Ratadrabik Legendary Death Loops

[ChocoDude]

I got a "4-player" test game in early this morning against four of my own decks: The Gaffer, Sidar, Jabari of Zhalfir, and Isshin, Two Heavens as One with Rata going third and the others in the order I listed them (Isshin 4th). Overall, Rata didn't do much and really couldn't get thing going. It was a bit mana-hosed stuck at four land through turns 5 - 7. So that didn't help, but it really didn't stand a chance.

In general, I think I need to up my legends count and definitely add more repeatable draw. I had Nasty End in my hand nearly the entire game and finally got to use it too late. It would've been nice to drop a Necropotence or Dark Prophecy or even a Phyrexian Arena on turn three to get more cards in hand and more lands on the table. After chatting with you about the deck, here's a list of changes I'm contemplating. However, I don't have all the pieces yet so some will either wait or have an interim change.

• Liesa, Forgotten Archangel --> Athreos, God of Passage Recursion swap. I used to run Athreos, but it didn't always work out nicely, so I was leary, but it's certainly less mana intensive and has built in protection.
• Village Rites --> Necropotence Necro is just better. Maybe it doesn't fit the sac them as well, but...
• Promise of Aclazotz --> Breena, the Demagogue I used to run Breena in here and she's much better than she reads. I really enjoy her and am happy to add her back in. Card draw, buff, and mild protection (which isn't really the right word, but I can't think of the word right now.) Increases legendary count.
• Stroke of Midnight --> Mangara of Corondor I finally got Mangara in the mail. Excited to try it out. It also increases my legendary count.
• Ashnod's Altar --> Phyrexian Arena I have a request in Cardsphere for a Dark Prophecy, but for now I'll take the consistent draw. It has been hard to use the mana from Ashnod's.

I hit submit too soon. Other changes I'm contemplating when I can get the pieces:

• Gift of Immortality --> Victimize I'd really like to try out Gift. Seems like a great way to loop to create multiple tokens.
• Luminous Broodmoth --> Illuminor Szeras More mana production and adding a sac outlet back in since Ashnod's has been removed.
• Syr Konrad, the Grim --> Daxos, Blessed by the Sun Less pain and more gain to keep Rata a float against faster decks in my meta.
• Bastion of Remembrance --> ? Not sure, but added back some pain and increasing my gain would be good.

[ISBPathfinder]

That all sounds good. Right now I am really pushing hard for more draw and cheaper more expendable legends and I will see how and where that goes for me. I have considered if something like Land Tax might be useful as well given that we really aren't ramping lands much at all and it might be something to consider just as a "card advantage" and hit our lands kind of a thing but as we get more real draw in the deck I think Land Tax tends to fall off so it might be something to think about if the cheap legends with more draw doesn't pan out but its also not cheap to obtain.

I really did almost lose a number of games in my earlier testing due to just not drawing cards so I am looking forward to more draw in the deck with more cheap interactions. This deck also kind of sucks at blocking flyers even though we have a few sometimes you just get punched in the mouth because you can't block. I really got away with some of my wins just because my opponents didn't realize how close to a combo deck I am even though it has no infinites to my knowledge. When you realize someone is playing a combo like deck you just have to mercilessly off that deck.

[ChocoDude]

Yeah I run Land Tax and it's been useful. I consider it card draw and obviously keeps the land drops flowing. I used to run Tithe too when my deck skewed more than . I feel like things ran smoother then, so I may add Tithe back in anyway. I can find Godless Shrine with it.

I also just realized that I should try running Ao, the Dawn Sky as well, so I'll be shifting my deck around more in the next few weeks. Cardsphere is slow, but saves on $$$.

[ChocoDude]

So, I played another "4-player" test game this morning with Ratadrabik of Urborg going 1st, Isshin, Two Heavens as One 2nd, Giada, Font of Hope 3rd, and Ranar the Ever-Watchful blink 4th. I called the game around turn 9 as Rata had a ton of life and token doublers out, but Giada and Ranar were still contending quite well. (Isshin died quickly…death by flyers.)

Main takeaways, Rata did not draw enough, was mana limited as I didn't hit a land drop per turn and caused me difficulty determining the number of tokens it created. Played 8 or 9 turns and drew 6 lands but was stuck at 5 lands for a few turns. I had a few cards in hand that had double-white pips and access to only two white mana during that time. I drew Call of the Ring towards the end, and I see it being slow now too. I'm tempted to either swap it out for a Plains or Tithe as it's effectively card draw and can smooth my land drops. What would you do? I'm leaning towards Tithe.

