Altar of Bhaal
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Altar of Bhaal

Artifact

, , Exile a creature you control: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate this ability only as a sorcery.

(You may cast Altar of Bhaal from exile if you sent it on an adventure.)

Bone Offering

Sorcery — Adventure

Create a tapped 4/1 black Skeleton creature token with menace. (Then send this card on an Adventure in exile. You may cast the artifact portion from exile.)


(You may cast Bone Offering for from anywhere that you have the permission to cast it, then exile it on an adventure instead of putting it into your graveyard. When you have not chosen to cast Bone Offering and put it on the stack, this card is treated only as Altar of Bhaal in whatever zone it is in.)

(When not exiled on an adventure, Adventure cards function identically to modal double faced cards when regarding to the interactions of cards that look at them or attempt to cast them.)

multimedia on Zombies.

5 months ago

Hey, Gisa only having one haste source here makes her really slow to get going, if at all. Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Lavaspur Boots, consider maxing out on these haste sources? If you already control one then have more ways to discard away the others Collector's Vault, Putrid Imp?

There's some 2 drop mana rocks/cost reduction you could add to increase ramp Mind Stone/Jet Medallion, but I think you would be better off using these deck spots to improve potential early game reanimation. You have some reanimation, but what I don't see here are effects that can get Zombies into your graveyard to reanimate before you get Gisa as a sac outlet.

Collector's Vault, Diresight, Entomb, Unmarked Grave, Buried Alive, Lively Dirge, Putrid Imp these are spells you could potentially cast long before you control Gisa. Getting some cards into your graveyard a little faster helps Stitch Together's threshold. Can even play more potential early game draw Night's Whisper/Sign in Blood to get more than 7 cards in hand which then you can at your Cleanup step discard down to 7 cards as free discard to setup reanimation. If you're discarding creatures to reanimate then consider increasing lower mana cost reanimation Reanimate, Animate Dead, Persist, Necromancy?

Consider adding an earlier game reanimation plan to get Grave Titan onto the battlefield? Titan being a repeatable Zombie token source can hold down the fort until you get Gisa going. In the meantime, Titan could do damage to opponents. Archon of Cruelty also isn't a Zombie, but is an excellent reanimation target, who if you can control it in the earlier game can give you a huge advantage. When your Commander can create creature tokens and with Grave Titan, Altar of Bhaal is powerful repeatable reanimation when you have creature tokens to exile.

I hope this advice was helpful and if you're interested I offer more advice about what cards to consider cutting.

multimedia on The Ooze makes it sticky

5 months ago

This new direction for you to consider improves big creature reanimation, threats shouldn't be a problem if you play smarter. Gameplay will be much different with less creatures, relying more on noncreature spells since they will be replacing creatures. In my opinion a good rule for casual Commander deck building is to have at least 10 sources of draw and ramp. Find deck room for lots of these effects as they're the two most important type of effects for smoother gameplay. Cards that both draw and ramp are helpful Collector's Vault.

More card draw Diresight can help to play smarter since you can better sculpt your hand because you see more cards. Draw spells in the early game Night's Whisper can also help to get more than 7 cards in your hand to then have free discard of creature(s) at your Cleanup step until you have 7 cards in hand. Low mana cost (0-3 CMC) ramp Sol Ring is important because you don't want to have to rely only on your one land drop on your turn as the only source of having mana. With less creatures you don't want mana dorks as ramp only noncreature cards Arcane Signet. Some lands since 40 lands is a lot, could be cut for lower mana cost ramp Utopia Sprawl.

Having your graveyard exiled is a fear/concern for all players who play reanimation thus with Stickfingers don't dump all your creatures at one time into your graveyard. Instead Stickfingers for 2 putting 2 threats into your grave and try to reanimate a creature the same turn you put creature into your graveyard. Paying less mana for Stickfingers leaves mana leftover to reanimate that same turn. This makes more 1 or 2 drop reanimation spells important to play Life / Death, Persist and more any card recursion Regrowth to get reanimation spell back to cast again.

