First game in the books! This one was a wild mess and I'm sure my memory will already be full of inaccuracies, but here we go.
Game #1 aka Night of the Living Death: Versus
Karador, Ghost Chieftain,
Varina, Lich Queen,
Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist, and
Ghave, Guru of Spores
See how much black there is in here, and how much potential for graveyard shenanigans? Yeah, buckle up.
We decided to play with the variant in Sheldon's recent article - The Monarch token starts at the center of the table, and first blood gets it. We did this before drawing, but it definitely made me thrilled with my opener of
Carrion Feeder,
Harrow, and lands (I also had
Elvish Aberration and the currently not super-active
Living Death). I was even more thrilled when I won the roll and got to play first, slamming down my feeder. No one else had a Turn 1 creature so I was able to draw first blood off of Karador and start the value train.
The game heat up from there - Karador's
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth brought Varina's
Cabal Coffers online ahead of schedule and combined with a turn 3
Sol Ring to start powering out uglies - notably, she dropped
Embalmer's Tools and started chipping away at everyone except Karador's libraries in equal measure and milled my
Nekrataal. Ghave was a total budget deck but was still curving out
Sporecrown Thallid into
Crocanura. Mirri was a bit manascrewed and had only a
Leonin Shikari. Karador used a
Fleshbag Marauder and
Yavimaya Elder to pull ahead and keep the board pruned back. I drew into
Rampant Growth and
Wood Elves to assist Harrow in ramping me far ahead. Blows were traded and the monarch popped between me, Varina, and Ghave. Karador got sick of it and fired off a low-value
Living Death to get his two dudes back while wiping out the boards of everyone else, our first of the night (cue ominous music. Also, can you predict the winner from here?). I got some good value out of this, however, by saccing my meager board to Carrion Feeder in response and thus getting more ramp with Elves.
I decided to rebuild and reclaim the monarchy by activating the
Fires of Yavimaya to light up my own
Yavimaya Elder. Everyone else also quickly rebuilt; I followed up Elder with
Tsabo Tavoc to start bullying folks and used
Exhume to let everyone rebuild some. Varina thought that was so cool that she
Vizier of Many Faces'd it. Then, the Karador player laid down
Pernicous Deed. Everyone else (they're casuals, what can I say?) kept building up but not attacking him, and I was having none of it. I explained to the table I was going to force the issue and declared combat with my Tsabo and Elder (and something else? I remember saying "swing for 10" so maybe Wood Elves was in this mix?), and of course he fired off deed for 7 to wipe the board. That was fine for me, as I got to follow up with Darigaaz and a discounted
Avatar of Woe in the second main.
Everyone else built up a bit more, but the real problem was that Karador slammed
Kokusho, the Evening Star and now had a
Volrath's Stronghold to reclaim it every turn. I didn't see any great options; I didn't want him to start chaining Kokusho but had no graveyard hate. After a few minutes in the tank I decided if you can't have victory have fun, so I sacced my entire board to Carrion Feeder, then cast my own
Living Death. The board went nuts - remember, we'd all had a few things milled by Varina. Tons of triggers flew around, but when the dust settled I had the biggest board and a mess of lands in hand and on the table.
He sure enough brought back Kokusho on his upkeep and recast it
. Then, Ghave decided to go off. She was frustrated that her board was so small and that every time her
Shalai, Voice of Plenty came out it got eaten by Nekrataal or Avatar of Woe (fair enough!), so she went ahead, sacced a few guys to Ghave, and then cast
Pyrrhic Revival. I sacced most of my board in response again, and at this point had looped Elder + Wood Elves so much that Wood Elves actually failed to find another basic forest in my deck. "Wow, those two did some work for you this game huh?" - I'll take that as my Terminator moment!
Karador was sort of archenemy at this point despite my and Ghave's large boards so we went out at him - he blocked some attacks with Kokusho but actually got smacked around enough that he couldn't afford to bring it back as he was too busy firing off removal spells to fend us all off. This proved a mistake, as it gave Varina a window to cast
Geth, Lord of the Vault and steal his Kokusho. Varina followed this up with a
Gray Merchant of Asphodel and suddenly I'm in the teens as is most everyone at the table, while Varina is at a cozy 90 life.
As a full disclosure at this point in the story, Varina is piloted by my wife who will wheel, deal, bargain, and manipulate to no end. So, I start looking at Avatar of Woeing her board and she asks if there's anything that will stop me. I say that if she leaves Kokusho, maybe, but honestly it's a problem no matter what. Still, I mostly give her a turn - she declines to take Kokusho and instead steals my Yavimaya Elder with Geth after slamming an
Undead Alchemist (which I decline to kill at this moment more out of politeness than strategic sense). Karador's got nothing in the tank at this point, instead setting up a
Spore Frog to try not to die. Ghave decides that she'd rather be second than try for first and spends her turn attacking me with a pumped Shalai to drop me to six - I don't Avatar that either as I've let Varina know I'm going to go all in to attack her or die trying. I help the Mirri player make some smarter moves (she was a friend who hadn't played MtG in a good two years) and then at the end of her turn, fire off Avatar of Woe on Geth.
I follow that up with
Void for four, which kills a lot! It nails Varina, Alchemist, Undead Warchief (which kills a few more critters once the pump is gone as a few zombies still had -1/-1 counters from Revival), Karador's
Oracle of Mul Daya, Shalai and a pile of dudes for Ghave...or would have, if Ghave didn't respond with
Ready // Willing for indestructibility. Oh well, goal was to hammer Varina and Karador anyhow. I still don't have great attacks but Darigaaz swings in, connects, and I get to see a hand of...swamp and
Go for the Throat for just one damage. I thought they had more cards, bummer. I also play
Withered Wretch (my topdeck for the turn) and exile Kokusho once and for all.
Varina is wounded enough that even though I'm at 6 and she's at 80-some, she can't kill me now - I was able to leave
Undead Gladiator,
Spiritmonger, and the Wretch back for defense. Karador also has nothing, not now that his Kokusho is toast and he's at like 9 or 10.
So Ghave is up. She agonizes over her turn, initially saying she passes (we all riot at that), then saying she's going to just attack Varina for 5. We all point out that it's been like two hours at this point and Varina is at 80, so Karador really ought to either go ham on Varina (she's holding back a few fatties including a
Mortician Beetle that has swollen to like 33/33 at this point), or start picking folks off. I worn her that I'm likely to keep pressuring her too since her board is huge (I think somewhere in here I also killed Shalai for the sixth time before she got to untap) but that I'll make her pay if she swings at me. She does so anyhow, and I have no good way to live so I achieve flavor perfection with a
Reckless Spite to take her
Hundred-Handed One and
Sporecrown Thallid (which she needed for her "engine" alongside Ghave and Crocanura) and go to 1, then die.
Fortunately I didn't have to sit long - Mirri takes a half-hearted and easily chump-blocked swing at Karador mostly to keep her Mirri tapped, and then on her turn Varina topdecks
Living Death #3, sacs her board to Ashnod's Altar, brings it back, and deals everyone 28 damage with Gray Merchant + Vizier copying Merchant. GGs.
- # times there was only one (games won): 0
- # Elder Dragon Highlander Victories (Players killed by Darigaaz): 0
- # Fools Ignited (Players dealt 5+ damage by a single trigger of Darigaaz's ability): 0
- # Dreams Lived (The Yavimaya Elder + Pattern of Rebirth love connection happened and ultimate value was achieved!): 0
- # Terminators Built (# of times I've had a creature get reanimated/regenerated/looped enough times to elicit a groan or frustrated "WHY WON'T YOU DIE!" from an opponent): 1
Running Tally (approx) of damage dealt with Darigaaz's trigger: 3 (womp womp)
Final Thoughts
-
Living Death is preetttty good.
- I and my playgroup clearly aren't playing nearly enough graveyard hate. Suggestions for this deck, seeing as I can't use
Bojuka Bog,
Scavenging Ooze,
Nihil Spellbomb or
Relic of Progenitus and would suffer as much as my opponents from
Planar Void?
- I was definitely struggling to keep up especially in the endgame and without a few extra cards from the Monarchy probably would have been dead. I did draw Reclamation, but at that point was at like 22 and quickly dropped to 12 after casting it. I am thinking of adding more "value engines" - maybe
Tortured Existence?
