This deck is a little bit of fun, nothing too serious. More of a show case for a new card from Guilds of Ravinca in the mighty Doom Whisperer.
Since Griselbrand was banned from the commander format basically before the ink was even dry on the cardboard, we've been looking for alternatives to break the format. Razaketh, the Foulblooded has been the closest thing, and in many ways he does not disappoint.
But 'Pay 2 Life: Surveil 2' certainly grabbed my attention and I couldn't resist coming up with a combo deck.
With Commanders 40 life to play with, the potential to use this ability multiple times in a single turn certainly gives us a lot of scope.
The combo(s) I have come up with are mainly centered around milling as much of your deck with his ability, and hoping to potentially hit a number of different cards to gain life back, as well as get deeper into win conditions.
When I initially started this thread concept and playing the deck I had an Abzan build, splashing for some particular Green cards. However I figured I was able to make it a straight up Orzov build, as there is enough elements that you can just play Black and White.
I've still listed in the Abzan deck, but if you're wanting to put the deck together you can easily get away with a much simplified version in Black and White.
The idea is that once we have Doom Whisperer in play we can put as many cards into our graveyard from our library as we have life.
So for example if you are still on 36 life, then you can look to go as deep as 34 cards initially.
Once you do one of these big life gain tricks, then you can realistically look to put as much of your library into your graveyard as you want. You can chain a number of them together, to get the ball rolling as such.
The idea is that we are going to do a Dread Return or Unburial Rites on Angel of Glory's Rise, which will bring all our humans into play from our graveyard. There are 46 humans in the deck, and Zulaport Cutthroat and/or Blood Artist and/or Pious Evangel are going to be used to deal the required 40 life to each opponent, through your own sacrificing.
Also you can use Balthor the Defiled as a backup plan or alternative to bring back all your black creatures. This will also bring back the Demons and Blood Artist.
There are probably hundreds of ways you can win with putting your library into your graveyard. I specifically wanted to stay away from Laboratory Maniac as this is a bit done-to-death, and also didn't really want blue in the deck. But I'm really keen to hear other win conditions and combos people can think of with a Doom Whisperer who can Surveil potentially your entire library?
I chose Tymna the Weaver as one of the commanders for the deck, to enable some limited card draw. Athreos, God of Passage is a popular commander for Shadowborn Apostle decks, but I'm specifically not that interested in so much getting value out of the Shadowborn Apostle, except for the initial Demon search and then the final kill.
Ravos, Soultender isn't all that important to the overall strategy of the deck. But he can provide some value, and with Tymna and Ravos being clerics along with much of the deck also being clerics, it does give you an excuse to bring the deck to a tribal game.
Obviously the more Shadowborn Apostle you play in a deck, the more likely you are going to reach the "6" to sacrifice. But finding a balance between having useful cards and numbers of them is a fine balancing act.
I have never played with Shadowborn Apostle before, so I am keen to hear of other people experience with them and how many they play in their decks for achieving what they want to do?
Mathematically speaking if you wanted to statistically consistently have 6 of them by Turn 3 (i.e. play 1 on Turn 1, play 2 on Turn 2, play 3 on Turn 3), then you would want around 66 of them. 2/3 of your deck, and drawing 10 cards (7 starting hand and 3 draws).
However you do need to play other cards in the deck for combos, and even a few for disruption, as you do need to worry about graveyard hate.
So in the end I've got 38. We should be able to draw more cards off Tymna the Weaver giving us the necessary draw engine ticking along. So we should still hit the "6" number fairly quickly.
Statistically speaking we should naturally be drawing 4 of them by Turn 3. But as I say we will be looking to draw extra off Tymna the Weaver, so we can realistically draw our other needed 2, in a few turns easily.
There are some classic support cards for Shadowborn Apostle with Thrumming Stone. With 40% of the deck being Shadowborn Apostle you have four chances at hitting at least of them, so it's likely that you will be able to go through your whole deck casting them! You will be quite unlucky for the ripple effect to stop. But that's OK, it's not our main plan anyway.
