Copy/Paste Personal EDH Philosophy Bit
In building my decks, my end goal is "strong but fair". In other words, I want to win, yes, but not at the expense of fun. For me, that means:
- No infinite combos
- No MLD
- Very few discard/countermagic/tutors
- Try to limit format staples only to decks they fit mechanically or thematically
"Ah, Sally, you're the light of my life. We're gonna have so much fun together <3"
Shipping aside, welcome to my Ghoulcaller Gisa decklist. Gisa is a pretty straightforward general and there's only so many ways the deck can go. In my case, I went for the non-tribal goodstuff version. Creatures with high power for low cost, pumping, sources of haste for Gisa, value cards, removal, recursion, the whole shebang. It's a lot of classic mono-B stuff, but don't worry, it's a Commander deck, so the cards are selected specifically with Gisa in mind. Also, the game plan is mot as straightforward as it might seem on the surface. More on that later. Let's see the list:
Shovelin' every day
Approximate Total Cost:
As you can see, the deck is a midrange aggro at its core. Gisa is a five-mana general whose main strength comes from an activated ability that requires tapping. Ergo, she's not early game material (except when my opening hand contains two Swamps, Sol Ring, Lightning Greaves, and Dark Ritual). She's not a general I can just slam down ASAP, I have to prepare the board for her, which in turn means the deck has to be able to stand on its own for quite some time. Fortunately, since her ability likes efficient creatures, that's not such a big problem.
Yes, Gisa usually arrives fashionably late, but on the other hand, her ability can be ridiculously strong. So strong in fact, that once she does hit the table, depending on the cards I got available at the time, she can suddenly change the way the whole deck behaves. Many an opponent were caught by surprise as they watched the 10/10 evasionless Bonehoard they've been saving a chump blocker for suddenly transform into ten 2/2 Zombies, while at the same time their life total suddenly got ten points lighter thanks to that up-until-that-point-relatively-benign Ayara, First of Locthwain.
This is why the preparation I mentioned earlier includes lots of little draw engines that hopefully get me a source of haste to make Gisa go off immediately when her time finally comes. There is also recursion, lifegain, and some mana doubling to ensure I stay for the long game. Basically, the aggro phase at the start usually ends up being a bit of a feint, lulling my opponents into the wrong impression of what they're up against. Then the pieces go *click*, the trap is sprung, and the real fun begins...
Onto the special mentions:
- Bonehoard — I've already sang praise for this underplayed gem of a card in my Kykar Equipment writeup, and it's only better here, since this deck plays actual creatures. With Gisa active, Bonehoard gets out of control very quickly — sac the original Germ, equip on one of the Zombies, sac that Zombie, equip on another one...
- Lashwrithe — See Bonehoard.
- Minion of the Wastes — It just wouldn't be me if I didn't include a reject bin rare nobody else plays =P At the time of writing, this card sits at 77 decks at EDHrec. 77! I guess when push comes to shove, people prefer Phyrexian Processor for this kind of effect. I should probably get one of those for Gisa, BTW. But quite frankly, even if I do get it, I think I'll still keep the Minion (now I want a yellow goggled jelly bean alter). See, it may not be able to create more of itself, but the first creature is two mana cheaper and it has built-in trample. I've played a duel with my friend once and I killed him in three consecutive games with this thing. He was left pretty traumatized by that =)
- Phyrexian Dreadnought — That's right, the Mechanical Donut itself. I'll be honest, I've long been looking for an excuse to finally buy this card. It's an icon of an era. Gisa provided that excuse. Just imagine this hitting the board with Gisa on the table. "Pay , cast PD, trigger goes on stack, in response sac to Gisa, make twelve tokens, trigger resolves, choose to sac PD — oops, it's already dead. Oh well." I once did this in a game where I was stuck at four mana (cast Gisa on T3 via Dark Ritual). An opponent cleared the tokens, then atacked me with a 5/5 and a 6/6 on their next turn because "What can mono-black do at instant speed for four mana?" So I casually flashed in Necromancy, brought back the Big Mean Machine and sacced it again, killed his guys in block with Zombos and still had seven tokens left after that. Pure EDH gold. Also, there were times when I legitimately cast this card as intended, actually sacrificing six Zombies to keep it in play. That's something, I reckon.
- Void Maw — Oh, did you think Minion of the Wastes was the least-played card on this list? Ha! This bad boi sits in only 74 decks over on EDHrec. Seems more like the case of "nobody knows this exists" though, because the card's actually not half bad. First off, it replacement-effect exiles dying creatures. As we all know, that's a huge hoser for a lot of rather annoying decks and it actually makes some people hesitate to Wrath me. But this guy can also get bigger by spitting out the exiled creatures back into their owners' graveyards (IDK how it makes sense that it grows by vomiting, but whatevs). It can do this selectively, so I can get back my own guys for later recursion while keeping the icky opponents' creatures exiled forever. Like its obscure buddy the Minion, it has built-in trample for those big turns, at the end of which Gisa can slice it up to make lots of little undead babies— Wait, that came out wrong...
- Sword of Vengeance — I've tried in and subsequently cut Sword of Vengeance from many decks. It just never seemed worth the cost. But I believe that in Gisa, I've finally found a worthy home for it. That's because in addition to being a very expensive source of haste, it actually allows Gisa to do one thing she normally never does — attack. See, Gisa is no Traveling Philosopher. She's a 3/4. The Sword bumps her up to 5/4 haste, first strike, trample that fears only the biggest of blockers. And of course, it also gives her vigilance so she can still serve her main purpose. This is the one deck where I found this card's equip very much worth it.
- Hatred — Yep, I went there. To be fair, this card is much more fair in multiplayer than it is in a duel. Its purpose in the deck is clear — to finish off one player and to then sacrifice the pumped-up creature to Gisa, making an obscene amount of Zombies to hopefully not die/finish off the rest of the opponents.
- Fleshbag Marauder &Co. — I love how they keep printing new versions of this card =) These are, of course, awesome by themselves, but once again, Gisa makes everything better — Fleshbag enters the battlefield, trigger goes to stack, Gisa eats the 3/1 to make three tokens, "Oh no, I guess one of the tokens dies to the trigger. Oh the humanity!" Similar thing happens with Faceless Butcher. As an oldschool temporary ban, if I sac it before its ETB trigger resolves, the target is gone forever.
- Helm of Possession — This card speaks for itself and I feel I don't have to highlight how good it is with a sacrifice outlet. No, I'm putting it here simply because apparently, not many people know about it. So I say it loudly, this card is gross and it's relatively inexpensive. Get it.
- Cabal Stronghold — This is really just a highlight of the card that's not in the deck, which is Cabal Coffers. I deliberately left it out, along with tutors. It's just so ubiquitous and kinda unfun. Cabal Stronghold is a fixed version that, IMO, really deserves to be called that. It generates mana by itself and it's a bit reined in in how much mana it generates, but it still can do great in late game. Fine by me.
Antis, out.
