A while back I traded two Bloodstained Mire for a set of Chalice of the Void and some nice uncommons like a Fact of Fiction and some other nice stuff I can't remember off hand. Whiel I don't normally like to trade higher value cards for lower value cards, and I hate trading land away, I didn't really need B/R fetch lands and needed some CotVs for my vintage Ichorid deck.
CotV is a great card, but it is a competitive card. Prices for cards depend mostly on their competitive value and a little bit on their collector/n00b value.
Elvish Piper is a perfect example. while the curent link says it's mid-range value is $2.62, for years it slls out at stores for the high $6 to $7 range because n00bs and kids love the ability. a 1/1 for 4 mana with summoning sickness is so easy to deal with. add in that you actually have to have the fattie you want to "cheat" into play in your hand and that you are playing green so mana accelerating into the needed mana should be that hard, you can see why it really isn't any good but still appeals to n00bs.
Juzam Djinn, despite being totally outclassed by something as simple and cheap as Plague Sliver, nicknamed Juzam Sliver, holds it's value between $100 and $200 on ebay because of collectors and it's rarity.
The G/B liege, Creakwood Liege, looks like fun but I've never owned one. I can't think of a reason not to play with 4 of them in a G/B agro deck.
Regarding flavor, Ravnica's version of Black green was alright, but the Eventide version of G/B felt a lot better imo. While the cards were weaker, the idea of the dark and decaying side of green has been interesting to me, but for some reason WotC hardly ever addresses it. A search of gatherer for //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?color=+[B">+[G]&sort=cmc+"][B]Green[/B] and [B]Black[/B] cards turns up only 5 pages of cards and even those are filled with 3+ color cards and not pure G/B cards.
First off, if you want to play Haakon, I recommend you look into the cards Small Pox and Nameless Inversion. With Haakon in play you can abuse Nameless Inversion and Small Pox is one of the better disruption spells you are ever going to find.
Midnight Banshee works well with your theme, though it will hurt your Blood Knights.
Any deck that has Jahoria in it should also have Aeon Chronicler imo. Copies of Time Stretch only get better with Izzet Chronarch. I have played with and against Jahoria EDH decks. That is serious fun.
I played Briads in EDH for a long time and is in my top 10 creatures list. However, I disagree with you regarding Dakmor Salvage" target="blank">Dakmor Salvage. By itself, you will never draw a new card again until you are willing to stop dredging it up. God's Eye is obviously nice. I dislike sacing lands and try to avoid it as often as possible which is why I recommend cards like Epochrasite and Solemn Simulacrum along with the obvious Bitterblossom. The trick is not only to keep up with your opponents sac outlets, but actually comming up with "free" sac outlets that allow you to draw cards and play more lands and spells. This way you are not only feeding Briad's hunger while you'r opponent can't, but you are actually turning an advantage and building a board as well to finish them off. Dakmor Salvage doesn't help you do this until you also get a Phyrexian Arena in play, which you won't draw if you are busy dredging.
Overeager Apprentice is terrible. Doomed Necromancer is far better, but even it is slow because of summoning sickness. I used to play with them back in the day because i was bad at magic and they were cheep. Okay, I'm still bad at Magic [;)}]but I like to pretend I'm better by playing with cards that aren't as bad as I am.
Apprentice Necromancer isn't as bad as it may look because he is a turn faster and if you use creatures like Dragon Tyrant or the Doomgape you mentioned, you won't suffer any real drawback or upkeep costs. Nicol Bolas Wouldn't be a bad target either. Connecting with a haste Bolas should almost win the game because of the hand discard. Doesn't hurt that you threw 7 points at them either. I would just rather play with better and more consistent reanimate cards than creatures, again, because of summoning sickness. You give your opponents time to answer either Necromancer.
If you like silly, play with 2 Leveler and Sutured Ghoul. yes, Phyrexian Dreadnought would be better, but those are expensive and an even 20/20 trampler looks cooler than a 24/24 because that extra 4 isn't really needed. That's why Marit Lage is a 20/20
I prefer Mutilate in fact. "Hmm, I see you have an Eldrazi Monument on the table. Well, in that case, Mutilate." Follow this with maniacal laughter.
I prefer Damnation. "I see I am playing a deck with more colors than just black in it. I had better find Urborg... oh wait, I'll just play Damnation. Is that some random Artifact? Because I am playing more than one color, I'll answer it. [Red has artifact hate, green and white have artifact and enchantment hate, blue is blue.]
There is a reason Damnation is 3 times the price of Mutilate, and it isn't just because it is more rare. [Which it really isn't with the promo floating around. that and my understanding Planer Chaos sold more than Scourge]. It's more versitile. It's not a strictly better, it just more versitile.
There is a Reanimator Premier stickied in this forum. I recomend you go see it first and post your deck there.
Regarding comments:
Buried Alive is a 4 of.
You don't need 4 Cabal Coffers in this deck. You don't need any really. Play with Dark Rituals. Play with 4 Dark Rituals.
Skeletal Vampire is a favorite card of mine, however, he doesn't belong in a reanimator deck. He is a win condition in control. Reanimate decks are supposed to ramp into a quick bomb and end the game asap.
You listed Zombify twice.
I recomend you play with the card Reanimate and Exhume if you can find them. For fun, think about playing with Bladewing, the Risen and Teneb, the Harvester. With Buried Alive go and find these two creatures and one other of your choice. Use a reanimate spell on Bladewing and get the Teneb and you should be able to win in two attacks. It also helps that Teneb's activated ability will reanimate another creature. You may with to try Blazing Archon or Platinum Angel as your third creature target and reanimate it with Teneb's ability to help keep you from losing on a counterattack.
Epochrasite" target="blank">Epochrasite is good on it's own because it is hard to deal with, with Braids you have a renewable sac outlet.
Solemn Simulacrum" target="blank">Solemn Simulacrum is another bomb creature card that Braids can feed on. When it comes into play you can get a swamp for Cabal Coffers, you can throw him away to get a card, play the card you drew, throw that away to braids next turn, and then throw the swamp away the turn after that. That is three sac outlets off of one card.
