MTG Salvation

Let's see, ways to really piss people off. An excellent way to troll people would be to make a Shahrazad inception deck, utilizing Hivemind. Another way to troll the table is to play an old modern eggs deck and very very slowly ping each player to death one by one in one turn.

Ok, now on to your deck. I really like the Spoils of Evil addition, combos nicely with Exsanguinates (since you can't really run Cabal Coffers efficiently in this deck).

Quote from Kabirum

i thought so. but this is a pretty cool trick for this deck. Seeing i could run it on the rats and scholar of aetheros.

By the way is this the old wording for life link?, if not is it possible to get double life link?

I wonder what other cool things i can find in black to use with vampirism.

Looking at the new BNG spoilers, they definitely are making white and black stronger, and the third set should have the minor god Aetheros (BW).

Multiple instances of "life link" on a creature are redundant, same goes with deathtouch, first strike, and some other abilities.

Black is king when it comes to the life-drain game, one of the all-stars of life drain is Exsanguinate. Very potent if you run it with cabal coffers and a bunch of swamps. Kokusho is another all-star, and can be combined with nasty reanimation tactics, Recurring Nightmare for example.

Making your w/b deck to mono black makes your mana base dirt cheap and lets you spare your money for more pricey cards.

Edit: Being that I was terribly disappointed in Phenax (UB God), I'm hoping that Aetheros and the Izzet god don't get the same treatment.

Quote from Kabirum

i guess but its not really that efficient in multiplayer.

Oh wait that is a great combo

crypt rats late game , vampiric link it then use its activated ability to board wipe and gain tons of life.:p

But does it kill u in the process if u don't have more life than ur opponent?

It will only kill you if you pay into it more than the amount of life you have (e.g. you have 4 life, you pay 7 to deal 7 damage to everything, the damage goes through, reducing your life to -3 and you die due to state based actions. If you instead paid 3 instead to do 3 damage, you would live long enough to trigger Vampiric Link and gain life.)

I'd honestly be interested to see a B/R multiplayer control build come out of Mogis, God of Slaughter.

Edit: Actually, I hope the G/B god is not that awesome. Why? Because it's already cake to build competitive G/B, in my opinion its the strongest 2 color shell in multiplayer.

Thanks for the replies guys, after quite a bit of brainstorming different ways to make the deck, it actually wound up taking an entirely different route than I expected (was initially going to try out that Gibbering Descent+Mindslicer idea). But rather I wound up incorporating the concept into my UB deck that I was also trying to improve at the same time:

Here's a rough draft:



My thoughts:
Abyssal Gatekeeper and Strix = early blockers/deterrents
Kokusho = the center of the deck, the deck revolves around multiple activations of him via legend rule with the other copies of him or by using Evil Twins as copies 5-8. Wraths, tutors, and other effects make this happen too. A volrath's stronghold can recur this even more.
Mindslicer = still very good with mass removal/Diabolic Intent/Rise of the Dark Realms/etc.
Sepuchral Primordial and Rise of the dark realms = Alternate finishers, looks like it can play well with Mindslicer's ability
Aura Thief = for my specific meta reasons (e.g. Phyrexian Arenas, Lurking Predators) Suppose it could be a 3rd arena otherwise.

Thoughts? Suggestions? I'm already starting to like this better than my old UB build, but I'm still open for avenues of improvement.

EDIT: Update 1/25/14

Changed the decklist slightly, but the changes are certainly felt. Took out Phyrexian Arena, although it's a nice way to draw cards, I felt strixes and intents were sufficient for keeping the deck in momentum. The one intent-target I felt was definitely missing was Phyrexian Reclamation, feels like it will be great for stringing kokos together, among its other uses. arise of the Dark Realms have been replaced by Rite of Replication as the finisher. At 4, it can make a kokusho to sack, at 9 it is an exsanguinate for 25 (with the added bonus of your original kokusho to attack off any remaining stragglers). I know Kokusho being good in multiplayer isn't exactly news, but I feel like I'm getting something here. List below:



Edit #2 Recurring Nightmare in place of Phyrexian Reclamation, if I really want to be mean. (The whole thing would just make it another RN-kokusho deck, so screw it)

Was thinking about an idea revolving around Diabolic Intent and a bunch of creatures with nasty LTB abilities as synergy. Mindslicer, Abyssal Gatekeeper, and Kokusho all come to mind. The tutor immediately after a mindslicer death trigger looks like something neat to exploit, although I'm not really sure where to start with a build like this.

