After seeing your only 20 Swamps followed by Corrupt, the very first thing to do with this deck is to add more lands. 20 lands is almost always never enough for a 60 card constructed deck. The exceptions are some kinds of combo decks and heavy aggro. Most midrange decks work best with about 24 lands. Controllish decks may want 25 or even more, running a total of 28 or so is not that uncommon for such decks. And with all the other costlier cards in the deck, you definitely want at least 24 lands. More swamps will also make Corrupt more powerful, because a) you actually get to play it in time and b) it will do more damage and gain you more life. Quag Sickness wil also profit from more Swamps.
Deathtouch is rather pointless for big creatures, because they likely kill whatever is stupid enough to get in their way with their power alone. Unless you also combine deathtouch with trample, a trample deathtouch creature is a very potent threat, since it is practically impossible to chump block it. (To explain: since any amount of damage from a source with deathtouch is considered lethal for assigning combat damage, you can assign a single point of damage to a blocker each, and all the rest can be trampled over to the player/planeswalker.) So without also granting trample to your big creatures or playing some that have trample already, Archetype of Finality is rather pointless. And taking away deathtoch from your opponent's creatures is simply not worth the cost of this card.
You want to be playing full sets of your best cards in a constructed deck. While lots of 1-ofs make for more divese games, it also makes for a less powerful deck. For example, Ruthless Ripper, Typhoid Rats and Pharika's Chosen basically are the same, except, that the Ripper can be more, so it is obviously better than the other two. So run as many Rippers as possible before adding Rats and Chosen. Likewise Vampire Nighthawk is so much better than Deathgaze Cockatrice.
It would help a lot to know what else you have available to build your deck, especially nonbasic lands and artifacts like equipment. Or how much money you would be willing to spend to get cards.
After seeing your only 20 Swamps followed by Corrupt, the very first thing to do with this deck is to add more lands. 20 lands is almost always never enough for a 60 card constructed deck. The exceptions are some kinds of combo decks and heavy aggro. Most midrange decks work best with about 24 lands. Controllish decks may want 25 or even more, running a total of 28 or so is not that uncommon for such decks. And with all the other costlier cards in the deck, you definitely want at least 24 lands. More swamps will also make Corrupt more powerful, because a) you actually get to play it in time and b) it will do more damage and gain you more life. Quag Sickness wil also profit from more Swamps.
Deathtouch is rather pointless for big creatures, because they likely kill whatever is stupid enough to get in their way with their power alone. Unless you also combine deathtouch with trample, a trample deathtouch creature is a very potent threat, since it is practically impossible to chump block it. (To explain: since any amount of damage from a source with deathtouch is considered lethal for assigning combat damage, you can assign a single point of damage to a blocker each, and all the rest can be trampled over to the player/planeswalker.) So without also granting trample to your big creatures or playing some that have trample already, Archetype of Finality is rather pointless. And taking away deathtoch from your opponent's creatures is simply not worth the cost of this card.
You want to be playing full sets of your best cards in a constructed deck. While lots of 1-ofs make for more divese games, it also makes for a less powerful deck. For example, Ruthless Ripper, Typhoid Rats and Pharika's Chosen basically are the same, except, that the Ripper can be more, so it is obviously better than the other two. So run as many Rippers as possible before adding Rats and Chosen. Likewise Vampire Nighthawk is so much better than Deathgaze Cockatrice.
It would help a lot to know what else you have available to build your deck, especially nonbasic lands and artifacts like equipment. Or how much money you would be willing to spend to get cards.
I have a large amount of Black cards, easily 500-750+, so I think it would be easier to just get recommendations of what type of cards i should look into adding/getting. I tried to add as many copies of creatures as i could, so for the instances you mentioned whats in my deck is all i have atm. I am not against buying individual cards to complete this deck tho.
Of those cards, I think, the following ones should be included:
Diabolic Tutor - It acts as additional copies of scarce cards, like Grave Titan, and thus increases consistency and power of the deck.
Butcher of Malakir - with this on the battlefield, combat with your small deathtouch creatures becomes even less desirable, since the opponent would lose two creatures against your one deathtoucher.
Damnable Pact - It's both a scalable card draw effect for yourself and a means to kill your opponent.
Other possible inclusions are
Nightmare - since it only really shines in monoblack decks with few to none nonbasic lands, so yours would be the perfect home for it. And it is a huge flyer that has to be dealt with.
Grim Return - to snatch a big creature that was killed by your small cheap deathtoucher.
My first cuts would be Archetype of Finality (as already mentioned) and Maze Abomination. The Abomination is only a 4/5 deathtouch creature in your deck, there are no creatures to benefit from its other ability, and for 6 mana, that is not enough to warrant the cost. I would also remove the three Shadow Slices, because I don't think they are doing enough. Essentially, they are a very overcosted Unholy Strength, and cards like that are not worth the slot. Though I admit, that I don't have experience playing with the Slice. So maybe keep them in for now, but keep them in mind for cuts if you need more room for other cards.