Skull Clamp is a less friendly card to people for obvious reasons. I know in EDH it is allowed, but in non-EDH casual games it is frowned on so you make the call. Attaching a single skull clam to creatures and then sacrificing them on your upkeep allows you to draw three cards a turn and there is little your opponent will be able to do to keep up with card advantage like that.
Soul Foundry is a tool you can use to pump out many different things. You can pump out token copies of braids to sac to themselves, creatures with comes into play abilities, or just generic things in your deck. Imagine a Solemn Simulacrum on this.
Nether Traitor is less ideal on it's own, but with Braids it can get silly fast.
Bloodghast Similar to Nether Traitor in it's own way.
Oversold Cemetery was used in a standard Braids deck back in the day and is a very strong enchantment. Card Advantage is a big tool used to win games and Oversold Cemetery gives you that. Once you have 4 or more creatures in your graveyard, basically one of them becomes Squee, Goblin Nabob" target="blank">Squee, Goblin Nabob. The other benefit is that even if your Braids is killed, you'll still be able to get it back and against a control deck, if it resolves, you should be able to out card advantage them. They shouldn't be able to keep up with your free creature per turn with counters alone.
Sol Ring restricted to one per deck, this cards helps you get a turn two Braids in play. Turn one Sol Ring. Turn two Briads. Turn three sacrifice the Sol Ring, play Bitterblossom" target="blank">Bitterblossom and lock the game.
Crucible of Worlds you see, you can sacrifice a land and then draw a card, and then play a land from your graveyard... that's good. Curcible of Worlds is stupid and broken.
You really shouldn't even need to play red honestly. Mono Black has cards like Damnation to play if you don't get an early game Braids and need to sweep the board. I do have to ask what you are looking for by playing red. It honestly doesn't give you any advantage over playing mono black. You could play cards like Avalanch Riders though. With Oversold Cemetery in play you can double abuse Braids and Riders to nuke your opponent.
If you haven't bought them yet: Proxy them, save up your money, and then buy them.
If you want to play the color black seriously, these should be in your collection. They are worth the money and you will be playing them in casual forever. Mutilate was the Black's old version of Wrath of God, however, DamnationIS Black Wrath of God.
Don't waste your money on lesser cards, save it and buy Damnation. It may take a while, but that's okay. You'll eventually have 4 Black Wrath of God. You won't regret having them.
I seem to remember a thread like this a few years ago as well. it is interesting to read and talk bout. A problem i have had for years is on the very question of "what is casual?" Are Skull Clamps casual? Are proxies casual? Are turn one, two, or three kill decks casual? Things of this nature.
I don't use proxies. I despise them. I do, however, understand why some people use them. you want to know if a card should be in your deck or not before you go out and buy them and/or your local store doesn't carry them currently. I know I prefer to support my local store over saving a few dollars here or there on eBay. After all, they have a place for us Magic players to meet and play.
I have always hard a hard time with the word "casual" because of power creep. I like to play with good cards and nice/fun card interactions. However, on several occasions I get someone jokingly say "I don't want to play your decks, they're mean." Then they sit down and play me.
For example, I have this nuts elf deck that rolls over to removal, as an elf deck should, but when it is given a few good early turns it can lock the other guy out of the game and just win.
I have a Black and White discard control deck that hates on creatures and wins with The rack and the bleed mechanic from Guildpact. I have a few MBC decks of different styles. A creatureless control version and a couple with creatures. I have a mono blue stasis deck. From time to time I put back together my Worldgorger Dragon combo deck. I have a local favorite, "Ninjas with rocket Launchers." I also play with two or three EDH decks. I even play a classic mono red Sligh deck when I am in the mood.
Home brew decks are also a lot of fun. For a time I ran this concoction:
Do you have any idea how much fun that deck was to play? Yes it is SUPER weak against simple removal like Terror, but that isn't the point. You should see the look on someone's face when they are at like 87 life and are going to lose once I turn my guys sideways.
Plays like turn three Kavu Predator with one green open, they play a burn spell and I play Healing Leaves targeting them to gain 3 life to make the Kavu a 5/5 is so much fun. Also, Temporal Isolation is a ton of fun because it has flash. I had a guy forget that one time. He attacked and afer blockers played a bounce spell on the Temporal Isolation thinking his massive creature filled with +1/+1 counters from Sheltering Ancient would bash in for the win only to have me say "okay, play it again on him. Next turn swing, GG?" Another game i had someone kill the Temporal Isolation to swing with a different massive creature only to have me play condemn on it and make both of my Kavu HUGE.
So being "new" and all, my thinking on urza's mine ancient den coastal tower darksteel citadel is that I get to play my land card and then play one of these 4 cards and get another land that turn. I assume I am playing these wrong if you say they are bad. Mind correcting me?
Also I will check out some of those spells/creatures, a couple caught my eye.
As for the soul nova, thanks for the advice pokerbob. I think pacifism will be a way better replacement, just as effective, mana cost is less, and even better I already have it in my collection.
What?!? Umm... no. Sorry man. Unless I read that wrong... no you can't do that. It doesn't matter hat the land is, you only get one land drop per turn.
Now, the use of Urza's Facotry instead of the mien would be good in this deck because it produces creatures late game for you, however, I recomendyou kep it simple and mostly plains. There area lot of great lands you can play with, but just because they are non-basic doesn't mean you get to play extra per turn.
Skeletal Vampire looks interesting. But, if I went with that route, don't you think Oona, Queen of the Fae is almost strictly better? The vampire basically makes a 1/1 bat token for 3BB. Oona can make 4 faerie tokens with 3BB, if not at least 1.
