I have had this deck for a while and always wanted to give this an update. The whole point of this deck was to use Havengul Lich to cast all of the creatures you send from your deck to the graveyard. The cost of all the creatures are significantly lowered by Heartless Summoning and some of the creatures die as soon as the hit the battlefield if 2 Heartless Summonings are on the battlefield. This allows me to recast all of the creatures to get their effects multiple times. All of the creatures are used like a toolbox in which they will all have their uses against specific decks. I know there are more creatures that need to be put in so suggestions would be appreciated.
I know there are a ton of problems with this deck like the fact that I only have 8 different creatures in the deck and most of them are doubles. I have a deck similar to this one and will make a new thread for that deck when this one is fixed or I feel I have enough ideas for the deck.
Fun looking deck. A big problem is that it doesn't do a whole lot if the Havengul Lich gets removed/not drawn. Why not consider some Animate Dead or Necromancy action? That way your Entomb effects can grab a Lich or revive one that gets removed. It's not like Animate Dead is bad in a vacuum either. Darksteel Plate could just as easily be Dense Foliage. It'll protect your whole team from spot removal at 0 opportunity cost to you. Mulldrifter is just leagues better than Solemn Simulacrum and I'd pack 4 (even in the corner case where you have 2 Heartless Summoning and can cast the robot for free). A better target for ramp would be something like Viridian Emissary which blocks decently early on and gets out of control quick with Lich + HS.
21 lands seems low, even with the sad robots and rituals. I'd probably take them out for more lands or ramp. Ancient Ziggurat looks awkward in this deck too. You have over 30 spells it won't work on, and you can't use it to activate your Lich. That's over half your deck that it's a total blank for. Good luck casting Grave Pact with 3 Swamps and 8 nonbasics that can produce black mana.
EDIT: As far as creature suggestions for reanimation, Sylvan Primordial is always fun to recur over and over again. Thragtusk will gain you a ton of life and spit out token fodder so you can stay ahead while the Grave Pact does its work.
First, I would just like to say that I had 4 Heartless Summoning in the deck not 3 and that has been fixed in the OP.
The people I usually play with don't usually like to target things. If it isn't destruction then it will be something that I can't do much about like mass bounce, mass sacrifice, or some other mass removal. Targeting isn't a thing typically. I like the idea of the addition of a reanimation card. Sounds sort of promising.
I know what you mean about Ancient Ziggurat. However, while exactly 20 of the spells are non-creature spells I expect to be mostly casting creatures from the graveyard with Havengul Lich and if all goes well then I won't have to worry about casting most of the other spells. At the beginning of the game I should be focusing on sanding my creatures to the grave. That should be the only place I should be playing them from which is again why I like your idea of the Animate Dead.
I think though I will take another look at my mana base and make a few changes.
Whole creating process and great suggestions by other users can be seen in thread :
Sultai instant speed reanimate (Final version and card analysis) (linking doens't work for some reason)
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I really appreciate help with developing the theme, so please send me ideas or CSS code and I will try to include it in my theme.
Unfortunately Heartless Summoning + Fleshbag Marauder is a pretty serious nonbo. State-based effects kill the Marauder before you can sacrifice it to its own ability, so you're losing 2 guys to everyone else's 1.
The people I usually play with don't usually like to target things. If it isn't destruction then it will be something that I can't do much about like mass bounce, mass sacrifice, or some other mass removal. Targeting isn't a thing typically. I like the idea of the addition of a reanimation card. Sounds sort of promising.
Ooh, that sounds like something we can exploit!
It's worth noting that Havengul Lich can yoink things from anyone's graveyard (and you've even got the means of producing the mana if you're chasing a red or white creature). If you wanted to, you could quite easily add a discard or mill element to the deck to give Havengul a mass of fuel from other peoples' graveyards. Consuming Aberration is the king here if you want to head down this route.
Funny thing is the first time I played this version of the deck I stole all kinds of creatures from other people's graveyards and one of them was Consuming Aberration.
