MTG Salvation

Hi everyone!

I was looking at Theros' new cards and Gray Merchant of Asphodel seemed like a nice card to build a deck around. Have anyone tried it yet?

I'm thinking about using cards like Pestilence, Chittering Rats, Liliana's Specter for the BB on cost, maybe splash U for Ghostly Flicker fun.

Any thoughts?

Oh, forgot to mention Okiba-Gang Shinobi, BB on normal, but can be played with a lower cost using Ninjutsu.

Dauthi Slayer would also work pretty well. BB for a 2/2 shadow.

Quote from Roger

Dauthi Slayer would also work pretty well. BB for a 2/2 shadow.

And synergizes well with the Shinobi too. Other card I'm looking into is Shade's Form.

I've been trying to jam him into various decks, but without much success. In MBC, you need to be reliant on such things like Chittering Rats and Liliana's Specter in order to maximize value. Personally, I've gone away from the creature-centric MBC builds in favor of a more removal/Crypt Rats/Twisted Abomination build.

The build I currently have him in looks like this.



I've had very inconsistent results. Obviously, if the deck goes off and my creatures stick, Gray Merchant just ends the game, but this isn't Magical Christmas land, this is the battleground known as Pauper, so that hasn't been very common. I feel like the deck has potential, but it definitely needs tuning.

Suggestions?

I ran up against one already and it was pretty good. The double black in it's own cost makes it a 4 life swing all by itself so it's never really dead unless it gets removed before it's ability resolves. The 4 toughness makes that a very real possibility but if they're holding removal for him than you're killing them with the rest of the dorks. Cuombajj Witches is an obvious card and Ghoulraiser + Nameless Inversion is probably still too cute despite being able to buyback Grays or pump them for extra attack damage respectively. I realize there is exceptionally better removal but my inner johnny wants to play Oubliette and Paralyze too.

Pujols; cut the fluff and run 4 ofs. You know what cards work best for you, run more of them. Sylvok Lifestaff is bad here. You can't fetch it, your bodies are feeble, and you have life gain already. Tragic Slip and Executioner's Capsule are worse than the majority of blacks removal and are only good when you have a sacrifice outlet or a trinket mage respectively. I love what Augur of Skulls can do but turn two is a pivotal spot. You want to be playing removal at the end of their turn 2 or turn 3 play against most decks and most decks will want to be doing the same making your 1/1 dead immediately AND having only two of them mean quite often you don't see it till after turn 5+ where it's value has dropped tremendously. Maybe if you jammed in 4 Durress to protect it and discard was a heavier part of your plan but 4 Liliana's Specter is better than 2 and 2 since you guarantee it does something if it lands, you can trade in the air if need be, and coincidentally it has BB in it's cost. I'd also suggest cutting Undying Evil since you have to sandbag an entire turn to play dudes and keep up that one mana and it becomes less relevant after the early turns where removal is most usually played. Grim Harvest is great at what it does, let it fill that role by itself.

I agree that the Merchant shouldn't be the only big threat and I think Sangrophage would work nice with him. The life gain once Merchant hits the battlefield should be enough for three or more turns untapping Sangrophage and he's also a menace if left unanswered.

What about something like this, to start working into? It's pretty straightforward: drop your creatures, kill the opponent's ones and cast Merchant once the battlefield is filled with your dudes. Should work fine on Magical Christmas Land haha

That's a lot of three-drops. I predict the success of Merchant will be inversely proportional to the amount of focus you put on him in your deck.

Quote from Deathtrot

What about something like this, to start working into? It's pretty straightforward: drop your creatures, kill the opponent's ones and cast Merchant once the battlefield is filled with your dudes. Should work fine on Magical Christmas Land haha

Pujols_Teh_Destroyer's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel 4x Chittering Rats 4x Sangrophage 4x Liliana's Specter 3x Ghoulraiser 2x Okiba-Gang Shinobi 2x Phyrexian Rager	4x Doom Blade 4x Nameless Inversion 3x Grim Harvest 2x Corrupt 2x Sign In Blood	22x Swamp

I think the number of lands should go up. 22 seems rather low. I'd try 24.

I'd also diversify the removal a bit. Four Doom Blade in a meta that is shifting to contain more black creatures could be disastrous. I'd recommend either four Geth's Verdict or a mix of Disfigure, Geth's Verdict, Tragic Slip and Victim of the Night.

It also seems a lot of these decks would love to run Unearth. With most of the things we want drop being recycled by Unearth for added value.

Quote from splashing black

I ran up against one already and it was pretty good. The double black in it's own cost makes it a 4 life swing all by itself so it's never really dead unless it gets removed before it's ability resolves. The 4 toughness makes that a very real possibility but if they're holding removal for him than you're killing them with the rest of the dorks. Cuombajj Witches is an obvious card and Ghoulraiser + Nameless Inversion is probably still too cute despite being able to buyback Grays or pump them for extra attack damage respectively. I realize there is exceptionally better removal but my inner johnny wants to play Oubliette and Paralyze too.

Pujols; cut the fluff and run 4 ofs. You know what cards work best for you, run more of them. Sylvok Lifestaff is bad here. You can't fetch it, your bodies are feeble, and you have life gain already. Tragic Slip and Executioner's Capsule are worse than the majority of blacks removal and are only good when you have a sacrifice outlet or a trinket mage respectively. I love what Augur of Skulls can do but turn two is a pivotal spot. You want to be playing removal at the end of their turn 2 or turn 3 play against most decks and most decks will want to be doing the same making your 1/1 dead immediately AND having only two of them mean quite often you don't see it till after turn 5+ where it's value has dropped tremendously. Maybe if you jammed in 4 Durress to protect it and discard was a heavier part of your plan but 4 Liliana's Specter is better than 2 and 2 since you guarantee it does something if it lands, you can trade in the air if need be, and coincidentally it has BB in it's cost. I'd also suggest cutting Undying Evil since you have to sandbag an entire turn to play dudes and keep up that one mana and it becomes less relevant after the early turns where removal is most usually played. Grim Harvest is great at what it does, let it fill that role by itself.

I appreciate the suggestions. I think I was attempting to make this "Trinket Control 2.0" without Trinket Mage or Mulldrifter, which is never good. I'm tinkering with the list as I type.

If I was to build the deck, I would take a grind approach like this:

New build. Took a few suggestions from this thread and am hoping for Magical Christmas Land. So far I've only lost close games to UB Control, UB Trinket and some interesting Tortured Existence decks while beating up on Delver, Mono Black Control and Soul Sister variants.



Obviously the sideboard is in need of some tinkering, but so far I feel slightly happy with the deck's performance. When it works, it works. I still feel it's missing something overall though that doesn't quite make it as powerful as it could be.

not really, but sweet avatar. Love GBV.

Quote from urafever

not really, but sweet avatar. Love GBV.

Thanks for noticing! Nice to know I'm not the only one here who appreciates GBV haha

About the deck, the one I posted was a really rough draft. Doom Blade is more like a placeholder for the other spells: I rather use edict effects than something more on spot.

Quote from Deathtrot

Thanks for noticing! Nice to know I'm not the only one here who appreciates GBV haha

About the deck, the one I posted was a really rough draft. Doom Blade is more like a placeholder for the other spells: I rather use edict effects than something more on spot.

I interviewed bob pollard one time. He was really funny - yeah, they're a great live band. In terms of grey merchant, 5 mana is a million in pauper. I think he needs to do more than just drain them. You're going to play against decks with cards like counterspell and lightning bolt - efficiency is really the #1 thing you're looking for in pauper and he doesn't give you enough for his cost.

I played some games with the Merchant and it feels to me like a Corrupt most of the time. It costs one less mana, it's not hard to build Devotion up to 5 or more before he hits the battlefield and it has the upside of leaving a 2/4 body behind, which is really good.

And Bob looks like a really amazing guy (:

the card is already finding success in MBC decks as a 2x choice... a few have tried to get real gimmicky with the Oub, but it really isn't necessary as the MBC shell already hits pretty well on devotion especially these days as most are running a set of Cuombajj Witches

Played with Gray Merchant in a Pauper Daily last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LeFFPjqbYU&list=PL2jQrD9SkZOMDUSk6bEBAjCjvjEbbqIUJ

I was impressed with him, he turned the tides on a Delver match(against Mezzel no less), and would have won me the game against Slivers had my opponent not literally topdecked the worst card for me 6 turns in a row.

yeah it's a decent crutch for mbc players to play, right up there with corrupt and tendrils md. It's probably better than corrupt which is better than tendrils if you feel the need to play him

So I've been tinkering with a deck that is devoted (pun intended) to making Gray Merchant of Asphodel the win condition.

Now the deck is in need of some work for sure. The games normally work with you playing your permanents, start causing your opponent to lose card advantage, taking attacks that your life total can afford to take, start removing the board while finding the Gray Merchant and then bam six to ten point life swings. Sideboard is a mess and needs work.

The games I have played so far, Order of the Ebon Hand has been so-so, but I find myself wanting the Foul Imp a lot more, so I think that is a simple switch. Chittering Rats into Disciple of Phenax is pretty brutal, and I am on board the Phenax train. I'm thinking about a two-two split between the Rager and Read the Bones. With the amount of comes into play abilities, I'm thinking about adding Undying Evil as a one or two of. Driver of the Dead looks alot more fun for the deck I thought Driver read like Reveillark... oops

New deck list

Quote from sneakattackkid

yeah it's a decent crutch for mbc players to play, right up there with corrupt and tendrils md. It's probably better than corrupt which is better than tendrils if you feel the need to play him

not sure if you saw it, but saw perhaps the biggest violation of MBC lol deck running MBC, but worked in aqueduct and guildgate for what was it like a singleton copy of harpy... not even blue in sideboard or anywhere else like 7 blue mana sources for a single harpy

Quote from JustSin

not sure if you saw it, but saw perhaps the biggest violation of MBC lol deck running MBC, but worked in aqueduct and guildgate for what was it like a singleton copy of harpy... not even blue in sideboard or anywhere else like 7 blue mana sources for a single harpy

I played against a more standard UB control deck that was running him and the flicker wall combo as a way to finish