Void Winnower actually says that Zero is Even... Sounds like the guy who denies it might have some other problems with reality.
In regards to Blood Artist, fair enough. Deathgreeter seems like a fine inclusion in its stead since it recovers the life we so freely spend with this deck.
In other news, I didn't realize with the number of printings that Necropotence is now less than $5. I'll probably place an order for it since it's too good not to run.
What about Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni? I'm playing Mindcrank in my list so that I can get access to my opponent's creatures too (and because the Crank actually messes up Top of Deck tutors really well too. I'm continually surprised by how relevant mill is), so Ink-Eyes has a good chance to hit for Ninjitsu and theft a creature. I just don't know if it's redundant to what Chainer already does. It's between Ink-Eyes and Nightmare because, well, Chainer needs a Nightmare Horse to ride on when he ravages his opponents! And Nightmare is one of the OG Black creatures in MTG! And because it's a literal nightmare creature to take advantage of Chainer's pump! And also get exiled if Chainer leaves play...
Void Winnower actually says that Zero is Even... Sounds like the guy who denies it might have some other problems with reality.
He recognized that the card says that, but was questioning it mathematically. Hence I hadn't run Winnower since. I should give it a run somewhere just to test the waters again.
In other news, I didn't realize with the number of printings that Necropotence is now less than $5. I'll probably place an order for it since it's too good not to run.
I recommend newer printings or fifth edition for accurate rules text. One of the two I have is the Deckmasters version with the old art (which I like better) and foil, but it phrases the discard-exile ability as a replacement effect when it's really a triggered ability. Saves time bringing up Oracle text if you want to reanimate something you discarded to save it from exile.
What about Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni? I'm playing Mindcrank in my list so that I can get access to my opponent's creatures too (and because the Crank actually messes up Top of Deck tutors really well too. I'm continually surprised by how relevant mill is), so Ink-Eyes has a good chance to hit for Ninjitsu and theft a creature. I just don't know if it's redundant to what Chainer already does. It's between Ink-Eyes and Nightmare because, well, Chainer needs a Nightmare Horse to ride on when he ravages his opponents! And Nightmare is one of the OG Black creatures in MTG! And because it's a literal nightmare creature to take advantage of Chainer's pump! And also get exiled if Chainer leaves play...
I'm don't think Chainer needs a horse, even if it's a flying nightmare horse.
Not sure about Ink-Eyes, yet. Most games I play somewhat like a control deck, reanimating creatures for their activated or triggered abilities at instant speed in response to something or before my turn. Ink-Eyes isn't as flexible for the reanimation aspect that way, but with some trample she can keep pressure on opponents. Then reanimating via combat sounds better to me. I'll probably test her someday once I get a copy.
I've considered Mindcrank before, as it would speed some things along, except my own graveyard. I almost wish it were symmetrical. I've also considered Mesmeric Orb for a passive milling effect. I might A/B test them in Defense Grid's slot, but I'll give Chainer a rest in my main group for a little while since he kindof dominates, even at the risk of running my life close to zero sometimes.
In an effort to start getting caught up and start working on the OP again, it seems there's a lot of black/colorless cards that have been released that I could comment on. So many that I feel like I need to use spoiler tags. Probably commenting on more than really need commentary, but pretty much anything I even considered for half a second. Except a handful of "lose N life draw N cards" cards.
Shadows Over Innistrad Behold the Beyond — Very niche if it's even useful. Would be handy for endgame but otherwise dead in my hand, probably. Really on-theme, though, dang. Call the Bloodline — Decent discard outlet and the tokens are alright, but costs mana and the "once a turn" clause is pretty limiting. Corrupted Grafstone — Not great in a mono-color deck. I'd rather use another 2-drop mana rock in its place. Ever After — Decent reanimation spell, but not what this deck runs on. Haunted Cloak — I have considered this. Stealing any fatty I want and giving "Vigilance, Trample, Haste" for Equip 1 is pretty nice. Indulgent Aristocrat — Better in vampires. Or Marchesa. Macabre Waltz — Does what it does pretty well for two mana. Merciless Resolve — It's okay. For an additional 1 over Altar's Reap you get the choice of sacrificing a land instead of a creature. Ironic. Mindwrack Demon — Self-milling evasive beater. Probably viable in a tamer version of this deck. To the Slaughter — There are better ways to achieve these ends. Westvale Abbey — If token generation is good in the deck, I want to play with this sometime just to try it out. Just seems funny to reanimate it with Crucible, basically.
Eldritch Moon Emrakul, the Promised End — Nice beater, but I don't like controlling other player's turns (even though that's probably on-theme for this deck). Geier Reach Sanitarium — I probably need to test this at some point. Liliana, the Last Hope — Nah. Noosegraf Mob — This one is interesting, as it is potentially, pseudo-passive token generation. Succumb to Temptation — If I tried a build with improved card draw and no tutors, this would probably be in there. Tree of Perdition — LOL
Kaladesh Aetherworks Marvel — This one still interests me. However it would probably be way better in Marchesa or Mazirek. I imagine the quantity of sacrifices is larger in Mazirek, whereas in Chainer I'm going more for quality unless I hit a loop. I should start keeping some statistics from Chainer games. Demon of Dark Schemes — Don't really need this close of a backup to Chainer usually, but the extra energy production could fuel the Marvel if I test it. Fortuitous Find — We have some important artifacts, so having a way to get one back (or a creature if we need it back to hand rather than reanimated with Chainer) isn't terrible. Ghirapur Orrery — This one's been on my testing list for a while, too. Can be a double-edged sword if anybody else has land-based mana doubling. The draw-3 ability could possibly help keep discard effects like Sadistic Hypnotist/Mind Slash useful. Gonti, Lord of Luxury — Already in the deck. One of the central pieces to its ultimate wincon, actually. Key to the City — Very low on the testing list, possibly if I do an only-draw-no-tutors build. Marionette Master — An alright token machine. But better in an artifacts-matter deck. I'm also trying to limit the "loses N life" effects. Noxious Gearhulk — This thing is ridiculous. Every time this thing comes out it just wrecks everything in sight. Panharmonicon — Since ETB effects are the bread and butter of Chainer, I have considered running this to get extra value from my plays. Perpetual Timepiece — While a bit of self-mill is useful, I'd rather re-shuffle graveyard with something that doesn't target since there's a deck with Ground Seal in my small meta. Smuggler's Copter — I like this guy. Maybe not in this deck, but I still like it.
Aether Revolt Hope of Ghirapur — I still need to try this sometime, but probably in a different deck. Seems like it would be amazing in Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Metallic Mimic — Very nice in Marchesa, but not here, I think. Paradox Engine — I don't run enough artifacts to make this useful. Planar Bridge — While mana isn't a problem, black has way better tutors. Treasure Keeper — Could have some potential, maybe? I tend to prefer less randomness in my actual plays (and information revealing) in this deck, though. Worth some playtime at some point to see what effect it has on how I play Chainer. Yahenni, Undying Partisan — Seems like a better sacrifice outlet than Dimir House Guard, but he's hanging out with Marchesa for the moment.
Amonkhet Archfiend of Ifnir — This guys seems cool in the right kind of deck. Final Reward — I like that it's instant. Exile in black is rare enough, but I have other options that are more repeatable. Gate to the Afterlife — The first ability is nice in this deck, but I have more easily recurred stuff that gives me life and/or cards.
Hour of Devastation Bontu's Last Reckoning — Not terrible. I could play around the lands part for a round, as I usually wait until the end of a turn to activate Chainer anyway, or as necessary. Mirage Mirror — This has some pretty sneaky potential. Razaketh, the Foulblooded — This guy would be a ridiculous threat in this deck. Torment of Hailfire — An awesome card as a finisher, but that's also why I'm not running it — part of the theme is to use opponents' own threats against them or through combat damage (same reason Exsanguinate isn't in the deck).
Ixalan Arguel's Blood Fast — Very nice card draw. Currently in Marchesa. Costly Plunder — Slightly more versatile than Altar's Reap. Revel in Riches — I like the Treasure tokens better than Black Market, but I don't want the auto-win condition. If it was just the first ability at 3B I'd probably be running it. Thaumatic Compass — The repeatable basic land fetch is a good tool, but I tend not to have problems hitting land drops and I don't much care for the flipside in this deck.
Rivals of Ixalan Azor's Gateway — I usually don't have a problem generating B, but that flipside... I could see running this a game or two down the road just for fun. Dead Man's Chest — The kind of effect this deck wants to win with, ultimately. Gonti is easier to recur, of course, but this is another I might run for fun some day. Mastermind's Acquisition — Too bad there's no use to the second option in Commander. Ravenous Chupacabra — Repeatable control is nice, but I have better options. The Immortal Sun — An interesting card, certainly. Twilight Prophet — Nice card draw, but another life-leeching effect that I'm specifically avoiding in this deck.
Dominaria Cabal Stronghold — Nah. Doesn't generate enough advantage. I'd have to cut a probably-more-useful nonbasic or, ironically, a basic. Chainer's Torment — What? No. Damping Sphere — I like the speedbump this presents. Ultimately it isn't going to slow Mizzix down much, but it also messes with Coffers and Nykthos. Fortunately doesn't mess with Crypt Ghast/Nirkana Revenant/Caged Sun. Dark Bargain — This does not excite me. Demonlord Belzenlok — I've tried to imagine how this would play out, but I basically just need to test it. Final Parting — This one is alright, if I was nerfing myself by not running Entomb but still allowing tutors. Helm of the Host — Could be an interesting fun card, but probably won't see time in this deck. Mox Amber — I do like this rock, but it's probably going to see play in Zada instead. Phyrexian Scriptures — Not what this deck needs. The Eldest Reborn — I like all the effects, but I also like to control the timing of them better. Torgaar, Famine Incarnate — This guy is going in soon. Seems like a really good tool in the toolbox. Whisper, Blood Liturgist — Creepy minion is on-theme, but I also don't need a backup graveyard-to-battlefield effect. Yawgmoth's Vile Offering — Meh. I wasn't even going to list it at first, but I feel strongly enough about that Meh.
Guilds of Ravnica Doom Whisperer — Looking forward to testing this one. Gruesome Menagerie — If I were running lower to the ground this could be an interesting toolbox piece with XHD. Mausoleum Secrets — Using tutors that reveal the card or don't are pretty much personal/tactical preference, but a two-mana instant is still pretty darn good. Midnight Reaper — Whenever a creature itself deals damage on a trigger I try to think of how to weaponize it. It's a nice card, but it's not Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, or Harvester of Souls. Necrotic Wound — Well it isn't Tragic Slip. Might be alright in my self-milling Sidisi deck where "number of creatures in your graveyard" matters, but morbid is a lot easier in this deck. Plaguecrafter — I like it. I don't want to run that sacrifice effect much (and Slum Reaper is just more on-theme). Wand of Vertebrae — Perpetual Timepiece is better. Lots of things are better.
Commander 2018 Ancient Stone Idol — As a big dumb beater I like it. Plus it drops pretty nice tokens. Disciple of Griselbrand, Altar of Dementia, and Disciple of Bolas want a new friend. Bloodtracker — Neat card, but belongs in a +1/+1 counters deck. Entreat the Dead — The miracle cost is really nice, but otherwise I probably wouldn't run it in this deck. Endless Atlas — Pretty easy in a mono-color deck, but mono-black has better card draw options. Night Incarnate — It's an option and kindof on-theme, but there are other creature-based options I'd use before this for the -X/-X effect. Skull Storm — Cute, but no thank you. Nine mana isn't worth the creature sacrifice effect, and it gets in the way of preceding it with a board wipe to secure the life-halving effect. Sower of Discord — Could be handy for enhancing the combat-damage wincon of this deck. No plans to test currently, though. Stitch Together — Threshold is easy, and for two mana that's a nice low-cost reanimation spell.
Battlebond Archfiend of Despair — Well I'm not doing life loss, but if I was this guys seems pretty awesome. It's Wound Reflection on a big stick with life gain prevention. A lot of value there. Krav, the Unredeemed — This guy is interesting. Running him in Marchesa at the moment due to +1/+1 counters. Stunning Reversal — This is one of those "Gotcha!" cards I just want to try sometime. Seven cards is nice, but it could also squeeze out one more Chainer activation at 3 or less life if things go awry (which is not often). Thrilling Encore — Fun follow-up to a wipe. Damnation plus this seems preferable to me over Rise of the Dark Realms. Also a nice follow-up to somebody else's wipe. This one might see some actual testing since theft is one of the main goals and five mana is decent even if I just get 2-3 creatures.
Some card changes to the deck are eventually inbound, too, after I get around to testing.
Sphinx of the Guildpact — A five-color card in a mono-black deck would be a little amusing. A 5/5 flier with hexproof that's pretty decent is also not bad as a beater in my opinion. Might run it some day as a joke.
Awaken the Erstwhile — Zombie tokens aren't my thing, but this could be a more 'fair' alternative to Mindslicer (although Mindslicer is so perfectly on-theme). Mindslicer presents as a huge threat because I can pretty clearly repeat it due to my commander and my opponents get nothing. I have to use XHD to get Awaken back, but the consolation prize of zombies might make it seem "better". Do this to somebody with a huge fist of cards and then follow up with Massacre Wurm or Deadly Tempest? Okay.
Pestilent Spirit — It's unfortunate that this doesn't work with mono-black. It's an interesting effect, but almost certainly has to be paired with red.
The Haunt of Hightower — Someday I'll get a copy to test; I don't know why I don't already have a copy. Seems like a fantastic beater for this deck. Flying, lifelink, discard on attack (rather than on damage), automatically grows. And not just growing when cards die, are discarded, or are milled - it'll grow just from opponents casting non-permanents or cracking fetchlands.
Reflecting —
I'd made a decent number of changes over the past several months, including testing a build that attempted to focus on card draw without tutors. It could still work, but my friends actually convinced me that this deck should still be the "mean" deck. So I returned to using tutors and pulled out some other stops. More thoughts below.
I had chosen Deathgreeter to replace Blood Artist because I didn't want to end up leeching the table while trying to combo with Gonti or Sepulchral Primordial instead. However, most of the combos involve a sacrifice outlet and I usually have one out anyway. This means I can just soften people up (particularly as a solution to lifegainers) from the Blood Artist triggers if I'm going for a different win condition, while helping enable a combat win condition and being a backup win condition itself.
I decided I wanted to give this deck more opportunity to pull off its ultimate win condition if possible. Blood Artist afforded a strong temptation to simply machine-gun everybody to death, plus it would kill everybody in the process of a Gonti/Primordial loop anyway... unless I add Abyssal Persecutor to the combo. Anyway, Deathgreeter is back.
Wipes — I had more wipes in the draw version — don't need that many for my group. Damnation is great, but I want to be able to hit other stuff with Nevinyrral's Disk (plus I used the older, more eldritch-horror art). All is Dust doesn't hit artifacts for the most part, and short Toxic Deluge I wanted another -X/-X solution so Mutilate is in for testing (also older, nightmare/Chainer themed art).
Beatsticks — Arena-on-a-stick out to test Belzenlok's card accessing. Phyrexian Obliterator out for a different beatstick in the shape of Void Winnower now that devotion doesn't matter except for Nykthos. I removed Massacre Wurm because it can be a "surprise, you lose!" card if somebody has enough tokens, and I want to avoid having that kind option immediately available. It's why Exsanguinate isn't here. Torgaar replaces it so I can fiddle around with life totals to knock lifegain decks down or keep myself alive (20 life is quite comfortable, really). Abhorrent Overlord may someday see play again, but it forms a rather easy loop with just Chainer and Phyrexian Altar, so let's see if I can steal somebody else's ETB token producer for loops and see how Doom Whisperer fares.
Vedalken Orrery is also one of those cards I would love to have in play every game. In its stead, Ambition's Cost is the last piece of the draw-only version that I'm leaving in for now because it's on-theme. And since I pay life to stuff a lot, I'm going to see how Font of Agonies does, replacing Vampiric Rites.
Other cards on my mind —
I'm reconsidering the exclusion of Harvester of Souls. More card draw isn't bad, but I'll see how I like Belzenlok, first.
Mind Slash is still in the little box for possible Chainer stuff. It's diabolically good and I should probably be using it. Oppression-style enchantments have been under consideration, too, though I then become tempted to use Geth's Grimoire.
Meteor Golem is cool, but I can't hit my own stuff with it. Duplicant is good, but only hits creatures. sigh
Aether Snap may get a spot for dealing with tokens/planeswalkers, though it's not exactly on the short list. I'm probably going to be rotating through different wipes to find the combination I like best.
Corpse Connoisseur is one of those cards I keep eyeballing, but I would probably be disappointed with the practical cost of basically 6 life and 6xB for whatever creature I'm after.
Edit2: And then I go and realize (*facepalm*) that I don't have to let Massacre Wurm kill an opponent. It just has to not be on the battlefield when the creatures die. It's a great piece of control so it'll almost certainly go back in after testing some of these new cards.
After doing some goldfish testing and realizing I could visualize if Demonlord Belzenlok did anything acceptable through a bit of programming, he's back out and I'm trying Harvester of Souls again. Might end up back to Bloodgift Demon, though. In the simulations, Belzenlok would most often get me 1 card at a time. Half of the frequency of singles I could get 2 cards. Half of that frequency 3 cards. Plus any lands exiled would stay exiled, and I like my lands. Maybe he'd work in a deck that can tolerate the land loss once some sort of value-engine blinking has begun (maybe Marchesa, the Black Rose), but most likely reanimating with Chainer and most likely only getting one card in hand makes it too costly.
Massacre Wurm is too good to stay out for token control. Void Winnower would keep opponents from blocking with tokens, but not prevent a retaliatory attack. Also I figure the cast-prevention would put a target on me. I was initially worried about outright killing a player with Massacre Wurm, but if they have enough tokens for that to happen then they were getting ready to win anyway and there's a decent chance their stuff was not worth stealing to use against the other players. Or I just sac the Wurm before the -2/-2 trigger resolves and they don't die.
I keep flip-flopping on Abhorrent Overlord vs Razaketh, the Foulblooded at the moment. Do I need the repeatable tutor or do I need the tokens for the combos (or for aggro)? I supposed I could replace Ambition's Cost with a tutor (either Diabolic Intent or this nice 9th Ed. Diabolic Tutor). I've been thinking a lot about how this deck deals with the concept of power and the balance of using others' vs bringing my own. For example, for tokens I could rely on Wurmcoil Engine, or more randomly an opponent's token-maker (e.g. Siege-Gang Commander), or somewhat in-between Sepulchral Primordial assuming enough opponents have creature cards in their graveyards. For tutors I could repeat Demonic Tutor with XHD if necessary, among other possibilities. Both of these cards are firehoses at what they do, but it may simply come down to Razaketh being the scary, must-answer card vs Overlord.
As a fellow Chainer guy I'd love to get in on this discussion!
I started building mine back in about 2014, during a pretty tough time in my life, so this deck is really special to me. I was actually kind of surprised how little overlap there was in our decks, and I'm still reading through the (excellent) OP to see where our philosophies differ, but I'm always happy to find someone to gush over my precious child with
Here's my decklist (and here's the tappedout link). It's built to last through long, grinding games and I want to be able to reuse everything in the deck as often as possible. It's pretty artifact heavy, so I've had to find a few different ways to recur artifacts (and the means to recur those means of recurrance...)
Once I'm more caught up on the thread, I'll hopefully have more interesting insight.
I started building mine back in about 2014, during a pretty tough time in my life, so this deck is really special to me. I was actually kind of surprised how little overlap there was in our decks, and I'm still reading through the (excellent) OP to see where our philosophies differ, but I'm always happy to find someone to gush over my precious child with
Here's my decklist (and here's the tappedout link). It's built to last through long, grinding games and I want to be able to reuse everything in the deck as often as possible. It's pretty artifact heavy, so I've had to find a few different ways to recur artifacts (and the means to recur those means of recurrance...)
Once I'm more caught up on the thread, I'll hopefully have more interesting insight.
I can see from the TO list that you've also foiled almost all of it. That also tells me it's an important deck to you.
I'll have more detail about philosophy/approach once I get to writing that section of the OP (there is a little in the OP at the moment). Happy to answer specific questions, though.
More or less I'm trying to stick to some general deckbuilding rules I have across all my decks (e.g., none use Sol Ring), stick to some thematic choices I made after reading about Chainer's backstory, and raise the bar for myself on acceptable self-contained win conditions so that surviving remains challenging and winning remains interesting. Gary/Kokusho/Exsanguinate are probably the easiest example concerning their absence from my list. I used to have Gary and Exsanguinate in the deck (still don't own a Kokusho). Half the times I won it was Exsanguinate, so that stopped being interesting and I removed it - Gary soon followed. Crossed them off the bucket list, so to speak. So that's why there's no life-leeching in the deck, even though it's a great enabler for Chainer. I do have a friend with an Ur-Dragon deck that has Kokusho in it. Though I've stolen it before to win, I'm now more inclined to exile it unless the game has already gone long and needs to end when it makes an appearance.
Game length I guess is another big part of my approach to EDH. I like them intriguing and not too long (1 - 1.5 hours). A longer game can be fun if it's suspenseful, with power swings and comebacks. It's not fun IMO if everybody else is just waiting to die if one player has locked the table down but can't follow it promptly with a win.
Honestly, I'm there with you on Gary/Koko/Exsanguinate. They're great a couple times, but they do tend to make the way I play the deck too linear. I'm working on other, more interesting finishers as well. I haven't run Gonti yet, but he's high on my list.
I'll be running it again Tuesday night so I'll see how I feel about it. It's honestly been a while since I've played.
Gonti is lots of fun. Especially if there's a green deck to point him at (or blue). I've only been able to use him here and there so far and haven't been able to do the steal-everybody's-libraries loop yet, but he's usually stolen something useful even if it isn't useful right away.
Just seems like it hurts way too much. You pretty much have to have one of the "creature dies, gain life" guys in order for it to hurt just a little or it's potential suicide on its own, and you have to survive the damage in the first place before going back up off of the triggers. Those guys work just the same with other wipes that don't hurt the caster, except having just one would be a net gain of that much life instead of losing 3. I'm also not a fan of "non-black creature" clauses on removal. Contrast Hellfire with Deadly Tempest, for example. It's only 1 more mana, which tends not to matter in a deck that ramps anyway because it's mana-hungry, but it also hurts your opponents for the creatures destroyed rather than you and destroys them all instead of all non-black.
I realize that a non-black destroy would leave my stuff alone for the most part, but I also don't want to miss out on destroying another B player's stuff. I have so many sacrifice outlets, I could use Living Death to wipe and get my field back, depending on what else is in other players' graveyards. I haven't had issues with recovering from wiping my board along with others, though, but there are a few tricks in the deck I can use to help speed recovery.
Yeah, thanks! You talked me out of spending an extra $40
I do have a timing question you might be able to answer. I have Homeward Path in the deck, and I've seen you mention it a few times in the thread. Does the following work, timing-wise?
Player A attacks Player B with a big beater, like a supercharged Managorger Hydra or something. It doesn't really matter.
B is dead on board with no blockers, but has creatures in his graveyard. So I can pay to reanimate a creature with Chainer, and then Homeward Path the reanimation target (let's say, since this is all an imagination exercise, it's something like Sidisi, Undead Vizier so I'll also get a bonus for its ETB, and has deathtouch for some insult to injury to A) to give B the blocker he needs to stay alive?
Ha! I hadn't even looked at the price of Hellfire. Good call.
And yes, Homeward Path would return the reanimated creature to it's owner's control and they'll be able to declare it as a blocker if it's untapped. It'll return all stolen creatures, so watch out for that. Also, the stolen creature would still be a Nightmare in addition to other types, Chainer would still be giving it +1/+1 (so Sidisi would be 5/7), and it could still get exiled by Chainer's leaves-the-battlefield trigger.
With the spoilers today, I think there are already a few cards I'd love to try out! I've linked these to mythicspoiler, but if that's not the right thing to do, I can come back and edit that. Also, lyonhaert, if you want me to hold off posting about new cards, I definitely can in the future, I'm just excited to talk about them (and also procrastinate the paper I'm supposed to be writing...) I'll also put them in a spoiler tag, just to be safe
Liliana, Dreadhorde General - The passive ability is already one we want. And the other three abilities are all very relevant. It's tougher to kill than a creature like Harvester of Souls, but of course it's also harder for Chainer to do his thing with them. I think I'll try it at least.
Bolas's Citadel - Ad Nauseam that we can control a little better? Devotion? Seems pretty good to me.
Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted - The static is fun, and plays well with the activated ability. It's cute, but I don't think we're a deck that wants to give too many cards to opponents, and Underworld Dreams is cheaper and better for devotion.
Ob Nixilis's Cruelty - I run both Ashes to Ashes and Gild, because I've got an Avacyn deck I run into pretty often. So I appreciate the ability to exile creatures in black, but I'm not sold on this.
With the spoilers today, I think there are already a few cards I'd love to try out! I've linked these to mythicspoiler, but if that's not the right thing to do, I can come back and edit that. Also, lyonhaert, if you want me to hold off posting about new cards, I definitely can in the future, I'm just excited to talk about them (and also procrastinate the paper I'm supposed to be writing...) I'll also put them in a spoiler tag, just to be safe
Liliana, Dreadhorde General - The passive ability is already one we want. And the other three abilities are all very relevant. It's tougher to kill than a creature like Harvester of Souls, but of course it's also harder for Chainer to do his thing with them. I think I'll try it at least.
Bolas's Citadel - Ad Nauseam that we can control a little better? Devotion? Seems pretty good to me.
Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted - The static is fun, and plays well with the activated ability. It's cute, but I don't think we're a deck that wants to give too many cards to opponents, and Underworld Dreams is cheaper and better for devotion.
Ob Nixilis's Cruelty - I run both Ashes to Ashes and Gild, because I've got an Avacyn deck I run into pretty often. So I appreciate the ability to exile creatures in black, but I'm not sold on this.
I don't mind card discussion, at all, so I'll comment outside of spoilers and removed your spoiler in the quote. I also changed it to the MTGSalvation links so that the hovers for the links work. Usually for myself, I tend to wait until the whole set is out before doing a rundown of what I think of each, but I'm also going through the process of re-evaluating some previous cards.
Liliana, Dreadhorde General — I'm glad none of her stuff mentions Army/Amass, because that mechanic seems lackluster from what I can tell.
Her trigger is good, agreed, and 4BB is what we'd pay for Harvester of Souls. I like that she triggers off of tokens, not just cards, but unlike Harvester she doesn't trigger off of opponent creatures (which is pretty good consider the lack of "nontoken"). So we can't get decked by somebody else's sacrifice shenanigans, but there is still a liability of drawing too much if we get caught in a wipe and have a bunch of tokens (though I'd be willing to risk it, probably). The main ways out if it came to that are Claws of Gix and Infernal Tribute, and she's harder to recur than Harvester.
+1 to make a token is alright. Can't clamp them, though.
-4 to Barter in Blood is where I start having doubts. For -2 or -3 I'd be fine with "each opponent sacrifices a creature", or maybe even "each player". But sacrificing two of my own means I may not be getting anything out of their deaths directly, like mana. There's also the timing issue, in which Chainer tends to work much better with a well-timed reanimation of Fleshbag Marauder at instant speed, which this denies you since it's on a planeswalker.
-9 to end the game. This is why she won't stick to the table, if possible. Doesn't specify "nonland permanent". You pull this ultimate off and everybody else probably scoops. It That Betrays wants this to happen, probably. Granted, it takes 4 turns without shenanigans to be able to do that.
Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted — I find it odd that some of these walkers don't have + abilities. Like, "here's an enchantment you can use to destroy two creatures at sorcery speed, but only one per turn". That 1 damage is going to hurt over time and this is probably very high synergy with Nekusar. I'm not really into giving my opponents two whole cards for a creature, though.
Bolas's Citadel — This one is more interesting to me of the four so far. A little bit of life might be alright for some of the smaller spells, maybe not the big ones. Aside from a bit of artifact recursion, XHD can get it back. Unlike Ad Nauseam, more top-deck manipulation would be required to avoid lands and put things in the right sequence for comboing out. The last ability, though, pretty much demands good token production. Almost wish its effect was more along the lines of Kokusho.
Emergence Zone — This is the one that gets me excited, though — like "I'm going to buy 5 or more" excited. Nobody wants the MBC deck to haveflash. Crucible of Worlds and Petrified Field are already no strangers to MBC lists.
Massacre Girl — Maybe not super useful, but an interesting design. If a 1/1 dies on the first -1/-1, another -1/-1 happens. If four 1/1s die, the total becomes -5/-5 on everything but her. So smaller creatures can contribute to taking out larger creatures. Or you can sac creatures yourself to boost it, or even do so later in the turn if other creatures have entered the battefield after initial wipes. Very circumstantial, but the other thing is that not everything dies at once — each -1/-1 is done be a delayed trigger set up by the first, so each can be responded to. I still prefer other things for -X/-X wipes, of course.
It can be quite funny how endeavors like this unfold.
I've been wanting to write finish writing this retrospective for a couple weeks now. I'd been thinking at length about the direction I wanted to go with Chainer from here and decided to reread the thread. Then I decided to reread my original sources of inspiration (other chainer threads/decks — listed in the following spoiler).
In the process of reading I was reminded of some nice interactions I'd forgotten and lots of good wisdom about card choice, deck design, and a bit of game theory. I'll need to go back through them at some point to pull out those wonderful nuggets for quoting in my OP as that progresses. But I realized, even though I started my Chainer deck originally from a stance of avoiding resource denial (stax), that I am continually inching into that territory now — not out of mimicry but finally understanding why it works and why that's good for MBC.
I also didn't understand packages at the time and had removed the pacts and discard effects but had left in pieces like Sangromancer that fed off of those, which were later removed because they "didn't do anything useful". Harvester of Souls and Ogre Slumlord were similarly nerfed by the lack of pact effects because since they trigger on "another nontoken" they're much more effective if you're making 3 opponent creatures die along with your own Slum Reaper than if you're just sacrificing Bloodghast once or twice on your turn. Oh, those early days when I was running stuff like Vampire Nighthawk and Nezumi Graverobber.
Now I'm adding Plaguecrafter and Sheoldred, and have been overall rethinking the deck's pieces. I'm still sticking to my design principles in the OP but loosening the per-card 'flavor' theme, as well as loosening my qualms about stax, to allow for more cohesive functionality throughout. I'm not suddenly going to run a ton of discard or pacts, but will carefully introduce some new pieces and figure out what I find useful and what I'm comfortable with.
The folks I play with know this is my "mean" deck, that it doesn't get used very often, and they basically told me it's a deck worth un-nerfing (paraphrased — i.e., permission to be "mean"). Their decks and their play are getting stronger and I just need to make sure I don't over-do it to the point of steamrolling without chance for interaction — choosing pieces that are more on the reactive side should help in that regard. Words of Waste + Geth's Grimoire would be hilariously disgusting, but will have to wait.
I've been trying to think in terms of switching out cards that are less cohesive or are durdly for cards that have a variety of use with other cards. Examples of my re-evaluations:
The deck is a toolbox/engine and very likely doesn't need much in the way of it's own beaters when it can steal them, unless that body is very useful aside from its evasion/power/toughness. For example, if Doom Whisperer's Surveil 2 isn't worth the card slot given other options for self-mill, then it's otherwise just a big evasive body. Wurmcoil Engine, on the other hand brings a decent set of support to the deck that in its ability to kill things, gain life, and provide 3 separate bodies to sacrifice. Another example, equipment like Lashwrithe can turn anything into a beater (and starts off as one), but doesn't provide any evasion so is only useful on already-evasive bodies. Loxodon Warhammer is a better equipment for the deck for the lifelink and the trample while still turning almost anything into a beater — my evasive bodies will still be evasive, but trample helps with others. Removing the less synergistic bodies makes a bit more room for tools, or redundancy on some tools that are currently one-of.
Dark Deal is getting cut. It had potential for dumping hands when I wasn't using much discard, but in looking at it again I can't even loop it with XHD as a win condition, where Memory Jar can do that.
Fallen Ideal is a sacrifice outlet that's hard to get rid of, but aside from its flying that's pretty much all it is. The power pump isn't even important because I'm not going to activate that enough to be significant without tokens, and those are a board presence of their own. This is one of the better examples of a card that doesn't offer much to the other cards.
Burnished Hart - BBB+3L to reanimate. 3 to sac for two lands tapped.
Wayfarer's Bauble and Myr Retriever - BBB+3L to reanimate the Retriever, sac it to get Bauble back, 3 to cast it and crack it for one land tapped.
However, Retriever can be used to get back my other important artifacts where Hart does nothing else but ramp, and whatever I sac it to is likely getting me somegoodvalue on the side. Bauble also can ramp me earlier from the hand than Simulacrum or Hart.
Did I totally miss/ignore Dross Harvester before because of the 4 life trigger? I love that this and Pitiless Plunderer trigger off eldrazitokens. I wouldn't even need lifelink on Pestilence Demon for this to net me a good amount of life should a lot of creatures happen to die at the same time for some strange reason. Having another, better Deathgreeter rather than resort to Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble helps keep me on track.
Praetor's Grasp is useful for tutoring somebody else's card to use, or getting rid of problems, but with just a few deaths Bitter Ordeal can remove many problems and it's rather difficult to counter. I'm not making this swap just yet, but I recognize Bitter Ordeal is probably a much better choice.
I think I'll have to be careful with how much discard I add. Mindslicer is already pretty strong because there's potential for getting rid of everybody's hands at instant speed "out of nowhere", and it's the "out of nowhere" that I probably should include sparingly versus things you can see coming somewhat, so I'll test Myojin in Mindslicer's place. Somehow, I want to encourage my friends to run a little more spot removal and better card draw. NB: In fact, that is one of my goals and I appreciate feedback on balancing that.
I'll just have to keep an eye on opponent creature deaths and discard to evaluate whether Sangromancer/Geth's Grimoire/Waste Not get spots in the deck.
So yeah, massive set of changes in this, and some different toys to test.
I'm trying to refocus on variance in games by taking out some tutors for card draw. I'm actually fine with Demonic Tutor staying but it's needed in another deck where it's easier to cast there than Beseech the Queen is here. Final Parting would have been kindof like a black pseudo-Intuition so I can't say it'll never see play in the deck again. I considered Corpse Connoisseur — we'll see if I end up wanting that or Vampiric Tutor for those moments I need to save my hide. Also trying Liliana of the Dark Realms in place of one of the other tutors since tutoring for swamps is harmless. I have a feeling she'll be pretty redundant to the actual ramp and fetches but that emblem is on my bucket list. I also need to test how well ramping goes without Solemn Simulacrum at some point.
Razzy I know would have been amazing as a giant beater, tutor, and sac outlet, but that tutor part is where he's getting benched for now. Torgaar was supposed to be a toolbox piece for bringing somebody's life down from too high or keeping mine afloat — but maybe if I was planning to need the manual override then my other life support wasn't doing too good. Sepulchral Primordial was basically redundancy with Chainer, and to magnify the effect of his ability. In their place, please welcome returning guest Abhorrent "Tokens for Days" Overlord and two brand new guests: Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief and Sheoldred, Whispering One.
Fallen Ideal is a die-hard sacrifice outlet but has no real benefit from the sacrifice, so now we're going to see what it's like to perform surgery on our opponents' hands with Mind Slash. Along the same lines of discard effects we're bringing in Oppression and Myojin of Night's Reach for Dark Deal and Mindslicer (not that 'Slicer isn't good — we're just going to try something different). Plaguecrafter buttons this up as teammate for Slum Reaper that can get a planeswalker or as a Liliana's Specter if our opponents don't have creatures (Specter was on the list for consideration, but I still want to lean more on removal than discard). I considered adding Bloodgift Demon in place of Doom Whisperer, but that Surveil 2 still needs testing.
While Claws of Gix has saved my bacon a time or two, I think Dross Harvester shows some promise for keeping my bacon out of the fire in the first place. Viscera Seer was very often underused by me because, while I wasn't a fan of the timing of the Scry 1 vs draw triggers, I was just always using other outlets. Perhaps the card draw of Vampiric Rites will prove more useful. In place of Ambition's Cost I'm adding the somewhat-similar Infernal Tribute, returning as my sacrifice-a-liability tool. The extra token production may change my mind about Seer someday regarding having card draw vs having scry combined with other card draw, so it's sortof a flex spot between the two, but as a sacrifice outlet it could also become Attrition if I figure I have enough card draw but want more removal.
Somehow I didn't have any graveyard answers other than Chainer himself. I want something not too difficult to recur since an answer might be needed at instant speed. Withered Wretch can be mana intensive but is quite surgical and I've used him before, so we're going to try Agent of Erebos as a wholesale graveyard exile that can be re-used if I happen to get another enchantment on the field after him. Part of the reason for going for the wholesale exile approach is some recent experiences with enchantments and Bruna. Better to just nuke that whole 'yard.
I still want to see how I like Pestilence Demon with lifelink some day, but I'm pretty sure that with the amount of mana I can produce sometimes, there simply wouldn't be a reason to not Exsanguinate the table. Maybe that won't be an issue very often if I rely on draw.
Flex Slots
Here are what I'm considering as flex slots to test a handful of variations:
Bloodghast <-> Reassembling Skeleton — I'd originally chosen Bloodghast to just routinely come back for free as I dropped lands and cracked fetches, but not be very loopable like the Skeleton. Like Living Death, I'll have to do the math on possible combo lines again to see if I'm still within my restrictions, though it would be quite satisfying to Divination with Skullclamp and turn some other sacrifice outlets into instant-speed responses that don't rely on Chainer being in play. Skeleton just supercharges everything as a combo piece. For example: Reassembling Skeleton + Pitiless Plunderer + Pawn of Ulamog + Altar of Dementia = mill everybody out and make B extra per loop. Or similar arrangement that is self-sustaining on mana to produce enough Gravestorm to Bitter Ordeal everybody's libraries. While I don't have one yet, Nether Traiter is probably also an option here.
Other Things
Speaking of death-to-mana like Pitiless Plunderer, I've never actually tried Black Market yet to see if it skews how I play like I think it would. I like Revel in Riches better since I can spend the Treasure tokens whenever I want, but I also want to take a Sharpie to the win condition trigger and let everyone at the table pretend along with me that it doesn't exist. Black Market would work very nicely with the eldrazi tokens, though.
Spotlight on a Pet Card: Mirage Mirror
The Mirror is one of my favorite cards in the deck. It just becomes quite the multi-purpose, shenanigans-enabling little card, so I decided to put together a list of some of wonderful things it can do:
Copy Nykthos, Tower, Stronghold for an additional activation (you'll have to let the original go to the graveyard since they're legendary). Copy Dark Depths.
Copy Crypt Ghast/Nirkana Revenant. To net mana after activation, use manarock to activate or have at least 4 swamps. Can't copy Caged Sun because no color was chosen as it entered the battlefield.
Do silly things with charge counters: activate to copy something that uses charge counters (Astral Cornucopia/Coalition Relic/Orochi Hatcheri/Culling Dias/Darksteel Reactor), then respond with another activation to copy something like Black Market that you can get lots of counters on in a hurry with a bunch of eldrazi tokens before the first copy resolves.
Be careful copying somebody else's Necropotence. You'll still have to discard before it stops being Necropotence if copied and then exiled cards using it during your turn.
Right, on, God-Eternal Bontu is pretty good. If I produce enough tokens (even Treasure tokens), and gain enough life outside of Disciple of Bolas, this could be a good replacement. If I'm going to draw three or more cards then I can sacrifice him in response to his own ETB and re-draw him. Even better, use them both and put Bontu in Harvester's spot for testing.
Edit: Bontu is Reprocess on a stick that can almost self-recur, basically.
I like Bontu a lot! I already love Abhorrent Overlord, and this makes it even better! And there's almost always something on the table I don't mind getting rid of and bringing back with Chainer. I'll definitely be trying him out.
Alright, last few cards I hadn't commented on from War of the Spark:
Bond of Revival — As reanimation spells go it's a pretty standard mana cost, but the haste is nice.
Command the Dreadhorde — Interesting recursion spell, but probably works better if you're recurring a couple planeswalkers or a bunch of cheap creatures. But the flexibility of any number of targets and all graveyards being eligible is cool.
Deliver Unto Evil — Multiple-choice cards like this can sometimes be built around so that whichever two you get help you get the other two, but there's definitely no way I'm going to control a Bolas planeswalker in this deck under normal circumstances.
The Elderspell — An interesting way to deal with planeswalkers if there are a lot in your meta.
Price of Betrayal — The usefulness of this very niche, and the most useful thing I can think of that it does better than other removal is that it can remove experience counters.
The non-permanents, especially, aren't usually the style for a Chainer deck but might fit another style of MBC deck. I have seen a Chainer deck or two that had a small handful of reanimation spells as redundancy — in the style of Animate Dead/Necromancy/Reanimate/Beacon of Unrest, less so Living Death which is very common in Chainer decks — but such reanimation is more common in other styles of black decks.
What's your opinion on Blast Zone? My jaw dropped when it was spoiled. Giving mono-black a way to deal with, well, just about any problematic permanent with the potential for a lot of fun collateral damage on a land seems incredible to me even if it's mana-intensive. Still, MBC is known for generating oodles of mana, so the XX is less intimidating than it is for other decks. It doesn't even come into play tapped! I'm having trouble deciding what to cut for it, but that's a great problem to have.
Yeah, I skipped past that one again. That could be interesting, and I'll have to test it but might have to start playing at the LGS to have more reasons to use removal. You're right that the XX isn't very intimidating, because in most cases it's only going to get paid for one or two counters to take out 2-CMC or 3-CMC stuff.
I think I am on the fence about it because you have to tap it to pay XX to add counters if 1 isn't enough, and then tap it and pay 3 to actually destroy. So you'd need Deserted Temple if you want to do both at the same time at relatively instant speed or you're stuck with opponent's EOT for the XX and your turn for the destroy. And because the CMC has to be "equal to" - rather than "equal to or less than" the number of counters - I classify it in my head as spot removal, like Steel Hellkite. It does have some things going for it in that it's colorless, doesn't target, and you don't have to attack.
I'd probably like it better if it started with zero counters. But I'm also pretty comfortable with just taking out everything with Oblivion Stone and rebuilding. Also if somebody plays Rest in Peace they rather deserve that, hahaha!
With that in mind, what would be the best numbers of counters for the things we really need to get rid of? It could be that upgrading it to two counters right away if we don't have an immediate need to destroy anything would be prudent if there's a chance we'll see Rest in Peace in a game. Any need for 1, 3, 4, etc. for nonland, noncreature problems to get rid of?
It's fairly slow since you have to tap it to add counters and to remove stuff, but I believe your patience will be rewarded. The biggest thing it has going for it to me is that it's a land and therefore has a very low opportunity cost for running it. Having an additional out to Rest in Piece for you or Aura Shards for me with a land that might otherwise be something like Reliquary Tower or a basic is my kind of value. At worst, it's a Wastes, at best, it enables wins by taking out whatever is holding you back.
As for which counters to let it sit at, I think it might be best to let it sit in play with just the single counter or maybe two until a threat presents itself. If someone has something dumb and mildly expensive out like True Conviction or Caged Sun it's likely the mid to late game where it's very possible you're able to produce the 10 mana needed to add enough counters to then untap and blow them up. If they have Omniscience you've probably already lost, and if it's cheap it's trivial to load up and destroy it.
In regards to Blood Artist, fair enough. Deathgreeter seems like a fine inclusion in its stead since it recovers the life we so freely spend with this deck.
In other news, I didn't realize with the number of printings that Necropotence is now less than $5. I'll probably place an order for it since it's too good not to run.
What about Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni? I'm playing Mindcrank in my list so that I can get access to my opponent's creatures too (and because the Crank actually messes up Top of Deck tutors really well too. I'm continually surprised by how relevant mill is), so Ink-Eyes has a good chance to hit for Ninjitsu and theft a creature. I just don't know if it's redundant to what Chainer already does. It's between Ink-Eyes and Nightmare because, well, Chainer needs a Nightmare Horse to ride on when he ravages his opponents! And Nightmare is one of the OG Black creatures in MTG! And because it's a literal nightmare creature to take advantage of Chainer's pump! And also get exiled if Chainer leaves play...
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I recommend newer printings or fifth edition for accurate rules text. One of the two I have is the Deckmasters version with the old art (which I like better) and foil, but it phrases the discard-exile ability as a replacement effect when it's really a triggered ability. Saves time bringing up Oracle text if you want to reanimate something you discarded to save it from exile.
I'm don't think Chainer needs a horse, even if it's a flying nightmare horse.
Not sure about Ink-Eyes, yet. Most games I play somewhat like a control deck, reanimating creatures for their activated or triggered abilities at instant speed in response to something or before my turn. Ink-Eyes isn't as flexible for the reanimation aspect that way, but with some trample she can keep pressure on opponents. Then reanimating via combat sounds better to me. I'll probably test her someday once I get a copy.
I've considered Mindcrank before, as it would speed some things along, except my own graveyard. I almost wish it were symmetrical. I've also considered Mesmeric Orb for a passive milling effect. I might A/B test them in Defense Grid's slot, but I'll give Chainer a rest in my main group for a little while since he kindof dominates, even at the risk of running my life close to zero sometimes.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Shadows Over Innistrad
Behold the Beyond — Very niche if it's even useful. Would be handy for endgame but otherwise dead in my hand, probably. Really on-theme, though, dang.
Call the Bloodline — Decent discard outlet and the tokens are alright, but costs mana and the "once a turn" clause is pretty limiting.
Corrupted Grafstone — Not great in a mono-color deck. I'd rather use another 2-drop mana rock in its place.
Ever After — Decent reanimation spell, but not what this deck runs on.
Haunted Cloak — I have considered this. Stealing any fatty I want and giving "Vigilance, Trample, Haste" for Equip 1 is pretty nice.
Indulgent Aristocrat — Better in vampires. Or Marchesa.
Macabre Waltz — Does what it does pretty well for two mana.
Merciless Resolve — It's okay. For an additional 1 over Altar's Reap you get the choice of sacrificing a land instead of a creature. Ironic.
Mindwrack Demon — Self-milling evasive beater. Probably viable in a tamer version of this deck.
To the Slaughter — There are better ways to achieve these ends.
Westvale Abbey — If token generation is good in the deck, I want to play with this sometime just to try it out. Just seems funny to reanimate it with Crucible, basically.
Eldritch Moon
Emrakul, the Promised End — Nice beater, but I don't like controlling other player's turns (even though that's probably on-theme for this deck).
Geier Reach Sanitarium — I probably need to test this at some point.
Liliana, the Last Hope — Nah.
Noosegraf Mob — This one is interesting, as it is potentially, pseudo-passive token generation.
Succumb to Temptation — If I tried a build with improved card draw and no tutors, this would probably be in there.
Tree of Perdition — LOL
Kaladesh
Aetherworks Marvel — This one still interests me. However it would probably be way better in Marchesa or Mazirek. I imagine the quantity of sacrifices is larger in Mazirek, whereas in Chainer I'm going more for quality unless I hit a loop. I should start keeping some statistics from Chainer games.
Demon of Dark Schemes — Don't really need this close of a backup to Chainer usually, but the extra energy production could fuel the Marvel if I test it.
Fortuitous Find — We have some important artifacts, so having a way to get one back (or a creature if we need it back to hand rather than reanimated with Chainer) isn't terrible.
Ghirapur Orrery — This one's been on my testing list for a while, too. Can be a double-edged sword if anybody else has land-based mana doubling. The draw-3 ability could possibly help keep discard effects like Sadistic Hypnotist/Mind Slash useful.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury — Already in the deck. One of the central pieces to its ultimate wincon, actually.
Key to the City — Very low on the testing list, possibly if I do an only-draw-no-tutors build.
Marionette Master — An alright token machine. But better in an artifacts-matter deck. I'm also trying to limit the "loses N life" effects.
Noxious Gearhulk — This thing is ridiculous. Every time this thing comes out it just wrecks everything in sight.
Panharmonicon — Since ETB effects are the bread and butter of Chainer, I have considered running this to get extra value from my plays.
Perpetual Timepiece — While a bit of self-mill is useful, I'd rather re-shuffle graveyard with something that doesn't target since there's a deck with Ground Seal in my small meta.
Smuggler's Copter — I like this guy. Maybe not in this deck, but I still like it.
Aether Revolt
Hope of Ghirapur — I still need to try this sometime, but probably in a different deck. Seems like it would be amazing in Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.
Metallic Mimic — Very nice in Marchesa, but not here, I think.
Paradox Engine — I don't run enough artifacts to make this useful.
Planar Bridge — While mana isn't a problem, black has way better tutors.
Treasure Keeper — Could have some potential, maybe? I tend to prefer less randomness in my actual plays (and information revealing) in this deck, though. Worth some playtime at some point to see what effect it has on how I play Chainer.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan — Seems like a better sacrifice outlet than Dimir House Guard, but he's hanging out with Marchesa for the moment.
Amonkhet
Archfiend of Ifnir — This guys seems cool in the right kind of deck.
Final Reward — I like that it's instant. Exile in black is rare enough, but I have other options that are more repeatable.
Gate to the Afterlife — The first ability is nice in this deck, but I have more easily recurred stuff that gives me life and/or cards.
Hour of Devastation
Bontu's Last Reckoning — Not terrible. I could play around the lands part for a round, as I usually wait until the end of a turn to activate Chainer anyway, or as necessary.
Mirage Mirror — This has some pretty sneaky potential.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded — This guy would be a ridiculous threat in this deck.
Torment of Hailfire — An awesome card as a finisher, but that's also why I'm not running it — part of the theme is to use opponents' own threats against them or through combat damage (same reason Exsanguinate isn't in the deck).
Ixalan
Arguel's Blood Fast — Very nice card draw. Currently in Marchesa.
Costly Plunder — Slightly more versatile than Altar's Reap.
Revel in Riches — I like the Treasure tokens better than Black Market, but I don't want the auto-win condition. If it was just the first ability at 3B I'd probably be running it.
Thaumatic Compass — The repeatable basic land fetch is a good tool, but I tend not to have problems hitting land drops and I don't much care for the flipside in this deck.
Rivals of Ixalan
Azor's Gateway — I usually don't have a problem generating B, but that flipside... I could see running this a game or two down the road just for fun.
Dead Man's Chest — The kind of effect this deck wants to win with, ultimately. Gonti is easier to recur, of course, but this is another I might run for fun some day.
Mastermind's Acquisition — Too bad there's no use to the second option in Commander.
Ravenous Chupacabra — Repeatable control is nice, but I have better options.
The Immortal Sun — An interesting card, certainly.
Twilight Prophet — Nice card draw, but another life-leeching effect that I'm specifically avoiding in this deck.
Dominaria
Cabal Stronghold — Nah. Doesn't generate enough advantage. I'd have to cut a probably-more-useful nonbasic or, ironically, a basic.
Chainer's Torment — What? No.
Damping Sphere — I like the speedbump this presents. Ultimately it isn't going to slow Mizzix down much, but it also messes with Coffers and Nykthos. Fortunately doesn't mess with Crypt Ghast/Nirkana Revenant/Caged Sun.
Dark Bargain — This does not excite me.
Demonlord Belzenlok — I've tried to imagine how this would play out, but I basically just need to test it.
Final Parting — This one is alright, if I was nerfing myself by not running Entomb but still allowing tutors.
Helm of the Host — Could be an interesting fun card, but probably won't see time in this deck.
Mox Amber — I do like this rock, but it's probably going to see play in Zada instead.
Phyrexian Scriptures — Not what this deck needs.
The Eldest Reborn — I like all the effects, but I also like to control the timing of them better.
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate — This guy is going in soon. Seems like a really good tool in the toolbox.
Whisper, Blood Liturgist — Creepy minion is on-theme, but I also don't need a backup graveyard-to-battlefield effect.
Yawgmoth's Vile Offering — Meh. I wasn't even going to list it at first, but I feel strongly enough about that Meh.
Guilds of Ravnica
Doom Whisperer — Looking forward to testing this one.
Gruesome Menagerie — If I were running lower to the ground this could be an interesting toolbox piece with XHD.
Mausoleum Secrets — Using tutors that reveal the card or don't are pretty much personal/tactical preference, but a two-mana instant is still pretty darn good.
Midnight Reaper — Whenever a creature itself deals damage on a trigger I try to think of how to weaponize it. It's a nice card, but it's not Dark Prophecy, Grim Haruspex, or Harvester of Souls.
Necrotic Wound — Well it isn't Tragic Slip. Might be alright in my self-milling Sidisi deck where "number of creatures in your graveyard" matters, but morbid is a lot easier in this deck.
Plaguecrafter — I like it. I don't want to run that sacrifice effect much (and Slum Reaper is just more on-theme).
Wand of Vertebrae — Perpetual Timepiece is better. Lots of things are better.
Commander 2018
Ancient Stone Idol — As a big dumb beater I like it. Plus it drops pretty nice tokens. Disciple of Griselbrand, Altar of Dementia, and Disciple of Bolas want a new friend.
Bloodtracker — Neat card, but belongs in a +1/+1 counters deck.
Entreat the Dead — The miracle cost is really nice, but otherwise I probably wouldn't run it in this deck.
Endless Atlas — Pretty easy in a mono-color deck, but mono-black has better card draw options.
Night Incarnate — It's an option and kindof on-theme, but there are other creature-based options I'd use before this for the -X/-X effect.
Skull Storm — Cute, but no thank you. Nine mana isn't worth the creature sacrifice effect, and it gets in the way of preceding it with a board wipe to secure the life-halving effect.
Sower of Discord — Could be handy for enhancing the combat-damage wincon of this deck. No plans to test currently, though.
Stitch Together — Threshold is easy, and for two mana that's a nice low-cost reanimation spell.
Battlebond
Archfiend of Despair — Well I'm not doing life loss, but if I was this guys seems pretty awesome. It's Wound Reflection on a big stick with life gain prevention. A lot of value there.
Krav, the Unredeemed — This guy is interesting. Running him in Marchesa at the moment due to +1/+1 counters.
Stunning Reversal — This is one of those "Gotcha!" cards I just want to try sometime. Seven cards is nice, but it could also squeeze out one more Chainer activation at 3 or less life if things go awry (which is not often).
Thrilling Encore — Fun follow-up to a wipe. Damnation plus this seems preferable to me over Rise of the Dark Realms. Also a nice follow-up to somebody else's wipe. This one might see some actual testing since theft is one of the main goals and five mana is decent even if I just get 2-3 creatures.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Ravnica Allegiance
Sphinx of the Guildpact — A five-color card in a mono-black deck would be a little amusing. A 5/5 flier with hexproof that's pretty decent is also not bad as a beater in my opinion. Might run it some day as a joke.
Awaken the Erstwhile — Zombie tokens aren't my thing, but this could be a more 'fair' alternative to Mindslicer (although Mindslicer is so perfectly on-theme). Mindslicer presents as a huge threat because I can pretty clearly repeat it due to my commander and my opponents get nothing. I have to use XHD to get Awaken back, but the consolation prize of zombies might make it seem "better". Do this to somebody with a huge fist of cards and then follow up with Massacre Wurm or Deadly Tempest? Okay.
Font of Agonies — Probably not as good for removal as Noxious Gearhulk, but something I want to try as an alternative to Attrition. Between Chainer, Necropotence, Erebos/Greed/Arguel's Blood Fast, Doom Whisperer, fetchlands, and even Withering Boon it might have enough fuel.
Pestilent Spirit — It's unfortunate that this doesn't work with mono-black. It's an interesting effect, but almost certainly has to be paired with red.
The Haunt of Hightower — Someday I'll get a copy to test; I don't know why I don't already have a copy. Seems like a fantastic beater for this deck. Flying, lifelink, discard on attack (rather than on damage), automatically grows. And not just growing when cards die, are discarded, or are milled - it'll grow just from opponents casting non-permanents or cracking fetchlands.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I'd made a decent number of changes over the past several months, including testing a build that attempted to focus on card draw without tutors. It could still work, but my friends actually convinced me that this deck should still be the "mean" deck. So I returned to using tutors and pulled out some other stops. More thoughts below.
Ashnod's Altar
Bog Initiate
Shred Memory
Diabolic Intent
Dimir House Guard
Fleshwrither
Beseech the Queen
Damnation
All Is Dust
Expedition Map
Wayfarer's Bauble
Bloodgift Demon
Phyrexian Obliterator
Massacre Wurm
Abhorrent Overlord
Vedalken Orrery
Vampiric Rites
Helm of Possession
Mesmeric Orb
Darkness
Demonic Tutor
Final Parting
Increasing Ambition
Razaketh, the Foulblooded
Nevinyrral's Disk
Mutilate
Nirkana Revenant
Sword of the Animist
Demonlord Belzenlok
Void Winnower
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate
Doom Whisperer
Ambition's Cost
Font of Agonies
Ashnod's Altar and Bog Initiate were supposed to be a backup to Phyrexian Altar. Once I get a copy of Pitiless Plunderer, that plus any free sac outlet will serve the same redundancy better. So now I've got Helm of Possession and Mesmeric Orb (testing).
My weak tutors were just that, so I'm going back to good ones. Diabolic Intent may still be a good one to try but may also be a dead card at times. In place of Shred Memory comes Darkness, because surprising folks with a black Fog is still on my bucket list. Then Dimir House Guard, Fleshwrither, and Beseech the Queen are all being replaced by the classic Demonic Tutor, the deck-thematic Increasing Ambition, the badass Razaketh, and Final Parting because I want to try this option over stuff like Buried Alive.
Wipes — I had more wipes in the draw version — don't need that many for my group. Damnation is great, but I want to be able to hit other stuff with Nevinyrral's Disk (plus I used the older, more eldritch-horror art). All is Dust doesn't hit artifacts for the most part, and short Toxic Deluge I wanted another -X/-X solution so Mutilate is in for testing (also older, nightmare/Chainer themed art).
Land stuff — Expedition Map and Wayfarer's Bauble out for Nirkana Revenant and Sword of Rampant Growth to lean into the basic land mana production a little more. Can't wait to put the sword on Mindslicer or XHD.
Beatsticks — Arena-on-a-stick out to test Belzenlok's card accessing. Phyrexian Obliterator out for a different beatstick in the shape of Void Winnower now that devotion doesn't matter except for Nykthos. I removed Massacre Wurm because it can be a "surprise, you lose!" card if somebody has enough tokens, and I want to avoid having that kind option immediately available. It's why Exsanguinate isn't here. Torgaar replaces it so I can fiddle around with life totals to knock lifegain decks down or keep myself alive (20 life is quite comfortable, really). Abhorrent Overlord may someday see play again, but it forms a rather easy loop with just Chainer and Phyrexian Altar, so let's see if I can steal somebody else's ETB token producer for loops and see how Doom Whisperer fares.
Vedalken Orrery is also one of those cards I would love to have in play every game. In its stead, Ambition's Cost is the last piece of the draw-only version that I'm leaving in for now because it's on-theme. And since I pay life to stuff a lot, I'm going to see how Font of Agonies does, replacing Vampiric Rites.
- I'm reconsidering the exclusion of Harvester of Souls. More card draw isn't bad, but I'll see how I like Belzenlok, first.
- Mind Slash is still in the little box for possible Chainer stuff. It's diabolically good and I should probably be using it. Oppression-style enchantments have been under consideration, too, though I then become tempted to use Geth's Grimoire.
- Myojin of Night's Reach is still on my mind for a spot, whether it replaces Mindslicer or not.
- Meteor Golem is cool, but I can't hit my own stuff with it. Duplicant is good, but only hits creatures. sigh
- Aether Snap may get a spot for dealing with tokens/planeswalkers, though it's not exactly on the short list. I'm probably going to be rotating through different wipes to find the combination I like best.
- Corpse Connoisseur is one of those cards I keep eyeballing, but I would probably be disappointed with the practical cost of basically 6 life and 6xB for whatever creature I'm after.
- May need to find room for Spawning Pit again.
Edit: I just realized I probably need to test Cloudstone Curio or Conjurer's Closet.Edit2: And then I go and realize (*facepalm*) that I don't have to let Massacre Wurm kill an opponent. It just has to not be on the battlefield when the creatures die. It's a great piece of control so it'll almost certainly go back in after testing some of these new cards.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Void Winnower
Massacre Wurm
Massacre Wurm is too good to stay out for token control. Void Winnower would keep opponents from blocking with tokens, but not prevent a retaliatory attack. Also I figure the cast-prevention would put a target on me. I was initially worried about outright killing a player with Massacre Wurm, but if they have enough tokens for that to happen then they were getting ready to win anyway and there's a decent chance their stuff was not worth stealing to use against the other players. Or I just sac the Wurm before the -2/-2 trigger resolves and they don't die.
Short list for testing in the near future (I hope): Mimic Vat, Conjurer's Closet, Mind Slash, Pitiless Plunderer, The Haunt of Hightower.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I started building mine back in about 2014, during a pretty tough time in my life, so this deck is really special to me. I was actually kind of surprised how little overlap there was in our decks, and I'm still reading through the (excellent) OP to see where our philosophies differ, but I'm always happy to find someone to gush over my precious child with
Here's my decklist (and here's the tappedout link). It's built to last through long, grinding games and I want to be able to reuse everything in the deck as often as possible. It's pretty artifact heavy, so I've had to find a few different ways to recur artifacts (and the means to recur those means of recurrance...)
Once I'm more caught up on the thread, I'll hopefully have more interesting insight.
1 Chainer, Dementia Master
Creatures
1 Abhorrent Overlord
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Crypt Ghast
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Golgari Thug
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Myr Retriever
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sepulchral Primordial
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Soldevi Adnate
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Vulturous Aven
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
Sorceries
1 All Hallow's Eve
1 Ashes to Ashes
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Damnable Pact
1 Damnation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Exsanguinate
1 Killing Wave
1 Mutilate
1 Rise of the Dark Realms
1 Syphon Mind
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Caged Sun
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Expedition Map
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mindcrank
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Pristine Talisman
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Trading Post
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Whip of Erebos
Enchantments
1 Infernal Tribute
1 Necromancer's Stockpile
1 Necropotence
1 Oubliette
1 Underworld Dreams
Instants
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Snuff Out
1 Tragic Slip
22 Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Buried Ruin
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Dust Bowl
1 High Market
1 Homeward Path
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vesuva
WU Bruna UW | R Kiki-Jiki R | RB New Chainer BR
Legacy - Burn | Pauper - Reanimator | Aristocrats | Burn
@votechainer2016
I can see from the TO list that you've also foiled almost all of it. That also tells me it's an important deck to you.
I'll have more detail about philosophy/approach once I get to writing that section of the OP (there is a little in the OP at the moment). Happy to answer specific questions, though.
More or less I'm trying to stick to some general deckbuilding rules I have across all my decks (e.g., none use Sol Ring), stick to some thematic choices I made after reading about Chainer's backstory, and raise the bar for myself on acceptable self-contained win conditions so that surviving remains challenging and winning remains interesting. Gary/Kokusho/Exsanguinate are probably the easiest example concerning their absence from my list. I used to have Gary and Exsanguinate in the deck (still don't own a Kokusho). Half the times I won it was Exsanguinate, so that stopped being interesting and I removed it - Gary soon followed. Crossed them off the bucket list, so to speak. So that's why there's no life-leeching in the deck, even though it's a great enabler for Chainer. I do have a friend with an Ur-Dragon deck that has Kokusho in it. Though I've stolen it before to win, I'm now more inclined to exile it unless the game has already gone long and needs to end when it makes an appearance.
Game length I guess is another big part of my approach to EDH. I like them intriguing and not too long (1 - 1.5 hours). A longer game can be fun if it's suspenseful, with power swings and comebacks. It's not fun IMO if everybody else is just waiting to die if one player has locked the table down but can't follow it promptly with a win.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I'll be running it again Tuesday night so I'll see how I feel about it. It's honestly been a while since I've played.
WU Bruna UW | R Kiki-Jiki R | RB New Chainer BR
Legacy - Burn | Pauper - Reanimator | Aristocrats | Burn
@votechainer2016
He's also a control element if somebody is messing with the top of their deck (Top, Vampiric Tutor/Mystical Tutor, etc.).
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
It's also just a freaking cool card.
WU Bruna UW | R Kiki-Jiki R | RB New Chainer BR
Legacy - Burn | Pauper - Reanimator | Aristocrats | Burn
@votechainer2016
I realize that a non-black destroy would leave my stuff alone for the most part, but I also don't want to miss out on destroying another B player's stuff. I have so many sacrifice outlets, I could use Living Death to wipe and get my field back, depending on what else is in other players' graveyards. I haven't had issues with recovering from wiping my board along with others, though, but there are a few tricks in the deck I can use to help speed recovery.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I do have a timing question you might be able to answer. I have Homeward Path in the deck, and I've seen you mention it a few times in the thread. Does the following work, timing-wise?
Player A attacks Player B with a big beater, like a supercharged Managorger Hydra or something. It doesn't really matter.
B is dead on board with no blockers, but has creatures in his graveyard. So I can pay to reanimate a creature with Chainer, and then Homeward Path the reanimation target (let's say, since this is all an imagination exercise, it's something like Sidisi, Undead Vizier so I'll also get a bonus for its ETB, and has deathtouch for some insult to injury to A) to give B the blocker he needs to stay alive?
All in response to A's declared attack.
WU Bruna UW | R Kiki-Jiki R | RB New Chainer BR
Legacy - Burn | Pauper - Reanimator | Aristocrats | Burn
@votechainer2016
And yes, Homeward Path would return the reanimated creature to it's owner's control and they'll be able to declare it as a blocker if it's untapped. It'll return all stolen creatures, so watch out for that. Also, the stolen creature would still be a Nightmare in addition to other types, Chainer would still be giving it +1/+1 (so Sidisi would be 5/7), and it could still get exiled by Chainer's leaves-the-battlefield trigger.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Bolas's Citadel - Ad Nauseam that we can control a little better? Devotion? Seems pretty good to me.
Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted - The static is fun, and plays well with the activated ability. It's cute, but I don't think we're a deck that wants to give too many cards to opponents, and Underworld Dreams is cheaper and better for devotion.
Ob Nixilis's Cruelty - I run both Ashes to Ashes and Gild, because I've got an Avacyn deck I run into pretty often. So I appreciate the ability to exile creatures in black, but I'm not sold on this.
WU Bruna UW | R Kiki-Jiki R | RB New Chainer BR
Legacy - Burn | Pauper - Reanimator | Aristocrats | Burn
@votechainer2016
Liliana, Dreadhorde General — I'm glad none of her stuff mentions Army/Amass, because that mechanic seems lackluster from what I can tell.
- Her trigger is good, agreed, and 4BB is what we'd pay for Harvester of Souls. I like that she triggers off of tokens, not just cards, but unlike Harvester she doesn't trigger off of opponent creatures (which is pretty good consider the lack of "nontoken"). So we can't get decked by somebody else's sacrifice shenanigans, but there is still a liability of drawing too much if we get caught in a wipe and have a bunch of tokens (though I'd be willing to risk it, probably). The main ways out if it came to that are Claws of Gix and Infernal Tribute, and she's harder to recur than Harvester.
- +1 to make a token is alright. Can't clamp them, though.
- -4 to Barter in Blood is where I start having doubts. For -2 or -3 I'd be fine with "each opponent sacrifices a creature", or maybe even "each player". But sacrificing two of my own means I may not be getting anything out of their deaths directly, like mana. There's also the timing issue, in which Chainer tends to work much better with a well-timed reanimation of Fleshbag Marauder at instant speed, which this denies you since it's on a planeswalker.
- -9 to end the game. This is why she won't stick to the table, if possible. Doesn't specify "nonland permanent". You pull this ultimate off and everybody else probably scoops. It That Betrays wants this to happen, probably. Granted, it takes 4 turns without shenanigans to be able to do that.
I like the trigger, but I think there are other options like Dark Prophecy and Smothering Abomination that are going to work more smoothly.Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted — I find it odd that some of these walkers don't have + abilities. Like, "here's an enchantment you can use to destroy two creatures at sorcery speed, but only one per turn". That 1 damage is going to hurt over time and this is probably very high synergy with Nekusar. I'm not really into giving my opponents two whole cards for a creature, though.
Ob Nixilis's Cruelty — I wouldn't say it's horrible, but this is a weird twist on Dismember. Only gets exiled if it dies, which means you won't be exiling anything with more than 5 toughness, probably. Alternatives: Final Reward, Hour of Glory, Vraska's Contempt, Silence the Believers, all of which are instants at 4 CMC. At 6 CMC there's Grip of Desolation and at 7 CMC Scour from Existence (which is the one I'd prefer if it comes down to it), and both of those don't have to worry about protection from black. Creatures are much easier to handle with pact effects and recurrable targeted removal like Noxious Gearhulk, Meteor Golem, Duplicant, and even Faceless Butcher.
Bolas's Citadel — This one is more interesting to me of the four so far. A little bit of life might be alright for some of the smaller spells, maybe not the big ones. Aside from a bit of artifact recursion, XHD can get it back. Unlike Ad Nauseam, more top-deck manipulation would be required to avoid lands and put things in the right sequence for comboing out. The last ability, though, pretty much demands good token production. Almost wish its effect was more along the lines of Kokusho.
Emergence Zone — This is the one that gets me excited, though — like "I'm going to buy 5 or more" excited. Nobody wants the MBC deck to have flash. Crucible of Worlds and Petrified Field are already no strangers to MBC lists.
Edit: Oops, forgot about Silence the Believers.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Massacre Girl — Maybe not super useful, but an interesting design. If a 1/1 dies on the first -1/-1, another -1/-1 happens. If four 1/1s die, the total becomes -5/-5 on everything but her. So smaller creatures can contribute to taking out larger creatures. Or you can sac creatures yourself to boost it, or even do so later in the turn if other creatures have entered the battefield after initial wipes. Very circumstantial, but the other thing is that not everything dies at once — each -1/-1 is done be a delayed trigger set up by the first, so each can be responded to. I still prefer other things for -X/-X wipes, of course.
Aid the Fallen joins Grim Discovery and Fortuitous Find. Decent little cards.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I've been wanting to
writefinish writing this retrospective for a couple weeks now. I'd been thinking at length about the direction I wanted to go with Chainer from here and decided to reread the thread. Then I decided to reread my original sources of inspiration (other chainer threads/decks — listed in the following spoiler).I also didn't understand packages at the time and had removed the pacts and discard effects but had left in pieces like Sangromancer that fed off of those, which were later removed because they "didn't do anything useful". Harvester of Souls and Ogre Slumlord were similarly nerfed by the lack of pact effects because since they trigger on "another nontoken" they're much more effective if you're making 3 opponent creatures die along with your own Slum Reaper than if you're just sacrificing Bloodghast once or twice on your turn. Oh, those early days when I was running stuff like Vampire Nighthawk and Nezumi Graverobber.
Now I'm adding Plaguecrafter and Sheoldred, and have been overall rethinking the deck's pieces. I'm still sticking to my design principles in the OP but loosening the per-card 'flavor' theme, as well as loosening my qualms about stax, to allow for more cohesive functionality throughout. I'm not suddenly going to run a ton of discard or pacts, but will carefully introduce some new pieces and figure out what I find useful and what I'm comfortable with.
The folks I play with know this is my "mean" deck, that it doesn't get used very often, and they basically told me it's a deck worth un-nerfing (paraphrased — i.e., permission to be "mean"). Their decks and their play are getting stronger and I just need to make sure I don't over-do it to the point of steamrolling without chance for interaction — choosing pieces that are more on the reactive side should help in that regard. Words of Waste + Geth's Grimoire would be hilariously disgusting, but will have to wait.
I've been trying to think in terms of switching out cards that are less cohesive or are durdly for cards that have a variety of use with other cards. Examples of my re-evaluations:
- The deck is a toolbox/engine and very likely doesn't need much in the way of it's own beaters when it can steal them, unless that body is very useful aside from its evasion/power/toughness. For example, if Doom Whisperer's Surveil 2 isn't worth the card slot given other options for self-mill, then it's otherwise just a big evasive body. Wurmcoil Engine, on the other hand brings a decent set of support to the deck that in its ability to kill things, gain life, and provide 3 separate bodies to sacrifice. Another example, equipment like Lashwrithe can turn anything into a beater (and starts off as one), but doesn't provide any evasion so is only useful on already-evasive bodies. Loxodon Warhammer is a better equipment for the deck for the lifelink and the trample while still turning almost anything into a beater — my evasive bodies will still be evasive, but trample helps with others. Removing the less synergistic bodies makes a bit more room for tools, or redundancy on some tools that are currently one-of.
- Dark Deal is getting cut. It had potential for dumping hands when I wasn't using much discard, but in looking at it again I can't even loop it with XHD as a win condition, where Memory Jar can do that.
- Fallen Ideal is a sacrifice outlet that's hard to get rid of, but aside from its flying that's pretty much all it is. The power pump isn't even important because I'm not going to activate that enough to be significant without tokens, and those are a board presence of their own. This is one of the better examples of a card that doesn't offer much to the other cards.
- I very well could do without Burnished Hart because I can just use somebody else's ramp creatures (even Fertilid is possible with a Fellwar Stone/Phyrexian Altar/Pitiless Plunderer). Also cutting Solemn Simulacrum will take some testing, though. But the math for cutting Hart:
- Burnished Hart - BBB+3L to reanimate. 3 to sac for two lands tapped.
- Wayfarer's Bauble and Myr Retriever - BBB+3L to reanimate the Retriever, sac it to get Bauble back, 3 to cast it and crack it for one land tapped.
- However, Retriever can be used to get back my other important artifacts where Hart does nothing else but ramp, and whatever I sac it to is likely getting me some good value on the side. Bauble also can ramp me earlier from the hand than Simulacrum or Hart.
- Did I totally miss/ignore Dross Harvester before because of the 4 life trigger? I love that this and Pitiless Plunderer trigger off eldrazi tokens. I wouldn't even need lifelink on Pestilence Demon for this to net me a good amount of life should a lot of creatures happen to die at the same time for some strange reason. Having another, better Deathgreeter rather than resort to Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble helps keep me on track.
- Praetor's Grasp is useful for tutoring somebody else's card to use, or getting rid of problems, but with just a few deaths Bitter Ordeal can remove many problems and it's rather difficult to counter. I'm not making this swap just yet, but I recognize Bitter Ordeal is probably a much better choice.
I think I'll have to be careful with how much discard I add. Mindslicer is already pretty strong because there's potential for getting rid of everybody's hands at instant speed "out of nowhere", and it's the "out of nowhere" that I probably should include sparingly versus things you can see coming somewhat, so I'll test Myojin in Mindslicer's place. Somehow, I want to encourage my friends to run a little more spot removal and better card draw.NB: In fact, that is one of my goals and I appreciate feedback on balancing that.
I'll just have to keep an eye on opponent creature deaths and discard to evaluate whether Sangromancer/Geth's Grimoire/Waste Not get spots in the deck.
Final Parting
Increasing Ambition
Razaketh, the Foulblooded
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate
Sepulchral Primordial
No Mercy
Fallen Ideal
Dark Deal
Mindslicer
—
Burnished Hart
Darkness
Claws of Gix
Viscera Seer
Ambition's Cost
Nirkana Revenant
Defense Grid
Nevinyrral's Disk
Cavern of Souls
Homeward Path
Swamp
—
Liliana of the Dark Realms
Abhorrent Overlord
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Sheoldred, Whispering One
Aetherworks Marvel / Vedalken Orrery
Mind Slash
Oppression
Myojin of Night's Reach
Plaguecrafter
Wayfarer's Bauble
Myr Retriever
Dross Harvester
Vampiric Rites
Infernal Tribute
Pitiless Plunderer
Pawn of Ulamog
Agent of Erebos
Geier Reach Sanitarium
Crypt of Agadeem
Vesuva
I'm trying to refocus on variance in games by taking out some tutors for card draw. I'm actually fine with Demonic Tutor staying but it's needed in another deck where it's easier to cast there than Beseech the Queen is here. Final Parting would have been kindof like a black pseudo-Intuition so I can't say it'll never see play in the deck again. I considered Corpse Connoisseur — we'll see if I end up wanting that or Vampiric Tutor for those moments I need to save my hide. Also trying Liliana of the Dark Realms in place of one of the other tutors since tutoring for swamps is harmless. I have a feeling she'll be pretty redundant to the actual ramp and fetches but that emblem is on my bucket list. I also need to test how well ramping goes without Solemn Simulacrum at some point.
Razzy I know would have been amazing as a giant beater, tutor, and sac outlet, but that tutor part is where he's getting benched for now. Torgaar was supposed to be a toolbox piece for bringing somebody's life down from too high or keeping mine afloat — but maybe if I was planning to need the manual override then my other life support wasn't doing too good. Sepulchral Primordial was basically redundancy with Chainer, and to magnify the effect of his ability. In their place, please welcome returning guest Abhorrent "Tokens for Days" Overlord and two brand new guests: Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief and Sheoldred, Whispering One.
I read an interesting opinion recently that Vedalken Orrery can also be a useful deterrent to attacks and we're going to test that in place of No Mercy. Enough tokens will be dying that I imagine Aetherworks Marvel would also be good and can do neat tricks with Volrath's Stronghold/Scroll Rack/Vampiric Tutor/Library of Leng, so this is actually a flex slot to switch between Aetherworks and Orrery.
Fallen Ideal is a die-hard sacrifice outlet but has no real benefit from the sacrifice, so now we're going to see what it's like to perform surgery on our opponents' hands with Mind Slash. Along the same lines of discard effects we're bringing in Oppression and Myojin of Night's Reach for Dark Deal and Mindslicer (not that 'Slicer isn't good — we're just going to try something different). Plaguecrafter buttons this up as teammate for Slum Reaper that can get a planeswalker or as a Liliana's Specter if our opponents don't have creatures (Specter was on the list for consideration, but I still want to lean more on removal than discard). I considered adding Bloodgift Demon in place of Doom Whisperer, but that Surveil 2 still needs testing.
Burnished Hart is out for Wayfarer's Bauble and Myr Retriever, but since that's two cards I figure Sudden Spoiling might be enough fog for this deck and cut Darkness.
While Claws of Gix has saved my bacon a time or two, I think Dross Harvester shows some promise for keeping my bacon out of the fire in the first place. Viscera Seer was very often underused by me because, while I wasn't a fan of the timing of the Scry 1 vs draw triggers, I was just always using other outlets. Perhaps the card draw of Vampiric Rites will prove more useful. In place of Ambition's Cost I'm adding the somewhat-similar Infernal Tribute, returning as my sacrifice-a-liability tool. The extra token production may change my mind about Seer someday regarding having card draw vs having scry combined with other card draw, so it's sortof a flex spot between the two, but as a sacrifice outlet it could also become Attrition if I figure I have enough card draw but want more removal.
Finally on the mana/tokens front we'll be trying Pitiless Plunderer instead of Nirkana Revenant and Pawn of Ulamog as back up for Sifter of Skulls, replacing Defense Grid. I may end up liking Smothering Abomination even more.
Somehow I didn't have any graveyard answers other than Chainer himself. I want something not too difficult to recur since an answer might be needed at instant speed. Withered Wretch can be mana intensive but is quite surgical and I've used him before, so we're going to try Agent of Erebos as a wholesale graveyard exile that can be re-used if I happen to get another enchantment on the field after him. Part of the reason for going for the wholesale exile approach is some recent experiences with enchantments and Bruna. Better to just nuke that whole 'yard.
Cavern of Souls and Homeward Path are out for a third B booster land, Crypt of Agadeem, and a discard enabler in the form of Geier Reach Sanitarium. And I figured Vesuva is better here than in another deck where it would only have copied some colors or fetches, so I replaced a Swamp.
Since I tend to ramp lands, I've been thinking of testing Underworld Connections for any synergy with Rings and Deserted Temple, probably in Necropotence's slot.
I still want to see how I like Pestilence Demon with lifelink some day, but I'm pretty sure that with the amount of mana I can produce sometimes, there simply wouldn't be a reason to not Exsanguinate the table. Maybe that won't be an issue very often if I rely on draw.
Flex Slots
Here are what I'm considering as flex slots to test a handful of variations:
- Vampiric Rites <-> Viscera Seer (or Attrition?)
- Praetor's Grasp <-> Bitter Ordeal
- Crypt Ghast <-> Nirkana Revenant
- Corpse Dance <-> Victimize or Living Death (I need to re-examine my possible combos)
- Vedalken Orrery <-> Aetherworks Marvel
- Bloodgift Demon <-> Doom Whisperer or Corpse Connoisseur
- Whip of Erebos <-> Loxodon Warhammer
- Bloodghast <-> Reassembling Skeleton — I'd originally chosen Bloodghast to just routinely come back for free as I dropped lands and cracked fetches, but not be very loopable like the Skeleton. Like Living Death, I'll have to do the math on possible combo lines again to see if I'm still within my restrictions, though it would be quite satisfying to Divination with Skullclamp and turn some other sacrifice outlets into instant-speed responses that don't rely on Chainer being in play. Skeleton just supercharges everything as a combo piece. For example: Reassembling Skeleton + Pitiless Plunderer + Pawn of Ulamog + Altar of Dementia = mill everybody out and make B extra per loop. Or similar arrangement that is self-sustaining on mana to produce enough Gravestorm to Bitter Ordeal everybody's libraries. While I don't have one yet, Nether Traiter is probably also an option here.
Other ThingsSpeaking of death-to-mana like Pitiless Plunderer, I've never actually tried Black Market yet to see if it skews how I play like I think it would. I like Revel in Riches better since I can spend the Treasure tokens whenever I want, but I also want to take a Sharpie to the win condition trigger and let everyone at the table pretend along with me that it doesn't exist. Black Market would work very nicely with the eldrazi tokens, though.
I think I'm going to also add a Bucket List to the OP of silly things to make happen some day. Example: Run Korlash, Heir to Blackblade and use somebody's Clone or my Mirage Mirror along with XHD/Volrath's Stronghold/Phyrexian Reclamation to get some ridiculous ramp.
Spotlight on a Pet Card: Mirage Mirror
The Mirror is one of my favorite cards in the deck. It just becomes quite the multi-purpose, shenanigans-enabling little card, so I decided to put together a list of some of wonderful things it can do:
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
Edit: Bontu is Reprocess on a stick that can almost self-recur, basically.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
WU Bruna UW | R Kiki-Jiki R | RB New Chainer BR
Legacy - Burn | Pauper - Reanimator | Aristocrats | Burn
@votechainer2016
- Bond of Revival — As reanimation spells go it's a pretty standard mana cost, but the haste is nice.
- Command the Dreadhorde — Interesting recursion spell, but probably works better if you're recurring a couple planeswalkers or a bunch of cheap creatures. But the flexibility of any number of targets and all graveyards being eligible is cool.
- Deliver Unto Evil — Multiple-choice cards like this can sometimes be built around so that whichever two you get help you get the other two, but there's definitely no way I'm going to control a Bolas planeswalker in this deck under normal circumstances.
- The Elderspell — An interesting way to deal with planeswalkers if there are a lot in your meta.
- Finale of Eternity — This one at 12 cmc is kindof a nerfed Rise of the Dark Realms. Doesn't really excite me so far.
- Price of Betrayal — The usefulness of this very niche, and the most useful thing I can think of that it does better than other removal is that it can remove experience counters.
- Spark Reaper — This one isn't very impressive. It's an easier to recur Vampiric Rites, sortof, but Krav, the Unredeemed is better at that.
The non-permanents, especially, aren't usually the style for a Chainer deck but might fit another style of MBC deck. I have seen a Chainer deck or two that had a small handful of reanimation spells as redundancy — in the style of Animate Dead/Necromancy/Reanimate/Beacon of Unrest, less so Living Death which is very common in Chainer decks — but such reanimation is more common in other styles of black decks.old thread
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
I think I am on the fence about it because you have to tap it to pay XX to add counters if 1 isn't enough, and then tap it and pay 3 to actually destroy. So you'd need Deserted Temple if you want to do both at the same time at relatively instant speed or you're stuck with opponent's EOT for the XX and your turn for the destroy. And because the CMC has to be "equal to" - rather than "equal to or less than" the number of counters - I classify it in my head as spot removal, like Steel Hellkite. It does have some things going for it in that it's colorless, doesn't target, and you don't have to attack.
I'd probably like it better if it started with zero counters. But I'm also pretty comfortable with just taking out everything with Oblivion Stone and rebuilding. Also if somebody plays Rest in Peace they rather deserve that, hahaha!
With that in mind, what would be the best numbers of counters for the things we really need to get rid of? It could be that upgrading it to two counters right away if we don't have an immediate need to destroy anything would be prudent if there's a chance we'll see Rest in Peace in a game. Any need for 1, 3, 4, etc. for nonland, noncreature problems to get rid of?
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
As for which counters to let it sit at, I think it might be best to let it sit in play with just the single counter or maybe two until a threat presents itself. If someone has something dumb and mildly expensive out like True Conviction or Caged Sun it's likely the mid to late game where it's very possible you're able to produce the 10 mana needed to add enough counters to then untap and blow them up. If they have Omniscience you've probably already lost, and if it's cheap it's trivial to load up and destroy it.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
I'm also thinking it's high time to replace Corpse Dance with Living Death.
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko