Sideboard

Instant (3)

Sorcery (4)


Maybeboard

Creature (2)

Enchantment (1)

Instant (1)

Sorcery (1)


Grrrrowl... welcome to Pitiless Gravecrawler, a mono-black Modern hybrid between Aristocrats, Zombie tribal, and infinite combo.

The centerpiece of our deck is an infinite death combo. Here's the traditional method of how it goes off.

1) Have Pitiless Plunderer, Gravecrawler, and Carrion Feeder on the battlefield.

2) Sacrifice Gravecrawler to Carrion Feeder. Pitiless Plunderer creates a Treasure token and Carrion Feeder gets a +1/+1 counter.

3) Sacrifice the Treasure token, adding and casting Gravecrawler from your graveyard to restore the initial conditions of step 1.

The weakness of this combo, of course, is that it only creates one / creature without trample, so we often need a way to apply more direct pressure to our opponent. Hence, our payoffs.

With this deck, we have quite a few ways to better enable a victory once the center combo is established. This comes in quite a few ways.

The most direct routes to victory are through Zulaport Cutthroat and Disciple of the Vault, but it's also possible to win via a double-infinite attack through either a second Carrion Feeder or a Champion of the Perished.

Carrion Feeder - As a central combo piece of the deck, Carrion Feeder is integral to the deck's identity. It also serves as a decent attacker as well; since it can't block, it's a freebie on an open board. Carrion Feeder also has the effect of being able to tuck away our cards in response to removal, particularly exile cards like Prismatic Ending that our deck can often be weak to. It can also be an effective pairing with Stitcher's Supplier.

Champion of the Perished - Champion of the Perished leans into the Zombie tribal aspect of our deck, and is probably the best t1 drop besides Stitcher's Supplier that we have. As said previously, it can be a minor payoff for our infinite combo as well, becoming infinite along with our Feeder. 68% of the creatures in our deck are Zombies so it really shouldn't fizzle (especially if you're keeping an optimal hand).

Cryptbreaker - Cryptbreaker in this deck serves as a chump blocker, chump blocker generator, racker for our combo pieces, and card draw engine. It's a very good card in the deck, serving a variety of purposes, and unlike Undead Augur it does not run the risk of killing us. It also has the advantage of being a t1 drop, though usually a different Zombie is better for this task. My favorite part about Cryptbreaker is that its ability innately ignores summoning sickness, so you can play your Gravecrawlers and immediately get value from them.

Diabolic Intent - If we're missing a combo piece, eating a Gravecrawler or Stitcher's Supplier to cast this is usually not difficult. Plus, unlike Mausoleum Secrets it can grab a Pitiless Plunderer.

Disciple of the Vault - serves as a cheaper payoff for our combo, as it triggers off each Treasure.

Gravecrawler - This card pops off regularly, not only as an aggressive attacker and combo piece, but also fodder for sacrificing and direct advantage off Stitcher's Supplier's milling. It can't block, so again you're not losing anything if you tap it with Cryptbreaker or run it off on an empty board.

Pitiless Plunderer - This card is the clunky gear of the deck. Costing 4 mana, it can't be hit by Unearth, and it isn't a Zombie so it doesn't advantage us in a whole lot of scenarios. However, it does have a lot of intrinsic advantages that make it worth playing, including being an essential combo piece and giving us mana for our spells.

Stitcher's Supplier - This card is in this deck solely to enable reanimator strategies, which gives us a form of pseudo-card advantage. It's especially good in Plunderer-Feeder hands or Feeder-Persist hands, where we're missing a combo piece that can easily be fetched from the graveyard. It has the advantage of comboing well with Feeder and Gravecrawler.

Zulaport Cutthroat - Zulaport Cutthroat is the final creature of this deck and similarly to Disciple of the Vault it serves as a great payoff for our infinite combo.

Barren Moor - A cycling land with low cycling cost is just what this deck needs. It can potentially slow down the deck, but that effect is offset by the value it gives us.

Diabolic Intent - Diabolic Intent is a crazy good tutor in this deck, replacing Mausoleum Secrets as it serves as both a payoff for our sacrifice strategy and in many cases can be better than if we just had straight Demonic Tutor.

Persist - Persist is a decent enough card. It grabs Pitiless Plunderer and Undead Augur, and can make us mill six cards if we grab Stitcher's Supplier. It's got enough value to stand in the deck as is, but it carries a bit of the same clumsiness of Pitiless Plunderer.

Plumb the Forbidden - Plumb the Forbidden is one of the best black draw spells in the game, and is currently going through a test run to see how good it is in this deck.

Tragic Slip - Tragic Slip in conjunction with Carrion Feeder means we get to control when we get to make the call, essentially making this a one-mana removal spell for any non-hexproof/shroud creature with very little downside. It has the added benefit of being able to remove Ragavan on its own.

Unearth - Unearth is a better Persist in that it can grab the vast majority of our deck, excluding of course Pitiless Plunderer.

Dauthi Voidwalker - This card needs no introductions. It's the superior Leyline of the Void, with added stealing benefit. This card breaks parity in mirror matches and ruins Dredge's day.

Feed the Swarm - Can destroy Rest in Peace, Urza's Saga, and creatures that pose problems to us, all with a bit more flexibility than the previous removal slot, Murderous Rider.

Apostle's Blessing - This card serves as a second payoff for the infinite combo as well as a flexible protection against removal, especially important for our mono-colored deck against Leyline Binding matchups.

Undead Augur - Against some discard variants (especially those using Grief), this card can work miracles.

The best hand you can get in this deck has Stitcher's Supplier, Persist, and Carrion Feeder, plus two Swamps and a Disciple of the Vault.

Turn 1: Play Stitcher's Supplier, milling at least Gravecrawler and Pitiless Plunderer.

Turn 2: Play Persist, reanimating Pitiless Plunderer.

Turn 3: Play Carrion Feeder, Gravecrawler, and Disciple of the Vault. If you need extra mana, sacrifice Stitcher's Supplier for a Treasure. Game over.

On average, this deck wins on about turn 5. Turn 4 and turn 6 wins are fairly common as well.

Thank you for taking the time to look through my deck! If you liked it, please consider upvoting!

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99% Casual

Competitive

Revision 10 See all

(8 months ago)

-1 Cryptbreaker main
+2 Diabolic Intent main
-2 Mausoleum Secrets main
+4 Plumb the Forbidden main
-3 Swamp main
Top Ranked
Date added 1 year
Last updated 8 months
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

18 - 4 Rares

19 - 4 Uncommons

7 - 7 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 1.50
Tokens Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders Favorites, Favorite Modern Decks
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