Upgrading Commander Precon - Corrupting Influence (Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa)

Phyrexia: All Will Be One has brought us two new precon Commander decks that are quite cool. In today's article, we'll show you the Phyrexia side with Atraxa's daughter: Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa, with the main mechanic focusing on Poison counters and Proliferate!

Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa came in the Abzan color combination, unlike her mother, which has 4 colors. As a 4-mana card with at least 3 keywords and a significant resistance, she is a good body to keep on the board, besides her Corrupted ability, which steals cards from each opponent with 3 or more Poison counters, and gives us recursion through our opponents' decks.

The original list has several creatures with Toxic - an original Phyrexia: All Will Be One ability. This ability means the creature which deals the damage will also give a number of Poison counters to the target equivalent to its Toxic number, unlike Infect, whose damage dealt takes the shape of Poison counters. This deck also counts with a few creatures with Infect.

Corrupting Influence List

The basis of this deck is quite reasonable, and it is possible to use many of the cards already included. We changed around 16 cards to increase our sources of Poison counters and also Proliferate triggers. In this particular build, this deck works well even without Ixhel on the board, so we don't have that many tools focused on the commander herself, but instead, they focus on this deck's mechanics in general.

Cards Removed

We removed a few of the slower mana rocks, that were replaced by others that are more efficient. We also removed a few other cards with a very high cost that weren't worth the mana you invested in them compared to what they did. The total number of lands was lowered from 38 to 35.

Some cards that seem strong, like Norn's Decree, were also removed to not give your opponent any advantage at all. Venomous Brutalizer also appears to be a good card, but its sin is that it costs too much mana. All the cards we removed clearly opened space for new cards that will bring more synergy and interaction with this deck as a whole.

Toxic and Infect

We brought more instances of Toxic and Infect precisely to accelerate this process against our opponents. Even though the process of slaying enemies is 4 times faster because you only need 10 Poison counters, you still need to start somewhere.

Considering that, we brought small creatures that act fast, like Skrelv, Defector Mite and Venerated Rotpriest. Both, besides being great creatures to play on initial turns, have a good defense effect: Skrelv protects a creature well, besides giving it Toxic, and Venerated Rotpriest forces your opponent to think twice before removing any of your creatures.

Still going through the low-cost cards, we also use Skrelv's Hive, both to create Mites and to support your game plan with the Lifelink that creatures with Toxic can get. Bloated Contaminator definitely stands out - it has evasion, a good body, can apply Poison counters and also Proliferates when dealing combat damage, like so being able to grow the number of Poison counters not only on those it dealt damage to but all opponents equally. It is a great creature to play on curve.

Still talking about creatures with Toxic, we use Necrogen Rotpriest. If we consider Ixhel and the possible tokens created with Toxic, we have around 15 cards with Toxic in this deck, and because one is easily accessed in the command zone, this is a very useful creature that makes the process of adding Poison counters easier.

Our last creature with Toxic is Tyrranax Rex. This is a huge creature that has evasion with Trample, protects itself well with Ward 4, has Haste (and therefore can attack as soon as it comes in), can't be countered and has Toxic 4, besides being an 8/8. It is very efficient and can be useful as a finisher against an opponent with enough Poison counters. Necrogen Rotpriest can give it Toxic 5.

Our only Infect addition is Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, which is a great addition. As lethal as Tyrranax Rex, it has evasion because it Flies, can get Haste for one black mana, and protects itself with Regenerate for two black mana. It is another efficient creature that can be useful as a finisher, or even just because it starts putting pressure on an opponent without any Poison counters yet.

Ramp and Answers

This deck already has good answers, ramp, and mana rocks, like Swords to Plowshares, Cultivate and Golgari Signet, respectively. Considering this, we added similar cards: Path to Exile, Kodama's Reach, Selesnya Signet and Golgari Signet. Having 2-cost mana rock options allows you interesting initial plays with Sol Ring. Still speaking of similar cards, this deck already has Beast Within and we added Generous Gift. Having redundancy for our answers is never too much, considering you're facing 3 players and surprise threats can appear in your way.

We have a few other removals that also interact with Poison and Proliferate. They are, respectively: Infectious Bite and Drown in Ichor, which are two great removals, particularly Infectious Bite because it already places a Poison counter on each one of your opponents. Even though Drown in Ichor is a spell, it can kill a good array of creatures by giving them -4/-4, and it Proliferates as a bonus.

Finally, our last upgrades were White Sun's Twilight as a global removal, which can create several Phyrexian Mites with Toxic 1. This means it opens up all of our opponents' boards while we create an army of Mites ready to spread the glory of Phyrexia with their Toxic ability. Finally, both for Phyrexian flavor and for its card advantage utility, we use the Phyrexian Arena to accelerate our card draw and consequently search for our resources faster.

This is our upgraded list! We changed just a few cards, but they were crucial, particularly to finish our opponents one by one. It was essential to increase our sources of Toxic so we can have more chances of placing Poison counters as soon as possible on our opponents, and to have more answers as well, considering Commander is a battlefield with unexpected, and even wild, turn of events.

The original list gave us great cards, such as Norn's Choirmaster, Glistening Sphere and Phyresis Outbreak. With our changes, the result is a Midrange Phyrexia deck that is fun to pilot, and is ready to compleat your opponents with as many Poison counters as possible.

This is an alternative list with another Norn family member - Vishgraz, the Doomhive. This version has a few combos with the commander themselves, Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle or Eldrazi Displacer, to create endless Mite tokens.

This deck also has the Vraska, Betrayal's Sting and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider combo, to finish an opponent in one go. These are two cards that work well individually with this deck's goal, and weren't added to be pawns only, like the aforementioned Nim Deathmantle and Eldrazi Displacer. We have several similar cards in this build with the same intention of finishing the game with Poison counters, just like the deck with Ixhel.

Did you like the Ixhel list? Do you prefer Vishgraz as the commander? Would you use Atraxa for Poison counters? Comment down below!

See you next time!