No. Long story short, the word you are looking for is "Regenerate." This is why Batman is so good. He is SOOO hard to kill, you know, like Batman. When Skeletal Vampire isn't busy winning games for you, he's out saving Gotham City. Oona is a really good card, but Skeletal Vampire is so much harder to deal with. Think of it this way, which would you rather stare down? A 5/5 that you can use a removal spell on, or a creature you have to waste a Damnation/Mutilate on? Making bats is a just an added bonus. The real point is that Skeletal Vampire swings in for 5 and can poop out guys when ever you have spare mana laying around. Play with them both and see for yourself which you like more.
Oh, I can't think of a good black spell to deal with an enchantment/artifact for my Death Wish list. All I have is Oblivion Stone and N Disks.
You can't think of a good black spell to kill artifacts and enchantments because there aren't any. There are spells that can do it that have black in them, but not mono black. Mark Rosewater himself said that two cards WotC will 100% never print are a Blue Dark Ritual and a Black Disenchant because they would be too good. The only mono black card that can directly deal with non-creature artifacts is Gate to Phyrexia and that as you can read is so limited and resource intensive. This is why the Disk, O-Stone, and Powder Keg are so good for mono black.
Sometimes I have dreams of a black Krosan Grip... oh just the though of it...
Please, post any modified duel decks you have, may give me ideas on what to do with them I don't mind upgrading them, but I wanna do it all at the same time.
Okay. First thing I wanted to do was find the original list for the Divine versus Demonic deck lists and in doing so I found the official WotC article on this product. You can read it for yourself by clicking here.
My first question was, "How can you make decks this bad an unbalanced?" Then I remembered it was WotC and you shouldn't ever trust their seal product. These are the same people who thought changing Skull clamp from +1/+1 to +1/-1 would make it less broken and that reducing Gyof's mana cost from 1GG to 1G would make it "playable," while constantly printing the white card of any given cycle with an ability relating to life gain [of which like only two or 3 cards ever were any good.] First rule of thumb when dealing with WotC and their advise, stay away from it as often as possible. they have no idea what they are doing most of the time.
After all that I decided I would pot the original lists and then what I am taking out, why I am taking them out and lastly what I am replacing it all with and why.
So right off the bat I want to identify what cards are bad so we can remove them. The problem is, looking at the creature list, most of them are bad.
Card assessment.
Abyssal Gatekeeper Unless it is your only creature in play, this guy is bad for you. Angels have flying so the gatekeeper won't be blocking anyone, and who is going to block a 1/1? if you put an unholy strength on it, you are asking for a 2 for 1 or worse, and if they do block it is because they want to again trade 2 for 1 losing only one creature of theirs for 2 of yours. He is bad.
Cackling Imp Just isn't good enough. A 2/2 flier for 4 mana that has a weak ability. He isn't going to trade with anything, the Angel deck is filled with fliers, so he isn't going to get through very often if at all, and his ping ability is a terrible investment for your 4 mana.
Daggerclaw Imp at 3cc this guy is anything but aggressive. Angels had better have some defenders out there and combined with high toughness and pump effects in the Angel deck, the 3/1 likely won't even trade with any angels while on he attack. Not good enough.
Demon's Jester is worse than Cackling Imp. he only gets a boost when you are out of cards, a situation you really want to avoid as a Magic player.
Overeager Apprentice. The only thing I like about this card is taking it out of people's decks. It sooo bad. Discard a cad and sacrifice itself to get a slow Dark Ritual? Common WotC, throw me a bone here.
Souldrinker... okay I get it, you're pulling my leg right? this is a joke deck. It's got to be. Who would play with this card? Who would print this card? you have to pay 4 mana to get a 2/2... and 6 life just to get a creature worth the 4 mana, more life if you want him to be any good. Now that you paid all this life, I'll place a Faith's Fetters or Pacifism on him and laugh and laugh and laugh...
Demon's Horn. Does WotC even have a straight face when they put these in decks? When people play with these cards [and I mean the entire cycle] on that X-Box Duals of he Planeswalkers decks, they lose. These are terrible. There is a piece of advice I was given when I started playing this game. "Life Gain isn't bad really, just as long as you don't pay for it." Meaning cards like Faith's Fetters aren't bad because you are paying 4 mana for a super Pacifism that can shut off enchantments, artifacts and Planeswalkers and the 4 life is a just an added bonus. Loxodon Hierarch is good because you get a 4/4 for 4 mana that has a great activated ability, oh and the gain 4 life is an added bonus. Healing Salve is bad because you are paying mana to gain life. You aren't answering a threat, you aren't providing a threat, and you are not trying to combo with something. If you want to use a combat tick to save a creature, there are a LOT more options.
Oni Possession Aura Enchantments you target your own creatures with are typically bad from a game play stand point because you are asking at any moment to get 2 for 1ed and he advantage they grant you hardly ever out weighs the draw back. What makes this card worse is that you also have to sacrifice creatures. You are pwning yourself with it in play. Why would you do this? Now if it said gain control of target creature, and it gains the rest of the card, then that would be awesome, but it doesn't.
Unholy Strength While I dislike this card less than Oni Possession, unless you are placing it on a Drudge Skeletons or something, it really isn't worth casting because of that same 2 for 1 problem.
The rest of the cards aren't terrible, but even Foul imp isn't that impressive. to me, this is a deck that needs so much of a major overhaul, I would just about rebuild the whole thing over again. As it is made it has no real early game, has a ton of cards asking you to 2 for 1 yourself and the few finishers you do have cost an arm and a leg to get in play even with dark ritual. I challenge anyone playing the Angel deck to find a way to lose as long as it is not getting mana screwed/flooded.
Even the Barren Moor's in this deck don't belong. 24 land is enough. You aren't even abusing the cycle ability.
One thing I am doing is taking the Zombie themed Planechase deck and mashing it in with this Demonic deck. The goal here was to combine the nice creature package from the Zombie deck with the nice spells from the
Demonic deck and blend them together to form a more balanced mono black build.
