Cabal Therapy

Sorcery

Name a nonland card. Target player reveals his or her hand and discards all cards with that name.

Flashback—Sacrifice a creature. (You may play this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then remove it from the game.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

TheVectornaut on King of the Skull Servants

1 week ago

As a fellow enjoyer of Grass Looking Greener (mostly Lightsworn but also some Zombie/Vampires, PK+Paleos, and Skull Servants), I do think the idea is interesting. You're always going to be in a bit of a battle between thematic consistency and power level. For instance, a grave-counting creature like Wight of Precinct Six or Nighthowler would fit the idea of King growing with more guys in the yard, but they would also be disappointingly weak right now since you don't have a lot of mass self-mill at the moment (Stitcher's Supplier and Overlord of the Balemurk are the first things that comes to my mind). On the subject of getting what you want in the GY, it probably is best to have a few more ways of getting specific targets buried at least. With Entomb off the table in modern, I could see Unmarked Grave being the best cheap option instead of or in addition to Buried Alive. This only negatively affects Maha who I already think is worse than reanimator staples like Archon of Cruelty or Sire Of Insanity. Fewer legendaries also makes Persist a great choice. There's also Lively Dirge if you want to stick to the low mana value plan and can afford to pay more mana. Finally, I'm partial to Burning-Rune Demon as a way to extend into more reanimations while being a reasonable threat in its own right. I think it would be cool to run more skeletons for the theme too, although most aren't that helpful. Cards like Reassembling Skeleton or Persistent Specimen could be sac fodder to a Victimize or Hell's Caretaker. Another one that I know can be good in black reanimator is Emperor of Bones, although he has some unfortunate anti-synergy with other cards in the deck like Twilight Diviner. Death Baron is always an option if you find the Corpses of the Lost backup plan doesn't have enough oomph.

Some final notes: It may be more consistent to focus on just the Xu-Ifit negated reanimations. That would involve going up to 4 Death's Shadow and adding in some similar options like Moonshadow or Yargle and Multani. The EDHRec page for Varolz, the Scar-Striped could be a place to start. That all said, having the more powerful effects of non-negated creatures may still be worth the inconsistency of the two plans not always meshing whan you need them to. You do want to have the best options available in either case though. My first cut suggestions would be Gloom Sower, Avatar of Woe, Inkwell Leviathan, and lastly Maha, Its Feathers Night. Finally, I second cutting some lands and would suggest Bitter Triumph as a replacement for Cast Down that comes with a Cabal Therapy option built-in.

RockIV on the book of the dead

2 years ago

hey there darklight90 , thnks for the advice , i appreciate it alot!.

I been watching an testing your deck , its awesome. I remember wondering if the deck would be better with other type of spells like dicard, but i ended up only using reanimate type spells only, to make the deck quicker. I always felt that if i start with a hand with no reanimate chance, it would be a loss. ive seen people using Hymn to Tourach as a defensive sepll. The most optimal woul be using dicard spells that can be used with me or with the oponent, like you do.

Thoughtseize is an awesome card, sadly i dont have it, thats why im using Cabal Therapy. i need to get some copies of it, but is too expensive T_T

Love how the Lotus Petal interact with the deck!.

Collective Brutality its another interesting card, so many uses!

Balaam__ on Balaam__

2 years ago

@Daikodubs Alright, so here’s what I cobbled together. It isn’t quite Sultai, and I’d actually very much recommend abandoning a tri color mana base in favor of {B}{U} instead, but if you’re dead set on Sultai it’s easily adaptable.

4 Vapor Snag 10 Swamp 4 Spell Pierce 4 Mana Leak 6 Island 4 Hedron Alignment 4 Gurmag Angler 4 Counterspell 4 Cling to Dust 4 Choked Estuary 4 Cabal Therapy 4 Cabal Therapist 4 Bojuka Bog

You’ve got enough mana to reliably cast Hedron Alignment from your hand.

You’ve got 8 cards that will get a copy from your hand into your graveyard, namely Cabal Therapy and Cabal Therapist. Just name yourself as the target player and dump from your own hand.

You’ve got 8 cards that let you exile a copy from your graveyard, playsets of Bojuka Bog and Cling to Dust. That last one will let you recover lost life too in case you’re dangerously close to death.

You’ve got a boatload of countermagic to fizzle a lot of what your opponent may try, either to stop you or else to bolster their own strategy.

Lastly, I threw in Gurmag Angler because you mentioned you like Delve and it’s also a fine card to block with if necessary or even to win with should Hedron Alignment somehow not be a viable wincon for whatever reason.

Prices fluctuate depending on where and how you buy, but this rings it at around $20 or less depending on the set of card you’re looking at. Like I said, this is but one way to try building around Hedron Alignment and there are many others. But the idea is to fully commit to it while ignoring anything that’ll only distract from it. Take it, adjust it as you see fit, make changes etc.

Hope this helps.

Balaam__ on 8-Rack Rat-Pack

3 years ago

I think you’re at the threshold of pushing what’s possible with the current list, and unless you’re willing to ditch the non-rack aspects (i.e. the Samurai stuff) there isn’t much else to recommend. If you want the samurai cards to remain for theme reasons that’s fine, but removing them opens up more options that lean heavily into capitalizing off discard/rack effects. The Rack, Cabal Therapy, Cry of Contrition etc. Mono Black excels in this area and many staples are inexpensive. But then you risk losing the identity of the deck you made, as it’ll veer ever closer to every other cooy&paste Rack deck out there. So there’s a battle between creativity and competition in which only you can decide the victor.

0rc on If Kobolds Could Kill (Explosive, Turn 1 Win)

3 years ago

Easily, MetalHeartPipe, Pact of Negation, Cabal Therapy, and combining off on turn 1.

AnonmousAxolotl on 1 Mana Tribal - Budget Legacy

4 years ago

Yeah, I basically only play Modern so I didn't notice that. Cabal Therapy is really good, but I would like to see a Modern version of this deck.

Exit777 on 1 Mana Tribal - Budget Legacy

4 years ago

AnonmousAxolotl I definitely agree but since this deck is built to be played in Legacy, Lurrus is sadly banned. He's a definite include in a Modern build of this deck though, which would just require swapping out the Cabal Therapy!

Kazierts on Oops, All 1 Drop Zombies

4 years ago

Sorry for not realizing the entire deck was meant to be CMC 1, not just the creatures. With this in mind, I got a few other suggestions.

• Cabal Therapy is a great discard spell that sees a lot of play in Legacy already. Alternatively, you could use Cabal Therapist for repeatable discard, though it's not on tribe.

• Ghoulcaller's Chant could be an option in case you see the life loss from Phyrexian Reclamation being too much of a problem. Sure, it isn't repeatable but in some cases getting two zombies at once without losing life could be very useful.

• One creature that's on tribe is Stitcher's Supplier. Since you have quite a few zombies that want to be in the graveyard in order to reanimate themselves, the Supplier can help you get them there.