There are a few pages in the thread from people who ran it immediately after its ban. The basic consensus was that unless you are running main deck Soul Sisters (Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Auriok Champion, Suture Priest, et al.) that the life loss was far to large of a burden on top of Shocks, Fetches, and Thoughtsieze. Can you imagine T1: Fetch, Shock, Thoughtseize, T2: Land Bitterblossom? By the start of turn 3, assuming your opponent has dont nothing to you, you are already at 14 life. That means you only have 14 more turns to finish the game before Bitterblossom finishes you and again that assumes your opponent is doing nothing to you. It limits your later game options as well forcing shocks to come in tapped and making every single fetch you pull a liability. Given the options in the primer you would pretty much have to main deck Auriok Champion and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad over the more powerful Elspeth Tirel just because of Sorin's lifelink tokens.
B/W tokens is a slower deck, you aren't really gathering gas until about turn 4 or 5, kind of like a midrange deck, and the game plan is more grindy. By turn 4, with the proposed worst case scenario, you are at 13 life. Pretty much any future combination of Thoughtseize, Shock, or Fetch puts you below 10 and that's just the damage you did to yourself. Unlike U/B Faeries which turns those little tokens into powerups for your other critters Bitterblossom, while still strong is just a liability 50% of the time even before the game starts by forcing you to change the way you build the deck to accomodate it. That doesn't even get into how awkward it is to drop a 1B and a WW in the first three or for turns without using fetches or shocks which exasperate your life total woes.
I've not played with it personally, that's just the cliff notes version of what's in the thread.
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- herenorthere
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Also, his ability is ridiculous! In a single turn he can generate 15 damage! BY HIMSELF! And Jund colors can also give you Griselband as has been mentioned earlier. Of course, if you manage to get both Griselbrand and Borbo on the field...I would hope to god you don't lose....but Angel of Serenity is a thing so...
For creatures Bloodhunter Bat isn't bad. He helps get life back for things like Sign in Blood, Bloodgift Demon, and Underworld Connections. Same deal with Vampire Nighthawk. To keep on curve Daggerdome Imp also has lifelink and flying. The lifegain might be relevant to keep you in against more aggressive decks.
For late game reach Bump in the Night? It gives you reach out of nowhere. Remember, the card draw from Sign in Blood and Bloodgift Demon can be turned against your opponent to dig out those last couple points of life. Don't overlook Ultimate Price. Its awesome. There are a few things it doesn't hit that are worth noting such as most of the stuff in G/W aggro decks and Falkenrath Aristocrat in B/R zombies. Dead Weight is a good removal or can at least take the edge off some creatures in a pinch. Otherwise Murder is your go to.
Non-budget friendly upgrades: I know this is MBC but if you can get ahold of 4 Blood Crypt definitely (for Mutilate) and maybe 4 Dragonskull Summit it would be well worth running Rakdos's Return. From what I understand this card (more or less) can singlehandedly beat any control mirror. Griselbrand is really good in this kind of deck as well as Lilliana of the Veil if you want to go the more hardcore discard route and run the various discard rats/cats, Mind Rot, and main deck Shrieking Affliction.
If you want to go the Lilliana of the Dark Realms route then Lilliana's Shade, Killing Wave, and especially Rakdos's Return become INSANE. The Return could easily do 30 damage after Lilliana's ultimate!
Gatecrash promises to be kind to MBC with the release of the Dimir guild (which if you are unfamiliar is a U/B control oriented group). So that's my 2 cents.
This got my juices flowing so I brewed something up real quick. This is a very quickly done, but more optimal and less budget friendly list. It should be easy to find what you can't afford and maybe find similar things to put in. Anyway, linky:
4x Daggerdrome Imp
4x Vampire Nighthawk
2x Bloodgift Demon
2x Griselbrand
Spells:
4x Duress
4x Appetite for Brains
3x Ultimate Price
3x Murder
3x Mutilate
2x Rakdos's Return
2x Underworld Connections
3x Liliana of the Dark Realms
Land:
18x Swamp
4x Blood Crypt
3x Liliana's Shade
4x Dead Weight
4x Shrieking Affliction
4x Bloodhunter Bat
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
Is this supposed to be official? I don't remember seeing it among the other leaks.
I like it but it seems...really, really powerful. Can you imagine if most of the creatures are this cheap? You would be able to absolutely terrorize your opponents board with little effort. Splash Red for Curse of the Pierced Heart and black has Curse of Thirst. White even has Curse of Exhaustion. This just seems..so brutal. I realize the card in the picture is a rare but given the way that the ability text is written it doesn't appear that the ability will change based on the rarity or other stats of the creature.
Both of these already exist. Counterflux & Essence Backlash
I love Pillory of the Sleepless. You could technically reproduce a version of the card by combining existing effects such as Stab Wound and Martial Law, Sphere of Safety, or Pacificism. That's a lot of work but its the start of a really abusive Orzhov "tax" deck. Make it Esper and add in Feeling of Dread? Sorry, got carried away lol. But otherwise, that feel. I would really like to see them reprint at least 1 or 2 of some of the more popular guild cards such as maybe Pillory and Wee Dragonauts or even Schismotivate! Though with Augur Spree around I don't have much hope for Schismotivate. It would be awesome with Blistercoil Weird though and maybe Teleportal?
I guess long story short I would like to see them build more synergistic cards. I'm sick of these uncreative "good stuff" decks.
And as I write this I see on facebook that a R/G Planeswalker was just spoiled which I think makes it more likely that Gideon might be mono-white.
I lol'd but there is a lot of truth to this statement. It makes sense when you put it that way. The possibility for 5 is awesome but you would never go "Oh! I'm going to get five in this matchup!" but you might go "Geez, I wish I could split my 3 this time." Better to bet on the possibility for 5 then having the ability to split being meaningless such as against Bant most of the time. I've seen a few dorkless Bant lists that just run 4 Farseek instead. The advantage of Flames is completely lost against those decks.
At any rate, I guess my comment is on Brimstone Volley. (I read the entire thread so far and there were a couple comments about the card being a little disappointing. It always does at least 3 dmg so that's not really a problem but that they never seem to hit the morbid trigger. I have the same experience. It seems that when the trigger does happen my mana is all used up and I can't take advantage of it. On the other hand Flames of the Firebrand is only seeing 2 or 3 of in most lists or even being relegated to the SB. Couldn't there be an argument to use more Flames instead of Volley and that maybe Volley should be SB in place of Flames MD or is the mere possibility of 5 that much more worth the potential (match based) utility of Flames? In my list I'm running more Flames out of personal preference but the comment earlier was glossed over so quickly I feel there could be a little more said on this issue.