I ran across Karlov of the Ghost Council reading a thread the other day. He obviously combos with repeatable lifegain, which allows mass card draw through black, and he in turn can be a beatdown stick or removal czar. The basic questions are:
1. Is it better to go removal czar with him, or voltron? I see very different builds for those options.
2. How many sources of repeatable lifegain do I want given #1?
3. Vampires or Zombies for a sub theme? Or, is spirits even a cool and playable angle since it is the Ghost Quarter? Either of the first two would be anchored by various planeswalker forms of Sorin and Liliana respectively.
That's funny you mention that. I was driving in to work this morning and said to myself. "Hmm, Karlov needs a Sun Droplet." I was also thinking of Circle of Affliction and extort mechanics.
Why choose?
White has a lot of protection instants (Shelter, Apostle's Blessing, Emerge Unscathed, etc. etc.) that you can run which work well for protecting Karlov, because people are going to see that big mean exile machine and want to remove him because A: they want to keep their creatures, or B: they don't have creatures and don't want to get 2-shot. Protection also doubles as evasion for when Karlov gets big.
Other than that, just do a search in black, white, and colorless for '("at the beginning of each" || "whenever") gain life'. Toss in anything that gains you life for opponents' creatures entering or dying since they're going to get a lot of hits regardless of whether you are playing creatures. Authority of the Consuls is probably the best effect in this vein, but there's also Blood Artist, Auriok Champion, Deathgreeter, and many, many others. These are cards that synergize so well with the one true Ghost Dad that you'll want them regardless of your strategy. You can probably do better than extort because, although it gains you lots of life, it only triggers Karlov once.
Eventually, though, you'll be forced to choose between mass tokens and great removal.
Mass tokens can take advantage of cards like Campaign of Vengeance, Vault of the Archangel, and True Conviction to make Karlov truly, mind-bogglingly large (and a lot of the best white-black cards are token-based anyways). Karlov himself can handle most creatures in this sort of deck, but there will probably be times when Papa K isn't around to handle the riff-raff, and it's going to get difficult to strike a balance between tokens and removal.
On the other hand, there's no denying black-white has plenty of fantastic removal. If you play fewer tokens then it doesn't hurt as bad to boardwipe with cards like Merciless Eviction. Cards like Languish, Toxic Deluge, and Black Sun's Zenith can be very very good here since they clean up the rabble while Karlov can live through them and spot remove any remaining big guys. Tokens don't help with general damage after all, so all you're losing this route is the potential for hilarious numbers of life gain triggers that you may or may not actually need for Karlov to punch people out. This is a slower playstyle, though, and sooner or later you're going to find that you wish you had counterspells to stop the cards that no other answer will.
EDIT: Sadly, all the best spirits (i.e. the innistrad spirits) are in WU. There are a select few good spiritcraft engines from Kamigawa, like Tallowisp of the original "Ghost Dad" standard deck, but you don't cast tokens and there aren't enough good mono-white spirits (and certainly not enough good black spirits) to make it work. That said, it wouldn't be completely awful, so if you like spirits enough you might want to give it a go. Frankly though I think Karador is the better spirit-tribal commander for Kamigawa spiritcraft and Geist of Saint Traft is the better option for Innistrad goodstuff spirits.
Honestly, I like playing a combo of Aristocrats and Soul Sisters. Use your typical Soul Sister cards like Soul Warden and the like. Add in your typical aristocrat cards like Blood Artist, and recurable creatures for good measure. Any Soul Sister+Karlov+Phyrexian Altar and any other zombie makes for infinite life gain triggers and a infinitely large Karlov.
I set out to make a hardcore lifegain deck, just to see how silly lifegain can get. I routinely gain upwards of 100 life each time I play the deck and originally, I had Karlov as the Commander. I found, however, that I was too often ending the game with 10/10+ Karlov swings way, way too fast. I wanted more of a grindy, Orzhov life-tax deck, so I switched it to Kambal and put Karlov into the 99. He's still utterly terrifying when he hits the board.
All that said, Soul Sisters, Authority of the Consul, Blind Obedience, cheap beaters with Lifelink...anything that gets you separate lifegain triggers on your turn, your opponent's turn, in combat, etc... Then just play things to make him unblockable, like Key to the City, Rogue's Passage and Whispersilk Cloak. You'll be surprised how little help he needs to be incredibly lethal incredibly fast.
