Persistent Specimen

Creature — Skeleton

{2}{B}: Return this from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (14)

K4nkato on death by 1000 papercuts

4 months ago

Some thoughts:

1) Troll of Khazad-dum should be in some of your land slots to fix your mana. He should be fetching Geothermal Bog

2) The deck doesn't have a timely win condition. I ran some test games with your list against Goblin Combo, Grixis Affinity and Mono Blue Faeries. If a creature deck plays out a creature every turn then your removal absolutely runs them over at first, but there comes a point around turn 7 or 8 where you simply run out of cards. There's no draw cards in this list. It can wipe every card drawing Ninja, Faerie and Myr that hits the table but those decks will draw an addition 2, 3, even 5 cards over the game. Faeries wins out by holding all their Ninjas until the middle game, casting Of One Mind for full price to pull ahead, then casting a single Ninja and attacking into an empty board. Goblins wins by doing nothing until they have the whole combo in their hand / graveyard then they just win on the spot. Affinity draws cards until they can play two/four Myr Retrievers in one turn and defend them with Metallic Rebuke.

Fang Dragon costing seven mana puts him too far into the future to cast as a timely threat. By the time this deck reaches seven lands your opponent will have a removal spell, counter spell or other answer waiting for him. Gurmag Angler is big but most top decks can answer him. Thorn of the Black Rose refills your hand if you can watch the throne, but attacking for 1 isn't a reasonable clock.

I think Ichor Drinker is a good choice for the deck. It gives you a reasonable early turn play & some recursion post-board wipe, but I wonder if something like Nested Shambler, Persistent Specimen or Putrid Goblin would be a stronger choice for a threat. They naturally replace themselves on their own.

3) You aren't running enough support for You Are Already Dead in my opinion. I'd love to brew a deck built around these removal spells but they need a lot of support going for them. Someone else has recommended Crypt Rats but if you're looking for an interesting card with a lot of potential, have you considered Cuombajj Witches? One damage to any target, then you immediately pick it off. Fits the deck, provides a win condition, etc.

Crow_Umbra on Totentanz, Kazoo Kid

7 months ago

I agree with lhetrick13, that you could likely focus the majority of your cuts in your creature section. I think another area of focus for potential cuts would lower impact reanimation effects, mostly because this deck wants to make lots of rat tokens. Since you will be making lots of disposable bodies, you don't really need to invest much in single-target reanimation effects.

Also, I think you might want to swap Talisman of Impulse for Talisman of Indulgence. Probably just a mix up in the card selection menu.

Suggestions for potential cuts:

• Gnat Miser - Reducing opponents' hand size by 1 isn't super impactful in the grand scheme of a game, especially with how commonly (over)played Reliquary Tower & Thought Vessel can be, depending on metas.

• Persistent Specimen - Basically another Reassembling Skeleton, which it looks like you might've also removed from the list.

• Burnished Hart - Yes, it can self sac to grab you 2 basics, but that costs 6 mana total to cast & activate. Could maybe even be replaced with another 2 mana rock like Mind Stone, or maybe even Cursed Mirror, which can copy one of your rats for additional utility.

• Murderous Rider - Doesn't really fit the theme of the deck beyond being a removal spell. Could likely be replaced with another instant like Infernal Grasp or Baleful Mastery if you needed the additional removal.

• Unearth - Single target reanimation. Doesn't seem like it will do too much, especially since you want to mostly sac rat tokens, and already have a fairly high creature count.

• Phyrexian Reclamation - Similar line of reasoning as Unearth. It feels like you have more than enough creatures to keep casting, so trying to reanimate doesn't make as much sense here.

• Grave Pact - Great card, but feels overly redundant with Dictate of Erebos, which has the benefit of surprising opponents with Flash.

• Diabolic Tutor - I think you can probably replace this with Pact of the Serpent

Those are the most obvious cuts I can suggest at the moment. I think it would be helpful if you take some time to tag the cards in your deck, and what roles they play. Tagging helps me better visualize my categories and helps me decide on cuts and swaps.

If you want to aggro swarm your opponents with Rats, I'd suggest considering Rising of the Day as a haste anthem so your swarms can, well, swarm ASAP. I'd also recommend checking out Cover of Darkness to give all of your little Rats some Evasion, otherwise they will get chump-blocked to death. Ogre Battledriver might also be worth a look, especially since it can buff up your 1/1 rats, and give them haste. Ogre Battledriver has made itself at home in a couple of my aggro token decks for that reason.

My final suggestion is to hone in on if you want this to be an Aggro deck first, with the option to combo out, or if you want this to primarily be a combo deck with Aggro as a "Plan B" to fall back on. Determining that primary focus for yourself will also help guide some of the cuts you make.

Best of luck!

legendofa on Golgari Skelly Bobs

8 months ago

Welcome to the club, Nezkul! I always get excited when I see a Skeleton deck.

To offer some specifics on wallisface's tips, the planeswalkers don't offer too much to your plan. Garruk, Cursed Huntsman in particular doesn't pull his weight in this deck, at 6 mana for either a couple of expendable bodies or some removal and draw. (Don't rely on a planeswalker's ultimate; unless your deck is loaded with proliferate effects or very hard control, more often than not you're not going to reach it.) Lolth, Spider Queen is a little better, since your Skeletons can be easily reclaimed. Still, though, it's primary function is as a draw engine, so maybe Phyrexian Arena or some "burst" draw like Village Rites would work better.

For removal, Hero's Downfall is more flexible than Murder, and has been reprinted enough that it's very affordable. I don't see your creatures getting more than maybe 3-4 toughness on a good day, so Grim Contest might not be the best option. There's lots of pretty good removal at 2 mana, so that is a potential switch. Prey Upon needs either Skeletal Swarming or Death Baron to be fully useful, so switching it for Bone Shards might work better.

Persistent Specimen is a decent 1-mana skeleton, as is Rimebound Dead if you can find some Snow lands.

Above all, have fun!

VesuvanDoppelbanger on Rakdos Aggro

1 year ago

Looks spicy! I think Persistent Specimen could be good here.

hybridv21 on Budget Mono Black Skeletons

1 year ago

If you're not worried about costs, Mutavault and Faceless Haven are both options for you to up your land count, certainly a better option than Persistent Specimen

senorex on Meren (becoming) cEDH

1 year ago

DreadKhan what i forgot to say: Yes Hulk is my wincon. But its hard to get out all the pieces at once! Sometimes i get out my hulk and there are no payoffs/positive infinite mana for my combo i dig out. What i try to find: Persistent Specimen/Reassembling Skeleton + Sifter of Skulls/Pitiless Plunderer What i also need to add is: Phyrexian Altar

KBK7101 on Le coq est mort... (Syrix, Carrier of the Flame)

1 year ago

Persistent Specimen, Bloodghast and Skyclave Shade are some more creatures that are similar to Reassembling Skeleton in case you want/need any more of that kind of effect. I have a Tormod, the Desecrator deck that has a similar gameplan to this one so this looks really good to me!

Triton on Syr Konrad

1 year ago

I love Syr Konrad! I recently built him and I’m super excited to test the deck out! I’d highly recommend cards like Reassembling Skeleton and Persistent Specimen. If you have the money, Bloodghast, Nether Traitor, and Gravecrawler are also really good cards!