Have you thought about Archangel of Thune at all? It would get stuff done in this deck.

I have, and I've seen the Archangel of Thune in damn near any B/W deck that has any sort of life-gain anything. I would prefer not to rely on the card, plus I'm a cheap bastar and reject popular deck-developement techniques and let my decks suffer as a result. :P

Honestly, it's mostly a budget issue. I should probably note that somewhere.

So the B/W deck you commented on was the actual deck I owned and actually played in person. I eventually became bored of it and started to grow to dislike it, which is where that Mono-Black deck you saw came from.

I personally found White to set the deck back quite a bit, not being able to do much with it, especially once Rhox Faithmender s rotated out.

I also found High Priest of Penance to be extremely lacking, not really doing much for the deck at all.

I never bothered playing the deck once Dragon's Maze came out, but I can definitely tell you that Blood Baron of Vizkopa is a must.

As for extort cards, the only ones I really find worth it are Thrull Parasite , Basilica Screecher , Blind Obedience , and possibly Tithe Drinker (I never got to use it myself). Basilica Guards is definitely not worth it in my opinion.

I've personally found the Sanguine Bond + Vizkopa Guildmage combo to be way too gimmicky and not worth the card slots.

Now on to what works the best in an Extort deck.

Extort is all about the late game, the problem is getting there before you lose. For that reason you need to have more mana and more cards before your opponent does.

The best way to get the mana is through Crypt Ghast which is completely viable even if you're doing Orzhov and not Mono-Black. Crypt Ghast is perhaps the best card in an Extort deck (forgot to list it earlier). It provides you with an insane amount of mana and an Extort outlet. I personally ran 3 of them when I went the Orzhov route, but even a play set isn't going overboard.

Now for the other thing Extort needs, draw power. Back in my Orzhov deck (and in my Mono-Black one prior to the Theros spoilers) I ran 3 Underworld Connections to satisfy the need for draw power (4 in the black deck). They work wonderfully with Extort mitigating the loss of life and Crypt Ghast generating enough mana so the little less mana wouldn't be an issue. Now with Theros spoiled there's two other options you can go: Erebos, God of the Dead and Read the Bones .

You also asked me what card would replace Vampire Nighthawk and I would definitely have to say Lifebane Zombie probably fits the 3cmc slot the best, since it is a fairly good aggro card for Black and has some control on it.

Ultimately though I believe White holds back Extort from what it is truly capable of. There's just not enough good control in Orzhov compared to the amount you get in Mono-Black.

Let me know how your deck works out and if any of my suggestions were helpful to you.

I actually hijacked a copy of your black extortion deck and threw some of the cards from this deck in it to make a sort of "target deck" that I would like to develope. It seems like with the advent of bestow and some of the other cards from Theros in the spoiler list that using the white backing on an extortion style deck could utilize auras to a much greater effect and to catalyze life-gain via lifelink. I'm going to continue to tinker with that target deck then update this once I have the cards put together. Your insight has been valuable. Hopefully a quasi-viable standard deck will erupt out of this sometime in the near future.

The reason I figure High Priest of Penance might be decent is as a deterent. He's a halfway decent target for auras as a result. It's an idea I'll have to test out.

Also, Vizkopa Guildmage and Sanguine Bond don't cause a recursive loop; one of them in combination with Exquisite Blood will trigger a recursive life-gain/-drain loop.

I honestly think Theros will definately bring some new mainstays for this style of deck.

Thanks a million for the advice.

Ah that's right, I forgot the combo was rotating out. That still being said, I'm not a very big fan of the guildmage at all, with or without the combo. Far too slow in my opinion and the mana is better spent elsewhere.

Good luck to ya, glad I could be of some help.

Might I suggest an infinite combo? Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond