Bog Witch

Creature — Human Spellshaper

(Black), Tap, Discard a card: Add (Black)(Black)(Black) to your mana pool.

Discussion (48)

MrKillStar on Syr Konrad EDH

2 months ago

Lhurgyof - I would personally keep those cards away from Syr Konrad and use them in deck with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth , Vilis, Broker of Blood , etc... also from the new set: Profane Transfusion (I know this is few months old comment, so you probably know about it already).

nieds - I see you already got a lot of really good cards, I'll just type some of them that I cut out since they're kinda meh in this kind of deck below. Anyway, you can check my Syr Konrad's deck here: For the Void. Im still switching few cards, explaining why I chose every card in the deck description, etc. I decided to go with mix of reanimator+aristocrats with several infinite combos. So I would welcome any feedback aswell and you might get some inspiration right there! :)

Some cards I would cut and why:

1) Loxodon Warhammer - is good in voltron / attack based decks, but here it looks like a random card that can gives you some life back (which black/other artifacts can do just better than lifelink artifact), but for 6 mana its meh. You could replace it with Shadowspear , which is three times mana cheaper and provides you with another utility ability. Or simply Bontu's Monument as another pseudo mana rock that also gives you a bit of life.
2) Sensei's Divining Top - I know SDT is amazing on its own, but I wouldnt personally bother with it, unless you would go for the Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel + Sensei's Divining Top combo. I would switch it for either Viscera Seer (as another free sac outlet), or my choice for my deck was Shadows of the Past (with any infinite creature generator+sac and Bolas's Citadel, you can just "tutor" and cast whatever you want from top of your deck - think I explained it in my deck's description already or I add it sometime later).
3) Painful Quandary - Again, good card, just doesnt fit that well in my opinion. Goes well with Mindcrank and Archfiend of Despair but thats probably about it. I would rather put it in some discard focused deck. Instead of this, card like Morality Shift would be really cool for sure. Or cards like Forever Young / Gravepurge / Death Denied to proc Syr Konrad's ability and recast them with Bolas's Citadel + another card draw sources. Or you could also stick to enchantments liie Mortuary / Haunted Crossroads (parts of my infinite combos).
4) From planeswalkers I would personally keep only Liliana of the Dark Realms (to help with land drops and deck thining) and Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools (creates more tokens than Lilianas, decent card-draw and punish opponents for letting you -10 him). Other Lilianas are not bad for sure, just either slow or not that fascinating as they seems to be. Karns are just out of place.

Cards I would put in for sure:

1) Tortured Existence - even on its own, it triggers Syr Konrad's ability twice and only for everytime! As you might already know, I use it with Phyrexian Altar and Desecrated Tomb to make infinite etb/die/sac triggers.
2) Bog Witch - discarding (creature) cards to trigger Syr Konrad's ability; is basically Dark Ritual on a stick which you could use to Reanimate / Animate Dead / Victimize right after. Also is 1/1, so another target for your Skullclamp .
3) Doom Whisperer - big good stuff with ability to filter your deck and put creatures directly from your library into the graveyard.
4) Haunted Crossroads - even on its own, its great way to get your creatures back (on top of library for Bolas's Citadel), next to Phyrexian Reclamation .
5) Emergence Zone - simply to give your spells Flash when you would need them, really nice utility land (similar is Winding Canyons but only for creatures, so eh).
6) Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip - cheap way to "protect" your creature, triggering Syr Konrad's ability or another land if needed.
7) Tainted Strike - absolute game winning beast card with Syr Konrad and either any creature/sac generator, boardwipe with 10+ creatures on board, or discard/mill cards.
8) Diabolic Intent - you got plenty of token generators, so this is just mana-cheap tutor.
9) Feed the Swarm - more ways to deal with enchantments and creatures.

I hope some of this will help and you like some of those cards! :)

Epicurus on GRISELBRAND REBORN (Mardu Reanimator)

3 months ago

Hello fellow Legacy aficionado!

My own collection of decks mostly consist of what I identify as "casual," which is to say that by tournament legality definitions they are predominantly Vintage or Legacy, but I don't own any power nine or otherwise incredibly costly cards so they're not necessarily competitive in those formats.

Having said that, I own an old-school reanimator deck (my usual reanimation target in which is Tidal Kraken, because it puts a clock on the game), and in mine, the sure-win, first turn combo is Dark Ritual into Entomb and Exhume. I'm sure you're familiar with that move.

