You Aren't Worth the Blood on My Shoes!

Commander / EDH Decisive

SCORE: 16 | 17 COMMENTS | 1992 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS


Deck's First Major Edit! —Feb. 25, 2019

I've looked through the deck, and in an effort to further lower CMC have made a couple of big changes.

Removed:

Reliquary Tower - I don't think I've ever gotten to a point where I actually needed all the cards past 7.

Lifeline - Pretty expensive and effects everyone, pretty clear where Vish stands on sharing

Disciple of Bolas - Really underwhelming card in this deck

Black Market - Expensive ramp, big target too

Grim Haruspex - Ehh, not as good in practice as it is on paper

Living Death - Similar reasoning to lifeline

Added:

Arch of Orazca - Card draw, expensive, but useful!

Smothering Tithe - Much needed Ramp

Leonin Relic-Warder - You can perma exile any artifact or enchantment with it, or go infinite with Animate Dead-esque cards

Necromancy - More reanimation to replace Lifeline

Dance of the Dead - More reanimation!

Dictate of Erebos - People keep countering my Grave Pact!!!!

hkhssweiss says... #1

Yo Byuante, nice page!

Have you considered running a couple of these cards?

The biggest issue I see however with the deck is actually the CMC curve, it's a bit on the high end side and since you are going for the combo reanimation route you can opt to run more redundancy and protection package. You can consider also running Leave No Trace as tech cards or Devoted Caretaker as well. Leonin Relic-Warder is also a great inclusion since it can go infinite with any of the enchantment spells and you would only need a drain effect to kill the table. Not to mention Sun Titan as well, Fiend Hunter can also lead to a lock down effect with Yosei or drain with Kokusho.

Hope that helps!

February 24, 2019 9:27 a.m.

Decisive says... #2

Thanks for your comment hkhssweiss, I appreciate you taking the time!

I personally dislike the use of Contamination : I'm not mono-black, so it could screw me over, and it seems as though it'd be overly dependent on Bitterblossom to work, or it'd be a waste of reanimation as it might require me to sacrifice something too valuable to lose (I'm not fond of having to sacrifice a Crypt Ghast, for example)

Entomb - I could see myself running, 1 mana for an expensive play with a reanimation card. It'll take some time to figure out what would be worth cutting to make room for it.

Buried Alive - I don't run mass reanimation, and having to put several good cards into the yard with only a way to reanimate one per turn seems like a guarantee that my yard would be targetted

Dance of the Dead - I could probably make use of another reanimation spell, but I don't have a good card in mind to cut for it, do you?

Necromancy - Flash reanimation is yet to be needed, though if the situation changes, I'll find room for necromancy, but for the time being, maybeboard

Land Tax - Card advantage, sure, but it's very limited in scope in this deck, with only 15 targets, that's 5 triggers at most, and discarding lands isn't something I want to be doing. Plus it only triggers if I have fewer lands than others, which, even though I'm in white/black, is actually kind of an uncommon site. And overall, it's only truly good if gotten early on, as having a land tax turn 10 isn't that good for anything other than extorting or devotion.

Smothering Tithe - Good ramp, especially in white with such a high curve. I personally don't see a good card to remove over it and would appreciate your input

Scroll Rack - Also a good card, especially for getting rid of a stale hand.

Leave No Trace - Since I lack mass enchantment removal, definitely worthwhile to make room for it.

Devoted Caretaker - I don't know about this I feel that if I were to run protection, I'd run Mother of Runes instead. But to determine the usefulness of protection, I'll have to run a few tests.

Leonin Relic-Warder - Aside from the fact it goes infinite with a drain card, it seems like a waste of a slot in this deck. If I don't have the required card and I play it and exile someone's thing, saccing it becomes a no-no, so it's dead in play and doesn't do much to help us win.

And I don't see how Fiend Hunter can lead to a lockdown effect with the Dragon Spirits, as, for their ability to trigger, they must die. Mind expanding on that?

I look forward to hearing back from you!

February 24, 2019 3:34 p.m.

hkhssweiss says... #3

No problem Byuante, in regards to your question on some of the cards that you can consider, I'll give my input. As you said you want to build this as competitively as possible, Vish Kal is quite big cost and for consistency as well as efficiency you can cut down on all the token producers as they don't "win" you the game outright, whereas an infinite combo does. Having a sub-token theme would be good as you can use it as a back up plan for when your main line doesn't fall through.

That being said, I am also unsure of the meta you play in as well, all my suggestions come from the current play group I have witnessed and played with decks myself. I play with around twenty players so there is a lot of variable match ups however, they are 80% completely optimized/degenerate/cEDH decks. The thing about competitive matches your curve is generally pretty low, your curve is 3.19 Avg. CMC which is good, but we can lower it down to be more efficient.

With the card choices:

  • Entomb / Buried Alive - These two are the few cards that are efficiently costed and can put stuff into your grave, upping the reanimation count can lead to wins or selective lock down, or value grabbing. It's essentially a tutor for you as you make use of your grave as well. While Entomb is instant speed, for Buried Alive you don't have to use it right away you can wait for the timing and use it as a set up before using a cheap reanimation spell, this can lead to a win on the spot with the Karmic Guide/Reveillark combo.
  • Necromancy - Good against mirror match up, good for against control players, and also value targeting as well. The fact that it can be used at instant speed is amazing.
  • Leonin Relic-Warder - This actually depends on the timing you use LRW, while yes it deals with your opponents artifact/enchantment, but saccing it is also good if you decide to add in more reanimation enchantment spells, plus if you have a sac outlet on the field you can permanently exile them but sacrificing it while the trigger is on the stack. It doubles as a win-con and a perma-exile effect.
  • Fiend Hunter - Sorry I didn't clarify with Fiend Hunter (FH), it's in conjunction with Karmic Guide (KG) and Reveillark (RV) as well as you can break the P/T 2 limit with the addition of Fiend Hunter. Having a sac outlet on the field and KG, RV, as well as FH can lead to infinite loops of Yosei/Kokousho. Starting with them on the field you can sac KG, FH, and Yosei. Yosei triggers, sac RV to bring back KG and FH. FH trigger on the stack and KG trigger on the stack. KG targets Yosei, FH exiles KG. Sac FH to bring back RV. Than you can start all over again by saccing Yosei and KG.

Hope that helps explain the card choices as well as answers your question!

February 24, 2019 6:12 p.m.