You win by either by shocking everyone with Perilous Myr, chaining Rune-Scarred Demon with Phantasmal Image together to create a bunch of big flyers, or repeatedly casting the Image from your graveyard on Kokusho, the Evening Star. Serum Powder always guarantees you have a HS in hand to start the game. Veteran Explorer lets you dig 2 basics out for 1 mana. Who cares if it accelerates everyone else when you can still cast your creatures for cheap. Primeval Titan, Solemn Simulacrum and the bounce lands also will set you up so you wont be mana screwed. Fierce Empath and Rune-Scarred Demon let you tutor for your key pieces. A single Sylvok Replica is there for a repeatable Disenchant. If you don't like some of the cards you could always replace them with stupid stuff such as Sylvan Primordial, Ana Battlemage, etc.
Personally I like kicking ass. So I don't run HS in my lich builds.
I do run 5-color ramp, (targeted) destruction and heavy card draw. (and a sprinkling of life gain like Basilisk Collar)
You could run one or two Lord of the Dead if you really think you'll need to recur your liches but I never had a real problem with that.
My regular opponents know I consider everyone's graveyard as my extra hands so they even destruct their own...
(Actually most of my 5-c decks could be considered Havengul Lich decks, they tend to show up in all of them as recurring engines / finishing threats.)
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In magic there's Harry Dresden, Fizban, Sethra Lavode, Dorotea Senjak and me...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
So I did a massive update with the deck. I changed the mana base to try to get more of the colors that I need for the deck to work. Some cards I didn't have before because I was worried about life (Mana ConfluenceCity of BrassOvergrown TombBreeding PoolWatery Grave) were added to make the deck function properly. The High Market is there for just a little bit of life gain and so I can sacrifice my toolbox creatures like Draining Whelk.
I changed the creatures by trying to lower the amount in the deck and adding a couple that are different to the deck. Most notably I added Primeval Titan and Riftsweeper. I wanted a way to get more lands from my deck and since they are all nonbasic I really had no choice than to use the titan. I always thought Riftsweeper was a cool card. I wanted to make sure that if any of my creatures got hit with an Extirpate then I could easily get my creatures back.
I didn't know that Gutter Grime existed. It is the perfect way to kill the opponent since all of the creatures will be entering and leaving the battlefield a ton.
Finally, Grim Reminder is really here to get my combo pieces. I haven't tested the deck at all and sort of think this could be good since there is a lack of getting the lich or the summonings from the deck to the hand.
Please let me know what you think I will be assembling the deck and play testing soon.
Finally, Grim Reminder is really here to get my combo pieces. I haven't tested the deck at all and sort of think this could be good since there is a lack of getting the lich or the summonings from the deck to the hand.
Poor child. It's adorable that you think that Wizards will ever print a new playable Black spell.
Finally, Grim Reminder is really here to get my combo pieces. I haven't tested the deck at all and sort of think this could be good since there is a lack of getting the lich or the summonings from the deck to the hand.
Poor child. It's adorable that you think that Wizards will ever print a new playable Black spell.
Finally, Grim Reminder is really here to get my combo pieces. I haven't tested the deck at all and sort of think this could be good since there is a lack of getting the lich or the summonings from the deck to the hand.
Poor child. It's adorable that you think that Wizards will ever print a new playable Black spell.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel fixes 2 major problems which are that I didn't really have a dedicated kill and the fact that I lose life quickly because of my lands. When I play tested with my previous list that was one thing I had to play around. Having only one High Market just wasn't enough so I also added one more of that as well.
Another major problem was with my Heartless Summoning. In the game I play tested I played every Heartless Summoning in the deck throughout the game and every time i had one in play it got destroyed soon after. My fix for that is Eternal Witness. Eternal Witness will allow me to get them back and always have 2 in play.
Somehow when I play tested with my previous list I guess I had only 18 lands in the deck even though I know it should have had 20. This didn't matter though because when I played i was able to get all of the lands out of my deck because of the draw from mulldrifter and since i had used buried alive and entomb to thin the deck.
Finally, I wanted another way to get Havengul Lich so I added Eladamri's Call. I took out a mulldrifter for one so we will have to see if that makes a huge difference when I play test.
I am surprised no one mentioned Priest of Gix, it combos for infinite B and with Heartless out, even without the Lich it does a good impression of Dark Ritual
even without the Lich it does a good impression of Dark Ritual
No it doesn't. Not even close. Dark Ritual can jam things like Phyrexian Arena and Liliana of the Veil on turn 1. The Priest is essentially a "free" 2/1 but if you're not abusing his ETB trigger in a degenerate fashion then the card is heinous as a standalone threat. Even a "free" 2/1 is worthless in multiplayer and it's not as though he inherently enables you to cheat the curve in any way, shape or form.
