This deck came about with a wish to play some cards that didn't have a home but I thought could have one. In many ways the deck wins passively through damage entering or leaving the battlefield. It started out just as W/R and almost strictly tokens, but there were some weaknesses to that and adding black helped shore up some of those. The deck has some explosive plays where you can easily do 30+ damage in a turn, but those are normally later game. For the most part you will take advantage of the compound damage from Impact Tremors + Zulaport Cutthroat + a Wayward Disciple (Pious Evangel). Things can get out of hand when all of those are combined with the Devil Tokens. There have been games that I have ended with 50+ life. Pious Evangel works well with Hangarback Walker. The Pyromancer's Goggles help double up on Devil Tokens and some card draw to keep you going later game.
It's a very fun deck to play and can be quite frustrating for an opponent because there are not many ways for them to positively interact with the deck. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet can be a huge pain, so the sideboard has answers for him, but mostly there are not many cards in Standard that completely hose the deck. I certainly am still messing with the deck, so don't feel like you need to just take it as is. This is just where I am after about a week of tweaking it and playing on MTGO.
I made a similar deck only it's got Green instead of White and uses Elementals, but otherwise it's the same principle. It doesn't gain as much life as yours, but the damage is higher per sacrifice. This was originally conceptualized as a budget deck, but it's easy to make it more expensive with dual lands, chandras, etc
Little ramp/mana fixing with Ruin in their Wake, Hellhound and Rites as sacrifice outlets, Mina and Denn make extra land fall triggers (the return a land to your hand ability is great) for Omnath and stonewaker, cutthroat for the passive life drain. If you have all the pieces in play, a single land drop can get you 2 elementals that come into play for 2 damage, sacrificed for 2 damage to the hellhound, 2 life drained to the Cutthroat and 6 damage from Omnath. 12 damage and +2 life is nothing to sneeze at for playing a land and tapping 5 mana.
This does look fun. I found this thread by googling around for decks that use Pious Evangel--I've been wanting to make him work with the Cutthroat for maximum drain shenanigans, but it doesn't seem many people are trying. My draft is strictly B/W with Nantuko Husk and some human synergies (Thalia's Leiutenant, Hanweir Militia Captain). I might give the Mardu version a go, though! HBW should probably go in my deck.
How have you found Ayli working out for you? Obviously she's the biggest sac enabler, but with only 2 I'd imagine there are lots of times you never see her. How do games go when you don't see her? If they go fine, do you think her slot would be better spent by making the deck more consistent (i.e., 4 Cutthroats & 4 Evangels)?
One thing that really jumps out is that is a LOT of tapped lands. The majority of your lands are going the ETB tapped. How has that been?
If you're interested, there's a BW Ally life drain on the budget forums. They don't use Pious Angel, but they do use all kinds of Rally shenanigans to drain.
This does look fun. I found this thread by googling around for decks that use Pious Evangel--I've been wanting to make him work with the Cutthroat for maximum drain shenanigans, but it doesn't seem many people are trying. My draft is strictly B/W with Nantuko Husk and some human synergies (Thalia's Leiutenant, Hanweir Militia Captain). I might give the Mardu version a go, though! HBW should probably go in my deck.
How have you found Ayli working out for you? Obviously she's the biggest sac enabler, but with only 2 I'd imagine there are lots of times you never see her. How do games go when you don't see her? If they go fine, do you think her slot would be better spent by making the deck more consistent (i.e., 4 Cutthroats & 4 Evangels)?
One thing that really jumps out is that is a LOT of tapped lands. The majority of your lands are going the ETB tapped. How has that been?
There are actually several other sac outlets that I find myself using more than Ayli. With Pia and Kiran Nalaar you get the extra damage and you can sac the HBW. Lately I have mostly been just leaving everything out than aggressively sacrificing because when possible I will sacrifice the Devil tokens to Westvale Abbey. Assuming you have two of either a Zulaport Cuttthroat and a flipped Pious Evangel then then you get the hasted 9/7 on top of the damage from the tokens + death triggers.
I have actually been thinking about agreeing with you that I need to decide whether Ayli fits or not. She is ok when I see her, but at two of you can probably guess that's not every game. She also usually eats removal really fast. She's tempting to keep because there ARE times that I reach above 30 life and enable her exile possibility. When I don't see her things seem to work just fine. I do agree that another cuttthroat would be nice to go to 4. I am skeptical about 4 Evangels because he costs extra to flip and sometimes that not what you want to be spending your mana on. Moving up to 4 cuttthroats would put me at 7 death effects and would be solid enough.
