My general style of deckbuilding is to build a control deck with a combo finishing move. For Shirei, I want to try something different and slowly whittle down the opponents' life total.
This is very much an incremental advantage type deck. Saccing Infectious Host for 2? Boring. Doing it five times in one turn cycle? Now we're getting somewhere. Meanwhile, depending on your sac outlet and what you have on board, you can draw a ton of cards or push your life total into the stratosphere.
This is a mono-black, very general dependent graveyard-based deck. So that makes it very, very easy to hate out.
One-Shot Hate (eg Bojuka Bog): This isn't a huge issue so long as I'm careful not to overextend. Responses are Witchbane Orb and Death Denied.
Repeating Hate (eg Withered Wretch): This shuts me down for a while but it's generally attached to creatures and artifacts, which my deck is OK at removing. (Xenic Poltergeist or Spine of Ish Sah for artifact removal)
Continuous Graveyard Removal (eg Leyline of the Void): My deck is awful at dealing with this & really needs help at it. Spine is my first resort but I'm considering running Argentum Armor or Disk as additional help vs. enchantments... however, it's symmetrical and I don't have a very good way to recur my own enchantments, so that's hard.
Tucking: My deck has quite a few sac outlets to deal with white & red tuck effects, so my main concern is Hinder/Spell Crumple. Brainspoil and Diabolic Tutor get back my general.
Other Cards I'm Considering
I have a ton of cards I like for this deck, but I just don't know what to take out!
Altar of Dementia: it's a sac outlet that doesn't cost mana! However, the effect isn't very strong, especially if an opponent happens to run Eldrazi.
Mutliate, Hellfire, Plague Wind: This deck doesn't like being swept but it might be helpful to have sweepers of my own, since I can't really race a dedicated token deck.
Corpse Harvester: Mild ramp/curve smoothing and mechanically on-theme. I feel like this list wants for some mana accel but I'm not sure exactly what to pack, since I also want a large density of low-power creatures for my engine.
Ashes to Ashes: Deck also lacks removal, for a similar reason.
Arena of the Ancients: Good anti-Voltron but I'm unsure how applicable it'd be. Also, draws hate.
Skullclamp, Greed, Casting of Bones: Good card draw. Skullclamp doesn't jive so well with my deck's strategy but it might be an include based on raw power. I'm sure it's devastating late game. If only equip was instant speed!
I'm building this deck on a budget, trying to spend $5 or less per card, so no Cabal Coffers package. I'm going for style, and style in this case means smooth synergies and random old-school cards -- I dig the look of pre-Tempest black-bordered stuff. This is very much a rough draft; any thoughts?
How the Deck Wins
Anti-Hate Elements
Other Cards I'm Considering
I'm building this deck on a budget, trying to spend $5 or less per card, so no Cabal Coffers package. I'm going for style, and style in this case means smooth synergies and random old-school cards -- I dig the look of pre-Tempest black-bordered stuff. This is very much a rough draft; any thoughts?