Ebondeath Dracolich, Relentless Voltron

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Dunadain
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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago




Ebondeath, Dracolich, Relentless Voltron



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Table of Contents



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Introduction

Voltron is an extremely simple kind of deck that is unique to Commander. Simply put, the idea is to either play a commander that hits like a truck in combat, or give your commander enough auras/equipment to make them hit like a truck, then kill your opponents with 21 commander damage.

I think a lot of people get an itch to play voltron every once in a while, there is something really satisfying about killing the entire table with your commander and any buffs you choose to put on them, and I enjoy voltron even more than the average EDH player. Once you actually sit own and play your voltron deck, however, you quickly realize why voltron isn't all that popular. It turns out, putting all your eggs in one basket like that risks some devastating blow outs. Oftentimes, when playing a voltron deck, the voltron player comes out the gate running and either ranches the table in a couple turns before the opposition can get set up, or (more likely) the commander eats some removal in one way or another and the voltron player is set back several turns, by the time the volton player is set up again, the rest of the table has built up their resources enough and are able to keep the voltron player out of the game.

In order to get around this, voltron decks need to be fast enough to kill the table before they can be stopped, or resilient enough to stay in the game after your opponents use their interaction.

This deck goes the latter route, and, in my humble opinion, it has been a complete success, if I had to describe this deck in one word, it would be relentless while playing this deck, you aren't out of the game until you're dead.
Why Ebondeath?
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Ebondeath was chosen because, in my humble opinion, he is the most resilient voltron commander available.

I think a lot of people, when trying to build a more resilient voltron deck, try to find a voltron commander that can't be so easily killed, maybe it has hexproof, maybe it can be bounced, maybe it has Protection, or maybe it is simply indestructible.

However, while this does make it much more difficult for your opponents to interact with you, when your opponents ARE able to interact with you (and there's always SOME way for your opponents to interact, WOTC has yet to make a truly immortal commander), you're not really any more resilient, it's just as difficult to rebuild as it would be with any other commander. Additionally, I think it's easy to forget that, with some commanders, you don't need to kill the commander. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails is not a particularly terrifying card without a bunch of equipment strapped onto him and all the protection in the world won't save you from a Bane of Progress.

So, while Ebondeath isn't anything flashy, he's really the perfect balance of everything you need to have a resilient threat in the command zone. Flash means that he doesn't need to take a turn off of attacking when ever he gets hit with sorcery-speed interaction, the ability to cast him from the GY means it's very difficult to price him out (whenever I play this deck, someone asks what I do against exile based removal, the answer is usually just recast him like a normal commander, the key isn't to NEVER pay Commander tax, it's just to keep the tax low enough that you can afford it), and, finally, he's a 5/2 with flying, of course I'd love to put some equipment on him, but he is more than capable of killing players all on his own (and he has done so many times). Additionally, 5 power is that sweet spot where a single sword is enough to set his power to 7, which is an exact 3 hit kill.
The Game Plan
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"Voltron" is a win condition, not necessarily a game plan. If you build your deck with nothing in mind but buffing your commander and hitting your opponents, then you'll end up with a clunky deck because you never stopped to ask yourself how you envision the game playing out, and you'll be low on interaction, because you never stopped to ask yourself how you'll handle what your opponents are doing.

I'll go over the nuts and bolts in the "Deck Strategy" section, but I'll give you a brief summary:

Have you ever played Azorious Spirits in Pioneer? If so, you'll know that a common strategy in the deck is to play a cheap, evasive creature like Mausoleum Wanderer and put a Curious Obsession on it. The (now) 2/2 with flying provides a clock, while the additional card draw Curious Obsession provides allows you to protect the creature/interact with your opponents game plan.

We are doing something similar, but a little less fragile, rather than playing a 1-drop with flying, we are playing Ebondeath, Dracolich who can be recast if killed, and rather than playing cheap enchantments like Curious Obsession we are playing slightly more expensive equipment like Sword of Fire and Ice that can be reused if the equipped creature dies.

so the idea is to put our opponents on a fast clock while also accumulating enough card advantage to keep our opponents from building up adequate defenses/armies of their own.

Obviously, "no plan survives first contact with the enemy," when playing the deck, you'll find yourself in situations where the deck doesn't play out like that, I once won a game with a Murderous Rider // Swift End that had a Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Feast and Famine, and a Lashwrithe equipped, and that's okay, but this "Slightly bigger Azorious Spirits" game plan is plan A and will guide a lot of your decision making while building/piloting this deck.
The Pros and Cons
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The Pros:
  • Extremely Resilient Deck
  • Chock-full of interaction
  • Formidable mid-late game value engines to out grind most opponents
  • A fast clock in the command zone, allowing you to close out games before someone else does, and allowing you to quickly kill problematic players (you know what they say, the best removal is player removal).
  • You get to play edgy mono-black zombie dragons
The Cons:
  • It's a mono black list, while black is probably the best or second best mono-color in EDH, it's still a pretty hefty handicap, the deck is constructed with a lot of thought towards artifacts and enchantments, but don't expect the wealth of options Esper would give you. Additionally, without counterspells, there's not a lot we can do against big spells like Torment of Hailfire and Expropriate besides kill them before they get to cast them.
  • While this deck tries to "fix" a lot of the challenges that come with a voltron deck, at the end of the day we still have a lot of the shortcomings that every voltron deck has, our wins are very telegraphed, we struggle against pillow-fort cards, and the deck tends to find itself in an archenemy situation.
What's the Power of the deck?
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Personally, I kind of hate the power-level scale, because no one has the same idea of what a deck's power level is. During the pregame talk, I prefer to say something like: "I'm playing mono-black voltron, the deck plays a bunch of equipment to quickly kill the other players, and a bunch of removal to keep the opponents down while also enabling my commander, the deck has no infinite combos."

If you find the deck a little too fast for your play group, I strongly recommend experimenting with cutting the mana rocks, the deck becomes a turn slower, but more consistent, making it an excellent way to depower the deck to a more appropriate level for slower metas.




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Current Decklist



Below is the deck as I'm currently playing it. It has a couple suboptimal card choices that just come down to my personal preferences, namely:
  • I'm not playing Sol Ring and Mana Crypt because I felt a turn 2 Ebondeath was a bit too fast for my meta. Swapping any of the 2 MV rocks for these cards is an easy upgrade if you want to run them.
  • I'm not running Attrition as it can lead to unfun end games. Honestly, I'm not even sure the card is that good, as it's only starts to pay off in the late game
What I'm currently running

Commander(1)

Approximate Total Cost:





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Budget Considerations


This deck is fairly receptive to a budget build, let's go through the main components of the deck and see how easy it is to cut costs:




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Deck Strategy


As I touched on briefly, you can't just say "haha, voltron goes brrr" and expect a haphazard collection of equipment and your commander to kill the table, I've put a lot of thought into what an ideal game-plan looks like for this deck, and having an understanding of the game plan will help you construct and pilot your own deck.



Early Game Strategy



The early game of this deck, like most decks is defined by our opening hand. In the early game we are looking to establish some form of card advantage, and some form of clock.
Opening Hands
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The ideal hand contains 3-4 lands, 1 mana rock, and one sword. This deck is constructed to make that happen often, but you can't mulligan yourself to oblivion looking for that kind of hand. If your hand has a sword/other form of card draw but no ramp, the hand is probably playable, but if you have ramp and nowhere to go with it, you should probably mulligan, Ebondeath, Dracolich CAN kill players all by himself, but it becomes a lot easier if he's backed up with equipment or a card advantage engine. I've included a couple randomly drawn hands and my thoughts on them to give you a better idea of how I think during this part of the game:
Example Hand 1
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The first 7:
What I funky hand for the first example! No sword, and only 1 black producing land isn't great, but we have a Sol Ring. Honestly, I would keep this hand, but only because I realized we can go:
T1: Witch's Cottage
T2: War Room, cast Sol Ring and Vampiric Tutor, putting Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth on top of your deck.
T3: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and pass, holding up Defile (though I doubt you'll need it this early) and flash in Ebondeath, Dracolich on the last opponents end step.
T4+ get Phyrexian Arena down as early as you can and start looking for equipment to load up Ebondeath

The important take away here is that you can't just see lands + sol ring and snap keep, this hand is a keep because I was able to identify a route to sufficient Black mana, and the Phyrexian Arena will help us find anything this hand is missing.
Example Hand 2
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The first 7:
A one-lander and even if we draw another land in the first two turns, this hand doesn't really have a gameplan, easy mulligan.
The second 7:
The mulligan payed off, this hand is fantastic.

T1: land, Strength-Testing Hammer
T2: land, Arcane Signet
T3: land, Flash Ebondeath, Dracolich in on the endstep.
T4: Equip Strength-Testing Hammer and go to town.
Example Hand 3
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A much less impressive hand but still an easy keep. If we draw a mana rock in the first 2 turns, then we are off to the races, otherwise:

T1: land
T2: land, hold up Malicious Affliction (but again, don't use it unless you have to)
T3: land, cast Sword of Hearth and Home
T4: Land, flash in Ebondeath, Dracolich
T5: Equip Sword of Hearth and Home and bash

is a slower gameplan but a perfectly functional one. Note that I chose to prioritize the Sword of Hearth and Home over the Sword of Fire and Ice as ramp is more powerful the earlier you get it going.
Example Hand 4
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The first 7
A mulligan. Sure we can cast Imperial Seal to ensure we hit our next land drop, but then what? We'd still need to naturally draw another land on T3 to get our commander out, and even if that does happen, this hand has no card advantage so we are likely to sputter out.

The second 7:
Even as a second 7, I think this is a reluctant mulligan, sure we have lands and ramp, but where are we going? Murderous Rider // Swift End isn't going to hold the fort for long on it's own, Karn Liberated isn't going to be castable for a long time, and we have no card advantage, we are going to run out of gas and die

The third 7 (we'll have to bottom a card now)
The hand needs some help, but it's a keep, we just need one land in the top 4 cards to get off the ground, and a mana rock in the top 2 would be even better.

I'd look around the table to determine what I want to bottom, if there are any commanders out there that suggest I'll want a blocker for, then I'd bottom Price of Fame, if not, I'd bottom Poxwalkers.
Example Hand 5
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The first 7:
A keep, but note that we only have one Black producing land, so we'll need to grab a black producing permanent with Vampiric Tutor:

T1: Snow-Covered Swamp, cast Vampiric Tutor grabbing Arcane Signet (we need the additional black mana)
T2: land, Arcane Signet.
T3: flash in Ebondeath, Dracolich
T4+ cast Phyrexian Arena and start looking for equipment.
I wanted to keep going until I found a a hand with no permanent card draw engine, but a card draw spell (things like Night's Whisper and Read the Bones), but I'm not sure posting 12 hands is any more useful than 5 hands. As a rule of thumb, however, counting on a Night's Whisper or Sign in Blood to get you going is usually a good bet, The bigger draw spells like Sign in Blood or a little more suspect (Though, like with any deck, those hands become a lot more acceptable when you are already a couple mulls down). And whatever you do, don't keep a hand based on the strength of Skeletal Scrying unless you're going to have sufficient number of cards in your graveyard to exile, that's one mistake you'll only make once.

Ultimately, we are not some big dumb value engine deck, lands and spells is not an auto keep, you need to look at your hand and determine if it provides you with a game plan, if it doesn't then you need to ship it.
In my mind, you're out of the early game when your commander is out and swinging, that might be a bit earlier than most deck's idea of the early game, but we are a lot more aggro than most decks.



Mid-Game Strategy



Alright, Ebondeath, Dracolich is terrorizing your opponents and you are drawing cards, what now? This is the point of the game where you begin asking the question: "should I be trying to kill someone?" whether or not the answer to that question is yes at the moment, this is a question you'll have to be re-evaluating constantly as the game goes on. Besides trying to murder your opponents you should be asking yourself where you should be pointing your interaction, building up your mana base, and developing even more card draw.
Should I be looking to take out a player?
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This is a very complicated question that any voltron deck needs to handle, and (in my opinion) is very under-appreciated.

Level 1 logic would conclude that by killing a player, you go from 3 opponents to 2, so you should always be focusing on one opponent and only turning your attention to the next player once the first one is dead. Sometimes this is true:

I think a really obvious example would be a game I played recently. I had a turn 3 ebondeath with a Sword of Sinew and Steel. One opponent kept a sketchy hand and immediately started missing land drops, one player was playing an artifact deck, and one player was doing very well. I was able to quickly murder the opponent that was doing well with my commander while simultaneously using Sword of Sinew and Steel to keep the artifact player out of the game. Once the first player fell, I took out the player that missed his first few land drops, then the artifact player that couldn't find an out to my sword.

In this game, killing the players one at a time, as fast as possible made sense, since I had a dominating position and letting players live would only give them more time to potentially catch back up.

Another time you would want to kill a player as fast as possible is when they have a dominating late-game you don't think you can beat, or they have a combo you can't interact with in mono-black. EDH is a casual format, so when I suspect a player is running a combo I'll just ask, if they say no, I'll take their word for it, if they say yes or refuse to answer, than I act as if they do have one. If someone wants to lie to win a casual game of EDH, that's kinda lame but at least I'll know for next time I play against them

level 2 logic, however, would be to realize that focusing on one player forces that player to expend their resources fending you off, depleting both their resources and your own, and enabling one of the other players to develop a game winning amassment of resources. When you don't have a concrete reason to try to knock out a player, you are most likely better off spreading out your attacks, that way your opponents are more willing to expend their interaction on each other rather than on you, and when an opponent DOES start to pull ahead of the others, you already have some damage on them and are able to more quickly take them out.

An additional consideration is simply efficiency, let's say one player is at 12 commander damage and another one is at 0, and your commander is currently at 7 power. Hitting the first player would put him at 19 commander damage, which is just shy of lethal. It might be wise in this situation to hit the other player until you find a way to give Ebondeath, Dracolich an additional +2 power, allowing you to take out the first player in only 1 swing, rather than 2.

A play I see a lot of players make (whether playing voltron or any other deck) is when they see that they are unlikely to win, if they are able to, they will kill one other player. Sometimes the logic is "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me" other times I think they just want to feel like they had a big impact on the course of the game, or they take consolation in getting "second place." This is a casual format, so I'm not going to tell you that you CAN'T do this, but it's really a terrible idea. Their is no such thing as "second place" in EDH, you either win, lose, or have a tie with all remaining players. Therefore, if one player is dominating and your odds of winning are looking grim, it's best to keep your other opponents in the game, so they can help you gang up on the biggest threat. Who knows, maybe one of the other players has a key counterspell or board wipe to save you, or, if nothing else, your they can be a pile of life points to distract your other opponent from going after you. I've won several games where all hope seemed lost, but then one of my opponents swooped into the rescue (and later I murdered them ;) ).

On the other hand, you might find yourself in a situation where one of your opponents is about to kill one of your other opponents. If you don't think you can beat that first opponent, and you are able to save the second opponent, then you should, sure that player you just saved might end up coming back and winning, but your odds are better than they would be if you had to face the more powerful opponent all on your own.

Ultimately, the ability to quickly take down opponents is valuable, but it's also irreversible, don't do it until you are confident doing so increases your odds of also being able to take down the others.
Help! Someone killed my Dragon!
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Sometimes you cast your commander and, either because you have some sword on him, or your opponents don't run enough interaction, he goes the whole way and kills everyone. Much more often, however, your commander will die at least once over the course of a game.

Obviously, this is the whole reason we are playing Ebondeath, Dracolich, we can just recast him from the graveyard and go on our merry way.

Just because you can however, doesn't mean you should. Avoid becoming laser focused on swinging with Ebondeath, Dracolich, while that is usually the best play, make sure you are keeping your eyes open for alternative play lines. Some things to consider are:
  • At this point of the game, It's usually NOT a good idea to blow your removal just to get Ebondeath back, killing a random token with Defile just to enable Ebondeath, Dracolich is almost NEVER the correct play, especially not in the early to mid-game. You should be waiting for a target you actually want to kill to show up, and just take getting Ebondeath back as a nice little bonus.
  • Oftentimes, It's best to just wait for your opponents to sacrifice their own creatures, kill each others' creatures, or cast a board wipe to enable Ebondeath, Dracolich, rather than killing stuff yourself.
  • While plan A is to put all your equipment on Ebondeath, Dracolich, their are plenty of other bodies weaved into the deck that are more than willing to carry your equipment into the red zone. Typically, equipping a creature that is already on the battlefield and swinging with it is better than casting your commander, throwing some equipment on it, and sadly passing the turn, doubly so if the equipment in question has some sweet trigger that you'll be missing out on by not swinging with it (eg. Lucille, Sword of Fire and Ice, Strength-Testing Hammer, or Umezawa's Jitte).
  • To expand on the previous point, if you DO cast your commander on your own turn, if you have any thing else to do with your mana, it's usually best NOT to equip Ebondeath, Dracolich just yet, and instead do something else with your mana. Indeed, if that equipment is already equipped to some other creature, consider leaving it on that creature until your opponents manage to answer it. The reason for this is that if your commander dies again before your next turn, you'll have wasted that mana. It is better to wait to equip until you can attack that turn and get immediate dividends for the mana you invested, of course instant speed removal can still cause you to "waste" mana on equipment costs, but that's something we signed up for when we chose to play equipment. Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, in particular, if you think the protection that the swords give are going to significantly raise the chances of your commander living to your next turn, then you might consider equipping those swords immediately even though you can't attack this turn.
Interaction
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We are fast, but we are not fast enough to completely ignore whatever our opponents are doing. Another question you should be constantly re-evaluating now is what are your opponents doing that will require interaction? If your opponents are playing must-answer creatures, then you should have no trouble drawing into spot removal to handle it. If your opponents are coming from a different angle, then it will require a bit more foresight to handle them. Against dangerous artifacts, you'll need to be digging/tutoring for Sword of Sinew and Steel or, in the late game, Karn Liberated. Against problematic enchantments, Feed the Swarm or Karn Liberated. And against dedicated graveyard decks you might be looking to tutor up Scavenger Grounds/Bojuka Bog or Cling to Dust (as an aside, the posted list is rather low on graveyard hate, because I don't need, it, like any deck, feel free to make some meta calls if you feel you are going to need harsher graveyard hate). If all else fails and you can't handle what your opponent is doing, just kill them with Ebondeath.

This deck requires a shrewd analysis of how to best use your removal. This is a very broad skill that I find a lot of players are woefully unskilled at. Don't just fire off your removal because you can, or because you want to be mana efficient. The nuts and bolt of when and where to point your removal can be a really complicated and I can't give you perfect advice on where and when to use your removal without knowing the specific situation you are in.

If you feel your threat analysis skills are not up to scratch, however, then my advice would be to not use your removal unless it is absolutely necessary to remove the target in question immediately. Yes, sometimes you need to remove something before it becomes a problem, not after, but by siding on the side of waiting as long as possible, you'll have the benefit of hindsight to determine if you should have used your interaction earlier or not, and you'll more quickly build up your threat-analysis chops. This applies to both board wipes and spot removal but, of course, board wipes are a little harder to sit on because they are only sorcery speed.
You are not done ramping yet
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While terrorizing your opponents with a zombie dragon and a metric ton or interaction you should also be building up your mana base. We are not a dedicated ramp deck, so don't expect to be able to keep up with the mono-green players, but you need to be continuously developing your mana base to ensure you don't fall too far behind. Don't worry, the deck has plenty of things to use all this mana on (heck, just recasting your commander and paying equip costs is really taxing on your mana base).

However, unlike in the early game, the ramp game plan is now a little less narrow than "play a mana rock on T2 if possible." Below are the ways you should be looking to develop your mana base.
  • Land Drops: While not technically "ramp", people really underestimate the strength of just making your land drop every turn. Think about it: if you cast a Arcane Signet and miss a land drop in the next turn or two, then the Arcane Signet was just a waste of mana and a liability against opposing artifact removal, You'd much rather trade that Arcane Signet for a regular land. Over the course of a game you will probably miss a couple land drops, but you should be actively trying to make as many land drops as possible. The best way to do this, of course, is just to draw multiple cards a turn via effects like Phyrexian Arena, Tome of Legends, War Room etc.. If you draw enough cards, then you should have enough lands to make your land drops and also enough cards to make use of all this mana. When casting cards with top deck manipulation like Read the Bones or Price of Fame, it's a good idea to look for land drops if you don't already have a couple in hand, but if you are looking to use a tutor at this point of the game, it's better to tutor up a card draw engine like Phyrexian Arena then a land because, over the course of the game, the card draw will provide you with multiple lands, not to mention more spells to play.
  • Mana Rocks: This is why I prefer the mana rocks that enter untapped. early game, it doesn't really matter, but in the mid-game, it's much easier to play a rock and still do something else with an untapped rock because the mana rock immediately returns one of the 2 mana you sank into it. Either way, you should try to run out the mana rocks you draw whenever you get the chance to work them in without encroaching on other cards you are looking to play.
  • Other forms of Ramp: If you find yourself tutoring up an equipment in the early-mid game, my sword of choice is usually Sword of Forge and Frontier as it provides both ramp and card draw. Sword of Hearth and Home is also a powerful form of ramp (who decided to let the lands enter untapped?!?!). If you're looking to bring out the big guns, however, you're looking for Cabal Coffers, I said earlier that you can't keep up with dedicated ramp decks, but I was lying, with Cabal Coffers you can, especially if you also manage to tutor for/find Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
More Card Draw!
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Similar to the ramp section, we still need to be building up our card draw in the background. While early game I like to use equipment for card draw (swords, Strength-Testing Hammer, etc.), in the mid game it's also nice to find some card draw that doesn't rely on the red zone for two reasons: Firstly it's more dependable, you can't always get in with a Sword of Fire and Ice, but Phyrexian Arena will give you cards through thick and thin, Secondly, it's more generic card draw, while Sword of Fire and Ice simply says "draw a card," most of the value-generating equipment gives you more narrow card advantage (For example, Sword of Forge and Frontier only gives you card advantage if you are able to use the cards immediately, Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of Sinew and Steel, and Lucille don't draw cards at all, but rather give you pseudo-card advantage in the form of removal.

Unlike the ramp section, however, all the card draw is relatively straightforward, play draw engines as you find them them, and dig/tutor for them if you feel you need more card draw.
Look to set up some spicy combos!
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No, no infinite combos, and this won't always happen, but this deck has a lot of cards that synergize very well with each other, if you draw into part of a combo ask yourself if it would be beneficial to set up the other part. Note that all the cards in these combos are strong cards even without the other half, we don't run enough tutors to include cards that NEED another card to run. Here are the ones you should be looking or (but their might be others I'm missing/don't think are worth mentioning):
Again, unlike the other sections, none of these combos are essential, but if you have the opportunity to set one of them up, they are likely to pay off.
The transition from the mid-game to the late-game is much more nebulous than the transition from the early-game to the mid-game. I'd say the late game is when you transition from building up your resources, while applying pressure to your opponents, to actively trying to kill all remaining opponents, this does mean some games you go straight from early-game to late-game, but sometimes that's how it be.



