MTG Salvation

Hey There MTG Fans!,

- This Commander deck is based around one of the very original type II decks and is an homage to the domination of Necropotence during MTG's first real season of tournament play in the summer of 1996. Although I was still only a young teen at this point in time, I remember Black Summer all too well and perhaps too fondly for some since I'm a spike player at heart; despite personally playing turbo stasis and white weenie instead of the popular necro decks and only later switching to mono black when Unmask was printed. The general for this deck is Cao Cao, Lord of Wei and on top of being flavourful, allows the deck to stay true to its theme of complete resource denial, which has all but been stamped out by WotC R&D as a viable deck strategy (and rightfully so).

- The deck is built solely for 1v1 play and doesn't stand a chance in any size or type of multiplayer game. In my great city of Ottawa, we are a little bit weird about competitive EDH, going balls out with the normal multiplayer rules and ban list, and giving very little regard to the French / Duel Commander rules. As such, the deck is listed here as I would play it at my local (non-french) tournaments, however I have included a substitute list of cards to replace the duel commander no-no's. While the overall consistency and power level of this deck is likely to low to ever make it out of B or C classes, I find it really fun and nostalgic to play with!

- The play style is fairly basic however; each action should be decided upon very carefully as the order in which you do things will fluctuate constantly from game to game. For example; Hymn to Tourach on turn two might not always be the correct play over a turn 2 Sinkhole based on a number of factors including; who went first, how cheap to cast their general is, what cards you saw in their hand on turn one, and the likeliness of your opponent to concede upon reaching certain board conditions, among others. Outside of making crucial decisions such as that one, the ultimate goal here is to run your opponents hand down to 0 asap and then work on keeping their lands reduced while pecking away at them with whatever creature(s) you have available.

- The deck has a choice curve of discard which stops at 3 cmc. It also packs a small number of cheap creature removal to stop threats that do make it through, while hopefully allowing you to cast something else on the same turn as well. There is a slightly higher number of land hate, again keeping CMC's low wherever possible without sacrificing card function or value. I have also added a few choice cards to work with the general, and to provide added disruption as well such as Tangle Wire.

- There are still a small number of sub-par cards in my opinion that I haven't been able to find good substitutes for yet and will probably come out for whatever gets suggested here; Murder, Shimian Specter, Barren Moor, Polluted Mire. I could switch out the 2 cycle lands for swamps perhaps to add consistency to the untapped curve, but need a second opinion before I give up the free mid-game card advantage.




I look forward to any feedback about card choices, or themes, or whatever it is that you have to share! ~ Thank You in Advance

Quote from Alex Holland »

I love monoblack! But in a game of resources you would want more draw. The more cards you draw the more denial you can play.

Blight is a good find. How does it feel in EDH???

-Your'e right I almost always want more cards to work worth, particularly since a lot of the early discard is only 1:1 trading. Not really sure what else to do though aside from the few that are already in there..maybe pain seer should make it to the main deck?

-Blight is good, nonbasics are always on the field and the card works like it normally would; by denying the resource either by not wanting to tap it or by the inevitable death the land will receive.

- Nothing new really from Khans, except Rakshasa's Secret which is a slight downgrade from Mind Rot which only barely made the cut.

Thanks for Comments and Happy Crafting!