Ok, I hadn't really thought about building this guy for some time now. I have been on sort of a mono colored deckbuilding kick though and considering I just strongly dont like most of the popular black commanders, taking the time to build a Balthor deck sounds like fun. Ok perhaps I am stealing some ideas from bobthefunny but there are a lot of choices I sort of wanted to change as well.
If you want to try something crazy my friend, go with Morality Shift. It's a little ballsy, and it definitely puts all your eggs into one proverbial basket (which I try to avoid doing), but it is a real haymaker late game. A buddy of mine used to play the deck, and the plays involving that card still stick out in my mind.
No Sorin Markov? For a deck trying to (I assume usually) win through creatures getting there, he seems like a strong candidate. Maybe it's a bit on the DB side, but it is SO strong. Also, without any testing, Liliana of the Dark Realms seems like everything a mono-B deck wants. Come to think of it, maybe I'll build a deck around the idea that swamps matter. Hrm...
If you want to try something crazy my friend, go with Morality Shift. It's a little ballsy, and it definitely puts all your eggs into one proverbial basket (which I try to avoid doing), but it is a real haymaker late game. A buddy of mine used to play the deck, and the plays involving that card still stick out in my mind.
No Sorin Markov? For a deck trying to (I assume usually) win through creatures getting there, he seems like a strong candidate. Maybe it's a bit on the DB side, but it is SO strong. Also, without any testing, Liliana of the Dark Realms seems like everything a mono-B deck wants. Come to think of it, maybe I'll build a deck around the idea that swamps matter. Hrm...
Morality Shift - like you said its sort of an all in move. Honestly I would rather just tutor up Contamination and lock people out of their mana than flip my deck and hope I don't get screwed.
Sorin Markov - he screws with exactly one person. I have never been a fan of him due to that. In my meta I am the person to beat generally and I have to fend off literally about everyone. It doesnt work as well when you are the guy to beat and this only hurts one opponent. If there are other combo players or other players that generally push you to the limit it is ok but in my experience I don't really care that much for him in multiplayer. He is strong but the fact that he only hates one one player has been leaving me sort of not caring much for him. Also, honestly I feel like blowing up all the lands in play is less of a DB move than a turn 4-6 Sorrin Markov lifetotal set.
Liliana of the Dark Realms - I havent figured out if I like her yet... She seems decent and perhaps I will add her... There is a matter of the fact that I just feel like she is worth only about $8.00 -$10.00 though so I just am not willing to pay what she costs currently. Honestly I am not as impressed by her as others have been. Her removal effect is very heavy on her loyalty and tutoring swamps into hand isnt that powerful. I like high impact quickly out of my planeswalkers and I just dont know if she has what I want.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Ok, a little bit of a bump and update of the deck. I did some thinking on some of my card choices and decided to move some of them arround a little. As I was doing some of my changes I noticed that the deck was one card over limit so you will notice one less card coming in as there is going out.
CUT: Duplicant I have a lot of black creatures that kill things when they hit play and I was just sort of feeling like an artifact creature for this much mana that doesnt come back might not be worth the inclusion when I have so many similar effects that I can actually recur. I am sort of annoyed with the fact that all of the ETB creatures are all nonblack creatures but I suppose if I have a problem with it in the long run I will just move over to have some of the big fatty tap to destroy guys.
Phyrexian Reclamation I am trying to cut back a little bit of my extra graveyard dependance. Balthor is already a huge grave dependance commander and I have other graveyard dependance in the deck. Cutting back on it a little seems like a good plan.
Crucible of Worlds This seems to be in the deck for the sole purpose of trying to stick the Cabal Coffers. I have other cards such as Ill-Gotten Gains and Yag Win that also can be used to recover it too so for now I am going to cut it out and see how it goes. Plus I dont own one of these and my meta doesnt play mass LD so I think that is enough reasoning to cut it.
Cauldron of Souls it seems like a bad Mickaeus to me... I like it but it is more graveyard dependance and harder to recover / abuse than micky is. In the end I decided to cut this and just rely on him being amazing a bit more.
Decree of Pain I noticed I had a lot of wraths and this one being expensive to cast got the axe from me. I love the cycle but I think the other wraths are just going to be better for this deck to be honest.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale I was originally building as sort of a heavy control but ended up going somewhere a bit middle of the road with agro and control. I think this belongs in a deck with less creatures. I really want to find a good list to use it in though since I have one
ADD: Solemn Simulacrum I have a hard time abusing him with Balthor but I can still abuse him well and he ramps for me. He works great with sac outlets and things like mikaeus and such. I thought that it helped me with my problem of ramp while still being a solid creature.
Go for the Throat I needed more fast and cheap spot removal. I had none prior to this and I thought that out of everything I want to spot remove, there are very few artifact targets worth using a spot removal on.
Victim of Night A second good cheap spot shot. It hits most everything and the few things it doesnt hit I probably dont care about short of like perhaps a few of the zombie legends.
Gauntlet of Power more ramp. I considered a few options here but decided at last that an artifat based mana doubler is probably acceptable. I sort of wonder though if something like Magus of the Coffers or something might be better or worse though.
Volrath's Stronghold it still taps for mana but it also gives me some nice recovery in case I just need a single card from my graveyard. It seems like a good place to pick up on some rez ability without giving up a card slot.
NOTE:Liliana of the Dark Realms might be worth adding but due to standard prices on new planeswalkers I am just not going to consider her for the first few months here. In another 2 sets or so if she settles down to be like $12 or whatever I am fine with that but I just get the feeling she has some dropping to do before I pan out the cash for her.
Pawn of Ulamog is a sweet piece of tech I didn't know about.
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You have the Contamination in, with the hand ripping of the Sadistic Hypnotist. How do you feel about more traditional stax effects like Braids, Cabal Minion or Smokestack. Both of those buffer up Spine of Ish Sah as a colorless removal.
How is your Meta on inf combos? Rings of Brighthearth and Deserted Temple are both very powerful cards. I would consider one or the other in your list. Both work very well with Thawing Glaciers, and the rings work well with sac lands + crucible (which is good to recur coffers). Both together can go infinite with coffers, so be wary of that.
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I would add Murder over Victim of Night. There are a lot of relevant Zombies/Vampires, and those darn changelings get annoying fast.
Pawn of Ulamog is a sweet piece of tech I didn't know about.
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You have the Contamination in, with the hand ripping of the Sadistic Hypnotist. How do you feel about more traditional stax effects like Braids, Cabal Minion or Smokestack. Both of those buffer up Spine of Ish Sah as a colorless removal.
How is your Meta on inf combos? Rings of Brighthearth and Deserted Temple are both very powerful cards. I would consider one or the other in your list. Both work very well with Thawing Glaciers, and the rings work well with sac lands + crucible (which is good to recur coffers). Both together can go infinite with coffers, so be wary of that.
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I would add Murder over Victim of Night. There are a lot of relevant Zombies/Vampires, and those darn changelings get annoying fast.
Stax - I considered it but to be honest I feel like it is much better run in a multi color deck. There are a few good effects but beyond Braids and Smokestacks I feel like it is a real reach for mono black. Ideally I would love to have more colors to kick off of more effects to really amp up the strategy if I was going to go here. I considered just adding Braids and Smokestacks but I just didnt feel like I would get very good results just running the two of them. I could be wrong and perhaps I will try it in the future once I get the deck together but for now I am trying to order cards and push it all together into a paper copy.
Infinite Combos - I considered going farther but to be honest Contamination feels more powerful to me than most combos. It works with a lot of outlets that this deck has in it, it is easy to tutor for and it punishes those who only ramp with their lands. I considered going further with other outlets but to be honest, I just dont see Rings being that useful in that many situations in this deck outside of going infinite. I think it belongs a lot more in a deck like Chainer where you want to shortcut the lifeloss and save some mana in a rez.
Murder I have to disagree with you here. Generally speaking I save cheap instant spot removal for gamebreaking creatures. The sort of creatures I would be willing to use instant speed spot removal on are essentially limited to C Sphinx, Titans, and other I win style of creatures. I can think of very very few situations where a creature that cannot be killed by Victim would be a problem I would want to use spot removal on. For me the drop in the cost of one mana is worth the restrictions it has.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
There is a guy at my shop who plays this. He was a really funny combo to watch where he plays Conspiracy calls spirits then plays Iname ,Death Aspect and then Balthor after Iname dies. Very fun to see what other people do.
I like the deck, but I feel you're really lacking graveyard removal. Nihil Spellbomb is great and all, but 1 in 99 and only exiling one graveyard seems a bit weak to me. Between Balthor and Living Death you could really be putting yourself at the mercy of others graveyards with a play like that, or you will be waiting to use them until you have found / recurred your spellbomb. I think you should really make room for both nezumi graverobber and withered wretch.
There is a guy at my shop who plays this. He was a really funny combo to watch where he plays Conspiracy calls spirits then plays Iname ,Death Aspect and then Balthor after Iname dies. Very fun to see what other people do.
It is amusing but it is not very good with either card by themselves. On top of that it is hard to set it up quickly for a rez after doing those. I dont have much either that would result in immediately winning even if I did rez everything at once. Amusing but I think Mortality Shift does a similar thing with less setup. Even then these tactics often require too much setup. I might actually have to consider if Mortality Shift could be a wincon in here though as I think if I rezed everything at once I could probably kill everyone with a simple grinding everything through a sac outlet with Blood Artist + Falkenrath Noble in play.
I like the deck, but I feel you're really lacking graveyard removal. Nihil Spellbomb is great and all, but 1 in 99 and only exiling one graveyard seems a bit weak to me. Between Balthor and Living Death you could really be putting yourself at the mercy of others graveyards with a play like that, or you will be waiting to use them until you have found / recurred your spellbomb. I think you should really make room for both nezumi graverobber and withered wretch.
I didn't actually see the graverobber. I run a somewhat similar list (we both have problems with stealing bobs ideas I suppose :tongue:) and I know I never want to actually tutor for grave hate and am just generally pleased when I draw into it. Although I suppose I could add some more power to my deck if I didn't run as much grave hate as I do.
Well... some small changes. First of all I am getting ready to make a big order to fill in a ton of stuff and order essentially the entire decklist and I am just trying to iron out a few things before I do that. I am looking forward to getting this deck in person for some playtime.
DECK CHANGES:
Mind Stone -> Diabolic Intent Intent is very on theme which I like and it gives me another solid tutor. After some thinking I just didnt like Mind Stone as much for this deck because having that one extra mana in the early game just isnt as big here. I felt like Intent gave me a better card for this deck and it synergyzes well with a lot of the cards in here.
Gauntlet of Power -> Mindslicer honestly I have a few mana doublers in here and I just dont have a lot that synergyzes with them. They tend to be targeted quickly and I just dont know how much benefit I can get from them. I didnt think about it at first but the slicer is really really sick in here. I could easily see some sort of setup like Buried Alive into Mindslicer, Phyrexian Plaguelord, and Disciple of Bolas then using Balthor to rez them all, kick the slicer to the plaguelord's sac and sac the plaguelord to the disciple after the slicer resolves to draw into 4 more cards.
Phyrexian Rager -> Sword of Fire and Ice the problem is that the ranger just has a very small impact. While he does sort of filter himself off I just dont see it being huge. The sword can draw me a card every turn it stays in play and give me some control.
Well.... thats about all I have for right now. Let me know if you think of anything else.
EDIT:Expedition Map -> Beseech the Queen it costs the same mana and I would have to reveal either way but it can tutor into more things. I am running mono black so the black req isnt that big of a deal.
Sword of Fire and Ice -> Batterskull lifegain and stall is more important to me in this list. I have a lot of ways to draw cards and loose life doing so but I dont have a ton of ways to recover it. I figure Batterskull is a nice power upgrade or another creature for me to use if need be. This is definitely a deck that has a good endgame so I just need to make it to that.
Some cards that I am keeping an eye on:
Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni I have had some really mixed results so far with old Ink Eyes... I have gotten some good value out of its ability to regen as I had to whack someone with a No Mercy for several turns one game where it panned out. I have been playing in smaller groups of late though so a lot of 1v1 or 3 player ffa games so far. It has been a little underwhelming in that atmosphere but I want to see if I can get some bigger games and see if that changes.
Skinrender the fact that it doesn't kill fatties sort of annoys me however it has been really solid in killing commanders so far. You would be surprised at how many commanders really die to this guy... still I dont want to run into a titan and have this be what I have to try to use to answer it...
Contamination I have been hesitant to tutor for it so far... I have yet to draw or tutor for it so I cant really say yet. I thought I would be using it a lot more than I am but if it comes down to me not wanting to use it then it is going to go. For now I will keep watching it but if I dont start using it soon it might get snipped.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Hey ISB, how's Stinkweed Imp been performing for you? I've had him on a sideboard for a while but haven't made deckchanges in a while.
Stinky has been amazing so far. I see a lot of voltron commanders though so I can just drop him out and essentially nobody really wants to swing at me. His dredge is mostly all positive for me as well. I have found that he works well with Ill-Gotten Gains as at that point it doesn't matter what I am dredging because I can recover other spells.
It depends on how much creature swinging you see in your meta vs how much combo you see. In a more combo / control meta he is worse. The more agro and voltron you see the better he is.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I see both combo, aggro, and swarms in almost every game so it's really hard to say what kind of an effect he would have on my game. Though I think he's a downright better card to run in a deck like this than black Braids who hasn't done a ton for me. I think the dredge was the feature of his I was most concerned about.
I also really want to pick up an ill-gotten gains, but I busted through my EDH $$ budget this month
Well, I sort of wanted to pick back up on this list. I originally scrapped it so I could go build my Orzov deck which I still like but I dont think there are so many staples that have cross over that I couldnt have both lists to be honest. With coming back to the list comes a few changes as well:
DECK CHANGES:
Nezumi Graverobber -> Withered Wretch for the most part the graverobber was just there to be hate. I think the Wretch will accomplish more for less and draw less hate overall. It doesn't have the nifty flip option but heck that like rarely if ever happened anyways.
Batterskull -> Kokusho, the Evening Star Koko puff is off the banlist since I played this last. Batterskull is cool but koko is much much better here.
Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni -> Sheoldred, Whispering One I wanted to give Sheoldred a chance here. I dont like her in most lists however the fact that I can easy pick up rez her with balthor makes effectively removing her harder.
Shriekmaw -> Butcher of Malakir The butcher seems like a great way to clear a board in this deck. I felt like I had one too many Shriekmaw type creatures anyways.
Syphon Mind -> Fleshwrither I love that he turns into another creature and puts them in play. Balthor should be able to have some fun with him.
Bloodghast -> Mind Stone trying to keep some of my non balthor recursion down. Other than clamping bloodghast or running a few sac outlets I dont see it doing that much for me. Reassembling seems to do this better in my opinion.
Beseech the Queen -> Gilded Lotus Beseech was slow and I needed more stones. It seems like a decent swap to pick up more ramp. More importantly Lotus is colored mana so that's cool.
Attrition -> Altar of Dementia ehhhhh attrition seems so hit and miss based off of what my opponents are running. The other day someone got one online and everyone was x/black lol. Alter on the other hand is a free sac outlet and can mill me into more targets. It seems like a solid move to sac all my dudes to it in response to balthor's ability or something.
I am a little hesitant with these changes just because of the mana cost increase but they seem fairly good so far to me.
EDIT: gah what happened to my list lol. I recounted and im at 97 cards total... Going to have to go back and check things. I might be bringing a few cards back in or making more changes.
EDIT 2: Ok going to add a few more things I was sort of looking at:
Slum Reaper these guys are quite solid and I like the option of having one in my 4 mana slot considering I have 2 tutors now that go for 4 mana things.
Infernal Tribute another sac outlet but it gives me card draw which is cool.
I can get one more card yet.... let me poke around a bit and get back on that.
1 Balthor the Defiled
CREATURES (29)
1 Blood Artist
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Withered Wretch
1 Bone Shredder
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Pawn of Ulamog
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Fleshwrither
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Mindslicer
1 Skinrender
1 Slum Reaper
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Harvester of Souls
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Nirkana Revenant
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Mind Stone
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Gilded Lotus
ENCHANTMENT (4)
1 Infernal Tribute
1 Necropotence
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Grave pact
INSTANT (4)
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Go for the Throat
1 Victim of Night
SORCERY (9)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Exsanguinate
1 Buried Alive
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Damnation
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Mutilate
1 Living Death
1 Karn Liberated
LAND (40)
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Buried Ruin
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Maze of Ith
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Strip Mine
31 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vesuva
1 Volrath's Stronghold
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[Modern] Allies
No Sorin Markov? For a deck trying to (I assume usually) win through creatures getting there, he seems like a strong candidate. Maybe it's a bit on the DB side, but it is SO strong. Also, without any testing, Liliana of the Dark Realms seems like everything a mono-B deck wants. Come to think of it, maybe I'll build a deck around the idea that swamps matter. Hrm...
