Maarika, Brutal Gladiator by aggrobearsloth

Format: Commander

Commander: Maarika, Brutal Gladiator

Bracket: 3

Deck overview

This is a Jund -1/-1-counter attrition deck that grinds the table down through wither damage, death triggers, and permanent theft. Maarika, Brutal Gladiator is the finisher and removal engine: a must-block 7/4 that is indestructible on your turn, and whose excess-damage trigger strips a noncreature, nonland permanent from an opponent after every combat. The 99 leans on wither mass (Everlasting Torment, Massacre Girl, Known Killer, Midnight Banshee, Kulrath Knight) and counter-payoffs (Blowfly Infestation, The Scorpion God, Auntie Ool, Cursewretch, Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons) to turn every block and death into cards, tokens, and stolen creatures via Necroskitter and The Reaper, King No More. The deck locks combat with Kulrath Knight, then closes through repeated commander hits, an overwhelming token/stolen board, or Vraska, Betrayal's Sting's poison ultimate supercharged by proliferate. It is a slow, value-dense midrange deck - no fast combo, no counterspells - that wins by outlasting.

Decklist (100 cards)

• 1 Aberrant Return
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Auntie Ool, Cursewretch
• 1 Binding the Old Gods
• 1 Black Sun's Zenith
• 1 Blowfly Infestation
• 1 Burning Curiosity
• 1 Canyon Slough
• 1 Carnifex Demon
• 1 Cathartic Pyre
• 1 Cathartic Reunion
• 1 Chain Reaction
• 1 Channeler Initiate
• 1 Chimil, the Inner Sun
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Contagion Clasp
• 1 Devoted Druid
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Dread Tiller
• 1 Dusk Urchins
• 1 Eventide's Shadow
• 1 Everlasting Torment
• 1 Evolution Sage
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Ferrafor, Young Yew
• 1 Festering Thicket
• 1 Fire Covenant
• 1 Flourishing Defenses
• 6 Forest
• 1 Glissa Sunslayer
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Grave Titan
• 1 Grave Venerations
• 1 Grim Poppet
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Hoarder's Greed
• 1 Ifnir Deadlands
• 1 Ignoble Hierarch
• 1 Incremental Blight
• 1 Infernal Grasp
• 1 Kulrath Knight
• 1 Lasting Tarfire
• 1 Liliana, Death Wielder
• 1 Maarika, Brutal Gladiator
• 1 Massacre Girl, Known Killer
• 1 Midnight Banshee
• 4 Mountain
• 1 Necroskitter
• 1 Nesting Grounds
• 1 Night's Whisper
• 1 Oft-Nabbed Goat
• 1 Painful Truths
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Persist
• 1 Puca's Covenant
• 1 Puppeteer Clique
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Rakdos Carnarium
• 1 Riveteers Overlook
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Savage Lands
• 1 Sheltered Thicket
• 1 Sinister Gnarlbark
• 1 Skinrender
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Soul Snuffers
• 8 Swamp
• 1 Terminate
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 The Reaper, King No More
• 1 The Scorpion God
• 1 Tree of Perdition
• 1 Vernal Fen
• 1 Village Pillagers
• 1 Vraska, Betrayal's Sting
• 1 Wickerbough Elder
• 1 Wickersmith's Tools
• 1 Woodland Cemetery