So there are literally hundreds of potential support cards for Shadowborn Apostle, but honestly the focus of the deck is actually Doom Whisperer and his 'Pay 2 Life: Surveil 2'.
So I'm not including draw cards like Grim Haruspex, Harvester of Souls, Krav, the Unredeemed. The main reason is slots in the deck are tight, but also that you are not looking for cards in hand once you get 6 x Shadowborn Apostle, you are actually happier to get cards into graveyard. It can even be detrimental to draw particular cards once you're looking to combo, as you really want everything in your graveyard.
I'm also not playing any control roles, so classical great cards like Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, that work so well with Shadowborn Apostle are not in the deck, mainly because of the linear game plan, and also because actually finding room for them outside of the combos is really hard.
There is no additional Demon versatility with backup win plans of Liliana's Contract, etc. I've built the deck to show case Doom Whisperer, and thus not trying to make it an all rounded deck. That is actually hard to do when you need to play a number of Shadowborn Apostle in the first place. Making room for cards for backup plans, just means you dilute the decks chance of winning the way you want it to.
The win condition is to get Zulaport Cutthroat into play with Angel of Glory's Rise. As you should be putting all Shadowborn Apostle into play you can look to sacrifice them all to deal 40 (or 80) damage. Pitiless Plunderer is a human, which you can just look to help with paying for the B each time you sacrifice 6 Shadowborn Apostle. You might not need this as potentially you will be tapping Crypt of Agadeem for 30+ mana, but there are some sequences where it doesn't line up like that.
Blood Artist is not a human, but it is another means to win.
We want to keep our life total nice and high through the game, before we start using Doom Whisperer.
So we have Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Zulaport Cutthroat, Pious Evangel, that can all gain us a lot of life.
It's important to note that if you're using Angel of Glory's Rise to bring your humans into play, then you're going to gain hundreds of life gaining triggers from these creatures.
How to sequence your wins?
Pretty much we are wanting to keep our life total relatively high so that we can 'Pay 2 Life: Surveil 2' for our entire deck.
Most of the time you're just going to sacrifice 6 Shadowborn Apostle to get Doom Whisperer into play.
You want to have at least 3W available for the flashback of Unburial Rites. It also pays to have 3 creatures in play for the flashback of Dread Return.
So you need to really start your turn with all your mana available before you start surveil combo.
Often I will start doing it in my upkeep, surveil until there might be a card that I want. Looking for maybe, one of the reanimation auras (Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead), Children of Korlis, Songs of the Damned, are common ones I'll be happy to draw.
Just as a note, sometimes you opponents might be on more than 40 life. Just sacrificing the 38 Shadowborn Apostle will only do 38 life if say you only have the Zulaport Cutthroat doing the damage.
You can use Razaketh, the Foulblooded to sacrifice some of the other creatures to push through some more damage.
It is possible that Razaketh, the Foulblooded is put into your graveyard (from surveil) and you have Unburial Rites or Dread Return. There is an inherit advantage in having him in play as you can access to your deck. At that stage you can get an Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead to bring one of the life gain creatures into play.
This way you can use Razaketh, the Foulblooded to sacrifice the Angel of Glory's Rise and then use another reanimation card to bring it back into play, to start the whole process again.
This way you can normally get people on 100 life type thing.
If you come up against a counterspell or disruption deck in general, then you can go for Razaketh, the Foulblooded as your first Demon and the search for Grand Abolisher and Cavern of Souls and there is nothing they can do to stop you.
First, mad props for the name of the thread. Well done. Doom Whisperer is pleased.
Second, this is an interesting concept. My initial thought is to lean into the Children of Korlis and include a Reanimator package somehow. By consistently recurring the Children, you should be able to more easily Surveil your deck and win. There could also be some fun instances where you gain enough life with the Children that you can kill people with Aetherflux Reservoir. By surveiling enough times with the Whisperer and Reanimating the Children enough times, possibly in some sort of infinite loop via Reveillark combo, you could potentially gain an infinite amount of life. Take that, Spellslinger decks! Killing people without casting more than 5 spells in one turn! Hah!
