Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are goin to be talking about Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingdom!

Ob Nixilis is a four mana 4/3 with flying, trample, and whenever one or more opponents each lose exactly 1 life, he gets a +1/+1 counter and we exile the top card of our library and until our next end step we can play that card.

This is an interesting design space where the exact amount of life loss is important, though it can count multiple instances of life loss making Ob Nixilis bigger and allowing us to get a ton of cards.

The basic game plan is to find a ton of ways to have our opponents lose one life, ideally one at a time to get the most value as possible.

Our first matter of business is getting cards that have an opponent lose one life, and there are plenty of options to choose from.

Underworld Dreams is perfect because it deals 1 damage whenever an opponent draws a card, and with the way its worded each instance counts as an individual point of damage so if our opponents draw a ton of cards, then Ob Nixilis gets bigger.

Similarly there are the are a whole host of cards that deal 1 damage to either one opponent or each opponent whenever you cast a noncreature spell like Firebrand Archer, Kessig Flamebreather, and Coruscation Mage.

There is also Roiling Vortex, which deals 1 damage to each player at the beginning of their upkeep, and if a player casts a spell and no mana was used to cast it then it deals 5 damage to that player and for one red mana we can keep our opponents from gaining life, which can be useful against life gain decks.

If we are going up against a creature heavy deck, then Rakdos Charm can also be very useful since each instance of damage that creature deals to its controller counts as a separate instance of damage, if I am reading it correctly.

Now that we have ways to get our opponents to lose life, we need ways to take advantage of our cards in exile.

Prosper, Tome-Bound is the ideal choice here because not only does it exile an additional card at the beginning of our end step, but whenever we play a card from exile, we make a Treasure token, which will help us cast our spells from exile, which makes more Treasure, and so on.

Among other cards we should consider is something like Passionate Archeologist, which gives our Commander the ability to deal damage to an opponent equal to the mana value of a spells we cast from exile.

There is also Kami of Celebration, which puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature whenever we cast a spell from exile, and whenever a modified creature we control attacks we can exile the top card of our library and we can cast that card this turn.

Ideally the spells we can cast are spells like Dark Ritual or Seething Song or Desperate Ritual to help us continue to feed our casting from exile.

In order to help us win the game, we need to find a way to deal a ton of damage, and there is a way we can potentially get an infinite combo.

All Will Be One triggers whenever one or more counters are put onto a permanent or player and it deals that much damage to an opponent, a creature, or Planeswalker they control. That means if we deal 1 damage to an opponent, Ob Nixilis triggers to put one +1/+1 counter on itself, which triggers All Will Be One to deal 1 damage to an opponent, which will trigger Ob Nixilis again, thus starting the loop.

This is a powerful loop that doesn’t stop when we run out of cards because we aren’t drawing those cards, we are exiling them, which means we can’t mill ourselves out and we burn each opponent out.

Now if we don’t have that option available to us, we can still potentially win via a Storm win condition like Grapeshot if we have enough mana and cast enough rituals or cards like Birgi, God of Storytelling to add a red mana whenever we cast a spell so we can keep going.

Ob Nixilis is an enabler Commander, and the things that he can enable can be very powerful. It’s amusing to me that having such a specific requirement in needing to have one or more opponents lose 1 or more life can enable such a powerful strategy.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual