Commander Deck Tech - Dina, Soul Steeper

It has been a while since the last time I worked with a combo deck in these articles. So, this time we brought a deck that focuses on a combo, starring Dina Soul Steeper!

Dina, Soul Steeper is a damage source for each life you gain that stays in the command zone and costs very little. Her deck focuses on lifegain and on creating some loop that involves this mechanic. Dina is basically a win condition that is always available, which means you'll only need to find the other combo pieces in your deck and then cast them all to get a win.

The Golgari color combination complements the lifegain mechanic well, and Strixhaven brought even more tools, making this deck considerably viable for this mechanic. Removals, sustain and several other mechanics help us build this deck.

This list doesn't have a budget, but at the end of the article we'll bring you a version that is a lot cheaper. It won't be as optimized as the list presented beforehand, but it will work similarly, trying to focus on the lifegain mechanic and interactions, alongside its finishers.

Accelerators

As artifacts, we have the basic Commander signet kit: Arcane Signet and Golgari Signet, and obviously Sol Ring. We also use Pristine Talisman as a mana rock to get more lifegain.

We have two mana dorks: Llanowar Elves and Elves of Deep Shadow, and finally the sorceries Nature's Lore, Three Visits, Farseek, Cultivate and Kodama's Reach. This is everything any green deck uses nowadays to ramp.

Gaining Life

These are our main lifegain sources, and also cards that interact with this. As health sources that are based on trigger effects, we have Marauding Blight-Priest, which can even be an alternative to Dina as a combo piece, Witherbloom Apprentice, Creeping Bloodsucker, Deathgreeter, Spectrum Sentinel, Prosperous Innkeeper, Gala Greeters, which has great effects, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, which can drain opponents, Essence Warden and Ayara, First of Locthwain, which on top of it all can draw us cards.

To trigger some of these creatures, we also have cards that create Pest tokens: Blight Mound, Sedgemoor Witch, and mainly Beledros Witherbloom, which offers turns with a huge amount of mana that are consequently quite aggressive thanks to its ability to untap lands. Pest tokens help us significantly because they are lifegain sources and great blockers.

We couldn't forget the interaction between Witch's Oven with Cauldron Familiar to amplify effects that drain opponents' lives; use the cat as a blocker, sacrifice it with the cauldron, sacrifice the Food token, and then return the cat.

As Aristocrats, we added Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat and Bastion of Remembrance. We have several interactions with sacrificing creatures, so these cards are welcome to our build because they drain our opponents' lives efficiently. Finally, to deal with Reanimate effects and with opponents trying to retrieve resources, we have Scavenging Ooze to exile these cards, and it also gives you a bit of lifegain if the card exiled is a creature.

Drawing Cards and Interacting with the Graveyard

Considering this is a combo deck, the cards we want the most are our combo pieces, so we can actually combo. To find them fast, we need to draw as many cards as possible.

With this in mind, we use from the simpler card draw tools, like Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood, to the ones that require a sacrifice, such as Plumb the Forbidden, Village Rites and Corrupted Conviction. The idea is to use the tokens we create as fuel for this type of spell, but if we need to use one of our creatures, choose wisely - after all, we need certain creatures to win, so sacrificing creatures that can be our combo pieces ends up not being that interesting.

We use other tools like Phyrexian Arena and Mosswood Dreadknight, which can be sacrificed constantly with Dina, and reused. We have a few interactions with lifegain in this section of the deck as well, such as Moldervine Reclamation and particularly Well of Lost Dreams, which is a great source of card draw for this deck, both for bigger or smaller lifegain amounts. After all, spending just 1 mana to draw a card for each 1 health point you drain is a very low cost, and it is quite advantageous.

To return resources from the graveyard, we use Veinwitch Coven, Bala Ged Recovery and Eternal Witness. I'll highlight Veinwitch Coven because you can always return some important creature, such as Eternal Witness, which can return a Village Rites or similar, for instance, and create this small card draw cycle until we find the finisher card to end the match. If any Aristocrat is on the board, this interaction gets even better because it will drain your opponents.

Combos and Tutors

We have several win conditions to end the game at once. Among them, Sanguine Bond, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Dina and Exquisite Blood are already enough to drain all of your opponents' health points as soon as you trigger the first lifegain effect on your turn.

We also use the Sensei's Divining Top, Bolas's Citadel and Aetherflux Reservoir trio - we cast Sensei's Divining Top paying 1 life, then we gain 1 life. We activate this artifact to draw a card, returning it to the top of our deck. Then, we cast it again by paying 1 health and gaining 2, like so creating a lifegain loop that only ends when the cards in your deck end. With this combo, it is possible to gain life significantly and finish your opponents directly with Aetherflux Reservoir's activated ability.

It's worth keeping in mind that all the pieces listed work independently of their roles as combo pieces in this deck, and are not "dead" cards if they aren't used to finish the game at once, like Bolas's Citadel or Aetherflux Reservoir.

After you've gained enough life, Accomplished Alchemist and Staff of Domination can draw your entire deck thanks to how much mana Accomplished Alchemist will create, resulting in infinite mana, and providing you with access to this deck's real finishers. Finally, to search for these cards and end the game, we use Demonic Tutor, Grim Tutor and Profane Tutor.

Removals and Answers

Of course, we couldn't forget answers to interact with an opponent's board and even prevent them from playing their combo before us. So, as target removal, we use Nature's Claim, Tear Asunder, which can exile a permanent, Putrefy, Beast Within, Assassin's Trophy and Mortality Spear. We chose a broader range of removals instead of focusing on specific removals.

As global removals, considering we gain a lot of health, Essence Pulse and Toxic Deluge fit our build very well. Even though they don't interact with life gain, Damnation and Culling Ritual also have their space as they are individually good cards and also recursive, in Culling Ritual's case. Finally, we have Tamiyo's Safekeeping, both to gain life and to protect one of our important permanents if our opponents try to answer our combos.

The budget version only has the Chain of Smog and Witherbloom Apprentice or Witherbloom Pledgemage combo with Dina, but it has similar cards, both when it comes to drawing cards and its creatures and removals in general, if it isn't viable for you to build this Deck Tech's original list.

Combo is a very popular and common archetype, and not writing a Deck Tech about a combo deck would be unfair. This one has card draw, tutors and several ways to win the game at once, besides its ability to sustain itself during the match, with a lot of health, resources and value at its disposal.

Did you like this deck? Would you add more combos? Would you use another commander? Tell us your opinion!