You've been there. That one guy who doesn't know how to not anger you. You want him to suffer. You want him and stupid Oloro Combo deck to kindly walk off a cliff. This is the deck you reach for, you reach for a GrandHussar special.
This is a deck all about punishment. Drew a card? BLAM! Killed a creature? BLAM! Gained life? BLAM! Nothing is outside the reach of this deck and the silliness it can and will pull off. So? How does it work?
Punish Life-gain Strategies!
Erebos, God of the Dead is more than just a pretty face. Between a draw engine and blocking their life gain, Erebos by himself should be in every mono black deck for that alone. Ignoring his impressive 5/7 Indestructible body. This is a card that will take over a gain, and ruin all sorts of plans.
Tainted Remedy is probably my favorite card in Magic Origins. Besides the great art by Izzy, the heart-wrenching moment in the story of how our favorite Necromancer came to be who she is, it also has the added benefit of doing what Erebos does about life gain and sending on a trip to Valuetown. Instead, they loose that much life. That means the Oloro player is loosing 2 life each upkeep on top of all the other life gain shenanigans.
Punish their greed!
Underworld Dreams is a mini Nekusar, a BBB enchantment that will punish any player who thinks themselves above the natural order of card draw, easily able to take 10 life off of a particularly greedy player. It also helps with our Devotion Win-Con, which I'll get to later, but keep this one in mind.
Along the same vein of thought, Sadistic Sacraament is easily the best three mana Sorcery in the deck. Sure, I could go find your combo and exile them, or I can pay seven more mana to go find fifteen cards and exile them. Getting to ten mana with this deck is not hard, and you'll find yourself having so much fun when you resolve this against the combo player, or the one guy who keeps bugging you.
Ob Nivilis Reignited might be my favorite card from Battle for Zendikar. It does it all, it draws us a card, it kills a creature, and sometimes, we get to say 'You loose.' to someone with his nasty emblem effect. For those playing along at home, that makes the effected player loose two life when anyone draws a card. You'll soon see that no one likes this effect on them, so keeping him at 8+ is a great political move as well.
Making players discard is one surefire way to make sure they know you don't like them. To that end, Cao Cao, Lord of Wei and Thoughtcaster Lamia do a hell of a job removing cards from player's hands. Cao Cao does it as a tap effect before combat, and the Lamia does it when it or another enchantment enters the battlefield. Nasty stuff, really.
Now for us to get greedy... With mana.
Now, I am a horrible person. You see, I'm running things like Cabal Coffers, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and Crypt of Agadeem, but also the combo of Extraplanar Lens + Snow-Covered Swamp
, giving us a ton of mana without letting our enemies benefit (probably). Add ons include Dark Ritual, Sol Ring, Thaumatic Compass
, Bog Witch, Liliana of the dark realm, Crypt Ghast, Black Market, Magus of the Coffers, and the big gal herself, Nirkana Revenant
What are our win conditions?
I'm glad you asked, hypothetical reader. You see, this is a deck all about draining our enemies. Sapping them for every little thing. Polluted Bonds being my personal favorite, as at a certain point, they can't cast their spells or risk being wiped out by things like Kokusho, the Evening Star or Shadows of the Past, a moderately sized Profane Command, a few Pestilence activations, Palace Siege on Dragons mode or even ya boy Grey Merchant of Asphodel showing up to say hi. My personal favorite, however, is killing them with Kamigawa all-star, Measure of Wickedness, which is basically the best not-Curse of all time. If they can't get a card into their graveyard, they take 8 damage at their end step. Think about it, a fifth of their starting life total gone to some uncommon from Saviors of Kamigawa! Their salty tears are a nice refreshment to the sweet taste of victory. Obviously, you need to set off this trap first, so I hope you brought some sort of sacrifice outlet.
In short, this is a deck that is best in a one-on-one or highly political setting. This won't win on turn one, but will crush them on turn eleven. It isn't fast, but it doesn't need to be fast. As always, thank you all for taking the time to read this, I hope to put up a few more decks soon, so like, comment, and subscribe.
