I'm also thinking that Thrull Parasite might be a good 1-drop in drain variants. Gonna put this deck together for sure. I'm just hard-pressed to find alternatives to Cuombaji Witches since I can't find any in my area.
I'm also thinking that Thrull Parasite might be a good 1-drop in drain variants. Gonna put this deck together for sure. I'm just hard-pressed to find alternatives to Cuombaji Witches since I can't find any in my area.
Gifted Aetherborn isn't bad - deathtouch is a decent way to keep your creatures I find.
It goes "infinite" with Phyrexian Reclamation, it has 2 black plips, it has 3 toughness for Pestilence, it has 2 power for Bloodchief Ascension, it dissuades aggression vs a deck with an amazing mid-to-lategame, on and on and on. The card isn't stellar by any means but it ticks enough boxes to pass muster.
Hunted Horror I like a lot less now that Black is much stronger as a color. The thing about Gary decks is that they just never lose if everyone sits back and plays their own game which means that putting 6 unblockable power into play can be one of the easiest ways to lose. It's no stretch to have people "hey if we don't punish him/her then we're all going to die on turn 6-7" and that could easily be an objectively true statement. As such it would be foolish to do anything other than point that 6 power at the Black player every turn until he/she dies.
Still, the cool thing about a card such as Hunted Horror is that the upside is bananas. Like, you know Entomb into Animate Dead? Well imagine that except you don't need the Entomb. HH puts a 13/13 across 3 bodies into play on turn 1-2 (turn 1 assuming Gemstone Caverns or whatever) without the need for multiple cards. Assuming that you can team up or create a truce with the other player then you're suddenly in a bonkers position where you can easily go deep. Moreover, it's now incredibly easily to jam a turn 3-4 Yahenni's Expertise into a Phyrexian Arena or whatever which means that even if they refuse the truce you can still take out the 3/3s while casting your card draw and such. That being said the ideal use-case is to simply team up with the other player and start taking players out as early as turn 3. Turn 2 HH, gives the tokens to someone on your left, they untap and attack with them, you untap a few turns later and attack, the other player untaps and attacks and suddenly a player is dead/dying and it's only turn 2-3.
In that sense HH is a card that you'll have to test for yourself because it's one of the strangest and variable cards ever printed. When it's good it's literally a 2 mana Darksteel Colossus (or whatever) and when it's bad it's a 2 mana spell that deals 6 damage to you every turn. As such you can't give it an average grade (nor one in a vacuum) because it varies too wildly from player to player. Still, I do think that the card is definitely worth testing because its highs are insanely high and so it would be foolish to dismiss it entirely. That being said I would strongly recommend pairing it with some Yahenni's Expertises if at possible if only to mitigate the risk of ding on turn 4-5.
I like Hunted Horror for the reasons above. There's plenty of ways to mitigate the centaurs too.
However, it's also a giant magnet for removal, thievery and the like, which I find isn't what a devotion/Gary deck wants to do.
Gary decks just wanna avoid attention completely until you hit 5 mana....
All that said, I like the card, I run it in a few different builds here and there.
Massacre vs Yahenni's Expertise ended up being a lot less close than I anticipated. Massacre is always free and isn't draw reliant whereas the Expertise only feels powerful when you combo off with it. That being said both cards are fine and any deck can reasonably support 2 using any split desired. I'm still back to 2x Massacre in my own lists but the Expertise isn't unplayable by any means. The thing is that there are so many situations when you want to double/triple spell in a turn and it's always way harder to weave in a card like Expertise than Massacre since you have to open with Expertise if you're going to take that line. That means casting removal then your draw spell as opposed to doing things the other way around and making your final decisions once you've gathered all of your information. Then there's the situations where you're trying to cast expensive spells off of your ramp and whatnot which, again, makes Expertise significantly more awkward. Obviously the biggest strike against Expertise is that you literally can't cast it until you reach 4 mana whereas Massacre can hit at any stage which is very, very relevant. That moreso than anything else is why I'm back to Massacre.
Oath of Liliana is a Fleshbag Marauder that adds Devotion for Gary. Fleshbag Marauder is one of the single most powerful multiplayer removal spells in the entire game and I'm always happy to run them in large quantities. The only card that it routinely loses out to is Toxic Deluge with respect to being a top-tier Black removal spell. There's not much else to say except that I routinely win games in which I put those kinds of cards in my decks and draw them.
Fleshbag Marauder is one of the single most powerful multiplayer removal spells in the entire game
I assume that's in decks that recur it (relentlessly, perhaps), because otherwise it's an overcosted Innocent Blood, and that's not effective against developed boards (unlike, say, Crackling Doom.)
Nope. I play it all the time in decks with little-if-any recursion. It differs from Innocent Blood because it doesn't force you to sacrifice a creature which makes it extremely relevant from decks that field critters themselves. That isn't to say that IB is weak card or anything, I love playing it too, but if you're curving out with dudes then it's a rather heinous draw at most stages of the game.
So I've been running Pestilence. It's been decent. I've been running B-Ascension & Gonti's aswell, they seem to fit together well enough. I like!
I'd been asked to run a less oppressive deck (again) after going full-Gary with Unholy Grotto, so to appease the knockers I went through my shoebox of junk cards, grabbed a set of Skinrender. And even with that card I had 2 players complaining about them too after I used it to kill some trouble perms in combo with Pestilence.
Now I know they're just whinging. Fire up!!
Hi to all!! Im new here. Thanks for this awesome post, many time ago i wanted to try MBD. Im near to complete the core of this deck. Which cards do you recomend me for the 13 slots left? I love Bloodchief Ascension btw :3
Define "core" if you would please. Also, would it be possible for you to provide some info about your meta? Number of players, how creature-based the decks are, are combo kills a concern? Do you have any preferences? Discard, removal, creatures, tribal, are there any archetypes that you're drawn to?
The only thing I can think of might be 2x Massacre Wurm if you own them. They're spendy at $10. But, they add BBB to devotion, hammer when they come in, hammer while they hang out (work great with Fleshbags), and hammer when they leave play as you Damnation the board. All those creatures trigger him as they all go out together. So if you're going to kill creatures anyway, why not punish everyone while you're at it?
I play four in a RB drain deck, and it's worth every point of cmc every time.
2v2 means that you're ostensibly playing a glorified duel which means that it's eminently reasonable for you to field duel cards. High quality options to flesh out the deck could easily include:
And the cards are sorted in terms of power-level at their respectively CMCs. That is, Thoughtseize is the strongest 1 drop (but pricey) and Hymn to Tourach is a bonkers 2 drop (and cheap) so you can basically go down the list and flesh out your curve using the best options available according to your budget. You basically have to choose between some mix of discard and removal with a powerful option being something along the lines of:
Assuming that you wait for MM3 to drop IoK's price. Obviously if you want to shell out for Thoughtseize then it's fantastic but there's plenty of budget-minded alternatives. Dark Ritual is also stellar in Phyrexian Arena builds, especially if you have other 3 drops such as one of the Lilis or even Liliana's Specter/Hypnotic Specter. Turn 1 Dark Ritual -> Phyrexian Arena is a bonkers opener in most grindy games and even if you fall back on something else then that's fine too.
Deck seems fine to me. You may as well test it out and see if you're missing the discard/removal spells or if the current build is already more than enough to hold its own.
A lot of new sets have come out in the past few months, have any of them added anything significant to the decklist? The new Lilis both seem good (Though with a pricetag to reflect that...), and I'm personally a big fan of Gonti.
A lot of new sets have come out in the past few months, have any of them added anything significant to the decklist? The new Lilis both seem good (Though with a pricetag to reflect that...), and I'm personally a big fan of Gonti.
Oath of Liliana has become the de facto removal spell for the archetype given that it leaves you with devotion symbol. That makes it the best "Fleshbag Marauder" to field by a sizable margin.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury is an all-around solid 4 drop that you blindly jam on turn 4 in any situation. I still prefer Crypt Ghast though.
The 5 mana Lili seems bad because she's competing with Gray Merchant which isn't a fight that she's ever going to win. You can obviously play 5-10 five drops if you want but when I do it tends to be Demigod of Revenge because A) it's bonkers with revival engines and B) it's bonkers with Gray Merchant. That being said I typically only field this combo in decks that have things like Phyrexian Reclamation and Oversold Cemetery because you want to be reviving Demigods/Garys as frequently as possible.
Been doing some testing with Liliana, the Last Hope and she's pretty bonkers. Still been kinda tied down to the whole Zombie recursion theme though, and starting to wonder if the other possibilities are any better. Is there a preferable decklist you're running now?
For sure.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I'm also thinking that Thrull Parasite might be a good 1-drop in drain variants. Gonna put this deck together for sure. I'm just hard-pressed to find alternatives to Cuombaji Witches since I can't find any in my area.
Gifted Aetherborn, Nantuko Shade, Heartless Summoning, Shepherd of Rot, Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
It goes "infinite" with Phyrexian Reclamation, it has 2 black plips, it has 3 toughness for Pestilence, it has 2 power for Bloodchief Ascension, it dissuades aggression vs a deck with an amazing mid-to-lategame, on and on and on. The card isn't stellar by any means but it ticks enough boxes to pass muster.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Hunted Horror I like a lot less now that Black is much stronger as a color. The thing about Gary decks is that they just never lose if everyone sits back and plays their own game which means that putting 6 unblockable power into play can be one of the easiest ways to lose. It's no stretch to have people "hey if we don't punish him/her then we're all going to die on turn 6-7" and that could easily be an objectively true statement. As such it would be foolish to do anything other than point that 6 power at the Black player every turn until he/she dies.
Still, the cool thing about a card such as Hunted Horror is that the upside is bananas. Like, you know Entomb into Animate Dead? Well imagine that except you don't need the Entomb. HH puts a 13/13 across 3 bodies into play on turn 1-2 (turn 1 assuming Gemstone Caverns or whatever) without the need for multiple cards. Assuming that you can team up or create a truce with the other player then you're suddenly in a bonkers position where you can easily go deep. Moreover, it's now incredibly easily to jam a turn 3-4 Yahenni's Expertise into a Phyrexian Arena or whatever which means that even if they refuse the truce you can still take out the 3/3s while casting your card draw and such. That being said the ideal use-case is to simply team up with the other player and start taking players out as early as turn 3. Turn 2 HH, gives the tokens to someone on your left, they untap and attack with them, you untap a few turns later and attack, the other player untaps and attacks and suddenly a player is dead/dying and it's only turn 2-3.
In that sense HH is a card that you'll have to test for yourself because it's one of the strangest and variable cards ever printed. When it's good it's literally a 2 mana Darksteel Colossus (or whatever) and when it's bad it's a 2 mana spell that deals 6 damage to you every turn. As such you can't give it an average grade (nor one in a vacuum) because it varies too wildly from player to player. Still, I do think that the card is definitely worth testing because its highs are insanely high and so it would be foolish to dismiss it entirely. That being said I would strongly recommend pairing it with some Yahenni's Expertises if at possible if only to mitigate the risk of ding on turn 4-5.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
However, it's also a giant magnet for removal, thievery and the like, which I find isn't what a devotion/Gary deck wants to do.
Gary decks just wanna avoid attention completely until you hit 5 mana....
All that said, I like the card, I run it in a few different builds here and there.
My Powered 630 card Vintage Multiplayer Cube
cEDH: WUBR Blue Farm WUBR, UG Kinnan Flips UG, U Urza Scepter U
It's the best-in-slot 2 drop as far as I'm concerned and it's recently dropped to around 5 bucks which is certainly passable.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Oh I guess I didn't realize it went up so high... but yeah they've been stellar for me.
My Powered 630 card Vintage Multiplayer Cube
cEDH: WUBR Blue Farm WUBR, UG Kinnan Flips UG, U Urza Scepter U
Agreed. From Withered Wretch to Fleshbag Marauder to Balthor the Defiled to Corpse Augur to Grave Defiler to Gray Merchant of Asphodel to Sidisi, Undead Vizier there's endless targets to recur and it fuels things like Contamination, Braids, Cabal Minion, Pestilence, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Abhorrent Overlord, etc. insanely well.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Massacre vs Yahenni's Expertise ended up being a lot less close than I anticipated. Massacre is always free and isn't draw reliant whereas the Expertise only feels powerful when you combo off with it. That being said both cards are fine and any deck can reasonably support 2 using any split desired. I'm still back to 2x Massacre in my own lists but the Expertise isn't unplayable by any means. The thing is that there are so many situations when you want to double/triple spell in a turn and it's always way harder to weave in a card like Expertise than Massacre since you have to open with Expertise if you're going to take that line. That means casting removal then your draw spell as opposed to doing things the other way around and making your final decisions once you've gathered all of your information. Then there's the situations where you're trying to cast expensive spells off of your ramp and whatnot which, again, makes Expertise significantly more awkward. Obviously the biggest strike against Expertise is that you literally can't cast it until you reach 4 mana whereas Massacre can hit at any stage which is very, very relevant. That moreso than anything else is why I'm back to Massacre.
Oath of Liliana is a Fleshbag Marauder that adds Devotion for Gary. Fleshbag Marauder is one of the single most powerful multiplayer removal spells in the entire game and I'm always happy to run them in large quantities. The only card that it routinely loses out to is Toxic Deluge with respect to being a top-tier Black removal spell. There's not much else to say except that I routinely win games in which I put those kinds of cards in my decks and draw them.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Nope. I play it all the time in decks with little-if-any recursion. It differs from Innocent Blood because it doesn't force you to sacrifice a creature which makes it extremely relevant from decks that field critters themselves. That isn't to say that IB is weak card or anything, I love playing it too, but if you're curving out with dudes then it's a rather heinous draw at most stages of the game.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I'd been asked to run a less oppressive deck (again) after going full-Gary with Unholy Grotto, so to appease the knockers I went through my shoebox of junk cards, grabbed a set of Skinrender. And even with that card I had 2 players complaining about them too after I used it to kill some trouble perms in combo with Pestilence.
Now I know they're just whinging. Fire up!!
Define "core" if you would please. Also, would it be possible for you to provide some info about your meta? Number of players, how creature-based the decks are, are combo kills a concern? Do you have any preferences? Discard, removal, creatures, tribal, are there any archetypes that you're drawn to?
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I play four in a RB drain deck, and it's worth every point of cmc every time.
Mind Twist
Thoughtseize, Dark Ritual, Inquisition of Kozilek (about to be reprinted at Uncommon), Dismember, Duress, Despise, Mire's Toll
Hymn to Tourach, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Malicious Affliction, Victim of Night, Go for the Throat, Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper, Nantuko Shade, Withered Wretch
Necropotence, Liliana of the Veil, Liliana, the Last Hope, Necrogen Mists, Oath of Liliana, Liliana's Specter
Snuff Out, Unmask
Liliana Vess, Ob Nixilis Reignited
And the cards are sorted in terms of power-level at their respectively CMCs. That is, Thoughtseize is the strongest 1 drop (but pricey) and Hymn to Tourach is a bonkers 2 drop (and cheap) so you can basically go down the list and flesh out your curve using the best options available according to your budget. You basically have to choose between some mix of discard and removal with a powerful option being something along the lines of:
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Hymn to Tourach
3x Gatekeeper of Malakir
2x Snuff Out
Assuming that you wait for MM3 to drop IoK's price. Obviously if you want to shell out for Thoughtseize then it's fantastic but there's plenty of budget-minded alternatives. Dark Ritual is also stellar in Phyrexian Arena builds, especially if you have other 3 drops such as one of the Lilis or even Liliana's Specter/Hypnotic Specter. Turn 1 Dark Ritual -> Phyrexian Arena is a bonkers opener in most grindy games and even if you fall back on something else then that's fine too.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Gonti's Machinations is good in burn versions of the deck.
Gifted Aetherborn is solid in Pestilence-heavy iterations. The big butt and lifelink are fantastic and he survives Massacre/Demon of Dark Schemes.
Liliana, the Last Hope is fantastic in Dark Ritual-based builds that can jam her on turn 1. I thoroughly enjoy playing versions that have 4x Dark Ritual, 4x Phyrexian Arena and then 4x [insert any other powerful 3 drop].
Oath of Liliana has become the de facto removal spell for the archetype given that it leaves you with devotion symbol. That makes it the best "Fleshbag Marauder" to field by a sizable margin.
Gonti, Lord of Luxury is an all-around solid 4 drop that you blindly jam on turn 4 in any situation. I still prefer Crypt Ghast though.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is insane and my favorite play is to jam him on turn 4 alongside Massacre to create a massive army.
The 5 mana Lili seems bad because she's competing with Gray Merchant which isn't a fight that she's ever going to win. You can obviously play 5-10 five drops if you want but when I do it tends to be Demigod of Revenge because A) it's bonkers with revival engines and B) it's bonkers with Gray Merchant. That being said I typically only field this combo in decks that have things like Phyrexian Reclamation and Oversold Cemetery because you want to be reviving Demigods/Garys as frequently as possible.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
2x Damnation
4x Dark Ritual
1x Demon of Dark Schemes
4x Dusk Legion Zealot
4x Fleshbag Marauder
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4x Leechridden Swamp
4x Phyrexian Arena
4x Phyrexian Rager
1x Phyrexian Reclamation
1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
10x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Mastermind's Acquisition
4x Oath of Liliana
1x Approach of the Second Sun
1x Erebos, God of the Underworld
4x Concealed Courtyard
Seriously: playing the Approach of 2nd Sun makes card draw a wincon, so I think you’re good.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.