MTG Salvation

I'm pretty happy with how this deck is currently set up. Bitterblossom + Contamination can lock the board down for a long time, especially considering how hard it is to remove enchantments when you're only producing black mana. Lethal Vapors + Pithing Needle can make it impossible for opponents to keep any creatures in play to sac to Smokestack, so that it can proceed eat away at their lands. With any luck, I can slowly put together the pieces to get off an infinite Exsanguinate. If not... well... it's going to be a really long game

Some quick facts can be found at deck stats. Current avg. cmc = 2.49. Avg. damage off Dark Confidant and/or Dark Tutelage = 1.57.

How do you find yourself winning games? Just attritioning people out until you represent at threat? Is it more or less all about the Exsanguinate train?

Sorry if this is a dumb question or if I am missing something obvious. Long day at work -__-

I really love Contamination locking people, and Death Cloud is a card I have been wanting to use in EDH for a bit (my brother wanted to build a Glissa stax deck with at least some of these elements and Death Cloud).

Quote from MrCoupon

How do you find yourself winning games? Just attritioning people out until you represent at threat? Is it more or less all about the Exsanguinate train?

Sorry if this is a dumb question or if I am missing something obvious. Long day at work -__-

I really love Contamination locking people, and Death Cloud is a card I have been wanting to use in EDH for a bit (my brother wanted to build a Glissa stax deck with at least some of these elements and Death Cloud).

Haha, that's totally a fair question.

I actually just bummed over to the Stax Primer to ask for a bit of input on good win cons that I could toss in here without disrupting the overall strategy of the deck too much. Pox and Death Cloud do shave a lot of life off everyone at the table, which gets people a lot closer to the red zone. I should probably just bite the bullet and include Grave Titan. Left unchecked, he gets out of hand really quickly. He's just such a big mana investment for a stax deck that I've been hesitant to include him. Flipping him off Dark Confidant or Dark Tutelage would hurt quite a bit.

Anywho, thanks for stopping in. Let me know if you have any suggestions for the deck

I dont have a lot of time atm so I am just gonna drop off a quick list of xhd control cards that are pretty good, and take a better look later.

Yawgmoth's will, Toxic Deluge, Mutilate, Ill-Gotten Gains, Strands of night, corpse dance, imp's mischief. Also if I remade xhd (or any mbc) I would make sure the discard suite is strong, and include multiple ways to take out enchantments.

Quote from Mojo Rhino

I dont have a lot of time atm so I am just gonna drop off a quick list of xhd control cards that are pretty good, and take a better look later.

Yawgmoth's will, Toxic Deluge, Mutilate, Ill-Gotten Gains, Strands of night, corpse dance, imp's mischief. Also if I remade xhd (or any mbc) I would make sure the discard suite is strong, and include multiple ways to take out enchantments.

Thanks for stopping in

I ran Yawgmoth's Will in more of a big-mana XHD list that had mana doublers, but I don't think I could ever put together enough mana to cast more than one spell of of it in this list. Would it be worth it in that case?

Toxic Deluge and Mutilate are worth considering, the former moreso than the latter. The life loss is pretty painful on TD, but I'm not guaranteed to have enough swamps in play with this list to make Mutilate very powerful.

I left Corpse Dance out because I really don't have that many creatures to begin with, and half of them recur themselves. Plus I'm not a big fan of the exile clause here, when I can keep churning things back up with Volrath's Stronghold and Phyrexian Reclamation instead. Strands of Night is pretty costly, and I don't have many extra swamps hanging around to sac. Plus, like I said, most things that I care about recur themselves anyways.

Ill-Gotten Gains is very powerful and worth considering, but I think I would add more permanent-based discard like Words of Waste before adding a 4cmc sorcery here.

Helm of Obediance combing might be a good way to kill people off if you're looking for one. With Leyline of the Void it's 1, tap: exile target library. Fetches are expensive but would be amazing with Crucible of Worlds. You'd never miss a land drop and you could recur your general from the Command Zone a minimum of every other turn.

Might be worth testing Helm of Possession. I don't know if you have enough creatures to use it reliably, but it is so good with stax creatures.

Also, with a tad of irony because I was just trashing the card a little in the Chainer primer, you may try Ophiomancer. At least on paper should be good in stax builds. I really dislike it in general, but with a Braids or Smokestack in play, it should be p. solid. Also another good guy to Contamination lock with.

Btw, your sig is absolutely priceless.

I think Mono Black Control is at a disadvantage against Ux Wx and Gx lists in one major area, artifact and enchantment removal, which can make playing the long haul quite difficult given the number of oppressive enchantments in edh. It is hard to give specific advice without knowing what your meta is. The shell you are using looks great, but might be able to be streamlined to your meta better.

Selecting XHD as your general is basically trusting in your deck to do everything you need it to do. Most the builds I have seen with him revolve around using him as a backup regrowth and then later possibly as a cog in a death machine. Your deck looks like it does not need a general to opperate, which is good imo.

{(The Corpse dance is more a lifestyle choice with xhd... leave him in the yard and it is a 5 mana per regrowth each turn. It is a little pricey but lets you reuse the **** out of any black silver bullets you need for the game. Strands of Night is basically a crucible powered Corpse Dance 2. Kagemaro, first to suffer can really keep creatures down this way too.). Some folks like to take this one step further and use the best sac outlet ever for this deck: phyrexian alter, alongside living death and any variety of creatures (like blood artist) to just end the game. Corpse Dance can also be used to give you a flash blocker or in response to your upkeep triggers. Maybe the mana restraints are enough to warrant not using it, but those just the positive arguments for it.}


Your deck looks like a multiplayer pox list to me. (Awesome). And the answers you need to pack to support that theme are going to vary according to the types of cards you see. I am definitely not saying put all of the following in, these are just some routes id recommend thinking about against different archetypes.

If you fight a lot of creatures, obviously the sweepers and gravepact are going to be houses. Toxic Deluge is my favorite new card in some time, and is a cheap easy answer to any difficult creature or creature based board. Mutilate is good solely because it too gets around indestructible creatures, but seems outdated after the deluge - Lillianna of the dark realms is a little more of bigger mana mbc card, but might provide surprisingly high value if your deck moves this way with its destruction or needs another thing to sac each turn. And if you need more redundancies for life gain, Sangromancer can do some good work.

If you fight a lot of control, you might need a variety of discard. Durress, Thoughtsieze, Inquisition of Kozilak, Cabal Therapy, hypnotic specter, and Mind Twist. Deal with problem cards, before they become problem cards. Counters like imp's mischief and Withering boon can come in handy. And depending if your smokestack is fast enough to deal with them or not, you might need to add more enchantment removal. Give O-Stone some back up. I have noticed people experimenting with Karn Liberated, All is dust, Disk, Spine of Ish SAh and powder keg. It is a shame they are all so expensive or slow. For me, this was the hardest part of MBC - combating relevant enchants and artifacts.

If you fight against a lot of combo, you might need some of the above discard, but also a healthy dose of gy hate. Your hate for gy looks nice, keep an eye on if you need more, Withered Wretch is an amazing hate bear. If you do find your opponents without yard a lot, then that is where Ill gotten gains becomes insanely broke. It sucks not being able to cast it because your opponents can get back lock breakers. But when you are able to exile their yard with say Leyline of the void, it makes the card oh so right. It is kind of nonbo with your deck, but your are able to put a decent amount of things straight into play so... trinisphere might shut down certain combo decks, slow down others.. no idea if your meta has these. Instant speed creature removal might help snipe combo pieces too.

Oh right and RE: yawgmoth's will. If you have one lieing around, give it a serious trial. I think yawg win would be worth it even if it only got back a couple of mana rocks, or possibly a wipe, or a non recursive hate bear or 2. Most importantly it lets you get back Coffers and use it to fuel plays with all of these things. Additional possible fuel/ramp could be lotus petal or better: cabal ritual... getting to use dark ritual to cast a will then use it with the will feels so busted. And there is just so much value even when used fair.

A few final cards. I never went this far into aiming at early lands, so maybe you don't need any more draw? But if you want more early consistency/draw sign in blood, and night's whisper have been of amazing value to me. If your deck is successful in making those quick locks, Uba mask might help keep them in place. I hate making more big black suggestions, especially something so fragile, but just want to make sure black market is on your radar of existing cards. It could provide you with all the mana your deck needs by itself.

Quote from Mojo Rhino

I have noticed people experimenting with Karn Liberated, All is dust, Disk, Spine of Ish SAh and powder keg. It is a shame they are all so expensive or slow. For me, this was the hardest part of MBC - combating relevant enchants and artifacts.

... ... ...

A few final cards. I never went this far into aiming at early lands, so maybe you don't need any more draw? But if you want more early consistency/draw sign in blood, and night's whisper have been of amazing value to me.

In my experience playing Chainer, Dementia Master MBC, I can vouch highly for Karn Liberated and All Is Dust. Those cards are nuts, especially with stone-based ramping. Whether the mana costs would be prohibitive to you in stax-oriented build is something only testing would dictate, but they are tremendous effects to have access to. (Karn also doubles as a win-con, which is nice for a grindy deck like this)

I ran Spine of Ish Sah, and even in games with sac outlets available, it always seemed over costed and under powered. But that is also going to vary based on how fast your metagame is. The meta I tested Spine in is very fast, and accentuated how clunky and mana-intensive of a card it is to use/abuse.

Powder Keg I never tested, as I feared it was too slow for EDH, but since I never even tried it, I can certainly not say it doesn't work.

Sign in Blood and Night's Whisper are waaaay better than they have any business being for us. A couple life means diddly, and having extra early-game draw power that fits in around other spells is clutch. Whether you are digging for an extra land or just trying to keep hand size up as you dump early with rocks and other plays, I have never regretted drawing these guys. Even in top deck mode, you are paying :symb::symb: to turn your draw into two draws, which is a great trade. If you like these, another pair at :3mana::symb: does the same for three cards in Ambition's Cost and Ancient Craving. I run those in all of my decks that tap for :symb:, they really are that good. I am in 100% agreeance with Mojo Rhino on these options, very very good cards.

^ what he said.
The chainer and xhd players usually find most of the same cards useful.
Lily of the dark realms is good for hitting all your land drops, which is really important in mbc.
Another cute combo you can use to lock out the board is darkest hour with spreading plague.. Really cute with reassembling skeleton.

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. I'm going to try to go through and respond to them individually when I have a little more time. I added Yawgmoth's Will and Corpse Dance for starters. Those were the easiest to see the value of.

One thing this deck desperately needs is a better means than Blood Artist of gaining a little bit of life to offset the incidental damage from drawing cards and getting plinked over 15+ turns. Oh, and Poxing and Death Clouding myself :p. It doesn't have to generate a ton of life at once, but I just need a little more to come from something useful in the deck.

im just posting in here because i saw your post in the stax primer. I was wondering how integral your general was to your deck? I mean, why not use erebos or just something else? I understand that the recursion is a nice thing, but I"m certain there are other options out there in mono black right?

PS: this card is $100 for this general on ebay?! yikes! at least the promo is affordable.

Quote from kensanity

im just posting in here because i saw your post in the stax primer. I was wondering how integral your general was to your deck? I mean, why not use erebos or just something else? I understand that the recursion is a nice thing, but I"m certain there are other options out there in mono black right?

PS: this card is $100 for this general on ebay?! yikes! at least the promo is affordable.

Yeah, I would've have ever been able to consider running XHD until the promo was made available. I'd love for him to see printing in some other special edition, just to get some more copies out there and drop his price a little more.

Anywho, I would say that he is anywhere from very integral to absolutely essential in this particular build. Black has greater ability to recur creatures than any other color, for certain. But it has next to no ability to recur any other type of card. XHD's ability is therefore very unique and powerful in mono black, and in particular in a stax deck where a lot of your key cards are enchantments and are bound to get blown up, he is invaluable in letting you get them back from the yard. The importance of his ability to keep recurring tutors (Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor, etc.) and removal spells Innocent Blood, Damnation, etc.) also can't be overstated. It just gives the deck that much more resilience and consistency.

I also rely heavily on Myr Retriever and Junk Diver to let me get Smokestack and whatever other artifact pieces that XHD can't get back himself and opponents love to blow up. I've actually contemplated trying out Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker as a mono black stax commander, just for his ability to recur these awesome guys and other dudes like Cadaver Imp. XHD just seems a little more powerful and less clunky overall.

Basically, the deck would function just fine without him, but functions SO MUCH better with him. I, in particular, like it when decks work that way with relation to their commander.

Feel free to ask any other questions you may have, though. Stax is a unique archetype, and it's taken me over a year of playing with the various synergies you see in stax decks to start to understand their power.

Quote from sH0opdAwoOp

Basically, the deck would function just fine without him, but functions SO MUCH better with him. I, in particular, like it when decks work that way with relation to their commander.

Feel free to ask any other questions you may have, though. Stax is a unique archetype, and it's taken me over a year of playing with the various synergies you see in stax decks to start to understand their power.

I appreciate it. EDH is pretty new to me in general, and I just finished building an oloro stax list, but i just put together a bunch of stuff from the stax primer, so i dont really know how good the deck is. For sure my friends are disappointed by how limiting it is to them, but yeah.

i'll probably try to create somethign vetry similar to this if i can get my hands on some of these cards.

Cool stuff you got here! I defeinitely think u need grave titan though. or some kind of finisher.

Exquisite Blood and Pontiff of Blight are nice ways to gain life.

Quote from kensanity

I appreciate it. EDH is pretty new to me in general, and I just finished building an oloro stax list, but i just put together a bunch of stuff from the stax primer, so i dont really know how good the deck is. For sure my friends are disappointed by how limiting it is to them, but yeah.

i'll probably try to create somethign vetry similar to this if i can get my hands on some of these cards.

Cool stuff you got here! I defeinitely think u need grave titan though. or some kind of finisher.

You are most likely right. Grave Titan, Nim Deathmantle, and Helm of Obedience are all cards that I'm half a step away from finding room for in order to get some stronger win cons in the list. The question is just what to remove that: (a) doesn't weaken the stax/control aspect of the list; and (b) makes up for the fact that the mana cost of these cards is relatively high.


EDIT: Forgot to mention, if you have your list posted on these boards somewhere, feel free to link it. If not, feel free to post it here. I'm no expert on anything, but I'd be glad to look over it and offer whatever advice I can. Deckbuilding/brainstorming is probably my favorite aspect of MTG.

Quote from sH0opdAwoOp

You are most likely right. Grave Titan, Nim Deathmantle, and Helm of Obedience are all cards that I'm half a step away from finding room for in order to get some stronger win cons in the list. The question is just what to remove that: (a) doesn't weaken the stax/control aspect of the list; and (b) makes up for the fact that the mana cost of these cards is relatively high.


EDIT: Forgot to mention, if you have your list posted on these boards somewhere, feel free to link it. If not, feel free to post it here. I'm no expert on anything, but I'd be glad to look over it and offer whatever advice I can. Deckbuilding/brainstorming is probably my favorite aspect of MTG.

Cool. I pm'ed u my list