This deck is a blast to play... For me. It's pretty much entirely composed of cheap combos that make me hard to kill while keeping my opponents down. The only thing I commonly see people bring to the table that consistently beats it are burn decks, but who plays burn in multiplayer anyway?
As you can see, it's slow, and land-heavy. Maybe a little too slow, but it usually doesn't matter, if I have to I can usually get out some kind of combo by turn 3. Ornithopter is basically there to block in case someone gets cute. I have had to tutor for one before, believe it or not.
The game typically drags on, and by the time I win I've got the Stuffy Doll/Pariah's Shield combo redirecting any damage I may take, Caltrops/Death Pits of Rath keeping anyone from attacking, 2-3 of Lux Cannon to ping any troublesome artifacts (or suppress lands if I have a surplus of counters), and a Pestilence with one more in-hand in case it gets nuked. More often than not it's Drain Life that actually wins the game (I know Exsanguinate is better for multiplayer but I don't own any).
Kor Dirge Might work well to block with Ornithopter and redirecting to stuffy doll. Famine Would flavor decently with Pestilence, and work well with those stuffy dolls. Maybe some Rancid Earth to control lands. Because nobody hates you enough just with pestilence, you also have to destroy their lands.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Whats the big deal about black lotus you ask? Well you see, there is no big deal about it. It IS the big deal.
My Pest deck is pretty different here.
I also run Indestructible creatures, but I prefer Manor Gargoyle to Creepy Doll, and I run Erebos, God of the Dead.
I tried to get Phylactery Lich to work, as per one of Cz's thread's (look it up for idea's), but I found it kinda unreliable.
Looking at your list, I'd want some ways to prevent yourself just getting aggro alpha-struck early and often, as your list would have me dead every game due to it's slow setup.
To be fair, that's the nature of Pest decks.
I'd consider some ways to deal with early pressure, which could work with the creatures you have there as your lowest CMC is 3, considering that even between Pest/Pits/Cannon, there will be creatures/perms you just can't deal with. Sacrifice effects can help here, so something like Innocent Blood can definitely help to give yourself time to land things, and in the late game after a sweeping Pest, you can land an Innocent Blood to get rid of troublesome stuff Pest can't.
If you're worried about Pest disappearing off the table, just include 2 or 3 Bloodghast and play your lands accordingly > a single Ghost Town in the deck works okay for this.
My friend splahes red in similar list for blasphemous act to deal with early aggression and chain reaction which is good with pits of rath. He also uses phyrexian arena and gray merchant of asphodel. I would cut the ornithopters, the pariah shields the lux cannon and the drain life, merchant is just better. He also use syphon mind.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
2 Lake of the Dead
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Drain Life
3 Pestilence
4 Stuffy Doll
3 Darksteel Myr
3 Ornithopter
3 Pariah's Shield
3 Caltrops
2 Death Pits of Rath
4 Lux Cannon
As you can see, it's slow, and land-heavy. Maybe a little too slow, but it usually doesn't matter, if I have to I can usually get out some kind of combo by turn 3. Ornithopter is basically there to block in case someone gets cute. I have had to tutor for one before, believe it or not.
The game typically drags on, and by the time I win I've got the Stuffy Doll/Pariah's Shield combo redirecting any damage I may take, Caltrops/Death Pits of Rath keeping anyone from attacking, 2-3 of Lux Cannon to ping any troublesome artifacts (or suppress lands if I have a surplus of counters), and a Pestilence with one more in-hand in case it gets nuked. More often than not it's Drain Life that actually wins the game (I know Exsanguinate is better for multiplayer but I don't own any).
I also run Indestructible creatures, but I prefer Manor Gargoyle to Creepy Doll, and I run Erebos, God of the Dead.
I tried to get Phylactery Lich to work, as per one of Cz's thread's (look it up for idea's), but I found it kinda unreliable.
I run Bloodchief Ascension for lifegain mainly (also combo's with Mindcrank for insta-win) and a full 4 Withering Wisps, together with some Sygg, River Cutthroat for card draw and a couple NO Mercy. I only run 2 Pests.
Obviously, you'll need Snow-swamps if you're gonna persue Wisps...
Looking at your list, I'd want some ways to prevent yourself just getting aggro alpha-struck early and often, as your list would have me dead every game due to it's slow setup.
To be fair, that's the nature of Pest decks.
I'd consider some ways to deal with early pressure, which could work with the creatures you have there as your lowest CMC is 3, considering that even between Pest/Pits/Cannon, there will be creatures/perms you just can't deal with. Sacrifice effects can help here, so something like Innocent Blood can definitely help to give yourself time to land things, and in the late game after a sweeping Pest, you can land an Innocent Blood to get rid of troublesome stuff Pest can't.
If you're worried about Pest disappearing off the table, just include 2 or 3 Bloodghast and play your lands accordingly > a single Ghost Town in the deck works okay for this.