Welcome to my world of Luxury. I see you are eying my futon. We stole it.... yes we did. Why??? Because we could and it is soooooo luxurious.
Ok, all kidding aside, I build this deck as a heavy reanimator decklist. I need to toy with numbers yet but overall I wanted to push very hard on my ability to sacrifice my own commander and then rez him back into play. I was thinking that another wrath like Toxic Deluge could be nice yet and I dont know what to really think as far as draw goes. I really liked the idea of this kind of build because my commander is highly disposable. Graveyard hate should not be a problem so long as we are not talking about prolonged effect graveyard hate. Things like Relic should really just counter a rez and force us to cast the commander again.
Genesis Chamber and nether traitor could be more fuel for your sac engines and go infinite with your phyrexian altar.
if you like one more wrath cut Necromantic Selection. but you have the luxury to just find a wrath if your meta runs enough.
mana base looks really solid. maybe Scour from Existence is overkill? luxury can find the disenchant swords or counterspell.
the black primordial could be a better finisher than necroselection as you can recurr it. rings of brightearth looks like having enough cards to be usefull. with fetchlands its another good ramp card.
When I was building the list I considered the option of trying to make it more Grave Pact based. In the end I felt like it diluted what I was trying to do a little too much and the package I was trying to add to make that work felt too large. I dont play / execute infinite combo so if an infinite were to assemble I would not execute it.
Necromantic Selection - its probable that I should cut it but I felt it was kind of cute and on flavor which is why I wanted to keep it for now. I should probably try to find a way to get another 1-2 wraths in here but with the Massacre Wurm / Demon of Dark Schemes / Kagemaro, First to Suffer / Crypt Rats / Oblivion Stone I do have a good wrath count its just that a lot of them seem a little situational in their scope.
Scour from Existence - its hard to say. I am at the mercy of what my opponents are playing as to what kind of removal I have access to if I dont run some of this. Indestructible things are kind of popular in my meta so I like some means of exile.
Black Primordial - to be honest, my opponents decks have been getting more and more just..... odd of late. I have been seeing a lot less value from rezing opponents creatures of late and there is a LOT of homeward path stuff in my meta. I dont mind rez that can target anywhere but I have always felt that black primordial has been questionable value at best. I dont know that I have ever seen it have more than one good target as I see enough build arround decks that all too often the targets dont seem very good. Its a bit of a combination of graveyard hate and just obscure decks like spellslingers and such that run odd things.
rings of brightearth - I considered it but I felt my count was too low. I could do the whole fetchland trick but I felt like it was still too small of an impact to justify. I usually want something more fundamental in my build that it interacts with and there are just not enough synergy with cards right now for me to justify it.
Have you considered Dance of the Dead as another low CMC reanimation spell?
As far as card draw goes, I always run Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper and Read the Bones in my B decks. You could also even consider Necrologia to fill your hand up enough to discard a reanimation target. Talking of discarding reanimation targets - Bog Witch ramps and discards at the same time, making her one of the best spellshapers ever printed in my opinion.
Expedition Map would be good in here, probably in place of Myriad Landscape in my opinion (I think the card is pretty overrated due to the massive tempo loss).
You could also consider Infernal Tribute as another sac outlet, alongside Dawn of the Dead to give you reliable reanimation for ETB triggers each turn.
Dance of the Dead - I had forgotten that its a thing to be honest. The question is if it is better than another rez card I am running right now which I have a hard time saying. I ended up cutting probably 5 rez cards at least to get to 100 cards so I feel like in a lot of cases I have rid myself of a lot of the lesser rez options I had before.
Card Draw - yea I could probably use more of it. I always have a hard time making room for the subtle draw effects though.
Expedition Map - it was on my somewhat shorter list of considerations. I had actually forgotten Vampiric Tutor though until right before I had posted so it wasn't even really an option to consider the map when I had to make room for vampiric. The other thing to consider is that Beseech the Queen costs the same to cast as Expedition Map to drop and pop for a mono black deck. I honestly question including the Map over Beseech the Queen in mono black because of the same cost to use but an increased scope in targeting. Regardless, I have 5 unconditional tutors in the list right now. I just dont know how many I need and making room for them is hard. Plus there is the option of adding more draw and it quickly becomes a question of what I need more of.
Infernal Tribute - its in my consideration if I need more sac outlets. I wasn't sure if where I am now was a problem or not offhand. I also considered Diamond Valley which I have a copy of as another option. As we mentioned as well, another tutor could also work and tutor for one of the sac outlets I am running now. There is a lot to consider and I dont know where I stand on this question offhand.
Dawn of the Dead - Amusing card. I will have to put it into the considerations yet.
I will have to put some more time and attention into this list. I am also hoping to proxy it up as lots of elements in this list are still a little alien to me so getting my hands on it and testing might help flush out some of these questions for me. Some good suggestions so far and all I can really do is look at the list more and see if I can make room somewhere.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
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Also, I agree with BlackVise about the card draw. I'd cut Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger (a mediocre reanimation target IMO), one of your graveyard hate pieces, and Lifeline. You should probably also try to find room for Crypt Ghast and/or Nirkana Revenant as some doublers, as your average CMC looks to be slightly on the high side.
Dragon Throne of Tarkir is a terrible suggestion but it's maximum comfy for a comfy general.
Mimic Vat? Just imprint it and then make a token of it every time you can.
So, Mimic Vat introduces some challanges. If your commander is imprinted that means they are in exile and you at all times need to have another creature with a sac outlet that you can sac them to. If mimic vat is removed and your commander is still imprinted you forever lose access to your commander in that game. If anyone runs split second removal then it leaves you with 3 sac outlets in deck that can even interact in time to sacrifice another creature to pull him off of it. I felt it was too much of a liability considering imprinting your commander to mimic vat is just a really big liability. I do like the effect but the draw back of the liability of imprinting your commander is a little high for me to be honest.
Also, I agree with BlackVise about the card draw. I'd cut Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger (a mediocre reanimation target IMO), one of your graveyard hate pieces, and Lifeline. You should probably also try to find room for Crypt Ghast and/or Nirkana Revenant as some doublers, as your average CMC looks to be slightly on the high side.
Dragon Throne of Tarkir is a terrible suggestion but it's maximum comfy for a comfy general.
Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed actually Yawgmoth's Will gives more bang for the buck considering it is one less mana and you can recover lands and colorless cards. I opted not to bother with either in part because I dont feel that there is a card I am overly concerned about. I have a lot of redundancy in my recursion and Xiahou Dun adds more reliance on the graveyard. He is also very expensive when you consider you are paying 4 mana to recover a card to hand. I dont hate him but I have also not really found him that useful to be honest. The difference between him and Eternal Witness is high if you ask me considering he costs one more, sacrifices himself to be used, and can not recover artifacts, colorless, or utility lands for me. Sure, a lot of my deck is black but his timing, cost, and targeting options just dont seem that spectacular to me. I own a copy and I have tried running him before but every time I have just found him lackluster as I am adding more graveyard reliance for something I just have not felt gives me that good of value. Where I tend to like him more is if and when I start running mass rez and you start seeing more return all creatures to play such as Living Death and or Balthor the Defiled kind of setups. I realize that some people will swear by Xiahou Dun, I just have not gotten the kind of results I want to run him.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - he is 99% about the on cast trigger for me. I see a lot of gods in my meta and they are very hard to interact with. Its possible that moving to All is Dust might make more sense but I also dont hate the new ulamog as he has done a lot of work for me in his on cast. Black does not have a lot of means to interact with artifacts / enchantments and as I was saying I am seeing a LOT less goodstuff decks in my meta of late so sometimes it can be hard to just say steal a naturalize because we have been seeing more mono colored decks and more flavored / themed decks (warriors, zombies, spellslingers, planeswalker decks).
Lifeline - why would I cut lifeline???? It gives me the ability to flicker any and all of my creatures on every player's turn. It has some liability of if someone else has ETB + sac outlets but I am building around creatures who do this kind of thing. I would cast it when and if I have the most to gain from it and it very very quickly generates TONS of value.
Crypt Ghast / Nirkana Revenant - I had Crypt Ghast in the list but I cut it in part because I want to be set up to wrath a bit more and I felt that it was a little weak in a list that did plan to wrath more. I currently have 6 effects that when used kill him and I am considering bringing that count up higher. I can see an argument made for them considering my reanimation count I am not ruling out the idea of running them but I also am not convinced that its the right direction to go yet. There is also the option of Gauntlet of Might / Caged Sun which could also be considered which I also cut from my original bloated list because I wanted to focus a little more. For now, I guess I will just say its a possibility I will keep in mind. I wanted to see how this played a little before I shook the list up too much and for now mana doublers were something I wanted to proceed forward with less of focusing more instead on the ones I can cover with my lands (coffers / Nykthos).
Dragon Throne of Tarkir - yes that is a terrible yet flavorful card. I am going to pass but I also get those who might add such flavor cards. I think there are a lot of on flavor cards that could be considered. Greed seems like a decent on flavor and decent card as well.
Cloudstone Curio - it is one I had not considered but still, I dont know that I have so many cheap creatures that I think I could really get away with it that well. It's also still an expensive to flicker sort of setup. Its something that could be considered but I would definately need to be pushing harder on mana generation to get far with it.
Hedonist's Trove - its a 7 mana slow enchantment. Its value is very slow to be had and for the most part you cast it and hope it survives. I like my value over time effects to cost less and be more impactful on the front end of things. I think its flavorful as far as the commander's flavor comes in but I also think its not a particularly good effect. I go for good synergy and power first and foremost.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
So, I have proxied up the few things from the upcoming set and I set out last night for a luxurious night on the town with Gonti. I have to say, it was quite Luxurious. All kidding aside, I played 3 games with Gonti and I won all three of them (fairly good for a fresh new list). I will try to run through a few changes I made while I was sleeving as well as run through the games I had perhaps a bit briefly because its hard to keep all three games straight considering I was playing with the same deck for something close to 4 hours.
CHANGES BEFOREHAND:
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger -> Ugin, the Spirit Dragon I have been using Ulamog in a few cases of late but generally its cases I also want to be able to target lands. I dont care as much here and I am more fine with wraths here so it made more sense to just use ugin.
Necromantic Selection -> Toxic Deluge I moved to a cheaper to cast wrath and hate for indestructible is always nice too. I like Deluge as its fairly versatile all in all.
I had a good early game where I dropped my commander on curve and stole a Warstorm Surge which I used to hold the board for a while. Lovisa ended up doing an Invasion Plans + Molten Primordial off of some mana stones + just hitting every land drop and he stole a Trigon Predator and forced me to block my own commander with my other creature while killing my Warstorm Surge. Shortly after this the Horde deck wrathed the creatures and set back up fairly quickly. Intet got kind of mad at me because I kept using his deck because I didn't want random junk warriors really. I stole a few counterspells as well and I was using those to shoot down some big plays.
The game got into the later stages and horde got somewhat of a bigger force of creatures. Lovisa died because of a few annoying enchantments that drew him some hate. Both myself and Intet were down to like 12 life or so against Horde's several sizeable beaters. I managed to set up a Lifeline + Gonti + Ashnod's Altar + Gray Merchant of Asphodel (4 black devotion lol). It was a big play where I played Horde's Avenger of Zendikar for like 12-14 tokens and use them for a bunch of mana to just play a bunch of things + Skullclamp the tokens for more draw so it started with the avenger and then I skullclamped my way to the altar and Lifeline / Gary. I then pushed Gary + my commander through lifeline a few times and ended the game on Horde's turn with a final Undying Evil on Gary + sac for the lethal to both Intet and Horde at the same time.
Game 2:
Same decks and same opponents. Lovisa dropped an early Manabarbs which was rough. Intet was mana screwed and missed his land drops from 3 up for sever turns in a row. Intet was playing with a scroll rack and could not find lands but he had a big enough hand I knew he was stacking his deck so the top 4 were things he wanted less meaning I was less inclined to target him. I got into this game going slow and defensively with my commander targeting the horde deck most of the time with my commander. I managed to get some decent control effects such as Akroma's Vengeance and a few spot removals. I kept myself going mostly with a Thran Dynamo and a hijacked Darksteel Ingot. We all got to somewhat of low life as we really slowly duked things out. Horde managed a lifelink equipment on his commander and he beat up Lovisa with a few punches at the rest of us but my deathtouch commander mostly kept him away from me.
Eventually, the horde player killed the Lovisa player who got so low he kind of could not play. I had a Cabal Coffers for the last few turns of the game so I had gotten past really having any mana issues as I would take 1 damage a turn to use my coffers. After Lovisa died I did a Villainous Wealth I had stolen from the horde player on the Intet player for like 23 or something. I ended up with like 5 dragons and Scourge of Valkas. I dropped the Scourge + a clone of it and then just executed my remaining opponents with it.
Game 3:
This was the longest game of the night. I switched tables as the Intet player was getting visibly upset at me using his deck. At this table I sat down with Krenko, Mob Boss (a budget goblin deck but it can be fast), Progenitus (an extremely annoying random and hug deck, its sort of like the most extreme trolly hug cards), and Daxos the Returned.
The game started out with a turn 2 Collective Voyage for 3 lands. I do some ramp and drop a turn 3 Stinkweed Imp over just doing my commander on turn 3 as I am up to 6 mana so it seems more efficient. Krenko hits the table as well this turn. The Progenitus player plays Grip of Chaos (super awkward for Gonti's trigger as I dont want anything to do with two of these decks. Daxos gets his commander + Land Tax in by now. On my turn I drop my commander and awkwardly get the Krenko players deck and I get some bad goblin that makes 2 tokens (I never play it). I also play my Tabernacle and cut Krenko off at the knees as he wont be able to sustain any tokens. The krenko player plays a bunch of goblins out as he has a bunch of lands and drops a Fervor + makes tokens and comes after me with some of them.
Progenitus plays some sort of really awkward wrath where he flips a coin to see if he kills creatures power 3+ or 2 and down. Its sort of like Krenko or everything else sort of comically. He flips and kills Krenko. I dont really remember much of what Daxos has done yet but he has no experience yet. On my turn I drop Massacre Wurm and take out everyone else' creatures. Krenko has a sac outlet goblin so he takes no life loss but it was important as he had something like 10 creatures left I didn't want him to have. I also took out Daxos which I wanted to do.
Soon after, I recur my Stinkweed Imp as I am trying to set up some graveyard presence for Rescue from the Underworld as well as just sort of not wanting it as a target for the random picking. When I go to play Stinkweed Imp I am met with the fact that Daxos has a Martyr's Bond + 0 experience counters and the ability to make two tokens. In response to the second one I use my Rescue from the Underworld targeting randomly and getting an ok target. Before my next turn though Daxos hits me with grave hate though and keeps up his high enchantment count. It comes back to me and I have little to nothing and Daxos looks still set up. He has however killed my opponents enchantments with his bond though which is nice. I drop in an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and crack 6 counters off of it. Krenko play his commander back out, Daxos thinks about it and realizes that his commander probably gets cracked from ugin if he plays it. Instead he opts to Oblivion Ring it.
The game gets a little trudgy from here forward. I manage to recover Ugin from the Oblivion Ring and get him put back on Oblivion Ring status and get him back yet again. I come really close to dying to big 9/9 and later 11/11 tokens but I cling to life in part thanks to a Whip of Erebos I stole.
Late in the game I managed to set up a Lifeline with my commander and Panharmonicon + Attrition. I finally abuse Daxos enough that I hijack him from graveyard when he is planning to bounce him back in thanks to my Demon of Dark Schemes (that thing was seriously doing some work). I then manage to stabilize my life and board after going as low as 3 life. I end up cycling through Daxos' deck and revisiting some cards that I passed previously thanks to all the dig after it got down to just him and myself left playing. After I stole his commander he didnt really recover and I stabilized with an army of his enchantments.
Overall, I was surprised at how well everything did. In the end I think I might need to bring my sac outlets up a little as that seemed to hurt me more than draw but adding draw would also get me more sac outlets. I also have my eye on a few cards I would like to try next time but I will try to compose another post for that as this one has already gone on long enough.
How are you finding Burnished Hart? Outside of R decks I've always found it to be rather lackluster. The mana investment required always makes it too slow in my opinion (and if it doesn't then you didn't need it anyway); I'd probably run any of the cards I suggested previously in its place or even Bog Witch.
Likewise, are you getting much value out of Phyrexian Arena? I cut it after frequently drawing it late game and getting so little out of it.
