An Old-School Nightmare

Commander / EDH EnbyGolem

SCORE: 130 | 74 COMMENTS | 10684 VIEWS | IN 57 FOLDERS

Wishes Do Come True! —Aug. 31, 2021

Okay, we are not even remotely close to budget-land anymore! I recently acquired three cards that have long been on my wish-list: Hellfire, Knowledge Vault, and Lake of the Dead. They've been on my list so long because they are all very, very expensive - far more than I have ever paid for a card! Hellfire's near mint price tag alone is double many of my deck's entire budget! Luckily, some random cards in my collection recently gained in price and, as luck would have it, Card Kingdom happened to have some well-loved, relatively cheap copies of all three of my wish-list cards in stock! Everything lined up perfectly and I was able to cash in some cards sitting on a shelf for some pieces I've wanted for over a year now!

Hellfire should be a really fun card to mess around with. Will I blow-up in the processes? Perhaps. But we sure will have fun with it! Timed correctly and with the right board, it can actually lead us to some wins too! Late game (and with one or two players already gone) this card can single handedly clear an opponent's board so our big spooky monsters of the dark can swoop in for the final kill!

Lake of the Dead is a card I've actually wanted for a very long time. That art mixed with the unique ramp is incredibly cool! I am so excited to finally start blowing up my own swamps! :D

Knowledge Vault is so weird and unique! The mechanics of the card are so flavorful too. I think it will pair really well in the deck since it also has an interesting discard ability stapled on, even if we don't get a ton of cards 'drawn' from it. Also, I'm a huge sucker for Amy Weber art and this one might just be my favorite!

I've also added a couple new cards to the deck as well! Ebon Dragon will be a sweet flying beater to the deck. It can also help disrupt opponent's hands a little too, especially after a couple reanimations. Life Chisel enables us to actually gain life now! While not the most reliable sac outlet, its unique effect will hopefully payoff! The last newbie is Banshee . While technically inefficient, Banshee's damage effect is really interesting because it gives us a way to directly kill Plansewalkers, a huge rarity in old-school Black cards!

To make room for these new additions we did have to cut quite a few cards. Though it pained me, I did end up removing Gravestorm for the time being. It is an awesome card but its effect does not do super well against my playgroup since graveyards are regularly full of ramp cards and cracked lands. Another one I am really sad to see go is Ashen Powder. I've actually used this card to get some really great pieces out of the graveyard - it's just that I have other similar effects in the deck already and wanted to make room for more variety. In this same line of reasoning, I also benched Phyrexian Ghoul and Cateran Overlord. As I mentioned in my last update, sac outlets are very important, and these two cards do that quite well; the only problem is I had other, more unique (and in my eyes, interesting) cards that needed a space.

Staples removed: Mutilate (though its status as a 'staple' is certainly debatable)