The best thing about Karlov is that you don't have to choose between removal or voltron when you build the deck. He's incredibly versatile, and you can adapt to whichever strategy is needed on a game-by-game basis.
I play soulsisters/aristocrats, and I typically end up in triple digit life with all the revmoval or massive swings I need. Karlov doesn't even care about how much life I gain, just how many separate triggers, and while the lifegain does provide me with a cushion, it's really the life drain and massive growth that do the trick. I've swung with an unblockable 60/60 Karlov. Rogue's Passage is all Karlov needs to voltron it up.
1. Is it better to go removal czar with him, or voltron? I see very different builds for those options.
2. How many sources of repeatable lifegain do I want given #1?
3. Vampires or Zombies for a sub theme? Or, is spirits even a cool and playable angle since it is the Ghost Quarter? Either of the first two would be anchored by various planeswalker forms of Sorin and Liliana respectively.
White has a lot of protection instants (Shelter, Apostle's Blessing, Emerge Unscathed, etc. etc.) that you can run which work well for protecting Karlov, because people are going to see that big mean exile machine and want to remove him because A: they want to keep their creatures, or B: they don't have creatures and don't want to get 2-shot. Protection also doubles as evasion for when Karlov gets big.
Other than that, just do a search in black, white, and colorless for '("at the beginning of each" || "whenever") gain life'. Toss in anything that gains you life for opponents' creatures entering or dying since they're going to get a lot of hits regardless of whether you are playing creatures. Authority of the Consuls is probably the best effect in this vein, but there's also Blood Artist, Auriok Champion, Deathgreeter, and many, many others. These are cards that synergize so well with the one true Ghost Dad that you'll want them regardless of your strategy. You can probably do better than extort because, although it gains you lots of life, it only triggers Karlov once.
Don't forget cards that care about a creature's power like Disciple of Bolas, Rite of Consumption, and Essence Harvest!
Eventually, though, you'll be forced to choose between mass tokens and great removal.
Mass tokens can take advantage of cards like Campaign of Vengeance, Vault of the Archangel, and True Conviction to make Karlov truly, mind-bogglingly large (and a lot of the best white-black cards are token-based anyways). Karlov himself can handle most creatures in this sort of deck, but there will probably be times when Papa K isn't around to handle the riff-raff, and it's going to get difficult to strike a balance between tokens and removal.
On the other hand, there's no denying black-white has plenty of fantastic removal. If you play fewer tokens then it doesn't hurt as bad to boardwipe with cards like Merciless Eviction. Cards like Languish, Toxic Deluge, and Black Sun's Zenith can be very very good here since they clean up the rabble while Karlov can live through them and spot remove any remaining big guys. Tokens don't help with general damage after all, so all you're losing this route is the potential for hilarious numbers of life gain triggers that you may or may not actually need for Karlov to punch people out. This is a slower playstyle, though, and sooner or later you're going to find that you wish you had counterspells to stop the cards that no other answer will.
EDIT: Sadly, all the best spirits (i.e. the innistrad spirits) are in WU. There are a select few good spiritcraft engines from Kamigawa, like Tallowisp of the original "Ghost Dad" standard deck, but you don't cast tokens and there aren't enough good mono-white spirits (and certainly not enough good black spirits) to make it work. That said, it wouldn't be completely awful, so if you like spirits enough you might want to give it a go. Frankly though I think Karador is the better spirit-tribal commander for Kamigawa spiritcraft and Geist of Saint Traft is the better option for Innistrad goodstuff spirits.
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All that said, Soul Sisters, Authority of the Consul, Blind Obedience, cheap beaters with Lifelink...anything that gets you separate lifegain triggers on your turn, your opponent's turn, in combat, etc... Then just play things to make him unblockable, like Key to the City, Rogue's Passage and Whispersilk Cloak. You'll be surprised how little help he needs to be incredibly lethal incredibly fast.
I play soulsisters/aristocrats, and I typically end up in triple digit life with all the revmoval or massive swings I need. Karlov doesn't even care about how much life I gain, just how many separate triggers, and while the lifegain does provide me with a cushion, it's really the life drain and massive growth that do the trick. I've swung with an unblockable 60/60 Karlov. Rogue's Passage is all Karlov needs to voltron it up.
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Here you can find my Karlov updated about 20 days ago.
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