Almost two years ago now I was introduced to EDH through my friend MCR. I have always enjoyed deckbuilding more than any other aspect of the game and EDH seemed like a deckbuilder's paradise. I set out to build a deck with two goals in mind, the first was that I wanted to be using black. Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I am a black mage, all my favorite cards are tutors and black has the best in the business. The second was that I wanted to make a general competitive that was not considered so previously. I feel as though I have accomplished this goal, so without furthur adieu I present to you my proudest creation:
You will have to forgive the lack of spoilers, I am absolutely terrible with technology, and will add them as soon as I learn how.
Tournament Performance
I have competeted in four tournaments on this website using Iname with the following results.
Tournament 1 (Multiplayer Banned List/40 Life): This tournament was the first on this website and as such was plauged with problems. The tournament was ended early with myself, MutedEquilibrium and Samoht at the top of the standings.
Tournament 2 (Multiplayer Banned List/40 Life): I met my friend and teammate MutedEquilibrium in the finals, and we agreed to just split to share the glory.
Tournament 3 (French Banned List/30 Life): I placed second, losing in the finals to SurgingChoas in three games.
Tournament 4 (French Banned List/30 Life): I place third/fourth, losing in the quarter finals to LennnonMarx in three games.
Throughout the course of these tournaments I faced off against all the most competitive generals, beating Vendillion Clique, Braids, Azami, Roffellos, Horde of Notions, Sharuum, and a whole host of others. I had 5 match loses in 4 tournaments, and at least two of those I feel I would have won were it not for my own play mistakes. I feel this deck can compete with any general in the format, and is even favored against some of the most competitive strategies.
Why is This Deck Competitive?
Let me try to give you a few reasons I beleive Iname is so competitive. One of the biggest advantages that comes with playing Iname is that so much of the traditional hate in this format is ineffective. For example creature removal, which is both neccesary and common in some form or another in all competitive strategies, is almost completely useless against Iname outside of wrath effects, even wraths are difficult to keep because of He Who Hungers.
Mana denial strategies, while much more effective than creature removal, I have also found to be less effecitve than one might think against this deck. While Armageddon effects can be painful, more traditional mana denial strategies, such as red based land destruction generals (Jaya Ballard, Radha, Heir to keld, Wort, the Raidmother etc.) and even prison builds of Roffellos are favorable matchups. This is due in no small part to Songs of the Damned, and the incredible tutoring options available to black to either find Songs or a way to accelerate into Iname such as Lake of the Dead.
Another huge advantage to playing Iname is that the hate which is particularly effective against this deck, grave hate, is not very useful against most of the competitive generals, and thus will not be played as often. Some players (including many great players I respect like SurgingChoas) have made a strong push for more players to increse the grave hate counts in their decks, I disagree. While I feel that all competitive strategies should have some way to interact with the grave, most of the top generals have very few ways to truly abuse their graveyards. Vendillion Clique, Azami, Roffellos, Erayo, Zur, etc. all do not rely on the grave very heavily, and drawing dead cards in these match-ups can very quickly lead to death. I am not trying to artifically create a safer environment for Iname, as you can see by my decklist I am only playing Shred Memory to interact with my opponent's graveyard, and I very rarely use it as anything but a transmute tutor.
Beating Grave Hate
One common misperception I have heard regarding this deck is that you just fold to gave hate, this could not be furthur from the truth. While I will not sit here and tell you that grave hate is ineffective against Iname, I will say that this deck is very resilant, much more so that you might think for a mono black deck. Pithing Needle, and even more importantly Null Rod are incredible tools for fighting artifact based hate while still being very effective weapons even when Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus are nowhere to be seen.
Instants and Sorceries such as Ravenous Trap and Shred Memory can be handled through discard, and are not particularly difficult to play around unless you also have to contend with counterspells, and creatures such as Nezumi-Graverobber and Withered Wretch and easily taken out by removal.
Enchantments such as Solitary Confinement, Wheel of Sun and Moon, or Leyline of the Void, and lands (thankfully just Bojuka Bog) are by far the most difficult form of hate for this deck to deal with. Oblivion Stone, and the many tutors to find it gives you an out to the enchantments, while Bojuka Bog can be disacarded with He Who Hungers, or beaten by casting Iname and a Living Death effect in the same turn through Songs of the Damned or Soldevi Adnate, even Dark Ritual or Lake of the Dead can get you there due to the cheaper animate effects like Balthor (would have had to be in play prior to Iname) or Victimize.
Bloodghast, Nether Traitor and Krovikian Horror can hop out of the grave as well without any help from an animate effect to save themselves from incoming grave hate, I will go into more detail about how to fully abuse this trio when I get into the spirit package later on. You also have the option of just not putting all your spirits into the grave when you cast Iname, in order not to be completely blown out by grave hate, this will come up most often when you have not had a chance to see the opponent's hand but have a window of opportunity to cast Iname that you feel you should take even if there is a chance grave hate or a tutor for said hate may be waiting in their hand. For example if you are playing against a blue deck, and your opponent taps out (perhaps because they do not know you will be able to cast Iname on your turn, say you are holding Lake of the Dead), in this situation you will probably want to try to resolve Iname while you can, and if your opponent happens to be holding Tormod's Crypt/Tolaria West etc. you will still have other spirits to fall back on.
If all else fails, and all your spirits are lost, you still have Phyrexian Processor/Sorin Markov, both of which can end the game either by themselves or in conjunctuion with an attacking Iname.
The Threat of Blue and Playing Against Permission
One thing you should be aware of if you decide to play Iname is that while the deck is very powerful, resiliant, and has many positive matchups against competitive generals, you need to be very comfortable playing against counterspells or you will not have very much success against the blue generals which dominate the top tiers. That is not to say that these decks cannot be beaten, for example I have never lost a tournament match to any mono blue general except for Vendillion Clique and Teferi (and I feel that had I not had a horrible play mistake it would be just Clique), and have beaten Erayo, Teferi, Vendillion Clique and multiple skilled Azami pilots. However, Vendillion Clique remains the worst match-up for this deck, as being a combo deck it can be very difficult to fight through thirty plus counters.
I will go into more detail on how to fight Clique when I come to the match-up analysis, but always remember that Boseiju, Who Shelters All is your primary weapon in the fight against blue. Many times the blue mage will allow a tutor to resolve, planning to counter the threat and gain tempo, only to later lose to Boseiju bypassing all the counters in their hand. Boseiju allows you to completely ignore counters and devestate your oppoent with some of the most powerful spells in the format like Persecute and Living Death. Often times setting up a Persecute under Boseiju is critical to open up a window to force Iname through, after which most of your Living Death effects will be uncounterable thanks to Boseiju, no matter how many counterspells your opponent goes on to draw.
The fight against permission based control is not an easy one, but can be won through careful play, just be aware that these match-ups are difficult and if you decide to add or change cards consider how that card will play out against permission, because those are the most difficult match-ups for this deck.
I have a lot more to say regarding this deck and will go into much greater detail regarding how I have arrived at the choices I have, hidden synergies and tricks, and a detailed match-up analysis with the most common competitive generals and strategies when I have some more time as I intend for this to be the ultimate guide to playing Iname, Death Aspect when all is said and done. I just wanted to get the list and some of the many reasons to choose Iname up because I have been promising people I would for a long time.
Special Thanks
As a final note I would like to say that I am very flattered and deeply appreciate all the interest that has been shown for my deck. I have spent almost two years developing this deck, and all the support has made the effort more than worth it. In particular I would like to thank:
MutedEquilibrium: First and foremost I need to thank my friend and teammate without whom this deck would not have been possible. Countless hours of testing and discussion helped me improve the deck to where it is today, and I could not have done it without him. Muted has some really innovative competitive strategies brewing and I hope he decides to write up a primer and get his decks out there soon.
Khymera: I first met Khymera online about a year and a half ago on MWS, I had been doing well on MWS with a very early version of the deck and felt I like I was on a hot streak...and then I played his Sharuum. It was embarassing, I just got annihilated six ways to Sunday and I really got my first glimpse of how competitive EDH could be. I told him about my quest to make Iname competitive, and I knew I would have to up my game dramatically if I wanted to compete at that level. Since then he has gone on to innovate some of the most competitive strategies in the format, given many many great suggestions for this deck as well as being a sounding board for my ideas, and become one of the most important voices in the ever growing competitive EDH scene.
Clem: The competitive EDH community owes a huge debt of gratitude to Clem for stepping up and organizing the EDH torunaments on this site without any compensation. Clem always kept an open dialouge with the players, asking for ways to improve the tournaments and it showed with each toruanement running smoother than the last. Just an all around stand up gent.
SurgingChaos: A very competitive player and friend that has excelled in the tournaments on this site, and helped spread the word about this deck. Without Chaos and Khymera there would not be nearly as much interest in this deck.
d.g.: My good friend whose suggestions and testing helped me push the deck to where it is now. Along with just getting the word out about Iname and competitive EDH in general.
MCR: Without MCR I would have never started playing EDH in the first place, and now it is by far my favorite format. He has also helped get the word out about this deck and generate interest.
Well there it is, more to come soon. I feel there is still a lot of design space to explore, and will go into some of the other directions you could take the deck that I feel have merit in the future, but I am satisfied with the deck for now. If you have any questions regarding the deck I'll be happy to answer them. I am always open to new ideas as this deck is evolving constantly with the printing of new sets, different metagame concerns, and me just hearing better ideas from you guys, hope it lives up to the hype!
Beautiful. (Actually, the formatting needs some work--separating that wall of text into sections with headings would help. The deck is beautiful though.
Thank you for finally sharing this gem with us.
To be honest, this is different enough from the list I've been messing with for months that I don't feel qualified to offer suggestions until I get a chance to test it thoroughly (which could take a while). I know you've already tried all the cards I could suggest, so presumably they've been found wanting.
I eagerly await your guide on how to play this--there's a lot of complexity and room for variation, especially when dealing with the spirit package (the whole thing, or just the recursive ones).
When you have the time to add it, I would also like to see explanations for some of your more unusual card choices, and perhaps for omitted cards as well.
In particular, I'd like to hear your perspective on the sacrificial lands (Peat Bog, Ebon Stronghold, Crystal Vein, City of Traitors, and the stronger Lake of the Dead), the particular pieces of artifact mana you chose, Inquisition of Kozilek, Plunge into Darkness, and especially Demonic Consultation. Consultation is clearly a powerful card, but...wow. Really? Wow. It takes balls to play Demonic Consultation in EDH...huge, awesome balls. Do you only play it in situations where you expect to lose without it, or do you just suck it up and insta-lose ~10% of games you might otherwise have won?
For exclusions, I would like to hear your thoughts on: Mortal Combat (I know it sucks hard, but a lot of people seem to associate it with this general, so you should enlighten them) Graveborn Muse, Kagemaro, First to Suffer, Midnight Banshee, Myojin of Night's Reach (other decent spirits commonly played in this deck) Shriekmaw (synergy with Victimize and Living Death--are all 6 of your other removal spells really better?) Mouth of Ronom (more removal, land for Map, low opportunity cost) Bojuka Bog (land for Map, very low opportunity cost) Wasteland (I have a hard time cutting this from anything when LoA and Tolarian Academy are running around) Leyline of the Void/Helm of Obedience combo (very solid alternate win, especially with all the tutors you play) Dark Depths/Vampire Hexmage combo (very speedy combo, apparently good enough to get banned in France) All Is Dust (seems like a particularly solid answer to troublesome enchantments and most everything else) Liliana Vess (tutor, super-Living Death, and discard, all in one package? Seems like the patron planeswalker of this deck, even if she is a little slow) Contamination (soft-lock with recursive spirits?)
Great looking deck Evergreen, I tagged your deck for you in the spoiler below, just copy it into your OP. I just couldn't work out how to do the "or" between Processor and Sorin. I didn't have enough time to look at the deck in depth, but I figure I'd make it easier for someone else to do so.
Awesome post, Evergreen. Thanks for the small kudos at the end - I definitely didn't expect this level of epicness from you when I asked you to play EDH like two years ago haha.
I'd just like to throw my 2 cents out there from playing this deck a few times (mostly in response to Khymera).
The sacrificial lands have been the meat and potatoes of the deck. It's precisely these that really push the deck forward, especially since artifacts like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are gone. Crypt of Agadeem and Lake of the Dead have been absolute MVPs for me - the speed they provide is crucial.
Like Evergreen has mentioned, he is a true black mage. If you ever meet him in person, you'll know what I mean. He absolutely loves the color, both functionality and flavor included. For as long as I've known him he's always been playing combo - balls to the wall combo! Dragon, Grim Long, IGGY pop, you name it. I'm really happy he found his niche in EDH with a general that is both mono black AND combo. All that said, I am not surprised at all to see Demonic Consultation in here (which I believe is also his favorite card in Magic).
When playing the deck, I've been fairly unimpressed with the spirits you've mentioned. One of the main reasons is because they offer weak functionality post-combo (ie. Kagemaro's sweep is unnecessary, Myojin does not come with a divinity counter). I've also began slowly cutting Liliana Vess from all of my decks. It may seem like blasphemy, but she has not been as amazing as I thought she would be. I think she's okay in slower control black decks, but this list is already bloated with efficient tutors.
I am definitely for All is Dust in here.
Lastly, I just want to ask how good Unmask has been for you. Is the card disadvantage really worth it?
Consultation is clearly a powerful card, but...wow. Really? Wow. It takes balls to play Demonic Consultation in EDH...huge, awesome balls. Do you only play it in situations where you expect to lose without it, or do you just suck it up and insta-lose ~10% of games you might otherwise have won?
Like I said in the other post...gotta play this if you want to play like Evergreen : ) On the upside, it's not too bad in a 100 card format, but the singleton rule makes it do or die. I'd play it in most any black-based combo deck; it's worth it. A one mana instant speed tutor to hand for anything in your deck...worth the occassional loss, especially for a deck like this where you only need to resolve a few key spells in order to win.
Aside from that, I'd say that the other spirits are not necessary because the Kuro/Horobi combo takes care of everything on the field if Living Death doesn't. The Myojin obviously sucks because it doesn't get the counter, and Graveborn Muse is not so great because once she gets reanimated and activated you should be in a position to win the game by attacking with the other spirits, anyways.
