MTG Salvation

Can't run Deathrite in a mono-black deck. Cabal Therapy also feels bad when it only will hit one card per cast.

Quote from nobarkmoon99 »

Cabal Therapy also feels bad when it only will hit one card per cast.

I think you are miss-judging Cabal Therapy. For a single card, the card will typically be more than a 1 for 1, ignoring the creature sacrificed. We have a suite of hand attack that allows us to get a look at their hand before we cast Cabal Therapy, and CT also enables itself for the flashback. Which is also a manaless way to flip Liliana when paired with a creature.

Quote from BunnyInATux »

Quote from nobarkmoon99 »

Cabal Therapy also feels bad when it only will hit one card per cast.

I think you are miss-judging Cabal Therapy. For a single card, the card will typically be more than a 1 for 1, ignoring the creature sacrificed. We have a suite of hand attack that allows us to get a look at their hand before we cast Cabal Therapy, and CT also enables itself for the flashback. Which is also a manaless way to flip Liliana when paired with a creature.

Sorry for the late reply Help me understand Cabal Therapy. Walk we through the first 3 or 4 turns of the game playing it.

Is there anything you guys like from Kaladesh? I think I might swap out Bloodchief Champion for Scrapheap Scrounger.

Quote from FearDReaper »

Quote from BunnyInATux »

Quote from nobarkmoon99 »

Cabal Therapy also feels bad when it only will hit one card per cast.

I think you are miss-judging Cabal Therapy. For a single card, the card will typically be more than a 1 for 1, ignoring the creature sacrificed. We have a suite of hand attack that allows us to get a look at their hand before we cast Cabal Therapy, and CT also enables itself for the flashback. Which is also a manaless way to flip Liliana when paired with a creature.

Sorry for the late reply Help me understand Cabal Therapy. Walk we through the first 3 or 4 turns of the game playing it.

I have not managed to find a copy, so my stance is predomenantly from the side of theory crafting.

If we have another Thoughtseize effect in the opener, we can follow up that effect with the cabal therapy. This makes it a very flexible hand attack spell as it only has a non-land restriction to dismantle their hand.

However we can also cast it blind, which not often will hit anything, but it does reveal their hand. Which gives us an inkling about what their game plan. Which is information we can use. Also when paired with a cheap creature, it is a manaless way to flip Liliana that is part of our primary game plan.

Well I haven't actually played Cabal Therapy in here yet eithor so I too am theorizing.

This is the most ideal situation I can see.
T1 Therapy, look at/memorize their hand.
T2 Play a creature. For the sake of argument lets use Bloodghast, Basal Thrull and Dark Confidant.
T3: Play Liliana and flashback Cabal Therapy.

That's probably the absolute best case scenario you can hope for right?

Here are my criticisms:

T1: This is pretty slow. Playing a card with basically no immediate value is generally considered bad. I mean technically you do get information but I'm not convinced it's worth it. And if it's not worth it then its just card disadvantage (playing a card + sacing a card = discarding 1 card).

T3:Bloodghast- Ok yes. This is the 1 card that is undeniably good in this situation. This is probably the only card where I would be pro Cabal Therapy. I think we would need a lot more bloodghast like cards for me to get on board.

Dark Confidant: You could sac him and then immediatly bring him back with lily but is it the best play? I think I would rather just have him stick around drawing cards and put off casting Lily until later. I could be wrong. Maybe sacing him here is a better play.

Basal Thrull - Already has a built in sac outlet so you could have played something that would have actually affected the game T1 instead. I suppose you could argue that Cabal Therpy's effect is better but it seems redundant to me.

Edit: my other problem with the card is you won't always get that best case scenario. Maybe you will get unlucky and not have any creatures in play for whatever reason. Our general already has this weakness, do we want to double down and play more cards that suffer this weakness or should we avoid those cards and instead play cards to work around our generals drawback?

I think your criticism is valid.

I think flipping Lily by sac reanimating bob is fine. I has not be an uncommon play for me to make to reanimate the creature used to flip Liliana.

On the Basal Thrull discussion how good have you found those cards? I don't have many of the self enabling creatures like you do in my list. My current list is light on those effects, and honestly I should be heavier on them. Your creature package is predominantly suited for enabling Lily or generating long term advantage which is in contrast to mine where that is less of a factor. I have been testing cards like Black Cat and Perilous Myr. Also looking at your selection, I find it interesting that you don't have Vampire Hexmage, but it can be a meta call.

The Thrull is pretty good. I mean it's not amazing and its a poor top deck but you can play it T2 and sac it T3 without losing tempo and that's important imo.

Ok 20 life here we go! I'm not to sure what modifications I need to make here exactly but lets brainstorm. Rather than add more removal I think I will add creatures and push the deck into more of a midrange/tempo build.

Any suggestions?

Kalitas seems decent.

Here is where I am at currently (Sideboard is things I want to acquire and/or test). I have been impressed with Soldevi Adnate(Wish I could find a copy) and Basal Thrull. I have also cut a lot of the creature focus for more removal. So its become closer to what your list accomplishes compared to my old build. It does however have some issues dealing with X/3s I have found.

Most of the games I get to play these days is versus an Arcum combo list, which does colour my experiences with the deck. French is not that popular locally, so there is a very limited selection of decks, particularly aggro decks are absent.

What do you guy's think of Akuta, Born of Ash? More viable in 20 life?

If I was looking to add more 4 mana threats to the deck, I would look at Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet before Akuta.

Quote from BunnyInATux »

If I was looking to add more 4 mana threats to the deck, I would look at Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet before Akuta.

Im thinking both

Necropotence!!!!!

I haven't played the deck in some time but I can give you my opinion on those cards if you want.

Walking Ballista: Can't be reanimated by Lily so that seems bad to me.

Yahenni's Expertise: This looks decent to me. My only complaint here is that if our hand is empty (as it often is) we won't get to cast the free spell. It's certainly worth testing.

Fatal Push: Auto-include

Archfiend of Ifnir looks pretty fun! I'm looking forward to seeing the other cycle and embalm cards that this deck would appreciate.

I hope this deck will be able to survive the change to the new 1v1 official commander format.

Neheb, the Worthy may be an improvement for the decks general. At least I think he is.

Red does give you access to k command and blightning, and those are pretty sweet

For sure. You also gain access to cool hellbent/madness cards like Bloodhall Priest and Demonfire and the new Red God Hazoret the Fervent . Another cute card is Rekindled Flame

Also that Minotaur tribal

I've always wanted an excuse to play Didgeridoo

I'm thinking of trying Akuta, Born of Ash as an alternative general to the deck too.

Edit: Something like this http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/akuta-discard-1v1-edh/

Edit 2. On second thought nah. I like the idea in theory but 3/2 haste for 4 is just too slow. It really needs to be 4 power or have evasion. Maybe both