Shadows of the Past

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed 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
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Shadows of the Past

Enchantment

Whenever a creature dies, scry 1. (Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card on the bottom of your library.)

: Each opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life. Activate this ability only if there are four or more creature cards in your graveyard.

Shield_of_Aiur on Minthara Sacrifice Machine

5 months ago

I've run decks like this before (albeit with green as well), they can sometimes get pretty tough to edit or improve once you make your initial roster. I can't help you choose what to swap in/out or with what, especially since this isn't a color combo I'm 100% familiar running, but I have some recommendations to expand your maybeboard...

Overall, Daxos the Returned would be a good way to take additional advantage of and further feed your experience counters, though I'm unsure if it fits the deck strategy itself 1:1.

There are any number of cards that can take advantage of a sacrifice engine, some mainstays in decks I made a while back (and since scrapped) would be Smothering Abomination, Sifter of Skulls, Blood Artist, and Zulaport Cutthroat, though countless more exist for sure, and these are all single cards.

I also would point you towards "Emerge" cards (such as Distended Mindbender), co-opting your opponent to sacrifice things as well (such as with Voldaren Pariah  Flip, Rankle's Prank, etc), and even some stat balloons like Elenda, the Dusk Rose (or DIY a stat balloon with Sadistic Glee).

Personally, some good supporting cards might be Shadows of the Past, Black Market, Moonlit Wake, and Inheritance, though these are just some examples of directions you could go in.

Lastly, I encourage you to take a look at some of the more recent sets in general, especially Wild of Eldraine's "Bargain" mechanic. It might have a good amount of synergy here.

legendofa on List of Cards Named After Sets

9 months ago

Shadows of the Past is apparently an Arena special set or something. Does that count?

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/mtg-arena/shadows-of-the-past-card-list-and-schedule

Dudeguy92man on Black Blink

2 years ago

Tainted AEther sounds dirrrrrrty with Balthor. Love it.

With 31 lands, stats tells us you'll only probably draw 3.5 lands by turn 4, meaning you'll usually miss a land drop in your first 4 turns. 36 lands puts you at 4.01 lands by turn 4. With many of your mill spells, and commander being at 4 CMC, you'll probably be a turn behind every game.

I recommend cutting some cards with little synergy, like Shadows of the Past and Dark Ritual. Then adding a handful more lands, and a few mana rocks to speed things up, some draw to connect the cards together, and then a bunch more mill. Your deck wont work at all without a graveyard, you gotta get some things in there! Stitcher's Supplier would go well with all your sac outlets.

I hope something in this helps you

aok1313 on MagicalHacker - List of All Free Value Cards

2 years ago

I feel like Black Market should go on this list since it spits black mana forever at you for just seeing a creature die. This leads into similar cards like Ashes of the Abhorrent, Grave Betrayal, Moonlit Wake, Revel in Riches, Shadows of the Past, to name a few of my favorites in this vein

MrKillStar on Syr Konrad EDH

3 years ago

Lhurgyof - I would personally keep those cards away from Syr Konrad and use them in deck with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth , Vilis, Broker of Blood , etc... also from the new set: Profane Transfusion (I know this is few months old comment, so you probably know about it already).

nieds - I see you already got a lot of really good cards, I'll just type some of them that I cut out since they're kinda meh in this kind of deck below. Anyway, you can check my Syr Konrad's deck here: For the Void. Im still switching few cards, explaining why I chose every card in the deck description, etc. I decided to go with mix of reanimator+aristocrats with several infinite combos. So I would welcome any feedback aswell and you might get some inspiration right there! :)

Some cards I would cut and why:

