MTG Salvation

Sleeving this back up over the weekend, changes some things around and pressing the STAX-Package.

Wanted to report a pretty epic win today.

I was playing a Kruphix, God of Horizons Enter the Infinite+Laboratory Maniac Control Deck and a Sliver Queen super friends list.

The Planeswalker player used Sorin Markov on the Kruphix player then flickered Sorin with Venser, the Sojourner to renew his loyalty.

I cast Exsanguinate for 10 during my turn knocking out the player and swing on the Sliver Queen player with Inkmoth Nexus. He's now at 1 Poison.

5-Color player goes, uses Sorin's "Life Total becomes 10" ability on me and then taps down my Inkmoth with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage.

At end of turn I sacrifice Grim Monolith to Throne of Geth and proliferate, putting him to 2-Poison.

My turn, 10 life no creatures on the board.

I untap, flip a coin for Mana Crypt and lose, now at 7 life.

Play basic land, animate Inkmoth and untap it with Voltaic Key.

I have two cards in hand - Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon and Hatred.

I cast Skithiryx. It resolves and I give him haste.

I swing with Skithiryx and Inkmoth.

He targets Skithiryx with Maze of Ith.

In response I cast Hatred targeting Inkmoth, paying 6 life, now tapped out, no cards in hand.

I'm at 1 life.

Hitting him for 7 poison, putting him at 9.

Sacrifice Voltaic Key to Throne of Geth and proliferate, putting him at 10 poison. Win.

This sounds so lulzy. Does the fact that you're playing infect cause people to gang up on you at all?

Quote from Xainthesix »

This sounds so lulzy. Does the fact that you're playing infect cause people to gang up on you at all?

It hasn't been much of a problem honestly.

Its usually still hard enough to win with this deck as it is with my non-infect decks given the limited pool of cards and low power level of most infect creatures.

My playgroup and even those I play from outside of my playgroup sit down at the table and tend to go after whichever player is the biggest threat at the time. In most cases my board position is usually not much more offensive than say a Rafiq of the Many or other well primed Voltron decks.

Liking the list so far. I am currently assembling on on mtgo and irl, so once I've done some testing I'll let you know how it goes. Lake of the dead is a great card that i'd add.

Quote from PUFNSTUF360 »

Liking the list so far. I am currently assembling on on mtgo and irl, so once I've done some testing I'll let you know how it goes. Lake of the dead is a great card that i'd add.

Awesome, yeah I'd love to hear how it goes. I'll be meeting again with my playgroup for the first time in awhile tomorrow so I'll report back as well.

The bling, the bling! Congrats on the Tabernacle. That's one expensive piece of paper.

If I did Skittles voltron/infect it would look a lot like this. I will make a suggestion though - organize your deck by function, it'll help make it easier for you to improve and for us to critique.

You probably won't be receptive to this but I'll say it anyway - adding more colors will give you access to more good things. Yes, Skithiryx is arguably one of the best Voltron commanders but adding even just blue or green to the mix will give you access to more infect creatures, better ramp, card draw, and control cards. But style points count in mono color EDH, so there's that. And mono black is definitely nothing to laugh at.

Suggestions for cutting:

Karn Liberated, Spine of Ish Sah - Not sure if I want to be paying 7 for a Vindicate. You don't have that many creatures to protect planeswalkers here and Spine is just bad. Unfortunately our options for enchantment/artifact removal are almost nonexistent in mono black. We're pretty much limited to Nevinyrral's Disk and Oblivion Stone but they are some good board wipes for mono black.

Dark Ritual - the use once ramp spells aren't really that great in commander. They allow some explosive plays, sure but if whatever you cast using the bonus mana gets countered or removed, you've just been two for one'd. I would swap this for some additional artifact ramp.

Caress of Phyrexia - I can see the versatility of this, but I think for 5 mana we can get a better effect for our investment

Voltaic Key - this feels awkward here. I'm guessing you're using this to untap your Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Contagion Engine and Contagion Clasp primarily? Why don't you just go with Unwinding Clock and add Basalt Monolith. You'll really be proliferating then.

Torpor Orb - This is really a meta dependent card. I think I'd swap this for something a bit more solid like No Mercy or Nether Void.

Pristine Talisman - this is really subpar and you'd be better off using Coldsteel Heart or Fellwar Stone. If you want the lifegain go with Ivory Tower - it works like a charm with Necropotence

Grafted Wargear - it's cute and honestly not terrible but I think we've got better options. Artifact removal will really screw you up and I don't think the risk is worth it.

Champion's Helm - honestly I think you've got enough evasion redundancy with Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots. Champian's helm is too mana intensive for what it gives us IMO

Phyrexian Reclamation - yeah it gives you value over time but I would just go with Reanimate

Vow of Malice - cute but this feels like a random addition. No Mercy will be better



Suggestions for adding:

Jet Medallion - any reason for not running this?

Ill-Gotten Gains - I really think you should try to squeese a reanimator toolbox in here. If you combine effects like this and Living Death with some gravyard hate like Leyline of the Void and Bojuka Bog you have some powerful one sided shenanigans.

Demonic Consultation - this isn't as good as Imperial Seal and probably not better than Demonic Tutor either but it's still powerful if you REALLY FREAKING NEED SOMETHING.

Sinkhole, Rancid Earth, and Contamination - these are all some solid mana denial cards that you might try out.

No Mercy - True, this can backfire with certain things, but it approaches Moat level power at an affordable price.

Nether Void - if you can afford a Tabernacle, you can probably afford this. Just cast Scittles and then this and you've all but sealed your opponents' fate.

Temporal Extortion - quad black can only ever really be played in mono black. In most situations, people won't want to pay half their life to stop you from taking an extra turn for 4cmc.

Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power, Bubbling Muck and/or Nirkana Revenant - I know you are focused on early game ramp, but these late game doublers can really help you get a game winning X amount for Exsanguinate and Profane Command if you wanted to make that an alternate win condition.

Reliquary Tower - I wouldn't use Necropotence without this honestly, and I might even add Ivory Tower for some lifegaining/library drawing shenanigans.

Diabolic Edict, Geth's Verdict, Consuming Vapors and Chainer's Edict are some of the best mono black creature removal spells in the game because they get around most evasion abilities and indestructibility.

Terrain Generator - in a mono colored deck this is actually pretty decent.

Sadistic Sacrament - this is almost a must if you're playing against combo decks, and if you're playing competitively you will be.

Syphon Mind - some really solid draw in commander


Generally speaking I think you could benefit from 2 or 3 more solid threats in the form of creatures - specifically combo creatures and utility creatures. I know these creatures don't have infect but here are some good ones:


Vampire Hexmage - Planeswalker hate, but you can also use her to unlock Dark Depths

Fleshbag Marauder - solid removal

Bloodghast - arguably one of the best sac fodder creatures around

Phyrexian Obliterator - just a solid beater that needs speciality removal to get rid of it

Phage the Untouchable - I'm sure we could find a way to use her to good effect

Korlash, Heir to Blackblade - this guy can get huge

Shriekmaw - good removal in creature form

Avatar of Woe - potentially very cheap and a repeatable creature kill

Massacre Wurm - this guy can win games

DECK CHANGES:

Those are some good suggestions for cuts Rowan, though I'll have to diverge a bit on the suggested replacements.

- Dark Ritual >> Promise of Power: Usually ritual was good early game but as was pointed out, later on it leaves you open for 2-for-1 and eventually becomes a mostly dead card. Promise of Power lets me fill me hand back up so its a good target for Demonic Tutor when I'm short on card advantage.

- Phyrexian Reclamation >> Whip of Erebos: Testing this out, may switch back later, but the whip helps to offset my life payments in the deck and also can act as a means to sneak in one of my infect creatures for some poison counters in a pinch.