I did say after you already have a heartless out, you are paying one Black mana and getting three out... Not saying it is nearly as good on T1 or T2, but ritual becomes pretty much useless as after a (too short) while, since the tempo you gain on a developed board won't make up for the loss of card advantage you incur, and Heartless nets you the same tempo advantage for every creature you play afterward. You can also easily have 1 or 2 and tutor for it with Runes or Entomb, use it to combo off and reanimate what you wish.
You can have more of a toolbox build with this deck, you can add Sidisi as another recurring tutor, and keep in mind that anything with generic mana on its cost gets much much faster. I played it on standard using Wurmcoil Engines and pairing the Lich with Grand Architect for extra oomph.
I did say after you already have a heartless out, you are paying one Black mana and getting three out...
Yes, but you also said "even without the Lich it does a good impression of Dark Ritual" which is plainly false. The card is worthless as a standalone creature. If you're not breaking the ETB trigger then the card objectively sucks in multiplayer and that's not what you were saying. If you want to Buried Alive for Havengul Lich, Priest of Gix and Perilous Myr to combo off with Heartless Summoning and Animate Dead then that's totally fine. That sequence will win games. That being said you're not going to seal the deal running out a PoG on turn 3 and chaining it into another 3 drop.
Not saying it is nearly as good on T1 or T2, but ritual becomes pretty much useless as after a (too short) while, since the tempo you gain on a developed board won't make up for the loss of card advantage you incur...
Why would that matter in the slightest? Are you playing to maximize your overall win % or maximize your topdeck potential? If I go turn 1 Dark Ritual, Entomb, Animate Dead on Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur I'm in a good spot. If I Dark Ritual out a Waste Not + Windfall for turn 2 people aren't going to beat that. If I jam a Necropotence into play on turn 1 and Storm off shortly after, again, I'm happy with that exchange. DR is generally a weak topdeck, no one is suggesting otherwise, but it's also a degenerate form of fast mana that lends itself well to oppressive combo decks. Your goal as a competitor isn't to maximize your topdeck potential but rather your win % and DR is a very good card at maximizing your win % in a format where you have to do something very broken, very quickly if you want to consistently win games.
I know there are a ton of problems with this deck like the fact that I only have 8 different creatures in the deck and most of them are doubles. I have a deck similar to this one and will make a new thread for that deck when this one is fixed or I feel I have enough ideas for the deck.
Lands
4 Mana Confluence
4 Exotic Orchard
4 Reflecting Pool
4 City of Brass
1 Watery Grave
2 High Market
Creatures
4 Havengul Lich
2 Mulldrifter
1 Shriekmaw
1 Draining Whelk
1 Ana Battlemage
1 Acidic Slime
1 Prophet of Kruphix
1 Primeval Titan
1 Riftsweeper
1 Eternal Witness
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Spells
4 Dark Ritual
4 Entomb
3 Buried Alive
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Eladamri's Call
Artifacts
2 Darksteel Plate
1 Sol Ring
Enchantments
1 Animate Dead
1 Gutter Grime
1 Grave Pact
4 Heartless Summoning
21 lands seems low, even with the sad robots and rituals. I'd probably take them out for more lands or ramp. Ancient Ziggurat looks awkward in this deck too. You have over 30 spells it won't work on, and you can't use it to activate your Lich. That's over half your deck that it's a total blank for. Good luck casting Grave Pact with 3 Swamps and 8 nonbasics that can produce black mana.
EDIT: As far as creature suggestions for reanimation, Sylvan Primordial is always fun to recur over and over again. Thragtusk will gain you a ton of life and spit out token fodder so you can stay ahead while the Grave Pact does its work.
The people I usually play with don't usually like to target things. If it isn't destruction then it will be something that I can't do much about like mass bounce, mass sacrifice, or some other mass removal. Targeting isn't a thing typically. I like the idea of the addition of a reanimation card. Sounds sort of promising.
