MTG Salvation

I have theory-crafted and playtested a couple matches with the list below. The list is looking to do a couple things: 1.) use creatures as currency, often tokens, 2.) fill the graveyard, and 3.) recur answers and combo pieces to win the game.

Here is the list:


The main plan is to start filling my yard with my deck and use my copious amounts of recursion to always have the right answer until I am ready to combo off and win. In most cases, I have cheap answers to permanents so I can recur and play them right away (bonus points if they can be Skullclamped for value). While doing that, I produce tokens, not really as a go wide strategy, but as a way to fuel Fecundity or Dark Prophecy drawing, as well as chump blocking or even mana.

The deck wins with a few combos:

Deathrender + Gravedigger effect in hand + Gravedigger effect in graveyard + Blood Artist effect and sac outlet in play. This is much easier with either Baloth Null or Deadwood Treefolk in hand as you can fetch the Blood Artist effect from the graveyard as well.

Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod’s Altar + Nest Invader/Catacomb Sifter/Eyeless Watcher/Brood Monitor + Blood Artist effect/Slimefoot, the Stowaway. Any of the Eldrazi plus Ashnod’s is infinite ETB/death triggers. Watcher and Monitor also produce infinite colorless mana, which allows Slimefoot to make infinite saprolings which are sacc’d to drain the table.

Jarrad, Golgari Lich Lord also has some large fatties to sacrifice, though it may not appear so at first. Both Golgari Grave-Troll and Kraul Harpooner can be gigantic with 40 creatures that can find their way into the graveyard.

The deck can also simply outlast other decks and bury them in card advantage.

I am open to suggestions and potential weaknesses to look out for. Obviously, I could consider some fast mana, but I actually don’t love it in this deck and am actively looking to replaceGolgari Signet as it is one of the few cards that has basically no synergy with my deck at all.


Pet Synergies:

Note: All of these require a cost-free, instant-speed sac outlet in play. That’s why we’re playing one in the command Zone. And also why we are playing Viscera Seer, Sadisic Hypnotist and Ashnod’s Altar.

Crawling Sensation + Fecundity/Dark Prophecy

Crawling Sensation is a very fair card. No matter how many lands you dump into your yard on a turn, you get one insect token. To make it really good is to trigger it on each opponents turn. There are many ways to do this, but the easiest is drawing cards on our opponents’ turns.

That sounds counter intuitive until you consider that we have 5 Dredge cards, plus Underrealm Lich and Abundance as ways to bin cards as we draw them. The best engine is with Call the Bloodline and Dakmor Salvage which allows us to pay 1 to create our draw fodder plus a lifelinking vampire token. We also have 9 lands that can find their way to the graveyard from our hand or the battlefield.

Golgari Thug+Ulvenwald Mysteries+ Ashnod’s Altar

With the Thug trigger, you can put whatever creature you want to draw from your graveyard on top. Mysteries gives you a clue to draw it for 2, plus a soldier token for your trouble. Ashnod’s Altar gives you the mana you need to pay for the clue. Simple enough.

However, you can also dredge the Thug (ignoring the creature you top), sacrifice the soldier token for 2 and pay b to recast the Thug, netting yourself 1. Basically, as long as you have black mana, you can continue to dredge 4 cards. Since the deck runs several ways to recur win conditions, this can be very advantageous.

Adding a Grim Haruspex/Fecundity/Dark Prophecy effect lets us both draw the creature we top AND dredge the Thug. Now we can tear through the deck and sculpt our hand as we do it. I’m not running it because I don’t have it, but this would also go infinite with a Phyrexian Altar once you recur a Nest Invader or Eyeless Watcher. Essentially, you would dredge your deck while drawing the creature pieces, then recurring the artifact engine of your choice.

Life from the Loam + Buried Ruin + Artifact Win Conditions

As long as our artifacts find their way to the graveyard, we should be able to return them via Loam + Buried Ruin. This lets us use Golgari Findbroker to retrieve a creature or enchantment.

Updates to the deck since I played through it a few more times:

In:
+ Deathrite Shaman
+ Satyr Wayfinder
+ Glacial Chasm

Out:
- Golgari Signet
- Kodama’s Reach
- Memorial to Folly

The deck wants creatures, so replacing the Signet and Reach was a priority, plus neither of those things does much of anything in the graveyard. I settled on DRS becaus I lacked any grave hate, and it can also be ramp. I do wish it could be clamped, but I do have plenty of sac outlets in a pinch. Wayfinder, even though it doesn’t ramp me, can get my engine going sooner and replace itself with a land.

I’m monitoring my tap land situation and may consider removing the Mosswort Bridge and the noob fetches for additional untapped sources to have more consistent early turns.

You have a few cards in your deck list where the tags don't work. Some are just misspellings and others are (presumably) because the apostrophe is wrong. Here are the cards that don't work:

• 1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
  
• 1 Sadistic Hypnotist
  
• 1 Pharika's Mender
  
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
  
• 1 Kodama's Reach

Also, here is your list again but in alphabetical order. This is more so I can look through the list and see what cards you have and ensure I haven't just skipped over ones I think you should have:


Anyway...it sounds like you are open to combos so is there any reason you aren't running Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion? Since you are in green you could even run Tooth and Nail to get to them.

If you really wanted to gop further into filling your graveyard, The Gitrog Monster + Dakmor Salvage (which you have) + a discard outlet (I see you have Sadistic Hypnotist but Skirge Familiar works too) puts your entire library into your graveyard. With Lord of Extinction and Jarad, you can one-shot the table.

So first, thanks for the feedback. I definitely considered Mike and Trike, but 1.) I don’t own those cards and 2.) I consider that particular combo to be just a tad too powerful for my playgroup, especially with TaN. The trio also run like $80, so I’ll prolly go without until my playgroup gets a bit more powered.

As far as Gitrog, I definitely considered putting him in, not necessarily to dredge the deck in one shot with Dakmor, but as a great value engine. I definitely want to find a spot for him at some point to try him out. Hypnotist could get hard to continually pay for so I’d probably have to throw in the Skirge to enable the loop, and the mana could pay for combining off once the yard is full as long as I have enough green. I’ll have to try it out.

Lord of Extinction is a card I don’t really like for this deck. It falls into the category of “only a win condition,” and at 5 mana, it’s a bit too much for me. My Jarad sac targets are a 2-mana answer to fliers and a 5 mana deck enabler, and I am OK with that.

Varolz decks really like Phyrexian Dreadnought.

Thanks for the reply. There is certainly a scavenge deck that works well for Varolz, especially with infect creatures. As far as Dreadnought and his friend Death’s Shadow are concerned, they are really a part of a different deck.

Deck performed very well this weekend, even with limited mana. The combination of Dredgers and Clues is great, as are they with Abundance and Underrealm Lich.
As a bonus, I have now staved off death twice by having the aforementioned cards as draw replacements.

In my final game of the day with some pretty tuned lists, I hung around on 4-5 lands for most of the game. My turns went in this order to win over the final 3. Cast Catacomb Sifter, sac Scion, cast Ashnod’s Altar. Elesh Norn hits, but my 0/1 Elzdrazi lives. Cast Vindictive Vampire, also a 0/1. Elesh Norn controller is killed leaving me and one other. I untap, play Eternal Witness, retrieve and play Nim Deathmantle, tapping out. Sac Witnes to Altar, sac Sifter to Altar, drain 2 and bring back Sifter with Deathmantle. Sac Spawn to Altar, sac Sifter to Altar, drain 2 and bring back Sifter with Deathmantle. Repeat until I win!

I was certainly lucky to live that long, mostly because I was missing land drops. And this is why I play such a low curve in this deck. I was able to make plays even without mana for long enough to be in the game and win with 2/5’s the mana of my opponents.

Would desecrated tomb be any good for you?
If you’re recurring the creatures or scavenging them you print a flier

That’s a pretty interesting piece. It could replace Nest Invader pretty cleanly.

With so many creatures in your list, have you considered Lurking Predators? It looks like it would hit creatures fairly often and I like how it pays for itself quickly in a lot of cases.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

With so many creatures in your list, have you considered Lurking Predators? It looks like it would hit creatures fairly often and I like how it pays for itself quickly in a lot of cases.

It definitely should hit a creature fairly often. My main concern is it has a high CMC. Additionally, it’s a bit of an attention grabbing card, which is generally at odds with the rest of the deck as many of the cards are basically considered unplayable in EDH by most players.