- Spine of Ish Sah >> Fleshbag Marauder: Spine is a bit expensive, so I'll test the Marauder in here since its really cheap and effective at what it does.

- Pristine Talisman >> Jet Medallion: While I like Talisman, the Medallion seems like it will help the curve out a whole more and the faster we can land 10 poison the better.

- Swiftfoot Boots >> Defense Grid: Swiftfood Boots and Defense Grid achieve almost the same end for me, and since we're already running Lightning Greaves and Champion's Helm I decided to cut it in favor of another defensive card that is more or less one-sided for us.

-High Market >> Wasteland: High Market is mostly in there for Mindslicer but given we're also running Phyrexian Tower and that Maze of Ith is a bigger issue for me than sacrificing my creatures, I opted for some more cheap LD.

My suggestions were more things that you could just try out, since I haven't played mono black infect - I have played mono black though.

I really think you'll be happy with the Ivory Tower/Reliquary Tower/Necropotence package. You can then add some solid "pay X life..." or "discard X cards..." stuff to utilize the life gain and draw. You could also use Sanguine Bond or Bond of Agony to really bring the pain.

Exsanguinate is a solid win condition that doesn't depend on you landing infect counters or attacking but you need a lot of mana or something like Mirari to get a high enough value for X. If you don't want to go this route and just focus on attacking I would cut this for something else that will help you get those infect creatures through. Temporal Extortion would basically be there to give you another attack phase.

Alternatively you could just add more infect creatures

Blightsteel Colossus is the first one that comes to mind.

Blackcleave Goblin, Flensermite, Flesh-Eater Imp, Ichorclaw Myr, Reaper of Sheoldred are some decent infect creatures that you aren't running.

Spread the Sickness can be good

I know you took it out but Lashwrithe can one shot people. The free equip is very nice and the living weapon means that it's not a completely dead card if you don't have an infect creature to equip it to.

Exsanguinate isn't so much a win-con for me as much as a one-shot gain a bunch of life card that I can reuse with Yawgmoth's Will. The Ivory Tower is something I'll give a shot if Exsanguinate can't do it alone.

Blightsteel Colossus is too expensive for my tastes and the rest of the infect creatures I can't seem to want to cut anything for them right now, and Spread the Sickness is also too expensive for my tastes. Perhaps if it were Instant speed.

I'll have to playtest with the most recent changes and see what cards are coming up dead for me or not pulling their weight before I reconvene with more changes however.

-1 Dark Impostor
-1 Corpse Cur
-1 Mindslicer
-1 Myojin of Night's Reach

-1 Karn Liberated

-1 Necrologia

-1 Exsanguinate
-1 Ashes to Ashes
-1 Grim Tutor
-1 Promise of Power
-1 All is Dust

-1 Mox Opal
-1 Mox Diamond
-1 Volatic Key
-1 Defense Grid
-1 Grafted Wargear
-1 Sword of Fire and Ice
-1 Sword of Light and Shadow
-1 Champion's Helm
-1 Extraplanar Lens

-1 Whip of Erebos
-1 Vow of Malice
-1 Shade's Form

-1 Springjack Pasture
-1 Cabal Coffers
-1 Wasteland

===

+1 Dark Confidant
+1 Bloodghast
+1 Reassembling Skeleton
+1 Ophiomancer
+1 Flesh-Eater Imp

+1 Tainted Strike

+1 Black Sun's Zenith
+1 Diabolic Intent
+1 Syphon Mind

+1 Ivory Tower
+1 Skullclamp
+1 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Tangle Wire
+1 Crucible of Worlds
+1 Sword of Feast and Famine
+1 Unstable Obelisk
+1 Trading Post

+1 Dance of the Dead
+1 Bitterblossom
+1 Necromancy
+1 Contamination
+1 Desolation
+1 Unspeakable Symbol
+1 Attrition
+1 Mind Slash
// Going for a heavier focus on the STAX package and increased token blocker production, cheap draw and pump spells.