I know what you mean about Ancient Ziggurat. However, while exactly 20 of the spells are non-creature spells I expect to be mostly casting creatures from the graveyard with Havengul Lich and if all goes well then I won't have to worry about casting most of the other spells. At the beginning of the game I should be focusing on sanding my creatures to the grave. That should be the only place I should be playing them from which is again why I like your idea of the Animate Dead.
I think though I will take another look at my mana base and make a few changes.
4x Forgotten Ancient
4x Glen Elendra Archmage
4x Havengul Lich
3x Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4x Managorger Hydra
4x Prophet of Kruphix
3x Zameck Guildmage
3x Fact or Fiction
3x Far / Away
2x Pact of Negation
3x Simic Charm
3x Sultai Charm
Land (20)
2x Drowned Catacomb
4x Hinterland Harbor
2x Island
4x Llanowar Reborn
4x Opulent Palace
2x Overgrown Tomb
2x Swamp
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
Whole creating process and great suggestions by other users can be seen in thread :
Sultai instant speed reanimate (Final version and card analysis) (linking doens't work for some reason)
What I would recommend from my experience is to run 4x Havengul Lich, 4x Prophet of Kruphix and to protect the combo with 2-3x Pact of Negation
They combo very well from Prophet of Kruphix to Pact of Negation which is pretty much free counterspell as you play on others turn anyway, to next turn Havengul Lich
Once you untap and if they bolt Prophet of Kruphix, just flash in Havengul Lich to bring it back next turn. 4x & 4X has worked really well for me.
Fact or Fiction is great draw spell with Havengul Lich if you run creature heavy.
Fleshbag Marauder clears opponents creatures.
Sepulchral Primordial & Sylvan Primordial are great finishers.
1x Omnath, Locus of Mana can be fun mana sink with Prophet of Kruphix and can be animated with enough mana floating to keep alive with Heartless Summoning out.
Meren of Clan Nel Toth is good card and can take few Heartless Summoning on board.
I really appreciate help with developing the theme, so please send me ideas or CSS code and I will try to include it in my theme.
Ooh, that sounds like something we can exploit!
It's worth noting that Havengul Lich can yoink things from anyone's graveyard (and you've even got the means of producing the mana if you're chasing a red or white creature). If you wanted to, you could quite easily add a discard or mill element to the deck to give Havengul a mass of fuel from other peoples' graveyards. Consuming Aberration is the king here if you want to head down this route.
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Creatures (31)
3 Veteran Explorer
3 Perilous Myr
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Fierce Empath
4 Phyrexian Rager
1 Sylvok Replica
4 Solemn Simulacrum
3 Bloodgift Demon
3 Havengul Lich
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
2 Primeval Titan
2 Rune-Scarred Demon
4 Heartless Summoning
4 Serum Powder
Lands (21)
1 Dimir Aqueduct
5 Forest
2 Golgari Rot Farm
1 High Market
3 Island
4 Opulent Palace
1 Simic Growth Chamber
4 Swamp
You win by either by shocking everyone with Perilous Myr, chaining Rune-Scarred Demon with Phantasmal Image together to create a bunch of big flyers, or repeatedly casting the Image from your graveyard on Kokusho, the Evening Star. Serum Powder always guarantees you have a HS in hand to start the game. Veteran Explorer lets you dig 2 basics out for 1 mana. Who cares if it accelerates everyone else when you can still cast your creatures for cheap. Primeval Titan, Solemn Simulacrum and the bounce lands also will set you up so you wont be mana screwed. Fierce Empath and Rune-Scarred Demon let you tutor for your key pieces. A single Sylvok Replica is there for a repeatable Disenchant. If you don't like some of the cards you could always replace them with stupid stuff such as Sylvan Primordial, Ana Battlemage, etc.
I do run 5-color ramp, (targeted) destruction and heavy card draw. (and a sprinkling of life gain like Basilisk Collar)
You could run one or two Lord of the Dead if you really think you'll need to recur your liches but I never had a real problem with that.
My regular opponents know I consider everyone's graveyard as my extra hands so they even destruct their own...
(Actually most of my 5-c decks could be considered Havengul Lich decks, they tend to show up in all of them as recurring engines / finishing threats.)
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
My Powered 630 card Vintage Multiplayer Cube
cEDH: WUBR Blue Farm WUBR, UG Kinnan Flips UG, U Urza Scepter U
I changed the creatures by trying to lower the amount in the deck and adding a couple that are different to the deck. Most notably I added Primeval Titan and Riftsweeper. I wanted a way to get more lands from my deck and since they are all nonbasic I really had no choice than to use the titan. I always thought Riftsweeper was a cool card. I wanted to make sure that if any of my creatures got hit with an Extirpate then I could easily get my creatures back.
I didn't know that Gutter Grime existed. It is the perfect way to kill the opponent since all of the creatures will be entering and leaving the battlefield a ton.
Finally, Grim Reminder is really here to get my combo pieces. I haven't tested the deck at all and sort of think this could be good since there is a lack of getting the lich or the summonings from the deck to the hand.
Please let me know what you think I will be assembling the deck and play testing soon.
Poor child. It's adorable that you think that Wizards will ever print a new playable Black spell.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
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How does it get your pieces?
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Um... Waste Not?
My Powered 630 card Vintage Multiplayer Cube
cEDH: WUBR Blue Farm WUBR, UG Kinnan Flips UG, U Urza Scepter U
Exsanguinate, Toxic Deluge, Dark Petition, Ad Nauseam too. I was being salty and hyperbolic :P.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
My Powered 630 card Vintage Multiplayer Cube
cEDH: WUBR Blue Farm WUBR, UG Kinnan Flips UG, U Urza Scepter U
Gray Merchant of Asphodel fixes 2 major problems which are that I didn't really have a dedicated kill and the fact that I lose life quickly because of my lands. When I play tested with my previous list that was one thing I had to play around. Having only one High Market just wasn't enough so I also added one more of that as well.
Another major problem was with my Heartless Summoning. In the game I play tested I played every Heartless Summoning in the deck throughout the game and every time i had one in play it got destroyed soon after. My fix for that is Eternal Witness. Eternal Witness will allow me to get them back and always have 2 in play.
Somehow when I play tested with my previous list I guess I had only 18 lands in the deck even though I know it should have had 20. This didn't matter though because when I played i was able to get all of the lands out of my deck because of the draw from mulldrifter and since i had used buried alive and entomb to thin the deck.
Finally, I wanted another way to get Havengul Lich so I added Eladamri's Call. I took out a mulldrifter for one so we will have to see if that makes a huge difference when I play test.
Things like Perilous Myr would win the game on the spot in that scenario.
No it doesn't. Not even close. Dark Ritual can jam things like Phyrexian Arena and Liliana of the Veil on turn 1. The Priest is essentially a "free" 2/1 but if you're not abusing his ETB trigger in a degenerate fashion then the card is heinous as a standalone threat. Even a "free" 2/1 is worthless in multiplayer and it's not as though he inherently enables you to cheat the curve in any way, shape or form.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
You can have more of a toolbox build with this deck, you can add Sidisi as another recurring tutor, and keep in mind that anything with generic mana on its cost gets much much faster. I played it on standard using Wurmcoil Engines and pairing the Lich with Grand Architect for extra oomph.
Yes, but you also said "even without the Lich it does a good impression of Dark Ritual" which is plainly false. The card is worthless as a standalone creature. If you're not breaking the ETB trigger then the card objectively sucks in multiplayer and that's not what you were saying. If you want to Buried Alive for Havengul Lich, Priest of Gix and Perilous Myr to combo off with Heartless Summoning and Animate Dead then that's totally fine. That sequence will win games. That being said you're not going to seal the deal running out a PoG on turn 3 and chaining it into another 3 drop.
Why would that matter in the slightest? Are you playing to maximize your overall win % or maximize your topdeck potential? If I go turn 1 Dark Ritual, Entomb, Animate Dead on Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur I'm in a good spot. If I Dark Ritual out a Waste Not + Windfall for turn 2 people aren't going to beat that. If I jam a Necropotence into play on turn 1 and Storm off shortly after, again, I'm happy with that exchange. DR is generally a weak topdeck, no one is suggesting otherwise, but it's also a degenerate form of fast mana that lends itself well to oppressive combo decks. Your goal as a competitor isn't to maximize your topdeck potential but rather your win % and DR is a very good card at maximizing your win % in a format where you have to do something very broken, very quickly if you want to consistently win games.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold