Karlov of the Ghost Council, Dictator of Life Deck ver 1.2
Table of Contents
Brief history of the deck
Why you should consider this deck
Deck list and Statistics
Card Assessment
Card Assessment - Politics
Brief History of the deck
The roots of the deck started way back in year 2008, when I was just getting back into MTG. I had a very casual kitchen table play group where anything goes, from recurring nightmare combo decks to decks running yawgmoth will x 4 + wheel of fortune x 4 (with all the rituals boosters of red and black). I made a really fun to pull off combo deck then, with Ad Nauseum (no Tendrils of Agony, did't really like that card then) + Angel's Grace, followed by lotus petals, rituals, Sanguine Bond, Children of Korlis, Tainted Sigil to kill off the entire table.
It was fun, making and piloting the deck opened my eyes to a whole new perspective of MTG, the concept of resource. I started to realise that everything is a resource, from our own life points, opponent's lifepoints to their libraries.
Come 2011, I started playing EDH (commander), right when wotc printed the very first commander set, I tried to recreate my favorite kitchen deck using Ghave, Guru of Spores (since green gives life gaining effects too and the exceptionally powerful Spike Feeder). The deck just didn't feel right, the commander has nothing to do with life gain at all. Then came Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. He was good, a life gaining commander. But having blue in the deck makes him very hard to pilot, with the need to delicate slots to blue staple counterspells and draws. Worst is blue give NO contribution to the life gain/lost theme at all. Prior to the printing of Karlov, I dropped all blue cards in my Oloro deck, making it a really awkward orzhov deck with a commander I hardly even cast. Karlov is a god send, finally a commander that is worthy of the life-gain lost theme (not a fan of Selenia, Dark Angel).
Why you should consider this deck
This is the deck which is suitable for those who:
Likes the concept that Life is a resource and is something you can leverage to the max.
Likes thematic decks
Likes playing politics
Likes tribal (deck is a cleric tribal with a non-cleric commander)
I find that doing the card assessment section first helps in achieving deeper understanding of the deck prior to strategies and combos.
Karlov of the Ghost Council
Karlov has 2 abilities:
Whenever you gain life, put two +1/+1 counters on Karlov of the Ghost Council.
The first ability is what we will focus on in the deck. With the many life gaining mechanisms littered all over the deck, it will trigger Karlov ability numerous times over the course of the game. This makes Karlov a very powerful voltron commander, often good enough to smash through opponents defenses without dying himself since is so huge from the life gain. It is a pity that his 2 predessors Ajani's Pridemate and Bloodbond Vampire are not featured in the current iteration of the deck due to lack of space.
WB, Remove six +1/+1 counters from Karlov of the Ghost Council: Exile target creature.
Ahh the icing on the cake. This is where the control aspect of Karlov comes in handy. After 3 instances of life gain, the ability to exile a creature becomes available. Having this ability makes karlov really good in board control until the deck's combo is set up. It also paints a huge target on Karlov making it a very effective lightning rod for removals. Keep WB open most of the time to prevent opponents from casting their own commanders.
Soul Sisters
The term "Soul Sisters" gain popularity from a standard deck with the same name, featuring Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant. In this EDH deck the 2 soul sister group is expanded to:
The trio of soul sisters (including Auriok Champion) triggers life gain when a creature ETBs. Sunscorch Regent is like a catch all "soul dragon lol" for all kinds of spells opponents cast + growing bigger himself just like Karlov. This dragon is one of the best creatures in the deck and usually is a KOS (kill on sight) card for most opponents. Shattered Angel is another under-rated creature to run in the deck. Land ETBs are the most common of all EDH decks and it will be really good to find a way to capitalise on it. This deck's focus is on life as a resource, think of our life points as the 2nd type of 'mana'. In EDH we start with 39 points of this resource (using the last point will make use lose the game). This resource is just like standard mana, we can add more of it or use it to fuel many of our spells and abilities. This category of cards here replenishes the life resource, and having at least 1 on board most of the time in the game is crucial to the deck's strategy.
