Village Rites

Instant

As an addition cost to cast this spell, sacrifice a creature.

Draw two cards.

Discussion (47)

Ojallday on Dealing with politics as an …

1 week ago

I have a friend that ran Markov who had a similar problem. Due to the nature of the deck you drop all of your creatures and kill one player. His solution was to transition to a mid-range strategy. Simply put he would cast early game threats to put pressure on other players, but they didn't win him the game or kill a player, so that he could win the game on later turns. Since I don't know how you are losing I'll put forward a few ways players stop Markov decks and how to counter those strategies.

First, are players killing you when all of you creatures are tapped down? Keep some of your creatures back as blockers, this is obvious and the strategy goes against how agro players operate in most formats but is needed in multiplayer environments. Along the same lines are white spells that can untap all of your creatures on other players turns like Battle Cry and Call to Glory leading to fun combat tricks to kill off important creatures and more importantly save your life total.

Second, are players board wiping constantly to knock down your board state? This was the problem my friend had and after two board wipes he would be out of cards in hand with no board state top decking hoping for some sort of Windfall. There are a few ways to counter this which can be focused on individually or can be mixed for similar results. Making it so your creatures don't die is one method featuring spells like Boros Charm and Teferi's Protection. Another is mass reanimation spells like Faith's Reward, Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death. Finally are flexible spells that essentially replace the creatures you lost. Those being Reprocess, Plumb the Forbidden or Village Rites.

Third, playing politics. Like you said there is not much stopping the rest of the table from ganging up on you, you can however influence other players decisions based on how you play and how others at your table play as well. Hold back threats, it's tempting to dump your hand and start swinging but as you mentioned this makes you a huge target. Instead put down a Coat of Arms or another value spell and hold the rest of your mana open for interaction, which leads to my next point interaction. You have some of the best removal spells in the game in your colors like Fracture,Dreadbore, Anguished Unmaking and Swords to Plowshares all of which are great bargaining chips to use as favors for other players, as well as being useful to take care of things causing problems for you. Last of all are less card choices but more how you address the table, having a good pokerface helps a lot with this. At the start of the game address the commanders others are playing and talk to the group about the powerful synergies they employ. Whenever an important combo or synergy price is played by an opponent point it out to the other players and if it's very strong stress it needs to be dealt with, which may incline the other players to use spells on it, reducing what they can use against you and making it so you don't have to deal with the problem. When a Tutor is cast discuss what spell the player could be gettng, this will draw attention to them and away from you. Finally when players address your board shift focus away from it, point out another player with the winning board state or the deck that won the last game. Downplay that you are a threat until you are ready to win the game. Keep in mind you are still an agro deck, so you can always lean into dumping your hand to kill a player fast if the game match up calls for it.

This final section is just general deck construction. Vampire selection: make sure you vampires are doing more that entering the battlefield to create an extra Vampire through eminence. Things like Blood Artist and Viscera Seer give value when opponents interact with the board and thing like Twilight Prophet draws cards. There are also the vampire lords that buff all of your vampires and tokens. Things that have synergy with your strategy are good includes too like Sanguine Bond, Impact Tremors or Goblin Bombardment and go a long way. Finally is "normal" card advantage that doesn't rely on you having vampires out and will shine in the early game as well as add value late game, Greed, Phyrexian Arena and Wheel of Misfortune.

I hope some of my thoughts help you work out a good game plan.

Crow-Umbra on Action Painting Spellslinger

3 weeks ago

Orpheus124 and bushido_man96, I recently asked around about the potential Anhelo, the Painter / Elemental Expressionist interaction, and it doesn't seem like it will work. According to the person in one of my Discord servers, "Casualty is an extra cost as you cast it, like Village Rites. You won't be able to target the creature being sacrificed with Anhelo"

killer_eye on BG Zoo

3 weeks ago

Hi BG Sacrifice fan here, I'd like to ask how you play the deck against Dimir Faeries and how you sideboard against them.

Additional: What's your take about Winding Way vs Village Rites. Thanks in advance!

Strangelove on Shirei token

1 month ago

Hey Lucas_honorio_ !

Shirei was also my first commander deck. Its a really fun commander. Although she's a glass cannon, looping 1/1s is still my favorite. Here's my last budget build: Shirei/ Budget; and another that has a bunch of cards: Shirei/ Soft Stax [EDH].

You already have a lot of fun interactions, but you're gonna want consistency. I would play more draw and ramp, try to play almost exclusively low cmc, and only keep the best effects that are focused on your strategy. So -1 Open the Graves, -1 Genesis Chamber, etc... (you don't need tokens as much as you need sacrifice outlets and draw).

You want all your draw and ramp BEFORE Shirei hits the board. It'll help smooth the early game. Look for cards like Village Rites, Deadly Dispute, Plumb the Forbidden... pure gas to set up your wincon (Shirei).

My top includes are Sultai Emissary, Skullport Merchant, Fume Spitter, Mindless Automaton, Thoughtpicker Witch, Dusk Legion Zealot, and Carrion Feeder.

Pro tip: Expect to play some archenemy. This is a deck that's "taking turns" on everyone's end step and is very easy to disrupt by forcing out Shirei.

btw you can list shirei as your commander like so:

1x Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker *CMDR*

Masterful on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

1 month ago

Foster_I_Am We can pretty consistently have a sac outlet. With Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Phyrexian Altar, and Ashnod's Altar, we have 5 repeatable sac outlets. We have 6 tutors that can fetch these as well, bringing our sources for repeatable sac up to 11. In addition to our many non-repeatable outlets like Phyrexian Tower or Village Rites, I find I usually have adequate outlet sources for sacking an Ophiomancer snake every turn.

Ardees on Its Just a Flesh Wound (Budget cEDH Meren)

1 month ago

Suggestions from someone who started from a total junk Meren deck in 2015, and through the years made it to a cEDH (check the playlist here if you want: Meren Surgical Toolbox [2K22]:

• Way too many lands. Never seen any budget deck running almost half the deck on lands only. Consider adding cheap staple cards like Kodama's Reach, Cultivate, or something like Emergent Sequence, Greenseeker (it also discards you a creature that you can pick up with meren at the end of turn), Primal Growth (good sac outlet too), Dawntreader Elk, Deathsprout, Diligent Farmhand, Rampant Growth, and notable Yavimaya Elder. Consider also adding all the 1-mana elves, all of which sit around 0.10$. If you include all these changes you can easily remove 10 lands, and sit at 35 lands total.

• Some cards you included are just downright bad, even for a budget deck. You can not only find cheaper but also better replacements for cards like Reprocess, Spider Spawning, Evincar's Justice, Zendikar's Roil. Some cards you have in your maybeboard, like Skullclamp or Buried Alive are much better options. Most definitely include Village Rites and Midnight Reaper for card draw, and Spore Frog for protection. Also Reclamation Sage

• Include Carrion Feeder as a sac outlet. You can also consider Spawning Pit and Culling Dais.

• Your deck has a very high CMC, 4.05. For a golgari deck this is way too high, considering reaching at least 3.00.

• Jarad's Orders and Diabolic Tutor are the cheapest tutors you can get. Definitely run them both.

More generally, have a look at EDHREC.com to see what cards best fit a budget Meren deck. No offense, but even as a budget your deck certainly needs much improvement. That is, assuming you don't run cards for their flavor or because you just like them. Then that's totally up to you.

Davinoth on Edgar's Evisceration Station [Vampire EDH]

1 month ago

     Last_Laugh: I used to run Reconnaissance in my old Kaalia deck and it was super good! Good call! =)

     NerdPounder: I like pretty much all of your suggestions! =D

     Vampire Socialite & Falkenrath Pit Fighter both used to be in the deck. They were actually both cut in favour of the instant speed draw spells (Village Rites, etc.), as I often found I pretty much always have creatures to sacrifice, but didn't always have cards to discard. The instant speed draw is pretty nice to have in response to board wipes as well, but since then I've also added Pact of the Serpent and Phyrexian Arena, so perhaps I don't need them anymore.

     There are a few life gain decks in my playgroup which was the inspiration for the inclusion of Sorin Markov, but you're right that he doesn't really add any value beyond that. Probably he'll be replaced with Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord.

     Smothering Tithe is just a really solid card, and really good with Anointed Procession, but you're right that it is distracting from my strategy and could likely be cut. Olivia Voldaren is definitely in that camp as well. In the couple months this deck has been together I've cast her a number of times but have never activated her lol.

     I do disagree about cutting Vicious Conquistador, though. Between it and Pulse Tracker in combination with Impact Tremors, Purphoros, God of the Forge and Sanctum Seeker they can really help with piling on damage over the course of the game.

     I used to use Legion's Landing  ^Flip when Ixalan was in Standard but had kind of forgotten this card existed haha, good call! Adanto Vanguard was also in that same deck, and it was a really great beater with great sticking power. I think it's going to find a home here as well.

     Thanks again for all the great suggestions and the upvote! =)

NerdPounder on Edgar's Evisceration Station [Vampire EDH]

1 month ago

Hey there! Cool build! I like the versatility of being able to aristocrat or infinite combo in the aggro shell. I've been playing Vampire Aggro in Pioneer actually and it's a hella powerful archetype in that format, but the mana is a pain haha. I've had some really good success with some of the cards I'm about to suggest if you are looking for some ways to test for improvement.

A few cards I think could be easy includes in this list could be: Legion's Landing  ^Flip (early game vampire fodder, late game token engine), Vampire Socialite (lord with menace), Falkenrath Pit Fighter (replaces effects you have on sorceries, is repeatable, and comes with a body), Mutavault (this card is insane in tribal decks), Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord (lots of synergy), and Adanto Vanguard (indestructible threat, that when you buff it up say with +1/+1 counters or keywords from Sorin can take over games by itself).

For the 5 non-lands I would cut Sorin Markov (he's cool and thematic but doesn't really do anything for your synergy aside from make someone's life total 10, which everyone at the table will dislike, and he costs 6 mana), Village Rites (Falkenrath Pit Fighter does the same thing but on a stick and repeatable), Reckoner's Bargain (same reason), Smothering Tithe (It just taxes mana to make treasure tokens, doesn't really help you kill your opponent, just makes value that you shouldn't need since you're an aggro deck), and Patron of the Vein (it costs 6 mana and Vampire Socialite does pretty much the same thing).

I also love Olivia Voldaren as a card, though I'm not sure what I would replace for it. I totally agree with your maybeboard Anguished Unmaking over the Generous Gift as giving the opponent a big blocker like that is painful, as well as the exile over destroy. For 3 life it's worth it, especially in an aggro deck that gains plentiful life.