Obzedat, Ghost Council - MTG Arena Brawl Play Guide

Intro

Obzedat, Ghost Council is an Orzhov (black/white) lifegain deck. It includes ways to gain life repeatedly, ways to drain your opponent's life, and payoffs for doing either of those things. Being in both black and white, it includes plenty of ways of removing your opponent's stuff by either destroying or exiling. Once Obzedat is in play, it's very hard to remove, as it is usually exiled when it's not your turn.

Here's a video showing how this deck plays on Arena.

The decklist I use on MTG Arena can be found on Moxfield.

Starting hand

The best starting hand includes a way to gain life, a payoff for that lifegain, and some kind of removal. This keeps your options open during the first few turns.

Early game

The first few turns are all about setup. You want to try to get repeatable lifegain available along with something that can benefit from that lifegain. It's going to take a while to get the mana to cast Obzedat, so you want to remove any threats and try to build up a board. Early lifegain really helps against aggro decks, and any enchantments or artifacts will usually stick around longer than creatures.

Late game

Once you have some setup pieces in place and think the opponent doesn't have instant-speed interaction, you can find a time to get Obzedat in play. Each time Obzedat enters, the opponent loses 2 life, so it's good to get it going as soon as possible. Some opponents forget that Obzedat has haste if it's entering from exile, so you can use that to your advantage to get 5 damage in whenever possible. Some other curve-toppers include Kaya, Intangible Slayer, Bolas's Citadel, or Vein Ripper.

Win-cons

There are a few ways this deck can win:

1. Combat damage from creatures that have grown due to lifegain.
2. Draining your opponent from Obzedat or other drain effects, like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose.
3. Combos that cycle gaining life and draining your opponent, such as Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Exquisite Blood.

Bad matchups

Some aggro decks or very fast green ramp decks can go quicker that we can handle, which can be a challenge if you don't have enough removal. Counterspell-heavy decks or discard decks can also cause problems if we can't get enough mana for Obzedat.