A couple interesting things:
* I've changed my mind about Luminous Broodmoth. I'm going to keep it in for now. It's a flyer and it instantly creates fliers upon their deaths. And since most of my creatures aren't flyers, that could give me flyers should Luminous not be removed quickly. In this case, I created a Gandalf the White flyer and a Daxos, Blessed by the Sun flyer this game. (I swapped out Syr Konrad, the Grim for Daxos and it worked out well this game minus the lack of white mana.)
* At one point, I had Rata, original flying Gandalf and four copies, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Luminous, and Daxos on the board. I cast Saw in Half on Daxos and had a hell of a time determining how many new Daxos's I'd get AND how much life I'd gain. I think I determined that I'd get 20 Daxos's, but then I wasn't sure about the lifegain. I was thinking it would be 19x20 (380), but that may not be true. I think with Saw in Half, I brought in two Daxos tokens, but it should've only been one since those tokens would've still been legendary and the legend rule would've applied. Do you have any idea how many Daxos tokens and life I would get? (My guess is that Saw in Half creates essentially one because one dies. But then it has a death trigger, ugghh… Each Gandalf would've doubled each Rata trigger, but then Mondriak would double that, so I assumed that one Daxos death would create four tokens and there were five Gandalfs, so 20 Daxos tokens and each of those would gain a life for each other.) Does that sound right?
* I was also thinking I should add in another drain effect, so Bastion of Remembrance is on that list. What do you think about The Meathook Massacre in that slot (regardless of price)?

[ISBPathfinder]

My understanding of 4x Mondrak, Glory Dominus is that you just do simple multiplication so it would be 1 commander trigger * 2 (Mondrake) * 2 (Mondrake) * 2 (Mondrake) * 2 (Mondrake) = 16 tokens. In a case where you have the 4 Monodrake, 1 commander, and Saw In Half him it would be along the lines of:

Saw in Half resolves and makes 2x copies enter which are legends these are tokens though so * 2 *2 *2 *2 = 32 legendary tokens enter. Legend rule goes into effect and you sac 31 of them triggering commander so 31 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 496 nonlegendary Daxos are generated after you legend rule them out. Now the lifegain you generate from that...... you are on your own because that is 31 triggers of tokens entering and I am not going to calculate that but I imagine you had well over 10k life by the end of that.

The Meathook Massacre - its probably.... ok. My issue is that we are aiming to be a go wide strategy so I really want to avoid a lot of effects that might kill the commander so I don't really know if you plan on really ever having the x be that big. If you are just running it to gain life there are a lot of triggers for ETB lifegain.

I also asked a question regarding to the commander in play with a double death triggers and then the double death triggers source dying. I..... think..... it might make double tokens of the death triggers creature but I can't recall how it works since its a static double effect leaving play rather than directly being a death trigger. Just linking to that question so we can figure it out for future play.

EDIT: Response came back and they do indeed see their own deaths and double the token gen. Good to know.

[ChocoDude]

Thanks for asking that question. I have a better understanding now. Yeah after thinking about it, I think I should just add another repeatable card draw card in Call of the Ring's place. I think Dark Prophecy is actually quite dangerous in this deck as you can lose a lot life due to death triggers from it. I like Erebos bit better because it's a "may" trigger. My one instance with Daxos would negate that loss of life easily, but I'm sure there are plenty of other times where I may not see that much lifegain. Again, another pain and gain (drain) effect would be nice to mitigate some of that.

[ISBPathfinder]

Thanks for asking that question. I have a better understanding now. Yeah after thinking about it, I think I should just add another repeatable card draw card in Call of the Ring's place. I think Dark Prophecy is actually quite dangerous in this deck as you can lose a lot life due to death triggers from it. I like Erebos bit better because it's a "may" trigger. My one instance with Daxos would negate that loss of life easily, but I'm sure there are plenty of other times where I may not see that much lifegain. Again, another pain and gain (drain) effect would be nice to mitigate some of that.

I went through the EDHRec resource for the commander too just to see if I missed anything crazy. I do think that as we lower the curve especially if we add a little lifegain triggers in that Bolas's Citadel might be a very reasonable draw sort of thing too. Its on the more expensive to cast side but the fact that it cheats its card advantage into play without us needing to pay mana is useful.