Late-Game



Most of the things you were doing in mid-game, you should continue doing in the late game:
  • You should still be making land drops and playing mana rocks as you draw them, but your draw engines should be chugging along and allowing you to do this with no further input.
  • You should have established card draw engines by now but more card draw never hurts (actually we are playing mono-black, so it actually does, but you get the idea). Unless you are drawing 3+ cards per turn, you will probably also start sinking mana into your more expensive card draw engines like War Room at this point.
  • Those spicy combos become even more exiting now that you've accumulated the resources to use them to their full potential.
However, You'll also have new objectives at this point that start taking priority:
Bulk up Ebondeath
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Previously, we were happy to slap a Sword and enjoy the 3 turn clock, but now we're looking to finish things, and for that we'll need more aggressive equipment, these one's don't provide card advantage, but at this point, card advantage is set up and it's time bring out the heavy hitters.

Ideally, at this point, all of your opponents should have at least some commander damage on them, if someone already has 7 commander damage on them, then Lashwrithe or Brass Knuckles should be enough to finish them off in a single hit.

We run significantly more value generating equipment than smashing equipment however, so we have to either draw into them with our engines or tutor them up.

If you DON'T have a big equipment at the moment, that's okay, you can kill people at a slower pace or put multiple smaller equipment on Ebondeath, but you should probably be looking for one.
Don't Die
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While not dying is always a requirement for winning, at this point of the game you'll probably be feeling a lot more heat, either because you're a much bigger threat now and your opponents are looking to take you out before you take them out, or because they have also transitioned to their own endgame and are looking to finish you off. Additionally, we are playing mono-black, we've probably dealt a decent chunk of damage to ourselves over the course of the game. Here are some things you can look to if you need to hold the fort.
  • Lifelink: my lifelink enablers of choice are Witch's Clinic, because it tucks itself neatly into the mana base, and Batterskull because that equipment feels impossible to race, ESPECIALLY when you equip it to Ebondeath, Dracolich
  • Blockers: The "zombies" in this list fill a lot of roles, but one of them is as recurring blockers, leaving Poxwalkers or Bladewing's Thrall on blocking duty makes attacking you much less appealing.
  • Rain Removal from on High!: At this point you are drawing a lot of cards, if all else fails, you can probably just spam spot removal and board wipes to keep your opponents' creatures off your back.
It's okay to be a little less efficient at this point
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Remember when I was talking about recasting your commander, and I said don't blow your removal on subpar targets to get your commander back and don't pay equip costs if you can't immediately swing with them? Well now that's a more acceptable play line, as we have resources to spare and are just trying to rush to the finish line.

Additionally, as our opponents begin to drop, we should be more liberal with our spot removal. In a 4 player game I'd almost never point some spot removal at a Dark Confidant but in the late game when we are down to a 1v1, I would almost always kill it.
Consider Alternate Win Conditions
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No, I'm not talking about Revel in Riches, I'm talking about non-commander damage. While we are a voltron deck, it's not uncommon for the deck to kill players through regular combat damage. Some reasons to consider going this route are:
  • Your opponent is already low: If an opponent takes enough damage from other sources, then they might hit 0 life points before they hit 21 commander damage from Ebondeath. If that is the case, it might just be easier to equip a random Zombie token or whatever other bodies you have lying around and swing with that.
  • There is too much removal flying around: Against opposing decks that also run a lot of removal, it might be difficult to keep Ebondeath on the battlefield. Sure, you can cast Ebondeath from your graveyard as many times as you want, but your opponent doesn't need infinite removal, only one removal spell per turn, since we are still bottlenecked by one combat phase per turn. Because of this, it's often best to spread your equipment around. Something I like to do is put my heavy hitting equipment (like Lashwrithe) on Ebondeath, Dracolich and put my smaller, value generating equipment on other creatures. That way, if an opponent does have interaction, they have to choose between taking a bunch of commander damage, or letting me get my equipment triggers.
  • Against all odds, Ebondeath is down for the count: We are playing Ebondeath, Dracolich to avoid this very situation, but it could still happen, either he gets exiled too many times and gets priced out, or he gets turned into a tree and we don't have a sac outlet or the necessary removal to set him free. I want to emphasize that this doesn't usually happen (in fact it's never happened to me, one time the commander tax got all the way to 6 and I didn't bother recasting him because I had plenty of other bodies lying around to kill my opponents with, but if I had needed him, I had the mana to get him), but even if it does, don't panic, we've still got fight left in us.




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Card Considerations

Here is a rundown of most cards that one might consider for their deck, organized by function and loosely ordered by how good they are. I hope this section will be an invaluable resource to other people looking to make their own Ebondeath Voltron list.

The sections in this area will vary in their depth. I don't mind talking about every potential equipment in detail, so the equipment section will cover each equipment individually, on the other hand, I have no interest in pondering the merits of Liquimetal Torque over Prismatic Lens and something tells me you don't want to read that either, so the mana rock section will be much more abstract.

Lands

The foundations of any good deck (insert smart alec that brings up manaless dredge or smth) we obviously need lands. There is a bit of tension in the deck, as we have a lot of cards that become more powerful the more basic swamps we run (Lashwrithe, Cabal Coffers, etc) but I believe there are a good number of utility lands that are still worth your while.

It's also wise to keep tap lands to a minimum, they always slow you down more than you think they are going to.

Also, lots of people run way to few lands. I'd recommend somewhere between 36 and 40 lands, and that's only because we run a decent number of mana rocks.
Lands
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Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
All your tech lands can now tap for colored mana and all your swamp synergy cards just got a shot of adrenaline. Cabal Coffers's best friend.

Cabal Coffers
This is the third time this card has come up in this primer, it's just good. Even if you're running ~50% non-swamps, it's just good.

Ancient Tomb
This might be a bit controversial, but this card probably should be as ubiquitous as Sol Ring. Obviously it's crazy expensive but if you are fortunate enough to own one, you should probably be running it.

Phyrexian Tower
A free way to sneak a sac outlet into the deck, allowing us to "protect" ebondeath by sending him to the gy, or enable ebondeath's recursion by saccing something else. the neat thing is if you leave up two other lands as well, you can sac ebondeath in response to a board wipe, then recast him.

High Market
same as Phyrexian Tower but the 1 life is significantly less handy than the .

Prismatic Vista, Polluted Delta, Verdant Catacombs, Marsh Flats, Bloodstained Mire
They fill your yard for cards like Murderous Cut or Skeletal Scrying, they guarantee a land drop off of Yawgmoth's Will and they provide a shuffle if you ever need one. There is almost no downside to running them, so I'm giving them the full 5/5, but they also are extremely low impact, so don't worry about them if you don't have the budget/don't want to move them from other decks you have.

War Room
Card draw when you need it, land when you don't.

Bonders' Enclave
Card draw when you need it, land when you don't. Probably slightly worse than War Room but it's still great.

Rogue's Passage
A great tech land to punch through in the late game when an opponent manages to find blockers.

Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Less thorough than Rogue's Passage but taps for colored mana and is cheaper to activate, so it's a wash, run both of them.

Witch's Clinic
It helps you stabilize and enables you to use your life total as a resource more aggressively.

Demolition Field
I really like this card, it's an untapped land that can take care of problematic lands like Field of the Dead, or you can just fire it off on some random opposing dual land if you'd rather have a basic swap for Cabal Coffers or something.

Hive of the Eye Tyrant
I haven't actually tested this card yet at the time of writing, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. It's a colored, untapped land (at least in the early game, when untapped is most important) but it's a nice little bit of GY hate and a durable body to hold a sword in a pinch.

Hostile Hostel // Creeping Inn
Another sac outlet, but it requires leaving two lands up, so it's less exciting. I could also see the back side holding equipment in a pinch.

Myriad Landscape
One of the few tap-lands I'm down for, it ramps and it turns itself into 2 swamps, so the downside most non-basics carry is mitigated. having said that, it doesn't ramp on T2 which is the critical turn for this deck to enable a T3 ebondeath, so it's far from indespensible.

Thespian's Stage
Like Demolition Field you can turn it into a basic swamp if you want, but instead of removing problematic lands it can turn into one (two Cabal Coffers anyone?).

Ghost Quarter
Less flexible than Demolition Field, but more efficient.

Field of Ruin
Demolition Field #2 but slightly worse.

Underdark Rift
It's not pretty, but it's artifact removal, so it might be worth it.

Bojuka Bog
Maybe a bit slow to really keep graveyard decks down, but it's fairly low cost and might be key to keeping the graveyard deck from running away with the game.

Westvale Abbey // Ormendahl, Profane Prince
It looks a bit goofy, but it's a token producer for chump blocking or loading up equipment, both of which are handy. It'll also be really cool if you somehow manage to flip it and kill the table with the other half.

Buried Ruin
This is the card where it's easy to think "but what if..." and it IS a decent way to get back a key equipment, but on the other hand, you are probably better off just finding a new piece of equipment.

Castle Locthwain
I was really excited to play this card when I first put the list together, but man does the life loss hurt. One of my favorite jokes while playing this deck is to look at my opponents with a straight face and say "I would pay 39 life to draw one card," but in reality, any more than 3 life is probably not worth it, and, in my experience Castle Locthwain usually costs 5-6 life. It produces colored mana and usually enters untapped, so all you're losing by running this card is swamp synergies, making it a defensible include, but it's probably not quite there.

Arch of Orazca
It might seem weird when I'm such a big fan of War Room and Bonders' Enclave, but while we can play a slow, grindy game, we are not THAT grindy, we will usually have better things to do with then draw a card.

Witch's Cottage
On the one hand, it's practically free to include. On the other hand, it doesn't really do anything idk, I'm thinking about cutting it from my list for a basic swamp, but it's fine.

Cabal Stronghold
I know it LOOKS like a Cabal Coffers but trust me, it's much worse, at a base rate, Cabal Coffers only returns an investment when you have 6 lands in total (assuming all of the other lands are basic swamps), while Cabal Coffers turns on at 5, but when you add Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to the mix, Cabal Coffers gets launched into the stratosphere (turning Cabal Coffers itself into a swamp and any other techlands you have out), while Cabal Stronghold gets set back an additional land from offering a return. I can't even really recommend it as a budget option because it's still rather pricey. It's playable, but you'll want to cut even lower on your other tech lands and, to be honest, mana ramp isn't everything.

Arcane Lighthouse
Normally I love this card, but the bar for non-swamp lands is a lot higher in this deck and I'm doubtful it will come up often enough for it to pay for itself. Still few things are as satisfying as see the look on your opponents face when the land they totally forgot about suddenly activates and snipes their commander despite wearing Swiftfoot Boots.

Hagra Mauling // Hagra Broodpit
It's a really bad removal spell or a really bad land. Flexibility is nice and both modes are what this deck wants to be doing anyway however, so it's worth considering.

Inventors' Fair
We won't be able to turn it on till the very late-game, but it provides a little lifegain and can grab whatever equipment we have a hankering for, not bad.

Vesuva
Entering tapped and only copying a land on etb makes it significantly lower than Thespian's Stage, but it ain't bad.

Homeward Path
It's a tech card, useless for most players, but invaluable if theft effects are common in your meta.

Havengul Laboratory // Havengul Mystery
Man, this card is so cool. I kind of want to run it anyways, but it's even slower than Arch of Orazca and, realistically, it's not even like we have any exciting reanimation targets.

Reliquary Tower
Overated IMO, if you've got more than 7 cards in hand, then you're already cruising.

Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
Sure it's an untapped black source, but realistically, there's not going to be any creatures in the yard worth returning to hand anyways.

Miren, the Moaning Well
leaving 4 lands up just to sac a creature is just not good enough, Ebondeath, Dracolich doesn't even have a big booty, so it's not like it'll gain that much life.

Command Beacon
Sure MAYBE it will be useful every once in a while, but our commander doesn't usually rack up much of a commander tax. I'd rather have a basic swamp.