The biggest - and maybe only - difference between my deck and this one is that mine is mono-black. So I'm using Hidden Horror, Vampire Hounds and Bog Witch for self discard. Faithless Looting seems like a more effective choice, I wonder looking at your deck if the problems of operating in, effectively, 3 colors is justified in the resultant effectiveness.

Mind you, I'm running Hell's Caretaker and Victimize with some Nether Shadows and Nether Traitors, so maybe they're enough different of decks that I shouldn't be comparing them like I am.

Sorry, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have been playing the same deck for twenty years, and had never considered that the construction of it could be different and somehow better, until looking at yours. So, thanks for that. At some point maybe I'll add my deck to the site, and perhaps you'll see it.

dingusdingo on Budget Reanimation Targets

4 months ago

Sire Of Insanity is insanely good, and turns being ahead on the board into wins. Also quite inexpensive to purchase. Does great work when your deck plays from the graveyard

Terastodon is a 9/9 beater that solves 3 problems immediately. Also rather inexpensive to acquire. You can even nuke 3 of your own lands to get three 3/3's and one 9/9 for 18 swinging power on the field.

Protean Hulk isn't too expensive and is a fantastic choice if you have a creature based combo already in the deck.

Sheoldred, Whispering One is expensive to buy, but an absolute powerhouse in reanimator strategies. Sticking this on turn 3 can put you super far ahead.

Avatar of Woe can be great board control when reanimated early.

Massacre Wurm is about $2 after all the reprints, and while it isn't the best reanimation target, it can certainly bring the hurt for opponents.

Ancient Stone Idol is a 12/12 Trampler, no crazy effects but a massive beater that has a die trigger.

Most demons are decent choices. I'm a big fan of how Kuro, Pitlord can instantly clear a board, but his upkeep cost is kind of gross.

Most Titans are good choices too, Inferno Titan and Grave Titan for Korvold (no Prime Time in EDH)

As far as budget reanimation cards, I'm a huge fan of Apprentice Necromancer for reanimation targets with ETB triggers. It works extremely well with Sun Titan, which is out of Korvold colors but a gross combo to be aware of nonetheless (Sun Tit ETB returns the Necro, the attack trigger returns something else too). I also like Life / Death which has lots of potential in Korvold (make lands into creatures, then sac creatures to draw tons of cards) outside of just reanimation. Animate Dead and Dance of the Dead are both inexpensive at around $5 and $10 respectively last I checked and are worth getting, they will be staples even in 100% optimized reanimator. Whisper, Blood Liturgist has nice use when you get Korvold sac triggers, but needs cheap token or reusable bodies to use consistently and is expensive to cast at 4 CMC. Victimize is a great card, but once again requires bodies on the field. Exhume is fast to cast but you usually want to pair it with graveyard removal or time it well. Dread Return is a useful card that does well with lots of bodies and can be used twice. Doomed Necromancer is great Korvold tech but slow at 3 CMC + summoning sick, usually activating on turn 4 or later.

Buried Alive is a phenomenal card that can enable reanimator strategies, a definite must-include.

Cheap discard outlets also help move fatties from your hand to the graveyard. I can recommend Putrid Imp as the GOAT, but also Tortured Existence, Wild Mongrel, Faithless Looting, Noose Constrictor and Fauna Shaman. You can also look to some one-time spells to help you discard, I recommend Collective Brutality and Smallpox especially. Bog Witch can work wonders in slower metas, but will be a cut when your deck gets more optimized.

enpc on Rakdos Mana Dorks!

5 months ago

Yeah, I'm going to lean towards delusional. I guess the important question to ask with the cards you're refering to is, why? Why would you run these cards in a rakdos deck over the slew of decent mana rocks available? What advantage do they bring?

I'm sure there are some decks which would want effects like Priest of Yawgmoth's, like Glissa, the Traitor (or certain builds for her). Similarly, a reanimator deck might like Bog Witch as a discard outlet. But here you're leveraging the utility the card provides, not treating the card first and foremost as a mana dork.

So in the case of "need more ramp" I would say it's a hard pass on all of these.

Caerwyn on Rakdos Mana Dorks!

5 months ago

Most of these have a fatal flaw that keeps them from seeing significant play.

Agent of Stromgald is not a true mana dork, since it is not mana positive--you get out as much mana as you put into it. Filtering mana is already situational (and tends to be less important as the game progresses), and this filtering is made more situational by the limitation on the mana's use. There might be a rare instance where this card is helpful, but those instances are going to be overwhelmingly eclipsed by the number of times this will be a dead draw. It simply is not worth a card slot.