Another cut would be the Stab Wounds. It's a solid card, but not really fit for your deck. First, you have A LOT of other removal in the deck already. Second, any creature that doesn't die from being enchanted with it is a prime blocker for your small deathtouchers, since they can still take them out. And you have no other way to deal with such a creature attacking, then killing it with a blocker or letting it through. But you would want to keep such a creature alive and unable to hurt you, so wall like creatures such as Guardians of Meletis would be my prefered choice. But your deck takes you into a totally different direction, and such walls are not something you want in there.
The first thing I would do here is to max out on 4x Vampire Nighthawk since it seems strictly better than both Deathgaze Cockatrice and Malakir Familiar ins this deck. Using more Nighthawks also greatly increases the strength of Soulflayer if you wanted to keep that card. Otherwise, it would usually end up just being a 4/4 deathtouch which, while not terrible, there are better options. In a straight mono black deathtouch deck, I think Gifted Aetherborn is pretty much a must since he is a strict upgrade to Hand of Silumgar in a mono black deck. Other good options for deathtouch creatures are Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Ophiomancer, and Sidisi, Undead Vizier.
There is also the option focusing the deck around Swarmyard. Being able to regenerate your deathtouch creatures will make it very difficult for your opponent to deal with your creatures in combat, allowing them to often go unblocked or become great blockers themselves. There are several deathtouch Rats such as Typhoid Rats, Rancid Rats, and Ruin Rat. While it may not have deathtouch, Crypt Rats is amazing with Swarmyard, especially when equipped with Basilisk Collar. In a rat focused deck, cards like Pack Rat and Marrow-Gnawer could work great as win conditions. If you weren't big on making it a rat deck specifically, splashing green would allow you to add Hornet Nest and Deadly Recluse, which are both great deathtouch based cards that happen to work great with Swarmyard.
Of those cards, I think, the following ones should be included:
Diabolic Tutor - It acts as additional copies of scarce cards, like Grave Titan, and thus increases consistency and power of the deck.
Butcher of Malakir - with this on the battlefield, combat with your small deathtouch creatures becomes even less desirable, since the opponent would lose two creatures against your one deathtoucher.
Damnable Pact - It's both a scalable card draw effect for yourself and a means to kill your opponent.
Other possible inclusions are
Nightmare - since it only really shines in monoblack decks with few to none nonbasic lands, so yours would be the perfect home for it. And it is a huge flyer that has to be dealt with.
Grim Return - to snatch a big creature that was killed by your small cheap deathtoucher.
My first cuts would be Archetype of Finality (as already mentioned) and Maze Abomination. The Abomination is only a 4/5 deathtouch creature in your deck, there are no creatures to benefit from its other ability, and for 6 mana, that is not enough to warrant the cost. I would also remove the three Shadow Slices, because I don't think they are doing enough. Essentially, they are a very overcosted Unholy Strength, and cards like that are not worth the slot. Though I admit, that I don't have experience playing with the Slice. So maybe keep them in for now, but keep them in mind for cuts if you need more room for other cards.
Another cut would be the Stab Wounds. It's a solid card, but not really fit for your deck. First, you have A LOT of other removal in the deck already. Second, any creature that doesn't die from being enchanted with it is a prime blocker for your small deathtouchers, since they can still take them out. And you have no other way to deal with such a creature attacking, then killing it with a blocker or letting it through. But you would want to keep such a creature alive and unable to hurt you, so wall like creatures such as Guardians of Meletis would be my prefered choice. But your deck takes you into a totally different direction, and such walls are not something you want in there.
The first thing I would do here is to max out on 4x Vampire Nighthawk since it seems strictly better than both Deathgaze Cockatrice and Malakir Familiar ins this deck. Using more Nighthawks also greatly increases the strength of Soulflayer if you wanted to keep that card. Otherwise, it would usually end up just being a 4/4 deathtouch which, while not terrible, there are better options. In a straight mono black deathtouch deck, I think Gifted Aetherborn is pretty much a must since he is a strict upgrade to Hand of Silumgar in a mono black deck. Other good options for deathtouch creatures are Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Ophiomancer, and Sidisi, Undead Vizier.
There is also the option focusing the deck around Swarmyard. Being able to regenerate your deathtouch creatures will make it very difficult for your opponent to deal with your creatures in combat, allowing them to often go unblocked or become great blockers themselves. There are several deathtouch Rats such as Typhoid Rats, Rancid Rats, and Ruin Rat. While it may not have deathtouch, Crypt Rats is amazing with Swarmyard, especially when equipped with Basilisk Collar. In a rat focused deck, cards like Pack Rat and Marrow-Gnawer could work great as win conditions. If you weren't big on making it a rat deck specifically, splashing green would allow you to add Hornet Nest and Deadly Recluse, which are both great deathtouch based cards that happen to work great with Swarmyard.
