Legendary Creature — Demon

Ob Nixilis, Unshackled

Mana value6EDHREC#3,762

Build with Wyrm Build manually Card details

The Commander

Flying, trample

Whenever an opponent searches their library, that player sacrifices a creature of their choice and loses 10 life.

Whenever another creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Ob Nixilis.

Guide

Gameplan

Ob Nixilis is a mono-black punisher/grindy beats commander. You leverage his fetch-land tax to drain opponents and his death-trigger growth to become an evasive 9-power threat, while a sacrifice/aristocrats and forced-tutor shell turns the board into fuel. You win by clocking with a flying, trampling beater backed by recursion, removal, and resource denial.

Strengths

Punishes the many tutors and fetchlands common in higher-power pods (10 life and a sacrifice each search).
Snowballs huge with flying and trample, quickly becoming a one- or two-hit commander.
Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, removal, and recursion in the format.
Synergizes naturally with aristocrats and forced-sacrifice effects since any creature death grows him.

Weaknesses

His punish trigger only fires on opponent searches, which is inconsistent and table-dependent.
Six mana and no built-in protection make him easy removal bait and prone to commander tax.
Mono-black struggles with persistent enchantments, flyers, and lacks card-draw efficiency outside of life payment.
No evasion versus chump-blockers without trample being respected, and edict effects can be turned against you too.

Key Cards

Maddening Hex — Forces opponents to search libraries, directly triggering Ob's drain-and-sacrifice punishment.
Opposition Agent — Lets you exploit opponent tutors while Ob simultaneously punishes the very same searches.
Aven Mindcensor / Leonin Arbiter style hatebearers — Encourage or restrict searching to weaponize Ob's tax against the table.
Dictate of Erebos — Stacks with Ob to grind the board through edict-style sacrifice and feeds his +1/+1 counters.
Whispersilk Cloak — Grants unblockable and shroud, protecting Ob and turning him into a reliable evasive finisher.
Grave Pact — Forces creature deaths that both shrink opponents and grow Ob each time.

Upgrade Path

Lean into either the punish plan with Maddening Hex, Opposition Agent, Aven Mindcensor, and Archive Trap, or the aristocrats plan with Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, and reliable sac outlets like Viscera Seer. Add protection (Swiftfoot Boots, Whispersilk Cloak, Lightning Greaves) and ramp (Cabal Coffers, Nykthos) so Ob lands earlier and sticks. Cap it with a black X-spell drain (Torment of Hailfire) as a deterministic backup win.

Core Cards

The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.

Win Conditions

▸Commander damage from an oversized flying, trampling Ob Nixilis.
▸Incremental life loss from search triggers and aristocrats drain effects.
▸Edict/sacrifice lock with Grave Pact effects shrinking the board to nothing.
▸Classic mono-black finishers like Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate.

Archetypes

Punisher/Stax — His search-punish trigger pairs with effects that force or tax library searches to drain opponents.
Aristocrats — Every creature death adds a counter, so sac outlets and death triggers fuel his growth.
Voltron — Flying and trample plus counters make him a natural carrier for evasion and protection equipment.
Mono-Black Control — Black removal, edicts, and recursion grind the board while Ob ends games.