Bontu's Monument

Legendary Artifact

Black creature spells you cast cost {1} less to cast.

Whenever you cast a creature spell, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Casual	Legal
Custom	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal

Discussion (50)

amarthaler on Bloodline Bloodbath

1 month ago

I like what you have going here - which appears to be some upgrades to the 2017 pre-con. I also did this and can tell you that upgrading the lands is a game-changer in regards to putting vampires onto the battlefield quicker. But as you know, lands are expensive.

Some cheaper upgrades I'd recommend are: Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord, Embercleave, Vanquisher's Banner and Bontu's Monument. I threw those in my upgraded deck and they're very useful.

Here's a link to mine if you'd like to peek at it for ideas. Again, ignore the price tag because I upgrade all of the lands with cards I already owned.

amarthaler on Daddy Eddy

2 months ago

Nice build!

I agree with rambunctiousOrator, your actual mana curve is actually pretty good. 50 total cards in your deck are 3 drops or less, which is a respectable number. If you really wanted some cheap ideas, however, perhaps Black Market, Bontu's Monument or Dark Ritual could help for black. Seething Song is a nice cheap ramp for red. If you're willing to put a few extra dollars into the deck, I'd suggest finishing out the filter lands with Graven Cairns and Rugged Prairie. Chromatic Lantern is also nice and still under $20.

Your creature count is pretty high in terms of card type ratio, and this may be an area you can cut out to add more mana ramp - but that's my personal opinion. The cool thing about your deck is a lot of the vampires are cheap, so as long as you can protect them you'd likely have a massive army on the board (with tokens from Edgar), and recover from a board wipe very quickly.

I also have an Edgar deck, which is 40% cards I added from my own collection and the other 60% is the pre-con from the 2017. Maybe it could spark some ideas for you - but keep in mind mine is designed to go wide and add +1/+1 counters.

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/edh-vampiric-bloodlust-c17-precon-upgrade-1/

Guerric on Varina

2 months ago

I think I can help with this deck! I've built a lot of tribal decks and have pondered building Varina myself. I like to help thoroughly, so I am going to give a bit of feedback, and might separate the posts out for convenience. I'll also upvote it and draw some others to this page to provide feedback as well!

To begin with, I commend the choice of avoiding infinite combos. Though Varina has a few, she can be plenty powerful without them and while I play a lot of combo decks myself, it gets boring sometimes. I guess we'll start with cards to cut, and then we'll get to direction and cards to add! To begin with, the first thing to cut is lands. 43 is way too many for any deck that isn't a landfall deck. I realize that you are playing Field of the Dead and that lands help it, but you won't see that card every dame due to no tutors, and its potential is limited without access to green. Playing Field is fine, and you may even want to play Crucible of Worlds so you can just discard your lands and play them from your graveyard and for synergy with Field, but don't get too excited about it. 37 is the golden mean for most decks in EDH, and with an engine commander like Varina I'd play 35 personally, though 36 could be a compromise. I also don't think you need Flawless Maneuver. When your zombies die you can just bring them back! I don't think you need Reconnaissance either. Your Zombies are fodder for the horde, and you can just bring them back. Just don't attack with Varina and you have nothing you need to worry about protecting. Lazotep Plating is fine, but you'll mostly use it to protect Varina, so I'd think of it as a protection spell. Void Rend's mana cost is prohibitively highly (3 colors is too much). I'd just play Generous Gift instead. Smothering Tithe is a great card that I play in three of my decks, but I wouldn't play it in Varina. Its a slow grindy card more suitable to control and combo decks, and you'd rather be casting Varina on turn 3 and Zombies or Zombie spells every turn after. I'm not sure if cEDH is what you usually play, but cards like Stifle and Songs of the Damned are often a bit one off and limited for standard EDH. The latter could maybe be fine for flavor, but I'd definitely cut the prior. If you want a more flexible spell play Disallow which will be a lot more flexible. Nykthos Paragon is a neat idea because it does something with your life gain, but it is pretty high costed at six and isn't a Zombie, so I might not play it, but it will bring slow value if it isn't killed.

I'd also cut down on your card draw pieces. I never say this, but with Varina you'll see lots of cards, and can play a lot from discard or the graveyard, so I'd focus on the highest impact one and cut some of the bad ones like Plumb the Forbidden. Cards like this have limitations because you have to sac them (versus letting them die in combat), and you won't always want to do that. The best ones are the high impact ones like Teferi's Ageless Insight and Alhammarret's Archive. I'd also cut Bontu's Monument. The ramp isn't very good and the aristocratic effect isn't as good as you think its going to be.

Now for what's great here- all of your Zombies. Seriously, it's a great list, all of them! You also really want to play a few cards from your maybe board too. Syr Konrad, the Grim is a must play. Seriously, it'll be the best card in the deck bard none. It's not an infinite combo, but he's amazing with recursion cards, board wipes, and death (more on that below). You also need to play Haunting Voyage and Patriarch's Bidding. They are in your maybe board and are must plays!

multimedia on Chainer Nightmare Reanimator

5 months ago

Hey, if you're wanting to take your deck into 8 or more power level (PL) then you really need to decide how you want to win the game? At 8 PL or higher to win infinite combos are the way to go. Chainer doesn't need to be a piece of the combo, his discard can be an enabler. Since Chainer cares about creatures then using combos that involve creatures is best.

Some creatures to play for combos: Worldgorger Dragon, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Gravecrawler, Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Walking Ballista, Murderous Redcap, Pitiless Plunderer, Dualcaster Mage, Reassembling Skeleton.

Some enablers for combos to play: Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Goblin Bombardment, Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy, Twinflame or Heat Shimmer.

Some win conditions for the combos: Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Walking Ballista, Murderous Redcap, Zealous Conscripts, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Dualcaster Mage, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Mayhem Devil, Goblin Bombardment, Bontu's Monument, Aetherflux Reservoir, Sunscorched Desert, Impact Tremors, Cut / Ribbons(Ribbions), Torment of Hailfire.

Some cards to play to protect combo: Deflecting Swat, Tibalt's Trickery, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast, Dualcaster Mage, Reverberate.

---

Beyond combos some other good creatures to play: Dockside Extortionist, Magus of the Wheel, K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, Crypt Ghast, Plaguecrafter, Dualcaster Mage.

Expanding on loot can help to draw and get creatures faster into your graveyard: Buried Alive, Magus of the Wheel, Cathartic Reunion, Thrill of Possibility, Tormenting Voice, Azra Oddsmaker, Sire Of Insanity, Seize the Spoils.

Expanding on fast mana and/or big mana producers helps to have more mana to cast more spells which can assemble combos faster: Dockside Extortionist, K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, Crypt Ghast, Mana Crypt, Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, Cabal Ritual, Burnt Offering, Sacrifice.

If you're interested in any of these suggestions then I offer more advice in another comment that includes further explaining the combos, more card advice as well as cuts to consider.

Good luck with your deck.

Masterful on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

5 months ago

Housegheist Oketra's Monument and Bontu's Monument provide semi-useful value on top of a not-very-consistent cost-reducer. Oketra's only reduces 9 of our creatures' mana costs, as we only have ~15 white creatures, and quite a few of them have only colored mana in their mana costs. That means it's mostly just a token-maker when we cast creatures, which isn't a super efficient way of making fodder. I much prefer fodder that's self-sufficient and can build us a board from nothing. Bontu's reduces the cost of more creatures, but it's non-death trigger drain isn't super useful since we're not looking to cast a ton of creatures. We'd much rather have our creatures die and bring them back.

Consistent ramp that can always tap for mana tends to be better for our strategy, especially since we can play it earlier than turn 3. Furthermore, cards like Knight of the White Orchid and Loyal Warhound provide valuable self-sufficient fodder in addition to mostly consistent ramp.

Housegheist on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

5 months ago

Ever thought about Oketra's Monument or Bontu's Monument?

I_drank_your_milk on Shadowborn Apostle Combo

6 months ago

metalflame I play this deck on MTGO, so imperial seal is actually not very expensive at all. If I were going to play this in paper I would definitely replace that with something else.

Thrumming Stone actually does work with Bontu's Monument and Aetherflux Reservoir, as play is just an old term for cast.

The reason for 40 Shadowborn Apostle is so that I can consistently hit at least one off of Thrumming Stone when comboing off, fewer than 40 means the deck would be much less consistent. Also, excess copies can be played in the hope of getting up to six to find Rune-Scarred Demon or can be sacrificed to Ayara to draw cards, so it is not too big of a deal to have 40 of them.

Finally, thank you so much for the suggestion of Plague of Vermin, that card seems extremely good and I will definitely be testing it.

Zuacamole on

8 months ago

I would suggest cutting some lands for some more mana rocks. 41 lands is to many in my opinion. You could use Dimir Signet Talisman of Dominance Fellwar Stone Bontu's Monument

Also you can run counterspells Counterspell Negate Mana Drain Pact of Negation to protect your zombie hoard.

Black as gotten some good removal recently Infernal Grasp Murderous Rider maybe even Ravenform

You should have Wand of Orcus this card is a powerhouse in my zombie deck. The Scarab God can be fun in the 99 although I use him as my commander personally.

Phyrexian Altar to go infinite with Gravecrawler

Liliana, Dreadhorde General in the best Lilly for zombies in my opinion.

Living Death to clear the board. Just sacrifice your own stuff before you cast it for maximum profit.

Noxious Ghoul is another amazing way to clear the board

Shepherd of Rot can be good early or late game and does a ton of damage to everyone with enough zombies in play

Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is insane ramp the. Throw down Zombie Master and everything you control is unblockable.

Here’s the link to my list if you want to check it out. It’s a little more competitive but still very casual to play if you ignore the combos. Scarab God and his undead apostles