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Morality Shift - like you said its sort of an all in move. Honestly I would rather just tutor up Contamination and lock people out of their mana than flip my deck and hope I don't get screwed.
Sorin Markov - he screws with exactly one person. I have never been a fan of him due to that. In my meta I am the person to beat generally and I have to fend off literally about everyone. It doesnt work as well when you are the guy to beat and this only hurts one opponent. If there are other combo players or other players that generally push you to the limit it is ok but in my experience I don't really care that much for him in multiplayer. He is strong but the fact that he only hates one one player has been leaving me sort of not caring much for him. Also, honestly I feel like blowing up all the lands in play is less of a DB move than a turn 4-6 Sorrin Markov lifetotal set.
Liliana of the Dark Realms - I havent figured out if I like her yet... She seems decent and perhaps I will add her... There is a matter of the fact that I just feel like she is worth only about $8.00 -$10.00 though so I just am not willing to pay what she costs currently. Honestly I am not as impressed by her as others have been. Her removal effect is very heavy on her loyalty and tutoring swamps into hand isnt that powerful. I like high impact quickly out of my planeswalkers and I just dont know if she has what I want.
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[Modern] Allies
CUT:
Duplicant I have a lot of black creatures that kill things when they hit play and I was just sort of feeling like an artifact creature for this much mana that doesnt come back might not be worth the inclusion when I have so many similar effects that I can actually recur. I am sort of annoyed with the fact that all of the ETB creatures are all nonblack creatures but I suppose if I have a problem with it in the long run I will just move over to have some of the big fatty tap to destroy guys.
Phyrexian Reclamation I am trying to cut back a little bit of my extra graveyard dependance. Balthor is already a huge grave dependance commander and I have other graveyard dependance in the deck. Cutting back on it a little seems like a good plan.
Crucible of Worlds This seems to be in the deck for the sole purpose of trying to stick the Cabal Coffers. I have other cards such as Ill-Gotten Gains and Yag Win that also can be used to recover it too so for now I am going to cut it out and see how it goes. Plus I dont own one of these and my meta doesnt play mass LD so I think that is enough reasoning to cut it.
Cauldron of Souls it seems like a bad Mickaeus to me... I like it but it is more graveyard dependance and harder to recover / abuse than micky is. In the end I decided to cut this and just rely on him being amazing a bit more.
Decree of Pain I noticed I had a lot of wraths and this one being expensive to cast got the axe from me. I love the cycle but I think the other wraths are just going to be better for this deck to be honest.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale I was originally building as sort of a heavy control but ended up going somewhere a bit middle of the road with agro and control. I think this belongs in a deck with less creatures. I really want to find a good list to use it in though since I have one
ADD:
Solemn Simulacrum I have a hard time abusing him with Balthor but I can still abuse him well and he ramps for me. He works great with sac outlets and things like mikaeus and such. I thought that it helped me with my problem of ramp while still being a solid creature.
Go for the Throat I needed more fast and cheap spot removal. I had none prior to this and I thought that out of everything I want to spot remove, there are very few artifact targets worth using a spot removal on.
Victim of Night A second good cheap spot shot. It hits most everything and the few things it doesnt hit I probably dont care about short of like perhaps a few of the zombie legends.
Gauntlet of Power more ramp. I considered a few options here but decided at last that an artifat based mana doubler is probably acceptable. I sort of wonder though if something like Magus of the Coffers or something might be better or worse though.
Volrath's Stronghold it still taps for mana but it also gives me some nice recovery in case I just need a single card from my graveyard. It seems like a good place to pick up on some rez ability without giving up a card slot.