As for the lands, they do mostly come into play tapped. At times it definitely feels slow, but the curve is very 2 drop heavy, so once you get those first 2 lands down the lands coming into play tapped feels ok. The amount of life gain on the deck also allows you to fall behind slightly at the beginning because of the ability to grind back up later game. Even against some of the fastest decks I have been able to take a punch at the early first couple of turns and come out ok and win. Remember you can always reveal the Smoldering Marsh in your hand to put Foreboding Ruins into play untapped. Just playing the lands in the most efficient order helps a lot.
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Modern xWBreakfast at Urza'sxW UWGBantUWG GWRNaya ZooRWG
I'm thinking about Thraben Inspector over Carrier Thrall, gives the deck a T1 play and moves a little away from the already heavy two drop zone. Gives you another way to find a card or tap an artifact. With that many tap lands and so few black or white requirements, I'm thinking of adding more basics and putting 4 Evolving Wilds in. There are definite turns where you want to ensure your lands are coming in untapped, you can get a lot down by T4 Languish that it could leave your opponent with a perilous life total.
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It's a very fun deck to play and can be quite frustrating for an opponent because there are not many ways for them to positively interact with the deck. Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet can be a huge pain, so the sideboard has answers for him, but mostly there are not many cards in Standard that completely hose the deck. I certainly am still messing with the deck, so don't feel like you need to just take it as is. This is just where I am after about a week of tweaking it and playing on MTGO.
3 Zulaport Cutthroat
2 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
3 Pious Evangel
3 Thopter Engineer
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Impact Tremors
3 Tormenting Voice
3 Dance with Devils
2 Devils' Playground
2 Secure the Wastes
3 Pyromancer's Goggles
4 Foreboding Ruins
3 Needle Spires
2 Shambling Vent
4 Smoldering Marsh
3 Westvale Abbey
3 Mountain
3 Declaration in Stone
2 Hallowed Moonlight
3 To the Slaughter
2 Exquisite Firecraft
3 Anguished Unmaking
2 Kolaghan's Command
Modern
xWBreakfast at Urza'sxW
UWGBantUWG
GWRNaya ZooRWG
4 Akoum Stonewaker
4 Blazing Hellhound
4 Mina and Denn, Wildborn
3 Omnath, Locus of Rage
4 Zulaport Cutthroat
4 Radiant Flames
4 Ruin in their Wake
Enchantments 8
4 Impact Tremors
4 Vampiric Rites
4 Evolving Wilds
8 Forest
7 Mountain
5 Swamp
1 Wastes
Little ramp/mana fixing with Ruin in their Wake, Hellhound and Rites as sacrifice outlets, Mina and Denn make extra land fall triggers (the return a land to your hand ability is great) for Omnath and stonewaker, cutthroat for the passive life drain. If you have all the pieces in play, a single land drop can get you 2 elementals that come into play for 2 damage, sacrificed for 2 damage to the hellhound, 2 life drained to the Cutthroat and 6 damage from Omnath. 12 damage and +2 life is nothing to sneeze at for playing a land and tapping 5 mana.
How have you found Ayli working out for you? Obviously she's the biggest sac enabler, but with only 2 I'd imagine there are lots of times you never see her. How do games go when you don't see her? If they go fine, do you think her slot would be better spent by making the deck more consistent (i.e., 4 Cutthroats & 4 Evangels)?
One thing that really jumps out is that is a LOT of tapped lands. The majority of your lands are going the ETB tapped. How has that been?
There are actually several other sac outlets that I find myself using more than Ayli. With Pia and Kiran Nalaar you get the extra damage and you can sac the HBW. Lately I have mostly been just leaving everything out than aggressively sacrificing because when possible I will sacrifice the Devil tokens to Westvale Abbey. Assuming you have two of either a Zulaport Cuttthroat and a flipped Pious Evangel then then you get the hasted 9/7 on top of the damage from the tokens + death triggers.
I have actually been thinking about agreeing with you that I need to decide whether Ayli fits or not. She is ok when I see her, but at two of you can probably guess that's not every game. She also usually eats removal really fast. She's tempting to keep because there ARE times that I reach above 30 life and enable her exile possibility. When I don't see her things seem to work just fine. I do agree that another cuttthroat would be nice to go to 4. I am skeptical about 4 Evangels because he costs extra to flip and sometimes that not what you want to be spending your mana on. Moving up to 4 cuttthroats would put me at 7 death effects and would be solid enough.
As for the lands, they do mostly come into play tapped. At times it definitely feels slow, but the curve is very 2 drop heavy, so once you get those first 2 lands down the lands coming into play tapped feels ok. The amount of life gain on the deck also allows you to fall behind slightly at the beginning because of the ability to grind back up later game. Even against some of the fastest decks I have been able to take a punch at the early first couple of turns and come out ok and win. Remember you can always reveal the Smoldering Marsh in your hand to put Foreboding Ruins into play untapped. Just playing the lands in the most efficient order helps a lot.
Modern
xWBreakfast at Urza'sxW
UWGBantUWG
GWRNaya ZooRWG