I know what you mean on these triggers adding up and being painful. I wish there were another soul sister effect like Daxos or Aristocrat that was legendary but I feel like I already have all the ones in the list that I can get away with.

[ChocoDude]

Agreed. There will be more legendaries with a lifegain effect in the future, but for now I think we've scoured the list well. As for Bolas's Citadel, that's an idea. It's higher CMC, but it's good one!! I actually two spares sitting in my binder right now. I'd still like to add some lower on the curve draw first, but I might consider that.

[ChocoDude]

You could add Commissar Severina Raine for the card draw (similar to Sarah Jane) and some lifegain as well as pain. There's also Vraan, Executioner Thane for some pain and gain, but only triggers once a turn. I don't think they're that great though for Rata.

[ISBPathfinder]

You could add Commissar Severina Raine for the card draw (similar to Sarah Jane) and some lifegain as well as pain. There's also Vraan, Executioner Thane for some pain and gain, but only triggers once a turn. I don't think they're that great though for Rata.

Commissar Severina Raine its just really clunky and paying two to sac is painful. In general this deck also doesn't do much attacking so the other part of the ability is also hard to manage.

Vraan, Executioner Thane I have looked at it a few times but that limitation of once a turn just doesn't work well with how this deck operates.

Ok, I got two more games in with the deck and won both. This deck is sort of evil in its ability to set up game ending situations and I think some people are starting to catch on to that as I did experience a lot more interaction in these games. I played a bunch of games so I will do my best to outline but I am not sure how well I can remember everything.

Game 1:

I got going with an early setup of Illuminor Szeras into Honor-Worn Shaku. I got another legend into play from this I can't remember which but then we got swept. I built back up and used Braids, Arisen Nightmare to eat my own Mana Crypt to draw as I was getting a lot of colorless from the Honor-Worn Shaku. I got set up with Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Yahenni, Undying Partisan, and Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation which allowed me to split Mondrake into 3x copies and then Ojer Taq into 8 copies. From here any legend I split became something like 52,000 tokens. Bastion of Remembrance closed out the game without the need to attack. Someone did try a Everybody Lives! but I just pointed out I could continue the cycle on my next opponents upkeep no problem and it was game.

I did in the last turns see Wernog, Rider's Chaplain but it was in the last turn or two so I had more important things to do which resulted in the end of the game so I won't hold that against him. I still want to see him more to test. I did also manage to play Miara, Thorn of the Glade in the rebuild phase in part because she was contributing to my Honor-Worn Shaku mana but I didn't manage to sacrifice her and draw from it.

Game 2:

I opened with Ayara, First of Locthwain into Honor-Worn Shaku and Illuminor Szeras turn 4. One of my opponents hit me with a Darksteel Mutation on Illuminor Szeras while I didn't have my commander or a sac outlet annoyingly. Annoyingly it takes the legendary part off too. I cast a Liliana, Dreadhorde General planning to use my indestructible bug on defense and uptick her making a zombie.

My enchantress opponent is jamming out hard with a Gaea's Cradle and a few dorks in play entombs and reanimates Doomwake Giant and then chains a few more enchantments to strip my creatures and attacks Lilliana for 6 putting her at one loyalty. My other opponent plays a Bane of Progress eating 9 targets from the enchantress player and my Honor-Worn Shaku.

I make another zombie with Liliana and cast Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim and Teysa, Orzhov Scion just preping to defend Lilliana and keep draw going. The enchantress deck plays a Replenish and drops back into play with a bunch of Doomwake Giant triggers. Luckily for me though Teysa lives one extra tick and my other two creatures die giving me three white creatures which I use to exile Doomwake Giant. He attacks and kills my Lilliana now that I have no blocks but he can't repeat his annoying doomwake trick.

I flounder around for a few turns lacking much for draw or sac outlets after this. I do use Braids, Arisen Nightmare on an artifact to draw some cards at one point but I lack a consistant sac outlet or really a good payoff for a few turns in here. I Diabolic Intent off a Field of the Dead zombie but I lack good draw, a sac outlet, or a payoff really at this point so I go and get Teysa Karlov figuring that it gives me more bodies in case of deaths and the tokens will have lifelink as my life is down to about 20 now.

After floundering a few turns I have Lifeline in hand but no sac outlet. Braids, Arisen Nightmare has drawn me a few cards and Boromir, Warden of the Tower is protecting me. Someone split him already via a swords and I am annoying the enchantress player with a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben as he is chaining tons of draw. I also am rocking The Kenriths' Royal Funeral which drew me 3 cards and the cost reduction is going a long ways to allow me to play more things to play.