Mortal Combat is not a terrible win condition, but it requires too much of the deck gets sunk into spirits. You lose too many other useful cards (tutors/control/acceleration) by having to run more spirits. Would be much better in an aggro-based Iname deck.
Shriekmaw is out because it can't hit black creatures; Zur used to be more popular in our meta so I know hitting black creatures was a big factor for Evergreen in days past. Regardless, I'd rather play Diabolic Edict.
I believe Wasteland is out because Iname can't afford to miss land drops, and against our meta there isn't a huge need for land hate. Typically we have 10-20% rofellos players, so wastes are a literal dead card. Against others there's little point in slowing down the Iname clock to hit one of their nonbasics, so this is better served as something else. For everything else there is Strip Mine, which can be tutored for if a land is getting problematic. Evergreen would know more about this choice, though.
Great post, Evergreen. My fascination for Iname is definitely not as deep seeded as yours and as such I only have three comments:
Wow at Demonic Consultation. I ran this card for all of about 9 seconds. The first time I played it the named card was the 4th card and I promptly took it out.
Secondly, I'm sure this is mostly a metagame call and I'm answering my own question but how has Xenic Poltergeist been for you? I find myself using him all the time in conjunction with Horror/Ghast/Traitor for artifact removal.
Lastly, No need for Bojuka Bog? Outside of Lake of the Dead, this is my map target right before a mass reanimation.
Thanks for all the comments guys! I'll do my best to answer your questions and explain some of my choices.
Demonic Consultation: First off I suppose I should address the card that seems to have generated the most controversy. I replaced a swamp with Consult a while ago and have never once considered cutting it. Basically the way I use the card is as a tutor for a swamp prior to Iname. I would not reccommend consulting for anything else prior to Iname's resolution due to the low count of spirits in the deck that risk being removed. However after you resolve her you have one of the the cheapest to-hand tutors in the game available to you to find Living Death effects or whatever else the situation calls for. There will be times when you may need to consult for an answer before you cast Iname, and yes this is risky, but were it a swamp you would not even have the option. For example in a game this past week my hand was forced into using Consultation early by a Roffellos player threatening infinate mana with a topdecked Sword of the Paruns. I knew from an earlier Duress effect he had a Cord of Calling in his hand so I coulden't let him get infinate mana the cord for Ant Queen. I consulted for Darkblast, found it about thirty cards deep and was able to keep Roffellos off the board for the rest of the game, eventually winning despite removing a few spirits along the way. Again, I am not advocating the use of Consult prior to Iname unless absolutely neccessary, however it gives you options you would not otherwise have had when you need them the most.
Due to Consult's absurdly low casting cost you can almost always tutor for a Living Death effect and cast what you tutored for in the same turn. Not only is this important for racing, it allows you to keep your intentions hidden until you are about to strike. If you cast say a Diabolic Tutor after Iname has resolved, you oppoent knows that he needs to disrupt you immediately somehow or go for the throat in order to win, whereas consult, both due to it's low casting cost and instant speed allows you to win out of nowhere. Also allowing you to cast a Living Death effect a turn sooner let's you keep your spirits in the grave for a shorter period of time, which gives your oppoent's less chances to topdeck into a tutor or some form of grave hate. Since you will almost always be able to cast your mass reanimation spell the same turn you consult for it, you are free to use your time prior to Iname casting disruption, acceleration or card draw, instead of having to waste time tutoring for a Living Death effect beforehand to be able to mass reanimate the turn after you cast Iname.
Have I lost games to Demonic Consultation? Of course, but I have won many more because of it, many of which I would not have won, or winning would have been much more difficult without it. For example in another recent game I knew my opponent had a Bojuka Bog in hand from a pervious Duress effect, he tapped out his blue for a Future Sight and passed the turn, assuming I would not be able to cast Iname and a mass reanimation spell on my turn. I cast Iname, leaving Ebon Stronghold untapped and searched out my spirits, then sacrificed Stronghold for BB and consulted for Songs of the Damned, found Songs and cast it for seven black (I had drawn a spirit) to cast the Twilight's Call in my hand and take the Damnation he was holding with He Who Hungers. Had he untapped with the Future Sight I would have had little chance to recover, but because of Consult I was able to combo off in one turn. Diabolic Intent offers a similar and safer (although more costly) option post Iname, but is almost completely useless prior, and I would not feel comfortable cutting a land to run it.
MCR is right in that Demonic Consultation is my favorite card (not neccesarily in this deck, but in general), the benefits far outweigh the risks in my opinion. For those doubting my claims replace a swamp in your deck with Consult, and I doubt you will regret it. If you play with it long enough you will lose a few games, but try to also take into account the games where it finds you that missing combo peice or answer, and how those games would have played out had it been a swamp instead.
All is Dust: Honestly I have not had time to test this card, or anything from Rise for that matter. All is Dust has a few important advantages over Oblivion Stone which Maurice ChocoSuisse already mentioned, namely the ability to be cast under Boseiju (which is incredible) and that it is unaffected by Null Rod. While both of these are important factors, there are advantages to Oblivion Stone which I feel are better suited for this deck, at least in theroy.
The most obvious of these is that Stone can destory artifacts, this is very important as the most common hate for this deck (Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus) are artifacts as well as some artifacts which are less commonly played (Ensnareing Bridge) but still problematic for this deck. While it is true that all of these, with the exception of Bridge can be answered in other ways, it is much better if Stone takes these out as well.
The second advantage Stone has over All is Dust is that you can cast and blow Stone before you reach six mana, thus not conflicting with Iname, and letting you more easily handle the lightning quick starts some decks are capable of. So even though Stone costs more in total to get the effect it is actually faster. This ability to break up the mana cost can be especially relevant against mana denial strategies, which may never allow you to reach seven mana.
Finally the ability to put fate counters on permenants is another, albeit small advantage of Oblivion Stone. While the need to do this will rarely arise, the option is nice to have. I understand that some of you meant to play All is Dust in addition to Oblivion Stone, but I feel only one of this type of effect is neccessary. I almost never want to see Oblivion Stone, as it is usually just better to try to combo off then play a more controlling game with this deck. The enchantments and other problematic permenants that cannot be handled with Null Rod, Pithing Needle, or removal are rarely played, and Stone is just a tutorable insurance policy when there are no other options.
All is Dust is a very powerful card, and I will be testing it in the future, but my instinct is that it will not be needed.
The Sacrifice Lands: I will go into more detail on these when I write up a section on the manabase, but let me just say that I have been very satisfied with these and have never considered cutting them. These lands allow you to play less lands and still be able to consistantly cast Iname, generateing virtual card advantage. They also have been a tremendous help in filling the void created by losing Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. These lands also allow you to recover better and faster from mana denial, and surprise opponent's who thought they had more time. I tend to play this deck very aggresively, and these lands are crucial to that style of play, giving you more chances for a turn threee or four Iname, which actually happens quite often in this deck. For example imagine this scenario.
Turn 1: Swamp, Duress/Thoutseize/Inquistion
Turn 2: City of Traitors, Worn Powerstone/Coalition Relic
Turn 3: Float mana for City, Swamp, Iname
These lands all add quite a bit of speed which is instrumental to the success of any competitive combo deck. Ebon Stronghold is the weakest here, but I have still been satisfied with it and would leave it in, at least for now. All the others however have been all-stars and I would never cut them, particularly Lake of the Dead, which is one of the most powerful cards in the deck and a common tutor target. Again, I will go into greater detail on these and the rest of the lands when I discuss the mana base in depth, but I hope this convinces people interested in this deck to at least test these lands.
Mortal Combat: I will also update the original post regarding this card since you are right Khymera, many people do associate this card with this general, and I feel that is a mistake. To put this very simply, the advantage of gaining an additional win condition, is far outweighed by having to run so many additional spirits. As you can see from my decklist I run a lean eight spirits, I could see going up to ten, possibly eleven, but certainly not the twenty four or more that would be neccessary to effectivly run Mortal Combat. Think about it this way, the spirits are the worst cards in the deck, would you rather gain one additional win condition and lose sixteen slots, or just dedicate those slots to more tutors, disruption, and acceleration.
Bojuka Bog: Another card I will discuss in greater detail when I get to the mana base, but as you can see from my commments in the original post, I do not value grave hate particularly high, especially in this deck. I tested Bojuka Bog shortly after Worldwake was realeased, and was unimpressed. I so rarely find myself needing to interact with my oppoent's grave that I always found myself just wishing Bog was a swamp. Whenever I drew Bog I wanted to play it so as not to have to deal with the coming into play tapped, instead of holding it back and waiting to exile a grave. The fact that it wasn't a swamp also came up, once against Back to Basics, another time my opponent was able to use wasteland to keep me off of double black for longer than he would have otherwise been able to, and yet another time I was not able to use Lake of the Dead as effectively as I would have liked.
You so rarely need to exile creatures from your oppoent's grave because Kuro (or Krovikian Horror and Horobi if you have drawn of removed Kuro) insures that you will always come out ahead on a mass reanimation spell. This deck is also fast enough that slower recurrsion, such a Genesis, is not the problem it would be for a control deck. One of the only popular generals that makes significant use of the grave is Braids, which is a good match-up for this deck, you do not need the help from Bog here.
There are certainly metagames where I would play Bog, it is a very powerful effect for a land, and is certainly always somehting to keep an eye on. For example if the mirror became more popular, or I saw more Sharrum players which I have not seen much of since switching over to the 1v1 list, I would play it. I have also not had a chance to test against Khymera's Wort list, which I have heard makes excellent use of Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding, if this is the case, it may be time for me to reconsider Bojuka Bog. My friend d.g is building Wort and I will be able to test with him this weekend, perhaps this will change my mind. The opportunity cost for running this is indeed low, but my experiences with it have been unfavorable as I just so rarely want grave hate.
Wasteland: This is another card like Bojuka Bog that I do not think is wrong to play, I just have found it to be unneccessary. MCR, d.g, and Maurice ChocoSuisse have already done a good job of explaining why I chose to omit Wasteland, but I'll chime in. Wasteland has been in and out of the deck, when I switched over to the French list I thought it would be neccessary because of Library's entrance into the format. However the more I played with it, the more often I found myself wishing it was another black source. As has already been said this deck rarely wants to sacrifice it's lands, unless it's to Lake of the Dead, stunting your own mana development to hinder your oppoent's is not something this deck wants to be doing.
Library can be somewhat handled through discard, and while both Library and Tolarian Academy are very powerful, I am not comfortable with cutting any more black sources and prefer all the colorless lands to Wasteland. However, if you are playing with Vendillion Clique banned, then Desert can easily be cut to include Wasteland.
Sorry for not being able to get to everything. I'll answer the rest of the questions and explainations of my choices when I have more time, along with cleaning up the original post. Thanks a lot Miscalcul8tedRisk for formatting the deck, MCR has also offered to give me some help with formatting to make the original post more readable. Just wanted to address some of the most common questions and thank you guys for the comments. More to come soon!
Demonic Consultation:
You back this up well. Consulting for a Swamp early on is a reasonable play (though you still risk losing an irreplacable silver bullet like Oblivion Stone). After Iname...well, it's still not a card I would wish to cast unless I'm pretty sure I will lose otherwise. Usually, I feel like I'm going to win once I resolve Iname, so I'm not sure how often I would actually be willing to cast this. That said, there certainly are times where you've got to go for it. I'm willing to accept that this card wins you more games than it loses, so it should stay. I suspect that it barely wins more games than it loses you...but even so, it's okay.
All Is Dust:
Again, solid reasoning. I prefer it over Oblivion Stone in most decks, but I can see how O-Stone might be better here.
The Sacrifice Lands:
Actually, I think Ebon Stronghold is fine. Worst case scenario, it's just a nonbasic Swamp that enters play tapped. That's not too bad. The ones that really concern me are Peat Bog and (to a lesser extent) City of Traitors, because you can't necessarily use them and keep them around. In my (very limited) testing so far, Peat Bog has been horrible every time I've drawn it, because I wind up needing to tap it just to cast things like turn 2 Night's Whisper, and it winds up being depleted before I actually get a real boost out of it.
You tout the acceleration these lands provide, but, at least in your explanations, you're ignoring their very significant downsides--by using these lands, you run the risk of wrecking your own manabase. Even the tiniest amount of land destruction from your opponent can push you from "fine" to "oh crap I can only make 2 mana on turn 5." This isn't such a problem if you always win the turn you blow up your lands...but that doesn't always happen. Even testing against you (in the long-long-ago), I can recall a game where you played Lake of the Dead (sacrificing a swamp), sacrificed another swamp to play something (I think Persecute, but I could easily be mistaken), and passed. On my turn, I Wastelanded your Lake, and you were out 3 land drops to my Wasteland. I won that game.
Now, Lake of the Dead is such a powerful accelerant that I think it's actually worth the significant risk...but Peat Bog is not nearly so powerful, and it's harder to regulate. Considering the number of your own lands that you intend to sacrifice, I think you need to take steps to maintain your manabase when the game does go long, and this probably means removing suicidal lands like Peat Bog and City of Traitors. Again, in the 4 times I've drawn Peat Bog so far, it would have been better as a Swamp every time. Two of those times it would have been MUCH better as a Swamp, because I had to use it early and it slowed me down for the rest of the game.
Bojuka Bog:
I don't rate graveyard hate very highly either, but when you can get it without using a spell slot it's worth looking at. It's true that you often wind up playing it early just for the mana...but most often, it wouldn't have been any better as a Swamp. In the rarer occasions where graveyard hate is actually useful, it does tend to be extremely useful.
When I was testing an older version of this deck, a problem that I ran into with a fair degree of frequency was an opponent with creatures with ETB triggers in their graveyard. Stuff like Flametongue Kavu, Eternal Witness, Terastodon, Stingscourger, etc. doesn't exactly shut you down...but it does make things awkward. A single trigger is enough to kill Kuro, and sometimes that makes your control of the board very tenuous indeed. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I'm certain there have times where I resolved Iname and could have cast Living Death, and chose not to because of the strength of my opponent's graveyard. Sometimes you give them their infinite combo, you know?
Now, I'm not sure if this situation actually arises that frequently, or if it's usually damaging or just annoying, but this is the kind of situation that makes me want to play Bojuka Bog. It's not that it's a great card or particularly vital...but it can very useful to have access to on occasion, and the opportunity cost for including it is extremely low. I play it in a few of my other decks, and I've yet to ever lose a game because my Bojuka Bog wasn't a Swamp instead. The pros aren't huge, but the cons are so minor that the pros still outweigh them, in my opinion.
Wasteland:
The best thing about Wasteland isn't necessarily the ability to take out powerful lands, but rather having the opportunity to manascrew or colorscrew a troubled opponent. When this opportunity isn't available, then you just have a perfectly usable (if somewhat suboptimal) land. The beauty of Wasteland and Strip Mine is that they force your opponent to play the game on your terms--if you need land, then it's a land for you. If your opponent needs land, then you can use it to deny them, and put them even deeper in the hole. It can never really be a bad card, but, depending on your opponent's game state, it can sometimes be an incredibly good card. I most commonly play 2-3 color decks, and I think I probably lose more games to a inconvenient Wasteland/Strip Mine than to any other card. Similar to Bojuka Bog, you get an occasional extreme benefit, with a very low opportunity cost when that situation doesn't occur. I actually much prefer Wasteland to Bojuka Bog, as the benefit happens a lot more often.
Glad to see you found some time to test the deck Khymera.
Regarding the sacrifice lands, your right that I did not address the downsides of using these lands because I thought it was obvious. But just to set the record straight there are going to be times where these lands are awkward, possibly forceing you into suboptimal plays in the early game. However, my experience with both City of Traitors and Peat Bog has been has been much different than yours. I have been consistantly impressed with these two, and have never once considered cutting them. I feel the acceleration these lands provide more than makes up for the potential awkwardness, and consider both Peat Bog and City of Traitors important components of the mana base.
You mention the risks against mana denial as a reason not to run these lands, and it is not as though the scenarios you mention can never occur. However, I play against mana denial more than any other archetype in EDH due to my teammate MutedEquilibrium almost exclusively playing prision strategies, and I believe he would agree that Iname is favored against land destruction. These lands can accelerate you to six mana even after losing a few swamps, and even if you lose the sacrifice lands to cast Iname, after your spirits are in the grave you only need enough mana to tutor for Songs of the Damned (if you were not able to tutor for Songs prior to Iname) to have enough mana to combo off. Hell with Songs you will usually have enough mana to play a tutor and an animate effect with just one land in play.
I would say that perhaps you are playing the deck incorrectly, but I know from personal experience that you are a great player and have piloted Iname in the past so I doubt that is the case. I don't really know what to say other than that the sacrifice lands have been great for me. If you have had any more chances to play with these lands let me know if your experiences have changed with furthur testing.
As I said in my previous post, there is nothing wrong with playing Bojuka Bog if your metagame calls for additional grave hate. I am not opposed to playing Bog, I just find it unnecessary and feel that the disadvantages of both not being a swamp, and entering the battlefield tapped outweigh it's potential usefulness as grave hate, at least for now.
I noticed both you and Traaidy mention frequently not wanting to animate for fear of the creatures in your opponent's grave, what creatures are you concerned with? I have found that there are very few problem creatures you can reanimate in your opponent's grave that cannot be solved by Kuro or Krovikian Horror/Horobi just gunning them down. You use Flametounge Kavu, Eternal Witness, Terastodon, and Stingscourger as examples of creatures you would want Bog for, but how are any of there creatures much of an issue. All of these problems can be solved with your spirits alone, so what if they kill your Kuro with Flametounge or Stingscourger? You wrath their board in response to their triggers and you are left with all your spirits sans Kuro versus their empty board. Eternal Witness, while more threatening than the others, is not such a big deal, you can just force the discard of whatever card your opponent recurrs with He Who Hungers. You also mention that sometimes you risk giving your opponent an infinite combo when you mass reanimate, but what creature based infinite cannot be stopped cold by Kuro or Krovikian Horror/Horobi?
Again I have nothing against Bojuka Bog, but I just do not feel it is necessary at the moment. If the grave begins to be abused more by competitive generals, say for example in the Teysa build you and MCR are constructing (because Iona is obviously very difficult for this or any mono colored deck to deal with) than Bojuka Bog may find a home here, but at least for now I will not be including it.
You make a very convincing argument for Wasteland. I particularly like what you said about forcing the opponent to play the game on your terms. After some consideration I agree that Wasteland probably has a place in the deck, and will be testing Waste again as soon as I get the chance, thanks for the great suggestion.
I'll try to answer some of the other choices you asked about earlier.
Graveborn Muse: The issues I have with her is that she only offers a 3/3 body post reanimation (not the worst, but certainly not great either, this is a more minor complaint), when hardcasting her she competes with a lot on the curve, and she is easily dealt with and is a very good target for creature steal effects. Muse must survive a turn to draw you a single card, tapping out on turn 4 to play Graveborn Muse means that:
1. You are expecting it to live to the following turn, or expecting your opponent to spend at least 4 mana and a turn to answer her.
2. You have no other plays, or your other plays are useless enough that risking Muse's death to a 1 or 2 mana removal spell is your best option.
Neither option is terribly realistic. This is much more true in EDH, where almost all competitive decks will be playing answers for generals. The worst part of this is that the card your opponent will be exchanging for your Muse will be something that in all likelyhood was useless up until you played the Muse. Targeted removal is very poor against this deck, with really only Dark Confidant and Soldevi Adnate as targets prior to Iname (which does it's damage as soon as it enters play, thus making removal much worse), and thus "turning on" these cards for the opponent is not very desireable.
Myojin of Night's Reach: This is a spirit that others seems to like much more than me. My main problem is that in the matchups that will still have a decent sized hand by the time you reach 8 mana, you will never resolve Myojin.
If there were more decks in competitive EDH that took control of the game without using conterspells Myojin would be significantly better. However, basically all controlling strategies are either based around counters and permission, or mana denial, both of which are very good against Myojin.
If you are not playing against control, not only should you not need much help in the matchup, but the opponent's hand should not be more than a few cards meaning that if you could resolve it and are not already winnning there is probably something better you could be doing.
The ability is still very powerful, and occasionally will just end a game, although this is very rare. The best argument for Myojin in my opinion is that she has 5 power and at least her ability is more relevant and powerful than most of the other spirits with a higher power.
Kagemaro, First to Suffer: First off, at least in my experience about half the time I would reanimate Kagemaro he would enter play as a 3/3 or worse, so what he was adding to the collective power of my final assult was not negligable, but certainly not impressive.
Ok, that's fine, so we need to judge him on the ability. I'm not sure about you, but I have not really felt the need for additional wrath effects, in particular ones that are unpredictable like Kagemaro. Drawing Kagemaro is not terrible, but a 5 mana (6 if you want to activate on the same turn) conditional wrath is not exactly overpowered either, espically in a deck that has very little trouble with creature based strategies. Damnation and Oblivion Stone (along with targeted removal) have been just fine for me, but if you feel the need for more wraths than Kagemaro is a great option.
Midnight Banshee: I don't feel that the effect is very relelvant but this can be useful against token stategies and protection creatures, and it does have 5 power.
I am very satisfied with the spirit configuration I am using at the moment, and have no desire to add more spirits for the time being. However these and other options have specific uses that I will explore much more when I write up a section on all the spirit options I feel have merit.
Mouth of Ronam: This is another land I used to play with and found myself wanting it to be another black source often enough that I just decided to cut it for a swamp. I do not feel it is incorrect to play this if your metagame calls for it, say for example Zur or Sisay are major players in your metagame. However, I have not missed Mouth since it is so easy to find removal in this deck with the high tutor count, and the speed of the deck usually means that you will not need more than one or two removal spells throughout the game. This is especially true since post Iname the trio of Krovikian Horror, Bloodghast, and Nether Traitor can control the board for you. Of course Mouth has the advantage of being uncounterable, and removal that does not eat a spell slot is valuable, but creatures are rarely a problem for this deck, and investing five mana and sacrifcing a land will usually not be worth it. Only consider for specific metagames.
This next part is copy/pasted from an earlier pm I sent to you, but sums up how I feel regarding both the Leyline/Helm and Hexmage/Depths combos for those interested.
Leyline/Helm Combo: This is another one that I tested in the past, and I have found that two card combos (I also tested Vampire Hexmage/Dark Depths) were often unnecessary. This is certainly not bad by any means, and if I found myself wanting additional grave hate I might go back to this combo because Leyline is useful by itself. I just all too often found myself with one piece of the combo gumming up my hand, when it could have been disruption etc., or part of the combo would get countered making the other piece useless. Most of the times I would assemble the combo, I could have won either just as or almost as easily with the Iname/reanimation plan.
I have certainly not given up on this combo completely, and you are absolutely correct that having an alternate means of winning is very important. However, I have found that both Sorin and Phyrexian Processor more than adequately serve this purpose. Both are powerful threats on their own, and when I need an alternate win I want to be able to tutor for it with one card.
Shreikmaw: I have not tested Shriekmaw since very early on in the development of this deck, but I am very satisfied with the removal package I am playing, and do not feel the need to add or replace anything. It's true that Shriekmaw has some minor synergy with the animate effects, but you will very rarely feel the need to waste an animate effect on Shriekmaw. I feel that the sorcery speed and the inability to kill black (and arifact) creatures will be more of a disadvantage that the bonus of being able to be animated. Particularly since both Braids and Zur are generals which will demand an answer very quickly and neither can be dealt with via Shreikmaw. Only one of my removal spells (Snuff Out) cannot kill black creatures, and this is only because the fact the Snuff Out can be played for free with no card disadvantage is so amazing.
Liliana Vess: I agree that Liliana seems like she would fit perfectly into this deck, and I fought cutting her for a long time because of that fact. However, when I was trying to improve my matchups against permission based control with this deck I knew that I needed to lower the curve because it was very difficult to resolve five and six mana spells at sorcery speed, especially without much early pressure. Even in the non-blue matchups I would very rarely be able to ultimate with her, as due to the low percentage of creatures in this deck she was very difficult to protect oftentimes just forceing a discard and tutoring for a card before she died. I feel that she is just too slow and expensive for this deck, and there are more efficient options.
Contamination: I tested Contamination shortly after adding Bloodghast to the deck and was surprisingly disappointed. It still left many competitive decks like Dralnu, Braids, Zur, and 5 Color Combo large portions of their decks available to them, and acceleration like signets or Coalition Relic would make the effect much weaker. A deck could tutor for Coalition Relic using the black and still be able to operate, albiet at a slower pace. Not to mention that if a general like Zur or Roffellos was already in play, I would need to address them before Contamination could take full effect. I think that Contamination is right on the edge of making the deck, but not quite good enough.
@MCR
Unmask: I've been satisfied with Unmask, the card disadvantage is obviously not ideal but occasionally you will draw spirits which can be painlessly pitched to Unmask. Since you are often using Unmask offensively to force through very powerful effects the card disadvantage will almost always be irrelevant if the spell you are protecting resolves. You can also find Unmask with Dimir House Guard which is nice, and tutor for discard and play it for free in the same turn, which can be relevant against the other combo decks in the format. The free discard can also be very important to the speed of the deck allowing you to resolve powerful bombs and protect them much sooner than you would have otherwise been able to.
@ Traaidy
Regarding Xenic Poltergeist I am just going to copy/paste what I wrote to you in my pm discussing the spirits a while ago in case anyone else was thinking of testing it.
Xenic Poltergeist: One of my favorites. This spirit is not amazing or anything, but there are interesting tricks you can do with it, and it's a little discovery of mine I take a lot of pride in.
First off let's get the obvious out of the way, a 1/1 isn't going to be adding much to the combat damage at the end of the combo so it better be useful. Xenic Poltergeist can answer some cards that black traditionally has a lot of problems dealing with. You can turn Tormod's Crypt into a 0/0 killing it immediately, or other troublesome artifacts (Relic of Progenitus, Nevinyarl's Disk, Oblivion Stone etc.) can be animated, and then killed by a removal spell.
Another particularly difficult card for this deck to deal with is Ensnaring Bridge. Thankfully Bridge is rarely played, but not being affected by Null Rod/Damping Matrix/Pithing Needle means that normally we would have just Oblivion Stone to answer it. However, with Xenic Poltergeist in the deck it is easily answered. Simply reanimate, then make Bridge a 3/3 and shoot it with Kuro, we don't even need the removal spell!
Simply put this card is of course not an auto include, but an important option to keep in the back of your mind if you are faceing a lot of troublesome artifacts, and/or Karn, Arcum Dagson, or Sharuum are big players in your meta.
Hope that answers some of your questions. I hope to get start exploring the different sections of the deck (mana, spirits, spells, matchups etc.) in greater detail soon. If there is anything you'd like to know regarding card choices or match-ups just ask and I'll do my best to answer.
Just wanted to drop by to really congratulate you on finally making this primer. It is extremely obvious in the types of card selections you've made (i.e. Soldevi Adnate) that each and every card has been meticulously selected and is a part of the deck's ability to combo off or to just further increase the threat density of the deck. I am a big fan of maximizing the threat density in a deck, especially when it is absolutely critical to have any hope of beating blue decks.
As for my comment on me telling people to run more graveyard hate, I said that for multiplayer. Multiplayer EDH has a much greater emphasis on graveyard recursion to gain card advantage than in 1v1, where tempo is king as well as acceleration.
anyway to build this deck and use it in multiplayer, will the list change much ? or it can it still be effective using the 1 v 1 list against others in a 3to 4 people game ?
@Surging Chaos: Thanks man, I've agonized over all the slots in this deck and I really appreciate the compliment. Sorry for the misunderstanding about your comments regarding grave hate. I never play multiplayer and since you are active in the 1v1 scene as well I just assumed you were refering to 1v1 play.
@ctorres626: I wish I could be more helpful, but I despise multiplayer, and have very little experience with how games of multiplayer EDH actually play out. My guess is that Iname (or most generals for that matter) could be successfully ported to multiplayer, although I'm not sure how the deck would look or what you would want to change. Any advice I could give would not be much more than an educated guess. It may be that Iname is not the best choice for multiplayer, and you may be better off going with another general. Perhaps someone that has more experience with multiplayer could offer some advice?
Also, since the banning of Vendilion Clique, I have made a couple minor changes to the deck if anyone is interested.
-Desert
+Wasteland
I have decided to also make my choice in favor of Sorin Markov over Phyrexian Processor.
I have decided to test Wasteland again as Khymera made a very compelling argument for it's inclusion. Desert is a useful and necessary tool for fighting Vendilion Clique, which is Iname's most difficult matchup, but with Clique banned Wasteland is much more useful. However, if you are playing in a metagame where Clique is still legal (for example the French list) I would recommend keeping Desert.
I am formally chooseing Sorin over Processor because Sorin is just more powerful and has more synergy with the deck. Sorin is more synergistic due to being unaffected by Null Rod, and basically acting as another Living Death effect due to the ability to take you opponent to 10 life and have the recurrsive spirits and Iname finish the job in about the same amount of time as it would take with mass reanimation. I feel that Phyrexian Processor is better against heavy permission decks, because due to it's lower casting cost it is easier to resolve, and mana denial for the same reason. However, with Clique being banned, and a recent rise in the development of decks with a strong game against permission (an example would be Khymera's Wort deck), competitive players have significantly less reason to run heavy permission strategies. Iname also, as perviously stated, has a very good matchup against mana denial, so I believe Sorin is the correct choice at least for now.
Alright, I wanted to say I've played with the deck and even against the deck for a couple of games and it's solid. I agree with the addition to wasteland. But with that inclusion you have to ask yourself if tectonic edge is worth the slot. But What I do want to ask is Why no Volrath's Stronghold?
Now it does not produce black mana, but I see it as a additional tool to beat control decks. Now I have limited experieance with the deck but are their cases when you cannot get rid of the opponents hand? In this situation you've probably both wittled eachothers hand down. Wouldn't volrath serve as inevitability due to the ability to recur Iname constantly, them to address a Iname every single turn. It also allows you to recur Dark Confidant. Now is this win more? Does the low creature count simple dismiss Volrath from being as effective as it could be? I mean by some means if you can't mass reanimate, you can always get Sprit of the Night and go for the beatdown. Thoughts and opinions on the land?
Also could you discuss Spirit of the Night itself, Is it that with the reanimation effect it provides a 3 turn clock instead of four turns? Also it provides enough mana with Songs of the damned?
Finnally how has non-mana producing lands been for you? The only one that seems to even stand a chance for a slot is bazaar of baghdad. Have you tried the card? It helps you dig, but it eats a valuable land drop, and with the high tutor density, it may be unnecessary. I'm just curious in some of the cards that have missed inclusion.
Awesome list, Evergreen. I had a hunch that you would be playing fewer Spirits than many would expect
Your reasoning behind card choices is extremely solid as well. Thanks for posting your list; you have definitely pioneered and expanded upon some new ground in competitive EDH! I look forward to playing you in one of the upcoming tournaments!
@Hunter245: Thanks for commenting. I was hoping you would drop in and discuss your experiences with the deck. I'll address your questions as best I can.
Tectonic Edge: I only just began testing Wasteland again. Much more testing needs to be done in order for me to develop a concrete opinion on Wasteland much less the other mana denial lands. However, in theory I highly doubt Tectonic Edge will make the cut.
I feel Edge is a useful and balanced land, and a perfect fit for certain decks, but this is just not the deck for it. Trading lands with your opponent on a 1 for 1 basis is just not what this deck wants to be doing very often. Strip Mine is so powerful and versitile as to be an auto-include in just about every copmpetitive EDH deck, and Wasteland is close enough that it at least deserves a second chance. However this deck can usually make full use of it's mana every turn, and I do not believe Tectonic Edge is powerful enough to sacrifice and land and your land drop for the turn for it's effect.
One of the most powerful aspects of Wasteland, as Khymera already pointed out, is that it enables you to punish your opponent for keeping a mana light hand. Tectonic Edge cannot be activated until your opponent has already somewhat developed their manabase, and when you will most likely be looking to cast Iname or other higher end spells. The fact that you have to pay a mana to activate Edge furthur limits it's usefulness, making it all the harder to take full advantage of the turn you activate it, and making it much more difficult to use as a defense against counterspells. One of my favorite uses of Strip Mine, and hopefully Wasteland, is to play it on a turn where an unsuspecting blue mage has only left enough mana open to counter. Dropping Strip Mine and destroying one of their lands then proceeding to your second main phase and casting a spell can be devastating and really give you control of the game, having to pay the extra mana makes this all the more difficult.
Mana denial is not really what this deck is trying to accomplish. If I find Wasteland to just be incredible and want more mana denial lands I will include Rishidan Port before Edge for the above reasons. I just cannot see Edge making the cut at the end of the day.
Volrath's Stronghold: I am actually surprised that you are the first to comment on the omission of Stronghold, since you would think if there was a deck that could abuse it, it would be this one.
I had Stronghold in this deck for a long time, but when I switched over to the French (now Salvation) banned list I realized that I so rarely wanted to activate Stronghold that it was better served as another swamp. The reasons for this are that first what spirits can you recur for a reasonable cost that do not already recur themselves? In your example of recurring Iname every turn, you essentially need access to 9 mana, 6 for Iname, 2 to activate Stronghold, and tapping the Stronghold itself. That is not terribly realistic, coupled with the fact that you are sacrificing your draw to do this, make this an unattractive option against all but the slowest of control decks. These decks will usually be something like Teferi, which will almost always be playing enough counters that you will likely regret sacrificing your draw every turn and failing to advance your own gameplan by not even giving yourself the chance to draw into something like Boseiju.
He Who Hungers is actually the best Stronghold target, and there are situations where the ability to decimate the opponent's hand with Hunger and Bloodghast/Traitor is a valuble option. However, it is usually important to search for a reanimation spell quickly after Iname to avoid giving your opponent the opportunity to blow you out with grave hate, but if you are playing in a slower meta, Stonghold can be a potent tool almost exclusivey for this purpose (assuming you are running the same spirit configuration as I am). The problem with He Who Hungers is that the cards you would want to be forceing your opponent to discard (primarily counterspells and grave hate) will be used either to stop Iname from resolveing, or activated before you get the chance to recur He Who Hungers. The other times you would want him (for example the 5 color combo matchup, or just other combo decks in general) the recurrsion (8 mana to reccur and play in the same turn, and even then you cannot activate the ability on Hungers) will most often be too slow.
That is not to say that a build of Iname using a different spirit configuration could not make great use of Stronghold. For example Kagemaro, First to Suffer and Ghost-Lit Stalker are incredible targets for Stronghold against slower control and creature-based strategies respectively. Or even using my spirit base Stronghold can be powerful in a slower meta, or if for some reason you find yourself up against decks where you are engaging in attrition wars (although I can't see why that would be the case as combo and this deck in particular tends to have a very good game against creature based strategies).
The final reason for Stronghold's omission is that this deck values it's swamps very highly for two reasons. The first being the obvious. One of the major advantages to playing a mono colored deck in competitive EDH is that you are immune for the most part to powerful hosers like Blood/Magus of the Moon and Back to Basics. This deck makes full use of it's mana every turn so I would like to limit the effectiveness of these cards as much as possible. I consider all the colorless lands (with the exception of Wasteland, on which the jury is still out) to be crucial to the deck, and you do not want to put yourself in situations where you have awkward draws where you cannot cast Sorin etc. when you want due to not drawing enough black sources, or your black sources being destoryed and leaving you with a few colorless lands, unable to cast your threats.
The second reason is that Lake of the Dead is both the most important and most powerful land in this deck. You will often tutor for Lake, and you need a certain threshhold of swamps in order to abuse Lake to the fullest. I have never considered cutting any of the colorless lands I am currently running (again with the exception of Waste) which means I would have to cut a swamp or a spell to include Stronghold, I am uncomfortable with either of those options. All in all I just do not feel that Stronghold offers enough utility to warrent inclusion with the current spirit configuration.
Spirit of the Night: Your assumption regarding Spirit of the Night is correct. Spirit (the original Akroma, suck it white!) allows you to run less spirits since for the purposes of the combo Spirt will deal 12 damage to the opponent by the time all your other spirits attack for the kill. Also Spirit is one of the most powerful targets for the targeted reanimation spells (Recurring Nightmare/Victimize) particularly if you do not have the black available to pay for Kuro's upkeep. Grabbing Spirit and Kokusho with Victimize if you cannot afford to keep Kuro in play is still very powerful, particularly when coupled with Iname and the recursive spirits. I believe Spirit should be in every Iname list as it is simply too powerful not to play, watch out for Bribery though!
Non-Mana Producing Lands/Bazaar of Baghdad: I am very averse to playing lands that do not produce mana, and in fact I believe the only two I have ever run in this deck are Maze of Ith and Dark Depths(for the Hexmage combo). You really do not want to be sacrificing your land drops in this deck, for example even Maze of Ith which is a very powerful tool (particularly against the now banned Vendilion Clique, this deck's worst matchup) was just not worth it.
To be honest I have never tested nor even considered Bazaar, but I just cannot see how it would make the cut. While Bazzar is a very powerful and unique effect, and the ability to discard spirits is interesting (I do hate drawing Kuro) the card disadvantage, and the disadvantages of wasteing a land drop on a land that does not produce mana just outweigh any potential usefulness it may have.
I feel Bazaar is at it's best in decks with little options in terms of card selection, like mono-red or green. In black with great options for drawing and tutoring the filtering from Bazaar is unnecessary, especially since there are not many ways to truely abuse Bazzar here, Krovikan Horror will rarely work, and if you have the Skullclamp engine online, you should be well on your way to winning anyway.
I hope this answered your questions. If you are still unsure about anything just let me know and I'll do my best to clarify.
@d0su: Thanks a lot man, I really appreciate it. I am very impressed with the Gaddock Teeg deck you and Khymera developed, so recieveing a compliment regarding my deckbuilding from a deckbuilder like you means a lot. I hope we finally get a chance to play in a tournament match, as I'm sure it would be epic!
I've noticed that you play SC Swamps, but no cards to benefit off of snow lands. Is this because of taking advantage of an opponent playing Extraplanar Lens? If so, I applaud the reverse psychology in doing so. I've done this same thing in monoblack decks that I play, since when I run into other monoback decks, they're usually playing Extraplanar Lens and their Swamps are snow covered to hope that only they get the mana doubling effect. But it's nice to be one step ahead of such tricks, while you pretty much have no real downside to doing so.
And thanks for the games again that we just played. I learned a lot more on how your deck ticks. Khymera said it takes to balls to play Demonic Consultation -- that cannot be any more true.
I've noticed that you play SC Swamps, but no cards to benefit off of snow lands. Is this because of taking advantage of an opponent playing Extraplanar Lens?
Yes. This happened yesterday and I believe Evergreen won the game because of it. Historically we've had several decks in our meta that ran snow covered effects; most people have kept snow covered lands out of habit.
I use Snow-Covered Swamps for two reasons. The first you guessed, as a countermeasure against other mono black decks like Maga, Traitor to Mortals or Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, that seek to abuse Extraplanar Lens.
The second reason is not as important, but still worth mentioning. You can use the snow-covered swamps to bluff having Mouth of Ronam if you have Expedition Map in play. Obviously this is not amazing or anything, but since there is no disadvantage to running snow-covered it can be useful, possibly altering your opponent's actions if they play around a phantom threat. Although now that this thread is up and everyone can see that I do not play Mouth that small advantage may have gone out the window :).
anyway to build this deck and use it in multiplayer, will the list change much ? or it can it still be effective using the 1 v 1 list against others in a 3to 4 people game ?
It can be ported over to multiplayer but you are going to be facing a lot more graveyard hate instead of counterspells. I had a multiplayer build of it but it played pretty much like a Belcher deck. I removed all of the disruption (discard to be specific as it's not really good in multiplayer) in favor of trying to play Iname as early as turn 1 and go turn 2 living death/patriarch's bidding. More spirits were included in the deck to ensure the amount of damage they deal would be enough to take out at least several people at once (people have 40 life instead of 30). The best way to beat it was Leyline of the Void on opening hand or a turn 1 Planar Void. This type of style isn't good in 1vs1 because counterspells are more common here. It's also easier to play around counters than having your opponent play a card that says you lose like Leyline of the Void which you really can't do anything against.
I have some more questions if you wouldnt mind answering. I wish I could respond that clearly to questions xD.
Inquestion of Kozelik, My playgroup is constantly evaluating how good this card is. Duress and Thoughtseize are often never dead, and can cripple a hand. Yet Inquestion is limited, but a counter argument is that most competitive EDH decks curve is quite low.
Dimir Houseguard. I know he fetches diabolic tutor at worst. But often I see him fetching persucute and damnation. Now this is a neat trick and all but unless you have boseju persucute isn't going to see the light of day. Against most decks wouldn't persucte seem irrevelant? At this point you've thrown enough discard at a opponent that persucute will often fetch 1-2 cards. Also The beauty of discard in edh is the cheap ones. The ones that can effectively rip counters out of a control player's hand. I'd rather See persucute become Distress.
I'm just curious on how well this deck fares against other combo decks in the format. It seems that it turn into a discard war, but without blue your deck is at a natural disadvantage. Sure you have a focused gameplan thats built in reseliance with your general but how does that fare to storm/yawg will combo.
Speaking of other combos. Do you ever wish you could have a combo backup? Sure it may eat a slot of two but often the high amount of tutors will decrease the chance that these 1-2 slots will affect your chances of winning. Tendrils of Agony backup plan? Terrrible Idea, maybe but at least its there
So really I'm just asking you to watch how persucute and dimir houseguard perform. Also I'm asking how Inquestion has been performing as well. Thanks for taking your time to read my thoughts,
I understand what you are saying regarding Persecute, but it really is a lot more potent than you think. It's just not possible to lead every game with a Duress effect, and Persecute will just hammer the combo home. For example: against a MUC deck, Duress will often take a counterspell but leave them with some card draw spells that allow them to recover with time. Persecute is more like a four-mana Mind Twist (which is banned in 1v1) and the fact that it can be cast through Boseiju pushes it over the top. At least, this is my opinion on the matter.