You don't lose the game by losing huge chunks of life. Only the last point of life is crucial to winning or losing the game, the rest are all negligible.
2 worthly mentions here are Suture Priest and Polluted Bonds. Suture priest is like half of a soul sister combined with a Blood Seeker, one of the short comings of running her in the deck is it doesn't trigger life gain for us when an opponent's creature ETBs. Hence, no life gain = no bigger Karlov + pricking opponent's life = her being painted a target. With the lack of token generators in the deck it makes Suture Priest inferior to the rest of the group.
Polluted Bonds on the other hand, is much like a Shattered Angel but it damages opponents too. I would have included the card in I have more slots to play with.
Exquisite Blood
In the entire MTG card collection, Exquisite Blood is one of the only 2 cards that does something when an opponent loses life, with the other being Mind Crank which does nothing to help in the deck's strategy. This card works like a vampire, whatever "blood" (life) drained from opponents from any kind of activity will add to your life resource pool. This works tremendously well with many of the strategies used in the deck, much more than Sanguine Bond and friends does.
If you are not keen to add infinite combos into the deck and have to choose between Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond, I strongly recommend choosing the former. Let me paint a scenario:
What sanguine bond does is the same as what Karlov does, it triggers upon life gain. When a creature ETBs with a soul sister in play, sanguine bond triggers and an opponent is pricked 1 damage. Karlov gets 2x +1/+1 counters. Sanguine Bond doesn't trigger Karlov at all, in fact it can be treated as a "another karlov". Exquisite Blood works the opposite way, it triggers upon opponent's life loss, and gives a life gain trigger in return. This in turn activates Karlov's 1st ability, netting 2x +1/+1 counters. It is a symmetrical effect right? 1 life loss trigger to 1 life gain trigger? The answer is no, it is not symmetrical in terms of triggers.
Consider a multiplayer game of 4 players, the Karlov player and 3 opponents (oA, oB, oC). You have Drana's Emissary, Karlov and Exquisite Blood in play. On your upkeep emissary's ability triggers:
At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
oA loses 1 life, exquisite blood triggers. oB loses 1 life, exquisite blood triggers. oC loses 1 life, exquisite blood triggers. That is 3x life gain triggers you get, plus Drana's Emissary's 1 life gain trigger making it a total of 4x triggers. That is 8x +1/+1 counters on Karlov. With Archangel of thune, that is 4x +1/+1 counters on all your creatures. With Exquisite blood, extort ability becomes dangerous rather than an occasional prick.
Exquisite Blood's Partners in crime
This section is named as such as it contains cards that combos infinitely with Exquisite Blood, there are so many of them until I feel like dropping some of them.
Of the 3 above, the most common combo is Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood. Frankly speaking I'm torn between having either Sanguine Bond or Defiant Bloodlord in the deck, with the latter being a creature with an evasion ability, but cost a whooping 7 mana to cast. Vizkopa Guildmage is the strongest card in this category, with ability to give any creature lifelink (usually Karlov) and the 2nd ability is an upgraded version of Sanguine Bond's ability. Probably I'll axe Sanguine Bond in time as it is not performing really much in the deck as the guildmage is doing the heavy lifting most of the time.
Children of Korlis & Tainted Sigil
Children of Korlis is one of those cards which I find the rarity, casting cost and price of the card doesn't match the ability of the card at all. It cost a meager W, comes in a 1/1 body with a very powerful ability which allows the player to gain back whatever life he/she lost during the turn that cost only a sacrifice to activate. Too powerful.
At first glance, children of korlis is a defensive styled creature which sort of "negates" the damage dealt to the player when opponents attack him/her. In orzhov life matters deck however, children of korlis is treated as a tool to launch an offense against opponents. With the deck's ability to quickly lower your life to drastically low levels using spells that require massive payments of life (Hatred, Ad Nauseum, Unspeakable Symbol), Children of Korlis can quickly let you gain back all the life you paid, back to what it was before.