First, mad props for the name of the thread. Well done. Doom Whisperer is pleased.
Second, this is an interesting concept. My initial thought is to lean into the Children of Korlis and include a Reanimator package somehow. By consistently recurring the Children, you should be able to more easily Surveil your deck and win. There could also be some fun instances where you gain enough life with the Children that you can kill people with Aetherflux Reservoir. By surveiling enough times with the Whisperer and Reanimating the Children enough times, possibly in some sort of infinite loop via Reveillark combo, you could potentially gain an infinite amount of life. Take that, Spellslinger decks! Killing people without casting more than 5 spells in one turn! Hah!
Heh, I had to give myself a pat on the back for the name
I wanted to put Aetherflux Reservoir in, but there no real good way of getting it if it goes to graveyard, where as the rest are all setup so you can just keep milling as much as you want.
You're most likely right on the backup win condition, so I'm going to add Pious Evangel as it's another human.
Realistically the way you're going to get blown out the most is by instant speed graveyard removal. The best timing would be when you're going for the Angel of Glory's Rise and somebody removes it in response to your Dread Return or Unburial Rites.
You're not beating an on-board removal all graveyard card, so you're just going to have to use a tutor for Nature's Claim, etc
So I could see Rally the Ancestors or Immortal Servitude as being an excellent backup plan for this.
I removed cards that have life loss, and also decided any extra tutors are not necessary as you can piggyback off Razaketh, the Foulblooded for any particular cards.
Kraul Prey Snatcher was spoiled in Guilds of Ravnica as well, so another reanimation target for the deck. It's not a human, and it is definitely the worst of the life gaining combo cards, but it is still worth it, as it will up the % of hitting a card that allows you to keep Surveil-ing.
It's times like these I wish the forums had a sort of upvote system. I applaud the creativity and strength of this idea.
Just so I don't spam up your thread, let me ask a question. I've looked at Shadowborn Apostle decks before, and most of them either go GB for Bloodbond March or BW for Athreos, God of Passage. Since you have access to both colors, why aren't you including the god?
It's times like these I wish the forums had a sort of upvote system. I applaud the creativity and strength of this idea.
Just so I don't spam up your thread, let me ask a question. I've looked at Shadowborn Apostle decks before, and most of them either go GB for Bloodbond March or BW for Athreos, God of Passage. Since you have access to both colors, why aren't you including the god?
If we look at the sequencing, I actually would prefer them to go to graveyard. Because when I cast Bloodbond March they will return to play at no cost.
If they were returned to hand then I'd need to recast each one of them out again, which would set me back a turn or two.
Now this is all in a perfect world where nobody removes the Bloodbond March. However the advantage of Bloodbond March is that you should get at least one use out of it, because it's a "cast" trigger. So you play the Bloodbond March and then will still have priority to cast another Shadowborn Apostle, bringing them back to play.
So Athreos, God of Passage could be a sort of backup card, but honestly it doesn't really fit the sequencing.
There are other cards like Enduring Renewal that also do this sort of thing, but as I say these are for decks that are looking to grind opponents out with multiple Demons, and looking to win the game with maybe Liliana's Contract or over-welming them with big flying combat damage.
Well I should have though about these from the start, but it wasn't until I drew my life gain Ancestor's Chosen, so couldn't Dread Return it on the combo, and was thinking it was necessary for a backup creature. Well duh, Resolute Archangel and Exquisite Archangel are the answer.
Oh well after putting the deck through the paces, I figured out that most of the time you can go straight for the Doom Whisperer as your first Demon, and not bother with anything else like the Bloodbond March.
With this in mind, I actually decided that a straight up Orzov White/Black deck is more than fine. So cutting the Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa, Bloodbond March and Gnaw to the Bone is fine. The Life from the Loam was waaaay to slow to use for this combo I found. Admittedly Gnaw to the Bone was a good one, used that a few times.
But the mana base is just a lot cleaner. You were a bit susceptible to getting the wrong colored mana every so often, and taking damage from lands did happen, which you want to save as much as possible.
I'm still going with Tymna the Weaver and then decided might as well keep it in black/white with Ravos, Soultender. Makes it a fairly cleric tribal deck as well, so quite good for tribal games as well.
People I play against keep asking why I don't play Athreos, God of Passage and the simple answer is that I just don't need the Shadowborn Apostle back into my hand once I've used them once. They are better off in my graveyard. Admittedly Athreos, God of Passage can give you a bit of protection up until that point, i.e. people are unlikely to remove them say if you have 4 in play, but if you come up against smart opponents then they will take the 3 life and make sure you don't get them back leading up to the first Demon.
But anyway I'd prefer the draw with Tymna the Weaver, actually getting land drops, etc is more important.
All in all the deck is the same, just a few tweaks, like Blood Artist as extra damage and Kambal, Consul of Allocation for some extra life gain, which is really important when you want to start the combo.
Added Vampiric Tutor because you can ensure that you put a key card into your graveyard. The number of times I've sweated it going down to my last life points hoping for something! If I just had a Vampiric Tutor then I can always guarantee something.
So yeah basically you just want to put Doom Whisperer into play and just for the combo as soon as you can, normally you don't need to fuss about too much.
You want realistically 3W open for the Unburial Rites. Dread Return can bail you out for no mana. So you need to really start your turn with all your mana available before you start surveil combo.
Often I will start doing it in my upkeep, surveil until there might be a card that I want. Looking for maybe, one of the reanimation auras (Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead/Necromancy), Children of Korlis, Songs of the Damned, are common ones I'll be happy to draw.
I've never once cast Ancestral Tribute, it could be cut, but might as well leave it in as it sort of gives a clear picture of what the deck is about.
Since Griselbrand was banned from the commander format basically before the ink was even dry on the cardboard, we've been looking for alternatives to break the format. Razaketh, the Foulblooded has been the closest thing, and in many ways he does not disappoint.
But 'Pay 2 Life: Surveil 2' certainly grabbed my attention and I couldn't resist coming up with a combo deck.
With Commanders 40 life to play with, the potential to use this ability multiple times in a single turn certainly gives us a lot of scope.
The combo(s) I have come up with are mainly centered around milling as much of your deck with his ability, and hoping to potentially hit a number of different cards to gain life back, as well as get deeper into win conditions.
When I initially started this thread concept and playing the deck I had an Abzan build, splashing for some particular Green cards. However I figured I was able to make it a straight up Orzov build, as there is enough elements that you can just play Black and White.
I've still listed in the Abzan deck, but if you're wanting to put the deck together you can easily get away with a much simplified version in Black and White.
Right so we have five main ways of recouping our life once we start chaining the Surveil 2 together; Ancestral Tribute, Ancestor's Chosen, Resolute Archangel, Exquisite Archangel, Children of Korlis.
There are more life gaining creatures in the deck, but these cards represent how we are mainly looking to keep our ability to keep 'Surveil 2'.
The idea is that once we have Doom Whisperer in play we can put as many cards into our graveyard from our library as we have life.
So for example if you are still on 36 life, then you can look to go as deep as 34 cards initially.
What we want to happen is to hit a combination of cards into our graveyard. We have flashback cards which will help us to achieve life gain.
In order to get Ancestor's Chosen, Resolute Archangel, Exquisite Archangel, Children of Korlis into play we have either Dread Return or Unburial Rites that can be flashback. Also there is Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, that if you already have in hand can help with the combo.
Another plan is we can look to cast Ancestral Tribute from our graveyard.
Ancestral Tribute does cost a lot of mana, so what we are looking to do to set this up is to use Crypt of Agadeem or Songs of the Damned as a way to pay for this.
The deck has 45 black creatures, so your chances of meeting the high threshold are almost guaranteed.
Now you can cast Ancestral Tribute by probably tapping 2WWW + Crypt of Agadeem.
Or Songs of the Damned + WWW.
Once you do one of these big life gain tricks, then you can realistically look to put as much of your library into your graveyard as you want. You can chain a number of them together, to get the ball rolling as such.
The idea is that we are going to do a Dread Return or Unburial Rites on Angel of Glory's Rise, which will bring all our humans into play from our graveyard. There are 46 humans in the deck, and Zulaport Cutthroat and/or Blood Artist and/or Pious Evangel are going to be used to deal the required 40 life to each opponent, through your own sacrificing.
Also you can use Balthor the Defiled as a backup plan or alternative to bring back all your black creatures. This will also bring back the Demons and Blood Artist.
Why Shadowborn Apostles?
We have 38 Shadowborn Apostle in the deck. They serve multiple purposes to combo.
1) Can be used to put Doom Whisperer into play, the signature card of the deck.
2) Can be used to tutor for specific cards with Demons that also tutor in Razaketh, the Foulblooded or Rune-Scarred Demon.
3) Are black creatures for Crypt of Agadeem.
4) Are humans for Angel of Glory's Rise.
5) Are black creatures for Balthor the Defiled.
6) Can be self sacrificed for Zulaport Cutthroat / Blood Artist wins.
There are probably hundreds of ways you can win with putting your library into your graveyard. I specifically wanted to stay away from Laboratory Maniac as this is a bit done-to-death, and also didn't really want blue in the deck. But I'm really keen to hear other win conditions and combos people can think of with a Doom Whisperer who can Surveil potentially your entire library?
I chose Tymna the Weaver as one of the commanders for the deck, to enable some limited card draw.
Athreos, God of Passage is a popular commander for Shadowborn Apostle decks, but I'm specifically not that interested in so much getting value out of the Shadowborn Apostle, except for the initial Demon search and then the final kill.
Ravos, Soultender isn't all that important to the overall strategy of the deck. But he can provide some value, and with Tymna and Ravos being clerics along with much of the deck also being clerics, it does give you an excuse to bring the deck to a tribal game.
Obviously the more Shadowborn Apostle you play in a deck, the more likely you are going to reach the "6" to sacrifice. But finding a balance between having useful cards and numbers of them is a fine balancing act.
I have never played with Shadowborn Apostle before, so I am keen to hear of other people experience with them and how many they play in their decks for achieving what they want to do?
Mathematically speaking if you wanted to statistically consistently have 6 of them by Turn 3 (i.e. play 1 on Turn 1, play 2 on Turn 2, play 3 on Turn 3), then you would want around 66 of them. 2/3 of your deck, and drawing 10 cards (7 starting hand and 3 draws).
However you do need to play other cards in the deck for combos, and even a few for disruption, as you do need to worry about graveyard hate.
So in the end I've got 38. We should be able to draw more cards off Tymna the Weaver giving us the necessary draw engine ticking along. So we should still hit the "6" number fairly quickly.
Statistically speaking we should naturally be drawing 4 of them by Turn 3. But as I say we will be looking to draw extra off Tymna the Weaver, so we can realistically draw our other needed 2, in a few turns easily.
There are some classic support cards for Shadowborn Apostle with Thrumming Stone. With 40% of the deck being Shadowborn Apostle you have four chances at hitting at least of them, so it's likely that you will be able to go through your whole deck casting them! You will be quite unlucky for the ripple effect to stop. But that's OK, it's not our main plan anyway.
So there are literally hundreds of potential support cards for Shadowborn Apostle, but honestly the focus of the deck is actually Doom Whisperer and his 'Pay 2 Life: Surveil 2'.