Distress has been pretty good for me, though. I'm surprised it's not in here.
As for the other two cards you mentioned, I think those are best left for someone more qualified to address.
Thanks for posting this thread Evergreen. Your list is completely brilliant.
I've made changes to my build based on your list, and they has worked wonders. Demonic Consultation in particular is a card I was too afraid to try out, and now cannot see myself removing from the deck.
I also dumped the Mortal Combat strategy and don't miss it at all. I was able to free room for discard and now I have had much better results against the blue players in my area.
I think some people don't understand that the Mirrans are the bad guys. Arcbound Ravager is Mirran. Phyrexia are the good guys coming in to conquer an evil, evil world.
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1x Iname, Death Aspect
Lands:
24x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Marsh Flats
1x Polluted Delta
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Crypt of Agadeem
1x Ebon Stronghold
1x Lake of the Dead
1x Peat Bog
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x City of Traitors
1x Crystal Vein
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
1x Wasteland
Creatures:
1x Dark Confidant
1x Soldevi Adnate
1x Balthor the Defiled
1x Dimir House Guard
Spirits:
1x Bloodghast
1x Nether Traitor
1x Horobi, Death's Wail
1x Krovikan Horror
1x He Who Hungers
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
1x Kuro, Pitlord
1x Spirit of the Night
1x Sorin Markov
Spells:
1x Dark Ritual
1x Darkblast
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Duress
1x Imperial Seal
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Songs of the Damned
1x Thoughtseize
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Devour in Shadow
1x Hero's Demise
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Night's Whisper
1x Plunge into Darkness
1x Shred Memory
1x Sign in Blood
1x Beseech the Queen
1x Grim Tutor
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Sudden Death
1x Victimize
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Damnation
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Persecute
1x Snuff Out
1x Unmask
1x Living Death
1x Patriarch's Bidding
1x Twilight's Call
1x Skeletal Scrying
1x Sickening Shoal
1x Expedition Map
1x Mana Vault
1x Pithing Needle
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Skullclamp
1x Grim Monolith
1x Defense Grid
1x Jet Medallion
1x Null Rod
1x Coalition Relic
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Worn Powerstone
You will have to forgive the lack of spoilers, I am absolutely terrible with technology, and will add them as soon as I learn how.
Tournament Performance
I have competeted in four tournaments on this website using Iname with the following results.
Tournament 1 (Multiplayer Banned List/40 Life): This tournament was the first on this website and as such was plauged with problems. The tournament was ended early with myself, MutedEquilibrium and Samoht at the top of the standings.
Tournament 2 (Multiplayer Banned List/40 Life): I met my friend and teammate MutedEquilibrium in the finals, and we agreed to just split to share the glory.
Tournament 3 (French Banned List/30 Life): I placed second, losing in the finals to SurgingChoas in three games.
Tournament 4 (French Banned List/30 Life): I place third/fourth, losing in the quarter finals to LennnonMarx in three games.
Throughout the course of these tournaments I faced off against all the most competitive generals, beating Vendillion Clique, Braids, Azami, Roffellos, Horde of Notions, Sharuum, and a whole host of others. I had 5 match loses in 4 tournaments, and at least two of those I feel I would have won were it not for my own play mistakes. I feel this deck can compete with any general in the format, and is even favored against some of the most competitive strategies.
Why is This Deck Competitive?
Let me try to give you a few reasons I beleive Iname is so competitive. One of the biggest advantages that comes with playing Iname is that so much of the traditional hate in this format is ineffective. For example creature removal, which is both neccesary and common in some form or another in all competitive strategies, is almost completely useless against Iname outside of wrath effects, even wraths are difficult to keep because of He Who Hungers.
Mana denial strategies, while much more effective than creature removal, I have also found to be less effecitve than one might think against this deck. While Armageddon effects can be painful, more traditional mana denial strategies, such as red based land destruction generals (Jaya Ballard, Radha, Heir to keld, Wort, the Raidmother etc.) and even prison builds of Roffellos are favorable matchups. This is due in no small part to Songs of the Damned, and the incredible tutoring options available to black to either find Songs or a way to accelerate into Iname such as Lake of the Dead.
Another huge advantage to playing Iname is that the hate which is particularly effective against this deck, grave hate, is not very useful against most of the competitive generals, and thus will not be played as often. Some players (including many great players I respect like SurgingChoas) have made a strong push for more players to increse the grave hate counts in their decks, I disagree. While I feel that all competitive strategies should have some way to interact with the grave, most of the top generals have very few ways to truly abuse their graveyards. Vendillion Clique, Azami, Roffellos, Erayo, Zur, etc. all do not rely on the grave very heavily, and drawing dead cards in these match-ups can very quickly lead to death. I am not trying to artifically create a safer environment for Iname, as you can see by my decklist I am only playing Shred Memory to interact with my opponent's graveyard, and I very rarely use it as anything but a transmute tutor.
Beating Grave Hate
One common misperception I have heard regarding this deck is that you just fold to gave hate, this could not be furthur from the truth. While I will not sit here and tell you that grave hate is ineffective against Iname, I will say that this deck is very resilant, much more so that you might think for a mono black deck. Pithing Needle, and even more importantly Null Rod are incredible tools for fighting artifact based hate while still being very effective weapons even when Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus are nowhere to be seen.
Instants and Sorceries such as Ravenous Trap and Shred Memory can be handled through discard, and are not particularly difficult to play around unless you also have to contend with counterspells, and creatures such as Nezumi-Graverobber and Withered Wretch and easily taken out by removal.
Enchantments such as Solitary Confinement, Wheel of Sun and Moon, or Leyline of the Void, and lands (thankfully just Bojuka Bog) are by far the most difficult form of hate for this deck to deal with. Oblivion Stone, and the many tutors to find it gives you an out to the enchantments, while Bojuka Bog can be disacarded with He Who Hungers, or beaten by casting Iname and a Living Death effect in the same turn through Songs of the Damned or Soldevi Adnate, even Dark Ritual or Lake of the Dead can get you there due to the cheaper animate effects like Balthor (would have had to be in play prior to Iname) or Victimize.
Bloodghast, Nether Traitor and Krovikian Horror can hop out of the grave as well without any help from an animate effect to save themselves from incoming grave hate, I will go into more detail about how to fully abuse this trio when I get into the spirit package later on. You also have the option of just not putting all your spirits into the grave when you cast Iname, in order not to be completely blown out by grave hate, this will come up most often when you have not had a chance to see the opponent's hand but have a window of opportunity to cast Iname that you feel you should take even if there is a chance grave hate or a tutor for said hate may be waiting in their hand. For example if you are playing against a blue deck, and your opponent taps out (perhaps because they do not know you will be able to cast Iname on your turn, say you are holding Lake of the Dead), in this situation you will probably want to try to resolve Iname while you can, and if your opponent happens to be holding Tormod's Crypt/Tolaria West etc. you will still have other spirits to fall back on.
If all else fails, and all your spirits are lost, you still have Phyrexian Processor/Sorin Markov, both of which can end the game either by themselves or in conjunctuion with an attacking Iname.
The Threat of Blue and Playing Against Permission
One thing you should be aware of if you decide to play Iname is that while the deck is very powerful, resiliant, and has many positive matchups against competitive generals, you need to be very comfortable playing against counterspells or you will not have very much success against the blue generals which dominate the top tiers. That is not to say that these decks cannot be beaten, for example I have never lost a tournament match to any mono blue general except for Vendillion Clique and Teferi (and I feel that had I not had a horrible play mistake it would be just Clique), and have beaten Erayo, Teferi, Vendillion Clique and multiple skilled Azami pilots. However, Vendillion Clique remains the worst match-up for this deck, as being a combo deck it can be very difficult to fight through thirty plus counters.
I will go into more detail on how to fight Clique when I come to the match-up analysis, but always remember that Boseiju, Who Shelters All is your primary weapon in the fight against blue. Many times the blue mage will allow a tutor to resolve, planning to counter the threat and gain tempo, only to later lose to Boseiju bypassing all the counters in their hand. Boseiju allows you to completely ignore counters and devestate your oppoent with some of the most powerful spells in the format like Persecute and Living Death. Often times setting up a Persecute under Boseiju is critical to open up a window to force Iname through, after which most of your Living Death effects will be uncounterable thanks to Boseiju, no matter how many counterspells your opponent goes on to draw.
The fight against permission based control is not an easy one, but can be won through careful play, just be aware that these match-ups are difficult and if you decide to add or change cards consider how that card will play out against permission, because those are the most difficult match-ups for this deck.
I have a lot more to say regarding this deck and will go into much greater detail regarding how I have arrived at the choices I have, hidden synergies and tricks, and a detailed match-up analysis with the most common competitive generals and strategies when I have some more time as I intend for this to be the ultimate guide to playing Iname, Death Aspect when all is said and done. I just wanted to get the list and some of the many reasons to choose Iname up because I have been promising people I would for a long time.
Special Thanks
As a final note I would like to say that I am very flattered and deeply appreciate all the interest that has been shown for my deck. I have spent almost two years developing this deck, and all the support has made the effort more than worth it. In particular I would like to thank:
MutedEquilibrium: First and foremost I need to thank my friend and teammate without whom this deck would not have been possible. Countless hours of testing and discussion helped me improve the deck to where it is today, and I could not have done it without him. Muted has some really innovative competitive strategies brewing and I hope he decides to write up a primer and get his decks out there soon.
Khymera: I first met Khymera online about a year and a half ago on MWS, I had been doing well on MWS with a very early version of the deck and felt I like I was on a hot streak...and then I played his Sharuum. It was embarassing, I just got annihilated six ways to Sunday and I really got my first glimpse of how competitive EDH could be. I told him about my quest to make Iname competitive, and I knew I would have to up my game dramatically if I wanted to compete at that level. Since then he has gone on to innovate some of the most competitive strategies in the format, given many many great suggestions for this deck as well as being a sounding board for my ideas, and become one of the most important voices in the ever growing competitive EDH scene.
Clem: The competitive EDH community owes a huge debt of gratitude to Clem for stepping up and organizing the EDH torunaments on this site without any compensation. Clem always kept an open dialouge with the players, asking for ways to improve the tournaments and it showed with each toruanement running smoother than the last. Just an all around stand up gent.
SurgingChaos: A very competitive player and friend that has excelled in the tournaments on this site, and helped spread the word about this deck. Without Chaos and Khymera there would not be nearly as much interest in this deck.
d.g.: My good friend whose suggestions and testing helped me push the deck to where it is now. Along with just getting the word out about Iname and competitive EDH in general.
MCR: Without MCR I would have never started playing EDH in the first place, and now it is by far my favorite format. He has also helped get the word out about this deck and generate interest.
Well there it is, more to come soon. I feel there is still a lot of design space to explore, and will go into some of the other directions you could take the deck that I feel have merit in the future, but I am satisfied with the deck for now. If you have any questions regarding the deck I'll be happy to answer them. I am always open to new ideas as this deck is evolving constantly with the printing of new sets, different metagame concerns, and me just hearing better ideas from you guys, hope it lives up to the hype!
Thank you for finally sharing this gem with us.
To be honest, this is different enough from the list I've been messing with for months that I don't feel qualified to offer suggestions until I get a chance to test it thoroughly (which could take a while). I know you've already tried all the cards I could suggest, so presumably they've been found wanting.
I eagerly await your guide on how to play this--there's a lot of complexity and room for variation, especially when dealing with the spirit package (the whole thing, or just the recursive ones).
When you have the time to add it, I would also like to see explanations for some of your more unusual card choices, and perhaps for omitted cards as well.
In particular, I'd like to hear your perspective on the sacrificial lands (Peat Bog, Ebon Stronghold, Crystal Vein, City of Traitors, and the stronger Lake of the Dead), the particular pieces of artifact mana you chose, Inquisition of Kozilek, Plunge into Darkness, and especially Demonic Consultation. Consultation is clearly a powerful card, but...wow. Really? Wow. It takes balls to play Demonic Consultation in EDH...huge, awesome balls. Do you only play it in situations where you expect to lose without it, or do you just suck it up and insta-lose ~10% of games you might otherwise have won?
For exclusions, I would like to hear your thoughts on:
Mortal Combat (I know it sucks hard, but a lot of people seem to associate it with this general, so you should enlighten them)
Graveborn Muse, Kagemaro, First to Suffer, Midnight Banshee, Myojin of Night's Reach (other decent spirits commonly played in this deck)
Shriekmaw (synergy with Victimize and Living Death--are all 6 of your other removal spells really better?)
Mouth of Ronom (more removal, land for Map, low opportunity cost)
Bojuka Bog (land for Map, very low opportunity cost)
Wasteland (I have a hard time cutting this from anything when LoA and Tolarian Academy are running around)
Leyline of the Void/Helm of Obedience combo (very solid alternate win, especially with all the tutors you play)
Dark Depths/Vampire Hexmage combo (very speedy combo, apparently good enough to get banned in France)
All Is Dust (seems like a particularly solid answer to troublesome enchantments and most everything else)
Liliana Vess (tutor, super-Living Death, and discard, all in one package? Seems like the patron planeswalker of this deck, even if she is a little slow)
Contamination (soft-lock with recursive spirits?)
When you get a chance.
Looking forward to reading more.
1x Iname, Death Aspect
Lands:
24x Snow Covered Swamp
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Marsh Flats
1x Polluted Delta
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Crypt of Agadeem
1x Ebon Stronghold
1x Lake of the Dead
1x Peat Bog
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x City of Traitors
1x Crystal Vein
1x Desert
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
Creatures:
1x Dark Confidant
1x Soldevi Adnate
1x Balthor, the Defiled
1x Dimir House Guard
Spirits:
1x Bloodghast
1x Nether Traitor
1x Horobi, Death's Wail
1x Krovikian Horror
1x He Who Hungers
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
1x Kuro, Pitlord
1x Spirit of the Night
1x Dark Ritual
1x Darkblast
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Duress
1x Imperial Seal
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Songs of the Damned
1x Thoughtseize
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Devour in Shadow
1x Hero's Demise
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Night's Whisper
1x Plunge into Darkness
1x Shred Memory
1x Sign in Blood
1x Beseech the Queen
1x Grim Tutor
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Recurring Nightmare
1x Sudden Death
1x Victimize
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Damnation
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Persecute
1x Snuff Out
1x Unmask
1x Living Death
1x Patriarch's Bidding
1x Twilight's Call
1x Skeletal Scrying
1x Sickening Shoal
1x Expedition Map
1x Mana Vault
1x Pithing Needle
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Skullclamp
1x Grim Monolith
1x Defense Grid
1x Jet Medallion
1x Null Rod
1x Coalition Relic
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Worn Powerstone
1x Phyrexian Processor or 1x Sorin Markov
Current EDH Decks:
G Multani, Maro-Sorcerer
B Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
GU Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
I'd just like to throw my 2 cents out there from playing this deck a few times (mostly in response to Khymera).