What will happen when Sanguine bond and gang is in play?
Tainted Sigil is a beefed up version of Children of Korlis, it takes into account all life lost during the turn. This is scary in multiplayer as any kind of spell/ability that deals damage to all opponents you will gain back the total the life lost by all players.
Hex Parasite
Under-rated card just like Children of Korlis. It has another use in this deck other than removing counters from problematic opposing planeswalkers and hydras. The purpose of including the hex parasite is to use its phyrexian mana ability to drastically lower our life so we can play life lose/gain shenanigans. Pay 0 and 2 life to remove 0 counters from any permanent, this is impossible to counter as it is a cost and not an effect.
Soul Conduit
An artifact version of Reverse the Sands, this card has quickly become a main-stay in the deck. It is extremely political and can be used to aid allies and play with opponents' life totals. The mana cost and activation cost of this card is quite high though, but the effect is worth the investment of mana. One thing to note is that through the exchange of life totals, players will gain or lose life. i.e. If you have 10 life and opponent has 30 and you both exchanged life totals, you gained 20 life and the opponent loses 20 life. This exchange of life will trigger card abilities like sanguine bond, exquisite blood etc.
Card Assessment - Politics
One of the ideas that make this deck really fun to play is the ability to play like a shadow priest in WoW (world of warcraft). In the game the shadow priest has healing/buffing capabilities and damaging abilities, which is the opposite of what a typical priest/healer is supposed to be only healing. The theme of healing not just oneself but others too fits the over theme of the deck and hence I incorporate some cards to help in this segment.
Benevolent Offering
A powerful political card, gives 3 tokens to you and an opponent of your choice, and it heals 6+ life to you and 2+ life to an opponent (can be another opponent). What makes this card so strong in the deck is due to its synergy with the soul sisters and Karlov. With a soul sister in play, casting benevolent offering yields 7x life gain triggers, 6 from the tokens ETB with soul sister and 1 from the spell itself. This translates to 14x +1/+1 counters on Karlov, just for 3W. With it being instant spell makes the card a really good combat trick to pull off when Karlov attacks.
Head Games
Best reverse tutor in the game. You can't be a support deck without playing this in your deck. Basically it can either gain your allies or gain you a frustrated opponent. Cast it on an ally to give them whatever they need for that moment or give them really bad cards to play with the current board state.
Shieldmage Advocate
A cleric with a love-hate relationship in my playgroup. Give opponents back their counterspell so they can stop another opponent from comboing off, or help prevent damage from a source that can get someone out of the game while giving a mana screwed opponent some help by returning their fetchland. The number of shenanigans you can pull off from this card really big, try it to believe it.
Deck ver 1.2
Table of Contents
Brief History of the deck
The roots of the deck started way back in year 2008, when I was just getting back into MTG. I had a very casual kitchen table play group where anything goes, from recurring nightmare combo decks to decks running yawgmoth will x 4 + wheel of fortune x 4 (with all the rituals boosters of red and black). I made a really fun to pull off combo deck then, with Ad Nauseum (no Tendrils of Agony, did't really like that card then) + Angel's Grace, followed by lotus petals, rituals, Sanguine Bond, Children of Korlis, Tainted Sigil to kill off the entire table.
It was fun, making and piloting the deck opened my eyes to a whole new perspective of MTG, the concept of resource. I started to realise that everything is a resource, from our own life points, opponent's lifepoints to their libraries.
Come 2011, I started playing EDH (commander), right when wotc printed the very first commander set, I tried to recreate my favorite kitchen deck using Ghave, Guru of Spores (since green gives life gaining effects too and the exceptionally powerful Spike Feeder). The deck just didn't feel right, the commander has nothing to do with life gain at all. Then came Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. He was good, a life gaining commander. But having blue in the deck makes him very hard to pilot, with the need to delicate slots to blue staple counterspells and draws. Worst is blue give NO contribution to the life gain/lost theme at all. Prior to the printing of Karlov, I dropped all blue cards in my Oloro deck, making it a really awkward orzhov deck with a commander I hardly even cast. Karlov is a god send, finally a commander that is worthy of the life-gain lost theme (not a fan of Selenia, Dark Angel).
Why you should consider this deck
This is the deck which is suitable for those who:
This deck might not be suitable to those who:
Decklist and Statistics
1x Karlov of the Ghost Council
//Soul Sisters (5)
1x Auriok Champion
1x Sunscorch Regent
1x Soul Warden
1x Soul's Attendant
1x Shattered Angel
//Life Gainers (7)
1x Children of Korlis
1x Archangel of Thune
1x Venser's Journal
1x Vizkopa Guildmage
1x Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
1x Elspeth Tirel
1x True Conviction
//Life Trades (8)
1x Sanguine Bond
1x Exquisite Blood
1x Tainted Sigil
1x Soul Conduit
1x Essence Harvest
1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1x Cliffhaven Vampire
1x Drana's Emissary
//Life Pay (3)
1x Unspeakable Symbol
1x Hatred
1x Hex Parasite
//Politics (3)
1x Head Games
1x Benevolent Offering
1x Shieldmage Advocate
//Ramps (12)
1x Crypt Ghast
1x Hedron Archive
1x Orzhov Signet
1x Sol Ring
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Pristine Talisman
1x Orzhov Keyrune
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Chromatic Lantern
1x Spectral Searchlight
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Coalition Relic
1x Phyrexian Reclamation
1x Sun Titan
//Draws (8)
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Wretched Confluence
1x Necropotence
1x Disciple of Bolas
1x Moonlight Bargain
1x Well of Lost Dreams
1x Graveborn Muse
1x Bloodgift Demon
//Tutor and Card Quality (7)
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Praetor's Grasp
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Weathered Wayfarer
1x Academy Rector
//Double Quality (1)
1x Alhammarret's Archive
//Protection (7)
1x Utter End
1x Path to Exile
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Austere Command
1x Return to Dust
1x Fiend Hunter
//Lands (36)
1x Scrubland
1x Godless Shrine
1x Isolated Chapel
1x Temple of Silence
1x Fetid Heath
1x Tainted Field
1x Command Tower
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Miren, the Moaning Well
1x Kor Haven
1x Starlit Sanctum
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Temple of the False God
1x Rainbow Vale
10x Plains
8x Swamp
1x Beacon of Immortality
1x Athreos, God of Passage
1x Shaman en Kor
1x Daru spiritualist
1x Suture Priest
1x Pontiff of Blight
1x Polluted Bonds
1x Exsanguinate
Statistics
Creatures: 23
Enchantments: 6
Artifacts: 17
Sorceries: 6
Instants: 11
Planeswalkers: 1
Lands : 36
Avg casting cost: 3.36
Link to deckstats:
Card Assessment
I find that doing the card assessment section first helps in achieving deeper understanding of the deck prior to strategies and combos.
Karlov of the Ghost Council
Karlov has 2 abilities:
Whenever you gain life, put two +1/+1 counters on Karlov of the Ghost Council.
The first ability is what we will focus on in the deck. With the many life gaining mechanisms littered all over the deck, it will trigger Karlov ability numerous times over the course of the game. This makes Karlov a very powerful voltron commander, often good enough to smash through opponents defenses without dying himself since is so huge from the life gain. It is a pity that his 2 predessors Ajani's Pridemate and Bloodbond Vampire are not featured in the current iteration of the deck due to lack of space.
WB, Remove six +1/+1 counters from Karlov of the Ghost Council: Exile target creature.