As I am about to be overrun by the enchantress player who has both Serra's Sanctum and Gaea's Cradle with a The One Ring and numerous enchantresses I manage to assemble the last piece. I draw a sac outlet and in a convoluted turn which should have been simpler except I overlooked how hard it was goign to hit so I passed and did it during the enchantress player's turn I played out Gandalf the White and Yahenni, Undying Partisan allowing me to split Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in response to a Swords to Plowshares target on her. In response to that we went deeper and the enchantress player tried to Nature's Claim my The Kenriths' Royal Funeral which forced me to play my Kokusho, the Evening Star from hand with the last of my mana. The other opponent has some odd trick but he can't really stop my board and I allow the 3x Thalias to come back before sacing the Kokusho chain which is 4x Kokushos hitting for 15 life per due to 3x death triggers.

---

Sooooooo the deck obviously works and it has a lot of lines to victory. I was glad in that instance that I kept Kokusho, the Evening Star over the other top end given the interaction with the extra death trigger effects. I totally forgot it was going to hit that hard in the middle of everything until the last second otherwise I could have executed it sooner with less pain in the ass.

The draw was definately better but even with that I could have used more. I saw a few pieces of the deck across both games and I was overall fairly happy with them but I think I want to look at my sac outlet options and maybe boost it up. I also would have liked more draw but I don't know where to go for it. I do think that its possible that some of my generic removal like Swords to Plowshares and Living Death might not be quite for this deck. Its really hard for me to pull off a Living Death setup with this deck and if anyone is playing blue I feel very uncomfortable full committing into it which was my issue last time I saw it in hand.

I saw Mikaeus, the Lunarch in these games but the more I play this deck its totally an aristocrats deck rather than an attacking deck so I will probably at a minimum turn him into Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist for testing as I was also thinking of testing her out.

Well, just getting my game report in for now but I will mull some things over and come up with a changes later this week. Offhand I suspect I might cut some of the interaction and recursion and try to get more ramp / sac / draw. This deck is just showing me a lot of how it can just ignore everything and win and I don't think its wrong to lean into that. I still want some interaction but some amount of my interaction just lacks synergy with the rest of the deck and with how many pieces need to work together I would rather focus more on assembling winning boardstates.

[ChocoDude]

Glad you got more games in. I too finally got an actual non-solitaire 4-player game in. Rata did great, if not, too great as eventually folks caught on and gang-killed me. Mangara of Corondor was sort of an all-star as I got two permanents exiled with it and had the chance for six total. But folks used removal to take him out a couple times to avoid more shenanigans. Overall, the deck needed more draw even after I had made some changes. Since then, I've played a couple more 4-player solitaire games and Rata has not done as well. I suspect my decks are a bit stronger than the other three members of my pod, one of which is just coming back to Magic and doesn't have any Commander decks of his own, so he borrows mine. He ended winning that game with my Sythis deck, which I targeted quite early and often with Rata. He understood after the game why I came after him moreso than the others. Sythis is very resilient. Rata is too, but not AS much.

As for my suggestions, I agree that Commissar is clunky. I have her in my Isshin deck and she's decent for what she does there, but even then I'm not always happy with her. Vraan, Executioner Thane I put in Rata temporarily, but yesterday I received my Bastion of Remembrance in the mail so that was an easy swap. Here's a list of my changes. I will be receiving an Erebos, Bleak-Hearted soon and that will probably replace Mangara, the Diplomat.

Tainted Field --> Shizo, Death's Storehouse
Temple of Silence --> Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Syr Konrad, the Grim --> Bastion of Remembrance
Liesa, Forgotten Archangel --> Mangara, the Diplomat
Ashnod's Altar --> Daxos, Blessed by the Sun
Promise of Aclazotz // Foul Rebirth --> Phyrexian Arena
Village Rites --> Necropotence
Hope of Ghirapur --> Call of the Ring

I still hope to get a Black Market Connections, which may kick Phyrexian Arena out. However, the Arena was actually quite decent. Folks really didn't want to target it as there were more powerful threats on the board, so I just got my repeatable draw in. Call of the Ring is slow too, but I decided to keep it in as it'll give me similar draw as the Arena, but with the added benefit of allowing me to make my tokens legendary again for looping purposes.

