Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter!

Vish Kal is a seven mana 5/5 with flying, lifelink, and we can sacrifice a creature to put X +1/+1 counters on Vish Kal where X is the sacrificed creatures power and we can remove all +1/+1 counters from Vish Kal to give a greature -1/-1 for each +1/+1 counter removed this way.

Vish Kal is an ideal aristocrats Commander in the fact that he is a sacrifice outlet that can get massive, has a way for us to get a lot of life, and can be used as a way to get rid of problematic creatures.

The issues come in that Vish Kal is seven mana whereas most aristocrat Commanders want to be a bit cheaper alongside the rest of the creatures we are planning on sacrificing, and that we benefit more from sacrificing bigger creatures over smaller creatures. The goal of the deck is to have ways of getting Vish Kal in play at a decent pace, get some creatures to sacrifice, and swing for lethal.

The first thing that we need to do is make sure that we can cast Vish Kal, of which we have a few ways to approach.

Heartless Summoning would normally be a double edged sword sort of card because it discounts our creature spells by two mana at the cost of giving creatures we control -1/-1, but since we are ideally going to be playing cheap creatures with death effects, this isn’t that bad. It does mean Vish Kal gets fewer counters, but he becomes a five drop rather than a seven drop.

We can also take advantage of almost instant death effects if we happen to have something like a Pitiless Plunderer in play, which will make a Treasure token whenever a creature we control dies, which means any creature we control that does die makes a Treasure.

This also happens to pair well with something like Shambling Ghast, which has a modal death effect in either giving a creature an opponent controls -1/-1 until end of turn or make a Treasure token, which when we have Pitiless Plunderer in play means that we can get two Treasure tokens in play for one mana.

If we have creatures that manage to consistently die, then we can also make use of Black Market, which adds a charge counter on itself whenever a creature dies and at the beginning of our precombat main phase we add a black mana for each charge counter on it, which can definitely help make casting Vish Kal much easier to do.

The next thing that we need are decently powerful creatures that we can sacrifice in order to get Vish Kal massive.

Herald of the Host would normally just be a slightly overcosted Serra Angel, but the fact that it has Myriad is an amazing aspect because not only do we get three additional copies of Herald of the Host, but since Vish Kal is a free sacrifice outlet, then we can sacrifice the tokens before they exile themselves to give Vish Kal twelve +1/+1 counters or nine of them if we have Heartless Summoning in play.

Dalek Squadron also becomes a massive threat in this regard because the tokens from Myriad also happen to have menace, meaning that we will more than likely be able to get damage through. The best part of the creatures that do have Myriad triggers is that if they are blocked, we can still sacrifice them to Vish Kal to make him bigger.

In this respect we can also play something like Blade of the Bloodchief if we solely want to get Vish Kal bigger since its 1 to cast and has Equip 1 and would normally give the equipped creature a +1/+1 counter whenever a creature dies, but if it is equipped to a Vampire, then two +1/+1 counters are put on instead, making Vish Kal even bigger.

To help us with making sure that we aren’t completely blown out, we can use Cruel Celebrant to drain our opponents 1 life whenever a creature or Planeswalker we control dies as well as Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim which gains us a life whenever a creature we control enters and has our opponents lose 1 life whenever another creature we control dies.

Edgar, Charmed Groom is an interesting and repeatable sacrifice target since it gives other Vampires we control +1/+1 and when it dies it becomes Edgar Markov’s Coffin, which makes a 1/1 Vampire token with lifelink and puts a bloodline counter on itself at the beginning of our upkeep and when it has three bloodline counters it transforms back. Slow, but a reliable way to get a decent body and some fodder in play each turn.

The best way for Vish Kal to win is either through aristocrat synergies, or through Commander Damage.

To talk about the Commander Damage angle, we ideally should have a reliable form of evasion other than the flying he already has, and this is where something like Dauthi Embrace can come in real handy because once its in play and for only two black mana we can give a creature we control Shadow, which is a difficult to interact with form of evasion.

Since we are making Vish Kal big and he has lifelink, we can also use cards like Sanguine Bond and Enduring Tenacity in order to not only potentially beat one opponent, but since with either or both of these out whenever we gain life target opponent loses that much life, if we manage to get Vish Kal big enough, we can beat all three opponents in one fell swoop.

Now this can also enter into the classic infinite loop combo with Exquisite Blood and/or Bloodthirsty Conqueror which trigger whenever an opponent loses life we gain that much life which will then trigger the Sanguine Bond and/or Enduring Tenacity to win the game, but Exquisite Blood and Bloodthirsty Conqueror are quite expensive and not readily available for everyone.

Which is why we also have access to the classic aristocrat back up plan with cards like Bastion of Remembrance which has each opponent lose 1 life and we gain 1 life whenever a creature we control dies while also making a 1/1 Human Soldier when it enters.

Because we are also in white we have access to Gift of Immortality, which when the creature it enchants dies it comes back to the battlefield under our control and then the Gift of Immortality comes back attached to that creature again at the beginning of the next end step.

This means that if we manage to have a creature that has a beneficial death trigger, like say Junji, the Midnight Sky which either has each opponent discard two cards and then lose 2 life or return a non-Dragon creature from our graveyard into play, then we can have a more control aspect to the deck by repeatedly sacrificing Junji during our opponents turns to rip their hands, drain them, and have it come back to do it again the next turn.

We can also use Yosei, the Morning Star to have a bit of a control plan to prevent our opponents from having their untap step while also tapping five of their things or Ao, the Dawn Sky to either look at the top seven cards of our library and out a total mana value of 4 worth of nonland permanents into play or put two +1/+1 counters on each permanent that is a creature or a Vehicle.

If we manage to have access to it though, the best target would be Kokusho, the Evening Star because when they die each opponent loses 5 life and we gain life equal to the total amount of life lost this way, which can also help us with things Enduring Tenacity and Sanguine Bond.

Vish Kal is a fun blend of an aristocrat Commander that can definitely become a Voltron Commander because of it being a free sacrifice outlet that can get bigger and bigger and bigger if left unchecked.

The biggest weakness of the deck is the fact that he is seven mana to play, and while we do have some ways to get him in play faster, there is always the chance that we don’t get to play him in some games because we didn’t draw what we needed.

While not the most efficient aristocrat Commander, I still think that there is room to play around with, especially for a lower powered deck that isn’t aiming for too much, provided you don’t have the Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood infinite combo.

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

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual