So I think it is important to clarify my position on Dissipation Field. It is mostly a bad card for political EDH. Alone, it incentivises attacking you, since EDB creatures will be reuseable, adding value to opponent's decks while costing you life, blockers, or removal. For large vanilla creatures, it will slow them down but not stop them, and may incentivise attacking you if they have haste due to the protection afforded by being in their hand. It will often do the opposite of No Mercy in most instances if played without support.
Given the proper support, it can add some to other strategies. Backed up with deathtouch creatures, it is slightly better than deathtouch creatures alone. Backed up with counterspells or discard, it is slightly better than counterspells or discard alone. In either case, it is not the Dissipation Field that will discourage attacking you and redirecting attacks toward your opponents, it will be the backup for the Dissipation Field that does that. It will give a second chance at counterspelling or discarding the creature, but it won't do much without the counterspell or discard. In that case, I am not sure it adds much to the strategy of having deathtouch creatures and counterspells or discard.
As for the relative power of Damnation vs No Mercy, it depends on the deck. I get more out of No Mercy than Damnation in my Marchesa deck since it wants a lot of creatures on the battlefield. When my opponents attack each other, it is really good, much better than my opponents not having the ability to attack anyone. I feel that Disrupt Decorum does everything that Damnation should, only forwards my agenda more than Damnation. So yes, I would put it "up there" with Damnation. Context is everything. Damnation may be the go-to for most EDH players, but I think that this is a holdover from 1v1 play, and is an oversight by the EDH community. Replacing No Mercy with Damnation would reduce the power of Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control, and it would be a huge mistake for me to either replace No Mercy with Damnation, or even add Damnation to the deck in addition to No Mercy. Context is everything.
First of all, thanks for making this thread, I had a hard time thinking of what I wanted to do with Kess and this was a good starting point. So let me provide my list and my own experiences playing this sort of Kess deck in the hope that someone can take something away from it.
I spent a good chunk of this last week testing my Kess deck against a bunch of other decks in 4 person games so here are some takeaways from that.
Broadly speaking the deck performed very well; I won the majority of the games I played with it. The early game was easily the most dangerous point in the game but the suite of removal spells mostly kept me from being a target once I started consistently killing things that attacked me and I had enough artifact removal to deal with things like Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves (though I do need to get an Arcane Lighthouse into the deck). Some of this will likely be less of an issue once I can pull a better land base together for the deck to get going faster. Once I had the mana up to cast things the deck quickly took control of the board and it was just a matter of beating people down, burning them to death, or going off with Aetherflux Reservoir. The biggest things stopping the deck were, as expected, enchantments; I only have a few answers (mostly Chaos Warp and Steel Hellkite realistically), so I'm considering running a couple of things like Memory Plunder or Bribery to help find answers to enchantments from elsewhere when I need them, though Aura Flux or Steal Enchantment might also be good options as a stronger solution, I just worry that they might be too specific.
Overperformers:
Niblis of Frost -- Every time this was on the field I was completely safe and had complete freedom to beat people down, its so easy to play enough spells to tap anything you don't kill that poses a threat even slightly and I was often able to chain enough spells together to make it a ridiculously strong beater in the air. It does eventually start to draw removal, but I always got some use from it and that's one less removal spell targeted at Kess herself.
Dack's Duplicate -- I wasn't sold on this when I put the deck together, stunt double seemed better if I wanted a clone effect at all, but the dethrone ability on the duplicate pushed it over the top, it got me my opponents' best creature and then swung in, got a counter, and no longer was something that would trade with the thing it copied most of the time. If there wasn't a great target I just held onto it until there was and spent the turn spending mana on something in the graveyard.
Increasing Vengeance -- I truly thought I'd be cutting this card pretty fast but playing it with kess from the graveyard is always worth it and a number of my draw spells throw it into the graveyard for me when I don't need it early game.
Keranos, God of Storms -- To nobody's surprise lightning bolt is good and Keranos is a free lightning bolt most turns as well as a decent attacker/blocker, not to mention drawing another card on land draws.
Underperformers
Talrand, Sky Summoner -- Yes, I'm running board wipes that wreck him but he's a strong card and I figured I'd give it a shot. Turns out he just doesn't work well here. I rarely wiped him out myself (though it did happen), but he doesn't attract removal so much as he does the use of board wipes which get Kess killed. The few times I managed to get a decent number of drakes off of him were strong but they weren't game winningly so.
Hypersonic Dragon -- Giving flash to sorceries turns out to not matter enough to be worth 5 mana, even if you attach a 4/4 flyer with haste to it. The air presence is nice but there is probably something better to take the spot, even if I don't know what that is yet.
Great list. Yay for another Kess player who runs Shaman's Trance. Kess is like one of the only/few commanders that can run Shaman's Trance as synergy. Memory Plunder and Bribery are all stars in my Kess deck, they do quite a fair bit of heavy lifting for me, especially Bribery. Another card which is perfect for Kess is Praetor's Grasp. It just has so much utility to it.
Agree that Talrand and Hypersonic Dragon are cards which "look good in theory" but underperform in games. I am too considering cutting Docent of Perfection from my list due to underperformance (I didn't even get to cast it once in all my Kess games, perhaps wait for a while). It might be a good card to replace Talrand though since when it flips the wizards becomes 3/2 fliers and buffs kess too (not that she needs the buff though).
So far the only really good token producer is Metallurgic Summonings. It has a "regrowth" effect tagged to it and generates big enough tokens to be a threat. Pair it with Inspiring Statuary for more value.
Niblis of Frost, juicy! It is probably a 5/5 flyer for 2UU, tap 2 creatures on most turns. Outstanding. Will be an include in my Kess deck. Thanks.
Dack's Duplicate is truly a house. It starts as the best thing on the board, but with haste and a +1/+1 counter, and will often keep getting more! My favorite clone effect for creatures.
Not sure how good Shaman's Trance actually is since I've somehow managed to never draw it, very curious to see how well it plays (because where else am I ever going to use it?) and I am going to play it with Magus of the Will/Yawgmoth's Will at least once before I even consider cutting it :P. Otherwise yeah, Praetor's Grasp was generally useful and won me a game once (stealing Eldrazi Conscription to cast with Mana Geyser).
I have a copy of Acquire I'll probably be getting in soon along with Memory Plunder (which I'm a bit concerned about solely due to my current land base being a bit slower and less reliable to produce such a heavy combination of blue and black at all quickly), Bribery sadly has to wait until I have money to spend on magic again.
Metallurgic Summonings has been on my list to try since I started making the deck but I've somehow misplaced my copy of it; once I find it/give up and order another copy I'll probably give it a try. Early runs of the deck I played Inspiring Statuary with Trail of Evidence, Trail was good but felt slow given that I was already running a bunch of other draw spells and the combination of them never came up so I ended up replacing them both.
Trail of Evidence is generally considered as slow for decks that already runs lots of cantrips and loot effects since they require 2 per draw. I'm a fan of synergies even when they are janky though, makes EDH fun to play.
My suggestion would be ditch the combo, go discard/control with a reanimate subtheme, add some single card wincons to replace the combo, and add a few directed discard, especially like Thoughtseize to replace Gitaxian Probe. The goal should be get them to topdeck as soon as possible, destroy their board state, drop a wincon of your own or reanimate one of theirs, and win when they have nothing else to about it. Just my thoughts.
First of all, thank you for the comments and upvotes on my tappedout deck, I do agree with you that I am trying too many things with discard, combo, control and reanimation.
I've decided to narrow it down to Discard/Control as you have said, however now I am over the 100 card limit by 22 cards and I am not entirely sure what to cut. Would appreciate any feedback. This iteration is definitely more streamlined to aim to discard my opponents or out value them before beating in with a midrange beater or a finisher.
I don't know if this card is good but Abrade might also deserve some merit as well as Yahenni's expertise. Is it better if i remove the expertise for anger of the gods though?
I don't know if this card is good but Abrade might also deserve some merit as well as Yahenni's expertise. Is it better if i remove the expertise for anger of the gods though?
Ive been running Yahenni's Expertise for awhile and am slowly coming to the same question. Its a good card but it really comes down to the targets you have available for the free cast. Looking through your deck though you have much better targets for it than I do so I'd guess its probably worth it for you to keep at this point, but keep an eye on it as you modify the deck and be sure your targets don't decrease too much in their desirability to use in combination.
It could be, but in my experience cards like that paint a big target on your head since people usually don't appreciate having to discard.So I think you could, but you should also adapt your deck to be better able to handle multiple opponents ganging up on you if you do.
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Thanks a lot for the feedback, my meta is a bit artifact heavy but frowns upon land destruction which is why i didnt put in too many cards like those. I'd like to see your deck, do you have a link up here?
Played my first couple of games with Kess last night (decklist below, for reference) and while it felt good. I ended up quite hamstrung by playing against an Ayli deck that had sac effects. Without Kess on the table often/for long, the value wasn't there and my finishers were not around long enough to do much.
It made me think i should be running a couple of 'reanimate' effects and maybe more protection? Also, maybe more splashy spells? I think i need to retool the deck a little as felt quite fragile. I definitely had answers but, quickly ran out of value without Kess being around. Feels nearly 'there', just needs some tweaks.
Looking through your deck quickly, we're taking fairly different paths so everything I type here should be taken with a grain of salt but hopefully these suggestions can be of some help.
A couple reanimation spells certainly wouldn't hurt you but I would be careful not to go too overboard there, you don't have a lot of reanimation targets and Kess already draws graveyard hate. I'd aim for spells that can hit opponents' graveyards as well as your own such as the titular Reanimate or Beacon of Unrest.
As far as protection goes, Mizzium Skin and Veil of Secrecy feel like the weakest points in your protection and could easily be replaced by additional counterspells (which effectively do the same thing and more most of the times it matters) or more direct removal to deal with threats on the board. I don't know what your meta looks like outside of some sac effects but there is certainly room for more meta-specific answers here as well.
I just want to say I've been testing Search for Azcanta more and I really am loving it, it's going to stay on the list for sure. I've been really busy lately, but in the coming days, I will update the deck list and post some new changes. I've also bee testing Walk the Plank and I really like it a lot. It's basically a sorcery speed Murder for BB with no drawback, and it doesn't get any more efficient than that. It feels really good to recast with Kess, Dissident Mage. Victim of Night is a non contender, especially considering how many Edgar Markov lists that are running out there.
Just a card that just came to me: Fade Away. I think this can really get people by surprise and the mere fact it is in your graveyard will make people hesitant to tap out so it slows everybody down. It's tricky to time but can cause a lot of damage and incidentally even take out an enchantment. How do you guys feel about it?
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Wow didn't know that this card exist. Will test it in my Kess deck. Hmm it works great with Price of Glory but sadly the enchantment will hurt us too since we run plenty of instants.
Ayli decks are a problem when they have a permanent that forces to sacrifice, like Grave Pact or Sheoldred,Whispering One . The sacrifice trigger isn't targeted, so it becomes very difficult to defend against it; The only possibility for grixis is Assault Suite . Any other suggestions ?
Ixalan has a good card in Grixis colors, Hostage Taker. Hostage Taker can exile the Sheoldred and cast it under our control.
Edit: Forgot Captivating crew is sorcery speed. Usually for sacrifice effects it will be good to run cards like Word of Seizing. Example, Sheoldred / Grave Pact trigger on the stack, just go grab another creature from an opponent to sacrifice. Best if you can grab opponent's Sheoldred and sacrifice her to her own ability ftw.
Ayli decks are a problem when they have a permanent that forces to sacrifice, like Grave Pact or Sheoldred,Whispering One . The sacrifice trigger isn't targeted, so it becomes very difficult to defend against it; The only possibility for grixis is Assault Suite . Any other suggestions ?
Assault Suit is not an option. You don't want to give your opponents access to your deck's prime source of advantage.
For Gravepact, once it's in play. you'd have to destroy or bounce it first. All other similar effects are stuck on a creature so removing that permanently shouldn't be that hard. EDH is slowly turning more and more in an attrition war getting each other's stuff in exile so maybe you should run a little more repeatable graveyard hate (like Tormod's Crypt + Academy Ruins) so you can get rid of stuff permanently through the graveyard.
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I'm finally getting around to brewing Kess so this thread has been a useful resource. Thanks!
Have you considered any of the following:
Nephalia Drownyard: It's a tad expensive and perhaps opens you up to graveyard hate more, but it was strong for me in Dralnu. Being able to dump three cards into your graveyard is a lot of virtual card advantage in this deck and it only costs a basic land. It also randomly screws over topdeck tutors, which is relevant. I suspect it's a worse Desolate Lighthouse, but the Drownyard still might be worth testing.
Runechanter's Pike: Surprise! 21 Kess damage. It ain't great but it's a pet card of mine and I try to jam it in every spellslinger deck I run. It pulls double duty here because attacking into an 8+/4 flyer with first strike is rarely profitable.
Earthquake/Magmaquake: I prefer Magmaquake since it's an instant and doesn't hit us, but considering they're both asymmetrical wipes that leave you with Kess I think they have the potential to be really strong. Sure, it doesn't hit their fliers, but with all the spot removal the deck runs I don't foresee it being a big problem.
Yawgmoth's Will: Somewhat redundant but it's still Yawgmoth's Will. You can't always depend on Kess being in play and sometimes you need the raw card advantage.
You "may" give Assault suit away. You don't have to. Or am I wrong (don't think so)
You are absolutely right, I worked from memory. In that case it's definitely a good option. Remember this deck can (and maybe should) run fabricate so getting Darksteel Plate + Assault Suit + Champion's Helm should not be that hard. And having a 5/6 flying commander could actually help to win through commander damage as well. Hatred could also work in this regard, to finish of the last opponent.
I'm finally getting around to brewing Kess so this thread has been a useful resource. Thanks!
Have you considered any of the following:
Nephalia Drownyard: It's a tad expensive and perhaps opens you up to graveyard hate more, but it was strong for me in Dralnu. Being able to dump three cards into your graveyard is a lot of virtual card advantage in this deck and it only costs a basic land. It also randomly screws over topdeck tutors, which is relevant. I suspect it's a worse Desolate Lighthouse, but the Drownyard still might be worth testing.
Runechanter's Pike: Surprise! 21 Kess damage. It ain't great but it's a pet card of mine and I try to jam it in every spellslinger deck I run. It pulls double duty here because attacking into an 8+/4 flyer with first strike is rarely profitable.
Earthquake/Magmaquake: I prefer Magmaquake since it's an instant and doesn't hit us, but considering they're both asymmetrical wipes that leave you with Kess I think they have the potential to be really strong. Sure, it doesn't hit their fliers, but with all the spot removal the deck runs I don't foresee it being a big problem.
Yawgmoth's Will: Somewhat redundant but it's still Yawgmoth's Will. You can't always depend on Kess being in play and sometimes you need the raw card advantage.
I think Runechanter's Pike makes a very good addition! Enabling commander damage kills and making Kess a respectable blocker in the meantime seems really good, especially in combination with the Drownyard.
I'm not sure about Magmaquake, depends on the deck I guess. If your deck is light on PW interaction then it might be worth it to run it. But if you run enough direct damage / bounce / outright PW kill already, then I think it's an overcosted sweeper that would rather be something else.
As for Yawgwin, what can I say: it's Yawgwin. It will always be good, though I'm not sure this deck needs the redundancy.
I'm not sure about Magmaquake, depends on the deck I guess. If your deck is light on PW interaction then it might be worth it to run it. But if you run enough direct damage / bounce / outright PW kill already, then I think it's an overcosted sweeper that would rather be something else.
Without having played a list similar to the OP's I can only speculate, but running Crux of Fate in my Nicol Bolas deck gave me a healthy amount of respect of asymmetrical wipes. Like basically every control deck in EDH that greatly benefits from having its commander in play you run into the awkward situation of needing to wipe while your commander is out which is always feelbad. I think they compare favorably to Pyroclasm and friends. They're a little more expensive in the early game but become honest to god sweepers in the late game, and that versatility along with the breaking symmetry aspect makes me think they would be strong inclusions.
Besides, blowing out the random Superfriends player and turning his joy to sorrow has to be really gratifying.
Don't forget Glacial Chasm. Even without Solemnity it's pretty good with Crucible. Also, and I hate to do this in the same post, it has great synergy with Earthquake, particularly so if you're generating infinitemana.
EDIT: I know the OP's list is intentionally tutorless but Entomb is obviously an excellent inclusion that I didn't see in a lot of lists.
Kess is amazing. I run a similar list to the OP, literally like a 10 card difference. I'm not sure how to post it like that on a phone so I just won't. Search for azcanta is great in here. It comes online quickly and the wanna be impulses is relevant, running my 2 in my standard deck but my next one will go in kess for sure. I like secrets of the dead even though I run rustic study in mine, it's just strictly better. Primal amulet is pretty good too, sadly it makes all our damage based sweeps kill kess. Also its real fun to cast sudden spoiling from the grave with a pyroclasm on the stack while amulet is flipped. Also scorpion god made my list. There is alot of token gens in my play group so this card helps draw more while pinging dudes. Also its great fun to put a counter on something like a blightsteel and turn it into a frog.
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Given the proper support, it can add some to other strategies. Backed up with deathtouch creatures, it is slightly better than deathtouch creatures alone. Backed up with counterspells or discard, it is slightly better than counterspells or discard alone. In either case, it is not the Dissipation Field that will discourage attacking you and redirecting attacks toward your opponents, it will be the backup for the Dissipation Field that does that. It will give a second chance at counterspelling or discarding the creature, but it won't do much without the counterspell or discard. In that case, I am not sure it adds much to the strategy of having deathtouch creatures and counterspells or discard.
As for the relative power of Damnation vs No Mercy, it depends on the deck. I get more out of No Mercy than Damnation in my Marchesa deck since it wants a lot of creatures on the battlefield. When my opponents attack each other, it is really good, much better than my opponents not having the ability to attack anyone. I feel that Disrupt Decorum does everything that Damnation should, only forwards my agenda more than Damnation. So yes, I would put it "up there" with Damnation. Context is everything. Damnation may be the go-to for most EDH players, but I think that this is a holdover from 1v1 play, and is an oversight by the EDH community. Replacing No Mercy with Damnation would reduce the power of Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control, and it would be a huge mistake for me to either replace No Mercy with Damnation, or even add Damnation to the deck in addition to No Mercy. Context is everything.
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I spent a good chunk of this last week testing my Kess deck against a bunch of other decks in 4 person games so here are some takeaways from that.
You can find my decklist here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/25-08-17-kess-dissident-mage/
Broadly speaking the deck performed very well; I won the majority of the games I played with it. The early game was easily the most dangerous point in the game but the suite of removal spells mostly kept me from being a target once I started consistently killing things that attacked me and I had enough artifact removal to deal with things like Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves (though I do need to get an Arcane Lighthouse into the deck). Some of this will likely be less of an issue once I can pull a better land base together for the deck to get going faster. Once I had the mana up to cast things the deck quickly took control of the board and it was just a matter of beating people down, burning them to death, or going off with Aetherflux Reservoir. The biggest things stopping the deck were, as expected, enchantments; I only have a few answers (mostly Chaos Warp and Steel Hellkite realistically), so I'm considering running a couple of things like Memory Plunder or Bribery to help find answers to enchantments from elsewhere when I need them, though Aura Flux or Steal Enchantment might also be good options as a stronger solution, I just worry that they might be too specific.
Overperformers:
Underperformers
Agree that Talrand and Hypersonic Dragon are cards which "look good in theory" but underperform in games. I am too considering cutting Docent of Perfection from my list due to underperformance (I didn't even get to cast it once in all my Kess games, perhaps wait for a while). It might be a good card to replace Talrand though since when it flips the wizards becomes 3/2 fliers and buffs kess too (not that she needs the buff though).
So far the only really good token producer is Metallurgic Summonings. It has a "regrowth" effect tagged to it and generates big enough tokens to be a threat. Pair it with Inspiring Statuary for more value.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Dack's Duplicate is truly a house. It starts as the best thing on the board, but with haste and a +1/+1 counter, and will often keep getting more! My favorite clone effect for creatures.
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I have a copy of Acquire I'll probably be getting in soon along with Memory Plunder (which I'm a bit concerned about solely due to my current land base being a bit slower and less reliable to produce such a heavy combination of blue and black at all quickly), Bribery sadly has to wait until I have money to spend on magic again.
Metallurgic Summonings has been on my list to try since I started making the deck but I've somehow misplaced my copy of it; once I find it/give up and order another copy I'll probably give it a try. Early runs of the deck I played Inspiring Statuary with Trail of Evidence, Trail was good but felt slow given that I was already running a bunch of other draw spells and the combination of them never came up so I ended up replacing them both.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
First of all, thank you for the comments and upvotes on my tappedout deck, I do agree with you that I am trying too many things with discard, combo, control and reanimation.
I've decided to narrow it down to Discard/Control as you have said, however now I am over the 100 card limit by 22 cards and I am not entirely sure what to cut. Would appreciate any feedback. This iteration is definitely more streamlined to aim to discard my opponents or out value them before beating in with a midrange beater or a finisher.
As of right now, I have:
36 Lands
4 PWs
8 Mana Rocks
10 Cantrips
8 Mass Discard Spells (I'm avoiding targeted discard for now as they seem low impact)
8 Sweepers
5 Targeted Removal
6 Counterspells
3 Steals (Bribery, Treachery and Praetor's Grasp)
3 Reuse Spells (Yawgmoth's Will, Time Spiral, Past in Flames)
4 Tutors
14 Creatures with focus on Spell's Matter
2 Spell Matter's Enchantment As Foretold and Metallurgic Summonings
5 Enchantment that Draw Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, Rhystic Study, Trail of Evidence, Search for Azcanta
1 Copy Spell in Increasing Vengeance
EDIT: Made several cuts and I am down to the last 5 cards to cut, a lot of my previous stuff is now invalid
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kess-dissident-mage-casual/
I don't know if this card is good but Abrade might also deserve some merit as well as Yahenni's expertise. Is it better if i remove the expertise for anger of the gods though?
Ive been running Yahenni's Expertise for awhile and am slowly coming to the same question. Its a good card but it really comes down to the targets you have available for the free cast. Looking through your deck though you have much better targets for it than I do so I'd guess its probably worth it for you to keep at this point, but keep an eye on it as you modify the deck and be sure your targets don't decrease too much in their desirability to use in combination.
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Looking through your deck quickly, we're taking fairly different paths so everything I type here should be taken with a grain of salt but hopefully these suggestions can be of some help.
A couple reanimation spells certainly wouldn't hurt you but I would be careful not to go too overboard there, you don't have a lot of reanimation targets and Kess already draws graveyard hate. I'd aim for spells that can hit opponents' graveyards as well as your own such as the titular Reanimate or Beacon of Unrest.
As far as protection goes, Mizzium Skin and Veil of Secrecy feel like the weakest points in your protection and could easily be replaced by additional counterspells (which effectively do the same thing and more most of the times it matters) or more direct removal to deal with threats on the board. I don't know what your meta looks like outside of some sac effects but there is certainly room for more meta-specific answers here as well.
You might also look into having a couple of alternate wincons such as Aetherflux Reservoir, Exsanguinate, or Mana Geyser (to fuel your Torment of Hailfire, get an early Insurrection/Mizzix's Mastery, or just cast enough to take control of the board); just make sure any wincon you add benefits the deck as a whole outside of just potentially winning the game.
Lastly I have to ask about Secrets of the Dead; I know a lot of Kess players are trying it but it is both slow and very reliant on having Kess out for what it does, there is far better/more consistent card draw/filtering out there such as Mystic Remora, Monastery Siege, Search for Azcanta, Rhystic Study or Phyrexian Arena (to name a few).
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
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WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Ixalan has a good card in Grixis colors, Hostage Taker. Hostage Taker can exile the Sheoldred and cast it under our control.
Edit: Forgot Captivating crew is sorcery speed. Usually for sacrifice effects it will be good to run cards like Word of Seizing. Example, Sheoldred / Grave Pact trigger on the stack, just go grab another creature from an opponent to sacrifice. Best if you can grab opponent's Sheoldred and sacrifice her to her own ability ftw.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Assault Suit is not an option. You don't want to give your opponents access to your deck's prime source of advantage.
For Gravepact, once it's in play. you'd have to destroy or bounce it first. All other similar effects are stuck on a creature so removing that permanently shouldn't be that hard. EDH is slowly turning more and more in an attrition war getting each other's stuff in exile so maybe you should run a little more repeatable graveyard hate (like Tormod's Crypt + Academy Ruins) so you can get rid of stuff permanently through the graveyard.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Have you considered any of the following:
Nephalia Drownyard: It's a tad expensive and perhaps opens you up to graveyard hate more, but it was strong for me in Dralnu. Being able to dump three cards into your graveyard is a lot of virtual card advantage in this deck and it only costs a basic land. It also randomly screws over topdeck tutors, which is relevant. I suspect it's a worse Desolate Lighthouse, but the Drownyard still might be worth testing.
Runechanter's Pike: Surprise! 21 Kess damage. It ain't great but it's a pet card of mine and I try to jam it in every spellslinger deck I run. It pulls double duty here because attacking into an 8+/4 flyer with first strike is rarely profitable.
Earthquake/Magmaquake: I prefer Magmaquake since it's an instant and doesn't hit us, but considering they're both asymmetrical wipes that leave you with Kess I think they have the potential to be really strong. Sure, it doesn't hit their fliers, but with all the spot removal the deck runs I don't foresee it being a big problem.
Yawgmoth's Will: Somewhat redundant but it's still Yawgmoth's Will. You can't always depend on Kess being in play and sometimes you need the raw card advantage.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
I think Runechanter's Pike makes a very good addition! Enabling commander damage kills and making Kess a respectable blocker in the meantime seems really good, especially in combination with the Drownyard.
I'm not sure about Magmaquake, depends on the deck I guess. If your deck is light on PW interaction then it might be worth it to run it. But if you run enough direct damage / bounce / outright PW kill already, then I think it's an overcosted sweeper that would rather be something else.
As for Yawgwin, what can I say: it's Yawgwin. It will always be good, though I'm not sure this deck needs the redundancy.
As for defense, how do you guys feel about Glacial Crevasses/Sunstone+Crucible of Worlds and snow basics as a defense package?
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Besides, blowing out the random Superfriends player and turning his joy to sorrow has to be really gratifying.
Don't forget Glacial Chasm. Even without Solemnity it's pretty good with Crucible. Also, and I hate to do this in the same post, it has great synergy with Earthquake, particularly so if you're generating infinite mana.
EDIT: I know the OP's list is intentionally tutorless but Entomb is obviously an excellent inclusion that I didn't see in a lot of lists.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate