Hey studajew. My best advice would be to build on the basis that Horobi won't be on the table long. So you need to run things which are good without but potentially exponentially better with. Touch of Darkness is the only truly redundant card without Horobi, and with it becomes an incredibly powerful selective board wipe. That and you need a wincon because controlling the board isn't enough.

Hey TheRedGoat. Tyrant-Thanatos is right, we tossed Endless Whispers about, but it didn't quite fit. Same with Necrotic Plague. The suggestions are cool, just for a different deck. Always had a soft spot for Rakdos and Mogis, God of Slaughter.

Last Laugh is cool. Looked at that and Death Pits of Rath as additional control effects. Not sure if we need them or not

So I took the deck for another spin at FNM and won the pod. Really interesting game against Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim (enchantments and removal + life gain), Varolz, the Scar-Striped (reanimator and gravepact effect), Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas (Boros big creatures + commander Voltron).

Took me a while to get up to speed, and I took 8 early commander damage off Kalemne. Varolz player built up their board presence, eventually getting both Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos online. Ayli durdled a fair bit. I got Erebos, God of the Dead down to lockdown the life gain.

I then landed Phyrexian Arena, drawing into Necropotence and Touch of Darkness and Rune-Scarred Demon. Quickly accumulated cards. Wrathed the board with Horobi and Touch of Darkness and then laid down Spreading Plague killing a Dragonmaster Outcast with its own token. Followed this up with Lethal Vapors to lock board for a number of turns. Ayli player knocked out my enchantments.

Nobody wanted to sac their turn to take out Lethal Vapors

I was able to tutor for Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger off Liliana Vess exiling Varolz player's Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos to avoid having to sac off a Reassembling Skeleton being sacked. Ulamog then got Exiled by Ayli, along with my graveyard.

Eventually I drew into Rise of the Dark Realms and was then able to beat everyone down.

Thoughts:

The board state management of the deck, and the ability to hold and control multiple opponents is very powerful. We're at our most vulnerable in the first 3-5 turns off commander damage and Voltron commanders. After that we have answers.

Stars:

Erebos, God of the Dead, Infernal Darkness, Spreading Plague, Liliana Vess, Necropotence

Contemplating:

Temporal Extortion out for Infernal Darkness as a light lock.

Meekstone or Arena of the Ancients as other defensive tech.

Also taking a look at Endbringer possibly as a trial Havoc Demon alternative.

Also wondering if Nevinyrral's Disk is wrong in this deck? We have Karn for potential artifact removal, and we seldom want to concede the advantage of destroying our own enchantments to remove creatures or other permanents. Maybe Spine of Ish Sah instead?

Noxious Gearhulk may also be worth a look in the Havoc Demon slot. Although the -5 wrath is a good deterrent.

Horobi would counter Noxious Gearhulk's ability if he was on the board. You wouldn't gain the life from it. Disk is an oddity here, because your commander offers up so much potential for boardwipe, I'm not sure disk is really needed. Spine may work though. I'd consider giving it a test run if you can.

Contamination maybe would be better than the Infernal Darkness that you were considering, but I wouldn't take out Temporal Extortion for it.

Temporal Extortion is always cool, no matter if it's in 2 player or multiplayer games...if played correctly I believe the players have to decide one after the other, if they want to pay the life or not and they can't take back their decision if they see that no one else wants to pay. From my experience I can tell that it usually ends with the most experienced player taking the damage and that brings you closer to killing the hardest opponent.

@Winterblast "As the triggered ability resolves, the active player gets the option to perform the action. If that player declines, the next player in turn order gets the option. As soon as any player performs the action, the spell is countered, but the remaining players still get the option. If all players decline, the spell remains on the stack." is the ruling for Temporal Extortion.

So basically the game goes around in turn order asking each player "are you paying the life?". If it gets all the way back to you and nobody volunteered, it resolves. So from a technical perspective, each player will know what the players before them in turn order decided, but not those after.

That being said, the game effectively suspends any time a player is to make a choice, and there's nothing in the rules that states player's can't discuss the game. All players are free to conspire and decide on who will pay the life, but in the end, if a player volunteers to take the hit, they can then actually choose not to once it comes to their choice, and it'd be too late for anybody in turn order before them to change their decision.

It's kind of a complicated situation, generally I find that players just find a way to resolve this reasonably rather than adhering strictly to the rules.

That's what I meant. people will discuss but then, when the time for the actual decision has come, I've never seen anyone stick to what they said before. Often the last player to decide takes the damage because the others before him first talked much but let the decision fall on him eventually. Probably depends on your playgroup, but it's surely a card that sparks discussion at the table so it fits perfectly in this concept

Tyrant-Thanatos Drana's the other card which in theory should be good, but each time I've drawn it I've not been that keen to have it in my hand. Mainly because unlike our other creatures it doesn't ETB trigger or do something when it dies. So its easy to remove.

Yeah, you need a fair bit of mana to support Drana. She takes to kill something, and she's gonna attract a lot of removal. So ideally you'd wanna be sitting on 10+ mana before dropping her would feel like a safe move, so she can at least take two creatures with her. Not exactly as efficient as Cauldron of Souls or Touch of Darkness, and much easier to remove. Question is, what do you replace her with?

Tyrant-Thanatos. Assuming we go creature for creature similar mana cost there's a few choices:

Duplicant: without Horobi exile one. With, murder without the ability.

Guiltfeeder: like it. Can't see it sticking and no ETB or death ability.

Shambling Swarm: chump with added Horobi synergy.

Archfiend of Depravity: helps manage the board state. Needs to stay in play to do so. Evasion.

Noxious Gearhulk: murder + a body with menace. Gets worse with Horobi.

Vengeful Pharaoh: death touch blocker. Probably not graveyard focused enough for it.

Ob Nixilis, the Fallen: probably needs more building around.

Chainer, Dementia Master: 8 cmc to get value. Fragile.

Demon of Dark Schemes: another demon wrath on ETB. + possible recursion.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury: unpredictable value. Could be fun.

Abhorrent Overlord: fits the devotion theme. Not sure we need the tokens.

AEther Snap: more anti-planes walker and tokens tech.

Hatred: probably doesn't fit deck style.

Thinking Archfiend of Depravity or Demon of Dark Schemes?

Although Gonti, Lord of Luxury would still give value even if removed. And gives us a death touch blocker which we don't have.

Archfiend will draw hate just like Drana.

Maybe you want something that as it dies it does something nasty so that way if it draws hate well then they get punished too. I'm thinking of Mindslicer. Been contemplating him in my own deck.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Shambling Swarm, or Vengeful Pharaoh are my top picks. Demon of Dark Schemes looks decent, but I've never actually used him in a game so I can't really report on his merit. Gonti and Pharaoh, on the other hand, I've had great success with in the past. And Shambling Swarm looks like a solid pick given how easily accessible Horobi is in a deck like this.

Just a question how come youre not running Mana Crypt or Mana Vault

Hey Flagellum. Mindslicer's interesting. Guess you'd need to make sure you were in a commanding board position. I had Myojin of Night's Reach in but never dropped it in a game.

Tyrant-Thanatos will just need to test a few of them! I can see a situation where Demon of Dark Schemes is able to generate a lot of energy when it hits the table in a four player pod. Again it would draw hate. Gonti, Lord of Luxury and Shambling Swarm would both be rattlesnake blockers. There might be an argument for dropping Phyrexian Obliterator for one of them as well, given we don't get value unless it connects.

hey McKz. I did have Mana Vault in, but took it out as wasn't sure we needed access to such 'fast' mana with the investment needed to untap it.

This deck is entertaining. Plus 1.