I have been out of the MTG scene for a while. This is my favorite deck to play still, but I only play casually and haven't been to tournaments in forever. I have no idea if this deck is still good or not. I know it is VERY good against Living End and if there aren't a lot of GY decks around, you can definitely catch people off guard.
MTG is an expensive hobby and I cannot in good faith recommend this deck unless you have the spare cash. It is cheaper than the meta decks by a lot but it is still around 500 USD (if the prices in this website are to be trusted). Most of the expensive cards in here are lands and if not, you can easily use them in other decks, but still. If you don't mind that, it is by far the most fun graveyard deck I've ever used, and personally, the most fun deck I have ever used overall.
The following description is not very much up do date, but you can still read it to get an idea of how the deck works. I'm too lazy to re-edit the whole description.
THE ORIGINAL IDEA IS NOT MINE!
I saw Paul Cheon playing this deck on stream and tried to build a version for myself, but apparently, Pascal Maynard was the genius who invented this deck, big thanks to him!
The idea of the deck is to use Rally the Ancestors (in extreme cases, Immortal Servitude) to return all your creatures from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Explanation of the deck
Just like Scapeshift, this is, technically a one card combo, in this case Rally the Ancestors. Much like Scapeshift, this deck needs specific board conditions to kill the opponent and does not deal infinite damage, but it's harder to interact than Scapeshift in game one, since it's faster, deals more damage and can be made at instant speed. Unfortunately, graveyard hate is more common than land hate.
How does it work? First, you play Hedron Crab and mill yourself with fetchlands. To minimize the chance of accidentally milling all your Rally the Ancestors, you play Magus of the Bazaar on turn 2, any other top manipulation/card draw on turn 3. On turn 4 you're set to explode your opponent's life total for obscene amounts of lifedrain with Zulaport Cutthroat and Blood Artist.
The combo parts:
The enablers:
Birds of Paradise
Enables a turn 3 kill.
Priest of Forgotten Gods
Also enables a turn 3 kill with the extra mana generation, can be used to draw cards in "grindier" games and is also very good at digging for extra rallies if you're really struggling to find it. Also pretty good with Haunted Dead
Hedron Crab
Mills you for 3 every time you put a land on the battlefield, that's completely insane. With a fetch, it's 6 cards without spending any mana on the turn. If one of them is a Lingering Souls, you can play it on turn 2 and have blockers when playing against zoo, infect or affinity.
Magus of the Bazaar
Drawing two new cards then discarding three is a great deal for this deck. You're mostly discarding three creatures to boos your rally, but sometimes when you're flooded, you can discard lands.
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Baby Jace is a great loot before transforming, after he does, Jace, Telepath Unbound can +1 to slow your opponent's beats and -3 to make you cast another cantrip or even cast a Rally the Ancestors that you've milled with Hedron Crab.
Satyr Wayfinder
Helps you find your land drops, is a body and throws Lingering Souls and Haunted Dead in the graveyard for some cheap creatures while boosting your Rally the Ancestors combo.
The Creatures
Zulaport Cutthroat Blood Artist
What makes the opponent lose when you kill your own creatures. Having two in your graveyard plus 10 creatures is enough to kill your opponent at 20.
Viscera Seer
Sacrifice outlets are very important. I used to run Carrion Feeder along with Viscera Seer to avoid being destroyed by Pithing Needle, but decided to cut the extra sac outlet because the deck feels consistent enough with just the three Viscera Seer and the new Priest of Forgotten Gods also works very well as a sufficient sac creature.
The Support
Charming Prince
Versatile card that acts as a compromise between Auriok Champion and Sage of Epityr. Can be used to scry for combo cards and gain a bit of life, acts as a blocker like Satyr Wayfinder since it does everything when it enters the battlefield and can die for the team. Doesn't have the same staying power and long term benefits of Auriok Champion but it might be enough since you don't want games to drag most of the time.
Tidehollow Sculler
I love this creature so much I bought the promos. You take cards from them, you can sacrifice it before you steal their card to permanent exile the card, it's food for your sac outlets. In another words, it's perfect.
Haunted Dead
For a brief time I ran it instead of Lingering Souls, but ultimately decided against it. Recently I've started liking it again when I test it online. In extreme cases can work with a huge Rally the Ancestors.
The Actual Combo
Rally the Ancestors
Instant speed mass reanimate. Brings back all of your friends to the field, but you have to exile them at your next upkeep. Mostly your opponent won't live to see that though. If you happen to not have lethal, just sacrifice them all anyway so they don't get exiled.
Immortal Servitude
Doesn't exile your cards like Rally and doesn't get exiled when casted, but it costs one more mana and it's a sorcery. Good to have as a one of in any case, can be better than Rally sometimes, but only rarely. One extra on the board for some grindy matchups without counters, like Abzan control and Jund.
I added 3 Auriok Champions instead of the Sage of Epityr beacuse where I play I face a lot of aggro, it really is a great card to use against Burn and most creature based decks. It does make the deck less capable of comboing more consistently, but it also makes the deck run smoother in a game that you're trying to grind it out and not combo immediately. Depending on your field or field prediction, adjust accordingly. Maybe 2 Abrupt Decay AND the two Qasali Pridemage is a bit excessive, but since I haven't been able to test it out very much, I'm not sure of what I should replace them with in the case I do want to put something else in there. Finally, the Surgical Extraction does not come often enough.
After a bit of testing, however, I've decided to remove the two Gnaw to the Bone from the sideboard. After the Auriok Champions were included, I barely have HP issues anymore. The only situation that is made worse by the removal of Gnaw to the Bone is against Merfolk decks, but those matchups were so horrible already that I feel I'm not doing myself a favor by trying to win it with that card. Instead, I've removed the two Qasali Pridemages along with the Gnaw to the Bone and instead I'm playing one extra Surgical Extraction and three Knight of Autumn for better counterplay options against more relevant decks.
Hellraiser Goblin also seems like a good idea, to give your creatures haste if you're looking for some extra reach.