The sacrificial lands have been the meat and potatoes of the deck. It's precisely these that really push the deck forward, especially since artifacts like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are gone. Crypt of Agadeem and Lake of the Dead have been absolute MVPs for me - the speed they provide is crucial.
Like Evergreen has mentioned, he is a true black mage. If you ever meet him in person, you'll know what I mean. He absolutely loves the color, both functionality and flavor included. For as long as I've known him he's always been playing combo - balls to the wall combo! Dragon, Grim Long, IGGY pop, you name it. I'm really happy he found his niche in EDH with a general that is both mono black AND combo. All that said, I am not surprised at all to see Demonic Consultation in here (which I believe is also his favorite card in Magic).
When playing the deck, I've been fairly unimpressed with the spirits you've mentioned. One of the main reasons is because they offer weak functionality post-combo (ie. Kagemaro's sweep is unnecessary, Myojin does not come with a divinity counter). I've also began slowly cutting Liliana Vess from all of my decks. It may seem like blasphemy, but she has not been as amazing as I thought she would be. I think she's okay in slower control black decks, but this list is already bloated with efficient tutors.
I am definitely for All is Dust in here.
Lastly, I just want to ask how good Unmask has been for you. Is the card disadvantage really worth it?
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
Like I said in the other post...gotta play this if you want to play like Evergreen : ) On the upside, it's not too bad in a 100 card format, but the singleton rule makes it do or die. I'd play it in most any black-based combo deck; it's worth it. A one mana instant speed tutor to hand for anything in your deck...worth the occassional loss, especially for a deck like this where you only need to resolve a few key spells in order to win.
Aside from that, I'd say that the other spirits are not necessary because the Kuro/Horobi combo takes care of everything on the field if Living Death doesn't. The Myojin obviously sucks because it doesn't get the counter, and Graveborn Muse is not so great because once she gets reanimated and activated you should be in a position to win the game by attacking with the other spirits, anyways.
Mortal Combat is not a terrible win condition, but it requires too much of the deck gets sunk into spirits. You lose too many other useful cards (tutors/control/acceleration) by having to run more spirits. Would be much better in an aggro-based Iname deck.
Shriekmaw is out because it can't hit black creatures; Zur used to be more popular in our meta so I know hitting black creatures was a big factor for Evergreen in days past. Regardless, I'd rather play Diabolic Edict.
I believe Wasteland is out because Iname can't afford to miss land drops, and against our meta there isn't a huge need for land hate. Typically we have 10-20% rofellos players, so wastes are a literal dead card. Against others there's little point in slowing down the Iname clock to hit one of their nonbasics, so this is better served as something else. For everything else there is Strip Mine, which can be tutored for if a land is getting problematic. Evergreen would know more about this choice, though.
d.g
Wow at Demonic Consultation. I ran this card for all of about 9 seconds. The first time I played it the named card was the 4th card and I promptly took it out.
Secondly, I'm sure this is mostly a metagame call and I'm answering my own question but how has Xenic Poltergeist been for you? I find myself using him all the time in conjunction with Horror/Ghast/Traitor for artifact removal.
Lastly, No need for Bojuka Bog? Outside of Lake of the Dead, this is my map target right before a mass reanimation.
Demonic Consultation: First off I suppose I should address the card that seems to have generated the most controversy. I replaced a swamp with Consult a while ago and have never once considered cutting it. Basically the way I use the card is as a tutor for a swamp prior to Iname. I would not reccommend consulting for anything else prior to Iname's resolution due to the low count of spirits in the deck that risk being removed. However after you resolve her you have one of the the cheapest to-hand tutors in the game available to you to find Living Death effects or whatever else the situation calls for. There will be times when you may need to consult for an answer before you cast Iname, and yes this is risky, but were it a swamp you would not even have the option. For example in a game this past week my hand was forced into using Consultation early by a Roffellos player threatening infinate mana with a topdecked Sword of the Paruns. I knew from an earlier Duress effect he had a Cord of Calling in his hand so I coulden't let him get infinate mana the cord for Ant Queen. I consulted for Darkblast, found it about thirty cards deep and was able to keep Roffellos off the board for the rest of the game, eventually winning despite removing a few spirits along the way. Again, I am not advocating the use of Consult prior to Iname unless absolutely neccessary, however it gives you options you would not otherwise have had when you need them the most.
Due to Consult's absurdly low casting cost you can almost always tutor for a Living Death effect and cast what you tutored for in the same turn. Not only is this important for racing, it allows you to keep your intentions hidden until you are about to strike. If you cast say a Diabolic Tutor after Iname has resolved, you oppoent knows that he needs to disrupt you immediately somehow or go for the throat in order to win, whereas consult, both due to it's low casting cost and instant speed allows you to win out of nowhere. Also allowing you to cast a Living Death effect a turn sooner let's you keep your spirits in the grave for a shorter period of time, which gives your oppoent's less chances to topdeck into a tutor or some form of grave hate. Since you will almost always be able to cast your mass reanimation spell the same turn you consult for it, you are free to use your time prior to Iname casting disruption, acceleration or card draw, instead of having to waste time tutoring for a Living Death effect beforehand to be able to mass reanimate the turn after you cast Iname.
Have I lost games to Demonic Consultation? Of course, but I have won many more because of it, many of which I would not have won, or winning would have been much more difficult without it. For example in another recent game I knew my opponent had a Bojuka Bog in hand from a pervious Duress effect, he tapped out his blue for a Future Sight and passed the turn, assuming I would not be able to cast Iname and a mass reanimation spell on my turn. I cast Iname, leaving Ebon Stronghold untapped and searched out my spirits, then sacrificed Stronghold for BB and consulted for Songs of the Damned, found Songs and cast it for seven black (I had drawn a spirit) to cast the Twilight's Call in my hand and take the Damnation he was holding with He Who Hungers. Had he untapped with the Future Sight I would have had little chance to recover, but because of Consult I was able to combo off in one turn. Diabolic Intent offers a similar and safer (although more costly) option post Iname, but is almost completely useless prior, and I would not feel comfortable cutting a land to run it.
MCR is right in that Demonic Consultation is my favorite card (not neccesarily in this deck, but in general), the benefits far outweigh the risks in my opinion. For those doubting my claims replace a swamp in your deck with Consult, and I doubt you will regret it. If you play with it long enough you will lose a few games, but try to also take into account the games where it finds you that missing combo peice or answer, and how those games would have played out had it been a swamp instead.
All is Dust: Honestly I have not had time to test this card, or anything from Rise for that matter. All is Dust has a few important advantages over Oblivion Stone which Maurice ChocoSuisse already mentioned, namely the ability to be cast under Boseiju (which is incredible) and that it is unaffected by Null Rod. While both of these are important factors, there are advantages to Oblivion Stone which I feel are better suited for this deck, at least in theroy.
The most obvious of these is that Stone can destory artifacts, this is very important as the most common hate for this deck (Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus) are artifacts as well as some artifacts which are less commonly played (Ensnareing Bridge) but still problematic for this deck. While it is true that all of these, with the exception of Bridge can be answered in other ways, it is much better if Stone takes these out as well.
The second advantage Stone has over All is Dust is that you can cast and blow Stone before you reach six mana, thus not conflicting with Iname, and letting you more easily handle the lightning quick starts some decks are capable of. So even though Stone costs more in total to get the effect it is actually faster. This ability to break up the mana cost can be especially relevant against mana denial strategies, which may never allow you to reach seven mana.
Finally the ability to put fate counters on permenants is another, albeit small advantage of Oblivion Stone. While the need to do this will rarely arise, the option is nice to have. I understand that some of you meant to play All is Dust in addition to Oblivion Stone, but I feel only one of this type of effect is neccessary. I almost never want to see Oblivion Stone, as it is usually just better to try to combo off then play a more controlling game with this deck. The enchantments and other problematic permenants that cannot be handled with Null Rod, Pithing Needle, or removal are rarely played, and Stone is just a tutorable insurance policy when there are no other options.
All is Dust is a very powerful card, and I will be testing it in the future, but my instinct is that it will not be needed.
The Sacrifice Lands: I will go into more detail on these when I write up a section on the manabase, but let me just say that I have been very satisfied with these and have never considered cutting them. These lands allow you to play less lands and still be able to consistantly cast Iname, generateing virtual card advantage. They also have been a tremendous help in filling the void created by losing Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. These lands also allow you to recover better and faster from mana denial, and surprise opponent's who thought they had more time. I tend to play this deck very aggresively, and these lands are crucial to that style of play, giving you more chances for a turn threee or four Iname, which actually happens quite often in this deck. For example imagine this scenario.
Turn 1: Swamp, Duress/Thoutseize/Inquistion
Turn 2: City of Traitors, Worn Powerstone/Coalition Relic
Turn 3: Float mana for City, Swamp, Iname
These lands all add quite a bit of speed which is instrumental to the success of any competitive combo deck. Ebon Stronghold is the weakest here, but I have still been satisfied with it and would leave it in, at least for now. All the others however have been all-stars and I would never cut them, particularly Lake of the Dead, which is one of the most powerful cards in the deck and a common tutor target. Again, I will go into greater detail on these and the rest of the lands when I discuss the mana base in depth, but I hope this convinces people interested in this deck to at least test these lands.
Mortal Combat: I will also update the original post regarding this card since you are right Khymera, many people do associate this card with this general, and I feel that is a mistake. To put this very simply, the advantage of gaining an additional win condition, is far outweighed by having to run so many additional spirits. As you can see from my decklist I run a lean eight spirits, I could see going up to ten, possibly eleven, but certainly not the twenty four or more that would be neccessary to effectivly run Mortal Combat. Think about it this way, the spirits are the worst cards in the deck, would you rather gain one additional win condition and lose sixteen slots, or just dedicate those slots to more tutors, disruption, and acceleration.
Bojuka Bog: Another card I will discuss in greater detail when I get to the mana base, but as you can see from my commments in the original post, I do not value grave hate particularly high, especially in this deck. I tested Bojuka Bog shortly after Worldwake was realeased, and was unimpressed. I so rarely find myself needing to interact with my oppoent's grave that I always found myself just wishing Bog was a swamp. Whenever I drew Bog I wanted to play it so as not to have to deal with the coming into play tapped, instead of holding it back and waiting to exile a grave. The fact that it wasn't a swamp also came up, once against Back to Basics, another time my opponent was able to use wasteland to keep me off of double black for longer than he would have otherwise been able to, and yet another time I was not able to use Lake of the Dead as effectively as I would have liked.
You so rarely need to exile creatures from your oppoent's grave because Kuro (or Krovikian Horror and Horobi if you have drawn of removed Kuro) insures that you will always come out ahead on a mass reanimation spell. This deck is also fast enough that slower recurrsion, such a Genesis, is not the problem it would be for a control deck. One of the only popular generals that makes significant use of the grave is Braids, which is a good match-up for this deck, you do not need the help from Bog here.
There are certainly metagames where I would play Bog, it is a very powerful effect for a land, and is certainly always somehting to keep an eye on. For example if the mirror became more popular, or I saw more Sharrum players which I have not seen much of since switching over to the 1v1 list, I would play it. I have also not had a chance to test against Khymera's Wort list, which I have heard makes excellent use of Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding, if this is the case, it may be time for me to reconsider Bojuka Bog. My friend d.g is building Wort and I will be able to test with him this weekend, perhaps this will change my mind. The opportunity cost for running this is indeed low, but my experiences with it have been unfavorable as I just so rarely want grave hate.
Wasteland: This is another card like Bojuka Bog that I do not think is wrong to play, I just have found it to be unneccessary. MCR, d.g, and Maurice ChocoSuisse have already done a good job of explaining why I chose to omit Wasteland, but I'll chime in. Wasteland has been in and out of the deck, when I switched over to the French list I thought it would be neccessary because of Library's entrance into the format. However the more I played with it, the more often I found myself wishing it was another black source. As has already been said this deck rarely wants to sacrifice it's lands, unless it's to Lake of the Dead, stunting your own mana development to hinder your oppoent's is not something this deck wants to be doing.
Library can be somewhat handled through discard, and while both Library and Tolarian Academy are very powerful, I am not comfortable with cutting any more black sources and prefer all the colorless lands to Wasteland. However, if you are playing with Vendillion Clique banned, then Desert can easily be cut to include Wasteland.
Sorry for not being able to get to everything. I'll answer the rest of the questions and explainations of my choices when I have more time, along with cleaning up the original post. Thanks a lot Miscalcul8tedRisk for formatting the deck, MCR has also offered to give me some help with formatting to make the original post more readable. Just wanted to address some of the most common questions and thank you guys for the comments. More to come soon!
You back this up well. Consulting for a Swamp early on is a reasonable play (though you still risk losing an irreplacable silver bullet like Oblivion Stone). After Iname...well, it's still not a card I would wish to cast unless I'm pretty sure I will lose otherwise. Usually, I feel like I'm going to win once I resolve Iname, so I'm not sure how often I would actually be willing to cast this. That said, there certainly are times where you've got to go for it. I'm willing to accept that this card wins you more games than it loses, so it should stay. I suspect that it barely wins more games than it loses you...but even so, it's okay.
All Is Dust:
Again, solid reasoning. I prefer it over Oblivion Stone in most decks, but I can see how O-Stone might be better here.
The Sacrifice Lands:
Actually, I think Ebon Stronghold is fine. Worst case scenario, it's just a nonbasic Swamp that enters play tapped. That's not too bad. The ones that really concern me are Peat Bog and (to a lesser extent) City of Traitors, because you can't necessarily use them and keep them around. In my (very limited) testing so far, Peat Bog has been horrible every time I've drawn it, because I wind up needing to tap it just to cast things like turn 2 Night's Whisper, and it winds up being depleted before I actually get a real boost out of it.
You tout the acceleration these lands provide, but, at least in your explanations, you're ignoring their very significant downsides--by using these lands, you run the risk of wrecking your own manabase. Even the tiniest amount of land destruction from your opponent can push you from "fine" to "oh crap I can only make 2 mana on turn 5." This isn't such a problem if you always win the turn you blow up your lands...but that doesn't always happen. Even testing against you (in the long-long-ago), I can recall a game where you played Lake of the Dead (sacrificing a swamp), sacrificed another swamp to play something (I think Persecute, but I could easily be mistaken), and passed. On my turn, I Wastelanded your Lake, and you were out 3 land drops to my Wasteland. I won that game.
Now, Lake of the Dead is such a powerful accelerant that I think it's actually worth the significant risk...but Peat Bog is not nearly so powerful, and it's harder to regulate. Considering the number of your own lands that you intend to sacrifice, I think you need to take steps to maintain your manabase when the game does go long, and this probably means removing suicidal lands like Peat Bog and City of Traitors. Again, in the 4 times I've drawn Peat Bog so far, it would have been better as a Swamp every time. Two of those times it would have been MUCH better as a Swamp, because I had to use it early and it slowed me down for the rest of the game.
Bojuka Bog:
I don't rate graveyard hate very highly either, but when you can get it without using a spell slot it's worth looking at. It's true that you often wind up playing it early just for the mana...but most often, it wouldn't have been any better as a Swamp. In the rarer occasions where graveyard hate is actually useful, it does tend to be extremely useful.
When I was testing an older version of this deck, a problem that I ran into with a fair degree of frequency was an opponent with creatures with ETB triggers in their graveyard. Stuff like Flametongue Kavu, Eternal Witness, Terastodon, Stingscourger, etc. doesn't exactly shut you down...but it does make things awkward. A single trigger is enough to kill Kuro, and sometimes that makes your control of the board very tenuous indeed. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I'm certain there have times where I resolved Iname and could have cast Living Death, and chose not to because of the strength of my opponent's graveyard. Sometimes you give them their infinite combo, you know?
Now, I'm not sure if this situation actually arises that frequently, or if it's usually damaging or just annoying, but this is the kind of situation that makes me want to play Bojuka Bog. It's not that it's a great card or particularly vital...but it can very useful to have access to on occasion, and the opportunity cost for including it is extremely low. I play it in a few of my other decks, and I've yet to ever lose a game because my Bojuka Bog wasn't a Swamp instead. The pros aren't huge, but the cons are so minor that the pros still outweigh them, in my opinion.
Wasteland:
The best thing about Wasteland isn't necessarily the ability to take out powerful lands, but rather having the opportunity to manascrew or colorscrew a troubled opponent. When this opportunity isn't available, then you just have a perfectly usable (if somewhat suboptimal) land. The beauty of Wasteland and Strip Mine is that they force your opponent to play the game on your terms--if you need land, then it's a land for you. If your opponent needs land, then you can use it to deny them, and put them even deeper in the hole. It can never really be a bad card, but, depending on your opponent's game state, it can sometimes be an incredibly good card. I most commonly play 2-3 color decks, and I think I probably lose more games to a inconvenient Wasteland/Strip Mine than to any other card. Similar to Bojuka Bog, you get an occasional extreme benefit, with a very low opportunity cost when that situation doesn't occur. I actually much prefer Wasteland to Bojuka Bog, as the benefit happens a lot more often.
Regarding the sacrifice lands, your right that I did not address the downsides of using these lands because I thought it was obvious. But just to set the record straight there are going to be times where these lands are awkward, possibly forceing you into suboptimal plays in the early game. However, my experience with both City of Traitors and Peat Bog has been has been much different than yours. I have been consistantly impressed with these two, and have never once considered cutting them. I feel the acceleration these lands provide more than makes up for the potential awkwardness, and consider both Peat Bog and City of Traitors important components of the mana base.
You mention the risks against mana denial as a reason not to run these lands, and it is not as though the scenarios you mention can never occur. However, I play against mana denial more than any other archetype in EDH due to my teammate MutedEquilibrium almost exclusively playing prision strategies, and I believe he would agree that Iname is favored against land destruction. These lands can accelerate you to six mana even after losing a few swamps, and even if you lose the sacrifice lands to cast Iname, after your spirits are in the grave you only need enough mana to tutor for Songs of the Damned (if you were not able to tutor for Songs prior to Iname) to have enough mana to combo off. Hell with Songs you will usually have enough mana to play a tutor and an animate effect with just one land in play.
I would say that perhaps you are playing the deck incorrectly, but I know from personal experience that you are a great player and have piloted Iname in the past so I doubt that is the case. I don't really know what to say other than that the sacrifice lands have been great for me. If you have had any more chances to play with these lands let me know if your experiences have changed with furthur testing.
As I said in my previous post, there is nothing wrong with playing Bojuka Bog if your metagame calls for additional grave hate. I am not opposed to playing Bog, I just find it unnecessary and feel that the disadvantages of both not being a swamp, and entering the battlefield tapped outweigh it's potential usefulness as grave hate, at least for now.
I noticed both you and Traaidy mention frequently not wanting to animate for fear of the creatures in your opponent's grave, what creatures are you concerned with? I have found that there are very few problem creatures you can reanimate in your opponent's grave that cannot be solved by Kuro or Krovikian Horror/Horobi just gunning them down. You use Flametounge Kavu, Eternal Witness, Terastodon, and Stingscourger as examples of creatures you would want Bog for, but how are any of there creatures much of an issue. All of these problems can be solved with your spirits alone, so what if they kill your Kuro with Flametounge or Stingscourger? You wrath their board in response to their triggers and you are left with all your spirits sans Kuro versus their empty board. Eternal Witness, while more threatening than the others, is not such a big deal, you can just force the discard of whatever card your opponent recurrs with He Who Hungers. You also mention that sometimes you risk giving your opponent an infinite combo when you mass reanimate, but what creature based infinite cannot be stopped cold by Kuro or Krovikian Horror/Horobi?
Again I have nothing against Bojuka Bog, but I just do not feel it is necessary at the moment. If the grave begins to be abused more by competitive generals, say for example in the Teysa build you and MCR are constructing (because Iona is obviously very difficult for this or any mono colored deck to deal with) than Bojuka Bog may find a home here, but at least for now I will not be including it.
You make a very convincing argument for Wasteland. I particularly like what you said about forcing the opponent to play the game on your terms. After some consideration I agree that Wasteland probably has a place in the deck, and will be testing Waste again as soon as I get the chance, thanks for the great suggestion.
I'll try to answer some of the other choices you asked about earlier.
Graveborn Muse: The issues I have with her is that she only offers a 3/3 body post reanimation (not the worst, but certainly not great either, this is a more minor complaint), when hardcasting her she competes with a lot on the curve, and she is easily dealt with and is a very good target for creature steal effects. Muse must survive a turn to draw you a single card, tapping out on turn 4 to play Graveborn Muse means that:
1. You are expecting it to live to the following turn, or expecting your opponent to spend at least 4 mana and a turn to answer her.
2. You have no other plays, or your other plays are useless enough that risking Muse's death to a 1 or 2 mana removal spell is your best option.
Neither option is terribly realistic. This is much more true in EDH, where almost all competitive decks will be playing answers for generals. The worst part of this is that the card your opponent will be exchanging for your Muse will be something that in all likelyhood was useless up until you played the Muse. Targeted removal is very poor against this deck, with really only Dark Confidant and Soldevi Adnate as targets prior to Iname (which does it's damage as soon as it enters play, thus making removal much worse), and thus "turning on" these cards for the opponent is not very desireable.
Myojin of Night's Reach: This is a spirit that others seems to like much more than me. My main problem is that in the matchups that will still have a decent sized hand by the time you reach 8 mana, you will never resolve Myojin.
If there were more decks in competitive EDH that took control of the game without using conterspells Myojin would be significantly better. However, basically all controlling strategies are either based around counters and permission, or mana denial, both of which are very good against Myojin.
If you are not playing against control, not only should you not need much help in the matchup, but the opponent's hand should not be more than a few cards meaning that if you could resolve it and are not already winnning there is probably something better you could be doing.
The ability is still very powerful, and occasionally will just end a game, although this is very rare. The best argument for Myojin in my opinion is that she has 5 power and at least her ability is more relevant and powerful than most of the other spirits with a higher power.
Kagemaro, First to Suffer: First off, at least in my experience about half the time I would reanimate Kagemaro he would enter play as a 3/3 or worse, so what he was adding to the collective power of my final assult was not negligable, but certainly not impressive.
Ok, that's fine, so we need to judge him on the ability. I'm not sure about you, but I have not really felt the need for additional wrath effects, in particular ones that are unpredictable like Kagemaro. Drawing Kagemaro is not terrible, but a 5 mana (6 if you want to activate on the same turn) conditional wrath is not exactly overpowered either, espically in a deck that has very little trouble with creature based strategies. Damnation and Oblivion Stone (along with targeted removal) have been just fine for me, but if you feel the need for more wraths than Kagemaro is a great option.
Midnight Banshee: I don't feel that the effect is very relelvant but this can be useful against token stategies and protection creatures, and it does have 5 power.
I am very satisfied with the spirit configuration I am using at the moment, and have no desire to add more spirits for the time being. However these and other options have specific uses that I will explore much more when I write up a section on all the spirit options I feel have merit.
Mouth of Ronam: This is another land I used to play with and found myself wanting it to be another black source often enough that I just decided to cut it for a swamp. I do not feel it is incorrect to play this if your metagame calls for it, say for example Zur or Sisay are major players in your metagame. However, I have not missed Mouth since it is so easy to find removal in this deck with the high tutor count, and the speed of the deck usually means that you will not need more than one or two removal spells throughout the game. This is especially true since post Iname the trio of Krovikian Horror, Bloodghast, and Nether Traitor can control the board for you. Of course Mouth has the advantage of being uncounterable, and removal that does not eat a spell slot is valuable, but creatures are rarely a problem for this deck, and investing five mana and sacrifcing a land will usually not be worth it. Only consider for specific metagames.
This next part is copy/pasted from an earlier pm I sent to you, but sums up how I feel regarding both the Leyline/Helm and Hexmage/Depths combos for those interested.
Leyline/Helm Combo: This is another one that I tested in the past, and I have found that two card combos (I also tested Vampire Hexmage/Dark Depths) were often unnecessary. This is certainly not bad by any means, and if I found myself wanting additional grave hate I might go back to this combo because Leyline is useful by itself. I just all too often found myself with one piece of the combo gumming up my hand, when it could have been disruption etc., or part of the combo would get countered making the other piece useless. Most of the times I would assemble the combo, I could have won either just as or almost as easily with the Iname/reanimation plan.
I have certainly not given up on this combo completely, and you are absolutely correct that having an alternate means of winning is very important. However, I have found that both Sorin and Phyrexian Processor more than adequately serve this purpose. Both are powerful threats on their own, and when I need an alternate win I want to be able to tutor for it with one card.
Shreikmaw: I have not tested Shriekmaw since very early on in the development of this deck, but I am very satisfied with the removal package I am playing, and do not feel the need to add or replace anything. It's true that Shriekmaw has some minor synergy with the animate effects, but you will very rarely feel the need to waste an animate effect on Shriekmaw. I feel that the sorcery speed and the inability to kill black (and arifact) creatures will be more of a disadvantage that the bonus of being able to be animated. Particularly since both Braids and Zur are generals which will demand an answer very quickly and neither can be dealt with via Shreikmaw. Only one of my removal spells (Snuff Out) cannot kill black creatures, and this is only because the fact the Snuff Out can be played for free with no card disadvantage is so amazing.
Liliana Vess: I agree that Liliana seems like she would fit perfectly into this deck, and I fought cutting her for a long time because of that fact. However, when I was trying to improve my matchups against permission based control with this deck I knew that I needed to lower the curve because it was very difficult to resolve five and six mana spells at sorcery speed, especially without much early pressure. Even in the non-blue matchups I would very rarely be able to ultimate with her, as due to the low percentage of creatures in this deck she was very difficult to protect oftentimes just forceing a discard and tutoring for a card before she died. I feel that she is just too slow and expensive for this deck, and there are more efficient options.
Contamination: I tested Contamination shortly after adding Bloodghast to the deck and was surprisingly disappointed. It still left many competitive decks like Dralnu, Braids, Zur, and 5 Color Combo large portions of their decks available to them, and acceleration like signets or Coalition Relic would make the effect much weaker. A deck could tutor for Coalition Relic using the black and still be able to operate, albiet at a slower pace. Not to mention that if a general like Zur or Roffellos was already in play, I would need to address them before Contamination could take full effect. I think that Contamination is right on the edge of making the deck, but not quite good enough.
@MCR
Unmask: I've been satisfied with Unmask, the card disadvantage is obviously not ideal but occasionally you will draw spirits which can be painlessly pitched to Unmask. Since you are often using Unmask offensively to force through very powerful effects the card disadvantage will almost always be irrelevant if the spell you are protecting resolves. You can also find Unmask with Dimir House Guard which is nice, and tutor for discard and play it for free in the same turn, which can be relevant against the other combo decks in the format. The free discard can also be very important to the speed of the deck allowing you to resolve powerful bombs and protect them much sooner than you would have otherwise been able to.
@ Traaidy
Regarding Xenic Poltergeist I am just going to copy/paste what I wrote to you in my pm discussing the spirits a while ago in case anyone else was thinking of testing it.
Xenic Poltergeist: One of my favorites. This spirit is not amazing or anything, but there are interesting tricks you can do with it, and it's a little discovery of mine I take a lot of pride in.
First off let's get the obvious out of the way, a 1/1 isn't going to be adding much to the combat damage at the end of the combo so it better be useful. Xenic Poltergeist can answer some cards that black traditionally has a lot of problems dealing with. You can turn Tormod's Crypt into a 0/0 killing it immediately, or other troublesome artifacts (Relic of Progenitus, Nevinyarl's Disk, Oblivion Stone etc.) can be animated, and then killed by a removal spell.
Another particularly difficult card for this deck to deal with is Ensnaring Bridge. Thankfully Bridge is rarely played, but not being affected by Null Rod/Damping Matrix/Pithing Needle means that normally we would have just Oblivion Stone to answer it. However, with Xenic Poltergeist in the deck it is easily answered. Simply reanimate, then make Bridge a 3/3 and shoot it with Kuro, we don't even need the removal spell!
Simply put this card is of course not an auto include, but an important option to keep in the back of your mind if you are faceing a lot of troublesome artifacts, and/or Karn, Arcum Dagson, or Sharuum are big players in your meta.
Hope that answers some of your questions. I hope to get start exploring the different sections of the deck (mana, spirits, spells, matchups etc.) in greater detail soon. If there is anything you'd like to know regarding card choices or match-ups just ask and I'll do my best to answer.
Just wanted to drop by to really congratulate you on finally making this primer. It is extremely obvious in the types of card selections you've made (i.e. Soldevi Adnate) that each and every card has been meticulously selected and is a part of the deck's ability to combo off or to just further increase the threat density of the deck. I am a big fan of maximizing the threat density in a deck, especially when it is absolutely critical to have any hope of beating blue decks.
As for my comment on me telling people to run more graveyard hate, I said that for multiplayer. Multiplayer EDH has a much greater emphasis on graveyard recursion to gain card advantage than in 1v1, where tempo is king as well as acceleration.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=380755
@ctorres626: I wish I could be more helpful, but I despise multiplayer, and have very little experience with how games of multiplayer EDH actually play out. My guess is that Iname (or most generals for that matter) could be successfully ported to multiplayer, although I'm not sure how the deck would look or what you would want to change. Any advice I could give would not be much more than an educated guess. It may be that Iname is not the best choice for multiplayer, and you may be better off going with another general. Perhaps someone that has more experience with multiplayer could offer some advice?
Also, since the banning of Vendilion Clique, I have made a couple minor changes to the deck if anyone is interested.
-Desert
+Wasteland
I have decided to also make my choice in favor of Sorin Markov over Phyrexian Processor.
I have decided to test Wasteland again as Khymera made a very compelling argument for it's inclusion. Desert is a useful and necessary tool for fighting Vendilion Clique, which is Iname's most difficult matchup, but with Clique banned Wasteland is much more useful. However, if you are playing in a metagame where Clique is still legal (for example the French list) I would recommend keeping Desert.
I am formally chooseing Sorin over Processor because Sorin is just more powerful and has more synergy with the deck. Sorin is more synergistic due to being unaffected by Null Rod, and basically acting as another Living Death effect due to the ability to take you opponent to 10 life and have the recurrsive spirits and Iname finish the job in about the same amount of time as it would take with mass reanimation. I feel that Phyrexian Processor is better against heavy permission decks, because due to it's lower casting cost it is easier to resolve, and mana denial for the same reason. However, with Clique being banned, and a recent rise in the development of decks with a strong game against permission (an example would be Khymera's Wort deck), competitive players have significantly less reason to run heavy permission strategies. Iname also, as perviously stated, has a very good matchup against mana denial, so I believe Sorin is the correct choice at least for now.
Now it does not produce black mana, but I see it as a additional tool to beat control decks. Now I have limited experieance with the deck but are their cases when you cannot get rid of the opponents hand? In this situation you've probably both wittled eachothers hand down. Wouldn't volrath serve as inevitability due to the ability to recur Iname constantly, them to address a Iname every single turn. It also allows you to recur Dark Confidant. Now is this win more? Does the low creature count simple dismiss Volrath from being as effective as it could be? I mean by some means if you can't mass reanimate, you can always get Sprit of the Night and go for the beatdown. Thoughts and opinions on the land?
Also could you discuss Spirit of the Night itself, Is it that with the reanimation effect it provides a 3 turn clock instead of four turns? Also it provides enough mana with Songs of the damned?
Finnally how has non-mana producing lands been for you? The only one that seems to even stand a chance for a slot is bazaar of baghdad. Have you tried the card? It helps you dig, but it eats a valuable land drop, and with the high tutor density, it may be unnecessary. I'm just curious in some of the cards that have missed inclusion.
Your reasoning behind card choices is extremely solid as well. Thanks for posting your list; you have definitely pioneered and expanded upon some new ground in competitive EDH! I look forward to playing you in one of the upcoming tournaments!
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Tectonic Edge: I only just began testing Wasteland again. Much more testing needs to be done in order for me to develop a concrete opinion on Wasteland much less the other mana denial lands. However, in theory I highly doubt Tectonic Edge will make the cut.
I feel Edge is a useful and balanced land, and a perfect fit for certain decks, but this is just not the deck for it. Trading lands with your opponent on a 1 for 1 basis is just not what this deck wants to be doing very often. Strip Mine is so powerful and versitile as to be an auto-include in just about every copmpetitive EDH deck, and Wasteland is close enough that it at least deserves a second chance. However this deck can usually make full use of it's mana every turn, and I do not believe Tectonic Edge is powerful enough to sacrifice and land and your land drop for the turn for it's effect.
One of the most powerful aspects of Wasteland, as Khymera already pointed out, is that it enables you to punish your opponent for keeping a mana light hand. Tectonic Edge cannot be activated until your opponent has already somewhat developed their manabase, and when you will most likely be looking to cast Iname or other higher end spells. The fact that you have to pay a mana to activate Edge furthur limits it's usefulness, making it all the harder to take full advantage of the turn you activate it, and making it much more difficult to use as a defense against counterspells. One of my favorite uses of Strip Mine, and hopefully Wasteland, is to play it on a turn where an unsuspecting blue mage has only left enough mana open to counter. Dropping Strip Mine and destroying one of their lands then proceeding to your second main phase and casting a spell can be devastating and really give you control of the game, having to pay the extra mana makes this all the more difficult.
Mana denial is not really what this deck is trying to accomplish. If I find Wasteland to just be incredible and want more mana denial lands I will include Rishidan Port before Edge for the above reasons. I just cannot see Edge making the cut at the end of the day.
Volrath's Stronghold: I am actually surprised that you are the first to comment on the omission of Stronghold, since you would think if there was a deck that could abuse it, it would be this one.
I had Stronghold in this deck for a long time, but when I switched over to the French (now Salvation) banned list I realized that I so rarely wanted to activate Stronghold that it was better served as another swamp. The reasons for this are that first what spirits can you recur for a reasonable cost that do not already recur themselves? In your example of recurring Iname every turn, you essentially need access to 9 mana, 6 for Iname, 2 to activate Stronghold, and tapping the Stronghold itself. That is not terribly realistic, coupled with the fact that you are sacrificing your draw to do this, make this an unattractive option against all but the slowest of control decks. These decks will usually be something like Teferi, which will almost always be playing enough counters that you will likely regret sacrificing your draw every turn and failing to advance your own gameplan by not even giving yourself the chance to draw into something like Boseiju.
He Who Hungers is actually the best Stronghold target, and there are situations where the ability to decimate the opponent's hand with Hunger and Bloodghast/Traitor is a valuble option. However, it is usually important to search for a reanimation spell quickly after Iname to avoid giving your opponent the opportunity to blow you out with grave hate, but if you are playing in a slower meta, Stonghold can be a potent tool almost exclusivey for this purpose (assuming you are running the same spirit configuration as I am). The problem with He Who Hungers is that the cards you would want to be forceing your opponent to discard (primarily counterspells and grave hate) will be used either to stop Iname from resolveing, or activated before you get the chance to recur He Who Hungers. The other times you would want him (for example the 5 color combo matchup, or just other combo decks in general) the recurrsion (8 mana to reccur and play in the same turn, and even then you cannot activate the ability on Hungers) will most often be too slow.
That is not to say that a build of Iname using a different spirit configuration could not make great use of Stronghold. For example Kagemaro, First to Suffer and Ghost-Lit Stalker are incredible targets for Stronghold against slower control and creature-based strategies respectively. Or even using my spirit base Stronghold can be powerful in a slower meta, or if for some reason you find yourself up against decks where you are engaging in attrition wars (although I can't see why that would be the case as combo and this deck in particular tends to have a very good game against creature based strategies).
The final reason for Stronghold's omission is that this deck values it's swamps very highly for two reasons. The first being the obvious. One of the major advantages to playing a mono colored deck in competitive EDH is that you are immune for the most part to powerful hosers like Blood/Magus of the Moon and Back to Basics. This deck makes full use of it's mana every turn so I would like to limit the effectiveness of these cards as much as possible. I consider all the colorless lands (with the exception of Wasteland, on which the jury is still out) to be crucial to the deck, and you do not want to put yourself in situations where you have awkward draws where you cannot cast Sorin etc. when you want due to not drawing enough black sources, or your black sources being destoryed and leaving you with a few colorless lands, unable to cast your threats.
The second reason is that Lake of the Dead is both the most important and most powerful land in this deck. You will often tutor for Lake, and you need a certain threshhold of swamps in order to abuse Lake to the fullest. I have never considered cutting any of the colorless lands I am currently running (again with the exception of Waste) which means I would have to cut a swamp or a spell to include Stronghold, I am uncomfortable with either of those options. All in all I just do not feel that Stronghold offers enough utility to warrent inclusion with the current spirit configuration.
Spirit of the Night: Your assumption regarding Spirit of the Night is correct. Spirit (the original Akroma, suck it white!) allows you to run less spirits since for the purposes of the combo Spirt will deal 12 damage to the opponent by the time all your other spirits attack for the kill. Also Spirit is one of the most powerful targets for the targeted reanimation spells (Recurring Nightmare/Victimize) particularly if you do not have the black available to pay for Kuro's upkeep. Grabbing Spirit and Kokusho with Victimize if you cannot afford to keep Kuro in play is still very powerful, particularly when coupled with Iname and the recursive spirits. I believe Spirit should be in every Iname list as it is simply too powerful not to play, watch out for Bribery though!
Non-Mana Producing Lands/Bazaar of Baghdad: I am very averse to playing lands that do not produce mana, and in fact I believe the only two I have ever run in this deck are Maze of Ith and Dark Depths(for the Hexmage combo). You really do not want to be sacrificing your land drops in this deck, for example even Maze of Ith which is a very powerful tool (particularly against the now banned Vendilion Clique, this deck's worst matchup) was just not worth it.
To be honest I have never tested nor even considered Bazaar, but I just cannot see how it would make the cut. While Bazzar is a very powerful and unique effect, and the ability to discard spirits is interesting (I do hate drawing Kuro) the card disadvantage, and the disadvantages of wasteing a land drop on a land that does not produce mana just outweigh any potential usefulness it may have.
I feel Bazaar is at it's best in decks with little options in terms of card selection, like mono-red or green. In black with great options for drawing and tutoring the filtering from Bazaar is unnecessary, especially since there are not many ways to truely abuse Bazzar here, Krovikan Horror will rarely work, and if you have the Skullclamp engine online, you should be well on your way to winning anyway.
I hope this answered your questions. If you are still unsure about anything just let me know and I'll do my best to clarify.
@d0su: Thanks a lot man, I really appreciate it. I am very impressed with the Gaddock Teeg deck you and Khymera developed, so recieveing a compliment regarding my deckbuilding from a deckbuilder like you means a lot. I hope we finally get a chance to play in a tournament match, as I'm sure it would be epic!
And thanks for the games again that we just played. I learned a lot more on how your deck ticks. Khymera said it takes to balls to play Demonic Consultation -- that cannot be any more true.
Yes. This happened yesterday and I believe Evergreen won the game because of it. Historically we've had several decks in our meta that ran snow covered effects; most people have kept snow covered lands out of habit.
d.g
The second reason is not as important, but still worth mentioning. You can use the snow-covered swamps to bluff having Mouth of Ronam if you have Expedition Map in play. Obviously this is not amazing or anything, but since there is no disadvantage to running snow-covered it can be useful, possibly altering your opponent's actions if they play around a phantom threat. Although now that this thread is up and everyone can see that I do not play Mouth that small advantage may have gone out the window :).
BUG Dredge BUG]
WUBRG Storm WUBRG
UBR FaerieStalker UBR
EDH
Sygg, River Cutthroat (1vs1)
Maga, Traitor to Mortals (multiplayer)
Inquestion of Kozelik, My playgroup is constantly evaluating how good this card is. Duress and Thoughtseize are often never dead, and can cripple a hand. Yet Inquestion is limited, but a counter argument is that most competitive EDH decks curve is quite low.
Dimir Houseguard. I know he fetches diabolic tutor at worst. But often I see him fetching persucute and damnation. Now this is a neat trick and all but unless you have boseju persucute isn't going to see the light of day. Against most decks wouldn't persucte seem irrevelant? At this point you've thrown enough discard at a opponent that persucute will often fetch 1-2 cards. Also The beauty of discard in edh is the cheap ones. The ones that can effectively rip counters out of a control player's hand. I'd rather See persucute become Distress.
I'm just curious on how well this deck fares against other combo decks in the format. It seems that it turn into a discard war, but without blue your deck is at a natural disadvantage. Sure you have a focused gameplan thats built in reseliance with your general but how does that fare to storm/yawg will combo.
Speaking of other combos. Do you ever wish you could have a combo backup? Sure it may eat a slot of two but often the high amount of tutors will decrease the chance that these 1-2 slots will affect your chances of winning. Tendrils of Agony backup plan? Terrrible Idea, maybe but at least its there
So really I'm just asking you to watch how persucute and dimir houseguard perform. Also I'm asking how Inquestion has been performing as well. Thanks for taking your time to read my thoughts,
Distress has been pretty good for me, though. I'm surprised it's not in here.
As for the other two cards you mentioned, I think those are best left for someone more qualified to address.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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I've made changes to my build based on your list, and they has worked wonders. Demonic Consultation in particular is a card I was too afraid to try out, and now cannot see myself removing from the deck.
I also dumped the Mortal Combat strategy and don't miss it at all. I was able to free room for discard and now I have had much better results against the blue players in my area.