Any suggestions or ideas on how you would make a deck like such? Thanks!

Unless I'm reading it wrong, doesn't the whole devotion requirement actually HURT his ability? If I'm correct, he isn't even a creature that you can mill with until your devotion is 7. If this is the case, I would abandon any leftover hope about this card being good in general.

Well, as the God of Deception, Phenax certainly deceived us by making us think he would be a good card (a.k.a. not mill). Well done MaRo, you silly man.

Phenax, God of (....) 2UB
Legendary Creature - God [M]

Indestructible
As long as your devotion to blue and black is less than seven, Phenax, God of (....) isn't a creature.

At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player puts the top 7 cards into his or her graveyard, then discards X cards, where X is the number of creature cards put into the graveyard this way.

Quote from Falafell

I think it would be funny if he would cost just UB

Phenax, Roflmaker
UB

Devotion must be 7 or above yadda yadda yadda

UB: Counter target spell

5/5

/elaboration

If you got em, Damnation is the card you'd want over Mutilate. A corner-case where I would run Mutilate over Damnation would be if you were facing a deck with indestructibles, like a Pestilence deck. Remember this if you decide to run Erebos, God of the Dead, as Damnation won't hurt him should you decide to wipe the board.

Personally, I think Genju of the Fens is a nice alt-wincon in drain-based MBC. A buddy in my meta uses him in his deck and it's quite resilient. I'd probably drop 2 of the Kokushos, especially should you decide to run Life's Finale and a full set of Exsanguinates.

Quote from slave

Ha ha, yeah > BUG was my thought too, just thought I'd leave it open for post #1.
I have no arguments about Black being a lock either!
You said you considered BU/x to be the starting point, my thought was BG/x, mainly because blue hasn't got a huge selection of creatures that excel in multiplayer, at least in the early game anyway.

Green & Black are very versatile, definitely my fave colours to play with are almost always :symb::symg: +/- X,
Seeing as card draw and general deck flexibility is king in Multiplayer, Red and White are at a real disadvantage here. I suspect White suffers more from sweepers than almost any other colour.
Although white does have some unfair cards, like Limited Resources I suppose.

BWU is one I've not had much fun playing against > Combo in MP can be a bit unfun.
EDIT: We get tri-lands for BWU, the three colours with tutors/effects that can do some really broken things, why not BUG?
I have to wonder if it was a purposeful design decision, not to have a tri-land for BUG?

One thing I've always noticed was the sheer ease of making an EDH deck that had BGx as its color shell, there's just so many great cards to choose from, it *almost* becomes a mindless task. I'm certain the same can be said for multiplayer as well.

One thing so far that I realized you guys forgot to mention are the "Junk" colors BGW. Seems like a solid color grouping to me.

Quote from Cz

Heliod, Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety ends game. I'm telling you! Leyline on 0 (which is easy to mull for in MP where you get a freebie) means that ANY WW creature is an active 5/7 blocker on turn 4. If you Ghostly on 3 and Sphere on 5 the game just ends.

I like where this idea is going, what would your 60 look like?

Time Vault + Voltaic Key is the most hideous early combo I can think of, too bad Time Vault is a wee bit expen$ive.

Unrestricted Stax Decks are backbreaking on their own right (which is why Trinisphere is still restricted) I find them a lot of fun to be honest, but if your group is super-combo oriented, it would come to a high-roll to stop them turn 1. Watch out for turn 1 shenanigans if you choose this route, this also includes Aether Vials.

(As stated in above posts) If their decks are low on 'mana rocks', then give the Limited Resources deck a shot.

Earthcraft + Squirrels Nest combo and other early high/infinite damage combos work well here too, including Hulk Flash.

Nothing big to note, but any qualms over running a singleton Dark Depths as your 25th land? Figured it might be a nice alt win-con later in game.