An Erebos goodstuff deck aiming to ramp to obscene mana, lifegain to the point of inevitability with Exquisite Blood and Whip of Erebos and draw through the deck with Erebos and Necropotence, playing large mono black threats as well as re-using opponents creatures with cards like Chainer, Dementia Master and The Eldest Reborn. The real wincons are life-drain effects such as Torment of Hailfire but the creatures punch for a lot of damage too.
The deck is divided into seven main areas: ramp, card draw (which in black means almost inevitably paying life), life gain (to offset the life you pay), large threats which have to be answered, removal, tutors and win-cons.
Ramp
Card Draw
Life Gain
Threats
The threats can be divided into three main areas. They all have one thing in common though - they are very impactful and demand to be answered as soon as possible.
Big Beaters
These are just big creatures that really cause your opponents problems if not dealt with quickly.
Big Removal Creatures
These either kill when they enter the battlefield, remove creatures on demand, or stop your opponent from attacking you.
Advantage Creatures
These either give you card advantage, card draw or ramp, lifegain, or allow you to poach opponents creatures (or return your creatures) from the graveyard.
Removal
Many of the big threats also double as removal but you also have a number of smaller creatures with Edict effects, some spot removal, and quite a few board wipes. The disproportionately higher number of board wipes is because you play plenty of creatures and effects that can plunder your opponents graveyards, so you need to keep them filled.
Tutors
Mainly for finding your wincons, but also good for finding things like Cabal Coffers.
- Beseech the Queen - this can always find your Coffers, but note the land restriction will stop you from finding really expensive and impactful cards until late in the game.
- Diabolic Tutor
- Mastermind's Acquisition - depending on your play group you could use the second option to look for another card from a sideboard but otherwise this is just another copy of Diabolic Tutor.
Wincons
Mana Base
A deck like this requires predominantly swamps (there are 23) although these have been changed to snow-covered versions to work with Dead of Winter.
There are probably more non-swamp lands in the deck than is advisable, so Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth makes sure these don't hamstring you, especially ones like Cabal Coffers and Dark Depths which don't tap for mana on their own. The non-swamp lands are as follows:
- Cabal Coffers, Cabal Stronghold, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Myriad Landscape - ramp lands
- Leechridden Swamp - counts as a swamp and gives a small bit of life drain and gain with Exquisite Blood.
- Memorial to Folly - brings back a creature from your graveyard if you don't have one of your recursion creatures in play.
- Shizo, Death's Storehouse - allows you to attack with impunity with your legendary creatures.
- Reliquary Tower - Means you can draw as much as you want with Erebos and Necropotence.
- Phyrexian Tower - in a pinch you can use it to sac an unimportant creature to ramp out a bigger one, but it's more there to sac creatures with enter / exit triggers so you can bring them back later (Kokusho, the Evening Star, Grave Titan, Gray Merchant of Asphodel etc.)
- Ghost Quarter - To destroy opponents' critical lands.
- Vesuva - to copy Cabal Coffers or any other land you need.
- Thespian's Stage - copies similarly to Vesuva and combos with Dark Depths.
- Dark Depths - the classic Legacy combo with Thespian's Stage to cheat in a 20/20 creature, or with the amount of mana this deck produces you can just pay to remove the counters.
Advice on Piloting the Deck:
- Be aware of over-using your life total. The deck does often require you to pay life to get ahead on card draw and board state, but be mindful that your opponents will throw all their creatures at you to stop you. If you drop under 20 life think seriously about whether you can still afford to pay life.
- Keep board wipes on standby. There are a lot in the deck and you will need them when your opponents are relentlessly attacking you. Don't be afraid to lose your own creatures to your wipes, as you do have the means to get them back later. Many of your bigger creatures will survive some of your wipes anyway.
- Think about when Erebos is or isn't a creature. Most of your board wipes give creatures -X/-X so watch out that you use these while he's not a creature so you don't lose him and have to recast him.
- Erebos is pretty resilient to removal as he is indestructible, not a creature most of the time, etc. Be aware that he can die to exile-based enchantment removal and worse still when a creature he can be targeted by Darksteel Mutation type effects or taken control of by an opponent. Vraska's Contempt can help out with the former situation but the latter is worse as he will stop you gaining life and is likely to not be a creature while under your opponent's control so won't be removed by your Vraska's Contempt, and mono black doesn't have any exile enchantment effects.
- Unless you're facing a lifegain deck that will stand up to your Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate finishers, it's not always necessary to even play Erebos. Necropotence does the card draw job even better and you can tutor for it if you need to.
- Mono black is weak on artifact and enchantment removal so you have a copy of Nevinyrral's Disk to tutor up for this. At one point I was also running a Meteor Golem for catch-all permanent removal.
- Be pragmatic about what you tutor for. It may be tempting to tutor for a big impactful creature but if you have a Cabal Coffers in play and a load of non-swamp lands, do the sensible thing and find Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or you'll suffer in the long run.
- Watch out for cards like Narset, Parter of Veils which restrict your card draw as the deck relies on that to a fair extent. Planeswalkers can be taken care of with Vraska's Contempt or with Intimidation you can often run some of your big creatures into them without being blocked.
- Bolas's Citadel doesn't work well with X value spells such as Torment of Hailfire, as with these, X has to be zero. If you see Torment on top, leave it to be drawn next turn and cast properly. The Citadel can also guarantee you play a land each turn so it's sometimes worth considering paying the life to play one or two cards off the top until you hit a land which you can play as your land drop for turn.
- Twilight Prophet is a really underrated card. In this deck, not only does it supply you with a chunk of lifegain each turn (which is usually significant considering the CMC of most of your spells), but it also draws you an extra card per turn. Protect it if you can with Lightning Greaves as its value will be obvious to your opponents after a couple of turns.
- Graveborn Muse can be a liability with Grave Titan, so be careful how many zombies you produce.
- Your wincons can be ruined by counterspells so try and use some of your impactful creatures to draw out counterspells first before you try a Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate.
