I love the color green, almost as much as I love the color red. Big fat, ways to cheat them into play, and big mana have always been staples of fun on my kitchen table. After taking apart Wort, the Raidmother due to switching my competitive 1v1 deck (see my Child of Alara primer - http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=271021), I needed somewhere to put my mono-green goodness. After testing a handful of generals, I decided to add black to the mix so I could cheat them not only from my library, but also from my graveyard. Seeing as BG has little to offer in the way of solid reanimation generals, I settled on Teneb, and am plum thankful I did, as white offers a ton of solid support cards, and opens up the doors to more tutors and the Reveillark combo. Without further ado, the decklist:
Big dumb fatties that can be cheated into play are just so much fun, I don’t know why anyone isn’t a Timmy. All of these creatures enter the battlefield with ridiculous effects, and M11 gave us some of the best ever printed. Sun Titan, Grave Titan, and Primeval Titan are all house in this deck, and want to be on the board as soon as possible. It’s hard to chose an all-star from among such a great group of players, but Sun Titan is my knight in shinning armor (literally, look at that Butterball in the artwork. He looks like Mr. Clean does his laundry after drawing his bath and waxing his eyebrows). His ability hits over half the deck (37 lands helps pad that number, admittedly. The fetches love Sun Titan like Hobbits love a nice fire on a November afternoon), and the Vigilance lets him stand strong by my side after beating my opponents faces in. What a hunk.
Deranged Hermit and Avenger of Zendikar allow me to build a presence on the board, making Garruk’s Overrun much better, as well as giving me things to sac to Eldrazi, things to chump block with, or whatever else people use creatures for these days. If I want to wreck an opponent’s position, I have Sundering Titan, Terastadon, and Iona, Shield of Emeria to harsh their mellow.
Making the Most of Your Tutors
Every card in this deck was selected because of its ability to fulfill multiple tasks and / or be synergistic with multiple cards in order to get a 100-card-singleton deck to work out the way you want it to every time. Tutors make decks very flexible and consistent, and luckily for Teneb, he has access to the most powerful tutors in the game. This deck can be broken down into 5 basic functions, while being able to tutor for 4 different kinds of cards. In order to get the most out of my tutors, I made every tutor be able to tutor for a card to perform any function (acceleration, reanimation, creature hate, other hate, card draw):
Enchantments: Mirari's Wake, Necromancy, Seal of Doom, Pernicious Deed, Sylvan Library
Creatures: Birds of Paradise, Karmic Guide, Big Game Hunter, Acidic Slime, Graveborn Muse
Lands: Gaea's Cradle, Volrath's Stronghold, Kor Haven, (n/a), Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
CMC 4: Oracle of Mul Daya, Dread Return, Wrath of God, Creeping Mold, Harmonize
Having this set-up allows any of my tutors to do anything I need them to. Idyllic Tutor is a functional Demonic Tutor, allowing me to pick up slack where the deck isn’t helping me out.
Other Necromancers
This deck wants plenty of ways to cheat things out of graveyards. In addition to the ones that are tutorable, I use the following:
Rise from the Grave: Grabs a creature I threw in the yard with Survival or an opponents who fell during the Day of Judgment. Sometimes my opponents run better creatures that I do. I like to take them as well.
Debtor’s Knell: This is like Rise from the Grave on crack, allowing me to pull creatures every turn out of my (or anyone else’s) yard. Awesome card Post-Wrath, and even pre-Wrath, as most of the creatures that get played in this deck need to, and will, be dealt with.
Living Death: The mother of all re-animation, Living Death is the reason to build this deck. If played correctly, this card will result in board presence shifts so big that you have no option but to win the game. Especially after a turn 3 Buried Alive for all 3 of the Titans. How do you lose that game? You don’t, cause it’s the most awesome play in Magic. So says I, at least.
Genesis: This card is cute, but is currently up for debate as to whether or not it’s really needed, as I have Volrath’s Stronghold and Debtor’s Knell that help me get creatures every turn. Redundancy is good in this format, ya?
The Combo; or, what to do when the game takes longer than the House Marathon in the background
Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Dimir House Guard, and either Acidic Slime or Deranged Hermit will result in the destruction of all of your opponents lands or infinite Squirrel tokens, either of which will win you the game. How does it work?
1. Use Survival of the Fittest to fill your Yard with every creature you need for the combo except Reveillark, leave that beast of burden in your hand.
