pie chart

Horobi and the Wailers ~100$

Commander / EDH Bracket 3 Budget Casual Demons Mono-Black Multiplayer Sacrifice

Orange+

Upvote 0
0

Death trigger (10)

Draw (9)

Protection (5)

Removal (4)

Board wipe (2)

Land (36)

Multitarget (7)

Creature recursion (6)

Specters and spies (4)

Commander (1)

Commander: Horobi, Death's Wail

Ramp (7)

Edict (5)

Tutor (4)

Horobi and the Wailers

we be jammin' creatures into yo' graveyard


So the general idea here is to have the option to play Horobi, Death's Wail and boardwipe your opponents creatures with targeting effects. When he dies you should let him go to the graveyard and just tutor him up when you need him again. After playtesting this deck, I can verify that this deck is capable of exterminating literal heaps of creatures. However, this deck is not very strong due to its fringe commander and low budget, so players are adviced to play this deck with the upmost thought and tact.

It might be beneficial to have some effects that trigger on creature deaths when playing / using Horobi, this will enable you to get more advantage out of the situation. It might also be beneficial to kill Horobi the same turn as a full / semi board wipe. This is to protect your own creature board. As an example, if you have some valuable creature on the board (ex: Harvester of Souls) and you play Horobi, Death's Wail with a board wipe follow up (ex: Cauldron of Souls), you might want to target Horobi as well, so that it is less likely that your Harvester dies shortly after.

The budet is ~100$ total, max 5$ per card (with exceptions). I use Cardkingdom prices

Suggestions are welcome :)

Cauldron of souls is also kinda spiking in value. Trying to keep my cards under 5$, and thus swapping it out for a budget card. Very happy I found another multitarget creature ability! Although it is far from equally strong..

OUT: Cauldron of Souls

IN: Inversion Behemoth

Hex Parasite just keeps accumulating value. Gonna swap it out with a card Ive been wanting to playtest for a long time :)

OUT: Hex Parasite

IN: Massacre Wurm

This decks price has gone way above ~100$, so Im cutting come expensive cards. Adding some specters for flavor

OUT: Touch of Darkness, Mari, the Killing Quill, and High Market

IN: Hypnotic Specter and Abyssal Specter, and Swamp

Im gonna try to make the deck a tad bit stronger just by adding some value cards.

OUT: Necrosynthesis, Shadows of the Past, Blood Beckoning, and Raise Dead

IN: Shimian Specter, Haunted Crossroads, Phyrexian Reclamation, and Swiftfoot Boots

I want to add some boardwipes again, cause they can really come in handy, and they do trigger the death triggers even though those permanents will die at the same time. Additionally, Id like to test out Urza's glasses just to get a feel if it is fun to play or not. (I will use it to see wether players have creature targeting spells).

OUT: Blessing of Leeches, Dark Ritual, and Star Compass

IN: Deadly Tempest, Nightmare Unmaking, and Glasses of Urza

Im trying to make the deck a bit better so that it will be a tad more challenge to beat by my playgroups good decks. This is still just a medium power deck, but it might be more fun to play if it tries to do less things better (instead of trying to do too many things).

Spectres are flavorful, but not very good, and also not very fun actually. Ive from time to time managed to get a lock on players in 3-man pods with spectres (getting them down to topdecking), but the deck is just so slow to beat down life totals, so these situations just become an endless waiting game. This isnt great, and I dont need this deck to be a control deck. Also, as I mentioned, they arent very good either. They need to attack and hit to be useful, which makes me have to choose which player to be the unfortunate one every turn, as well as leaving me open to attacks. Discard is best against players with few cards, so to maximize effect you should in theory focus one player. This isnt optimal for a fun game.

The looking at opponents hand category is also going away. These cards did work pretty well, and I especially liked Glasses of Urza, but they just dont have enough effect in a multiplayer situation.

Im primarily adding more ramp and draw effects, as per recommandation from a player in my playgroup.

OUT: Agonizing Memories, Duress, Glasses of Urza, Inquisition of Kozilek, Persecute, Abyssal Specter, Dreamstealer, Guul Draz Specter, Hypnotic Specter, Kheru Mind-Eater, Shimian Specter, and Night Dealings

IN: Burnished Hart, Worn Powerstone, Mind Stone, Clackbridge Troll, Sign in Blood, Staff of Nin, Butcher of Malakir, Blessing of Leeches, Jade Monolith, Profane Tutor, Rhystic Tutor, and Gravelighter

Single use creature targeting effects are out. Main category is now death trigger effects. The idea is that you gain much more advantage from killing creatures with Horobi if you get triggers from it. A collection of other cards are also removed. Some because they dont work too well (Journeyer's Kite), some because they dont fit the new theme (Nightmare Unmaking), and some because they are expensive (Phyrexian Reclamation).

OUT: Deadly Tempest, Nightmare Unmaking, Haunted Crossroads, Phyrexian Reclamation, Sign in Blood, Ashes to Ashes, Darkblast, Scale of Chiss-Goria, Squee's Toy, Tooth of Chiss-Goria, Jade Monolith, Commander's Sphere, Journeyer's Kite, Scour from Existence, Order of Yawgmoth, and Swamp

IN: Falkenrath Noble, Ogre Slumlord, Sangromancer, Syr Konrad, the Grim, Promise of Power, Demon's Disciple, Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, Plaguecrafter, Nightmare Shepherd, Agonizing Memories, Duress, Glasses of Urza, Inquisition of Kozilek, Persecute, and High Market

Just changed the description. The following text is not correct (Horobi's ability uses the stack just like everything else).

" You should probably try to run through a couple of stack scenarios with Horobi and target effects before playing a Horobi deck. If Horobi dies sometime during the resolution of the stack, target effects that resolve later will not kill their targets. This means that your opponents could respond to a target effect you have, with targeting Horobi, and only he will die. In such a case it's a good idea to keep some spare effects and mana to retarget what you want to die, so that it dies while Horobi is on the table. "

Found two cards that might support the deck in tough situations. Removing Needle Specter because it's a bit too expensive for it's value to the deck

OUT: Needle Specter and Morbid Plunder

IN: Diabolic Tutor and Feed the Swarm

Found another viable creature exile card

OUT: Entropic Specter

IN: Ashes to Ashes

Slight improvement

OUT: Liquimetal Coating

IN: Liquimetal Torque

The deck works fairly well at this state, so I'm tidying up the maybeboard.

Didn't realize that Needle Specter is a three cost, which makes it better than many of the other specters I play. It is a bit pricey, but I have one, so I think I'm adding it anyway. Also, I think the Sphere is a bit better than the Ingot.

OUT: Order of Yawgmoth and Darksteel Ingot

IN: Needle Specter and Commander's Sphere

I think these specter-like cards are a bit better than the others.

In addition, Im swapping some cards in the limited target category. I think it will be more advantageous to have more single target spell responses than to cram several targets into the same effect. This is because an effect targetting Horobi, as a response to my own creature target effect, will nullify my original creature destruction.

Cannibalize stays as it can remove indestructible stuff. Also, Darkblast is put in and Im hoping it will synergize well with my creature recursion theme.

OUT: Chilling Apparition, Headhunter, Swamp, Steal Strength, and Subtle Strike

IN: Dreamstealer, Fiend of the Shadows, Kheru Mind-Eater, Darkblast, and Scale of Chiss-Goria

In light of new found knowledge (described in the previous update), I'm gonna swap out the "target one creature and draw" spells, and some instant speed recursion.

Additionally I'm changing out of the indestructible theme. The main reason being that its boring cause they don't really interact with anything. They are expensive to cast, and they are pretty lame. A second reason is that since they are quite slow and defensive, they (being part of the combat damage based wincon) turn the deck into a slow semi-control deck. But because the deck can't handle any other kind of spell than creature, it's really bad as a control deck. Enchantments are especially viscious against the deck now.

So I'd rather play more efficient creatures and pressure players earlier. To keep it interesting I'm homing in on two mechanics (instead of just plain efficient creatures), which are "whenever a crearture dies" and "when this creature deals damage to a player" -effects. The first fits cause Horobi, Death's Wail kill a lot of creatures, and the second fits because I might (hopefully) be able to clear out blockers so that my creatures are free to hit players in their face.

Actually, didn't find enough good "whenever a creature dies" cards, so going full on "when deals damage to player" mode; Specter tribal is incomming!

Oh and also, I'm removing some impact cards that I don't feel like playing. Avatar of Woe doesnt have enough synergy, Grave Betrayal I don't feel like stealing creatures with this deck (I already have a deck for that - The Act of Treason ~200$), Sepulchral Primordial same reason, and Toshiro Umezawa cause I don't play enough interesting instants or sorceries.

OUT: Aphotic Wisps, Nighthaze, Dark Dabbling, Corpse Churn, Grim Harvest, Soulless Revival, March of the Drowned, Soul Stair Expedition, No Rest for the Wicked, Mortuary (quite advanced to use well imo), Darksteel Gargoyle (boooring!), Darksteel Juggernaut, Darksteel Sentinel, Manor Gargoyle, Phylactery Lich, Colossus of Akros, Creepy Doll, Avatar of Woe (still love the flavour and artwork tho), Grave Betrayal, Sepulchral Primordial, Toshiro Umezawa (might come back due to it being a very strong card), and Coldsteel Heart (a tad too expensive for this deck).

IN: Dirge of Dread, Clackbridge Troll, Promise of Power, Gift of Doom, Death Denied, Morbid Plunder, Wander in Death, Forever Young, Abyssal Specter, Banshee of the Dread Choir, Chilling Apparition, Entropic Specter, Guul Draz Specter, Headhunter, Hollow Specter, Hypnotic Specter, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Order of Yawgmoth, Scythe Specter, Shimian Specter, Silent Specter, and Urgoros, the Empty One

Based on new insight into two rulings, I will make changes to the deck in the near future. The mechanics in question are:

  1. Spells fizzle when their target is removed due to Horobi. This affects spells that try to target a creature and then draw me a card afterwards.

  2. "If a Commander would be put into a graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead". Which makes the instant speed grave recursion spells less meaningful. In contradiction with what I previously believed, graveyard hate will not be able to permanently remove Horobi from the game.

The price of my budget decks keep rising, so I'm marking the current price to see how the value evolves.

Current price (cardkingdom): 62-70$

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Revision 28 See all

(4 months ago)

-1 Cauldron of Souls main
+1 Inversion Behemoth main