Yeah im not looking to make a rat deck tbh. And i only have a single copy of Vampire Nighthawk atm. I might buy a few more in the future to swap out tho.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Mana:
20x Swamp
Sorcery:
2x Corrupt
3x Shadow Slice
1x Undercity Plague
Instant:
4x Doom Blade
3x Ultimate Price
Enchantment:
3x Stab Wound
3x Quag Sickness
1x Visions of Brutality
1x Whip of Erebos
Creatures:
4x Hand of Silumgar
2x Deathgaze Cockatrice
1x Vampire Nighthawk
1x Agent of the Fates
1x Ruthless Ripper
1x Pharika's Chosen
1x Maze Abomination
1x Malakir Familiar
1x Typhoid Rats
1x Grave Titan
1x Archetype of Finality
1x Desecration Demon
1x Soulflayer
1x Abhorrent Overlord
1x Bloodgift Demon
1x Avatar of Woe
Deathtouch is rather pointless for big creatures, because they likely kill whatever is stupid enough to get in their way with their power alone. Unless you also combine deathtouch with trample, a trample deathtouch creature is a very potent threat, since it is practically impossible to chump block it. (To explain: since any amount of damage from a source with deathtouch is considered lethal for assigning combat damage, you can assign a single point of damage to a blocker each, and all the rest can be trampled over to the player/planeswalker.) So without also granting trample to your big creatures or playing some that have trample already, Archetype of Finality is rather pointless. And taking away deathtoch from your opponent's creatures is simply not worth the cost of this card.
You want to be playing full sets of your best cards in a constructed deck. While lots of 1-ofs make for more divese games, it also makes for a less powerful deck. For example, Ruthless Ripper, Typhoid Rats and Pharika's Chosen basically are the same, except, that the Ripper can be more, so it is obviously better than the other two. So run as many Rippers as possible before adding Rats and Chosen. Likewise Vampire Nighthawk is so much better than Deathgaze Cockatrice.
It would help a lot to know what else you have available to build your deck, especially nonbasic lands and artifacts like equipment. Or how much money you would be willing to spend to get cards.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
I have a large amount of Black cards, easily 500-750+, so I think it would be easier to just get recommendations of what type of cards i should look into adding/getting. I tried to add as many copies of creatures as i could, so for the instances you mentioned whats in my deck is all i have atm. I am not against buying individual cards to complete this deck tho.
Other cards I was thinking about putting in were:
Crypt Incursion
Diabolic Tutor
Rescue from the Underworld
Tree of Perdition
Nightmare
Child of night
Crypt Ghast
Butcher of Malakir
King Macar, the Gold-Cursed
Grim Return
Damnable Pact
Any of those should be added?
Also recommendations on what to remove to replace with mana?
Diabolic Tutor - It acts as additional copies of scarce cards, like Grave Titan, and thus increases consistency and power of the deck.
Butcher of Malakir - with this on the battlefield, combat with your small deathtouch creatures becomes even less desirable, since the opponent would lose two creatures against your one deathtoucher.
Damnable Pact - It's both a scalable card draw effect for yourself and a means to kill your opponent.
Other possible inclusions are
Nightmare - since it only really shines in monoblack decks with few to none nonbasic lands, so yours would be the perfect home for it. And it is a huge flyer that has to be dealt with.
Grim Return - to snatch a big creature that was killed by your small cheap deathtoucher.
My first cuts would be Archetype of Finality (as already mentioned) and Maze Abomination. The Abomination is only a 4/5 deathtouch creature in your deck, there are no creatures to benefit from its other ability, and for 6 mana, that is not enough to warrant the cost. I would also remove the three Shadow Slices, because I don't think they are doing enough. Essentially, they are a very overcosted Unholy Strength, and cards like that are not worth the slot. Though I admit, that I don't have experience playing with the Slice. So maybe keep them in for now, but keep them in mind for cuts if you need more room for other cards.
Another cut would be the Stab Wounds. It's a solid card, but not really fit for your deck. First, you have A LOT of other removal in the deck already. Second, any creature that doesn't die from being enchanted with it is a prime blocker for your small deathtouchers, since they can still take them out. And you have no other way to deal with such a creature attacking, then killing it with a blocker or letting it through. But you would want to keep such a creature alive and unable to hurt you, so wall like creatures such as Guardians of Meletis would be my prefered choice. But your deck takes you into a totally different direction, and such walls are not something you want in there.
Former Rules Advisor
"Everything's better with pirates." - Lodge
(The Gamers: Dorkness Rising)
"Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
(Girl Genius - Fairy Tale Theater Break - Cinderella, end of volume 8)
There is also the option focusing the deck around Swarmyard. Being able to regenerate your deathtouch creatures will make it very difficult for your opponent to deal with your creatures in combat, allowing them to often go unblocked or become great blockers themselves. There are several deathtouch Rats such as Typhoid Rats, Rancid Rats, and Ruin Rat. While it may not have deathtouch, Crypt Rats is amazing with Swarmyard, especially when equipped with Basilisk Collar. In a rat focused deck, cards like Pack Rat and Marrow-Gnawer could work great as win conditions. If you weren't big on making it a rat deck specifically, splashing green would allow you to add Hornet Nest and Deadly Recluse, which are both great deathtouch based cards that happen to work great with Swarmyard.
I swapped them out, thank you for your help.
Yeah im not looking to make a rat deck tbh. And i only have a single copy of Vampire Nighthawk atm. I might buy a few more in the future to swap out tho.