When Ozhov first gained the ability "extort," I remember underestimating it as the weakest of the guild abilities. What I didn't realize is that extort hits ALL of your opponents, not just one. After doing a lot of research, extort became one of my favorite guild abilities, as it allowed me to win during ridiculous circumstances. I've even won games that involved a 3 vs. 1 scenario, merely because I was healing for more than they could deal in damage. This deck has changed many times; and I've made at least two or three versions of it.
This Ozhov deck was designed specifically for multiplayer games, though it can work well in one-on-one games too. It plays very defensively, with the goal of deterring your opponents from attacking long enough to drain all of their life totals to zero. It accomplishes this discouragement by punishing players whenever they attack you or by rendering their attacks pointless by gaining extreme amounts of life.
Strategy 1 - Building the Base
Your earliest turns will involve building a defensive wall around yourself as you prepare your extort triggers. Focus on building up your forces early on and don't sweat early-game damage.
Dutiful Thrull
is our main sacrificial lamb. Whenever someone attacks us, we block with and regenerate him. However, the reason that we have cards in the side board is just in case we are fighting a mono-color deck. If this is the case, switch the Dutiful Thrulls out for a set of
Order of the Stars
. Mana is a precious resource for this deck; and Order of the Stars is vastly better because he doesn't require that mana to take a hit for you.
The main deterrent of this deck is
High Priest of Penance
. When the Priest is on the board, most people will refrain from attacking you. The reason for this is because he threatens the safety of their permanents if he takes damage. If a player is bold enough to attack, block with the Priest and let him die. Upon his death, target and destroy whatever permanent is directly a threat to your deck, even if it isn't a creature. He is great for destroying pesky enchantments or artifacts that get in your way.
Strategy 2 - Paying the Piper
As I said before, don't sweat early game damage. Focus on getting our your extort creatures out first. Most of your extort creatures are intentionally 1 or 2 mana to cast. They include
Thrull Parasite
,
Tithe Drinker
,
Basilica Screecher
, and
Pontiff of Blight
.
Thrull Parasite
only serves the purpose of having an extort creature on turn 1 (We will not be using his tap effect).
Basilica Screecher
has extort and flying.
Tithe Drinker
serves two functions in this deck. While we will be extorting constantly with her, we can also drain additional life by hitting them with Lifelink (if they have no blockers).
Pontiff of Blight
is important for the late game. He provides all of our creatures with an additional instance of extort, which stacks with the existing extort abilities that creatures already have!
You will be tempted to cast all of the cards in your hands at once; but refrain from doing this. Playing this deck more slowly tends to do more damage. Make sure that you always focus on triggering extort as many times as you can. For example, let's say that you have 3 mana, one extort creature on the field, and a hand with
High Priest of Penance
and
Thrull Parasite
in it. Instead of casting both creatures for the three mana, cast the parasite first and pay one for the extort trigger. That way, you can extort on THIS turn and NEXT turn. This will keep you alive longer and do more damage in the long run.
Also, don't waste your time blocking attacks from your opponent if you know that you can gain more than that amount in life on the next turn. If you're going to heal for 8 life next turn, it makes no sense to block an attack that is only going to deal 6 damage. Keeping your extort creatures alive is far more important, as they will be keeping you alive.
Strategy Three - Altered Fighting Style
After setting up and supporting your defenses, there are two major creatures that will change how you will run your deck.
Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
has protection from creatures, which means that she can swing at opponents relentlessly. By the time she has the chance to hit the board, your opponents are likely low on life. This makes every hit of 4 damage even more menacing. She also further punishes your opponents by killing their creatures and giving you spirits. This means that, if they intend to hit you, it needs to count.
The other boss monster is
Athreos, God of Passage
, who allows you to be more reckless with the deck. Will your opponent give you back your dead creatures or will they pay more of their precious, remaining life (which becomes smaller and smaller with each turn)?
Strategy Four - Spare the Rod...
This deck is loaded with kill spells that specifically punish foes for attacking us. We should only use these on players who pose a threat to our defenses.
Go for the Throat
and
Tragic Slip
are ideal for killing most threats. I chose
Go for the Throat
for its low cost and because most of the creatures that you face will likely not be artifact creatures.
Tragic Slip
is amazing with
High Priest of Penance
, who you will likely allow to be killed anyway. It's also great for killing indestructible creatures, which pose a large threat to this deck.
Smite
was also a fun kill spell. When you a declare a blocker, you can cast this card in response to kill the attacker before damage is dealt. It's a nasty surprise to keep people from wanting to attack you while your mana is untapped.
I chose low cost spells because they are easier to stack multiple instances of Extort onto. We will be using most of our mana for that purpose.
If all else fails and if we are in serious trouble,
Merciless Eviction
acts as a means to clear the board and start over. The various options that it provides allow us to go after the specific type of permanents that are causing the problem.
Strategy Five - Bonuses and Supports
While all of this is fun, there are ways to make it even more enjoyable.
Bonds of Faith
serves two functions. On one hand, you can use it to pin down enemy creatures. On the other hand, it combos well with the
High Priest of Penance
, giving him more punch and a chance to survive combat. Remember, his effect kicks off only when he takes damage, not necessarily when he dies. If you use him to block "1/1"s or "2/2"s, he will still live and his effect will still trigger.
Would you like your Extort to do double its usual damage? Here's
Sanguine Bond
, which does 1 point of bonus damage for every point of life that you drained!
Underworld Connections
doesn't seem like much; but those extra cards that you'll be drawing each turn make a big difference. While we can stand to pay the 1 life every turn (as we will be gaining MORE THAN ENOUGH), the
Chalice of Life
is a great way to pay make Underworld Connections free. In addition, if you have 30+ life, it becomes the
Chalice of Death
, which does massive damage to a player every turn!
This deck was a lot of fun to play; and I hope that I gave you some evil ideas.
