MTG Salvation

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Hey there MTGS Community! Recently, Kothophed, Soul Hoarder (aka K-PHED) was spoiled and although it didn't wow a lot of us as a Commander, it is incredibly flavor-full and a card many of us hoped would see print for a long time. Although Kothophed isn't a stunningly obvious choice as a Commander, it is still an efficient creature that can offer a LOT of card draw in exchange for your opponent's permanents being destroyed/sacrificed.

Now, obviously the major hurdle we need to overcome is that Kothophed's ability isn't a "may" effect and therefore our life total may need to be supported with cards like Exquisite Blood, or other better cards I'm not thinking of right now. This become more of a hurdle when we think of some of the better black card draw that we'll want, like Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, Promise of Power, etc.

If you don't know how "Let's Build" works, you simply suggest a card to be added to the deck, or a card to be removed (and a new card to be added in its place). Once the decklist is complete, I will build the deck and this will become a standard EDH deck thread.

Without additional delay, here is our current decklist (I'll try to update it with each new recommendation):

The first card added (by me!) is... Fleshbag Marauder, a perennial favorite in EDH and will force our opponents to sacrifice a creature, giving us a card draw for each creature that dies.

Reserved.

I've got a neat and entirely different suggestion: merciless executioner.

Quote from lakebottom »

I've got a neat and entirely different suggestion: merciless executioner.

10/10

Also, you want Smokestack in this deck.

Needs more Smallpox

Blood Artist

Phyrexian Reclamation seems like a good fit for this kind of deck. Works exceptionally well with things like FBM and Executioner.

Harvester of Souls for added draw power, Gray Merchant of Asphodel to win the game/pad your life total.

Demonic Tutor. For flavor.

Quote from lakebottom »

I've got a neat and entirely different suggestion: merciless executioner.

Haha, well played!

Quote from ZenN »

Also, you want Smokestack in this deck.

Oh, I like that idea!

Quote from Cold_Hellfire »

Needs more Smallpox

Nice addition, thank you!

Quote from fatsnorlax »

Blood Artist

Now there's a way to gain some life back! Great suggestion!

Quote from jakalova »

Phyrexian Reclamation seems like a good fit for this kind of deck. Works exceptionally well with things like FBM and Executioner.

I like the way you think!

Quote from gxmiter »

Harvester of Souls for added draw power, Gray Merchant of Asphodel to win the game/pad your life total.

Two of my absolute favorites, great call!

Quote from HP_CR »

Demonic Tutor. For flavor.

Just for the vorthos, right?

All suggestions updated. Thanks guys!

Exsanguinate, cabal coffers, urborg, tomb of yawgmoth. Mono black staples.

Given the lack of a may, there might well come a time when you really don't want him in play, so some sac oulets would be good. I'll start with the versatile Dimir House Guard. So far, there's only one CMC 4 card for him to transmute into, but that can always change, right? And if it doesn't, someone can chuck him later for an altar....

Quote from Darksamus »

Exsanguinate, cabal coffers, urborg, tomb of yawgmoth. Mono black staples.

Haha, I was waiting for someone to say Urborg/Coffers and Exsanguinate is great for us, makes me think that Koko might be as well, but I'll let someone else bring that up.

Quote from PhroX »

Given the lack of a may, there might well come a time when you really don't want him in play, so some sac oulets would be good. I'll start with the versatile Dimir House Guard. So far, there's only one CMC 4 card for him to transmute into, but that can always change, right? And if it doesn't, someone can chuck him later for an altar....

Yeah, it's fairly easy to see that transmute ability being useful here, there are a lot of great four drops in black & colorless.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Psychosis Crawler to make opponents lose life when you draw off Kothophed. Having it in play makes the playing field level: Everyone loses the same life (though you lose each point first). In addition you get a huge dumb beater and lots of cards off Kothophed. (I also like pairing Psychosis Crawler with Exquisite Blood though there's no direct Kothophed synergy.)

Blood Artist wants to bring his buddy Falkenrath Noble, and transmutable with Dimir House Guard

And High Market is perfect as a sac outlet if K-Phed gets out of control plus gives a life back. Everything we need in a safety net.

Deathgreeter and Profane Memento could negate the life loss. Also Viscera Seer in case you need to quickly get rid of Kothophed.

Deathbringer Regent could be a good setup to win if you have the right board state to stop you loosing too much life.

Also, sangromancer.

Since we want a sac outlet package for Kothophed, Soul Hoarder, perhaps we could go the direction of a reanimation package and a way to loop Kokusho, the Evening Star as a wincon (building on the already included Phyrexian Reclamation of course). Chainer, Dementia Master would be good as it hits all graveyards. Phyrexian Altar and Phyrexian Tower as sac outlets/mana generation for the loops.

Also, Bojuka Bog

Quote from greenbed »

Deathgreeter and Profane Memento could negate the life loss. Also Viscera Seer in case you need to quickly get rid of Kothophed.

Deathbringer Regent could be a good setup to win if you have the right board state to stop you loosing too much life.

Also, sangromancer.

While Deathgreeter and Profane Memento do pad our life total, they don't really do anything else. Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble do more work, and I don't think we will want a third and fourth of these effects.

Deathbringer could be a fun include. Maybe not the strongest but as a petcard of just funsies. Sangromancer could be a good option depending on the rest of the deck I think. It's a good chunk of life gain that can be used to power Chainer or Reclamation. If we had any discard effects it could do some real work. Mindslicer maybe?

Devour Flesh because if you want to sac KPhed it nets you at least 6 life back.

Rereading the spoiler, I noticed KPhed triggers off permanents your opponents own, not control, so stuff you've stolen from other people counts. With all the removal we're going to be running, there should be stuff in graveyards to steal, so this sounds like a job for Geth, Lord of the Vault

Quote from PhroX »

Rereading the spoiler, I noticed KPhed triggers off permanents your opponents own, not control, so stuff you've stolen from other people counts. With all the removal we're going to be running, there should be stuff in graveyards to steal, so this sounds like a job for Geth, Lord of the Vault

Good idea, we can use Puppeteer Clique too.

Bloodchief Ascension seems extremely obvious. The trigger are so similar and it gives us the life we need.
I also propose Liliana of the Dark Realms for a constant flow of swamps and Corrupt.

Awesome suggestions all! I love how this deck is taking shape! I'll update the OP as soon as I'm off work so we have a better idea of what the deck will look like.

Thanks for all of these great suggestions! Keep 'em coming!

Going with the obvious here: we still need Phyrexian Arena and we want to power out the man himself as early as possible with Sol Ring and other artifact ramp. The ring is the only big dumb obvious one, but I'll put that forward.

Some mana doublers seem good, I like and propose Nirkana Revenant to start with.

Alright, the OP has been updated. I'll nominate Volrath's Stronghold, Temple of the False God & Terrain Generator to round out our nonbasics.

Thank you for all the great suggestions so far!

I'm sure there are many cards out there we're not thinking of still left to be discovered!