At three mana, both Bog Witch and Vesper Ghoul are a bit costly for a mana dork. Vesper Ghoul only generates 1 mana, so, that's a bit of a problem. Bog Witch at least generates a net positive of two mana and provides you with a discard outlet, so can be helpful in decks that care about graveyard shenanigans.

Priest of Yawgmoth requires you to have a high density of artifacts worth sacrificing--if not, then you just have it sitting there as a vanilla 1/2. There are some decks you can probably abuse this, but that's not going to be all of them.

Sultai_Sir on Rakdos Mana Dorks!

5 months ago

What's the deal with these Rakdos/Mono Black mana dorks? They can be a little specific, but they're not terrible. I've never heard of them, but they seem like solid inclusions in some non-green deck: Agent of Stromgald, Bog Witch, Priest of Yawgmoth, Vesper Ghoul. For reference, Priest of Yawgmoth is in only 184 on EDHREC, while Agent of Stromgald has an even more measly 84. Am I being delusional, or are these actually good cards?

Epicurus on Kami-Dor: A Tribal Spirits Primer

6 months ago

I second bushido_man96's suggestion of Skull Prophet. I'd add to that Devouring Greed, and also recommend Life from the Loam, which dramatically helped my own Karador deck. Other cards that help my own deck a lot are Priest of Forgotten Gods, Teysa Karlov, Bog Witch and Life's Legacy. None of those are on theme, though, so use your discretion.

My Karador deck is Cleverly Named Graveyard Deck. Note that I don't run the Reveillark combo, because I refuse to. But you might find inspiration there.

Cheers!

Buffstu on Garna Combo

7 months ago

Basic Deck Goals

Establish a early game board

This deck is not going to be the fastest out the gate lets get that clear right away and nor is it going to be drawing nervous glances around the table early on as you turn your vast army sideways, but what Basic this can do is put some ever so slight pressure on someone who has decided to play creature-less or is just playing mana dorks as this deck does run a few token creators and can get some beats in on an unprepared opponent...But lets be real most of the time early game we are gonna try and get into a stable mid game, try and not look like the weakest or the strongest at the table and start setting up some of engine pieces and mana to begin looping for value. This means finding sac outlets, mana reducers, mana rocks and draw cards are gonna be part of this phase of the game.

Basic Looping in the midgame

Now once we have enough mana and/or mana reducers to play something from our hand and Garna with a sac out let we are in business next stop value town, we play the card from hand and Sac it then play Garna, responding to Garna's ETB by sac'ing her while her ability is on the stack, then Garna's ETB will resolve and put back to hand both the first card you played from hand ( and any other cards that hit your graveyard this turn) and Garna and that is a basic loop ( What I will refer to as Looping). So now the question is what is the point of all of this Looping?

The Point of Looping (Hint its Value!)

Here is were I will explain what we can do with the basic loop premise to gain value: Is the creature we are casting from hand a token generator? like Weaponcraft Enthusiast or Goblin Instigator or even Doomed Dissenter if we can keep looping these cards then we will end up with more and more tokens to play with.

Is the creature we are Looping creating mana via treasures or Eldrazi Scions? Dire Fleet Hoarder,Wily Goblin,Carrier Thrall then everytime we loop we are building a stockpile of mana for our future turns.

How about more cards? Dusk Legion Zealot,Phyrexian Rager

But we can get more than just value from the creature we are sac'ing oh much much more, how about value from the sac outlet it self? Viscera Seer Start scrying through your deck for your combo pieces ThermopodAshnod's Altar Help you generate more mana for more cards to be cast from hand for multiple card loops Carrion Feeder Keep adding +1/+1's to make a threat that needs to be dealt with before it spirals out of control Spawning Pit why not add more tokens to this to create a potential army of 2/2's that can snap into existence at instant speed? Greater Gargadon How about ticking down a clock to a 9/7 coming to smash your enemies into small digestible pieces?

You think we are done with what value we can get from Looping? not even close, what about other effects that occur when they see cards getting sac'd for greater good of value? Zulaport Cutthroat,Falkenrath Noble,Syr Konrad, the Grim This will start putting pressure on opponent's life totals whenever you sac a creature, or cast in the case of Bontu's and special mention to Syr Konrad as he also does damage when they go back to hand from your yard...oooh that value.

