The Ghost Council once had a huge success managing a circus (Ghost Dad's Circus Stampede) and went into retirement for a while. Now, the Council (and some of its old associates) decides to retire and go hunting with Garruk instead!
A reincarnation of my first successful standard (INN-RTR block standard) deck: Ghost Dad's Circus Stampede!
Also, check out my other successful deck that took away many Top 8s at FNM, Hell Gate: Vizkopa!
This color combination gives you removals for pretty much anything and everything in the format while being able to gain a lot of life and swing back hard.
The deck stays safe in aggro/burn matchups by relying on Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix in the early game to start gaining life a little at a time until Obzedat, Ghost Council or other lifelinkers hit the field and start gaining you even more life while swinging back hard at the same time. Burn decks don't have a hard time dealing with bursts of lifegain like Sphinx's Revelation and Blood Baron of Vizkopa, but they can't answer every single tiny life gain trigger that this deck will have many of. This deck answers the monsters decks by running a strong suite of removals while by itself puts on pressure on those decks and preventing them from going on an all-out offensive. The deck keeps pressure against control by running hard-to-remove threats, hand disruption, and draw engine such as Underworld Connections to eventually run them out of answers. Great coverage. Tons of threats. Stabilizes really well.
Creatures
Sylvan Caryatid - Our sole means of acceleration. A well-protected dork that doubles as a great blocker against aggro while hexproof protects it from any spot removals. Also helps with mana fixing that we will need a whole lot of in a three-color deck.
Obzedat, Ghost Council - Our CEO. Nightmare to deal with as control (especially the non-black variants). Hits hard, blocks hard (if needed). Gains you life every turn.
Blood Baron of Vizkopa - Extremely well-protected creature in my black-heavy meta. Gains you decent burst of life at a time.
Scavenging Ooze - Great 2-drop that works well at shutting down opposing Whip of Erebos while also gaining you life and getting bigger at the same time. Great against midrange decks and other creature-heavy decks with plenty of things to eat after having them eat our removals.
Courser of Kruphix - Our bread and butter in aggro matchup and control matchup alike. Gains us life against aggro and cards against control. Synergizes very well with scrylands and turns Underworld Connections into an even better draw engine. Sizeable toughness also makes it an excellent blocker.
Sin Collector - A hedge against removal-heavy decks that almost always gets something out of everything else. At worst, he lets you see your opponent's hand to get more information.
Desecration Demon - Still a very efficient creature with stupid power-to-cmc ratio and a manageable drawback. Puts your opponent on a very fast clock and is big enough to block most things.
Noncreature Spells
Abrupt Decay - Kills almost anything aggro plays. Kills Detention Sphere,
Chained to the Rocks
, Underworld Connections, and other annoying permanents.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion - Another finisher. She wins games with her overwhelming amount of tokens. Also serves as emergency sweeper if needed.
Garruk, Apex Predator
- Our game warden! High cost but a planeswalker with 4 abilities is nothing to scoff at (see: Jace, the Mind Sculptor). Rarely sees play but is a real threat once it does.
Underworld Connections - This card works insanely well with Courser of Kruphix, letting us dig through our deck very very quickly. This card is the key to winning monoblack and UWx control matchups.
Hero's Downfall - Very strong removal. Instant-speed kill spell that has no restrictions that has the perk of being able to stay in against control to deal with planeswalkers and any creatures they may side in.
Thoughtseize - Discard spell of choice. A preemptive pseudo-Counterspell for threats you don't want to deal with or answers you don't want coming at your threats.
Banishing Light - It's Oblivion Ring with a fixed rule text so people can't pull the infinite loop with it. Deals with things. And stuff.
Ultimate Price
- my meta is full of monocolored things so this is a very efficient removal to mainboard.
Sideboard
Putrefy - More kill spells against creature-based decks while serving a purpose as an artifact removal, however rare they may be nowadays.
Golgari Charm - Anti-control card to counter Supreme Verdict and other kill spells. Also comes in against monoblue decks since it shuts down Master of Waves wombo. Also great against weenies and enchantment creatures. Very very versatile and there are very few matchups where this isn't useful.
Sin Collector - Another anti-control card that can still come in against control-based midrange. Grabs a card and puts a body on the field.
Thoughtseize - More to come in against control and midrange decks and decks that run hard-to-answer threats such as Blood Baron of Vizkopa, Obzedat, Ghost Council, or Gods. The fact that we can answer everything in the format with mainboard cards warrants putting this in the sideboard instead of main.
Lifebane Zombie - Great against GRx Monsters and white weenie/Selesnya Aggro matchups. Also hits Blood Baron of Vizkopa which we do have trouble dealing with.
Thoughtseize - one more to complete the playset against monsters and control.
Blood Baron of Vizkopa - Comes in against certain aggro and control and black decks.
Banishing Light - Because in certain matchups like control and monsters, having a third is just better.
Duress - Control and burn matchups
Nyx-Fleece Ram - Great against aggro and burn. If this comes down turn 2 against them, they're gonna have a baaaaaaaaaaad time!
