPHD on A Pimp Named Sliver Overlord

1 month ago

Mortlocke Well then welcome to the deck Essence Sliver lmao, thanks for the tip my friend, Black Market Connections just got alot better.