MTG Salvation

Hey everyone! Mono-B is my personal EDH favorite, and I'm well known for frequently building different decks with it in my playgroup. However, I generally build control plus some stax, with commanders like Chainer, Dementia Master, Sheoldred, Whispering One, or Mikaeus, the Unhallowed at the helm. With this deck, I decided to try a new angle and a more proactive style of mono-black, rather than the "kill every creature, draw/tutor lots of cards, Exsanguinate for lethal" variant that I've played for so long.

I know that many Gisa players utilize gigantic creatures like Phyrexian Dreadnought to create huge amounts of zombies tokens at a time, and then use those zombies to fuel sac outlets like Mind Slash or Attrition, or activate classics like Grave Pact to create a superior board position. I thought it would be fun to make a deck that exemplifies zombies as an unkillable horde. With all of the reanimation in the form of Lord of the Undead, Volrath's Stronghold, Unholy Grotto, Beacon of Unrest, and Victimize, I can use Gisa to sacrifice one of my non-token zombie creatures to get the token generation going. I'm packing SIX different lord effects to make the horde as threatening as possible, in addition to giving me the most bang for my buck with each Gisa activation.

There are two primary ways for this deck to close out games:

• Make a huge zombie horde and beat people down with it. All of the tokens from Gisa, Grave Titan, Endless Ranks of the Dead, and Overseer of the Damned can combine with my lord effects from cards like Undead Warchief or Risen Executioner to create lethal combat damage very quickly. Living Death, Patriarch's Bidding, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Zombie Apocalypse make my non-token zombies very difficult to keep down for more than a turn or two. Another awesome thing that can happen is when Noxious Ghoul is in the graveyard along with a bunch of other zombies; if I use Living Death or Patriarch's Bidding (which can help my opponents as much as they help me) they generally become one-sided because the Ghoul procs a Zombie-less Mutilate, leaving me with a scary, scary board and my opponents with nothing.
• Abuse of Gray Merchant of Asphodel/Vengeful Dead. It's easy for this deck to make a lot of zombies pretty quickly, and the Vengeful Dead can drain a lot of health out of opponents if they try to wipe the board to keep the horde down. Because mono-black is awesome, many of the permanents in the deck have two or three B symbols in their casting cost. This creates great devotion for Gary, and his presence in the deck alone often causes me to become the Archenemy at the table in any given game. It's extremely easy to win games with Gray Merchant, especially when he and ten other zombies are in the graveyard and I cast Zombie Apocalypse.

Cards I'm currently considering replacing:

• Nim Deathmantle --> Lightning Greaves: Haste/shroud for Gisa means that I can hopefully get an activation off before she eats a removal spell. While the Deathmantle is a great card, I've found that I can't use it most of the time because of the proactive nature of the deck. Maybe I'm just tapping out unnecessarily, I dunno.
• Sculpting Steel --> Coldsteel Heart: The Heart is another Charcoal Diamond, so this would be purely for the purpose of consistency. The faster this deck comes online, the scarier it is. Plain and simple.
• Tendrils of Corruption --> Something else: I feel like this card isn't pulling its weight, but I don't know what I'd put there instead. I briefly considered Snuff Out, but this deck already has a hard time keeping its life total up outside of Gary. Maybe something with lifegain? Maybe Whip of Erebos? I dunno.

Most of all, I guess I'm looking to further optimize the deck, maybe you guys know about some hidden gems that I missed. I'd prefer to keep it Zombie tribal as much as I can, but any questions or suggestions are welcome. Thanks for taking the time to read all this stuff I wrote, I appreciate it!

I think you keep Deathmantle. That card is way too good with coffers mana, a sac outlet, and an ETB of your choice.

Greaves is a necessary addition imo.

Scultping steel for a rock is a good cut. Same with cutting tendrils.

My version is equipment focused using cards like Lashwrithe, Strata Scythe, and Nightmare Lash. It plays several overlapping themes that can synergize with each other.

The equipment angle is a great idea, I hadn't thought of that before. Tendrils --> Lashwrithe, easy peasy

There's all sorts of fun stuff you could pull off if you had a Thornbite Staff. There's some weird combo that gets you infinite ETB/LTB effects.