1) Loxodon Warhammer - is good in voltron / attack based decks, but here it looks like a random card that can gives you some life back (which black/other artifacts can do just better than lifelink artifact), but for 6 mana its meh. You could replace it with Shadowspear , which is three times mana cheaper and provides you with another utility ability. Or simply Bontu's Monument as another pseudo mana rock that also gives you a bit of life.
2) Sensei's Divining Top - I know SDT is amazing on its own, but I wouldnt personally bother with it, unless you would go for the Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top combo. I would switch it for either Viscera Seer (as another free sac outlet), or my choice for my deck was Shadows of the Past (with any infinite creature generator+sac and Bolas's Citadel, you can just "tutor" and cast whatever you want from top of your deck - think I explained it in my deck's description already or I add it sometime later).
3) Painful Quandary - Again, good card, just doesnt fit that well in my opinion. Goes well with Mindcrank and Archfiend of Despair but thats probably about it. I would rather put it in some discard focused deck. Instead of this, card like Morality Shift would be really cool for sure. Or cards like Forever Young / Gravepurge / Death Denied to proc Syr Konrad's ability and recast them with Bolas's Citadel + another card draw sources. Or you could also stick to enchantments liie Mortuary / Haunted Crossroads (parts of my infinite combos).
4) From planeswalkers I would personally keep only Liliana of the Dark Realms (to help with land drops and deck thining) and Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools (creates more tokens than Lilianas, decent card-draw and punish opponents for letting you -10 him). Other Lilianas are not bad for sure, just either slow or not that fascinating as they seems to be. Karns are just out of place.

Cards I would put in for sure:

1) Tortured Existence - even on its own, it triggers Syr Konrad's ability twice and only for everytime! As you might already know, I use it with Phyrexian Altar and Desecrated Tomb to make infinite etb/die/sac triggers.
2) Bog Witch - discarding (creature) cards to trigger Syr Konrad's ability; is basically Dark Ritual on a stick which you could use to Reanimate / Animate Dead / Victimize right after. Also is 1/1, so another target for your Skullclamp .
3) Doom Whisperer - big good stuff with ability to filter your deck and put creatures directly from your library into the graveyard.
4) Haunted Crossroads - even on its own, its great way to get your creatures back (on top of library for Bolas's Citadel), next to Phyrexian Reclamation .
5) Emergence Zone - simply to give your spells Flash when you would need them, really nice utility land (similar is Winding Canyons but only for creatures, so eh).
6) Malakir Rebirth  Flip - cheap way to "protect" your creature, triggering Syr Konrad's ability or another land if needed.
7) Tainted Strike - absolute game winning beast card with Syr Konrad and either any creature/sac generator, boardwipe with 10+ creatures on board, or discard/mill cards.
8) Diabolic Intent - you got plenty of token generators, so this is just mana-cheap tutor.
9) Feed the Swarm - more ways to deal with enchantments and creatures.

I hope some of this will help and you like some of those cards! :)

MrKillStar on

3 years ago

Some good stuff! :D

First of all, I would probably just cut Gauntlet of Power/Caged Sun - mana doubling is nice, but for that mana and before it pays for itself, you could already cast some threatining spells/creatures. Black itself has already a lot of cards that can ramp pretty fast (+Gauntlet will double the mana of opponent's swamps aswell) and this doesnt really looks like some big token army deck to benefit from the +1/+1 buffs.
I'm personally not a big fan of Unstable Obelisk. Permanent removal in black is nice for sure, but for 7 (10) mana its kinda expensive I would say. And as a mana rock, its not a good one, since it wont give you . You should have already more than enough mana, especially with Crypt Ghast, Nirkana, other cheap mana rocks and a lot of lands (copyign Cabal Coffers ftw), you could just play Feed the Swarm as another enchantment/creature removal.

Some upgrades?

1) Tormod, the Desecrator - there is just few cards that trigger Tormod, but I would recommend Tortured Existence with Phyrexian Altar so you can make infinite etb/die/sac triggers. With something like Desecrated Tomb, which is just another option instead of Tormod, you can make infinite tokens aswell. I run that combo in my Syr Konrad's For the Void deck and it works great.
2) Bolas's Citadel - Citadel is just sooooo good :D You already have Gray Merchant of Asphodel + few free sac outlets (Ashnod's Altar/Woe Strider). If you add Mortuary, you can make infinite etb of Merchant, sac, life-gain and infinite colorless mana. With Phyrexian Altar instead of Ashnod's Altar, Haunted Crossroads is also an option (sac Merchant with Phyrexian altar to pay for Haunted Crossroads cost). Its kinda junky combo, but hey, as long as it works... :D
3) Twilight Prophet - I really like this card, I'll need to somehow make a space for it in my Syr Konrad deck aswell. In combination of the previous engine - Desecrated Tomb + Phyrexian Altar + Tortured Existence and Shadows of the Past, you can "tutor" for anything in your library to get the best value out of Twilight Prophet. Especially if you run aristocrat cards aswell. Also, Shadows of the Past with the engine is 10/10 for the Bolas's Citadel.
4) Pawn of Ulamog - little innocent dude that can go infinite with Nether Traitor and Phyrexian Altar, which would give you another source of inifnite etb/die/sac/mana of any color.

PaulMuadDib on Vito, Thorn of Dusk Rose

3 years ago

You are going to need more than 12 lands. Whenever I build a deck, I always start with 40 lands and then for every 3 pieces of ramp, which for a mono black deck would be a mana rock or swamp doubler or ritual spell like Dark Ritual, I remove a land.
Please retune the deck with 12 non-land mana sources and 36 swamps for starters and you can think of non-swamp lands you want to include later.
My suggestions for those sources are any 12 of the following, depending on your budget:
Sol Ring
Star Compass
Commander's Sphere
Crypt Ghast
Charcoal Diamond
Soldevi Adnate
Songs of the Damned
Worn Powerstone
Dark Ritual
Everflowing Chalice
Ashnod's Altar
Cathodion
Guardian Idol
Hedron Archive
Mind Stone
Magnifying Glass
Millikin
Prismatic Lens
Cabal Coffers <- could replace a swamp
Bubbling Muck
Pristine Talisman <- defiantly want that

After that you've got the commander, which takes up 1 card slot, so that leaves you with 51 cards to choose from.

I see the bare beginnings of either an aristocrats or a reanimator deck. In my opinion you should push more for aristocrats. It can draw you tons of cards and gain you quite a lot of life. There's no harm in keeping some reanimation spells in there though.

You want a good number of sacrifice outlets. I haven't heard of what a hard number should be so I'd shoot for at least 5. Here's a list of some that I remember off hand:
Witch's Cauldron
Vampiric Rites
Ashnod's Altar
Infernal Tribute <- has a funny synergy with Spine of Ish Sah
Gnawing Zombie
Altar of Dementia
Attrition
Blood Bairn
Bloodflow Connoisseur
Bloodsoaked Altar
Bloodthrone Vampire
Carnage Altar
Carrion Feeder
Corpse Blockade
Culling Dais
Dark Privilege
Diamond Valley
Disciple of Griselbrand
Gutless Ghoul
Lampad of Death's Vigil
Mind Slash
Spawning Pit
Phyrexian Plaguelord

For this strategy you'll need recurring creatures or token generators
Ghoulcaller Gisa
Reassembling Skeleton
Endless Cockroaches
Tenacious Dead
Nim Devourer
Bridge from Below
Open the Graves
Sanitarium Skeleton
Gravecrawler

value
Pitiless Plunderer
Bolas's Citadel

Lifegain
Blood Artist is a staple
Plunge into Darkness is something you might want for the pure lifegain of 3 per creature you sacrifice. Not sure that you want to use the "exile a bunch of your deck" too often.
Bontu's Monument
Corrupt
Drain Life
Shadows of the Past

reanimation
Living Death
No Rest for the Wicked
Sepulchral Primordial
Zombify
Rise from the Grave
Victimize
Apprentice Necromancer
Call of the Death-Dweller

spot removal/board wipes
Mutilate
Damnation
Defile
Hero's Downfall
Vona's Hunger

draw
Read the Bones
Sign in Blood
Damnable Pact
Smothering Abomination
Ransack the Lab
Minions' Murmurs
Harvester of Souls

and so forth. I'd look through some already built aristocrats decks to see exactly whether you want to take that strategy.

Oh yeah, for utility lands I'd choose any of the following within your price range:
Leechridden Swamp
Bojuka Bog
Reliquary Tower
Cabal Stronghold
Volrath's Stronghold
Phyrexian Tower
Myriad Landscape
Terrain Generator
Geier Reach Sanitarium

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