So I'm not including draw cards like Grim Haruspex, Harvester of Souls, Krav, the Unredeemed. The main reason is slots in the deck are tight, but also that you are not looking for cards in hand once you get 6 x Shadowborn Apostle, you are actually happier to get cards into graveyard. It can even be detrimental to draw particular cards once you're looking to combo, as you really want everything in your graveyard.
I'm also not playing any control roles, so classical great cards like Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, that work so well with Shadowborn Apostle are not in the deck, mainly because of the linear game plan, and also because actually finding room for them outside of the combos is really hard.
There is no additional Demon versatility with backup win plans of Liliana's Contract, etc. I've built the deck to show case Doom Whisperer, and thus not trying to make it an all rounded deck. That is actually hard to do when you need to play a number of Shadowborn Apostle in the first place. Making room for cards for backup plans, just means you dilute the decks chance of winning the way you want it to.
The win condition is to get Zulaport Cutthroat into play with Angel of Glory's Rise. As you should be putting all Shadowborn Apostle into play you can look to sacrifice them all to deal 40 (or 80) damage.
Pitiless Plunderer is a human, which you can just look to help with paying for the B each time you sacrifice 6 Shadowborn Apostle. You might not need this as potentially you will be tapping Crypt of Agadeem for 30+ mana, but there are some sequences where it doesn't line up like that.
Note that Ancestor's Chosen and Children of Korlis are also humans so can be brought into play off Angel of Glory's Rise.
Blood Artist is not a human, but it is another means to win.
We want to keep our life total nice and high through the game, before we start using Doom Whisperer.
So we have Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Zulaport Cutthroat, Pious Evangel, that can all gain us a lot of life.
It's important to note that if you're using Angel of Glory's Rise to bring your humans into play, then you're going to gain hundreds of life gaining triggers from these creatures.
How to sequence your wins?
Pretty much we are wanting to keep our life total relatively high so that we can 'Pay 2 Life: Surveil 2' for our entire deck.
Most of the time you're just going to sacrifice 6 Shadowborn Apostle to get Doom Whisperer into play.
You want to have at least 3W available for the flashback of Unburial Rites. It also pays to have 3 creatures in play for the flashback of Dread Return.
So you need to really start your turn with all your mana available before you start surveil combo.
Often I will start doing it in my upkeep, surveil until there might be a card that I want. Looking for maybe, one of the reanimation auras (Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead), Children of Korlis, Songs of the Damned, are common ones I'll be happy to draw.
Sometimes you might have to string together a few life gaining card to get the full win.
For example you might have Unburial Rites and Exquisite Archangel in your graveyard, but still waiting for the Angel of Glory's Rise or Balthor the Defiled.
You know a Dread Return will be coming up so you can use the Unburial Rites on the Exquisite Archangel to bring your life total back up to 40 life.
Just as a note, sometimes you opponents might be on more than 40 life. Just sacrificing the 38 Shadowborn Apostle will only do 38 life if say you only have the Zulaport Cutthroat doing the damage.
You can use Razaketh, the Foulblooded to sacrifice some of the other creatures to push through some more damage.
It is possible that Razaketh, the Foulblooded is put into your graveyard (from surveil) and you have Unburial Rites or Dread Return. There is an inherit advantage in having him in play as you can access to your deck. At that stage you can get an Animate Dead or Dance of the Dead to bring one of the life gain creatures into play.
This way you can use Razaketh, the Foulblooded to sacrifice the Angel of Glory's Rise and then use another reanimation card to bring it back into play, to start the whole process again.
This way you can normally get people on 100 life type thing.
If you come up against a counterspell or disruption deck in general, then you can go for Razaketh, the Foulblooded as your first Demon and the search for Grand Abolisher and Cavern of Souls and there is nothing they can do to stop you.
1 Tymna the Weaver
1 Ravos, Soultender
37 Shadowborn Apostle
1 Thrumming Stone
Demons
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
Life gain (combo)
1 Children of Korlis
1 Aven Shrine
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Resolute Archangel
1 Exquisite Archangel
1 Ancestral Tribute
Humans
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Pitiless Plunderer
Graveyard
1 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead
1 Balthor the Defiled
1 Dread Return
1 Unburial Rites
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Lingering Souls
1 Secret Salvage
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
Disruption
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Oblation
Mana
1 Songs of the Damned
1 Sol Ring
1 Land Tax
Lands (32)
1 Crypt of Agadeem
1 Command Tower
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Scrubland
1 Godless Shrine
1 Fetid Heath
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Concealed Courtyard
1 Temple of Silence
1 Silent Clearing
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Windbrisk Heights
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Plains
7 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Second, this is an interesting concept. My initial thought is to lean into the Children of Korlis and include a Reanimator package somehow. By consistently recurring the Children, you should be able to more easily Surveil your deck and win. There could also be some fun instances where you gain enough life with the Children that you can kill people with Aetherflux Reservoir. By surveiling enough times with the Whisperer and Reanimating the Children enough times, possibly in some sort of infinite loop via Reveillark combo, you could potentially gain an infinite amount of life. Take that, Spellslinger decks! Killing people without casting more than 5 spells in one turn! Hah!
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I wanted to put Aetherflux Reservoir in, but there no real good way of getting it if it goes to graveyard, where as the rest are all setup so you can just keep milling as much as you want.
Good point, I've correct it to 34 life.
You're most likely right on the backup win condition, so I'm going to add Pious Evangel as it's another human.
Realistically the way you're going to get blown out the most is by instant speed graveyard removal. The best timing would be when you're going for the Angel of Glory's Rise and somebody removes it in response to your Dread Return or Unburial Rites.
You're not beating an on-board removal all graveyard card, so you're just going to have to use a tutor for Nature's Claim, etc
So I could see Rally the Ancestors or Immortal Servitude as being an excellent backup plan for this.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
I hadn't researched green cards much, as originally I was making a black and white deck.
But I found some more flashback cards in green with Gnaw to the Bone and Creeping Renaissance.
I wanted to add some more life gain to keep your life total as high as possible, so added some soul sister cards.
Added
+ Gnaw to the Bone
+ Soul Warden
+ Soul's Attendant
+ Pious Evangel
+ Immortal Servitude
+ Creeping Renaissance
Removed
- Mana Crypt
- Dark Confidant
- Vampiric Tutor
- Entomb
- Crop Rotation
- Expedition Map
I removed cards that have life loss, and also decided any extra tutors are not necessary as you can piggyback off Razaketh, the Foulblooded for any particular cards.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Looks fun, and I'll consider this as reference if I'll make an apostle deck.
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Added
+ Kraul Prey Snatcher
Removed
- Shadowborn Apostle
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Just so I don't spam up your thread, let me ask a question. I've looked at Shadowborn Apostle decks before, and most of them either go GB for Bloodbond March or BW for Athreos, God of Passage. Since you have access to both colors, why aren't you including the god?
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Athreos, God of Passage is more used for grinding, repeated use out of your Shadowborn Apostle.
If we look at the sequencing, I actually would prefer them to go to graveyard. Because when I cast Bloodbond March they will return to play at no cost.
If they were returned to hand then I'd need to recast each one of them out again, which would set me back a turn or two.
Now this is all in a perfect world where nobody removes the Bloodbond March. However the advantage of Bloodbond March is that you should get at least one use out of it, because it's a "cast" trigger. So you play the Bloodbond March and then will still have priority to cast another Shadowborn Apostle, bringing them back to play.
So Athreos, God of Passage could be a sort of backup card, but honestly it doesn't really fit the sequencing.
There are other cards like Enduring Renewal that also do this sort of thing, but as I say these are for decks that are looking to grind opponents out with multiple Demons, and looking to win the game with maybe Liliana's Contract or over-welming them with big flying combat damage.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
In fact with Exquisite Archangel you can surveil into oblivion.
