I've always been a fan of the Dauthi cards but just wasn't sure how get they would play just in a tribal theme but figured I'd give it a shot. I have all the cards feeding off each other in one way or another along with some stall tactics and other cards that just allow me to go nuts with this deck. It's been awhile since I've seen shadow or the Dauthi be played at all and I wanted to revive them. Any suggestions on how to improve this?
Only 18 lands won't do. You have some very costly creatures to play only 18 lands.
You have no turn 1 play besides ritual into something, this is unacceptable in legacy. You need to run some disruption or else combo decks will just trample over you. Some nice inclusion would be thoughtseize, hymn to tourach, inquisition of kozilek.
I'm only going to suggest thoughtseize for now. Otherwise shadow isn't as relevant as it once was because of power creep. I want to suggest cards like dark confidant and deathrite shaman as well but that just pushes you away from your theme.
Oh and the other big suggestion, cut hatred. That life as an additional cost just kept getting worse with the spells available now.
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Maybe you could go for a tempo deck. Use less creatures and more cheap removal like Vendetta/Innocent Blood and cheap discard like Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy. Then you just keep swinging with 2-3 dmg every turn until you win.
I've upped the mana from 18 to 20, swapped out Nevinyrral's Disk, for Bonesplitter, switched out dauthi mindripper and stronghold overseer for nether traitor to keep the mana low, and Pillar Tombs of Aku, Hatred, Drain Life for dismember and Hymn to Tourach . this has smoothed out my mana curve a lot and should allow me to run things quicker. Thank you for all the suggestions, only thing is about sword of fire and ice I just don't see very viable atm though since I'm trying to keep my mana low which is why i went for bonesplitter instead. Thougthseize is good but I don't know what I would remove at current to fit a couple copies in or some more kill spells at that too if needed. Are there any other holes that can eb filed even though I only thought it was the mana problem that was the issue but there may be something i'm missing that i can't quite find.
Unholy strength and bad moon are unnecessary. Ensnaring bridge feels like it is counter intuitive to your plan. That should free up space for thought seize. More kill spells should also be unnecessary as well since discard can fulfill that role to an extent. Your choice of removal suite will be more important depending on what you expect to face. I do feel you can get away with dark confidant and chrome mox for example to speed you up a bit and create a card advantage engine.
SoFI is notable for being aggressive, but with that it now helps get through true-name nemesis. Umezawa's Jitte is probably the only other equipment I would consider for your deck.
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Run the bonesplitters instead of unholy strenght. They basically do the same thing but can be reused.
hymn to tourach is a 4 of since is one of the best black discard. You also want somewhat around 6 1cc discard like thoughtseize, duress or inquizition of kozilek.
Jittes are amazing and very fast.
bob can be a little dangerous since your curve is a little higher. Some phyrexian arena or even sign in blood could be nice.
i like vendetta as a removal, even main deck, but that's a matter of preference.
Why is Wall of Souls still here?
I'd swap strength for more Bad Moons and I'd keep the overseers over the Bridges.
Why? Well S&T and Ritual can get you overseer, and S&T decks can't block. Between overseer and your little guys you can expect to attack for about 10 when S&T hits, giving you a reasonable win chance.
I'd add Reanimate so you can steal Goyfs, Bobs, Griselbrands or just get your Overseer online early.
What you want is to be swinging for about 5 T2-T3 and every turn after that.
I would run one more dauthi horror over nether traitor (one extra power can make a huge difference in your clock), and I would definitely run dark confidant over wall of souls. If you're worried about blockers, you could likewise choose bitterblossom instead. Either one provides a lot of card advantage.
I agree that ensnaring bridge should come out. This deck would far more benefit from discard as has already been suggested.
Various removal has been suggested, but I saw no smother suggested. It might actually be better than dismember in here. There is also victim of night as it is sometimes pretty good.
dark confidant is a good card but it's a little out of my price range and for adding the Jitte just where I am at the moment there very hard to come by in my magic community. I swapped out nether traitor to put Stronghold Overseer back in and increase my Dauthi Horror to 4. I removed Go for the Throat and switched in Innocent Blood , as well as switching Unholy Strength for thoughtseize. Ensnaring Bridge, and Bad Moon were removed to increase Hymn to Tourach to 4 and add in Reanimate which could combo with Innocent blood or just be useful over all I think. I know the wall needs to come out but I'm not sure what to fill it with kill, card advantage or creatures at this point.
Bitterblossom , would prove useful but with the amount of discard and kill there seems to be I don't think it would be necessary seeing as most of the spells are quick snaps to play if I need to. I seen phyrexian arena and sign in blood as suggested cards that could give me some card advantage but I'm not sure if they would fit in since they give me more life loss unless that doesn't really matter? I also decided to try smother in place of dismember, just to see how it would play out but may switch back or switch it out again.
I'd run Inquisition of Kozilek instead of Reanimate. Sure it can steal something nice from the opponent, but on legacy there are so many decks that don't rely on creatures that it will often become a dead card on your hand, whereas IoK can pretty much disable 90% of legacy strongest cards.
Would it be better to swap out reanimate for iok in the long run? since it seems the quick discard and dwindling down my opponents hand would be key for this type of deck theme. Also was wondering would it be better to increase smother to 4 and maybe add in Diabolic Edict instead of innocent blood or should I pick one of the other suggested kill spells? Was also thinking would a copy of Liliana Vess, Liliana of the Dark Realms or Liliana of the Veil be wise to add in since either one might be useful but am currently on the fence about that. And it still leaves me with the question of What should I remove the walls for maybe Bitterblossom, or phyrexian arena or sign in blood? These are all cards to consider right now since they seem to fit the theme and that they would work but I'm at an impass on which to add and swap out .
You really should use 4 Bonesplitter since it's a great pump for your creatures, swinging for 4 each turn is very powerful and is a must, since you can't block an enemy Tarmogoyf or Delver of Secrets you'll need to do more damage than them to win.
I really like Phyrexian Arena, it's very difficult to deal with and helps giving you the discard/removal needed to keep the board on your favor. You could use them instead of your walls to see if it's worth, since the arena will provide the removal needed to protect yourself.
Few small changes made swapped out Innocent Blood for Geth's Verdict, Reanimate for Inquisition of Kozilek . Also removed Wall of Souls to increase smother to 3 as well as to add another Verdict and Bonesplitter, and I added 3 Phyrexian Arena to provide some of the card advantage that was suggested. Still was wondering would adding any of Liliana planeswalker be a good move that would help or should I just leave her out entirely?
Took this deck to my local Legacy tourni it did surprising well, I ended up finishing 3rd overall with it. No one expected this type of deck to come up so I was able to surprise some of my opponents with the strategy of it. The discard is what saved me a lot making sure my opponents didn't have any cards to do much by dwindling their cards down in their hand. Having a ghoul in my hand helped a bit if I knew my opponent was running a lot of kill spells since it would become the target or would get it's bonus from one of my guys being destroyed which I utilized at times by destroying my own creatures after they attacked to boost my Ghoul for a little more damage. The overseer seen play though not a lot but it did help out a bit with it's ability helping to balance out some of the battles. Over all I think it performed well and I look forward to making this deck even stronger, maybe go b/u shadow to mix it up for next time. I would like to thank everyone that helped me fine tune this deck and for all the suggestions that were made.
I'm surprised none of you ever took advantage of the strong points of the dauthi cards that already have removal spells built into them. Most of the Dauthi cards don't need extra removal cards (instant, Sorcery.) All of these decks are basically "stupid" with built in partial sideboards for dealing with certain threats. Original Dauthi decks could basically deal with anything.
3 Dauthi Horror
2 Dauthi Mindripper
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Dauthi Warlord
4 Wall of Souls
2 Stronghold Overseer
4 Go for the Throat
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Hatred
1 Pillar Tombs of Aku
2 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Unholy Strength
1 Drain Life
1 Bad Moon
You have no turn 1 play besides ritual into something, this is unacceptable in legacy. You need to run some disruption or else combo decks will just trample over you. Some nice inclusion would be thoughtseize, hymn to tourach, inquisition of kozilek.
pilar tombs of aku? 5 damage for 2BB is just too much, 2 bump in the night does 6 for just BBand even that is a bad card.
I'd swap dauthi mindripper and stronghold overseer forr nether traitor.
hatred and drain life costs too much to be really played.
Some removal would be also good like doomblade, smother, victim of the night, dismember
Oh and the other big suggestion, cut hatred. That life as an additional cost just kept getting worse with the spells available now.
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Tiny Leaders Overlord
But I can see it working with Loxodon Warhammer or even Bonesplitter
3 Dauthi Horror
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Dauthi Warlord
4 Wall of Souls
3 nether traitor
3 Go for the Throat
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Bonesplitter
4 Unholy Strength
1 Bad Moon
2 dismember
3 Hymn to Tourach
SoFI is notable for being aggressive, but with that it now helps get through true-name nemesis. Umezawa's Jitte is probably the only other equipment I would consider for your deck.
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hymn to tourach is a 4 of since is one of the best black discard. You also want somewhat around 6 1cc discard like thoughtseize, duress or inquizition of kozilek.
Jittes are amazing and very fast.
bob can be a little dangerous since your curve is a little higher. Some phyrexian arena or even sign in blood could be nice.
i like vendetta as a removal, even main deck, but that's a matter of preference.
I'd swap strength for more Bad Moons and I'd keep the overseers over the Bridges.
Why? Well S&T and Ritual can get you overseer, and S&T decks can't block. Between overseer and your little guys you can expect to attack for about 10 when S&T hits, giving you a reasonable win chance.
I'd add Reanimate so you can steal Goyfs, Bobs, Griselbrands or just get your Overseer online early.
What you want is to be swinging for about 5 T2-T3 and every turn after that.
Look, Fetch, Draw, Look
Draw
Fetch
Look
I agree that ensnaring bridge should come out. This deck would far more benefit from discard as has already been suggested.
Various removal has been suggested, but I saw no smother suggested. It might actually be better than dismember in here. There is also victim of night as it is sometimes pretty good.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Bitterblossom , would prove useful but with the amount of discard and kill there seems to be I don't think it would be necessary seeing as most of the spells are quick snaps to play if I need to. I seen phyrexian arena and sign in blood as suggested cards that could give me some card advantage but I'm not sure if they would fit in since they give me more life loss unless that doesn't really matter? I also decided to try smother in place of dismember, just to see how it would play out but may switch back or switch it out again.
4 Dauthi Horror
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Dauthi Warlord
4 Wall of Souls
2 Stronghold Overseer
3 Innocent Blood
2 Bonesplitter
4 thoughtseize
3 Reanimate
2 smother
4 Hymn to Tourach
phyrexian arena or sign in blood? These are all cards to consider right now since they seem to fit the theme and that they would work but I'm at an impass on which to add and swap out .
You really should use 4 Bonesplitter since it's a great pump for your creatures, swinging for 4 each turn is very powerful and is a must, since you can't block an enemy Tarmogoyf or Delver of Secrets you'll need to do more damage than them to win.
I really like Phyrexian Arena, it's very difficult to deal with and helps giving you the discard/removal needed to keep the board on your favor. You could use them instead of your walls to see if it's worth, since the arena will provide the removal needed to protect yourself.
4 Dauthi Horror
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Dauthi Warlord
2 Stronghold Overseer
4 Geth's Verdict
3 Bonesplitter
4 thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 smother
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Phyrexian Arena