commander · Doctor Doom, King of Latveria
Doom Prevails (MSC).
A Grixis Villains deck built on connive, discard, and life drain. Doctor Doom, King of Latveria punishes opponents every time you pitch a land and hands out connive triggers, while Loki, the Deceiver copies your Villains for extra attackers and card draw.
The Commanders
Doom Prevails is a Grixis Villains deck built around connive. Nearly every creature here has the Villain type, and the deck wants to loot through cards, drop counters on its threats, and bleed the table out a few life at a time. It plays like a grindy midrange deck that turns card selection into board growth and damage.
Doctor Doom, King of Latveria rewards you for throwing away lands. Whenever you discard one or more land cards, each opponent loses two life, and connive gives you plenty of chances to pitch the lands you no longer need. At the start of combat he hands a Villain menace and a connive trigger, which fixes your draws and grows the creature at the same time. In the late game, a flooded hand becomes a steady drain on the whole table.
Loki, the Deceiver is the second commander and the go-wide engine. When he attacks he copies another Villain you control as a tapped, attacking token, so you get a second body swinging for free before it disappears at end of turn. Copy your biggest Villain or one with a strong combat trigger and the attack hits much harder than the board looks. Whenever your Villains connect, you draw, so his tokens pay you back in cards.
Key Cards
Baron Strucker, HYDRA Overlord
Strucker cuts a mana off your Villain spells and lets a Villain connive whenever another one enters. That connive loots you toward your best cards and drops a counter when you pitch a nonland, so your board grows just by playing creatures. He is one of the cheapest ways to keep the connive engine humming, and the discount matters in a deck full of Villains.
Iron Monger, Sadistic Tycoon
Iron Monger turns each connive into a team-wide pump: every time a creature connives, he puts a +1/+1 counter on every Villain you control. With Doom, Strucker, and the rest triggering connive over and over, that is a lot of counters spread across a wide board. He flies too, so he carries some of those counters over the top himself.
Kang, Temporal Tyrant
Kang connives every time he attacks, which fuels the discard and counter plan. On top of that, whenever you draw your second card in a turn each opponent loses a life and you gain one. This deck draws extra cards constantly through connive and looting, so that drain fires most turns. He is a quiet clock that adds up while the rest of the board does the heavy lifting.
Madame Hydra
Madame Hydra makes a 2/1 menace Villain token every time you cast a Villain spell. Since most of your creatures are Villains, she builds a wide board on her own and feeds every payoff that counts Villains. Those menace tokens are hard to block profitably, and they give Loki more copy targets and Iron Monger more bodies to load counters onto.
Endless Ranks of HYDRA
This sorcery makes a menace Villain token for each opponent, then returns itself from the graveyard whenever your commander enters or attacks for a small cost. In a three or four player game that is a pile of bodies, and the recursion means you keep buying it back all game. It refills the board after a wipe and keeps the Villain count high for your typal payoffs.
Black Market Connections
Black Market Connections pays life for whatever you need each turn: a Treasure, a card, or a 3/2 changeling body. In a deck that drains opponents faster than it loses its own life, spending life for resources is a fair trade. The changeling counts as a Villain, so it turns on your typal cards while the Treasures and cards keep your bigger turns fueled.
How to Play
Get a commander down and start conniving. Early connive triggers smooth your draws, pitch excess lands into Doom's drain, and stack counters through Iron Monger. Build a wide Villain board with Madame Hydra and Endless Ranks of HYDRA, then use Loki to copy your best attacker for a lopsided swing. You win a few different ways: chip life away with Doom and Kang, go tall with counters, or go wide and crash in behind menace. Keep the connive engine running, protect your commanders, and let the incremental drain close the game while the board pressures everyone at once.