Added
+ Resolute Archangel
+ Exquisite Archangel
Removed
- Yawgmoth's Will
- Shadowborn Apostle
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Building: Varina
Also the on color shrines of Green(Nantuko Shrine) and White(Aven Shrine) are workhorses I have found in Apostle decks.
Edgewalker is also a really strong card in a deck with as many clerics (including a Commander) as this one will have.
And more recent tech Secret Salvage turns a single dead Apostle into ALL the Apostles very very quickly.
[EDIT]
Added
+ Aven Shrine
+ Edgewalker
+ Lion's Eye Diamond
Removed
- Hermit Druid
- Abrupt Decay
- Deserted Temple
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
With this in mind, I actually decided that a straight up Orzov White/Black deck is more than fine. So cutting the Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa, Bloodbond March and Gnaw to the Bone is fine. The Life from the Loam was waaaay to slow to use for this combo I found. Admittedly Gnaw to the Bone was a good one, used that a few times.
But the mana base is just a lot cleaner. You were a bit susceptible to getting the wrong colored mana every so often, and taking damage from lands did happen, which you want to save as much as possible.
So I've added some reanimation cards with Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy.
The reason is that I've got three creatures that can further the loop, Ancestor's Chosen, Resolute Archangel, Exquisite Archangel, so your chances to hit one with surveil are very high and this just allows you to keep extending the combo.
I'm still going with Tymna the Weaver and then decided might as well keep it in black/white with Ravos, Soultender. Makes it a fairly cleric tribal deck as well, so quite good for tribal games as well.
People I play against keep asking why I don't play Athreos, God of Passage and the simple answer is that I just don't need the Shadowborn Apostle back into my hand once I've used them once. They are better off in my graveyard. Admittedly Athreos, God of Passage can give you a bit of protection up until that point, i.e. people are unlikely to remove them say if you have 4 in play, but if you come up against smart opponents then they will take the 3 life and make sure you don't get them back leading up to the first Demon.
But anyway I'd prefer the draw with Tymna the Weaver, actually getting land drops, etc is more important.
All in all the deck is the same, just a few tweaks, like Blood Artist as extra damage and Kambal, Consul of Allocation for some extra life gain, which is really important when you want to start the combo.
Added Vampiric Tutor because you can ensure that you put a key card into your graveyard. The number of times I've sweated it going down to my last life points hoping for something! If I just had a Vampiric Tutor then I can always guarantee something.
So yeah basically you just want to put Doom Whisperer into play and just for the combo as soon as you can, normally you don't need to fuss about too much.
You want realistically 3W open for the Unburial Rites. Dread Return can bail you out for no mana. So you need to really start your turn with all your mana available before you start surveil combo.
Often I will start doing it in my upkeep, surveil until there might be a card that I want. Looking for maybe, one of the reanimation auras (Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead/Necromancy), Children of Korlis, Songs of the Damned, are common ones I'll be happy to draw.
I've never once cast Ancestral Tribute, it could be cut, but might as well leave it in as it sort of gives a clear picture of what the deck is about.
1 Tymna the Weaver
1 Ravos, Soultender
38 Shadowborn Apostle
1 Thrumming Stone
Demons
1 Doom Whisperer
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
Life gain (combo)
1 Children of Korlis
1 Blood Artist
1 Aven Shrine
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Resolute Archangel
1 Exquisite Archangel
1 Ancestral Tribute
Humans
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Edgewalker
1 Pious Evangel
1 Pitiless Plunderer
1 Animate Dead
1 Dance of the Dead
1 Necromancy
1 Dread Return
1 Unburial Rites
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Immortal Servitude
Tutors
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
Disruption
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Anguished Unmaking
Mana
1 Songs of the Damned
1 Sol Ring
Lands (30)
1 Crypt of Agadeem
1 Command Tower
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Scrubland
1 Godless Shrine
1 Fetid Heath
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
6 Plains
7 Swamps
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith