Obzedat, Ghost Mafia

Welcome back readers to the EDH corner. Today, we will tackle the poll options from the MTG209 group about which general from Gatecrash I will be working with. I would like to take some time and thank the readers who voted for our decision. I hope to encourage more reader feedback in future articles. With that lets get into our winner, Obzdat, Ghost Council

Obzdat is a pretty fair creature in the realms of EDH. A 5/5 general is a decent sized threat without making him an overall attraction for negative attention. Obzdat's real strength lies in his two abilities. First, his bleed effect is highly annoying, but not crazy enough to get the table to turn on you. The fact that this ability triggers as a comes into play means we can abuse some blink effects in white to blip him in and out to get the ability to trigger multiple times. The second ability, however, is what makes Obzdat a deceptive powerhouse. Being able to blip out of existence until your next upkeep and gaining haste means that Obzdat can avoid all of your opponents mass removal and sorcery speed shenanigans and crack in after the board has been wiped. Add to that the bleed he brings in and well he is a pretty good control general. Players will have to constantly worry about Obzedat's blink and may burn removal better saved for one of your creatures.

In light of Obzedat, I feel this list should be a B/W punisher/bleeder list. Obzedat feels to me like a general that favors slow board control, slowing your opponents down, bleeding them out, and then finishing with a few concise strikes. The beauty of a list like what is being described is the fact that overall, the deck will not represent a consistent threat until it is so too late for any of the players to stabilize. This list can also be tuned to represent more of a rattlesnake type style. You can present a game board that makes it not nearly exciting or profitable to attack into. Through this use of turtling you can outlast opponents who's decks are much more powerful by simply making them regret or even question attacking you. The key is the ability to appear dangerous and not dangerous at the same time.

The following thread on MTGSalvation by forum poster capitacom has all the makings of a good Obzedat list

Capitacom plays quite a bit of scary stuff, but balances it out by playing a lot of seemingly fair cards like Blind Obedience, Bitterblossom, even Planar Collapse. This list embodies what Obzedat would look like as a deceptively powerful general.