NOTE: Liliana of the Dark Realms might be worth adding but due to standard prices on new planeswalkers I am just not going to consider her for the first few months here. In another 2 sets or so if she settles down to be like $12 or whatever I am fine with that but I just get the feeling she has some dropping to do before I pan out the cash for her.
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[Modern] Allies
Pawn of Ulamog is a sweet piece of tech I didn't know about.
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You have the Contamination in, with the hand ripping of the Sadistic Hypnotist. How do you feel about more traditional stax effects like Braids, Cabal Minion or Smokestack. Both of those buffer up Spine of Ish Sah as a colorless removal.
How is your Meta on inf combos? Rings of Brighthearth and Deserted Temple are both very powerful cards. I would consider one or the other in your list. Both work very well with Thawing Glaciers, and the rings work well with sac lands + crucible (which is good to recur coffers). Both together can go infinite with coffers, so be wary of that.
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I would add Murder over Victim of Night. There are a lot of relevant Zombies/Vampires, and those darn changelings get annoying fast.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Stax - I considered it but to be honest I feel like it is much better run in a multi color deck. There are a few good effects but beyond Braids and Smokestacks I feel like it is a real reach for mono black. Ideally I would love to have more colors to kick off of more effects to really amp up the strategy if I was going to go here. I considered just adding Braids and Smokestacks but I just didnt feel like I would get very good results just running the two of them. I could be wrong and perhaps I will try it in the future once I get the deck together but for now I am trying to order cards and push it all together into a paper copy.
Infinite Combos - I considered going farther but to be honest Contamination feels more powerful to me than most combos. It works with a lot of outlets that this deck has in it, it is easy to tutor for and it punishes those who only ramp with their lands. I considered going further with other outlets but to be honest, I just dont see Rings being that useful in that many situations in this deck outside of going infinite. I think it belongs a lot more in a deck like Chainer where you want to shortcut the lifeloss and save some mana in a rez.
Murder I have to disagree with you here. Generally speaking I save cheap instant spot removal for gamebreaking creatures. The sort of creatures I would be willing to use instant speed spot removal on are essentially limited to C Sphinx, Titans, and other I win style of creatures. I can think of very very few situations where a creature that cannot be killed by Victim would be a problem I would want to use spot removal on. For me the drop in the cost of one mana is worth the restrictions it has.
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[Modern] Allies
GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestUG
BGWKarador, Ghost ChieftainWGB
URJhoira of the GhituRU
UWGeist of Saint TraftWU
BUOona, Queen of the FaeUB
It is amusing but it is not very good with either card by themselves. On top of that it is hard to set it up quickly for a rez after doing those. I dont have much either that would result in immediately winning even if I did rez everything at once. Amusing but I think Mortality Shift does a similar thing with less setup. Even then these tactics often require too much setup. I might actually have to consider if Mortality Shift could be a wincon in here though as I think if I rezed everything at once I could probably kill everyone with a simple grinding everything through a sac outlet with Blood Artist + Falkenrath Noble in play.
I think you are overlooking some of my hate: Nezumi Graverobber, Puppeteer Clique, Nihil Spellbomb, and Bojuka Bog all cover grave hate as well. Expedition Map into the Bog also covers my needs if it comes to that.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
Mind Stone -> Diabolic Intent Intent is very on theme which I like and it gives me another solid tutor. After some thinking I just didnt like Mind Stone as much for this deck because having that one extra mana in the early game just isnt as big here. I felt like Intent gave me a better card for this deck and it synergyzes well with a lot of the cards in here.
Gauntlet of Power -> Mindslicer honestly I have a few mana doublers in here and I just dont have a lot that synergyzes with them. They tend to be targeted quickly and I just dont know how much benefit I can get from them. I didnt think about it at first but the slicer is really really sick in here. I could easily see some sort of setup like Buried Alive into Mindslicer, Phyrexian Plaguelord, and Disciple of Bolas then using Balthor to rez them all, kick the slicer to the plaguelord's sac and sac the plaguelord to the disciple after the slicer resolves to draw into 4 more cards.
Phyrexian Rager -> Sword of Fire and Ice the problem is that the ranger just has a very small impact. While he does sort of filter himself off I just dont see it being huge. The sword can draw me a card every turn it stays in play and give me some control.
Buried Ruin -> Petrified Field I think the ability to try to keep the Cabal Coffers in play is more important than an artifact recover.
Well.... thats about all I have for right now. Let me know if you think of anything else.
EDIT: Expedition Map -> Beseech the Queen it costs the same mana and I would have to reveal either way but it can tutor into more things. I am running mono black so the black req isnt that big of a deal.
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Sword of Fire and Ice -> Batterskull lifegain and stall is more important to me in this list. I have a lot of ways to draw cards and loose life doing so but I dont have a ton of ways to recover it. I figure Batterskull is a nice power upgrade or another creature for me to use if need be. This is definitely a deck that has a good endgame so I just need to make it to that.
Some cards that I am keeping an eye on:
Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni I have had some really mixed results so far with old Ink Eyes... I have gotten some good value out of its ability to regen as I had to whack someone with a No Mercy for several turns one game where it panned out. I have been playing in smaller groups of late though so a lot of 1v1 or 3 player ffa games so far. It has been a little underwhelming in that atmosphere but I want to see if I can get some bigger games and see if that changes.
Skinrender the fact that it doesn't kill fatties sort of annoys me however it has been really solid in killing commanders so far. You would be surprised at how many commanders really die to this guy... still I dont want to run into a titan and have this be what I have to try to use to answer it...
Contamination I have been hesitant to tutor for it so far... I have yet to draw or tutor for it so I cant really say yet. I thought I would be using it a lot more than I am but if it comes down to me not wanting to use it then it is going to go. For now I will keep watching it but if I dont start using it soon it might get snipped.
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Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Stinky has been amazing so far. I see a lot of voltron commanders though so I can just drop him out and essentially nobody really wants to swing at me. His dredge is mostly all positive for me as well. I have found that he works well with Ill-Gotten Gains as at that point it doesn't matter what I am dredging because I can recover other spells.
It depends on how much creature swinging you see in your meta vs how much combo you see. In a more combo / control meta he is worse. The more agro and voltron you see the better he is.
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I also really want to pick up an ill-gotten gains, but I busted through my EDH $$ budget this month
DECK CHANGES:
Nezumi Graverobber -> Withered Wretch for the most part the graverobber was just there to be hate. I think the Wretch will accomplish more for less and draw less hate overall. It doesn't have the nifty flip option but heck that like rarely if ever happened anyways.
Batterskull -> Kokusho, the Evening Star Koko puff is off the banlist since I played this last. Batterskull is cool but koko is much much better here.
Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni -> Sheoldred, Whispering One I wanted to give Sheoldred a chance here. I dont like her in most lists however the fact that I can easy pick up rez her with balthor makes effectively removing her harder.
Shriekmaw -> Butcher of Malakir The butcher seems like a great way to clear a board in this deck. I felt like I had one too many Shriekmaw type creatures anyways.
Syphon Mind -> Fleshwrither I love that he turns into another creature and puts them in play. Balthor should be able to have some fun with him.
Bloodghast -> Mind Stone trying to keep some of my non balthor recursion down. Other than clamping bloodghast or running a few sac outlets I dont see it doing that much for me. Reassembling seems to do this better in my opinion.
Beseech the Queen -> Gilded Lotus Beseech was slow and I needed more stones. It seems like a decent swap to pick up more ramp. More importantly Lotus is colored mana so that's cool.
Attrition -> Altar of Dementia ehhhhh attrition seems so hit and miss based off of what my opponents are running. The other day someone got one online and everyone was x/black lol. Alter on the other hand is a free sac outlet and can mill me into more targets. It seems like a solid move to sac all my dudes to it in response to balthor's ability or something.
I am a little hesitant with these changes just because of the mana cost increase but they seem fairly good so far to me.
EDIT: gah what happened to my list lol. I recounted and im at 97 cards total... Going to have to go back and check things. I might be bringing a few cards back in or making more changes.
EDIT 2: Ok going to add a few more things I was sort of looking at:
Slum Reaper these guys are quite solid and I like the option of having one in my 4 mana slot considering I have 2 tutors now that go for 4 mana things.
Infernal Tribute another sac outlet but it gives me card draw which is cool.
I can get one more card yet.... let me poke around a bit and get back on that.
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