NOTE: I was skeptical about Mikaeus, the Lunarch, but I figured you needed to try it out. As for Living Death I actually got to use it in my four-player pod, but only managed to pull out three creatures from the grave. I mostly needed it, at the time, for a board wipe. I still haven't experienced it enough to know how applicable it is for this deck.

[ISBPathfinder]

DECK CHANGES:

• Mikaeus, the Lunarch → Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist swapping one drops and I like Ashnod is a sac outlet in a pinch. Its possible that I just bail on the one drop idea entirely but I want to push a few more cheap legends in for now to test.
• Whisper, Blood Liturgist → Body Launderer - it feels odd swapping a legend with a non legend creature but Whisper can feel kind of slow and the 2x sac to rez feels a little heavy at times. I like that Body Launderer filters my hand for me and can rez to play quickly in a pinch. It also helps protect my commander in play from sweepers.
• Altar of Dementia → Phyrexian Altar - when I dropped down my reanimation it lost some of the value of the self mill. Its still possible I could mill someone out but not that likely given how a lot of my deck doesn't have that big of a size.
• Swords to Plowshares → Sheoldred, the Apocalypse - I don't have enough draw and overall interaction to feel like I can one for one spot remove much off theme of the deck. There are a lot of people in my meta that jam heavy card draw strategies so I am going to bite the bullet and get another Shieldred (this will be my second one). Its sort of a goodstuff legend but with my commander making it sticky I am willing to see how annoying it can be.
• Corpse Dance → Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff - I didn't see corpse dance many times while playing this deck and I can't recall having cast it but I wanted a little more ramp and I am willing to give this guy a shot.
• Damn → Ashnod's Altar - this lowers my answers down a little and I did have some good castings of overloaded damn but as I have been lowering the curve and adding more draw I find myself wanting to be a little more proactive instead of reactive. I wanted more sac outlets and mana so time to go back to mana sac outlets.
• Living Death → Tragic Arrogance - Living Death was a problem with how the commander works for me. For me to really cast Living Death I need to fully commit to it and sac my board off and put my commander in the graveyard. It was too hard to pull off as my meta has a bunch of blue decks packing free cast counterspells and its just way too risky for me to try to pull off. I contemplated going for a rez spell or an answer and ultimately decided on Tragic because of how versatile it is paired with how I don't rely on a lot of artifacts and enchantments and sacing down to my commander can still be a good result. I figured it lets me attack a bunch of other types of decks and not hit my commander so I am willing to give it a shot.
• Vault of the Archangel → Westvale Abbey I realized that I am not really attacking much and while the buff of lifelink and deathtouch does fit the deck well, I just don't have that level of surplus mana very often. I also realized that if I ever transform Westvale it turns into a legendary creature which is amusing with my commander even though I don't really want to make 2/2 versions of it, this feels more flavorful.

I had some thoughts on more draw and I was also thinking about going back and testing Adeline, Resplendent Cathar again just in part because I have a number of draw on death triggers that could benefit from three disposable tokens on attacks. I need to do more testing though considering how many changes I made last time and this is a lot more changes I don't feel like I have enough testing in with the list as it stands.

[ISBPathfinder]

Ok, I got two more games in with the deck today. I was feeling quite good as a whole about the games as a whole but in general I couldn't find any ramp to save my life in those games.

Game 1: 4 player FFA opponents are Verazol, the Split Current, Mirko, Obsessive Theorist, and Satoru Umezawa

Opening went T2 Sarah Jane Smith T3 Aragorn, the Uniter T4 Commander

Up until here the UG player has mostly drawn cards and ramped. Aragorn, the Uniter has his commander in play and the Ninja man ninjas in and steals with Agent of Treachery hijacking Mirko, Obsessive Theorist mostly just because its big and he doesn't want my sac outlet.

T5 The One Ring which is then immediately stolen by Thieving Skydiver and then when it gets over to the ninjas he manages to 2x ninujutsu thanks to a Cloud of Faeries untap and he redeploys Agent of Treachery stealing the ring before the kicker player can even tap it.

From here I set up Body Launderer trying to do some moving of cards and having a reset for my commander if we wrath. The UG player keeps ramping like insanely and he has like 12+ lands at this point. The 4c deck is having trouble without his commander. And the Ninja guy plays out a Toxrill, the Corrosive with ninjutsu which is REALLY bad. I don't really have a great solution to this so I just jam some value through. I Academy Rector which gets Force of Will from the Ninja player so I sac my Body Launderer to push it through and get Erebos, Bleak-Hearted since the damn ooze guy makes ooze tokens so I can't push through via Grave Pact and chain through the Wernog, Rider's Chaplain chain just to push some draw and tokens. Its funny because when I am done with his chain I have like 10 or so clue tokens I just don't have the mana to move them.

The kicker deck plays a Whelming Wave which is REALLY bad for me. I start to set back up using Bartolomé del Presidio and Junji, the Midnight Sky but I am last to get to play back after the bounce and after I get a few creatures here some evasive creatures hit with the ninutsu player and he goes infinite with some Great Whale shinanigans and chain ninjustsu closing the game out with Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

Game 2: opponents being Niv-Mizzet Reborn, Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern, and Thalia and The Gitrog Monster

Opponents open with a bunch of mana rocks and Gitrog ends up being a hatebears deck and plays T2 Stony Silence. I laugh because I don't have any artifacts right now. Tergrid plays a somewhat early Waste Not which I quickly snap off with a Loran of the Third Path. I play a Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and manage to talk the hatebear deck out of hitting her with Swords to Plowshares which honestly it wasn't even going to be that good of a play for him because it hurts the other two opponents way more than it hurts him.

5c deck does a tutor and drops a wrath on the board. I don't have my commander in play yet. Hatebears plays a one spell / turn effect around now. I start off my rebuild with my commander with nothing else in play but lands. Niv goes to cast his commander and walks into a Hushwing Gryff on his commander and he is REALLY PISSED lol. The mono black player is struggling without his artifacts and only getting one spell / turn and he is taking out his frustrating with discarding on the hatebears deck. Hatebears is topdecking now so he is slowing down.

From here it gets into a real slow bog down of a game. I slowly deploy a Field of the Dead getting a few tokens and a sac ouetlet creature. I last second thought to test Mirrorpool in this deck as sacing it to clone my commander is kind of something for this deck. I use it for the intended purpose right before rolling out a Kokusho, the Evening Star. The turn after that I roll out a Athreos, God of Passage and ask the mono black player if he wants to pay 2x Athreos triggers with a Kokusho trigger on the stack which he allows me to recover it I think only to make the game end as a whole. I replay the Kokusho on my next turn and ask if anyone has more than 25 remaining life which they do not. That was a game.

---

Ok, I did win one game and I think I was doing well and in the other game before the infinite combo happened so I am not too mad about that one either. The second game was kind of luck which is awkward as a hatebears deck slowed my opponents down a bunch and then I just walked the pieces together.

Body Launderer - I think I looted like once or twice but the rez with sac outlets was nice. It also opens up the idea of keeping a key piece in hand and then sacrificing another creature to connive the key piece to grave and sac to rez it right into play. Its interesting and I think I try it a little more for now.
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse - honestly I don't know. There were pros and cons to it as I felt like it draw a lot of attention and people were kind of freaking out over it. It was kind of funny as it felt like everyone sort of converged on that it was a thing. I want to test it more because the problem is it just has some loose synergy but its cost is kind of high. Being a legend makes it a bit sticky with this deck but my commander also interferes with it on the casting cost meaning I have to stagger them one after the other. Its not an answer, draw, ramp, or neccesarily really my gameplan but it does give me some life and punish opponents for drawing cards. Its fine and I do think its alright but again, its not really fitting a lot of what I have been having issues with which is why I bring it up.

Overall, I wanted more ramp and more draw. I might have to make some more hard cuts to make that happen but its what I keep going back to. I also could possibly see exploring more tutors if I have a few key draw pieces as I don't have Vampiric Tutor or Enlightened Tutor in here right now.

[ChocoDude]

Glad you got more games in. I've noticed what you discussed earlier with Living Death. I haven't been able to get it set up very well and it hasn't benefitted me as much as I'd like. I too will try out Tragic Arrogance in that slot. So far, my games with Rata have gotten close, but I've never really closed the deal. Still waiting on an Erebos to arrive in the mail too.

How has The Kenriths' Royal Funeral played out recently? Still decent?

[ISBPathfinder]

Glad you got more games in. I've noticed what you discussed earlier with Living Death. I haven't been able to get it set up very well and it hasn't benefitted me as much as I'd like. I too will try out Tragic Arrogance in that slot. So far, my games with Rata have gotten close, but I've never really closed the deal. Still waiting on an Erebos to arrive in the mail too.

How has The Kenriths' Royal Funeral played out recently? Still decent?

Sorry I keep meaning to circle back and catch these comments while I am in the middle of something lol.

The Kenriths' Royal Funeral - I only cast it the one time and it was really good in that situation. I did see it a second time at the end of the game I won last weekend but it was during the effect of a single spellcast / turn effect so that does kind of make any sort of ramp effect kind of bad so I just powered through with other plays until winning. Still quite positive on it as of right now but I also think it makes a lot more sense when running a lower curve of creatures and more disposable creatures at that. I need to test more but it was really good the one time I cast it.

Is much as I enjoy the idea of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse I think I am going to have to cut her for something else. This deck is just such a combo deck that anything that doesn't directly help it go off mostly being ramp, draw, and the core pieces just kind of get in the way. Shoeldred doesn't answer any problems this deck has and its not like people are outright dying to a shoeldred from the 99.

[ChocoDude]

Well, I've played Rata a bit more and realized that I need a greater density of legendary creatures. Still haven't received Erebos in the mail yet, but that'll go straight in. I've found that I haven't really needed Land Tax, so that'll be a cut. So far I haven't had much success with Grave Pact as it's a bit of a lightning rod. I may swap it for Toxic D. BTW...Tragic Arrogance is excellent here.

Have Ashnod's Altar and Honor-Worn Shaku been as beneficial to your game plan being that they only produce colorless? I'm going to pull Smothering Tithe out to use in a different deck. Doesn't seem as needed here. That's where Erebos will fit in.

[ISBPathfinder]

Well, I've played Rata a bit more and realized that I need a greater density of legendary creatures. Still haven't received Erebos in the mail yet, but that'll go straight in. I've found that I haven't really needed Land Tax, so that'll be a cut. So far I haven't had much success with Grave Pact as it's a bit of a lightning rod. I may swap it for Toxic D. BTW...Tragic Arrogance is excellent here.

Have Ashnod's Altar and Honor-Worn Shaku been as beneficial to your game plan being that they only produce colorless? I'm going to pull Smothering Tithe out to use in a different deck. Doesn't seem as needed here. That's where Erebos will fit in.

You might also consider By Invitation Only. I was in a close consideration between it and Tragic Arrogance when I was trying to cut to just one of them but it has a lot of flexibility that can allow you to not sac your commander or go deep in a pinch. I just don't see a situation where you ever cast Toxic Deluge and don't kill your commander is the only reason I have been holding off on that one. I do think that a 2-3 sac Invitation Only can be very effective but it has the flexibility to go quite deep in a way that someone has to go real wide with tokens for it to not go deep enough.

I might also potentially cut Grave Pact for another just wrath effect myself I just haven't found enough of the deck most games to see all of the deck. Its funny but I can name at least 5-10 cards in this deck I have yet to ever see and I am up to like 8 or so games with this deck. I have also been holding out to test it because of my Academy Rector pool of enchantments. I only saw the rector once and I wanted to get grave pact then but for the fact that the problem I was trying to deal with spawned tokens too.

[ChocoDude]

That's a decent option. It may not hit everything you'd want, especially if you're trying to keep Rata alive, but the sacrifice is good. I was also considering Promise of Loyalty. They still get to keep a creature, but at least they can't attack you.

[ChocoDude]

Had a glorius victory in a three-player pod yesterday against an ooze deck and a planeswalker deck. Decked the table with Altar of Dementia, 8 copies of Mondrak + actual Mondrak, Anointed Procession, Mikaeus the Unhallowed, Yawgmoth, and 15 copies of Mangara of Corondor. It was glorious because one of my opponents ultimated one of his planeswalkers so that each opponent had to sacrifice all but one of each permanent type, including lands. He had enough creatures to swing for lethal against the table. But the other opponent had Dictate of Erebos on board and had to sac three creatures. So the planeswalker opponent had to sac as well, BUT with Liliana, Dreadhorde General on their board he was forced to draw cards. Game Over!!

Note: Smothering Tithe sat in my hand most of the game. Erebos will definitely swap into that slot.

[ISBPathfinder]

I had a few games this weekend but it was mostly instances of crazy infinite combo decks going off paired with some hatebears hitting and slowing me down. I also for whatever reason cannot for the life of me draw ramp with this deck lately. My second game I was in the middle of losing when I topdecked a Tragic Arrogance on the last turn I was going to take before I had to leave to go get groceries but I scooped while showing it rather than resolving that.

In other news though I just wanted to point out for anyone playing this commander but if you take a default zombie token and cut just the bottom section off above the stats section it makes for a great card overlay to indicate legends that have died and come back by the commander. I just drop those little zombie 2/2 indicators and drop them on top of the real cards to indicate those who have died and returned as tokens from my commander. I use this trick as I cut out like 8 different copies and people seem to really appreciate them for ease of understanding the boardstate by them.

[ChocoDude]

That's a great idea. Thanks!!

[pokken]

I also for whatever reason cannot for the life of me draw ramp with this deck lately

You might want to have a think about the Brought Back package, which strongly synergizes with commander (excepting Cosmic Intervention which is iffy but still quite strong, since you can just subsequently sac them the next turn when they come back:D). It's also a deck I'd think on the Scorched Ruins // Lotus Vale stuff.

Second Sunrise // Faith's Reward do double duty with your commander and also fetch ramp much more explosively than signets.

--
somewhat related note I would probably run Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt and Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire

[ISBPathfinder]

I also for whatever reason cannot for the life of me draw ramp with this deck lately

You might want to have a think about the Brought Back package, which strongly synergizes with commander (excepting Cosmic Intervention which is iffy but still quite strong, since you can just subsequently sac them the next turn when they come back:D). It's also a deck I'd think on the Scorched Ruins // Lotus Vale stuff.

Second Sunrise // Faith's Reward do double duty with your commander and also fetch ramp much more explosively than signets.

--
somewhat related note I would probably run Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt and Malakir Rebirth // Malakir Mire

I started out with some of that in my list and it was... ok. My issue is that this deck tends to win or lose somewhat quickly and it on average burns through most of its mana each turn so its hard to hold them up reactively. It is possible that some of the or lands stuff could work out but I need all of my lands most games each time. I keep trying to address my card draw as it always feels like I can't get enough card draw and somehow all of my ramp has been hiding the last several games as well. I really need to do more testing for now but its also the sort of deck I feel kind of bad playing too many times in one sitting against the same people.

Recursion really hasn't been a problem for me though so much as needing to draw more cards and ramp into draw more consistently. I have played a bunch of games and there is still a bunch of cards I have not yet seen from this deck which to me speaks how this deck wins or loses rather quickly.

---

Holy smokes I just looked at Fallout and noticed Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor. It might not be totally crazy but its a good number of legendary deaths and it can buff the zombie flips. I like that.

Elder Arthur Maxson is another cheap sac outlet legend too. I will have to get my hands on that.

ED-E, Lonesome Eyebot its not crazy but I could see me at least trying it out.

[ChocoDude]

I'm looking at Colonel Autumn for my deck as well and of course, Desolate Mire.

[ISBPathfinder]

Alright, I did a little bit of different experimentation this last week. I only played one game but my experimentation was on cloning the hell out of my commander (which is hard to do in BW). I did some shifting around of cards in my list and did some testing again with a bunch of things that can give me copies of cards. Due to this I had a situation where I managed to cast Teysa Karlov and Saw in Half in the same turn turning my commander into 3 copies with one legendary still in play. I did the saw in half at the end of my opponents turns so I got to roll into my next turn with 3x commanders and I did a Mirror of the Forebears on my commander which triggered 3 commanders x2 death triggers to make me 6 more commanders leaving me at 9x total. I kind of screwed up at this point overlooking the fact that I had double death triggers and Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim which got me close to punting the game but I managed to close it out by sacrificing and doing 20 direct to kill someone coming after me hard and spawning 16 more copies of my commander and 16 copies of Skrelv, Defector Mite transformed as 2/2s.

So that gets me back to maybe looking a bit harder into how to make a lot of copies of my commander. I think the double token gen and double death triggers play strongly into this tactic strongly and it also makes for some backup boardstate if and when someone wraths me.

Some cards I am looking into in this vein:

• Mirror of the Forebears
• Mirage Mirror
• Blade of Selves
• Legion Loyalty
• Saw in Half
• Mirrorpool

The fact that the commander has ward 2 also makes it somewhat challenging for a lot that hold up mana to interact to stop a number of these because they often don't hold up interaction +2 mana. I don't have a list of deck changes for this yet as its actually going to be a few weeks where I can't play and I am ordering some cards now but hopefully I should have an updated list soon. I just wanted to give some insight in a pivot I am going to try out.