On the spell side I was was going more for the reverse effect. More of the Demonic deck's spells are solid while most of the Zombie deck's spells are a bit lacking. taking out the Demon horn, single Duress [though it is good it doesn't really belong in this deck], both Dark Rituals [though I wish I could find room to place all 4 in], Oni Possession, and 2 Unholy Strength's to make room for Hideous End, Profane Command, Beseech the Queen, Beacon of Unrest, nd the enchantments Phyrexian Arena and Gravepact. We now have two tutors in the deck, Phyrexian Arena for card draw, Grave pact to butcher angels and sac outlets like Phyrexian Ghoul and Fallen Angel to set it off with token producers in Breeding Pit, more removal in a second Consume Spirit and a Hideous End. It also doesn't hurt to have another win condition like Profane Command and Beacon of Unrest. Lastly I fixed a bit of the mana base by removing 2 swamps and the 2 Barren Moor's and replacing them with the Cabal Coffers and a Leechridden Swamp. these two mashed decks should play a lot better than either one did by themselves.
I did not buy the GvL duel decks for the same reason stated in other posts. The cards aren't terribly impressive and the decks are not balanced at all with each other. Also I already have a foil Liliana and I received a foil Garruk from purchasing the Duels of the Planeswalkers X-Box 360 online game. There is very little I think you can even do with a Demonic and Liliana deck for the exact same reasons. Both decks have nice spells but their creatures are terrible. Finally, I liked the idea of Planechase and bought all 4 decks. Taking the Planechase cards themselves out to play with any deck, I feel free to take the deck apart and jut use the single cards as I see fit. Combining the Zombies with the Demonic deck looks like a lot of fun and keeps with the flavor of Black Magic. Zombies, a couple Demons, and a Fallen Angel all look like good flavor to me.
Right off the bat, the creatures in the Divine deck are not that bad. this is part of the reason this is the better overall base deck to play with. right out of the box the creatures in the Divine deck are more efficient and have a lot more abilities and toughness than the Demonic deck's creatures do. Serra Advocate, Angelic Page, and Icatian Priest can all grant buffs to help win most combat situations. Sustainer of the Realm loves to sit of defense in the air while Charging Paladin is often on the attack. The big fat Angels themselves act as late game bombs to close out the battle once you get to higher amounts of mana. Combine all of this with the Demonic deck's inability to consistently kill off Angels, and it is easy to see why one deck is superior to the other.
Venerable Monk isn't very impressive and neither is Angel of Mercy. However, other than those, there really aren't any glaringly weak creature cards in the Divine deck. If anything, the Divine deck will just need a boot to keep up with the one given to the Demonic deck rather than needing and overhaul like the other was in much need of.
On the spell side of things is where the Divine deck loses a bit of it's power.
Angelic Benediction is in this deck purely because of it's name alone. It isn't a terrible card, but it isn't that good either.
Angelsong is another weak card in here for the name more than anything else.
Faith's Fetters are great and I would keep these and think aobut adding two more in. they also turn off Planswalkers like Liliana.
Healing Salve is weak sauce. A combat trick at best. There are so many better cards, even in this deck.
Marble Diamond is nice because this is a more mana intensive deck and with the upgrade to the Demonic deck using cabal Coffers, the Divine deck could use this extra help and mana acceleration.
Otherworldly Journey A much better card than healing Salve. now with the M10 rules changes you can't put damage on the stack and then Journey away anymore, but this is still a nice card. A great way to combat the Demonic deck's targeted removal. It doesn't hurt that you get a +1/+1 counter as well.
Pacifism is another classic card for white. there is no reason to take this out unless you find even better cards.
Righteous Cause is not a terrible life gain card, but it is still just another life gain card. I would rather play with something that will help me win or recover when I am losing.
Serra's Boon wants to pretend it is a removal spell, but let's not kid ourselves here. I would rather play another Pacifism of Faith's Fetters here. I already went over why you shouldn't enchant your own creatures.
Serra's Embrace More of the same. Don't enchant your own guys. That's bad game play.
Serra Angel is a far better card than Angel of Mercy and is now an uncommon again as well. I took both Angel of Mercy out along with Angelic Protector and made them all Serra Angel. It's a classic whit card and a lot of fun to play with. Next I took both Venerable Monk out and put in two more Angelic Page. These changes already improve the curve and quality a little. I then took out the two Icatian Priest and Charging Paladin and bumped up the Serra Advocate and Sustainer of the Realm counts to 4 each.
The removal of Serra's Embrace and Serra's Boon allow me to up my Faith's Fetters to 4 copies, while the removal of Healing Salve, and Angel's Feather allow me to go up to 4 Otherworldly Journey. The removal of the 2 cycle lands and Angel song allow me to add three more Pacifism. Lastly the removal of Angelic Benediction and Righteous Cause allow me room to put in an Akroma's Vengeance from the Red White Planechase deck and a copy of Decree of Justice I have in my binder. I did buy a copy of the Cold Snap U/W theme deck that came with a copy of Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant and would consider finding room for them over some Faith's fetters and/or Pacifism to try and keep the 4 of theme down and add more variety to the deck. It really depends on what you want to do.
I have not played these two decks against each other yet, however, I think he games should be a little closer now. There isn't a heavy need for enchantment removal for the white deck, but the Black deck's two enchantments are really powerful. This is why I was thinking of adding in that single copy of Disenchant from the Cold Snap theme deck. In fact, the more I think about it, the Cold Snap Starter has some nice soldiers and support cards that could mix in here... hmm...
I will post more casual duel decks and ideas later if anyone is interested. I'm still tweaking the Divine deck.
CotV is a great card, but it is a competitive card. Prices for cards depend mostly on their competitive value and a little bit on their collector/n00b value.
Elvish Piper is a perfect example. while the curent link says it's mid-range value is $2.62, for years it slls out at stores for the high $6 to $7 range because n00bs and kids love the ability. a 1/1 for 4 mana with summoning sickness is so easy to deal with. add in that you actually have to have the fattie you want to "cheat" into play in your hand and that you are playing green so mana accelerating into the needed mana should be that hard, you can see why it really isn't any good but still appeals to n00bs.
Juzam Djinn, despite being totally outclassed by something as simple and cheap as Plague Sliver, nicknamed Juzam Sliver, holds it's value between $100 and $200 on ebay because of collectors and it's rarity.
Vulturous Zombie was a lot of fun in it's day as well.
There are also classic G/B cards like Spiritmonger and Pernicious Deed.
Eternal Witness goes in most green decks, but with black it can really shine.
I enjoyed Golgari Germination in a number of my casual decks as well.
Gleancrawler and the powered up Zombify, Vigor Mortis, was fun to play with as well.
The G/B liege, Creakwood Liege, looks like fun but I've never owned one. I can't think of a reason not to play with 4 of them in a G/B agro deck.
Regarding flavor, Ravnica's version of Black green was alright, but the Eventide version of G/B felt a lot better imo. While the cards were weaker, the idea of the dark and decaying side of green has been interesting to me, but for some reason WotC hardly ever addresses it. A search of gatherer for //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?color=+[B">+[G]&sort=cmc+"][B]Green[/B] and [B]Black[/B] cards turns up only 5 pages of cards and even those are filled with 3+ color cards and not pure G/B cards.
Midnight Banshee works well with your theme, though it will hurt your Blood Knights.
I played Briads in EDH for a long time and is in my top 10 creatures list. However, I disagree with you regarding Dakmor Salvage" target="blank">Dakmor Salvage. By itself, you will never draw a new card again until you are willing to stop dredging it up. God's Eye is obviously nice. I dislike sacing lands and try to avoid it as often as possible which is why I recommend cards like Epochrasite and Solemn Simulacrum along with the obvious Bitterblossom. The trick is not only to keep up with your opponents sac outlets, but actually comming up with "free" sac outlets that allow you to draw cards and play more lands and spells. This way you are not only feeding Briad's hunger while you'r opponent can't, but you are actually turning an advantage and building a board as well to finish them off. Dakmor Salvage doesn't help you do this until you also get a Phyrexian Arena in play, which you won't draw if you are busy dredging.
Now go and win the game.
Apprentice Necromancer isn't as bad as it may look because he is a turn faster and if you use creatures like Dragon Tyrant or the Doomgape you mentioned, you won't suffer any real drawback or upkeep costs. Nicol Bolas Wouldn't be a bad target either. Connecting with a haste Bolas should almost win the game because of the hand discard. Doesn't hurt that you threw 7 points at them either. I would just rather play with better and more consistent reanimate cards than creatures, again, because of summoning sickness. You give your opponents time to answer either Necromancer.
If you like silly, play with 2 Leveler and Sutured Ghoul. yes, Phyrexian Dreadnought would be better, but those are expensive and an even 20/20 trampler looks cooler than a 24/24 because that extra 4 isn't really needed. That's why Marit Lage is a 20/20
I prefer Damnation. "I see I am playing a deck with more colors than just black in it. I had better find Urborg... oh wait, I'll just play Damnation. Is that some random Artifact? Because I am playing more than one color, I'll answer it. [Red has artifact hate, green and white have artifact and enchantment hate, blue is blue.]
There is a reason Damnation is 3 times the price of Mutilate, and it isn't just because it is more rare. [Which it really isn't with the promo floating around. that and my understanding Planer Chaos sold more than Scourge]. It's more versitile. It's not a strictly better, it just more versitile.
Regarding comments:
Buried Alive is a 4 of.
You don't need 4 Cabal Coffers in this deck. You don't need any really. Play with Dark Rituals. Play with 4 Dark Rituals.
Skeletal Vampire is a favorite card of mine, however, he doesn't belong in a reanimator deck. He is a win condition in control. Reanimate decks are supposed to ramp into a quick bomb and end the game asap.
You listed Zombify twice.
I recomend you play with the card Reanimate and Exhume if you can find them. For fun, think about playing with Bladewing, the Risen and Teneb, the Harvester. With Buried Alive go and find these two creatures and one other of your choice. Use a reanimate spell on Bladewing and get the Teneb and you should be able to win in two attacks. It also helps that Teneb's activated ability will reanimate another creature. You may with to try Blazing Archon or Platinum Angel as your third creature target and reanimate it with Teneb's ability to help keep you from losing on a counterattack.
Solemn Simulacrum" target="blank">Solemn Simulacrum is another bomb creature card that Braids can feed on. When it comes into play you can get a swamp for Cabal Coffers, you can throw him away to get a card, play the card you drew, throw that away to braids next turn, and then throw the swamp away the turn after that. That is three sac outlets off of one card.
Skull Clamp is a less friendly card to people for obvious reasons. I know in EDH it is allowed, but in non-EDH casual games it is frowned on so you make the call. Attaching a single skull clam to creatures and then sacrificing them on your upkeep allows you to draw three cards a turn and there is little your opponent will be able to do to keep up with card advantage like that.
Soul Foundry is a tool you can use to pump out many different things. You can pump out token copies of braids to sac to themselves, creatures with comes into play abilities, or just generic things in your deck. Imagine a Solemn Simulacrum on this.
Bitterblossom" target="blank">Bitterblossom You win with this card. This card wins games.
Nether Traitor is less ideal on it's own, but with Braids it can get silly fast.
Bloodghast Similar to Nether Traitor in it's own way.
Oversold Cemetery was used in a standard Braids deck back in the day and is a very strong enchantment. Card Advantage is a big tool used to win games and Oversold Cemetery gives you that. Once you have 4 or more creatures in your graveyard, basically one of them becomes Squee, Goblin Nabob" target="blank">Squee, Goblin Nabob. The other benefit is that even if your Braids is killed, you'll still be able to get it back and against a control deck, if it resolves, you should be able to out card advantage them. They shouldn't be able to keep up with your free creature per turn with counters alone.
Sol Ring restricted to one per deck, this cards helps you get a turn two Braids in play. Turn one Sol Ring. Turn two Briads. Turn three sacrifice the Sol Ring, play Bitterblossom" target="blank">Bitterblossom and lock the game.
Crucible of Worlds you see, you can sacrifice a land and then draw a card, and then play a land from your graveyard... that's good. Curcible of Worlds is stupid and broken.
You really shouldn't even need to play red honestly. Mono Black has cards like Damnation to play if you don't get an early game Braids and need to sweep the board. I do have to ask what you are looking for by playing red. It honestly doesn't give you any advantage over playing mono black. You could play cards like Avalanch Riders though. With Oversold Cemetery in play you can double abuse Braids and Riders to nuke your opponent.
If you haven't bought them yet: Proxy them, save up your money, and then buy them.
If you want to play the color black seriously, these should be in your collection. They are worth the money and you will be playing them in casual forever. Mutilate was the Black's old version of Wrath of God, however, Damnation IS Black Wrath of God.
Don't waste your money on lesser cards, save it and buy Damnation. It may take a while, but that's okay. You'll eventually have 4 Black Wrath of God. You won't regret having them.
I don't use proxies. I despise them. I do, however, understand why some people use them. you want to know if a card should be in your deck or not before you go out and buy them and/or your local store doesn't carry them currently. I know I prefer to support my local store over saving a few dollars here or there on eBay. After all, they have a place for us Magic players to meet and play.
I have always hard a hard time with the word "casual" because of power creep. I like to play with good cards and nice/fun card interactions. However, on several occasions I get someone jokingly say "I don't want to play your decks, they're mean." Then they sit down and play me.
For example, I have this nuts elf deck that rolls over to removal, as an elf deck should, but when it is given a few good early turns it can lock the other guy out of the game and just win.
16 Forest [Invasion 350/350 "Ewok Village" art]
4 Gaea's Cradle
Creatures 24
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndlhorn Elves
4 Qurion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
4 Temberwatch Elf
2 Wellwisher
2 Ambush Commander
4 Tangle Wire
3 Winter Orb
3 Slate of Ancestry
2 Coat of Arms
Other Spells 4
1 Crop Rotation
1 Fastbong
2 Overrun
I have a Black and White discard control deck that hates on creatures and wins with The rack and the bleed mechanic from Guildpact. I have a few MBC decks of different styles. A creatureless control version and a couple with creatures. I have a mono blue stasis deck. From time to time I put back together my Worldgorger Dragon combo deck. I have a local favorite, "Ninjas with rocket Launchers." I also play with two or three EDH decks. I even play a classic mono red Sligh deck when I am in the mood.
Home brew decks are also a lot of fun. For a time I ran this concoction:
4 Wall of Shards
4 Sheltering Ancient
4 Kavu Predator
4 Whitemane Lion
4 Stonecloaker
4 Healing Leaves
4 Condemn
4 Temporal Isolation
4 Summoner's Pact
Do you have any idea how much fun that deck was to play? Yes it is SUPER weak against simple removal like Terror, but that isn't the point. You should see the look on someone's face when they are at like 87 life and are going to lose once I turn my guys sideways.
Plays like turn three Kavu Predator with one green open, they play a burn spell and I play Healing Leaves targeting them to gain 3 life to make the Kavu a 5/5 is so much fun. Also, Temporal Isolation is a ton of fun because it has flash. I had a guy forget that one time. He attacked and afer blockers played a bounce spell on the Temporal Isolation thinking his massive creature filled with +1/+1 counters from Sheltering Ancient would bash in for the win only to have me say "okay, play it again on him. Next turn swing, GG?" Another game i had someone kill the Temporal Isolation to swing with a different massive creature only to have me play condemn on it and make both of my Kavu HUGE.
What?!? Umm... no. Sorry man. Unless I read that wrong... no you can't do that. It doesn't matter hat the land is, you only get one land drop per turn.
Now, the use of Urza's Facotry instead of the mien would be good in this deck because it produces creatures late game for you, however, I recomendyou kep it simple and mostly plains. There area lot of great lands you can play with, but just because they are non-basic doesn't mean you get to play extra per turn.
No. Long story short, the word you are looking for is "Regenerate." This is why Batman is so good. He is SOOO hard to kill, you know, like Batman. When Skeletal Vampire isn't busy winning games for you, he's out saving Gotham City. Oona is a really good card, but Skeletal Vampire is so much harder to deal with. Think of it this way, which would you rather stare down? A 5/5 that you can use a removal spell on, or a creature you have to waste a Damnation/Mutilate on? Making bats is a just an added bonus. The real point is that Skeletal Vampire swings in for 5 and can poop out guys when ever you have spare mana laying around. Play with them both and see for yourself which you like more.
You can't think of a good black spell to kill artifacts and enchantments because there aren't any. There are spells that can do it that have black in them, but not mono black. Mark Rosewater himself said that two cards WotC will 100% never print are a Blue Dark Ritual and a Black Disenchant because they would be too good. The only mono black card that can directly deal with non-creature artifacts is Gate to Phyrexia and that as you can read is so limited and resource intensive. This is why the Disk, O-Stone, and Powder Keg are so good for mono black.
Sometimes I have dreams of a black Krosan Grip... oh just the though of it...
Okay. First thing I wanted to do was find the original list for the Divine versus Demonic deck lists and in doing so I found the official WotC article on this product. You can read it for yourself by clicking here.
My first question was, "How can you make decks this bad an unbalanced?" Then I remembered it was WotC and you shouldn't ever trust their seal product. These are the same people who thought changing Skull clamp from +1/+1 to +1/-1 would make it less broken and that reducing Gyof's mana cost from 1GG to 1G would make it "playable," while constantly printing the white card of any given cycle with an ability relating to life gain [of which like only two or 3 cards ever were any good.] First rule of thumb when dealing with WotC and their advise, stay away from it as often as possible. they have no idea what they are doing most of the time.
After all that I decided I would pot the original lists and then what I am taking out, why I am taking them out and lastly what I am replacing it all with and why.