Burnished Hart - generally speaking this deck is defensive and slow. Burnished often progresses my game plan of being defensive as I can use it to block plus my commander is a great deterrent. I dont really have a gameplan with this deck as I often play with my opponents deck a lot so burnished usually gives me kind of a derpy turn but in most cases I dont have a lot I need to be doing on a specific timeline with this sort of a deck because I mostly shields up and rotate my commander as much as I can. I cant think of many situations that I have not liked burnished in general.
Bog Witch - I get where you are going with the idea of discarding a big creature and then using the surplus rez to put it into play. I probably need to add a little more consistant draw before I consider this though.
Phyrexian Arena - I would say that the average arena at least draws 3 cards if not more in my meta. There are times where it just immediately dies but there are also games it never gets answered. We play a lot of mono colored decks in my meta so there are often times where one or two players cant really interact with a type of card as far as removal in color goes (excluding generic colorless answers). I would say that arena with an expected value of 0-2 cards is not worth it but as soon as it starts approaching 3+ cards is when its worth it. I usually do expect 3+ cards but I have seen plenty of 0-2 as well. Its mileage does vary but mine is still at the point where I expect it to go for a bit.
To mention a few cards I am possibly considering:
Wurmcoil Engine - there were a lot of times where I could have used a little more lifegain on creatures. Wurmcoil does a great job of being a reanimation target.
Noxious Gearhulk - spot removal with lifegain attached. Again, I like that its on a body and it can act as a decent attacker too.
Sign in Blood / (and the functional one that is one B1) - they are cheap and easy to cast early or use with other things later.
Viscera Seer - its a good sac outlet and I can rez it in a pinch which is nice. I like its effect and its cheap to cast.
Sadistic Hypnotist - strong effect but it has a restriction on timing which seems annoying in some cases.
Gate to Phyrexia - very restrictive use time but it offers an effect not seen otherwise in black.
Vampiric Rites - a little draw, a little lifegain, plus sac.
Infernal Tribute - same as above... I question how much I need to be able to sacrifice any permanent though to be honest. Vampiric Rites costs 2 less mana to cast and gives me life while still giving me most of the function of this.
Greed its a cool on flavor card. I would consider it more from the perspective of just solid card draw more than anything though.
So, as you can see I am mostly considering sac, draw, and lifegain right now. I need to figure out what might go and what I need of these though.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
How are you finding Burnished Hart? Outside of R decks I've always found it to be rather lackluster. The mana investment required always makes it too slow in my opinion (and if it doesn't then you didn't need it anyway); I'd probably run any of the cards I suggested previously in its place or even Bog Witch.
Likewise, are you getting much value out of Phyrexian Arena? I cut it after frequently drawing it late game and getting so little out of it.
Burnished Hart - generally speaking this deck is defensive and slow. Burnished often progresses my game plan of being defensive as I can use it to block plus my commander is a great deterrent. I dont really have a gameplan with this deck as I often play with my opponents deck a lot so burnished usually gives me kind of a derpy turn but in most cases I dont have a lot I need to be doing on a specific timeline with this sort of a deck because I mostly shields up and rotate my commander as much as I can. I cant think of many situations that I have not liked burnished in general.
Bog Witch - I get where you are going with the idea of discarding a big creature and then using the surplus rez to put it into play. I probably need to add a little more consistant draw before I consider this though.
Phyrexian Arena - I would say that the average arena at least draws 3 cards if not more in my meta. There are times where it just immediately dies but there are also games it never gets answered. We play a lot of mono colored decks in my meta so there are often times where one or two players cant really interact with a type of card as far as removal in color goes (excluding generic colorless answers). I would say that arena with an expected value of 0-2 cards is not worth it but as soon as it starts approaching 3+ cards is when its worth it. I usually do expect 3+ cards but I have seen plenty of 0-2 as well. Its mileage does vary but mine is still at the point where I expect it to go for a bit.
To mention a few cards I am possibly considering:
Wurmcoil Engine - there were a lot of times where I could have used a little more lifegain on creatures. Wurmcoil does a great job of being a reanimation target.
Noxious Gearhulk - spot removal with lifegain attached. Again, I like that its on a body and it can act as a decent attacker too.
Sign in Blood / (and the functional one that is one B1) - they are cheap and easy to cast early or use with other things later.
Viscera Seer - its a good sac outlet and I can rez it in a pinch which is nice. I like its effect and its cheap to cast.
Sadistic Hypnotist - strong effect but it has a restriction on timing which seems annoying in some cases.
Gate to Phyrexia - very restrictive use time but it offers an effect not seen otherwise in black.
Vampiric Rites - a little draw, a little lifegain, plus sac.
Infernal Tribute - same as above... I question how much I need to be able to sacrifice any permanent though to be honest. Vampiric Rites costs 2 less mana to cast and gives me life while still giving me most of the function of this.
Greed its a cool on flavor card. I would consider it more from the perspective of just solid card draw more than anything though.
So, as you can see I am mostly considering sac, draw, and lifegain right now. I need to figure out what might go and what I need of these though.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
With regards to Bog Witch - discarding a fatty to reanimate is a strong line of play, but in all honesty I have got more use out of her for just being a ritual on a stick. The card disadvantage isn't great but the ramp she provides can allow you to really take over a game.
I like rituals a little more when moving faster in general. My overal gameplan with this kind of a deck is really just play it by ear which makes me less inclined to play cards that burn card advantage for tempo. It also has the problem that she is a 3 drop with a tap ability so she doesn't bring my commander in faster. I might be more interested in something like that with a more expensive commander. It just feels like it hits at an odd time. I feel like I would much rather have Dark Ritual offhand but I also feel like I need to have my card draw into a better spot to get away with that for now.
Gild gives you a nice gold token to add to your luxury. Not a great card but flavorfull.
Good flavor call. I probably wont get too deep on the on flavor picks but its cool to call them out for those interested in doing so.
I am looking to do more games with this deck tonight. In an attempt to try some new things and adjust from last week I have some changes I was thinking about.
DECK CHANGES:
Massacre Wurm -> Wurmcoil Engine - part of this is that I was digging up more wraths than I had originally anticipated with my commander in part because getting access to the all non land based wraths is something I am almost always interested to pocket for this deck. I still like the ETB off of the massacre wurm but I was surprised how much more I got out of Demon of Dark Schemes than I did the wurm in part because I am not an aggressive deck so its hard to capitalize even if I do hit a token deck for 10-20 life. I also keep running into situations where it seems like the token decks have sac outlets which makes the wurm a lot worse.
Phyrexian Reclamation -> Vampiric Rites - I sort of overlooked that I tend to favor Phyrexian Reclamation more in a rez light creature heavy deck which this turned out to not really be. Instead I will pick up another sac outlet + a little draw and lifegain.
Cauldron of Souls -> Viscera Seer - Cauldron can only be used once per turn and its sort of expensive and requires a bit of setup. I have been hurting on my sac outlets and I like the seer so for now I will cut the cauldron and see if my sac outlet issue gets solved.
Unstable Obelisk -> Night's Whisper - I dig a lot of spot removal and wraths with my commander so honestly the removal side of the oblisk is perhaps not as good as it could be. It also hits at the wrong time being a 3 mana stone it doesn't ramp me into my commander.
Worn Powerstone -> Everflowing Chalice - its kind of odd having 3 mana ramp. I think moving to the chalice will give me the option of ramping into my game a little better and later I feel it will be better too. I have too many games where my gameplan is to just drop my commander when I can and then play it by ear so based on that I think that 3 mana ramp is a little awkward in that its not ramping me in time but its also not ramping me forward much. I feel like the chalice will give me much better control over this.
Reanimate -> Sign in Blood - awkwardly I saw a lot of games where I almost never wanted any of my opponents creatures. I think that it has some good potential but I just dont really like sorcery speed + the life loss when I feel like I am not using it fully. I may consider going back to it later but for now I feel like there are too few valuable targets under my opponents because I am seeing too many niche decks and too little goodstuff from my opponents. I needed a little more draw and so the hope is that with a little more draw I can possibly hit some of my other rez as well as just move my hand a little better.
What about Footsteps of the Goryo? Isn't it better than the Vengeance because it leaves the creature in your graveyard?
Also, why no Entomb? With all those reanimation spells it seems like it'd be nice to be able to bin a Rune-Scarred Demon or Kokusho at instant speed?
Footsteps of the Goryo is a sorcery and costs one more. Its an option but keep in mind with Goryo's Vengeance that if you sacrifice it or if it trades in combat it wont be exiled. It only exiles it if its still there at endstep. Goryo costs more money to obtain but I believe it to be a superior effect in a list like this. It does depend a little though on what you are trying to use your reanimation on but in my case for me it is often on Gonti himself.
Entomb - its an option. Most of my reanimation is based on my commander but I dont think its wrong to include it. Even with all of my recursion I still sometimes dont have it in hand so I still dont know on entomb. I think it was last week where I went through a game without ever seeing any reanimation (it was a short game granted).
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I had a good game of Gonti this week. Last week I squared off against a Silvos, Rogue Elemental and given his trample + regenerate I had a hard time as I really could not use Gonti as my shield like I usually can. So... side note..... big tramply regenerators are rough for Gonti lol. I wont bother going into detail on that game as it was short and the end result was that I fought hard on a losing battle.
Last nights game: 5 player FFA game with opponents being: Lovisa Coldeyes, Horde of Notions, Ezuri, Claw of Progress, and Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath. I wont mention Ezuri or Ob Nixilis much in the rundown in part because the Ezuri player is a younger guy who often does not interact much with the game other than building up his counters. In the span of the game there was one point where he had a Caller of the Pack with a Scytheclaw on it which he opted to swing at the mana screwed Ob Nix player rather than someone who was doing well. The Ob Nixilis player got stuck on 2 lands for probably 5-6 turns and very very slowly got into the game right as he was at little to no health.
I end up being 3rd as Ezuri is going first.
T1:Myriad Landscape (Horde plays a Sol Ring start, Ob Nixilis drops a Bad Moon interestingly) T2:Swamp, Bitterblossom (Lovissa plays a Kargan Dragonlord, Horde plays a Rhystic Study, Ezuri is durdling, Ob Nixilis is missing land drops) T3:Swamp, pop Myriad Landscape (Lovissa plays some ramp and does not pay the study as he taps out for it, Horde plays a Mirari's Wake and I think drops a creature in) T4:Swamp, Gonti and pay for rhystic, I target Horde and steal a Demonic Tutor. (Lovissa plays his commander and continues swinging his dragonlord around. Horde clones Gonti and steals my necropotence which I find out the next turn.) T5: Swamp, I use the stolen Demonic Tutor to fetch up Vampiric Rites because I need some draw and a sac outlet. I also noticed that I could not find my necropotence as that is something I was considering but I also didn't want to draw the attention that it would bring in a 5 player game. Given that I had 2 rez effects in hand right then though I wanted to be able to move Gonti right then and my combined defenses of my deathtouch commander plus bitterblossom tokens feel good for defense right now. I play the Vampiric Rites and I think Horde fails to ask me to pay for either so I dont. (Lovissa plays a Warchief Giant and starts swinging it at the mana screwed mono black player because he cant kill it. I just chump block with tokens which I also sacrifice for a card draw. Horde plays my Necropotence and I think he starts just casting most of what he has with his double mana.) T6: I dont see a lot I need to contribute to the board as my tokens + Gonti are doing fine for me right now. I swing for 6 dmg to the Horde player in the air with my buffed Bitterblossom tokens (thanks for the Bad Moon ob nix :D). (Lovissa eats a spot removal from horde on his myriad creature before he can attack with it. Horde seems to just turn cards over on his turn milking the Necropotence. Somehwere arround here the UG player swings some 8/6 Myriad creature arround at us. He also takes half of the mono black player's life with his equipment.) I try to Undying Evil my commander at my opponents end step and in response the Horde player kills my commander to which I respond with sacing it to draw a card. I then Goryo's Vengeance which the Horde player finally remembers to tax me on which I dont have the mana for. I hit the Horde player again hoping to find his removal but instead get an option of Sakura-Tribe Elder or Avenger of Zendikar. The board is getting fairly congested so its awkward as I dont expect Avenger to do anything for me. If it dies it also gives it back to the horde player so I opt for the tribe elder which might have been the wrong play. T7: Swamp, I keep the swings at Horde up to at least make the necropotence painful. I do another 6-8 dmg. I drop an Erebos in here which isn't huge but it cuts him off from lifegain if he has it. (Lovisa gets his dragonlord into the air somewhere around here. I think he might have hit horde but he seems kind of bent on hitting the mana screwed player and the UG player sort of a lot of the time as I think he is hoping to stall me killing Horde and or just put me and horde against each other. Horde plays an Oblivion Stone as he is getting sick and tired of me poking him in the air and I think he is down to something like 11 life so he is getting hesitant to use necropotence which is exactly what I was hoping for given his resources. The UG player tries to attack but Lovissa had played an Icy Manipulator last turn and he taps down his creature. The UG player instead decides to try to destroy all artifacts and enchantments which forces the Oblivion Stone pop from Horde. Ob Nix finally finds a third land somewhere arround here and plays an Unstable Oblisk)
I am probably off on my turns already so I will go more off of what happened from here than a turn by turn.
I play a Wurmcoil Engine as its a mostly empty board state now and I still have my Erebos in play. I have my commander in grave right now. Lovissa plays a Relic of Progenitus which is a little annoying for me but his nibbling wont ever get anything good as I have a lot of chaff in grave right now. Lovissa also busts out an Inferno Titan. Horde plays a Whisperwood Elemental and a Bloom Tender. Erayo plays his commander again.
I start swinging with my wurmcoil engine. I play a Kagemaro, First to Suffer (5 card hand with erebos in play) to shield myself from random attacks of Inferno Titan. Lovissa attacks the Erayo player and kills his commander and does one damage to him so that he can trigger his hideaway land to cast a Fiery Confluence splitting my wurmcoil engine, killing the bloom tender, and doing 2 dmg to each player. Horde is running low on cards I think here. The Relic of Progenitus is also hurting him a little I think as it is keeping him from bringing his commander out with any real purpose.
Around here I think Horde plays an Akroma's Vengeance which causes the Relic to pop. The Horde player was getting low on life and I think he might have in part just needed to force the relic.
I replay my commander and get some sort of random value. I cant remember what it was offhand. We stall things out a bit more making small jabs at each other. I end up with my commander in the graveyard and Horde tries to rez it but I Makeshift Mannequin in response and I steal his Genesis Wave.
I end up playing the Genesis Wave that I have hijacked for 20 mana (cabal coffers ftw) so the X = 17. I end up with one whiff and one that is everflowing chalice. I am otherwise sitting on a big pile of value including Panharmonicon, 2 sac outlets, Nim Deathmantle, and just lots of random stuff. I have an Ugin which I just roll up to 10 loyalty because there is nothing I need to remove right now. I kill the mono black player with the bolt. I play my commander and 2x target the mono red player with it who just scoops to my crazy value flip. I then conjurer's closet him and 2x hit the horde player with my commander and I hijack more random value. The Horde player plays a Spirit of Resistance + his commander. From here I Scour from Existence the Spirit of Resistance to which the Horde player scoops. Ezuri scoops too at this point. I dug at the top 7 cards of my library because I would have ugin ulted and I found Gray Merchant who would have 4x triggered that turn with what I had in play so they were all dead.
I have a lot of fun playing this commander but I think his hijacking things puts people on tilt. I am still really enjoying all of the utility he lends me though
I have a Gonti List that I'll get around to posting after I've gotten a few more games in - but I'm a huge fan of Viridian Longbow in mine. It makes Gonti (or Sidisi) into Visara the Dreadful. It's a huge deterrent.
I have a Gonti List that I'll get around to posting after I've gotten a few more games in - but I'm a huge fan of Viridian Longbow in mine. It makes Gonti (or Sidisi) into Visara the Dreadful. It's a huge deterrent.
That is an interesting thought. I did not think about pinging with Gonti. I will have to put some consideration into the longbow as it sounds like good removal. Looking forward to seeing your list.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Cool deck and great reports. Gonti is a fun commander. Have you considered using Tawnos's Coffin?
Thanks
I like the coffin but in the end its still a lot of mana to do what it does each turn. The fun part of it though is if you look at it as a tool to also deprive opposing commanders from use and such with it. I like what it does a lot but the 4 mana to drop and 3 to use adds up fast to make it a little more clunky than I often like. I will try to give it a little more though as it is a card I do enjoy but in a lot of cases I have found it to be a little more awkward than I want it to be.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I'm kind of surprised to not see anyone mention Strionic Resonator. In a deck where you are trying to get as many uses of your commander's ETB ability as possible, it seems like a really good fit. And since you've also included a few other potent ETB abilities, it gains even more value.
I'm kind of surprised to not see anyone mention Strionic Resonator. In a deck where you are trying to get as many uses of your commander's ETB ability as possible, it seems like a really good fit. And since you've also included a few other potent ETB abilities, it gains even more value.
I had it in the original build but part of the problem is that it adds an additional cost to casting / entering creatures which is kind of rough. It is also limited to once / turn. I had it in the potentials early on but I cut it in favor of other cards in the end. I think its probably fine as a consideration but I looked at Cauldron of Souls as a very similar like card whom I did cut. There are a lot of value generators and I think its a little up in the air yet as to which to use. I still need to do more testing and look at things more but I did opt not to run the resonator in part because its an extra cost on cast as well as its limitation of once / turn.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
39 lands seems like a lot. Has that number worked out for you? I know you don't have a ton of ramp, since you're playing black, but I feel like with all your card draw, you could cut back on the number of lands.
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W.A.S.T.E
EDH Decks: GRUlasht, the Hate SeedGR BRRakdos, Lord of RiotsBR
39 lands seems like a lot. Has that number worked out for you? I know you don't have a ton of ramp, since you're playing black, but I feel like with all your card draw, you could cut back on the number of lands.
I also run The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale which even though it could produce mana with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth I do not count as a mana producing land so I usually count it as though I were running 38. I normally start at about 38 lands when it comes to decks where I want to continue to hit my land drops throughout the game. Sometimes when you are chaining the draw well you will end up with extra lands but I run that number because I dont want to be missing land drops when I am not hitting my draw nicely.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Nice deck, ISBP It got me thinking about trying to my own take on Gonti, but more than anything the thread title made me decide that I'm going to have to bedazzle my deckbox in hilarious gaudy fashion Going to be worth it to build this guy just for that alone.
One thing I wanted to mention for consideration is Priest of Gix. He provides a lot of mana when Panharmonicon is on the board for casting Gonti's claimed goods (exiled spells) Something I'll be playing around with is also a combo with him. I don't know how you feel about infinite combos but Priest of Gix works with Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar to create infinite which can be used in conjunction with Corpse Dance and Gonti to exile everyone's libraries (just say you do the combo enough times for around 300 B mana then use the floating mana to keep reanimating Gondi and buying back Corpse Dance, sacrificing Gondi to Ashnod's Altar, repeat until their libraries are depleted - or just fuel an Exsanguinate, Profane Command :p)
Ok, all kidding aside, I build this deck as a heavy reanimator decklist. I need to toy with numbers yet but overall I wanted to push very hard on my ability to sacrifice my own commander and then rez him back into play. I was thinking that another wrath like Toxic Deluge could be nice yet and I dont know what to really think as far as draw goes. I really liked the idea of this kind of build because my commander is highly disposable. Graveyard hate should not be a problem so long as we are not talking about prolonged effect graveyard hate. Things like Relic should really just counter a rez and force us to cast the commander again.
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
CREATURE (19)
1 Viscera Seer
1 Burnished Hart
1 Coffin Queen
1 Crypt Rats
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Stronghold Assassin
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Chainer, Dementia Master
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Demon of Dark Schemes
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
ARTIFACT (15)
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Mind Stone
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Panharmonicon
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Conjurer's Closet
1 Lifeline
1 Vampiric Rites
1 Animate Dead
1 Bitterblossom
1 Attrition
1 Necromancy
1 Necropotence
1 Phyrexian Arena
INSTANT (10)
1 Undying Evil
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Goryo's Vengeance
1 Wake the Dead
1 Corpse Dance
1 Crypt Incursion
1 Makeshift Mannequin
1 Rescue from the Underworld
1 Wretched Confluence
1 Scour from Existence
SORCERY (8)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Night's Whisper
1 Morbid Curiosity
1 Sign in Blood
1 Read the Bones
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Infernal Offering
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
LAND (39)
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Coffers
1 High Market
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Strip Mine
25 Swamp
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Terrain Generator
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath's Stronghold
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[Modern] Allies
When I was building the list I considered the option of trying to make it more Grave Pact based. In the end I felt like it diluted what I was trying to do a little too much and the package I was trying to add to make that work felt too large. I dont play / execute infinite combo so if an infinite were to assemble I would not execute it.
Necromantic Selection - its probable that I should cut it but I felt it was kind of cute and on flavor which is why I wanted to keep it for now. I should probably try to find a way to get another 1-2 wraths in here but with the Massacre Wurm / Demon of Dark Schemes / Kagemaro, First to Suffer / Crypt Rats / Oblivion Stone I do have a good wrath count its just that a lot of them seem a little situational in their scope.
Scour from Existence - its hard to say. I am at the mercy of what my opponents are playing as to what kind of removal I have access to if I dont run some of this. Indestructible things are kind of popular in my meta so I like some means of exile.
Black Primordial - to be honest, my opponents decks have been getting more and more just..... odd of late. I have been seeing a lot less value from rezing opponents creatures of late and there is a LOT of homeward path stuff in my meta. I dont mind rez that can target anywhere but I have always felt that black primordial has been questionable value at best. I dont know that I have ever seen it have more than one good target as I see enough build arround decks that all too often the targets dont seem very good. Its a bit of a combination of graveyard hate and just obscure decks like spellslingers and such that run odd things.
rings of brightearth - I considered it but I felt my count was too low. I could do the whole fetchland trick but I felt like it was still too small of an impact to justify. I usually want something more fundamental in my build that it interacts with and there are just not enough synergy with cards right now for me to justify it.
Dance of the Dead - I had forgotten that its a thing to be honest. The question is if it is better than another rez card I am running right now which I have a hard time saying. I ended up cutting probably 5 rez cards at least to get to 100 cards so I feel like in a lot of cases I have rid myself of a lot of the lesser rez options I had before.
Card Draw - yea I could probably use more of it. I always have a hard time making room for the subtle draw effects though.
Expedition Map - it was on my somewhat shorter list of considerations. I had actually forgotten Vampiric Tutor though until right before I had posted so it wasn't even really an option to consider the map when I had to make room for vampiric. The other thing to consider is that Beseech the Queen costs the same to cast as Expedition Map to drop and pop for a mono black deck. I honestly question including the Map over Beseech the Queen in mono black because of the same cost to use but an increased scope in targeting. Regardless, I have 5 unconditional tutors in the list right now. I just dont know how many I need and making room for them is hard. Plus there is the option of adding more draw and it quickly becomes a question of what I need more of.
Infernal Tribute - its in my consideration if I need more sac outlets. I wasn't sure if where I am now was a problem or not offhand. I also considered Diamond Valley which I have a copy of as another option. As we mentioned as well, another tutor could also work and tutor for one of the sac outlets I am running now. There is a lot to consider and I dont know where I stand on this question offhand.
Dawn of the Dead - Amusing card. I will have to put it into the considerations yet.
I will have to put some more time and attention into this list. I am also hoping to proxy it up as lots of elements in this list are still a little alien to me so getting my hands on it and testing might help flush out some of these questions for me. Some good suggestions so far and all I can really do is look at the list more and see if I can make room somewhere.
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[Modern] Allies
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
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Also, I agree with BlackVise about the card draw. I'd cut Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger (a mediocre reanimation target IMO), one of your graveyard hate pieces, and Lifeline. You should probably also try to find room for Crypt Ghast and/or Nirkana Revenant as some doublers, as your average CMC looks to be slightly on the high side.
Dragon Throne of Tarkir is a terrible suggestion but it's maximum comfy for a comfy general.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
So, Mimic Vat introduces some challanges. If your commander is imprinted that means they are in exile and you at all times need to have another creature with a sac outlet that you can sac them to. If mimic vat is removed and your commander is still imprinted you forever lose access to your commander in that game. If anyone runs split second removal then it leaves you with 3 sac outlets in deck that can even interact in time to sacrifice another creature to pull him off of it. I felt it was too much of a liability considering imprinting your commander to mimic vat is just a really big liability. I do like the effect but the draw back of the liability of imprinting your commander is a little high for me to be honest.
Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed actually Yawgmoth's Will gives more bang for the buck considering it is one less mana and you can recover lands and colorless cards. I opted not to bother with either in part because I dont feel that there is a card I am overly concerned about. I have a lot of redundancy in my recursion and Xiahou Dun adds more reliance on the graveyard. He is also very expensive when you consider you are paying 4 mana to recover a card to hand. I dont hate him but I have also not really found him that useful to be honest. The difference between him and Eternal Witness is high if you ask me considering he costs one more, sacrifices himself to be used, and can not recover artifacts, colorless, or utility lands for me. Sure, a lot of my deck is black but his timing, cost, and targeting options just dont seem that spectacular to me. I own a copy and I have tried running him before but every time I have just found him lackluster as I am adding more graveyard reliance for something I just have not felt gives me that good of value. Where I tend to like him more is if and when I start running mass rez and you start seeing more return all creatures to play such as Living Death and or Balthor the Defiled kind of setups. I realize that some people will swear by Xiahou Dun, I just have not gotten the kind of results I want to run him.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - he is 99% about the on cast trigger for me. I see a lot of gods in my meta and they are very hard to interact with. Its possible that moving to All is Dust might make more sense but I also dont hate the new ulamog as he has done a lot of work for me in his on cast. Black does not have a lot of means to interact with artifacts / enchantments and as I was saying I am seeing a LOT less goodstuff decks in my meta of late so sometimes it can be hard to just say steal a naturalize because we have been seeing more mono colored decks and more flavored / themed decks (warriors, zombies, spellslingers, planeswalker decks).
Lifeline - why would I cut lifeline???? It gives me the ability to flicker any and all of my creatures on every player's turn. It has some liability of if someone else has ETB + sac outlets but I am building around creatures who do this kind of thing. I would cast it when and if I have the most to gain from it and it very very quickly generates TONS of value.
Crypt Ghast / Nirkana Revenant - I had Crypt Ghast in the list but I cut it in part because I want to be set up to wrath a bit more and I felt that it was a little weak in a list that did plan to wrath more. I currently have 6 effects that when used kill him and I am considering bringing that count up higher. I can see an argument made for them considering my reanimation count I am not ruling out the idea of running them but I also am not convinced that its the right direction to go yet. There is also the option of Gauntlet of Might / Caged Sun which could also be considered which I also cut from my original bloated list because I wanted to focus a little more. For now, I guess I will just say its a possibility I will keep in mind. I wanted to see how this played a little before I shook the list up too much and for now mana doublers were something I wanted to proceed forward with less of focusing more instead on the ones I can cover with my lands (coffers / Nykthos).
Dragon Throne of Tarkir - yes that is a terrible yet flavorful card. I am going to pass but I also get those who might add such flavor cards. I think there are a lot of on flavor cards that could be considered. Greed seems like a decent on flavor and decent card as well.
Corpse Dance - have it. It does look good.
Cloudstone Curio - it is one I had not considered but still, I dont know that I have so many cheap creatures that I think I could really get away with it that well. It's also still an expensive to flicker sort of setup. Its something that could be considered but I would definately need to be pushing harder on mana generation to get far with it.
Hedonist's Trove - its a 7 mana slow enchantment. Its value is very slow to be had and for the most part you cast it and hope it survives. I like my value over time effects to cost less and be more impactful on the front end of things. I think its flavorful as far as the commander's flavor comes in but I also think its not a particularly good effect. I go for good synergy and power first and foremost.
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[Modern] Allies
CHANGES BEFOREHAND:
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger -> Ugin, the Spirit Dragon I have been using Ulamog in a few cases of late but generally its cases I also want to be able to target lands. I dont care as much here and I am more fine with wraths here so it made more sense to just use ugin.
Necromantic Selection -> Toxic Deluge I moved to a cheaper to cast wrath and hate for indestructible is always nice too. I like Deluge as its fairly versatile all in all.
Murderous Cut -> Read the Bones I wanted to gain a little bit of draw.
Game 1: Opponents are Intet, the Dreamer (some sort of dragon based deck), Horde of Notions (elemental goodstuff), and Lovisa Coldeyes
I had a good early game where I dropped my commander on curve and stole a Warstorm Surge which I used to hold the board for a while. Lovisa ended up doing an Invasion Plans + Molten Primordial off of some mana stones + just hitting every land drop and he stole a Trigon Predator and forced me to block my own commander with my other creature while killing my Warstorm Surge. Shortly after this the Horde deck wrathed the creatures and set back up fairly quickly. Intet got kind of mad at me because I kept using his deck because I didn't want random junk warriors really. I stole a few counterspells as well and I was using those to shoot down some big plays.
The game got into the later stages and horde got somewhat of a bigger force of creatures. Lovisa died because of a few annoying enchantments that drew him some hate. Both myself and Intet were down to like 12 life or so against Horde's several sizeable beaters. I managed to set up a Lifeline + Gonti + Ashnod's Altar + Gray Merchant of Asphodel (4 black devotion lol). It was a big play where I played Horde's Avenger of Zendikar for like 12-14 tokens and use them for a bunch of mana to just play a bunch of things + Skullclamp the tokens for more draw so it started with the avenger and then I skullclamped my way to the altar and Lifeline / Gary. I then pushed Gary + my commander through lifeline a few times and ended the game on Horde's turn with a final Undying Evil on Gary + sac for the lethal to both Intet and Horde at the same time.
Game 2:
Same decks and same opponents. Lovisa dropped an early Manabarbs which was rough. Intet was mana screwed and missed his land drops from 3 up for sever turns in a row. Intet was playing with a scroll rack and could not find lands but he had a big enough hand I knew he was stacking his deck so the top 4 were things he wanted less meaning I was less inclined to target him. I got into this game going slow and defensively with my commander targeting the horde deck most of the time with my commander. I managed to get some decent control effects such as Akroma's Vengeance and a few spot removals. I kept myself going mostly with a Thran Dynamo and a hijacked Darksteel Ingot. We all got to somewhat of low life as we really slowly duked things out. Horde managed a lifelink equipment on his commander and he beat up Lovisa with a few punches at the rest of us but my deathtouch commander mostly kept him away from me.
Eventually, the horde player killed the Lovisa player who got so low he kind of could not play. I had a Cabal Coffers for the last few turns of the game so I had gotten past really having any mana issues as I would take 1 damage a turn to use my coffers. After Lovisa died I did a Villainous Wealth I had stolen from the horde player on the Intet player for like 23 or something. I ended up with like 5 dragons and Scourge of Valkas. I dropped the Scourge + a clone of it and then just executed my remaining opponents with it.
Game 3:
This was the longest game of the night. I switched tables as the Intet player was getting visibly upset at me using his deck. At this table I sat down with Krenko, Mob Boss (a budget goblin deck but it can be fast), Progenitus (an extremely annoying random and hug deck, its sort of like the most extreme trolly hug cards), and Daxos the Returned.
The game started out with a turn 2 Collective Voyage for 3 lands. I do some ramp and drop a turn 3 Stinkweed Imp over just doing my commander on turn 3 as I am up to 6 mana so it seems more efficient. Krenko hits the table as well this turn. The Progenitus player plays Grip of Chaos (super awkward for Gonti's trigger as I dont want anything to do with two of these decks. Daxos gets his commander + Land Tax in by now. On my turn I drop my commander and awkwardly get the Krenko players deck and I get some bad goblin that makes 2 tokens (I never play it). I also play my Tabernacle and cut Krenko off at the knees as he wont be able to sustain any tokens. The krenko player plays a bunch of goblins out as he has a bunch of lands and drops a Fervor + makes tokens and comes after me with some of them.
Progenitus plays some sort of really awkward wrath where he flips a coin to see if he kills creatures power 3+ or 2 and down. Its sort of like Krenko or everything else sort of comically. He flips and kills Krenko. I dont really remember much of what Daxos has done yet but he has no experience yet. On my turn I drop Massacre Wurm and take out everyone else' creatures. Krenko has a sac outlet goblin so he takes no life loss but it was important as he had something like 10 creatures left I didn't want him to have. I also took out Daxos which I wanted to do.