There's cards you can play that help against graveyard exile, but ultimately you can't stop it from happening therefore the best defense is to play smarter. Instant reanimation Makeshift Mannequin, reanimate in response to the exile. Play more lower mana cost removal that can remove artifact, enchantment or creature graveyard hate Assassin's Trophy. In response to graveyard exile you can instant put creatures back into your library Turn the Earth or Repopulate.

Having less creatures and you're worried about not having enough blockers play additonal big creatures like Massacre Wurm. Play more creature board wipes Crux of Fate and Terror Tide. Reanimate big creatures who create token creatures Avenger of Zendikar to then use the tokens as blockers or sac fodder Grave Titan. Planeswalkers that can repeatably create creature tokens Grist, the Hunger Tide are nice. Grist can be reanimated by creature reanimation because when it's in your graveyard it's a creature. It's also a creature in your library therefore if revealed, Stickfingers puts it into your graveyard.

Having more creature token producers Liliana, Death's Majesty makes Altar of Bhaal viable repeatable reanimation since you can exile a creature token to reanimate. Liliana can also be a source of repeatable mana free reanimation. Altar's repeatable reanimation is really powerful when you have token fodder to exile. Grave Titan, Hornet Queen, Avenger of Zendikar are excellent with Altar. Having creature tokens also is defense against most opponent edict effects.

DreadKhan on

1 year ago

Village Rites seems useful, draw some cards and get your Thug back in the bin?

I also like Altar of Bhaal, it can also put a Thug into your graveyard and reanimate something useful that you've milled, and if your boy is on the board, it can exile him for you too.

DreadKhan on Merieke Ri Berit, Manipulator of the Stack

1 year ago

Have you considered some sac outlets that stick around? Altar of Bhaal is pretty good recursion if you can consistently steal a creature somehow. Helm of Possession would be pretty funny, it's both a sac outlet and a theft effect. Another one-shot theft effect and sac outlet combination is Ritual of the Machine. I assume Preacher isn't in here because of it's high price? It's more of a 1v1 card, but it can be a really nasty card vs people running few creatures, but it is legit terrible vs token decks, it's a weirder Oppressor. Probably the same for Mind Over Matter, it's pricey but a very good trick to have. Coffin Queen is another nice recursion option, the ability to steal from from other people's graveyard for almost no mana can be really powerful.

You run a reasonable number of very good enchantments of 3 mana or less, have you thought about Zur the Enchanter? Perhaps you don't run tutors in your meta, some groups don't like them in Commander.

nuperokaso on Demons

1 year ago

Blade of the Oni is bad because most of your creatures already have decent power and toughness. It works best in a deck with tiny creatures

Charmbreaker Devils you need a few additional spells for this to work. I suggest adding Mizzium Mortars and Terminate

Altar of Bhaal this is best with enters the battlefield effects, which you don't play many

Arcane Signet this does nothing without Commander. Replace this with Rakdos Signet

Bolas's Citadel this is a suicide in a deck with high mana costs like yours. Replace this with Phyrexian Arena

Guardian Idol this is weak creature, and bad fixing. Play Talisman of Indulgence instead

Rakdos Locket I suggest Rakdos Keyrune instead

Davriel, Soul Broker this card is not legal. If you like the theme of devils, play Tibalt, Rakish Instigator

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

2 years ago

In my Meren deck, I don't run a lot of bigger creatures, even though the deck has decent odds of ending up with huge amounts of mana, stuff like Beast Whisperer/Grim Haruspex draw cards off of creatures either entering or leaving the battlefield, there are lots of variants of both of those effects, and these will let you play many spells in a turn, rather than play one huge thing. I don't think your MVs are a huge problem, but the 'top of my curve' creatures are Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Protean Hulk, and Sheoldred, Whispering One, the first two can win on the spot or very quickly, while Sheoldred is a bit more questionable, a lot of people find stuff like Sheoldred tends to be too slow in todays game, so even that is a card I'm considering switching out for lower to the ground stuff. I checked and atm I have 14 1 drops, which is a few more, there are plenty of decent 1 drop mana dorks you could throw in to both lower your curve and possibly raise your consistency, though the best is Elves of Deep Shadow, since your deck cares more about Black mana.

