Vile Deacon

Creature — Human Cleric

Whenever Vile Deacon attacks, it gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of Clerics on the battlefield.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (12)

Gadianten on Orzhov Inquisition (WB Cleric Tribal)

4 years ago

I am glad to be seeing more cleric tribal decks starting to show up, it seems the solid increase in cleric legendary prints has really helped. In my own experiments with tribal clerics, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim being my original cleric commander, have found that clerics excel in defense, resurrection and life gain but not offense compared to tribes like soldier and goblin tribal. That in mind I do have some recommendations to help maximize their potential.

Beat Sticks and offense: You have Doubtless One and Vile Deacon but don't forget to add Custodi Soulbinders and Mikaeus, the Lunarch to round out the heavy hitters. But there is more to offensive then just beat sticks, so I would consider Frontline Medic for no fear attacks and non cleric offensive aids like Reconnaissance, Dolmen Gate and Cover of Darkness to keep the clergy moving and Tymna earning her keep. From my experience in using Tymna you need evasion to keep drawing cards as trample is scarce in tribe. If you are feeling savage you can try Archangel of Thune and with the life gain available to the tribe it can get hilarious fast.

Card Draw: Most tribal decks I see have the same weakness and its card draw, even with Tymna the Weaver you can still get ground down to a halt, avoid that with some in tribe options to fuel the attack like Bygone Bishop, Custodi Lich, Twilight Prophet, Mangara, the Diplomat, Alms Collector, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. Yawgmoth is a must have in my opinion as he removes the sting out of board wipes and allows removal if you really need it and can even discard one of your cards for reanimation abuse as well.

Defensive Options: Clerics probably have the best defenses out of all the tribes and at very low costs, some options I you should consider are Devoted Caretaker, Giver of Runes, Selfless Spirit and Songstitcher if fliers are a problem for you.

Tricks and Value Combos: An amusing combo I have played with before and found pretty funny was Hedron-Field Purists or Daunting Defender along with Pestilence. It can take a bit to assemble but is pretty funny when you do. Another value combo is Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Ancestor's Prophet.

Resurrection: To many options to list but I would recommend looking through the large amounts available and pack as many as you can in to increase endurance and grind opponents down. I can say from experience this can really clinch a victory.

Snickles@EDH_only on The Church of Sacrifice

5 years ago

list of possilbe clerics to consider:

Heliod, God of the Sun - okay, not a cleric, but makes cleric tokens

Alms Collector - good card draw engine in EDH - prevents players from drawing their deck in one go also

Auriok Champion - linear upgrade from Soul Warden - resists removal

Auriok Replica - good sac for anti-commander damage, fits cleric type, colorless to cast. not super amazing, but worth mentioning

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - not all that useful until you gain some life, then amazing removal. and 2/3 deathtouch for 2 isn't bad either

Battlefield Medic - damage prevention based on clerics. nothing to special, but tribal themed, so I mention it here.

Beloved Chaplain - evasion that's hard to top - can't be blocked by creatures, can't be removed by creatures.

Blind Zealot - sacs to destroy target creature when it hits a player, good for general

Cabal Archon - sac outlet? check. Cleric tribal? check. sadistic grin? double check.

Cabal Executioner - on par with blind zealot - lacks the evasion, but doesn't sac to activate. mixed bag, but not horrible

Children of Korlis - sacs to revert life total to start of turn? yes please

Custodi Lich - grants Monarch, and forces creature sac on play and when you regain it. seems good.

Custodi Soulcaller - requires a few players to be super amazing, but still worthwhile even if all you get back is Children of Korlis

Daru Spiritualist - not quite pro- red, but helps agaisnt spot removal for entire tribe. bonus if paired with Shaman en-Kor

Devout Chaplain - most clerics are humans, exile is good. enough said.

Eight-and-a-Half-Tails - good protection for your side of the field.

Entomber Exarch - cleric that can reanimate or force pitch from opponents. not gamebreaker, but solid card with options

Frontline Medic - clerics are indistructable as long as 3 swing? seems good

Giver of Runes - really should be vodka-aunt of runes, but w/e, still good

High Priest of Penance - great to chump with, better with aethreos, best when indistructable

Kor Sanctifiers - decent artifact / enchantment removal on a cleric body, not much else to say.

Leonin Arbiter - the staple of death & taxes and hate bears is, in fact, a cleric. seems useful.

Leonin Relic-Warder - fiend hunter for artifacts & enchantments, not much else to say.

Mikaeus, the Lunarch - cleric that slowly buffs your side

Order of Whiteclay - recusion cleric. not as useful once it gets vigilence, so fair warning.

Pious Evangel  ^Flip - sac outlet that transforms into a mini- blood artist, is cleric.

Pontiff of Blight - mass extort is disgusting. seven toughness is hard to remove.

Ravos, Soultender - recursion + steroids = win

Remorseful Cleric - mass graveyard remval + evasion is good

Shaman en-Kor - this guy is bonkers, and with any form of damage prevention makes your side nigh unkillable

Sin Collector - exiles instants & sorceries, solid card. never returns them either. probably is on a wanted list in some libraries for back charges

True Believer - if you don't want people to target you, ivory mask with legs is a cleric too

Tymna the Weaver - less useful in duels, but solid for mass card draw otherwise

Vile Deacon - cleric tribal lord for black, comparible to doubtless one

Weathered Wayfarer - land tax on legs. still a cleric

Whipgrass Entangler - ghostly prison based on clerics for mana, but single target per use

Whisper, Blood Liturgist - creature recusion that nukes for 6 with general out, or mass reanimation if opponen't don't take it.