Crypt of Agadeem
A neat card, but we don't run nearly enough creatures to justify it.

Temple of the False God
This card is bad, please stop playing it, why the heck do 10% of decks on EDHrec run this card?!?! I'm only including this card to make it clear how much I disdain this land.


Board Wipes

Many decks are bursty enough that they can easily shrug off a bit of spot removal, that's what your board wipes are for. As a general note, don't be afraid to let you commander die in a wrath, he'll be back, just make sure to swing with him first and THEN wipe the board.

In general, you want you wipes to be thorough, asymmetrical wipes like Plague Wind aren't that attractive as are commander's built in recursion already make them somewhat asymmetrical.

You don't need too many board wipes in your deck. really just enough to naturally draw 1-2 in the course of a game, I'd recommend 7-9
Wipe Options
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Toxic Deluge
Probably the best black board wipe ever printed. Though it really does hurt sometimes.

Dead of Winter
The reason to be playing snow-covered swamps, turns out a 3 MV Mutilate is really good.

Damnation
The gold standard to which all other board wipes are compared. It ain't flashy but it's cheap and thorough.

Mutilate
Costs 1 more than Dead of Winter, but it combos with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Either way, it still makes the cut.

Crux of Fate
While I just said we don't really need asymmetrical wipes, if you're going to give me one at only 5MV I'm not going to complain. Even if we do find ourselves in an awkward position where our opponent is also playing dragons, at least the option to "Destroy all dragons" is available.

Decree of Pain
8 mana is a lot to spend on a wipe, but considering this will often draw you double digits worth of cards, the mana is actually justified, and, of course, it's also a cantriping X/2 wipe if that's what you are looking for.

All Is Dust
It's very expensive, but it hits a lot of things we couldn't otherwise hit.

Blood on the Snow
An expensive wipe, but it "pays" for itself by bringing back a creature (usually Ebondeath) for free.

Oblivion Stone
It's expensive, and it destroys all of our exciting equipment and mana rocks, but it also wipes our opponents' artifacts and enchantments. Sometimes, that's what you need. I used to be a lot higher on this, but it's a dead draw a lot of the times, and when it is necessary, it set you back so far that its likely you're going to lose anyways when you activate this.

Languish
It sometimes misses something key creatures, but then it sometimes takes out an indestructible creature. Overall, it's fairly reliable imo

Blight Grenade
It seems a bit clunky to me 5 MV sorcery is a terrible rate for a removal spell, and -3/-3 is not a very thorough wipe, I know the appeal is that it's BOTH, but I'm not convinced it will do both as often as it needs to.

Mandate of Abaddon
It's going to feel sweet when you wipe the board of everything except Ebondeath, Dracolich, and it's going to feel awful when you don't have any creatures out.

Deadly Tempest
I'm just not convinced this is going to do a whole lot more than a Damnation most of the time, but if you really want to stick it to the token player, go for it.

Feast of Succession
we really aren't equipped to hold on to the monarchy, so spending an additional 2 MV on our Languish to introduce the monarchy is a waste.

Blood Money
Honestly, it's probably an appropriate rate for the effect, but I'm not sure I'll need the treasures that badly if I already have 7 mana available.

In Garruk's Wake
Again, we don't need our wipes to be asymmetrical and paying 9 mana to do so is outrageous.

Plague Wind
Strictly worse In Garruk's Wake is STILL not good, who knew.

Force of Despair
A very strange card, it's almost more of a piece of spot removal than a real wipe, ultimately, the card is very narrow, so I'm not convinced that it would hold up.

Bontu's Last Reckoning
It's a trap, trust me, getting a discount on a Wrath of God is not worth skipping your next turn over.


Tutors

While not essential to the deck, we are in mono-black, so we have some excellent tutors at our disposal to help us find key cards, or to simply help us grab whatever we are currently missing, don't be afraid to Vampiric Tutor for a land drop if an additional land is the only thing that's holding back an otherwise good hand.

We aren't looking to assemble some specific combo in this deck, so keep the tutor package lean, maybe 3-6 cards.
Tutors
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Demonic Tutor
Best tutor ever printed.

Vampiric Tutor
Amazing, early game it can grab whatever your hand is missing T1, late game having to wait a turn to get your card is unfortunate, but it's still a very reasonable card at only 1 mana.

Imperial Seal
same as Vampiric Tutor but slightly worse because it's a sorcery.

Dark Petition
It functionally costs the same as Demonic Tutor, but only in the mid-late game and only if people don't mess with your graveyard. I've found it to be reliable.

Entomb
Putting Tenacious Underdog or Bladewing's Thrall is neat, but we don't have that many options. I suppose if you look at it as a second copy of Tenacious Underdog then it's a pretty good card, so while it doesn't exactly fill the same role as other tutors, it's probably a good card in its own way.

Expedition Map
Only good if you have Ancient Tomb in your deck. Ancient Tomb means that this card can ramp you into a T3 Ebondeath and later it can grab Cabal Coffers or something. If you AREN'T running Ancient Tomb, then it becomes a lot worse.

Grim Tutor
Worse Demonic Tutor. Still, it gets the job done.

Unmarked Grave
Worse than Entomb in every way, but the same principles apply.

Razaketh's Rite
pretty easy to simply cycle away, but you're going to be cycling it 90% of the time because it's so expensive.

Final Parting
It's like an Entomb and a Diabolic Tutor stapled together. Pricey, but a good bit of value.

Diabolic Tutor/Mastermind's Acquisition
probably the limit as to what's reasonable to spend on a tutor, personally I think this is 1 mana too much, but it's still within the realm of reason.

Buried Alive
The thing is, you usually only need 1 zombie so paying more mana to get 3 isn't as exciting as it might look at first glance. Also this card can't bin Cling to Dust which probably isn't that big of a deal, but it's something to consider.

Increasing Ambition
Another one of those cards that is really cool, but probably not good enough. It's a heck of a lot of value, but it's not really practical until the extreme late game.

Liliana Vess
We aren't very well equipped to defend a planeswalker, so this will usually just be a 5 mana Imperial Seal. It's not even like the +1 is that good in commander.

Diabolic Intent
Sure we have some zombies in the deck that don't mind being sacrificed, but it's inconsistent, and sacing our commander (assuming our commander is available at the moment) to this spell makes it a functional 6 mana tutor, which isn't very exciting.

Cruel Tutor
Too slow

Wishclaw Talisman
letting your opponents tutor is a bad idea, and in EDH it's not even like you get 2 tutors to your opponents' 1, as your opponent is likely to give it to another opponent rather than return it to you.

Scheming Symmetry
Trust me, your opponent isn't going to grab a land or something, they are going to grab the best card in their deck. If you don't have the money for Vampiric Tutor/Imperial Seal then just don't play them, don't try to "replace" them with this.


Spot Removal

Spot Removal makes up the bulk of the list, indeed you could think of this deck as a mono-black control deck with a Voltron win condition. Expect to run around 20 of these.

I'm not going to cover every card in this section, rather I'll just give you an outline.

Generally, in mono-black you can expect to pay three mana for a flexible piece of spot removal (for example: Hero's Downfall or Murder). You can expect to pay two mana for a piece of spot removal with some limitations (for example: Doom Blade, Victim of Night, Power Word Kill).

Obviously the few spot removal spells that cost less than 3 mana but are still flexible are the cream of the crop: Infernal Grasp, Defile, Murderous Cut, Devour in Shadow should be your first picks.

In a deck with fewer removal spells, you typically want to run the most versatile options available, this means you would prefer Murder to Go for the Throat. However, in a deck with so much removal, like ours, you can get away with the more narrow options.

Think of it this way: if you only have one removal spell in hand, then you'll want it to be Murder so that you can handle anything. If you have two removal spells, however, you can have one of them be Doom Blade and one of them be Heartless Act, because you can point the Heartless Act at the problematic black creatures, and you can point the Doom Blade at the problematic creatures with counters on them. Of course, it is possible that you won't always be able to divide up your removal like this (what if all of the problematic creatures on the field are black?) but generally the increased efficiency of these more narrow removal spells is worth the risk.

This logic only applies however, if your removal spells cover each other's gaps. If you are running Malicious Affliction, Doom Blade. Vendetta, and Snuff Out then you are way weak to black creatures. Ideally, you should have only 1-2 removal spells that can't hit black creatures, 1-2 that can't hit artifact creatures, etc.

That doesn't necessarily mean you CAN'T run 3 drop spot removal however, I like to run Hero's Downfall and Murderous Rider // Swift End as they can hit any creature or planeswalker (and the body on Murderous Rider // Swift End comes in very handy). and I also like to run Curtains' Call because who doesn't like a 2-for-1?

The final cards to consider are Edict effects. These abilities are significantly worse since they destroy the creature you are least interested in. Still, it is possible to find spots for 1 or 2 in a game, and there are some really attractive edicts out there. Sheoldred's Edict is hot off the press at the time of writing but is probably the easiest edict to force your opponent to sacrifice the thing you want them to, Vona's Hunger can get rid of a lot of creatures for 3MV at instant speed, and all the Fleshbag Marauders effects can be cast on an empty board to enable Ebondeath, Dracolich in a pinch. Ultimately, they are fine cards but keep them light.


Ramp

They help you get your commander chugging and they keep you slowly ramping as the game goes on. run 8-9.

Once again, I won't cover every mana rock that's ever been printed. Obviously Mana Crypt and Sol Ring are the best with Mind Stone being a distant third.

In general, enters untapped artifacts are ideal, but not crucial, it won't matter in the early game, but the sequencing becomes a bit easier in the mid-late game with mana rocks that enter untapped. I'd be willing to run mana rocks that enter the battlefield tapped if it had something else going for it, but to be honest, the best effect on a tapped mana rock is probably Planar Atlas which isn't mindblowing, but might make a two lander opening hand a little more palatable, or Guardian Idol who can hold swords or snag the Initiative/Monarch in a pinch.

Finally, mana rocks that cost more than 2 mana are just too slow for us.


Zombies

By "zombies" I mean recursive bodies like Bladewing's Thrall or Poxwalkers.

These cards have been mentioned in passing throughout this primer, but I've never really focused on them for long. Honestly, that's a pretty good analogy of their role in this deck, they fulfill a lot of various niche roles depending on the game state, and while they are almost always handy to have around, they are rarely the center of attention. You can think of them as Ebondeath's minions, crucial to handle the little things, but not exactly the star of the show.

Typically you'll be using your zombies in one of three ways.
  1. Blocking: A single 3/3 with flying can dissuade a surprising amount of attacks, unlike in a 1v1 format, in commander, you don't need to come out on top after the combat phase to dissuade an attack, you only have to be able to make your opponent lose something in the attack to convince them to swing elsewhere. It's the iconic Rattlesnake Effect.
  2. Holding equipment: Boneyard Scourge is more than happy to pick up an equipment and bash. having alternative bodies around that are willing to carry equipment will make it much easier to push through your opponents interaction and defenses.
  3. Sacrifice fodder: Sometimes opponents will realize they can gate you out of your commander by not casting any of their creatures. Without creatures to kill, we can't recast Ebondeath. Sacrificing Bladewing's Thrall to recast Ebondeath (which in turn, brings back Bladewing's Thrall) is one of the most satisfying plays you'll make with this deck.
Alright, on to the list! you don't really need more than 1 or two extra bodies lying around, and they are pretty sticky, so you don't need to run many, maybe 3-5
Zombies
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Bladewing's Thrall
Petition to rename him Ebodeath's Thrall. There's a reason he is one of the featured cards at the start of this primer. He returns for free whenever a dragon enters the battlefield (PSA: it can be an opponent's dragon as well) without spending any mana. He enters untapped and ready to block, and as long as you have your own dragon out he even has flying. A common line is to recast our commander at instant speed, which in turn triggers Bladewing's Thrall who (unlike our tapped commander) can then block for us.

Poxwalkers
It returns tapped, and I think flying is usually slightly better than deathtouch, making the card worse than Bladewing's Thrall, but it's still very good.

Tenacious Underdog
Sure he can't block (because he'll be saced at the end of the turn) but he is a draw engine and the fact that he sacs himself makes him the go-to zombie whenever you need to enable Ebondeath. He also has haste which means he can often take a sword in the redzone when no one else can. It might sound crazy to spend mana on an equip cost when the creature is just going to die, but the option ends up being much more relevant than you might think.

"Lifetime" Pass Holder
One of theses days I'm going to make a post about how the attraction mechanic isn't THAT bad. he's a value engine and a random body to do all the other things we need. There is a bit of tension in that we kind of want him dead as often as possible, but when he's in the graveyard he can't exactly hold a Sword. Ultimately though, that just means you have to choose whether the body, or the 31% chance to open another attraction each turn is more valuable.

Gravecrawler
Efficient, and it shouldn't be too hard to enable, "can't block" really drags though.

Boneyard Scourge
Sure he looks like another Bladewing's Thrall at first glance, but in reality, the fact that you need to have two mana up hurts, and the "whenever a dragon dies" trigger is much harder to control then the "whenever a dragon enters the battlefield." Still fine, but much worse than Bladewing's Thrall.

Death Tyrant
Very mana intensive, but it doesn't have a sorcery speed only clause so you can flash it in whenever you have the mana and for that mana you get something a lot more impressive. I will say the negative energy cone ability triggers way less than you think it would.

Dogged Detective
What a cool card. If you're confident your opponents will be triggering it frequently it's probably really good. But I suspect it's too easy for most opponents to just not draw 2 cards in a turn whenever possible.

Bloodghast
The most efficient zombie out there, he even has haste in some narrow situations which is very handy for grabbing a sword. But not being able to block really does hurt, that's like 33% of the reason to run the zombies.

Clattering Augur
Like Tenacious Underdog he trades the ability to block with the ability to draw cards. However, he is way slower than Tenacious Underdog and he doesn't sacrifice himself, making him significantly worse.

Akuta, Born of Ash
Yeah, saccing a land hurts, but it's free to return and it comes with haste. Honestly, I feel the stipulation "if you have more cards in hand than each opponent" is what puts the nail in the coffin for this card, otherwise I'd probably be down to try it.

Silversmote Ghoul
I only mention this one because I WANT him to be good, the body comes with no restrictions like "can't block," he comes back without paying any mana, he sacs himself if you need to enable Ebondeath, and he is a strong draw engine. Ultimately though, this deck isn't really designed to consistently gain 3+ life. I suppose you could argue that he replaces himself in the early game and is a great card once you get some lifelink equipment out, but I don't think it's worth the effort. I am sorely tempted to try though (maybe adding a bit more lifelink would make him more defensible).

Lingering Phantom
easy to trigger, but you need to recast him.

Veilborn Ghoul
even easier than Lingering Phantom to trigger, but again, it's a very hefty mana investment to return him and this one can't even block.


Equipment

The flashiest part of the deck, these are the cards the rest of the deck is built around.


I've loosely grouped them into value generating equipment and smashing equipment. You should run 7-10 value generating equipment and 3-5 smashing equipment, that's a lot lower than most voltron decks, but we make them count.

Ideally, you should avoid equipment that don't give Ebondeath at least +2 power. Doing so will ensure that you commander is a 3 turn clock with any equipment. Cards like Rogue's Gloves might look really appealing, but at the end of the day, we are a monoblack combat deck, we NEED a gas pedal to kill problematic players before they go over us in some form that we can't interact with.

Having said that, there aren't a lot of options if you are building your deck on a budget. If you are building on a budget, you'll have to include cards like Rogue's Gloves and run a higher number of equipment to compensate.
Swords
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While not all of these are swords, this is the section that includes all the equipment that provide card advantage and +2 (or more) power. The vast majority of this section will be swords though, because the swords are just so good in this deck, they are card advantage, +2 power, evasion, and protection all in one, AND they can be cast and equipped the turn after you play Ebondeath.

Sword of Forge and Frontier
The newest sword is a heater! It "draws" 2 cards a turn and it ramps, this is the go-to sword if you're tutoring for one.

Sword of Fire and Ice
Iconic, it draws a card, it Shocks something, what more do you need?

Strength-Testing Hammer
It draws a card, and it buffs your commander by (on average) 3.5. Sure it's possible to roll a 1, but you only need to roll a 3 or more later to make up for it. Also, it has a 8.33% chance to straight up 2 shot an opponent which is pretty impressive on a card that's also draws you more cards.

Umezawa's Jitte
Surprise, the best equipment ever printed is a good card! It's a little bit clunkier than the swords, you need to choose between the buff or the removal, but it's worth it.

Lucille
So equip is a hefty cost, couple that with the and you can't even cast + equip this bat the turn after you play Ebondeath, but this is probably the most dominating card in the entire deck. It's repeated removal, it turns Ebondeath into a 3 turn clock, menace is really good when paired with flying, the sacrificed creatures enable Ebondeath, and the zombie tokens are handy blockers/whatever else you need (they make it really hard to turn off Lucille, if they kill Ebondeath, just equip one of the zombies you have and keep going).

Sword of Hearth and Home
The blink is rarely useful for this deck, but even as a Sword of the Animist that also provides +2/+2 and pro green and white, this card earns its keep.

Sword of Feast and Famine
Making your opponents discard is much worse than drawing a card yourself, but it's still something and the untap all lands trigger is really strong.

Sword of Sinew and Steel
More narrow than the other swords, but we really struggle with artifacts in monoblack, so we'll take repeated artifact removal on a solid piece of equipment any day. Also, screw them superfriends.

Whispersteel Dagger
Ostensibly does everything we need a sword to do, but it does require our opponents to have creatures in the yard, and it requires you to pay mana to get the value, making it less appealing.

Pact Weapon
Also technically meets all the requirements for a sword, but not really. Depending on the exact list, this will only buff you commander by ~+1.8 on average which is just shy of the mark (though you could use Vampiric Tutor, grabbing Decree of Pain or something to dome an opponent, heck you could even run Draco to one shot people, but that probably isn't worth the deck slot, especially because you're also taking 16 damage to do it), and while it DOES draw a card on attack, it costs a card to equip, meaning you are only card neutral if you get 1 swing in, and you are actually down a card if it gets removed before combat. The can't lose the game ability isn't all that exciting as it's usually not that hard to kill Ebondeath, Dracolich, still, if you do run it, I wouldn't be surprised if it comes up from time to time.

Sword of Body and Mind
One of the three swords that aren't that good. Tokens are nice, but the mill is honestly more of a liability.

Sigiled Sword of Valeron
I've not tested it, and Lucille's token production is very handy. But part of what makes it so good on Lucille is it provides another body to pick up the bat and keep forcing your opponents to sac creatures. Sigiled Sword of Valeron will consistently make bodies, but without the edict effect I don't know if they are nearly as useful.

Transmogrant's Crown
I just don't think it's going to draw enough cards to prefer it over alternatives.

Sword of War and Peace
It'll probably provide a decent life buffer, and it will probably make your opponents feel the hurt, but it's not enough

Avarice Amulet
Every time I read the first ability, my eyes bug out. then I read the second ability and remember why I'm not running it. It's pretty easy to kill Ebondeath, and while we shouldn't have any trouble killing anything our opponents try to equip this to, they don't have to give it back to us, they'll probably just give it to a different opponent. Maybe if you are also running Homeward Path?

Scythe of the Wretched
It's cool, but your opponents just won't block (actually, your opponents shouldn't be ABLE to block if things are going well).

Sword of Light and Shadow
we don't have many good creatures to recur and 3 life isn't all that exciting. Still, if you run a lot of the Fleshbag Marauders it might work.

Sword of Truth and Justice
We don't need counters and there is nothing else we'd want to proliferate.
Smashing Equipment
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Unlike the swords, these equipment don't multitask, they just kill your opponent as fast as possible

Brass Knuckles
So the double strike equipment actually only showed up on my radar while writing this primer (Writing this primer has actually given me a lot to think about) but I think they are really good. They combo so well with swords, giving you double sword triggers and straight up killing an opponent who has 7 combat damage (which is very common in this deck). They also practically guarantee a 1 shot if you have a Lashwrithe. I think I slightly prefer Brass Knuckles to Fireshrieker. You can't give your commander double strike the turn after you play him with Brass Knuckles, but that's not really the game plan anyways. In the later game, however, you'll only need to equip one of the knuckles as long as you already have another equipment, and your opponent will need 2 artifact removal spells to take away your double strike (I also dream of one day swinging with two creatures, both carrying a sword, and both with doublestrike).

Fireshrieker
Again, double strike goes really well with swords, and even on it's own, it's functionally +5/+5. However, the second piece of doublestrike equipment is a dead draw, so you might consider running only 1 of these two.

Lashwrithe
It provides a huge buff, it gives you a body to do whatever you want with, and you only have to pay mana to equip it if you want to.

Nightmare Lash
Slightly worse than Lashwrithe, but it's still great.

Batterskull
My lifelink equipment of choice, yes equip is an obscene amount of mana, but when you have the mana there is no equipment in the game that can keep you alive the way this card can, Lifelink + vigilance is wild, providing a life buffer while also leaving back an intimidating blocker (a blocker that will gain you even more life if someone DOES swing at you). The germ token means that you don't need to equip it to anything if you don't want to, and it can carry other equipment lying around if you'd like. Finally, the bounce ability protects it and allows you to get another germ token if you ever need one.

Blackblade Reforged
It's very pushed, but the fact that it costs a lot more to equip non-legendaries (which, again, is a very real plan B in this deck) makes me prefer Lashwrithe and Nightmare Lash.

Loxodon Warhammer
A staple of Voltron decks, personally, I prefer the much more mana intensive, but much more impactful Batterskull.

Gavel of the Righteous
I'm mixed, on the one hand, it's really easy to grow, late game it can be equipped for free, and it can provide double strike. but on the other hand, how often is it going to be better than Fireshrieker or Brass Knuckles? and do you really want to run 3 double strike equipment?

Shadowspear
This is a tricky card, I wrote up an analysis on the card in this deck a couple weeks ago, it's kind of long but I think it's well-written, so I'll just leave it here:
Why Shadow Spear isn't that exciting
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I know that Shadowspear is ridiculously pushed but, and I know this sounds crazy, trample isn't all that good in this deck. between flash, flying, the protection the swords give, two utility lands that grant evasion, and a ridiculously stacked collection of board wipes and spot removal, you can usually make sure ebondeath connects without too much difficulty. Not only that, the deck is designed to deal exactly 7 damage each turn, obviously late game multiple equipments might be present, but often times, shaving 1 damage off of a swing with a random thopter token or something is as good as chump blocking: it'll buy you 1 more turn (obviously if they have several chump blockers trample becomes a lot more appealing, but that's what the board wipes and swords and Rogue's Passage is for). Also, Ebondeath has such a flat booty that lots of blockers can often kill him anyways, trample won't fix that.

Lifelink, however, is fantastic, no doubt about it. This deck spends a lot of life, and it also doesn't have any blockers a lot of the time, putting Life link on Ebondeath, Dracolich makes it a heck of a lot harder to race you.

the +1/+1 is honestly the biggest reservation for me. I realize I probably sound obsessive about how I want every equipment to give at least +2 power, but the game plan of the deck is to look for a hand that goes t3 ebondeath, t4 slap an equipment on him. Oftentimes, that equipment is the only equipment you will see in a long time, so it needs to be able to stand on its own two feet.

Finally, while the activated ability is mostly flavor text in modern and legacy, Arcane Lighthouse has actually put in work for me in other commander decks, so I actually see the activated ability as one of the most attractive features of this card.

Ultimately, it's main competition are Batterskull and Loxodon Warhammer. I'd only run 1 MAYBE 2 of these three options, but all three of them are decent and they all have their own merits (it's actually really frustrating to me that their isn't an equipment that gives +2/+X, trample, vigilance, and lifelink, but it makes deck building interesting so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
Hand of Vecna
Decent buff, and a cheaper equip option than Empyrial Plate, but like Empyrial Plate it's going to feel real bad when you are sitting on 3 or less cards.

Empyrial Plate
It's usually a really good rate, but sometimes our hand is pretty low, and in those situations we need our commander to hit harder, not softer.

Strata Scythe
It's like Lashwrithe but worse in every way! It's still probably fine though.

Malefic Scythe
I just love the image of a zombie dragon wielding a scythe like the grim reaper, and I've run the card from time to time, it's not bad, but, optimally, it's outclassed by so many other options.

Hero's Blade
Sure it's ridiculously cheap and doesn't require any equip costs every time Ebondeath dies, but it's also relatively low impact.
Value Equipment
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Again, if you have the card pool, I'd avoid these cards all together, but for more budget lists you'll have to look into these equipment as well.

Mask of Griselbrand
Lifelink is good, and it will draw a lot of cards. I prefer slow, incremental, card draw to big draw effects that usually force you to go to discard, but it ain't bad.

Mask of Memory
nets +1 card and allows you to filter out cards you don't want.

Rogue's Gloves
It draws a card, doesn't get much simpler than this.

Sword of the Animist
It's like Sword of Hearth and Home's little sibling.

Explorer's Scope
has a roughly 40% chance to ramp you +1 land each time you attack, not very impressive, but it's not a big mana commitment.

Spellbinder
That's a lot of mana, and a 2 for 1, and it's probably going to draw a lot of hate. Still, in magical Christmas land it will provide a lot of value.

Infiltration Lens
same problems as Scythe of the Wretched
Other?
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And finally, the equipment that doesn't fall neatly into any box, but I still want to talk about

Wand of Orcus
Maybe a bit of a win more card, still, this card singlehandedly opens up a go wide strategy for the deck.

Masterwork of Ingenuity
Oftentimes, this deck is running on only 1 piece of equipment, so masterwork won't always have anything to copy, and even when you do, the options will be somewhat limited. I like it a lot more in the budget list which runs significantly more equipment.

Assault Suit
Your opponents are far too likely to agree not to swing at each other.

Swiftfoot Boots/Lightning Greaves
I only mention them because they are so ubiquitous in other decks, here, however, they don't actually do much, Ebondeath enters the battlefield tapped, so haste isn't much good and hexproof and shroud aren't all that useful (shroud is particularly bad, since we often only have one creature out and want to put multiple equipment on it.


Card draw

If you want to be able to hang in the mid-late game, you're going to need card draw. The swords are extremely efficient ways to get card advantage, but you'll also want some more reliable options. run 7-10 of these.
One Shot Card Draw
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Some people say one shot card draw should be big, they'll run Promise of Power over Sign in Blood. Those people are wrong :). Big draw spells are only good if you aren't running enough draw. Edge towards a critical mass of smaller draw spells to smooth out your deck, rather than a handful of bigger spells that don't come into their own until the late game.

Sign in Blood/Night's Whisper
This is it, the peak of single shot draw in mono-black, it's all downhill from here.

Skeletal Scrying
Fairly efficient even at low X values, it becomes a lot worse if you aren't running fetches however.

Read the Bones
For 1 more mana, you get a Night's Whisper that first scrys 2, not bad.

Cruel Bargain/Infernal Contract
Yeah, this is a lot of life, but it's also a lot of cards.

Cut of the Profits
This is about the least efficient I'm comfortable being, you can sac Ebondeath to it to double it if necassary.

Damnable Pact
Strictly worse Cut of the Profits but it's fine.

Succumb to Temptation and all of it's lookalikes (there is NINE of them)
I go back and forth on these vs. the Ambition's Cost cards, but I think these are slightly better.

Ambition's Cost/Ancient Craving
The upper limit on what I'll spend on single-shot draw.

Plumb the Forbidden and all of it's lookalikes
Sure we have some recursive bodies, but we aren't really an aristocrats deck and can't make real use of them.

Foulmire Knight // Profane Insight
not strictly card advantage but you get a dude out of it I guess?
Repeated Draw
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More important than the one-shot draw effects, these are how you keep up in the late-game

As a rule, I won't spend more than 1 mana on a dedicated draw engine (lands like Bonders' Enclave follow different rules since they also function as a regular land). Therefore I'm not going to cover all the Sunset Pyramid cards, there's a lot of them, and I think they are a bit too slow.

Phyrexian Arena
Iconic, it seems to have fallen out of favor with many EDH players, but I still think it's best-in-class.

Tome of Legends
Incredibly consistent. I'm always amazed how easy it is to keep this card loaded up with page counters.

Underworld Connections
requires you to tap a land to get the card making it worse than Phyrexian Arena, but it's still good, Especially if you have a Sword of Feast and Famine.

Black Market Connections
It might seem strange to rate this lower than Phyrexian Arena, but man does that life loss add up. Still, it's a very good card.

Cling to Dust
On the one hand, it's relatively low impact, on the other hand, it replaces itself for 1 mana

Dragon's Hoard
Not nearly as consistent as Tome of Legends, but also free to activate and a mana rock when you can't. If this was 2MV this would be the bee's knees. As is, it's still probably decent.

Necropotence
This draws a lot of ire. some people believe that threat profile is not a good reason to avoid a card: if it has a high threat profile, that's because it's good. I disagree, but if you want to run this card, it'll keep you topped off just fine.

Dread Presence
Powerful, but fragile, and 4 is a heck of a lot more than 3.

Staff of Compleation
4 is a lot of life to pay for 1 card, still it's also a mana rock and a sacrifice outlet, so it's probably pretty handy all things considered.

Tablet of Compleation
Man, this is so close to being the best mana rock ever, a 2 MV mana rock that turns into a draw engine in the late game. Unfortunately, it doesn't actually produce mana on the critical T3, so it's not really a reliable mana rock, and as a draw engine it's agonizingly slow.
Recursion
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Not sure where else to put this section, we don't need any particular card for this deck to function, therefore we don't need recursion, however, a little bit can be nice.

Yawgmoth's Will
If you have it, this card is great, sometimes it just gets back a land and one other thing, but late game you can pull off some huge turns with this card.

Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
We run a surprising amount of non-black cards for a mono-black deck. Not being able to get back equipment is a pretty big knock against it. Still, it's a 3/2 with horsemanship, which is great for carrying equipment, that replaces itself when your opponents try to remove it, or can be traded in at any time for any juicy black cards in your gy.

Toshiro Umezawa
For the most part, the only instants this deck runs are spot removal, but it runs A LOT of them, so you should be able to get decent use out of this in the late game.

Shrouded Lore
This is a lot of mana for a glorified Regrowth.

Deliver Unto Evil
How good do you honestly expect the 3rd and 4th best card in your gy to be?




.
Credit & Thanks
  • You! For reading this pile of word vomit, I'd be extra grateful if you left your two cents, either on the deck or on any of the (many, I'm sure) typos/grammatical errors in this primer. I really want this primer to be clean and approachable, so any help accomplishing that is much appreciated.
  • @Chromaticus, @pokken, @Ruiner, and anyone else that's taken an interest in this deck, whether they just recommend changes or are crazy enough to actually build their own lists and tell me about what's working for them.
  • I feel like I should acknowledge that @DirkGently brewed a very similar concept for a voltron Ebondeath list a couple months before I did, we both came up with our lists independently, and Dirk isn't playing his list anymore, but I'd recommend looking at his old list if you want even more talk about Ebondeath, Dracolich.
  • The primer committee for approving this post as an official primer, sharing their reccomendations, and providing the primer template.




Last edited by Dunadain 6 months ago, edited 54 times in total.
All cards are bad if you try hard enough.

Important decks: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Emiel, The Blessed, Phelddagriff
Other: Ruhan, Zask, Kellan, Liesa, Galadriel, Orca, Sauron, Thantis, Rukarumel, Sisay, Stickfingers, Safana, Thantis, Dihada

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

For extra space against character limit.
All cards are bad if you try hard enough.

Important decks: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Emiel, The Blessed, Phelddagriff
Other: Ruhan, Zask, Kellan, Liesa, Galadriel, Orca, Sauron, Thantis, Rukarumel, Sisay, Stickfingers, Safana, Thantis, Dihada

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

.
Change Log

For the sake of posterity:
4/14/2023
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Whew, that's a lot of changes
Obviously I won't actually be making these changes till MOM comes out, but this is what I'm planning.

Cutting fetches because they are a headache, they are optimal but rarely impactful.
Myriad Landscape was frequently making things awkward.
Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed is too slow and too expensive, especially when we actually have a lot of colorless cards we'd like to grab.
Nightmare Lash is a good equipment, but I think 12 is a good number, and this one's probably the worst of what I have available.
Skeletal Scrying is often awkward when the gy is low.
Murderous Cut and Vendetta are the two worst removal spells in the deck, and I think I'd like to run a slightly lower number.


3/10/2023
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Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:

Oblivion Stone has been very underwhelming, hitting artifacts is nice sometimes, but oftentimes it also knocks us out of the game, All Is Dust will hopefully do better.

@Rumpy5897 suggested Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, and the more I think about it, the more I think it might just work.
3/3/2023
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-The primer is completed, to see the origins of the deck, check out this thread

-Additionally, writing this primer has given me a lot to think about, Just writing these words has forced me to take a good look at cards I hadn't really considered, some of the ideas I went ahead and implemented immediately (like Underworld Connections and Brass Knuckles), but others are just things I've begun to think about. The main cards I'm currently thinking about are: Entomb, Expedition Map, and Dragon's Hoard.
Last edited by Dunadain 11 months ago, edited 4 times in total.
All cards are bad if you try hard enough.

Important decks: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Emiel, The Blessed, Phelddagriff
Other: Ruhan, Zask, Kellan, Liesa, Galadriel, Orca, Sauron, Thantis, Rukarumel, Sisay, Stickfingers, Safana, Thantis, Dihada

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

I just love this deck :)

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

It's finished! Coming in at a whopping 16,000 words, this is now officially the most thought I've ever put into any deck (and probably more than the vast majority of school papers I've written :P).

I'll be honest, writing this was kind of exhausting, so I think I'm going to go rework my Safana, Calimport Cutthroat deck, just for a change of scenery.
All cards are bad if you try hard enough.

Important decks: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Emiel, The Blessed, Phelddagriff
Other: Ruhan, Zask, Kellan, Liesa, Galadriel, Orca, Sauron, Thantis, Rukarumel, Sisay, Stickfingers, Safana, Thantis, Dihada

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Post by benjameenbear » 1 year ago

Yeah, I feel the same way about my own Primers. But they're a labor of love @Dunadain, right?

Congrats on your well-written and exhaustive Primer! Well done and I hope to see many more posts to keep this updated!

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Post by Chromaticus » 1 year ago

Played my first game today!

Really strong start with a Mana Crypt, 2 rocks, and Imperial Seal and Sword of Hearth and Home against 3 players with white in their decks. Ebondeath got swinging on turn 3 with the sword, and had a player in killable range in two turns. Imperial seal went for Phyrexian Arena and was drawing me a nice supply of extra cards and removal.

At two points in the game I asymmetrically wiped the board with dead of winter and mutilate.