You want card draw? we got it,now its not as clean as blue draw and it does have a distinct smell of decomposing flesh but hey we will take it. Smothering AbominationGrim HaruspexMidnight Reaper even Hazoret's Monument as you do cast in a loop and remember all discard cards will be put back to hand via Garna's ETB.

Mana? Sifter of Skulls,Pitiless Plunderer we got you covered

Bigger is always better

You might be wondering with all this value being gained from sac'ing creatures what could we do to sac more of our own creatures per turn? I like your thinking and that's why we have multiple creatures that replace themselves mana wise. Cards like Priest of Gixor Priest of Urabrask or Cathodion even Overeager Apprentice and Bog Witch ( remember we will get the discarded card back via Garna's ETB) the fact that Garna gives haste also allows Basal Thrull and Generator Servant to be able to activate their abilities the turn they come down as long as you do it when Garna is in play and therefore you are probably doing it in response to her ETB as your about to sac her to get her to go to your hand.

What all this mana positive and mana neutral creature casts lets us do is frankly more of the same, play multiple creatures a turn to make multiple treasures or make multiple tokens or scry multiple times it all depends on the set up you have at the board at the time but the more creatures to sac the more effects, the more the merrier the bigger the better.

How do you win the game?

So its gotten to the later stages of the game, hopefully we find our selves in value town but how do we actually win? Well this deck has a few options for you to choose depending on what cards end up in your hand.

Deathrender

DeathrenderThis is the Big daddy of the combo's we have, so big in fact that Hoarding Dragon is here mainly just to get this card in our hand and to be honest so is Dimir House Guard. The combo starts like this: Deathrender on the field and attached to any creature, a sac outlet and enough mana to cast Garna we start by sac'ing the creature attached to Deathrender and then we put another creature from our hand onto it, repeat until all creatures are out of hand, then sac the last creature and flash in Garna in response to the deathrender trigger on the stack, and then respond to this by sac'ing Garna, now Garna's ability will be on the stack and resolve and get back every card that hit your graveyard this turn, including herself. Now resolve the Deathrenders ability and well now you have a full hand of creatures ready to be sac'ed so pick one of them to be attached and begin the deathrender sac fest all over again and this is an infinite loop since you can keep getting Garna's ETB from deathrender. An important thing to note is that when getting Garna to the battlefield via the Deathrender ability is to make sure there is allays at least one other creature in hand when you put Garna to the battlefeild, since the way the ability's will stack is that the deathrender ability will pull something out ( that being Garna in this case) then that will trigger any ETB's and we will respond to that by sac’ing Garna, this will trigger the deathrender trigger and this will occur BEFORE we can refill our hand with Garna's ETB, so we just need one creature in hand to be pulled onto Deathrender and then everything will go back to hand and we can keep sac'ing and looping infinity.

We now have an infinite loop going and this deck can use this in multiple ways to end the game. Refer to the infinite loops section to see all the options

The worse way to go infinite

You have seen the best now lets get on to the rest, another combo that has far more hoops for the same payoff. It begins with Zombie Infestation in play and at least 4 creature cards in hand, with a Pitiless Plunderer in play, and just a smidge of mana reduction in play, actually you need at least 3 total mana cost reduction for specifically Garna, oh and a sac outlet, got all that? good then lets gooo So now we discard all 4 creatures with zombie infestation, creating 2 zombie tokens, don't get too attached as we immediately sack them via our sac outlet and create a black and a red mana via Pitiless Plunderer now with a black and a red mana and our mana cost reducerd Garna is free to cast! so we play her and sac her as her ETB is on the stack and get all 4 creatures that we discarded and Garna back to hand to begin the Loop again.

Ending the game with Infinate Loops

So we have found yourself in an infinite loop via the methods above^^ how do we win?

Do we have Zulaport Cutthroat,Falkenrath Noble,Syr Konrad, the Grim any of these with an infinite loop will end the game

Do we instead haveDesecrated Tomb or any creature that creates tokens as part of our loop? make sure to end the loop with several millions tokens created and stop the loop with Garna in play, all your tokens now have haste.... Good game? This can also be done is a few other more janky ways using Spawning Pit and either Ashnod's AltarPitiless PlundererSifter of SkullsBlood PetCarrier Thrall and clever use sage of sac'ing for counters and then sac'ing for mana ( or just allays sac'ing for counters if Plunderer or Sifter are in play).