Ahh the icing on the cake. This is where the control aspect of Karlov comes in handy. After 3 instances of life gain, the ability to exile a creature becomes available. Having this ability makes karlov really good in board control until the deck's combo is set up. It also paints a huge target on Karlov making it a very effective lightning rod for removals. Keep WB open most of the time to prevent opponents from casting their own commanders.
Soul Sisters
The term "Soul Sisters" gain popularity from a standard deck with the same name, featuring Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant. In this EDH deck the 2 soul sister group is expanded to:
The trio of soul sisters (including Auriok Champion) triggers life gain when a creature ETBs. Sunscorch Regent is like a catch all "soul dragon lol" for all kinds of spells opponents cast + growing bigger himself just like Karlov. This dragon is one of the best creatures in the deck and usually is a KOS (kill on sight) card for most opponents. Shattered Angel is another under-rated creature to run in the deck. Land ETBs are the most common of all EDH decks and it will be really good to find a way to capitalise on it. This deck's focus is on life as a resource, think of our life points as the 2nd type of 'mana'. In EDH we start with 39 points of this resource (using the last point will make use lose the game). This resource is just like standard mana, we can add more of it or use it to fuel many of our spells and abilities. This category of cards here replenishes the life resource, and having at least 1 on board most of the time in the game is crucial to the deck's strategy.
You don't lose the game by losing huge chunks of life. Only the last point of life is crucial to winning or losing the game, the rest are all negligible.
2 worthly mentions here are Suture Priest and Polluted Bonds. Suture priest is like half of a soul sister combined with a Blood Seeker, one of the short comings of running her in the deck is it doesn't trigger life gain for us when an opponent's creature ETBs. Hence, no life gain = no bigger Karlov + pricking opponent's life = her being painted a target. With the lack of token generators in the deck it makes Suture Priest inferior to the rest of the group.
Polluted Bonds on the other hand, is much like a Shattered Angel but it damages opponents too. I would have included the card in I have more slots to play with.
Exquisite Blood
In the entire MTG card collection, Exquisite Blood is one of the only 2 cards that does something when an opponent loses life, with the other being Mind Crank which does nothing to help in the deck's strategy. This card works like a vampire, whatever "blood" (life) drained from opponents from any kind of activity will add to your life resource pool. This works tremendously well with many of the strategies used in the deck, much more than Sanguine Bond and friends does.
If you are not keen to add infinite combos into the deck and have to choose between Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond, I strongly recommend choosing the former. Let me paint a scenario:
What sanguine bond does is the same as what Karlov does, it triggers upon life gain. When a creature ETBs with a soul sister in play, sanguine bond triggers and an opponent is pricked 1 damage. Karlov gets 2x +1/+1 counters. Sanguine Bond doesn't trigger Karlov at all, in fact it can be treated as a "another karlov". Exquisite Blood works the opposite way, it triggers upon opponent's life loss, and gives a life gain trigger in return. This in turn activates Karlov's 1st ability, netting 2x +1/+1 counters. It is a symmetrical effect right? 1 life loss trigger to 1 life gain trigger? The answer is no, it is not symmetrical in terms of triggers.
Consider a multiplayer game of 4 players, the Karlov player and 3 opponents (oA, oB, oC). You have Drana's Emissary, Karlov and Exquisite Blood in play. On your upkeep emissary's ability triggers:
At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
oA loses 1 life, exquisite blood triggers. oB loses 1 life, exquisite blood triggers. oC loses 1 life, exquisite blood triggers. That is 3x life gain triggers you get, plus Drana's Emissary's 1 life gain trigger making it a total of 4x triggers. That is 8x +1/+1 counters on Karlov. With Archangel of thune, that is 4x +1/+1 counters on all your creatures. With Exquisite blood, extort ability becomes dangerous rather than an occasional prick.
Exquisite Blood's Partners in crime
This section is named as such as it contains cards that combos infinitely with Exquisite Blood, there are so many of them until I feel like dropping some of them.