Profane Prayers - not an X spell, but cleric tribal nuke seems kinda on-theme.

Gadianten on Tymna & Ravos, Clerics

5 years ago

I think you have your combo mostly set up with Altar of Dementia and reanimation life drain effects and all that remains is tweaking and deciding on other possible support themes Depending on how fast you want to make this (how much money you want to throw at this). If you are looking for another reanimation loop to abuse Altar with then consider Sun Titan and Gift of Immortality with Fiend Hunter as a backup to create milling nightmares for opponents or fuel to power Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim .

If you are aiming for a more causal deck and are not looking to keep things around two mana then you might have some fun with Thousand-Year Elixir , Akroma's Memorial and Lightning Greaves to enable some haste shenanigans with Whisper, Blood Liturgist or other similar tap clerics of which there are far to many fun and great ones to list. Some "bruiser" clerics that might be fun are Mikaeus, the Lunarch , Custodi Soulbinders , Doubtless One and Vile Deacon and of course Door of Destinies .

If you could give some feedback about the style, power level or your general meta I could make better tailored suggestions.

Gattison on "Pauper Don't Preach" by MaRonna

7 years ago

what about Mighty Leap or something along those lines for pre-blocking-step-shenanigans with Vile Deacon? maybe Gods Willing instead?

Herbysmoke on A Clerical Error

7 years ago

Honestly my first cuts would be Vile Deacon or Ancestor's Prophet. The first is just a (potential) big body and the second is over costed for what it does (and requires a lot of extra clerics to work). Another card you may want to consider is Transcendent Master - with enough pumping he can get very powerful and it is cheaper to cast initially. The only problem is it requires 15 total Mana to get to full power...

Gadianten on Ravos and Tymna Cleric Tribal HELP!

7 years ago

As a fellow cleric tribal enthusiast I appreciate where you are trying to go with the deck but you seem to be suffering some of the same issues I ran into myself, namely not having focused synergies that build into a win condition.

A strong sub theme of your deck seems to revolve around life gain, so with that in mind lets add to and weaponize this sub theme into win conditions. I agree with kamelyan that you should add Conspiracy as its quite nasty with Rotlung Reanimator and Cabal Archon, the only reason I don't run these two in my cleric deck is the hardcore clash with Angel of Glory's Rise. Beacon of Immortality and Test of Endurance make for an interesting and intractable win condition that plays along with your life gain theme for surprise victories. Stern Judge with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth can be nasty repeatable drain where you use your life gain to stay ahead of other peoples dwindling life totals. Also, consider Greed and Erebos, God of the Dead for further card draw that works with your life gain. Also Boon Reflection might be useful as well.

If you need more cleric beaters try Custodi Soulbinders, Vile Deacon and Transcendent Master.

Some general replacements that might serve you better would be Scholar of Athreos over Pious Evangel  ^Flip, the drain effect is a nice mana dump, Frontline Medic over Banisher Priest allows you to play more aggressively and the counter ability can catch people by surprise and Grand Abolisher over Hanweir Militia Captain  ^Flip, the Captain generates tokens far to slowly and often requires you to over extend to make it any good.

For additional tribal removal options consider Kor Sanctifiers, War Priest of Thune, Leonin Relic-Warder and Reliquary Monk. Although I find Reliquary Monk and Relic-Warder to be more tricky to use without a sacrifice outlet.

Also don't forget that cleric tribal have A LOT of tax and hate effects within the tribe to play with like Sanctum Prelate, Leonin Arbiter, Glowrider, Ethersworn Canonist and Containment Priest

I hope this helps you, I look forward to seeing where you take the deck.

FaithfulCorpse on Ayli, Clerical Errors

7 years ago

akuma104 Thanks for stopping by my deckand leaving some suggestions! Yeah it's a little hard to go 100% Tribal so I usually abide by a 75% rule of trying to make 3/4 of the cards interact or actually be the given tribe, leaving the rest of the room for Goodstuff.

Responding to your suggestions I think Doubtless One and Vile Deacon both look good on paper but in practice will under perform as their usefulness is directly tied to my board state which is something I'm not a fan of. That being said Order of Whiteclay was in the initial iteration of the deck, long before I put it into paper, and somewhere along the way he came out. I'll look into perhaps re-including him. All of the tutors and Top or out at the moment simply due to budget, but I'll look in time to be getting either Vampiric Tutor or Demonic Tutor for practically every deck I run, so in due time they'll be included.

akuma104 on Ayli, Clerical Errors

7 years ago

Hey there! First off, props on making a somewhat tribal cleric deck. I love this creature type for some reason, and one of my first good decks was a b/w cleric deck (legacy purely for the cardpool, not for competitiveness) so I can definitely give some guidance. You already have Battletide Alchemist, so you need more clerics to pump up her ability to prevent all damage! Doubtless One gets bigger as you cast more clerics and has life link. Vile Deacon gets pumped up when you attack. I like to attack with him, and then sac him to starlit sanctum for double damage. Also Order of Whiteclay and Oversold Cemetery for more recursion. Also, Rotlung Reanimator could be a beast in this deck and pump out a ton of tokens.

Also, I know somebody mentioned Sanguine Bond already, and that paired with Exquisite Blood will trigger an instant win if they are both on the board and you manage to gain 1 life or ping an opponent for 1. I run those in an Oloro deck and it is great. You may also want to consider Sensei's Divining Top, Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Plea for Guidance, Demonic Tutor, to get some of your engines online since you don't have much card draw. That is all I can think up right now. Cool deck!