2. Cast Lark, putting House Guard and Karmic Guide into play, Karmic Guide pulling Slime or Hermit into play with it.
3. Sacrifice Karmic Guide and Slime/Hermit to House Guard, then Sacrifice Lark to House Guard, pulling back Slime/Hermit and the Guide, who targets the now Sacrificed Lark.
4. Rinse and repeat until you win the game.
There are other variations of this combo, but this is the version I’ve chosen as all of the pieces are extremely useful by themselves:
Lark: Gets back so many critters from the dead zone, including Quasali Pridemage, Eternal Witness, Necrotic Sliver, Deranged Hermit, Acidic Slime, Karmic Guide, etc. Never underestimate the power of a well timed Lark.
Karmic Guide: Already discussed in the Tutoring section, this card is a reanimation spell tutorable with Survival / Fauna Shaman, adding more versatility to these already broken tutors.
Dimir House Guard: Aside from having a Transmute that functions as a Demonic Tutor in this deck, you can use Dimir House Guard as a sacrifice outlet to get even bigger swings of presence out of Living Death. I find new silly uses for this guy every time I play him.
Acidic Slime: Tutorable / recurrable hate, this guy is just efficient 7 ways from Sunday. Green staple.
Deranged Hermit: If Avenger of Zendikar were never printed, this guy would be the best token producing creature in the game, and he’s still really busted. He comes back with Lark, Genesis, Stronghold, or Debtor’s Knell every turn to allow for a degenerate amount of tokens.
Changelog
We don’t need to change anything, this deck is sweet. But in the event that I’m wrong, here’s a space to record the difference.
Thanks for correcting my horrible counting skills, I've updated the OP to reflect the change.
The problem I have with enchantment based reanimation is it gives my opponents 2 ways of dealing with my threats, and as enchantment removal is run in almost every deck in my playgroup, playing Necromancy is already a risky endeavor. While the extra synergy with Sun Titan would be neat, I'd rather just have my creatures stick to the battlefield and do their damage, as opposed to having to continuously loop them through Sun Titan targeting Animate Dead.
If I don't include the enchantment reanimation, there's also little need for Sterling Grove, as it would have less than 10 thing to protect and tutor for. My deck isn't meant to play a ton of enchantments. I included Idyllic and Enlightened Tutors to have more ways of finding Survival of the Fittest and Debtor's Knell, both of which usually win me the game if they stick around for a turn or 2. After playing a handful of games, I came to wish that Idyllic Tutor could find me a way to deal with a creature, so I included Seal of Doom, or a way to bring back something immediately, so I included Necromancy.
Dread Return and Creeping Mold allow me to get more flexibility out of Dimir House Guard. As I have no way to abuse Archon of Justice (DHG being my only sac outlet), that card would be a terrible replacement for Creeping Mold. I am considering it over Lord of Extinction, though, as they are in the same CMC, but with Archon having the potential to do something relevant instead of being chump blocked all day.
my teneb deck focuses a lot on sun titan(arround 75% of the deck is returnable via sun titan) most of my creatures also have enter the battlefield abilities, so if I lose the enchantment on them.... well I can just bring em back next turn for another trigger(I run harmonic sliver instead of Qasali Pridemage, which works amazingly with necrotic sliver)
stinkweed imp is usually one of the first critters I survival for, and then dump him in the yard, so that every turn instead of drawing a card I dredge him back and can then survival him away again while filling my yard with goodies in the process... hes also an efficient blocker
Didn't catch this the first time: Birds of Paradise should go. Creatures that tap for mana are generally an unsound long-term investment in multiplayer. Something like Farhaven Elf would probably do much better.