Of the 3 above, the most common combo is Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood. Frankly speaking I'm torn between having either Sanguine Bond or Defiant Bloodlord in the deck, with the latter being a creature with an evasion ability, but cost a whooping 7 mana to cast. Vizkopa Guildmage is the strongest card in this category, with ability to give any creature lifelink (usually Karlov) and the 2nd ability is an upgraded version of Sanguine Bond's ability. Probably I'll axe Sanguine Bond in time as it is not performing really much in the deck as the guildmage is doing the heavy lifting most of the time.
Children of Korlis & Tainted Sigil
Children of Korlis is one of those cards which I find the rarity, casting cost and price of the card doesn't match the ability of the card at all. It cost a meager W, comes in a 1/1 body with a very powerful ability which allows the player to gain back whatever life he/she lost during the turn that cost only a sacrifice to activate. Too powerful.
At first glance, children of korlis is a defensive styled creature which sort of "negates" the damage dealt to the player when opponents attack him/her. In orzhov life matters deck however, children of korlis is treated as a tool to launch an offense against opponents. With the deck's ability to quickly lower your life to drastically low levels using spells that require massive payments of life (Hatred, Ad Nauseum, Unspeakable Symbol), Children of Korlis can quickly let you gain back all the life you paid, back to what it was before.
What will happen when Sanguine bond and gang is in play?
Tainted Sigil is a beefed up version of Children of Korlis, it takes into account all life lost during the turn. This is scary in multiplayer as any kind of spell/ability that deals damage to all opponents you will gain back the total the life lost by all players.
Hex Parasite
Under-rated card just like Children of Korlis. It has another use in this deck other than removing counters from problematic opposing planeswalkers and hydras. The purpose of including the hex parasite is to use its phyrexian mana ability to drastically lower our life so we can play life lose/gain shenanigans. Pay 0 and 2 life to remove 0 counters from any permanent, this is impossible to counter as it is a cost and not an effect.
Soul Conduit
An artifact version of Reverse the Sands, this card has quickly become a main-stay in the deck. It is extremely political and can be used to aid allies and play with opponents' life totals. The mana cost and activation cost of this card is quite high though, but the effect is worth the investment of mana. One thing to note is that through the exchange of life totals, players will gain or lose life. i.e. If you have 10 life and opponent has 30 and you both exchanged life totals, you gained 20 life and the opponent loses 20 life. This exchange of life will trigger card abilities like sanguine bond, exquisite blood etc.
Card Assessment - Politics
One of the ideas that make this deck really fun to play is the ability to play like a shadow priest in WoW (world of warcraft). In the game the shadow priest has healing/buffing capabilities and damaging abilities, which is the opposite of what a typical priest/healer is supposed to be only healing. The theme of healing not just oneself but others too fits the over theme of the deck and hence I incorporate some cards to help in this segment.
Benevolent Offering
A powerful political card, gives 3 tokens to you and an opponent of your choice, and it heals 6+ life to you and 2+ life to an opponent (can be another opponent). What makes this card so strong in the deck is due to its synergy with the soul sisters and Karlov. With a soul sister in play, casting benevolent offering yields 7x life gain triggers, 6 from the tokens ETB with soul sister and 1 from the spell itself. This translates to 14x +1/+1 counters on Karlov, just for 3W. With it being instant spell makes the card a really good combat trick to pull off when Karlov attacks.
Head Games
Best reverse tutor in the game. You can't be a support deck without playing this in your deck. Basically it can either gain your allies or gain you a frustrated opponent. Cast it on an ally to give them whatever they need for that moment or give them really bad cards to play with the current board state.
Shieldmage Advocate
A cleric with a love-hate relationship in my playgroup. Give opponents back their counterspell so they can stop another opponent from comboing off, or help prevent damage from a source that can get someone out of the game while giving a mana screwed opponent some help by returning their fetchland. The number of shenanigans you can pull off from this card really big, try it to believe it.
General Strategy
Coming soon...
Combos
Coming soon...
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused