MTG Salvation

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Stuff this Deck Does

I'll expand this later, but for the time being I'll mention a few main things.

Mainly, this is a weenie-stax deck. You've got small dudes, and bad things happen to your opponents when they die, be it through morbid cards, pseudo-morbid cards, Grave Pact, or the sac mechanism itself.

Ideally, you've got Shirei on the board and the dude has a nice ETB ability, like Bone Shredder or Disciple of Phenax, but token generators like Bitterblossom better help to feed your sac mechanisms reliably.

One thing I'm trying that has worked great is equipment finishers. The fact is, unless creatures have built-in protection (which black doesn't do very well), creatures are easier to kill than artifacts, and you already have a healthy supply of swingers from your early game, so powerhouse artifacts like Argentum Armor and Sword of War and Peace (also chosen to gain life after draining yourself and protect Shirei from white removal) are preferable to fatties that die to wrath or spot removal.

I'll leave it at that for now. Cheers.

Reserved.

So why are you not playing things like smoke stack or contamination for more stax like cards? Also if we are playing Triskelion, Triskelavus, and Pentavus why are you not playing Mikaeus, the Unhallowed?

Quote from looshkin »

So why are you not playing things like smoke stack or contamination for more stax like cards?

An old iteration of this deck is more like that. If you do wish to go in this direction, you would also need to make cuts for more weenie generators like Breeding Pit, Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder and the like, to better ensure you have lots of your own stax buffer.

I eventually settled on this sort of deck as that iteration eventually grew into an extremely generic, cookie-cutter copy of other mono-black stax decks. I wanted this deck to have the feel of a true Shirei deck while maintaining enough stax-based board control to allow you breathing room to set up your Shirei shenanigans (because you absolutely need that... let us not forget that Shirei is not a streamlined general).

Also if we are playing Triskelion, Triskelavus, and Pentavus why are you not playing Mikaeus, the Unhallowed?

Dark Mike synergizes with those three cards, and hoses the rest of the deck's Shirei shenanigans. If Shirei got tucked or cost-bumped into oblivion, then Mike is a nice back-up. Otherwise he'll often be sitting in your hand because you don't want to ruin whatever Shirei engine you have going on the board, and it's simply better to build such that you're getting that engine out reliably, rather than diluting it with "back up plans". Also, in terms of Mike and Trike, I'm not interested in running two-card game-enders in my decks.

Have you thought of switching out 1 Swamp for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth? It really helps Cabal Coffers and Nirkana Revenant and it's not that taxing to switch out a B-producing land with no other ability with one that's beast in monoB.

Now that Urborg's been reprinted in M15 and the price has dropped, I'll definitely be including one. Before then, paying $20+ for the odd occasion where I had Coffers/Revenant out with a few nonbasics (which isn't likely as there aren't many) wasn't really all that worthwhile.

Thanks for the reply.

Tell me about it. Thanks to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth getting another reprint I was able to get my hands on a couple of playsets for $20 a pop. Now all my black decks at least runs a few Urborgs :D.

I've bought an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and it's now included. Another couple changes...

Dregs of Sorrow -> Dictate of Erebos. I have enough card advantage I think, and the nonblack clause hurts. More Grave Pact equivalents are always welcome.
Argentum Armor -> Batterskull. Gonna throw another source of lifelink in here to balance all the life costs, and add a bit of utility over raw power.

So I had two matches against my friend's Derevi deck yesterday. This is an oppressive deck to deal with one-against-one, but we went 1-1.

First game I curved nicely into Soldevi Adnate and Sorceress Queen. I decided Queen wasn't going to do much good against an army of weenies so I sacced her to accelerate out Shirei. This was soon followed by Viscera Seer and Disciple of Phenax. I was able to pick out some threats with a couple Disciple cycles but he top-decked a Bant Charm before I was able to dig for protection and that was that for Shirei. That wasn't a huge issue though, as I had removed the immediate threats. I played Black Market and with Phyrexian Tower I accelerated out a Kuro, Pitlord. When I slapped a Dark Privilege on Kuro he conceded.

Second game wasn't much to talk about. He got out a third-turn Beastmaster's Ascension and while my Abyssal Gatekeeper did valiant work, killing the Ascension was mandatory, something mono black doesn't do.

What would be the best replacement for the bitterblossom? Have you ever thought of playing a library of Lang to go along with the necropotence? Why play nirkana over crypt ghast?

Quote from looshkin »

What would be the best replacement for the bitterblossom?

Alas, nothing comes close. I have a couple suggestions depending on your environment.
-- Trading Post. This is probably my favourite general alternative as it also adds some extra utility to a reasonably efficient weenie outlet.
-- Myr Turbine. One extra mana and less utility, but doesn't require mana open.
-- Genesis Chamber. This is far and away the most efficient token outlet, with the downside being that your opponents get weenies too.
-- Breeding Pit. Mediocre, but a classic.

Another alternative to weenie engines is creatures that just won't stay dead, like Nether Traitor, Reassembling Skeleton and the newcomer Bloodsoaked Champion.

Have you ever thought of playing a library of Lang to go along with the necropotence?

It's a cute interaction but I'd rather not use a slot when we have Reliquary Tower.

Why play nirkana over crypt ghast?

Back-up win-con.

Changes.

Aside from Grim Haruspex (which is totally awesome!), Khans has not really contributed to Shirei significantly.

I also finally got my hands on a Gate to Phyrexia, which I also need to find a slot for.