MTG Salvation

Instant speed removal: so far, it's been pretty much to steal creatures. Like, kill and reanimate ASAP. It did help clear some high-priority targets, but I suppose I don't need that many.

Thousand-year Elixir is a remnant from the old Shauku deck. I'll probably be removing it.

What could be added to the deck then?

Whoops! Typo. Edited.

Updated. fixed a terrible problem where my deck was missing 11 swamps.......

I think I run too many mana rocks. Any ideas? I'm thinking of adding some graveyard hate, I guess.

bump

That's a nice pic of chainer!!!

As far as mana rocks...I will say you are definitely running too few lands. I ran 36, then bumped it up to 37 and recently went up to 38. Among lands you want are Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb or Yawgmoth, Phyexian Tower and High Market in about that order. Crystal Vein, Ebon Stronghold, and Polluted Mire all look like lands I probably wouldn't want to run. Back to mana rocks...you have 8 mana rocks in your build. This may be a but high. Mana Vault can lead to some big starts, but otherwise, I'd probably not run it in a control based deck, it would be the first I'd cut. and I'd probably drop 1-2 more.

Grafted Exoskeleton seems out of place in this deck. This deck doesn't run many large creatures that can just jump in for a poison kill and I find poison useless if I can't do the job in 1, maybe 2 turns.

How do you like having so many spot removal cards on spell? IF would want targeted removal, I'd look at options like Shriekmaw that are on a body so chainer gets more play with them. Since chainer works around creatures, I'd look at raising the number of creatures in general.

If its in your budget, I'd look at getting Xiahou-Dun, the One-Eyed. Since you like killing with Exsanguinate, he gives you the option to reuse it and many other cards in your deck. He's a very strong card to have access to.

Quote from jmdt

That's a nice pic of chainer!!!

As far as mana rocks...I will say you are definitely running too few lands. I ran 36, then bumped it up to 37 and recently went up to 38. Among lands you want are Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb or Yawgmoth, Phyexian Tower and High Market in about that order. Crystal Vein, Ebon Stronghold, and Polluted Mire all look like lands I probably wouldn't want to run. Back to mana rocks...you have 8 mana rocks in your build. This may be a but high. Mana Vault can lead to some big starts, but otherwise, I'd probably not run it in a control based deck, it would be the first I'd cut. and I'd probably drop 1-2 more.

Grafted Exoskeleton seems out of place in this deck. This deck doesn't run many large creatures that can just jump in for a poison kill and I find poison useless if I can't do the job in 1, maybe 2 turns.

How do you like having so many spot removal cards on spell? IF would want targeted removal, I'd look at options like Shriekmaw that are on a body so chainer gets more play with them. Since chainer works around creatures, I'd look at raising the number of creatures in general.

If its in your budget, I'd look at getting Xiahou-Dun, the One-Eyed. Since you like killing with Exsanguinate, he gives you the option to reuse it and many other cards in your deck. He's a very strong card to have access to.

The deck's a bit budget, so I can't really buy those lands and Xiahou Dun. However, I can still cut the deck down.

-Mana Vault
-Doom Blade
-Mind Shatter
-Crystal Vein
-Polluted Mire
-Ebon Stronghold

+ 5 Swamps
+ Shriekmaw

I just noticed the decklist is severely outdated and many of the cards have already changed.

The deck will be due for an update in a few days. For instance, I have include multiplayer cards like Rise of the Dark Realms.

Updated

What a pity that you can't play Standardize or Shields of Velis Vel. You could play Nim Deathmantle if you'd want to do something funky with Chainer's ability though:

Nim Deathmantle's color-changing and type-changing effects override the equipped creature's previous colors and creature types. After Nim Deathmantle becomes equipped to a creature, that creature will be a black Zombie, not any other colors or creature types.

If you equip this to a reanimated creature, you'll get to keep it if someone kills Chainer. This seems like too much of a hassle to me, but it's a solid card in it's own right. Consider coupling it with Kagemaro...

If it helps, here's my list. The only card that has not found it's way in yet (becasue I haven't bothered to get one until I nab a foil) is Rise of the Dark Realms.



You may notice two things. First, no mana rocks? Second, 42 lands? (What?! Is this guy for real?) Yeah I am. I've played well over 50 games with this list (with and without mana rocks) This deck struggles in the early game especially vs green Azusa-like decks at the table. With all of the board sweeps and whatnot I found that the most important thing in the early game is not missing land drops. My rocks would always find they were ending up to be collateral damage so I took them out and added lands. It's done amazingly better in a slower non combo on turn 3-4 format. Very fun to play.

Hope it helps!

42 lands seems like way too much. I would run cards like Armillary Sphere and the Liliana that tutors. That and more draw effects can help you cut down on the land count. I've never been of fan of high land counts so I'm slightly biased though. My ghost Council runs 32 for example and never had problems (mainly cuz of land tax and other tutors however).

Quote from Shabbaman

What a pity that you can't play Standardize or Shields of Velis Vel. You could play Nim Deathmantle if you'd want to do something funky with Chainer's ability though:



If you equip this to a reanimated creature, you'll get to keep it if someone kills Chainer. This seems like too much of a hassle to me, but it's a solid card in it's own right. Consider coupling it with Kagemaro...

Shame! But it seems redundant for me atm. I could throw in Wurmcoil Engine and have 2 methods of infinite mana! That's interesting, will consider.

I wonder if there's a way to change the creature types of my opponent's creatures? Then I could sac Chainer to exile them all.

Quote from Ryxsyn

If it helps, here's my list. The only card that has not found it's way in yet (becasue I haven't bothered to get one until I nab a foil) is Rise of the Dark Realms.

SchizoidMan's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards

You may notice two things. First, no mana rocks? Second, 42 lands? (What?! Is this guy for real?) Yeah I am. I've played well over 50 games with this list (with and without mana rocks) This deck struggles in the early game especially vs green Azusa-like decks at the table. With all of the board sweeps and whatnot I found that the most important thing in the early game is not missing land drops. My rocks would always find they were ending up to be collateral damage so I took them out and added lands. It's done amazingly better in a slower non combo on turn 3-4 format. Very fun to play.

Hope it helps!

Looks fun but ironically I don't have the budget to run 42 lands yet. Mostly because Chainer isn't high on my deckbuilding priority list right now, and I can't afford to buy all the big mana cards yet.

Quote from Bombz xTSx

42 lands seems like way too much. I would run cards like Armillary Sphere and the Liliana that tutors. That and more draw effects can help you cut down on the land count. I've never been of fan of high land counts so I'm slightly biased though. My ghost Council runs 32 for example and never had problems (mainly cuz of land tax and other tutors however).

Yeah I suppose you could run like 38 lands and add a few drawspells in.

Need help in lowering CMC. any ideas on what I could add/cut?

Quote from bobthefunny

I don't think you'd like my answer, but anything that currently costs 7 or more in your list I feel is unneeded and has better, cheaper options.

Butcher was one of my first cuts, and runescarred has recently been exchanged for corpse connoisseur and the transfigure guy for 4. Sheoldred feels a bit slow outside of the stax side, and a bit expensive for the stax. If youlike the stax though, I can see keeping her.

Rise looks splashy, but expensive. Plague wind looks expensive to simply protect your side, when you could simply reanimate everything back that you actually want.


Are you running kagemaro? He's a cool repeatable wrath effect.

Actually I'm not quite as unhappy. Those are the highend cards but do I really need them? Rune-scarred could help for repeated tutor; Sheoldred for stax but Sepulchral seems a bit underhwleming. If I could keep one I'd keep the demon.

The two 9-mana cards are pretty much a dream team but I don't see it happening either.

I plan on removing the infinite mana with Magus package, just keeping the Magus instead. I don't have access to those cards yet tho

I haven't studied your decklist, but at first glance, I can already see areas that will help speed up your deck.

Unless your list just hasn't been updated or I missed it... I highly recommend...

• Sol Ring
  
• Mana Vault
  
• Crypt Ghast
  
• Cabal Coffers

Also, Fellwar Stone does nothing for you. If you want a 2CC mana rock, I recommend Charcoal Diamond or better yet, Jet Medallion.

In multi-player, it's okay to have some higher casting cost spells like Sheoldred and RotDR, but you need your mana doublers/rocks.

RE: your big fatty creatures... I also run the Butcher (since I have a "sacrifice" theme to my Chainer build), but am really close to cutting him. Sepulchral Primordial and Sheoldred, Whispering One have worked quite well for me.

From M14, Grim Return and Rise of the Dark Realms have been $$$ and quite high on the awesome scale.

Quote from bobthefunny

I disagree on fellwar stone being bad. It comes in untapped, which is good for later, even if it does only produce colorless.

I suppose, but for a 2 mana cost rock, coming in un-tapped, I would rather have Mind Stone (with draw card option), Charcoal Diamond (for Black mana), or, for fun, Fractured Powerstone (just in case we are playing Planechase!), lol. The 1 CC Mana Vault is a great shot in the arm for ramp as well.

Also, jet medallion can't pay for chainer or other abilities, so it too is less useful in this deck (I feel).

Yeah, I can see this point. There is a good argument to be made for either side of Medallion vs Diamond.

Quote from Bombz xTSx

42 lands seems like way too much. I would run cards like Armillary Sphere and the Liliana that tutors. That and more draw effects can help you cut down on the land count. I've never been of fan of high land counts so I'm slightly biased though. My ghost Council runs 32 for example and never had problems (mainly cuz of land tax and other tutors however).

Yeah you may be right but I'll highlight something for you, 42 lands SEEMS to be to much but I found that consistency wins all. In MY meta, games tend to go longer than 8-10 turns and I felt hitting every land drop is essential for success. Too many times I kept a hand where I'd have swamp, swamp Charcoal Diamond ect. and my diamond would get wiped away and not see a land for a turn or two. So after I changed it my consistency went WAY up along with my win %.

On the comment about running more draw, what am I missing?

Quote from SchizoidMan

Need help in lowering CMC. any ideas on what I could add/cut?

Honestly, I'm not a fan of Butcher and Plague Wind may be too high of a CC for what it does. I'd seriously consider upping the land count and adding a Coffers. It's your heart and Soul to Mono Black!!!

I use these as draw engines:

Graveborn Muse Just play some zombies like titan fleshbag geth
Phyrexian Arena
Bloodgift Demon
Ambition's Cost
Sign in Blood
Harvester of Souls
Dark Prophecy

Quote from Yalpe

I use these as draw engines:

Graveborn Muse Just play some zombies like titan fleshbag geth
Phyrexian Arena
Bloodgift Demon
Ambition's Cost
Sign in Blood
Harvester of Souls
Dark Prophecy

Disciple of Bolas is really, really good too.