MTG Salvation

Hey all,

This is the Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter deck that I've been working on. I've been really drawn to the flavor and mechanics of the WB color combination ever since I started playing casual Magic back in '98-'99, but until now I haven't taken a serious foray into the realm of the Orzhov in EDH deck construction.

However, something about Vish Kal in particular attracted my attention recently. Functionally, I think it's his ability to serve a repeatable sacrifice outlet waiting in the command zone. The Vorthos in me is strong, though, and I think what really led me to start brewing a deck with him at the helm was his relatively unique status as a WB vampire, and the flavor attached to his abilities:


Deriving the theme of the deck from Vish Kal's first ability, I wanted to build a deck emphasizing repeatable sacrifice and to a lesser extent life drain. I decided that I wanted this to be a deck that could go infinite, but my general approach to that is to try to primarily work with cards that are good on their own and also happen to fit into infinite combos. So, here's some of the win conditions in the deck:


And here's some synergies. They might sometimes be enough to win.


Some of the cards I'm looking at as weak links at this point are the ones that are only involved in one combo, namely: Magus of the Coffers, Umbral Mantle, and Nim Deathmantle. Deathmantle can still be good value on several creatures in the deck without going infinite, though. This deck also looks to be pretty mana-hungry, which makes me wonder if I should find some room for a few more mana rocks, such as Coalition Relic or even Gilded Lotus.

The rest of the deck is draw, tutors, and removal to keep the board and opponents' game plans in check while I assemble whatever my win-con for that particular game is going to be, which is usually determined by what pieces I've drawn into first.

I'd appreciate thoughts on cards to cut, or things that I've overlooked that should really be included. Toxic Deluge, for example, is a card that needs to be in the list, both from a functionality and a flavor standpoint. If you have a suggestion for a card that should be included, I'd love it if you could suggest a cut, as the list - while far from perfected - is relatively tight.