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I love the color green, almost as much as I love the color red. Big fat, ways to cheat them into play, and big mana have always been staples of fun on my kitchen table. After taking apart Wort, the Raidmother due to switching my competitive 1v1 deck (see my Child of Alara primer - http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=271021), I needed somewhere to put my mono-green goodness. After testing a handful of generals, I decided to add black to the mix so I could cheat them not only from my library, but also from my graveyard. Seeing as BG has little to offer in the way of solid reanimation generals, I settled on Teneb, and am plum thankful I did, as white offers a ton of solid support cards, and opens up the doors to more tutors and the Reveillark combo. Without further ado, the decklist:
The Decklist
1 Teneb, the Harvester
Creatures - 27
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Arbor Elf
1 Sakura Tribe-Elder
1 Wood Elves
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Acidic Slime
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Genesis
1 Reveillark
1 Karmic Guide
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Primeval Titan
1 Sun Titan
1 Grave Titan
1 Terrastadon
1 Sundering Titan
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Lord of Extinction
Instants / Sorceries – 23
1 Wrath of God
1 Damnation
1 Day of Judgment
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Creeping Mold
1 Harmonize
1 Cultivate
1 Kodama’s Reach
1 Rise from the Grave
1 Living Death
1 Dread Return
1 Victimize
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Life from the Loam
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Buried Alive
1 Natural Order
1 Chord of Calling
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Seal of Doom
1 Necromancy
1 Debtor’s Knell
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Mirari’s Wake
1 Sol Ring
1 Coalition Relic
Planeswalkers – 1
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
Lands – 37
1 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Wooded Bastion
1 Fetid Heath
1 Twilight Mire
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Gaea’s Cradle
1 Deserted Temple
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Bajuka Bog
1 Kor Haven
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Barren Moor
7 Forest
6 Swamp
3 Plains
The Fat
Big dumb fatties that can be cheated into play are just so much fun, I don’t know why anyone isn’t a Timmy. All of these creatures enter the battlefield with ridiculous effects, and M11 gave us some of the best ever printed. Sun Titan, Grave Titan, and Primeval Titan are all house in this deck, and want to be on the board as soon as possible. It’s hard to chose an all-star from among such a great group of players, but Sun Titan is my knight in shinning armor (literally, look at that Butterball in the artwork. He looks like Mr. Clean does his laundry after drawing his bath and waxing his eyebrows). His ability hits over half the deck (37 lands helps pad that number, admittedly. The fetches love Sun Titan like Hobbits love a nice fire on a November afternoon), and the Vigilance lets him stand strong by my side after beating my opponents faces in. What a hunk.
Deranged Hermit and Avenger of Zendikar allow me to build a presence on the board, making Garruk’s Overrun much better, as well as giving me things to sac to Eldrazi, things to chump block with, or whatever else people use creatures for these days. If I want to wreck an opponent’s position, I have Sundering Titan, Terastadon, and Iona, Shield of Emeria to harsh their mellow.
Making the Most of Your Tutors
Every card in this deck was selected because of its ability to fulfill multiple tasks and / or be synergistic with multiple cards in order to get a 100-card-singleton deck to work out the way you want it to every time. Tutors make decks very flexible and consistent, and luckily for Teneb, he has access to the most powerful tutors in the game. This deck can be broken down into 5 basic functions, while being able to tutor for 4 different kinds of cards. In order to get the most out of my tutors, I made every tutor be able to tutor for a card to perform any function (acceleration, reanimation, creature hate, other hate, card draw):
Enchantments: Mirari's Wake, Necromancy, Seal of Doom, Pernicious Deed, Sylvan Library
Creatures: Birds of Paradise, Karmic Guide, Big Game Hunter, Acidic Slime, Graveborn Muse
Lands: Gaea's Cradle, Volrath's Stronghold, Kor Haven, (n/a), Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
CMC 4: Oracle of Mul Daya, Dread Return, Wrath of God, Creeping Mold, Harmonize
Having this set-up allows any of my tutors to do anything I need them to. Idyllic Tutor is a functional Demonic Tutor, allowing me to pick up slack where the deck isn’t helping me out.
Other Necromancers
This deck wants plenty of ways to cheat things out of graveyards. In addition to the ones that are tutorable, I use the following:
Rise from the Grave: Grabs a creature I threw in the yard with Survival or an opponents who fell during the Day of Judgment. Sometimes my opponents run better creatures that I do. I like to take them as well.
Debtor’s Knell: This is like Rise from the Grave on crack, allowing me to pull creatures every turn out of my (or anyone else’s) yard. Awesome card Post-Wrath, and even pre-Wrath, as most of the creatures that get played in this deck need to, and will, be dealt with.
Living Death: The mother of all re-animation, Living Death is the reason to build this deck. If played correctly, this card will result in board presence shifts so big that you have no option but to win the game. Especially after a turn 3 Buried Alive for all 3 of the Titans. How do you lose that game? You don’t, cause it’s the most awesome play in Magic. So says I, at least.
Genesis: This card is cute, but is currently up for debate as to whether or not it’s really needed, as I have Volrath’s Stronghold and Debtor’s Knell that help me get creatures every turn. Redundancy is good in this format, ya?
The Combo; or, what to do when the game takes longer than the House Marathon in the background
Reveillark, Karmic Guide, Dimir House Guard, and either Acidic Slime or Deranged Hermit will result in the destruction of all of your opponents lands or infinite Squirrel tokens, either of which will win you the game. How does it work?
1. Use Survival of the Fittest to fill your Yard with every creature you need for the combo except Reveillark, leave that beast of burden in your hand.
2. Cast Lark, putting House Guard and Karmic Guide into play, Karmic Guide pulling Slime or Hermit into play with it.
3. Sacrifice Karmic Guide and Slime/Hermit to House Guard, then Sacrifice Lark to House Guard, pulling back Slime/Hermit and the Guide, who targets the now Sacrificed Lark.
4. Rinse and repeat until you win the game.
There are other variations of this combo, but this is the version I’ve chosen as all of the pieces are extremely useful by themselves:
Lark: Gets back so many critters from the dead zone, including Quasali Pridemage, Eternal Witness, Necrotic Sliver, Deranged Hermit, Acidic Slime, Karmic Guide, etc. Never underestimate the power of a well timed Lark.
Karmic Guide: Already discussed in the Tutoring section, this card is a reanimation spell tutorable with Survival / Fauna Shaman, adding more versatility to these already broken tutors.
Dimir House Guard: Aside from having a Transmute that functions as a Demonic Tutor in this deck, you can use Dimir House Guard as a sacrifice outlet to get even bigger swings of presence out of Living Death. I find new silly uses for this guy every time I play him.
Acidic Slime: Tutorable / recurrable hate, this guy is just efficient 7 ways from Sunday. Green staple.
Deranged Hermit: If Avenger of Zendikar were never printed, this guy would be the best token producing creature in the game, and he’s still really busted. He comes back with Lark, Genesis, Stronghold, or Debtor’s Knell every turn to allow for a degenerate amount of tokens.
Changelog
We don’t need to change anything, this deck is sweet. But in the event that I’m wrong, here’s a space to record the difference.
BRRakdos, Lord of RiotsBR
it looks to me like you are only hitting 56% of the of the deck actually
23 instants/sorceries
18 critters over 3 casting cost
3 enchantments/artifacts/PW over 3 casting cost
to have a more sun titan focused deck Id work on cutting down the sorceries/instants
IE yavimaya elder instead of culivate/kodamas reach
and sterling grove instead of enlightned/idylic tutor
here are some more fun things to do with sun titan
lighting greaves nothing quite like putting him into play, retrieving grieves from your yard... attacking and bringing something else back
sun titan triggers bring these back and animate a creature, and you already have necromancy
Minion Reflector & mimic vat both are amazing with titans
While he's at it, the OP might cut Creeping Mold for Archon of Justice.
The problem I have with enchantment based reanimation is it gives my opponents 2 ways of dealing with my threats, and as enchantment removal is run in almost every deck in my playgroup, playing Necromancy is already a risky endeavor. While the extra synergy with Sun Titan would be neat, I'd rather just have my creatures stick to the battlefield and do their damage, as opposed to having to continuously loop them through Sun Titan targeting Animate Dead.
If I don't include the enchantment reanimation, there's also little need for Sterling Grove, as it would have less than 10 thing to protect and tutor for. My deck isn't meant to play a ton of enchantments. I included Idyllic and Enlightened Tutors to have more ways of finding Survival of the Fittest and Debtor's Knell, both of which usually win me the game if they stick around for a turn or 2. After playing a handful of games, I came to wish that Idyllic Tutor could find me a way to deal with a creature, so I included Seal of Doom, or a way to bring back something immediately, so I included Necromancy.
Dread Return and Creeping Mold allow me to get more flexibility out of Dimir House Guard. As I have no way to abuse Archon of Justice (DHG being my only sac outlet), that card would be a terrible replacement for Creeping Mold. I am considering it over Lord of Extinction, though, as they are in the same CMC, but with Archon having the potential to do something relevant instead of being chump blocked all day.
Thanks for the suggestions guys!
BRRakdos, Lord of RiotsBR
my teneb deck focuses a lot on sun titan(arround 75% of the deck is returnable via sun titan) most of my creatures also have enter the battlefield abilities, so if I lose the enchantment on them.... well I can just bring em back next turn for another trigger(I run harmonic sliver instead of Qasali Pridemage, which works amazingly with necrotic sliver)
stinkweed imp is usually one of the first critters I survival for, and then dump him in the yard, so that every turn instead of drawing a card I dredge him back and can then survival him away again while filling my yard with goodies in the process... hes also an efficient blocker
Didn't catch this the first time: Birds of Paradise should go. Creatures that tap for mana are generally an unsound long-term investment in multiplayer. Something like Farhaven Elf would probably do much better.