As a general rule of thumb for Meren, if you can do a thing with a creature instead, you probably should unless the creature option is truly awful, I run 55 creatures in the 99, and I'm still thinking about sneaking more in by taking out things like Artifacts. Creature payoffs are better than artifact payoffs in Golgari, and Meren can't recur non-creatures.

For sac outlets, you ideally want a selection of 'free' sac outlets, ones that only use a creature and no other input, so stuff like Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Woe Strider, any of the good altars (Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, and Altar of Dementia are my all very good), Sadistic Hypnotist is insanely useful (it is a 5 drop though), if you have 4 drops that matter you can use Dimir House Guard because Transmute is a good mechanic if you care about the MV and it's also a free sac outlet. I think you can throw in a few sac outlets that are more limited, stuff like Helm of Possession, Phyrexian Tower, Hell's Caretaker, Altar of Bhaal, and Ritual of the Machine are all beefy effects, even if you can only use them once per turn. I really like stuff like Sakura Tribe Elder because the card provides it's own sac outlet (but only for itself), ymmv but I think you're taking a risk by running something like Solemn Simulacrum over Dawntreader Elk or Diligent Farmhand, 4 mana is a ton and it lacks a self destruct feature.

One option some people end up taking is replacing Meren as the Commander, not because she isn't strong enough but because the play patterns are pretty consistent, once you've figured out what your deck is trying to do, Meren is usually very predictable, so some people prefer something like Baba Lysaga, Night Witch. She offers card draw and a sac outlet in the Command zone while caring a lot less about creatures in particular, so you'd have more freedom in terms of card types.

Hope some of this is helpful!

multimedia on Gisa, Zom Zom Queen *Work In Progress*

2 years ago

Hey, well done so far, but I think you overestimate needing so many buffs (anthems).

All the artifacts for anthem effects is overkill, you have tutors that can get the better anthem. Adding more repeatable draw sources can do more for gameplay than anthems because more reliable draw helps to draw the better anthems. Coat of Arms, Eldrazi Monument and The Immortal Sun are much better than the other artifact anthems here.

In my opinion anthem effects to be worth playing need to also have card quality for the mana cost. Instruments of War and Hall of Triumph are bad cards, only providing a small anthem effect nothing else for their mana cost isn't good enough to take deck spots. Obelisk of Urd is subpar, but at least it can be mana cost reduced even to 0 with Zombies. Bad Moon is only 2 mana, but there's greater two drops that have much better card quality. Heraldic Banner can be a mana rock, but even so you can do better for a three drop.

Adaptive Automaton is a creature who Gisa can sac and who can be a Zombie lord (anthem), but it's a bad card compared to all other Zombie lords who provide another good repeatable effect. Icon of Ancestry and Vanquisher's Banner aren't worth it since there's too many nonZombie creatures here. You can get more reliable repeatable draw from other sources.

You have Crypt Ghast, Cabal Coffers and tutors to get them, you don't need Caged Sun and Gauntlet of Power mana effects. These cards are better in mono white, red or blue because these colors can really use the mana ramp. Liliana's Mastery is a very low budget five drop for Zombies, not needed here.

There's several cards in the maybeboard to consider adding main deck if you have them. Areas to focus on improving with cards from the maybeboard are early game ramp, repeatable draw for only you, reanimation and more Zombie evasion.

Other cards to consider adding from the maybeboard.

Some cards to consider cutting:

Good luck with your deck.

Coward_Token on Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's …

2 years ago

Nimbleclaw Adept: kinda late to start worrying about inifinitive untap combos, WotC

The Illithid's design on Run Away Together together is great, and I hope that they keep making new funny romantic pairs for the art

Ingenious Artilerist: Mostly worse than Reckless Fireweaver (costs more), but it does synergize with e.g. Pain Magnification for bigger groups of artifacts

Wild Magic Surge: Note that if the target gets indestructible, the controller still gets to cheat in a permanent.

Altar of Bhaal: Question to D&D people: why isn't this Myrkul-flavored?

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