My biggest enemy wound up being my mana crypt which kept losing turn after turn. My opponents had smacked me for a bit as the black player, and when the game was done, I was down to 2 life with Vendetta Devour in Shadow and the one that kills enchantments all stuck in my hand!

I wound up using the Sword of Sinew and Steel plus Liquimetal Torque combo to blow up the crypt - and would have had to use it on Phyrexian Arena if the game had gone on another turn. Truth be told, I missed the interaction for 2 turns and was just blowing up clue tokens while I was in the single digits.

But if a romp for a first game, but I did have to replay Ebondeath twice and it felt very painless to do both times (even though one was exile).
I'll need to keep an eye on sol ring and mana crypt for speed as you mentioned.

Primer is gorgeous - I scarfed every word.

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

Chromaticus wrote:
1 year ago
Played my first game today!

Really strong start with a Mana Crypt, 2 rocks, and Imperial Seal and Sword of Hearth and Home against 3 players with white in their decks. Ebondeath got swinging on turn 3 with the sword, and had a player in killable range in two turns. Imperial seal went for Phyrexian Arena and was drawing me a nice supply of extra cards and removal.

At two points in the game I asymmetrically wiped the board with dead of winter and mutilate.

My biggest enemy wound up being my mana crypt which kept losing turn after turn. My opponents had smacked me for a bit as the black player, and when the game was done, I was down to 2 life with Vendetta Devour in Shadow and the one that kills enchantments all stuck in my hand!

I wound up using the Sword of Sinew and Steel plus Liquimetal Torque combo to blow up the crypt - and would have had to use it on Phyrexian Arena if the game had gone on another turn. Truth be told, I missed the interaction for 2 turns and was just blowing up clue tokens while I was in the single digits.

But if a romp for a first game, but I did have to replay Ebondeath twice and it felt very painless to do both times (even though one was exile).
I'll need to keep an eye on sol ring and mana crypt for speed as you mentioned.

Primer is gorgeous - I scarfed every word.
Another W!

You ended the game with two life? That only means you can use your life as a resource even more aggressively next game! ;)

Though I'm a bit confused, Mana Crypt is already an artifact, you don't need Liquimetal Torque to turn it into one.
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Important decks: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Emiel, The Blessed, Phelddagriff
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Post by Chromaticus » 1 year ago

Yes, missed the idea of using the sword trigger on my own thing - just kept scouring my opponents boards. Even skipped a trigger at one point.

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

@benjameenbear how do I get that primer tag to show up on my signature like you have? I can't find anything in the BBC code guide on it.
All cards are bad if you try hard enough.

Important decks: Ebondeath, Dracolich, Emiel, The Blessed, Phelddagriff
Other: Ruhan, Zask, Kellan, Liesa, Galadriel, Orca, Sauron, Thantis, Rukarumel, Sisay, Stickfingers, Safana, Thantis, Dihada

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 1 year ago

[primer] should result in primer

While reading through your post, I jotted down some cool kid black tech from back in the day. Maybe you'll like some of it :P
  • Imp's Mischief is a unique effect in the colour. Redirects are neat, they give you game against countermagic and create beneficial outcomes if aimed at removal. Plus hey, maybe you'll get to cheese an extra turn every now and then, if your group does that sort of stuff.
  • Withering Boon is neat because it acts prior to the creature hitting the battlefield. A way to stuff an ETB trigger, which conventional removal does nothing about.
  • Toshiro Umezawa could be a way to milk more value out of your removal spells. Not sure how well he'd fit into sequencing, but the option is there.
  • Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed is another unique effect in black, I remember enjoying him in my Sheoldred deck back in the day. But I had an easy way of getting him out of the bin :P
 
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

Stopping in to say that I love this deck. Any deck that plays Bladewing's Thrall has my vote. I played a 60 card Bladewing the Risen reanimator deck back in the day that used Buried Alive to get Bladewing, his thrall, and uh, himself into the graveyard for shenanigans. Good times.

Here are some thoughts.

I know you're afraid of artifacts, but why not All Is Dust over Oblivion Stone? At least it leaves your shiny equipment, and if you're really having a problem with a particular artifact deck, well, there's your first victim.

While spot removal is obviously incredible here for both removing problematic creatures and blockers, I think you may be running a bit too much. You have a solid critical density of them, so cutting a handful of them for more ubiquitous stuff like draw, ramp, or something like Imp's Mischief might balance things out a bit.

Speaking of ramp, I hate to be that guy, but it takes 11 2mv or less rocks to consistently (~67%) hit a turn 3 Ebondeath. 8 is probably fine, too, but hey, I'm just presenting options.

I haven't played with it here but I'm not quite sure I like Tenacious Underdog here. 8 mana is a lot to recast your commander and draw a card, and all at sorcery speed to boot.

As for the equipment, how about Vorpal Sword? +2/+X, mildly useful keyword, and an "Oops, You Lose" button in the late game. Dirt cheap to cast and equip, too. Grafted Wargear is a personal favorite. Does Malefic Scythe "turn on" enough to consistently give you a +2/+2? Do you find yourself taking advantage of getting more than 2 soul counters?

Finally, for draw, what kind of coward plays Yawgmoth's Will but not Necropotence? Obviously the card has a huge threat profile, but seeing as this is a Voltron deck I assume you're persona non grata already. I understand and respect not playing it purely for power reasons, but I think you should reconsider it if you're only discounting it because of the threat profile. It's a great way to say "I'm killing one or more of you next turn," which is a joy. There's also always Necrologia. As for Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain, this and dedicated mono-black combo are the only decks that can reasonably play them, so it's now or never.

I think I'll take a version of this for a spin sometime. I was considering building Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed Voltron/toolbox, but I fear he just lends himself too much to combo.

Cool deck.

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
1 year ago
[primer] should result in primer
Thanks!
Rumpy5897 wrote:
1 year ago
While reading through your post, I jotted down some cool kid black tech from back in the day. Maybe you'll like some of it :P
  • Imp's Mischief is a unique effect in the colour. Redirects are neat, they give you game against countermagic and create beneficial outcomes if aimed at removal. Plus hey, maybe you'll get to cheese an extra turn every now and then, if your group does that sort of stuff.
  • Withering Boon is neat because it acts prior to the creature hitting the battlefield. A way to stuff an ETB trigger, which conventional removal does nothing about.
Yeah, I've played both of these in mono-black control decks in the past, they are really fun "gottem" cards. There was a time where I had a mindset when deckbuilding that I had to have an answer to everything and back then I jammed these in any black deck that didn't also have blue . As I've improved as a player, though, I've come to realize that these cards are a bit too narrow. Withering Boon only works against creatures, which is the card type we are best suited to handle, so it's only useful against problematic etbs. Meanwhile, it's so much worse than a plain removal spell against other creatures because you have to make the decision when the creature is cast, rather than waiting to see if it's a problem, and if you don't have the mana up when the spell is cast, then it's even worse.

Imp's Mischief just doesn't hit enough, the vast majority of targeted effects in a game are removal spells, which this deck is kind of built to ignore, I don't have too much extra turn nonsense in my meta, but even then, only some extra turn spells actually target (notably, Expropriate does not).

They are really fun gott'ems though. It's the kind of card I want my opponents thinking and playing like I have, but I usually don't actually need them.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
1 year ago
[*]Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed is another unique effect in black, I remember enjoying him in my Sheoldred deck back in the day. But I had an easy way of getting him out of the bin :P[/list]
Man that brings me back, had an old friend that had a Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed deck that was looking to loop it with things like Victimize or Living Death.

So I went really deep on a scryfall search awhile back looking for recursion for this deck, and realizing there really wasn't anything. I thought real hard about:
Yawgmoth's Will, which actually made the cut
Shrouded Lore, which I determined was too expensive, the deck runs a lot of similar cards, and paying 5 or so mana for a Regrowth just isn't necessary
Deliver Unto Evil, It seems weird to run this with 0 bolas planeswalkers, but it is a 2-for-1. Ultimately though. I suspect the top two cards of my deck that I could get from a Painful Lesson are probably better than the 3rd and 4th best card in my graveyard the majority of the time, and I'm not running Painful Lesson.
And finally, Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, Ultimately, I realized that, for being a mono-black deck, there aren't actually all that many black cards in the list. I think the most common card that this deck really wants back after it gets destroyed is some sort of equipment, which Xiahou can't hit. if we're casting Xiahou to get back a removal spell or a boardwipe, that seems a little ridiculous, we run plenty of each, better to just draw into a new one. Recurring a tutor is a little bit more exciting, but the list doesn't even run that many tutors, so I decided not to run it.

However, you comment caused me to revisit Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed and consider a two things that hadn't occurred to me then: First of all, while I've never actually looked at Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed as a creature before (mostly I see him used as a spell that synergizes with black recursion since it's technically a creature), an unblockable 3/2 is the sort of thing that I'd love to equip a sword to, and when your opponents do try to kill it, you can sacrifice him then and get some other card back for that sweet 2-for-1.

Second of all, his ability will enable Ebondeath, Dracolich, kind of like a one-use Tenacious Underdog.

I can see it now: equip a Lashwrithe to Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, swing at an opponent, the opponent is forced to spend removal on it because they don't won't to get domed for 10, in response, return Night's Whisper to my hand and recast Ebondeath for a 4-for-1.

So there's a pretty low floor, and a pretty high ceiling, you've convinced me, I'll give him a go.
Rumpy5897 wrote:
1 year ago
[*]Toshiro Umezawa could be a way to milk more value out of your removal spells. Not sure how well he'd fit into sequencing, but the option is there.
Toshiro Umezawa however, got totally missed when I was looking at recursion options. He's even more narrow then Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, in fact, really all he can do is reuse the spot removal in the deck, most everything else is a sorcery. but, unlike Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, he's actual card advantage.

I imagine he'd only really be worth it in the late game, when the deck has both mana to spare and a stocked graveyard, but Yawgmoth's Will has shown me that recasting every removal spell in your graveyard in the late game can be extremely potent.

For now, I'll try cutting Plaguecrafter for Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed and go from there, I like to make one change at a time when possible so I can see what's working and what's not more easily.
Last edited by Dunadain 1 year ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
I know you're afraid of artifacts, but why not All Is Dust over Oblivion Stone? At least it leaves your shiny equipment, and if you're really having a problem with a particular artifact deck, well, there's your first victim.
Oblivion Stone has consistently underperformed, this seems like a smart swap. :+1:
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
While spot removal is obviously incredible here for both removing problematic creatures and blockers, I think you may be running a bit too much. You have a solid critical density of them, so cutting a handful of them for more ubiquitous stuff like draw, ramp, or something like Imp's Mischief might balance things out a bit.
Spot removal needs to be high, like really high, but I could see 15 or so being a bit more reasonable. I don't like Imp's Mischief (see my previous comment) unless I have a feel for my metagame and know there's something juicy for me to redirect.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Speaking of ramp, I hate to be that guy, but it takes 11 2mv or less rocks to consistently (~67%) hit a turn 3 Ebondeath. 8 is probably fine, too, but hey, I'm just presenting options.
Don't be ashamed of being that guy! I minored in statistics so I'm happy to talk numbers!

Where are you getting those numbers from? Using a hypergeometric calculator it seems you need 8 mana rocks to have one by T2 (by which point you'll have drawn a total of 9 cards) ~54% of the time. Saying 67% is the threshold for "consistent" seems a bit arbitrary. Couple the 54% odds with a free mulligan (why is that a thing? It just enables bad deck building? XD) and the fact that this deck still runs just fine if we aren't able to get that T3 Ebondeath and I'd say 8 is an acceptable, albeit bare minimum, number.

However, I actually functionally run more than 8 copies! you missed Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal which can function as two additional mana rocks if need be (for people running Sol Ring or Mana Crypt it's actually 3 because Demonic Tutor can also lead to a t3 Ebondeath) and I'm running Ancient Tomb. The math gets a bit tricky (not THAT bad) because the tutors need to be in our hand turn one (again, only if you aren't running Mana Crypt or Sol Ring) and the rocks don't have to show up till turn two, and Ancient Tomb doesn't need to show up until T3, but the odds now work out to ~66% chance, ~70% if you have the Sol Ring/Mana Crypt for Demonic Tutor or a second turn Vampiric Tutor/Imperial Seal top deck.

Of course, other factors can prevent a T3 Ebondeath, this doesn't account for the possibility that you don't have enough black mana or you don't have enough regular lands.

I'm also currently looking at Expedition Map which also can be a functional mana rock via Ancient Tomb if that's what you need.

I will admit that I didn't really think too much about the numbers while building the budget build, I think I'll add one more rock to the budget build, bumping it up to 10 rocks.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
I haven't played with it here but I'm not quite sure I like Tenacious Underdog here. 8 mana is a lot to recast your commander and draw a card, and all at sorcery speed to boot.
Yeah this is really weird to me, I actually nominated Tenacious Underdog during the Syrix, Carrier of the Flame community deckbuilding project and everyone else seemed to be in agreement that it wasn't very good. But it's been an all-star for me. I'd guess you are all getting too hooked up on recasting the commander, sure, that's one thing this card can do, but it can also just be a 4 mana draw a card engine (no different then War Room it just trades being a land for some other utility modes), it also is really handy for holding a sword, haste means it can get in so many turns when everybody else on the team is summoning sick, that might sound ridiculous at first but think about it, Sword of Forge and Frontier costs to equip, and draws 2 cards, if you blitz underdog and equip, then you've spent 6 mana to draw 3 cards, which is actually a pretty good deal, Sword of Fire and Ice is 6 mana draw 2, which is still something I'd expect to pay for a repeatable draw engine.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
As for the equipment, how about Vorpal Sword? +2/+X, mildly useful keyword, and an "Oops, You Lose" button in the late game. Dirt cheap to cast and equip, too. Grafted Wargear is a personal favorite. Does Malefic Scythe "turn on" enough to consistently give you a +2/+2? Do you find yourself taking advantage of getting more than 2 soul counters?


Yeah, maybe I didn't emphasize this enough in the primer, but Malefic Scythe is bad, there is no justification play it to except that it's edgy, I've come to my senses and taken it out, but it was fun.

The thing with Vorpal Sword and Grafted Wargear is that they fall into this awkward middle ground, the equipment I run now either gives +2 power and card advantage (the swords) or gives a significant boost in power (Lashwrithe/Brass Knuckles). Essentially, if all you're good for is killing opponents, then you better be VERY good at it. It's the same problem I have with Hero's Blade. Even Malefic Scythe could consistently give +2/+2 to +4/4, but that just doesn't cut it when you either have to compare yourself to Sword of Fire and Ice or Lashwrithe.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Finally, for draw, what kind of coward plays Yawgmoth's Will but not Necropotence? Obviously the card has a huge threat profile, but seeing as this is a Voltron deck I assume you're persona non grata already. I understand and respect not playing it purely for power reasons, but I think you should reconsider it if you're only discounting it because of the threat profile. It's a great way to say "I'm killing one or more of you next turn," which is a joy. There's also always Necrologia. As for Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain, this and dedicated mono-black combo are the only decks that can reasonably play them, so it's now or never.
The thing is, when you cast Yawgmoth's Will the damage is done, and your opponents know exactly how much that Yawgmoth's Will pulled you ahead. Sitting with a Necropotence in play is an unknown, no matter how many resources your opponents manage to drain out of you, you're going to top right back up at the beginning of your next end step.

To put it another way, casting a Necropotence and passing is a must answer play, casting Yawgmoth's Will, replaying Bloodstained Mire and Night's Whisper, then passing, is a strong play, but that's it.

I've actually really been thinking about Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain, I think I'd bump them from a to a . From a non-optimal point of view, I really like the #Mono-Black-Life vibe of playing these cards.

Necrologia seems really expensive for a one-shot draw.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
I think I'll take a version of this for a spin sometime.
Hell yeah!
Last edited by Dunadain 1 year ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Vertierer » 1 year ago

Attacking and sacrificing Xiahou-Dun in response to removal won't work, you can only use him in your pre-combat mainphase.
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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

Vertierer wrote:
1 year ago
Attacking and sacrificing Xiahou-Dun in response to removal won't work, you can only use him in your pre-combat mainphase.
Ah yes, I need to RTDC. Old cards are weird. kind of a big knock against it tbh, I'll have to rethink it now.
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Post by Chromaticus » 1 year ago

Would you Entomb for Bladewing's Thrall or Tenacious Underdog first? Ran into this situation last night, and I went for Thrall. My life total was nice and healthy, but there we're definitely points where a hasted threat would have been big.

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

Chromaticus wrote:
1 year ago
Would you Entomb for Bladewing's Thrall or Tenacious Underdog first? Ran into this situation last night, and I went for Thrall. My life total was nice and healthy, but there we're definitely points where a hasted threat would have been big.
Going in completely blind, I'd probably also have gone for Bladewing's Thrall, but, obviously, it all depends on the board state, if you have a lot of mana and are light on card draw, then Tenacious Underdog becomes a no-brainer.
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Post by oldmangrieves » 1 year ago

I just want to say that this deck is a ton of fun! Thank you so much for the inspiration and the effort you put into the Pimer.

Have you considered Disciple of Bolas? I run one in my build and the amount of draw you can get before a board wipe or cabal coffers nonsense feels fantastic. Especially with a Blackblade Reforged or Lashwrithe attached. The life gain comes in handy as well.

I also run Gravecrawler since I have no shame about my Attrition coming down and staxing out the playgroup. But I respect your commitment to fun,

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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

oldmangrieves wrote:
1 year ago
I just want to say that this deck is a ton of fun! Thank you so much for the inspiration and the effort you put into the Pimer.

Have you considered Disciple of Bolas? I run one in my build and the amount of draw you can get before a board wipe or cabal coffers nonsense feels fantastic. Especially with a Blackblade Reforged or Lashwrithe attached. The life gain comes in handy as well.

I also run Gravecrawler since I have no shame about my Attrition coming down and staxing out the playgroup. But I respect your commitment to fun,

Stay undead everyone!
sorry, forgot to respond to this. Glad you are enjoying it!

Disciple of Bolas is better than most aristocratic cards people recommend, as there is actually a big enough pay off for having to recast the commander, still, I feel like there are one-shot draw effects that are just as good and don't require you to jump through hoops.
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

Dunadain wrote:
1 year ago
Where are you getting those numbers from? Using a hypergeometric calculator it seems you need 8 mana rocks to have one by T2 (by which point you'll have drawn a total of 9 cards) ~54% of the time. Saying 67% is the threshold for "consistent" seems a bit arbitrary. Couple the 54% odds with a free mulligan (why is that a thing? It just enables bad deck building? XD) and the fact that this deck still runs just fine if we aren't able to get that T3 Ebondeath and I'd say 8 is an acceptable, albeit bare minimum, number.
I concede that Ebdondeath is less important to rush out compared to Erebos, God of the Dead since Erebos can invest mana into drawing cards right away or Thalia and The Gitrog Monster since they're so impactful, but I would argue that doing something two-thirds of the time qualifies as "consistent" whereas half the time is a coin toss. Arbitrary, but I think an important distinction. While I agree about free mulligans encourage bad deckbuilding, they also reward good deckbuilding. 67% plus a free mulligan qualifies as rather consistent to me.

(These numbers don't account for needing land drops, but you run a sufficient number of lands.)

I am not a statistician.
Yeah this is really weird to me, I actually nominated Tenacious Underdog during the Syrix, Carrier of the Flame community deckbuilding project and everyone else seemed to be in agreement that it wasn't very good. But it's been an all-star for me. I'd guess you are all getting too hooked up on recasting the commander, sure, that's one thing this card can do, but it can also just be a 4 mana draw a card engine (no different then War Room it just trades being a land for some other utility modes), it also is really handy for holding a sword, haste means it can get in so many turns when everybody else on the team is summoning sick, that might sound ridiculous at first but think about it, Sword of Forge and Frontier costs to equip, and draws 2 cards, if you blitz underdog and equip, then you've spent 6 mana to draw 3 cards, which is actually a pretty good deal, Sword of Fire and Ice is 6 mana draw 2, which is still something I'd expect to pay for a repeatable draw engine.
I'm still not sold. I take your point, but I think the other self-recurring creatures are obviously better because they're free and have pseudo-haste with your flash commander. The recurring card draw is good, no doubt, I just think there are better ways we can get there.
The thing with Vorpal Sword and Grafted Wargear is that they fall into this awkward middle ground, the equipment I run now either gives +2 power and card advantage (the swords) or gives a significant boost in power (Lashwrithe/Brass Knuckles). Essentially, if all you're good for is killing opponents, then you better be VERY good at it. It's the same problem I have with Hero's Blade. Even Malefic Scythe could consistently give +2/+2 to +4/4, but that just doesn't cut it when you either have to compare yourself to Sword of Fire and Ice or Lashwrithe.
Bladewing's Thrall wears Vorpal Sword well enough. Sometimes you don't have time to Voltron two players to death, and this card has reach written all over it. Grafted Wargear is a sort of pet card of mine from 1v1 20 life formats. Free equip!
The thing is, when you cast Yawgmoth's Will the damage is done, and your opponents know exactly how much that Yawgmoth's Will pulled you ahead. Sitting with a Necropotence in play is an unknown, no matter how many resources your opponents manage to drain out of you, you're going to top right back up at the beginning of your next end step.

To put it another way, casting a Necropotence and passing is a must answer play, casting Yawgmoth's Will, replaying Bloodstained Mire and Night's Whisper, then passing, is a strong play, but that's it.
Necropotence is Ad Nauseam at sorcery speed that, on average, costs less life per card. Its use as an incremental card advantage tool is a viable second alternative, but aggressive use is encouraged. The Skull is even better here because you're far more aggressive than Erebos.
I've actually really been thinking about Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain, I think I'd bump them from a to a . From a non-optimal point of view, I really like the #Mono-Black-Life vibe of playing these cards.
I dunno if they're a four, but they're fun.
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Post by Dunadain » 1 year ago

@TheGildedGoose Everything you say seems fairly reasonable. Though I'm telling you, at least give Tenacious Underdog a chance.

Maybe I'm undervaluing Vorpal Sword's second ability... hmm...

I don't think you're going to convince me to try Grafted Wargear though...

As for the list, everything looks solid, a deck like this has a lot of flexibility with individual card choices. Though I did look into Hostile Negotiations when it got spoiled and isn't Ambition's Cost just better? I think Hostile Negotiations would be better in Archenemy situations, but I think this deck IS the Archenemy too often to make this card worth while.
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

I just...can't imagine why you would ever want to pay 4 for an extra body. Am I missing some kinda great interaction from it being 3/2 and letting you pay 2 life? Why not Bloodsoaked Champion? Are you chump blocking with your 4 mana dude?

Couple other quick thoughts:
-I've always been surprised by no Bloodghast in these decks. A body every turn you can slap a sword on and sac feels great.
-I think Call the Bloodline is likely to perform pretty well. bodies, chump blockers, lifelinking dudes to race with, discard outlet.

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Post by Chromaticus » 1 year ago

In regards to Tenacious Underdog: It's more of a hybrid Whispers of the Muse / Bloodghast - ie, it's worth doing even if you have no attacks.

For Grafted Wargear - I'm just imagining my opponent gleefully holding up a Nature's Claim and wasting a whole turn cycle while also getting rid of an equipment.

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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

Oh duh I failed to see the reminder text on blitz. Derp.

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