Soon after, I recur my Stinkweed Imp as I am trying to set up some graveyard presence for Rescue from the Underworld as well as just sort of not wanting it as a target for the random picking. When I go to play Stinkweed Imp I am met with the fact that Daxos has a Martyr's Bond + 0 experience counters and the ability to make two tokens. In response to the second one I use my Rescue from the Underworld targeting randomly and getting an ok target. Before my next turn though Daxos hits me with grave hate though and keeps up his high enchantment count. It comes back to me and I have little to nothing and Daxos looks still set up. He has however killed my opponents enchantments with his bond though which is nice. I drop in an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and crack 6 counters off of it. Krenko play his commander back out, Daxos thinks about it and realizes that his commander probably gets cracked from ugin if he plays it. Instead he opts to Oblivion Ring it.
The game gets a little trudgy from here forward. I manage to recover Ugin from the Oblivion Ring and get him put back on Oblivion Ring status and get him back yet again. I come really close to dying to big 9/9 and later 11/11 tokens but I cling to life in part thanks to a Whip of Erebos I stole.
Late in the game I managed to set up a Lifeline with my commander and Panharmonicon + Attrition. I finally abuse Daxos enough that I hijack him from graveyard when he is planning to bounce him back in thanks to my Demon of Dark Schemes (that thing was seriously doing some work). I then manage to stabilize my life and board after going as low as 3 life. I end up cycling through Daxos' deck and revisiting some cards that I passed previously thanks to all the dig after it got down to just him and myself left playing. After I stole his commander he didnt really recover and I stabilized with an army of his enchantments.
Overall, I was surprised at how well everything did. In the end I think I might need to bring my sac outlets up a little as that seemed to hurt me more than draw but adding draw would also get me more sac outlets. I also have my eye on a few cards I would like to try next time but I will try to compose another post for that as this one has already gone on long enough.
Stay Luxurious...
Gonti
EDIT: Derp fix
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[Modern] Allies
Derp Toxic Deluge
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[Modern] Allies
Burnished Hart - generally speaking this deck is defensive and slow. Burnished often progresses my game plan of being defensive as I can use it to block plus my commander is a great deterrent. I dont really have a gameplan with this deck as I often play with my opponents deck a lot so burnished usually gives me kind of a derpy turn but in most cases I dont have a lot I need to be doing on a specific timeline with this sort of a deck because I mostly shields up and rotate my commander as much as I can. I cant think of many situations that I have not liked burnished in general.
Bog Witch - I get where you are going with the idea of discarding a big creature and then using the surplus rez to put it into play. I probably need to add a little more consistant draw before I consider this though.
Phyrexian Arena - I would say that the average arena at least draws 3 cards if not more in my meta. There are times where it just immediately dies but there are also games it never gets answered. We play a lot of mono colored decks in my meta so there are often times where one or two players cant really interact with a type of card as far as removal in color goes (excluding generic colorless answers). I would say that arena with an expected value of 0-2 cards is not worth it but as soon as it starts approaching 3+ cards is when its worth it. I usually do expect 3+ cards but I have seen plenty of 0-2 as well. Its mileage does vary but mine is still at the point where I expect it to go for a bit.
To mention a few cards I am possibly considering:
So, as you can see I am mostly considering sac, draw, and lifegain right now. I need to figure out what might go and what I need of these though.
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Burnished Hart - generally speaking this deck is defensive and slow. Burnished often progresses my game plan of being defensive as I can use it to block plus my commander is a great deterrent. I dont really have a gameplan with this deck as I often play with my opponents deck a lot so burnished usually gives me kind of a derpy turn but in most cases I dont have a lot I need to be doing on a specific timeline with this sort of a deck because I mostly shields up and rotate my commander as much as I can. I cant think of many situations that I have not liked burnished in general.
Bog Witch - I get where you are going with the idea of discarding a big creature and then using the surplus rez to put it into play. I probably need to add a little more consistant draw before I consider this though.
Phyrexian Arena - I would say that the average arena at least draws 3 cards if not more in my meta. There are times where it just immediately dies but there are also games it never gets answered. We play a lot of mono colored decks in my meta so there are often times where one or two players cant really interact with a type of card as far as removal in color goes (excluding generic colorless answers). I would say that arena with an expected value of 0-2 cards is not worth it but as soon as it starts approaching 3+ cards is when its worth it. I usually do expect 3+ cards but I have seen plenty of 0-2 as well. Its mileage does vary but mine is still at the point where I expect it to go for a bit.
To mention a few cards I am possibly considering:
So, as you can see I am mostly considering sac, draw, and lifegain right now. I need to figure out what might go and what I need of these though.
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[Modern] Allies
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
I like rituals a little more when moving faster in general. My overal gameplan with this kind of a deck is really just play it by ear which makes me less inclined to play cards that burn card advantage for tempo. It also has the problem that she is a 3 drop with a tap ability so she doesn't bring my commander in faster. I might be more interested in something like that with a more expensive commander. It just feels like it hits at an odd time. I feel like I would much rather have Dark Ritual offhand but I also feel like I need to have my card draw into a better spot to get away with that for now.
Good flavor call. I probably wont get too deep on the on flavor picks but its cool to call them out for those interested in doing so.
I am looking to do more games with this deck tonight. In an attempt to try some new things and adjust from last week I have some changes I was thinking about.
DECK CHANGES:
Massacre Wurm -> Wurmcoil Engine - part of this is that I was digging up more wraths than I had originally anticipated with my commander in part because getting access to the all non land based wraths is something I am almost always interested to pocket for this deck. I still like the ETB off of the massacre wurm but I was surprised how much more I got out of Demon of Dark Schemes than I did the wurm in part because I am not an aggressive deck so its hard to capitalize even if I do hit a token deck for 10-20 life. I also keep running into situations where it seems like the token decks have sac outlets which makes the wurm a lot worse.
Phyrexian Reclamation -> Vampiric Rites - I sort of overlooked that I tend to favor Phyrexian Reclamation more in a rez light creature heavy deck which this turned out to not really be. Instead I will pick up another sac outlet + a little draw and lifegain.
Cauldron of Souls -> Viscera Seer - Cauldron can only be used once per turn and its sort of expensive and requires a bit of setup. I have been hurting on my sac outlets and I like the seer so for now I will cut the cauldron and see if my sac outlet issue gets solved.
Unstable Obelisk -> Night's Whisper - I dig a lot of spot removal and wraths with my commander so honestly the removal side of the oblisk is perhaps not as good as it could be. It also hits at the wrong time being a 3 mana stone it doesn't ramp me into my commander.
Worn Powerstone -> Everflowing Chalice - its kind of odd having 3 mana ramp. I think moving to the chalice will give me the option of ramping into my game a little better and later I feel it will be better too. I have too many games where my gameplan is to just drop my commander when I can and then play it by ear so based on that I think that 3 mana ramp is a little awkward in that its not ramping me in time but its also not ramping me forward much. I feel like the chalice will give me much better control over this.
Reanimate -> Sign in Blood - awkwardly I saw a lot of games where I almost never wanted any of my opponents creatures. I think that it has some good potential but I just dont really like sorcery speed + the life loss when I feel like I am not using it fully. I may consider going back to it later but for now I feel like there are too few valuable targets under my opponents because I am seeing too many niche decks and too little goodstuff from my opponents. I needed a little more draw and so the hope is that with a little more draw I can possibly hit some of my other rez as well as just move my hand a little better.
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[Modern] Allies
Also, why no Entomb? With all those reanimation spells it seems like it'd be nice to be able to bin a Rune-Scarred Demon or Kokusho at instant speed?
Footsteps of the Goryo is a sorcery and costs one more. Its an option but keep in mind with Goryo's Vengeance that if you sacrifice it or if it trades in combat it wont be exiled. It only exiles it if its still there at endstep. Goryo costs more money to obtain but I believe it to be a superior effect in a list like this. It does depend a little though on what you are trying to use your reanimation on but in my case for me it is often on Gonti himself.
Entomb - its an option. Most of my reanimation is based on my commander but I dont think its wrong to include it. Even with all of my recursion I still sometimes dont have it in hand so I still dont know on entomb. I think it was last week where I went through a game without ever seeing any reanimation (it was a short game granted).
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[Modern] Allies
Last nights game: 5 player FFA game with opponents being: Lovisa Coldeyes, Horde of Notions, Ezuri, Claw of Progress, and Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath. I wont mention Ezuri or Ob Nixilis much in the rundown in part because the Ezuri player is a younger guy who often does not interact much with the game other than building up his counters. In the span of the game there was one point where he had a Caller of the Pack with a Scytheclaw on it which he opted to swing at the mana screwed Ob Nix player rather than someone who was doing well. The Ob Nixilis player got stuck on 2 lands for probably 5-6 turns and very very slowly got into the game right as he was at little to no health.
I end up being 3rd as Ezuri is going first.
T1: Myriad Landscape (Horde plays a Sol Ring start, Ob Nixilis drops a Bad Moon interestingly)
T2: Swamp, Bitterblossom (Lovissa plays a Kargan Dragonlord, Horde plays a Rhystic Study, Ezuri is durdling, Ob Nixilis is missing land drops)
T3: Swamp, pop Myriad Landscape (Lovissa plays some ramp and does not pay the study as he taps out for it, Horde plays a Mirari's Wake and I think drops a creature in)
T4: Swamp, Gonti and pay for rhystic, I target Horde and steal a Demonic Tutor. (Lovissa plays his commander and continues swinging his dragonlord around. Horde clones Gonti and steals my necropotence which I find out the next turn.)
T5: Swamp, I use the stolen Demonic Tutor to fetch up Vampiric Rites because I need some draw and a sac outlet. I also noticed that I could not find my necropotence as that is something I was considering but I also didn't want to draw the attention that it would bring in a 5 player game. Given that I had 2 rez effects in hand right then though I wanted to be able to move Gonti right then and my combined defenses of my deathtouch commander plus bitterblossom tokens feel good for defense right now. I play the Vampiric Rites and I think Horde fails to ask me to pay for either so I dont. (Lovissa plays a Warchief Giant and starts swinging it at the mana screwed mono black player because he cant kill it. I just chump block with tokens which I also sacrifice for a card draw. Horde plays my Necropotence and I think he starts just casting most of what he has with his double mana.)
T6: I dont see a lot I need to contribute to the board as my tokens + Gonti are doing fine for me right now. I swing for 6 dmg to the Horde player in the air with my buffed Bitterblossom tokens (thanks for the Bad Moon ob nix :D). (Lovissa eats a spot removal from horde on his myriad creature before he can attack with it. Horde seems to just turn cards over on his turn milking the Necropotence. Somehwere arround here the UG player swings some 8/6 Myriad creature arround at us. He also takes half of the mono black player's life with his equipment.) I try to Undying Evil my commander at my opponents end step and in response the Horde player kills my commander to which I respond with sacing it to draw a card. I then Goryo's Vengeance which the Horde player finally remembers to tax me on which I dont have the mana for. I hit the Horde player again hoping to find his removal but instead get an option of Sakura-Tribe Elder or Avenger of Zendikar. The board is getting fairly congested so its awkward as I dont expect Avenger to do anything for me. If it dies it also gives it back to the horde player so I opt for the tribe elder which might have been the wrong play.
T7: Swamp, I keep the swings at Horde up to at least make the necropotence painful. I do another 6-8 dmg. I drop an Erebos in here which isn't huge but it cuts him off from lifegain if he has it. (Lovisa gets his dragonlord into the air somewhere around here. I think he might have hit horde but he seems kind of bent on hitting the mana screwed player and the UG player sort of a lot of the time as I think he is hoping to stall me killing Horde and or just put me and horde against each other. Horde plays an Oblivion Stone as he is getting sick and tired of me poking him in the air and I think he is down to something like 11 life so he is getting hesitant to use necropotence which is exactly what I was hoping for given his resources. The UG player tries to attack but Lovissa had played an Icy Manipulator last turn and he taps down his creature. The UG player instead decides to try to destroy all artifacts and enchantments which forces the Oblivion Stone pop from Horde. Ob Nix finally finds a third land somewhere arround here and plays an Unstable Oblisk)
I am probably off on my turns already so I will go more off of what happened from here than a turn by turn.
I play a Wurmcoil Engine as its a mostly empty board state now and I still have my Erebos in play. I have my commander in grave right now. Lovissa plays a Relic of Progenitus which is a little annoying for me but his nibbling wont ever get anything good as I have a lot of chaff in grave right now. Lovissa also busts out an Inferno Titan. Horde plays a Whisperwood Elemental and a Bloom Tender. Erayo plays his commander again.
I start swinging with my wurmcoil engine. I play a Kagemaro, First to Suffer (5 card hand with erebos in play) to shield myself from random attacks of Inferno Titan. Lovissa attacks the Erayo player and kills his commander and does one damage to him so that he can trigger his hideaway land to cast a Fiery Confluence splitting my wurmcoil engine, killing the bloom tender, and doing 2 dmg to each player. Horde is running low on cards I think here. The Relic of Progenitus is also hurting him a little I think as it is keeping him from bringing his commander out with any real purpose.
Around here I think Horde plays an Akroma's Vengeance which causes the Relic to pop. The Horde player was getting low on life and I think he might have in part just needed to force the relic.
I replay my commander and get some sort of random value. I cant remember what it was offhand. We stall things out a bit more making small jabs at each other. I end up with my commander in the graveyard and Horde tries to rez it but I Makeshift Mannequin in response and I steal his Genesis Wave.
I end up playing the Genesis Wave that I have hijacked for 20 mana (cabal coffers ftw) so the X = 17. I end up with one whiff and one that is everflowing chalice. I am otherwise sitting on a big pile of value including Panharmonicon, 2 sac outlets, Nim Deathmantle, and just lots of random stuff. I have an Ugin which I just roll up to 10 loyalty because there is nothing I need to remove right now. I kill the mono black player with the bolt. I play my commander and 2x target the mono red player with it who just scoops to my crazy value flip. I then conjurer's closet him and 2x hit the horde player with my commander and I hijack more random value. The Horde player plays a Spirit of Resistance + his commander. From here I Scour from Existence the Spirit of Resistance to which the Horde player scoops. Ezuri scoops too at this point. I dug at the top 7 cards of my library because I would have ugin ulted and I found Gray Merchant who would have 4x triggered that turn with what I had in play so they were all dead.
I have a lot of fun playing this commander but I think his hijacking things puts people on tilt. I am still really enjoying all of the utility he lends me though
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[Modern] Allies
That is an interesting thought. I did not think about pinging with Gonti. I will have to put some consideration into the longbow as it sounds like good removal. Looking forward to seeing your list.
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[Modern] Allies
Thanks
I like the coffin but in the end its still a lot of mana to do what it does each turn. The fun part of it though is if you look at it as a tool to also deprive opposing commanders from use and such with it. I like what it does a lot but the 4 mana to drop and 3 to use adds up fast to make it a little more clunky than I often like. I will try to give it a little more though as it is a card I do enjoy but in a lot of cases I have found it to be a little more awkward than I want it to be.
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[Modern] Allies
I had it in the original build but part of the problem is that it adds an additional cost to casting / entering creatures which is kind of rough. It is also limited to once / turn. I had it in the potentials early on but I cut it in favor of other cards in the end. I think its probably fine as a consideration but I looked at Cauldron of Souls as a very similar like card whom I did cut. There are a lot of value generators and I think its a little up in the air yet as to which to use. I still need to do more testing and look at things more but I did opt not to run the resonator in part because its an extra cost on cast as well as its limitation of once / turn.
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[Modern] Allies
EDH Decks:
GRUlasht, the Hate SeedGR
BRRakdos, Lord of RiotsBR
Modern:
BWEldrazi & TaxesBW
I also run The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale which even though it could produce mana with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth I do not count as a mana producing land so I usually count it as though I were running 38. I normally start at about 38 lands when it comes to decks where I want to continue to hit my land drops throughout the game. Sometimes when you are chaining the draw well you will end up with extra lands but I run that number because I dont want to be missing land drops when I am not hitting my draw nicely.
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[Modern] Allies
One thing I wanted to mention for consideration is Priest of Gix. He provides a lot of mana when Panharmonicon is on the board for casting Gonti's claimed goods (exiled spells) Something I'll be playing around with is also a combo with him. I don't know how you feel about infinite combos but Priest of Gix works with Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar to create infinite which can be used in conjunction with Corpse Dance and Gonti to exile everyone's libraries (just say you do the combo enough times for around 300 B mana then use the floating mana to keep reanimating Gondi and buying back Corpse Dance, sacrificing Gondi to Ashnod's Altar, repeat until their libraries are depleted - or just fuel an Exsanguinate, Profane Command :p)
(Also known as Xenphire)