Demonic Deck
2 Barren Moor
24 Swamp
Creatures
1 Abyssal Gatekeeper
1 Abyssal Specter
1 Cackling Imp
1 Daggerclaw Imp
2 Demon's Jester
2 Dusk Imp
1 Fallen Angel
1 Foul Imp
1 Kuro, Pitlord
1 Lord of the Pit
2 Overeager Apprentice
1 Reiver Demon
1 Soot Imp
1 Souldrinker
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Barter in Blood
2 Breeding Pit
1 Consume Spirit
1 Corrupt
1 Cruel Edict
1 Dark Banishing
2 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demon's Horn
1 Duress
1 Oni Possession
1 Promise of Power
2 Unholy Strength
Card assessment.
Cackling Imp Just isn't good enough. A 2/2 flier for 4 mana that has a weak ability. He isn't going to trade with anything, the Angel deck is filled with fliers, so he isn't going to get through very often if at all, and his ping ability is a terrible investment for your 4 mana.
Daggerclaw Imp at 3cc this guy is anything but aggressive. Angels had better have some defenders out there and combined with high toughness and pump effects in the Angel deck, the 3/1 likely won't even trade with any angels while on he attack. Not good enough.
Demon's Jester is worse than Cackling Imp. he only gets a boost when you are out of cards, a situation you really want to avoid as a Magic player.
Dusk Imp 4 reals?!? R U serious?
Overeager Apprentice. The only thing I like about this card is taking it out of people's decks. It sooo bad. Discard a cad and sacrifice itself to get a slow Dark Ritual? Common WotC, throw me a bone here.
Souldrinker... okay I get it, you're pulling my leg right? this is a joke deck. It's got to be. Who would play with this card? Who would print this card? you have to pay 4 mana to get a 2/2... and 6 life just to get a creature worth the 4 mana, more life if you want him to be any good. Now that you paid all this life, I'll place a Faith's Fetters or Pacifism on him and laugh and laugh and laugh...
Demon's Horn. Does WotC even have a straight face when they put these in decks? When people play with these cards [and I mean the entire cycle] on that X-Box Duals of he Planeswalkers decks, they lose. These are terrible. There is a piece of advice I was given when I started playing this game. "Life Gain isn't bad really, just as long as you don't pay for it." Meaning cards like Faith's Fetters aren't bad because you are paying 4 mana for a super Pacifism that can shut off enchantments, artifacts and Planeswalkers and the 4 life is a just an added bonus. Loxodon Hierarch is good because you get a 4/4 for 4 mana that has a great activated ability, oh and the gain 4 life is an added bonus. Healing Salve is bad because you are paying mana to gain life. You aren't answering a threat, you aren't providing a threat, and you are not trying to combo with something. If you want to use a combat tick to save a creature, there are a LOT more options.
Oni Possession Aura Enchantments you target your own creatures with are typically bad from a game play stand point because you are asking at any moment to get 2 for 1ed and he advantage they grant you hardly ever out weighs the draw back. What makes this card worse is that you also have to sacrifice creatures. You are pwning yourself with it in play. Why would you do this? Now if it said gain control of target creature, and it gains the rest of the card, then that would be awesome, but it doesn't.
Unholy Strength While I dislike this card less than Oni Possession, unless you are placing it on a Drudge Skeletons or something, it really isn't worth casting because of that same 2 for 1 problem.
The rest of the cards aren't terrible, but even Foul imp isn't that impressive. to me, this is a deck that needs so much of a major overhaul, I would just about rebuild the whole thing over again. As it is made it has no real early game, has a ton of cards asking you to 2 for 1 yourself and the few finishers you do have cost an arm and a leg to get in play even with dark ritual. I challenge anyone playing the Angel deck to find a way to lose as long as it is not getting mana screwed/flooded.
Even the Barren Moor's in this deck don't belong. 24 land is enough. You aren't even abusing the cycle ability.
Demonic Deck 2.0
22 Swamp
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Leechridden Swamp
Creatures 20
2 Festering Goblin
1 Shepherd of Rot
1 Withered Wretch
1 Death Baron
2 Cadaverous Knight
2 Phyrexian Ghoul
1 Gravedigger
2 Undead Warchief
1 Soulless One
1 Corpse Harvester
1 Helldozer
1 Abyssal Specter
1 Fallen Angel
1 Lord of the Pit
1 Reiver Demon
1 Ascendant Evincar
1 Barter in Blood
1 Cruel Edict
1 Hideous End
1 Dark Banishing
1 Corrupt
2 Consume Spirit
1 Profane Command
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Promise of Power
1 Beacon of Unrest
2 Breeding Pit
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Gravepact
One thing I am doing is taking the Zombie themed Planechase deck and mashing it in with this Demonic deck. The goal here was to combine the nice creature package from the Zombie deck with the nice spells from the
Demonic deck and blend them together to form a more balanced mono black build.
On the creature side I chose to not include Rotting Rats, Dregscape Zombie, Noxious Ghoul, or Nefashu to make room for the Demonic deck's Abyssal Specter, Fallen Angel, Reiver Demon, and Lord of the Pit [while LotP isn't very good, he is the deck's "foil General."] I wanted to cut down to 20 creatures to make room for the 16 spells.
On the spell side I was was going more for the reverse effect. More of the Demonic deck's spells are solid while most of the Zombie deck's spells are a bit lacking. taking out the Demon horn, single Duress [though it is good it doesn't really belong in this deck], both Dark Rituals [though I wish I could find room to place all 4 in], Oni Possession, and 2 Unholy Strength's to make room for Hideous End, Profane Command, Beseech the Queen, Beacon of Unrest, nd the enchantments Phyrexian Arena and Gravepact. We now have two tutors in the deck, Phyrexian Arena for card draw, Grave pact to butcher angels and sac outlets like Phyrexian Ghoul and Fallen Angel to set it off with token producers in Breeding Pit, more removal in a second Consume Spirit and a Hideous End. It also doesn't hurt to have another win condition like Profane Command and Beacon of Unrest. Lastly I fixed a bit of the mana base by removing 2 swamps and the 2 Barren Moor's and replacing them with the Cabal Coffers and a Leechridden Swamp. these two mashed decks should play a lot better than either one did by themselves.
I did not buy the GvL duel decks for the same reason stated in other posts. The cards aren't terribly impressive and the decks are not balanced at all with each other. Also I already have a foil Liliana and I received a foil Garruk from purchasing the Duels of the Planeswalkers X-Box 360 online game. There is very little I think you can even do with a Demonic and Liliana deck for the exact same reasons. Both decks have nice spells but their creatures are terrible. Finally, I liked the idea of Planechase and bought all 4 decks. Taking the Planechase cards themselves out to play with any deck, I feel free to take the deck apart and jut use the single cards as I see fit. Combining the Zombies with the Demonic deck looks like a lot of fun and keeps with the flavor of Black Magic. Zombies, a couple Demons, and a Fallen Angel all look like good flavor to me.
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Next up we have the Angel, or Divine deck. Here is the original build:
24 Plains
2 Secluded Steppe
Creatures 20
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
2 Angel of Mercy
2 Angelic Page
1 Angelic Protector
2 Charging Paladin
2 Icatian Priest
1 Luminous Angel
1 Reya Dawnbringer
2 Serra Advocate
1 Serra Angel
2 Sustainer of the Realm
1 Twilight Shepherd
2 Venerable Monk
1 Angelic Benediction
1 Angel's Feather
1 Angelsong
2 Faith's Fetters
1 Healing Salve
2 Marble Diamond
2 Otherworldly Journey
1 Pacifism
1 Righteous Cause
1 Serra's Boon
1 Serra's Embrace
Right off the bat, the creatures in the Divine deck are not that bad. this is part of the reason this is the better overall base deck to play with. right out of the box the creatures in the Divine deck are more efficient and have a lot more abilities and toughness than the Demonic deck's creatures do. Serra Advocate, Angelic Page, and Icatian Priest can all grant buffs to help win most combat situations. Sustainer of the Realm loves to sit of defense in the air while Charging Paladin is often on the attack. The big fat Angels themselves act as late game bombs to close out the battle once you get to higher amounts of mana. Combine all of this with the Demonic deck's inability to consistently kill off Angels, and it is easy to see why one deck is superior to the other.
Venerable Monk isn't very impressive and neither is Angel of Mercy. However, other than those, there really aren't any glaringly weak creature cards in the Divine deck. If anything, the Divine deck will just need a boot to keep up with the one given to the Demonic deck rather than needing and overhaul like the other was in much need of.
On the spell side of things is where the Divine deck loses a bit of it's power.
Angelic Benediction is in this deck purely because of it's name alone. It isn't a terrible card, but it isn't that good either.
Angel's Feather is just as bad as Demon Horn.
Angelsong is another weak card in here for the name more than anything else.
Faith's Fetters are great and I would keep these and think aobut adding two more in. they also turn off Planswalkers like Liliana.
Healing Salve is weak sauce. A combat trick at best. There are so many better cards, even in this deck.
Marble Diamond is nice because this is a more mana intensive deck and with the upgrade to the Demonic deck using cabal Coffers, the Divine deck could use this extra help and mana acceleration.
Otherworldly Journey A much better card than healing Salve. now with the M10 rules changes you can't put damage on the stack and then Journey away anymore, but this is still a nice card. A great way to combat the Demonic deck's targeted removal. It doesn't hurt that you get a +1/+1 counter as well.
Pacifism is another classic card for white. there is no reason to take this out unless you find even better cards.
Righteous Cause is not a terrible life gain card, but it is still just another life gain card. I would rather play with something that will help me win or recover when I am losing.
Serra's Boon wants to pretend it is a removal spell, but let's not kid ourselves here. I would rather play another Pacifism of Faith's Fetters here. I already went over why you shouldn't enchant your own creatures.
Serra's Embrace More of the same. Don't enchant your own guys. That's bad game play.
24 Plains
Creatures 20
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4 Angelic Page
1 Luminous Angel
1 Reya Dawnbringer
4 Serra Advocate
4 Serra Angel
4 Sustainer of the Realm
1 Twilight Shepherd
4 Faith's Fetters
2 Marble Diamond
4 Otherworldly Journey
4 Pacifism
1 Decree of Justice
1 Akroma's Vengeance
Serra Angel is a far better card than Angel of Mercy and is now an uncommon again as well. I took both Angel of Mercy out along with Angelic Protector and made them all Serra Angel. It's a classic whit card and a lot of fun to play with. Next I took both Venerable Monk out and put in two more Angelic Page. These changes already improve the curve and quality a little. I then took out the two Icatian Priest and Charging Paladin and bumped up the Serra Advocate and Sustainer of the Realm counts to 4 each.
The removal of Serra's Embrace and Serra's Boon allow me to up my Faith's Fetters to 4 copies, while the removal of Healing Salve, and Angel's Feather allow me to go up to 4 Otherworldly Journey. The removal of the 2 cycle lands and Angel song allow me to add three more Pacifism. Lastly the removal of Angelic Benediction and Righteous Cause allow me room to put in an Akroma's Vengeance from the Red White Planechase deck and a copy of Decree of Justice I have in my binder. I did buy a copy of the Cold Snap U/W theme deck that came with a copy of Swords to Plowshares and Disenchant and would consider finding room for them over some Faith's fetters and/or Pacifism to try and keep the 4 of theme down and add more variety to the deck. It really depends on what you want to do.
I have not played these two decks against each other yet, however, I think he games should be a little closer now. There isn't a heavy need for enchantment removal for the white deck, but the Black deck's two enchantments are really powerful. This is why I was thinking of adding in that single copy of Disenchant from the Cold Snap theme deck. In fact, the more I think about it, the Cold Snap Starter has some nice soldiers and support cards that could mix in here... hmm...
I will post more casual duel decks and ideas later if anyone is interested. I'm still tweaking the Divine deck.