So Innistrad block was kind of a massive disappointment for this deck, couple marginal upgrades but nothing that exciting.
But now we got some sweet conspiracy spoilers
Kaya, Ghost Assassin - seems pretty strong, I've moved into more a harder stax approach since combos are pretty tough to get off in my meta now, too much spot removal running rampant so games tend to go long and so PWs have started to shine. This one seems particularly strong since she is pretty hard to kill. Lets you save creatures before Death Cloud or Cataclysm.
Recruiter of the Guard - tutors pretty much every relevant creature in the deck, is a creature itself which allows you to recur easily, also passes both the Sun Titan and Reveillark test, just seems incredibly solid.
I've been piloting a teysa deck every similar to yours, and it is by far one of my favorite decks to play. My lgs has a healthy atmosphere with a good number of high powered, but mostly, fair decks. My question to those experienced with the deck, is what are some good cards to run to disrupt stupid fast combo decks like boonweaver karador and the like?
Mix this with a decent amount of artifact/enchantment spot removal and you should have most of your bases covered, Abolish has been my mvp in more games than I can count, Disenchant, Seal of Cleansing and a bit more expensive - Anguished Unmaking and Aura of Silence cover me a bit later.
There's a strange mentality on this forum that spot removal is in general bad because you lose value in multiplayer. The amount of times you lose to random artifacts/enchantments/creatures or to combos that can be easily interupted at instant speed (which are always present in high-powered metas) makes these kinda cards worth running even if you miss out having sick value card #15 in your deck
Another thing to note is that Blood Artist and Suture Priest randomly wreck a lot of infinite creature combos
Praetor's Grasp is cute but the utility of those kinda cards is limited outside of stopping a combo which might not even go off. That said I'd run it if you know other people at the table are running cards part of their combos that are also your combo pieces (Blood Artist, Triskellion, Phyrexian Altar etc)
Random Aside: finally got aroudn to getting a Death Cloud and this card is the bee's knees. Never been sad to play it, either it wins you the game or it's a giant middle finger to everyone else who is about to win - win/win situation
In combo builds Hanweir Militia Captain isn't that good. You can't combo out with this at all.
This is a fair point. I should be hoping to do something significant when I have a board presence, not just be okay with churning out one dude a turn hoping I can control the board, even if it is a BW creature which is so hard to come by, esp in token form.
The captain and the land might still warrant testing just on the merits of making black and white tokens, but I could end up not using either, we'll see.
The land is fine, it's almost a free roll and better (I think) than most colourless lands in this deck already. Hopefully there are some other abusable BW token makers in this set or the next
Also there's Forsaken Sanctuary more dual lands are always welcome, I'm probably at max for the amount of taplands I want to run or I'll replace scoured barrens with this, the art is orders of magnitude better.
Nothing in this set seems like a crazy autoinclude so far. Some decent cards to be sure Anguished Unmaking and Westvale Abbey but they're hardly significant upgrades. It's nice to see that they are making some b/w token producers but don't think i'll include any of them, once per turn is incredibly slow although it is only a 2 drop so who knows.
the 2 cards that really caught my eye so far are Call the Bloodline which could be a decent discard outlet for a more reanimator focused build but probably still worse than Zombie Infestation, although not having to discard 2 cards might make it better. Certainly has fewer combo applications though
Diregraf Colossus could be amazing but would require a dramatic shift in deckbuilding, might be worth it though. atm I only have Carrior Feeder as my only zombie so I probably won't bother trying to make this guy work, but I coudl see it being very strong
Has anyone managed to get some play time in for the new goodies? How have Ayli and Kalitas been performing?
Surprising amount of changes for my deck at least for this set after playing a couple games these look to be my changes so far
+ Kalitas Traitor of Ghet - this guy has been pretty good get a surprising amount of zombies and randomly exiling creatures is a fairly good upside
+ Matter Reshaper - nice little value play been pretty happy with him, sometimes you just flip a Phyrexian Altar and win the game. THe hitrate on this guy is pretty good at least in my deck, I have 13 cards with higher CMC than 3 and of those with lower than 3 CMC I have 9 that are non-permanents, most of which are draw spells (for a total of 22 cards this does not put into play)
+ Corpse Churn - been pretty happy with this, instant speed Disentomb is surprisingly useful in the later stages and the extra self mill is always nice
+ Sea Gate Wreckage - nice when you stall out, replaced Ghost Quarter with this as I've actually used Ghost Quarter maybe once to destroy a land
+ Mirrorpool - this card is amazing value for a land
- Ghost Quarter - explained above
- Read the Bones - removed to test Corpse Churn in its place, seems it'll stay out
- Nim Deathmantle - after a lot of thought I finally removed this card, most of the time it sits there and does nothing. The cost is expensive to get any kinda value and while it does go infinite with Ashnod's Altar, so do a lot of things and I felt this one two-card interation was not enough to keep it in the deck
- Vampiric Rites - slower than I thought initially
- Bojuka Bog - another niche card, the effect is nice sometimes but as a general trend I am moving away from large amounts of tap lands in my deck as I think the value of not being slowed down is more valuable than the niche effects some of the tap lands give
In terms of Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim she doesn't quite cut it in my deck. Paying for the sac effect is rough and there are not a lot of high toughness creatures. I also don't have that much lifegain but I have a lot of self-damage cards from draw spells/mana base making the second ability almost impossible to trigger. If you have more lifegain I can see her being decent but she just doesn't fit in my deck.
Another card I think is worth considering that I completely passed over when I was looking at this set is Holdout Settlement It's an untapped rainbow source with a fairly minor stipulation so I'll be giving it a go in theme with removing as many tap lands as I can. Including so many colourless utility lands definitely is starting to have issues in my deck so I'm trying to up the fixing in untapped form where I can. Might try out Tendo Ice Bridge and Tarnished Citadel if I can get my hands on some.
Non-set cards worth considering
Painful Truths with the rule change regarding off colour mana this thing can now be cast for its full converge value using rainbow lands (City of Brass and co) so I'll probably add it when I get around it.
Been out of internet areas for a while but back just in time for the full spoiler. Here's my take on the new set I picked out the cards I could feasibly see including in this deck ranked from most intriguing to least
90% to include tier Matter Reshaper - This gets me all kinds of happy A pity it's 3 power but at worst it cantrips, I feel it may be amazing if you engineer the deck a bit more to work with it Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - not great token production to be honest however exiling enemy creatures is good enough that I think this will find a slot. You won't go crazy with tokens with this guy but even if you can get him to make one token you're doing alright and I can conceive of games where he makes far more. Corpse Churn - small term value card, I am considering replacing one of my draw spells with this thing. It seems fairly strong actually when compared to something like Sign in Blood.I am always looking for stuff to go into my graveyard. In the early game it will kinda suck if you want to draw to more lands however later on it lets you fetch a creature you really need to return for whatever reason (blood Artist to get ur combo, Auramancer to get back another enchantment or whatever) i naddition to putting more stuff in your GY and again, instant!
Either the best or the worst thing ever tier Inverter of Truth - this also gets my gears turning, I don't know what I want to do with this thing yet but I will pick one up for I feel there is some kind of wonky combo that this will be good for. Null Caller - probably not going to include but seems like he could go a long way with a different build. I am not really about exiling my creatures though
Fits the theme of the deck but not good enough to include tier Eldrazi Displacer - seems like value but i doubt ill actually play it in this deck Sifter of Skulls - worse Pawn of Ulamog, a card which is already on my chopping block so eh, whatever Drana's Chosen - way too slow Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - probably a good general in its own right but here it's a sac engine with a cost (bad) and an ability that we will probably never meet the condition for
First off,
to the OPer, awesome job on this primer. Can't say enough thanks for how great a resource this is.
Has anyone considered using bloodsoaked champion as recurable sacrifice fodder? He's doing serious work for me in standard Aristocrats right now (not to mention cutthroat, abomination, new liliana, haruspex which are all in my 99 as well)
Anyways, I just switched my Ghost Council of Orzhova deck over to this and can't wait to start playing it.
I use Bloodsoaked Champion. He loops the same as Reassembling Skeleton except it has to be done on you'r turn.
New cards coming out, Daxos the Returned seems lacklustre, wonky art too. I guess you can spam the ability for 0 p/t guys for value but at 3 mana that ability is costed way out of the realm of playability in this deck at least.
Dawnbreak Reclaimer and Dread Summons have potential but they'll be fairly average I suspect so far none of the new cards excite me at all
Thanks Darth, I'm terrible at remembering cards names. I have most of the mana rocks in my deck already. I am currently running every tutor I can except Vamp and the four mana one because I can't find a Vamp besides the judge promo. I have a cruel tutor in his place.
I'll definitely try to find these today when I'm at the shop. I also added the Sanguine Bond +Blood Pact combo just because it seems having either card out helps grind the game faster. Extort is awesome, and everything in the deck seems to work one way or another with them.
If you think of anything else let me know, I've been researching myself, but I've been super busy so I haven't really had a chance. Thanks again.
Pretty much in my opinion speeding the combo is the worst option because it has many more moving parts than most other combos in EDH. So you will always be slower than your counterparts or if you are faster you will have dedicate a lot more to even get there and will have a lot of trouble protecting it. That's why I think disrupting the combos then grinding out your own combo a bit slower is the more advisable route.
The other side of attack which is far less popular on these forums because there's this perception that these cards are anti-value in multiplayer but I think is far more important is spot removal for Artifacts/Enchantments. You will be surprised how many combos you can completely demolish if you have a Disenchant sitting in hand. My weapons of choice are Abolish, Seal of Cleansing, Revoke Existence, Fate Forgotten, Aura of Silence. I try to hit a good balance between instant speed interaction/exiling effects/recurrability/converted cost but you can't have it all.
The other route you can take is disruption which I find significantly more effective since people are often not prepared for it. They are often well prepared for a race but can do next to nothing if you throw a good spanner in the works. I'm talking full lockdown Contamination (by far and away the best card in this category, might be the best card in my whole deck) A lot of decks are just stone cold to Contamination, Ethersworn Canonist, Rule of Law, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Containment Priest, Suppression FieldArmageddon and perhaps my favourite Tainted Æther. If you're crazy you can run Rest in Peace but this hoses you just as bad as the other heh. I like the disruptive creatures the most because you have a lot of the control over turning them on/off with your sac engines, so you can just bin them when they start to hurt you. A lot of these will stop combos until they are removed from the board and so should give you some more breathing room. Fast combos are pretty scary but pretty disruptible. There are more but this was just from the top of my head.
I'm glad I came back to check on this thread, although I was disappointed that I wasn't given an opinion on cards I was considering other than Volrath's Stronghold. I'll take your word for it though, Schondetta.
I too share people's love for Liliana, Heretical Healer. I got to ultimate her in a multiplayer game and won, even through a hardcasted Omniscience. Best showing of her by far.
Despite needing mana to use, I've personally found that Thoughtpicker Witch was funny as hell whenever I could use it, basically controlling draws and exiling problem cards before they draw them was great. However I am open minded to making changes necessary if it helps the deck. I wasn't so thrilled at Smothering Abomination at first due to the forced sac each turn (so not great when drawn while behind) but people have convinced me to give it a shot. I really like Vampiric Rites too, although it follows the same reasoning as Thoughtpicker and I shouldn't have to use mana to sac.
I don't know if Zulaport Cutthroat can make the cut(lol no pun intended), since I would likely run both him and Blood Artist instead of a straight replacement, but what does everyone think about the "each opponent" upside with the "you control" downside? I can see the former is better in multiplayer games and since we are usually killing our own stuff anyways, it may not be a difference. Should I try to run both for the redundancy, or is one usually better then the other?
My last question is, of the fringe cards that have been floating around on here I don't run, like
how would you rank these as far as how each could improve my deck? Whether that be more tokens for enabling, more draw, or helping me control the board if my focus is to ultimately win thru combo/control? So whats the order of what is most important to try and make room for?
Rather than clog the page up with my list again, here's my decklist link for reference
Appreciate the feedback
Just on Smothering Abomination - it triggers on any creature you sac - doesn't have to be black/white and most importantly there is no non-token restriction this card is the bees knees. The upkeep sac is an upside if anything. If you are hurting for a sac engine it turns into a phyrexian arena that also lets you bin your dudes (which should not really be a downside in this deck)
In order of just my personal opinion
1. Grim Haruspex just a solid card draw engine that lets you go nuts
2. Ophiomancer probably the 3rd-4th best token spell in black behind Endrek Sahr and Sengir Autocrat, not sure if it's better than Marsh Flitter but its pretty damn good. If the game goes long its amazing.
I don't really run token producers anymore unless they are really good quality, a lot of the time it is better to just go looping Reassembling Skeleton/Nether Traitor/Tenacious Dead with your general to make spirits - sidenote I think Bloodghast is weak because you can't fit it into an infinite combo like these other ones so it's pretty far down my recursive creature list
3. Smokestack uncontested this will just win you the game
4. Vulturous Aven like Read the Bones/Sign in Blood/Night's Whisper but attached to a creature which makes it recurrable
5. Xathrid Necromancer I dunno I kinda lost favour with this card it's good but it's not any better than Liliana, Heretical Healer in most circumstances I just straight up replaced it when Origins came out
6-8. Plunge Into Darkness, Spirit Bonds, Meekstone I've tested these all out and they're pretty bad imo. Plunge Into Darkness is pretty cute but super niche and most of the time won't do what you want it to do. Spirit Bonds it just a more expensive and worse version of our commander. If you are after an additional effect like this I'd suggest Field of Souls it's more expensive to drop down but has no further investment. Meekstone is just pointless you have a massive creature removal suite so you should not be having trouble with large creatures.
I think Vampiric Rites might make it into my deck. Not in the sac engine slot but in the card draw slot. With the recent printings of decent cards above 2 power (Grim Haruspex, Smothering Abomination and friends) I find myself tempted to push the power up a bit and go on a more Reanimator/Stax angle. I've been pretty unimpressed with Mentor of the Meek recently so I think I'll be testing out Vampiric Rites in its place just to see how it goes.
Zulaport Cutthroat I guess is just (almost) a strict upgrade to Blood Artist shame that the art isn't as sweet but whatever. There was also Falkenrath Noble for additional Blood Artist effects, not sure I'll run 3 but who knows. Though I guess at this point it might be worth slotting it in over Soul Warden.
The other card on the fringe I'm considering is Emeria Shepherd, it costs a lot but once you have a good stax lock going it pretty much just lets you edge out the game. Might have to up the plains count in my deck for this to work though hah and might need some other structural adjustments. It lets you get back Altars and stuff and it might be good to re-include something like Oblivion Ring or whatever to take extra advantage of this effect.
Think ill include both the new lands Mortuary Mire and Blighted Fen I love me some incidental value. Shambling Vent is like whatever, tapped dual land with very marginal upside don't think I need more tap lands.
Hi, I am a long time lurker, but this is my first time posting. After years of watching from the sidelines I have finally decided to build an EDH deck and this one looks the most promising. I have most of the pieces gathered, but as I am assembling I have a couple questions about card choices.
1. Having dropped a couple bucks on Rotlung Reanimator I have to ask, "why?" Is it actually decent or does it merely follow the theme? I assume that the only reason it is being run over Doomed Traveler is the fact that both he and the token are black as opposed white.
2. Has anyone considered running Thoughtpicker Witch? I mean, it is a sac outlet and the ability is a pseudo-fateseal, which is pretty useful. I used to use it all the time back in the old Ravnica days. Is it simply not very good in a multi-player setting?
3. Are running wraths beyond Martial Coup a waste? I ask because if I am playing white I really like the comfort of being able to wrath the board if things get out of hand. I suppose the point is to be the one who is getting out of hand, but does running multiple board wipes just take up space better used elsewhere?
Thanks for the help.
Think FearDReaper answered the first 2 spot on.
In terms of wraths, in my opinions Martial Coup isn't even great in this deck. I've been running this EDH deck for a long time and tried lots of iterations including wrath heavy and wrath light versions with pretty much every wrath you could imagine. I think any wrath that only hits creatures is not worth running except for maybe Rout for the instant speed. This deck is already well equipped to deal with creature heavy board states (Grave Pact et al or just having Teysa, Orzhov Scion pewpew everything down). Instead I think the most effective wraths to run are the ones which can hit Artifacts/Enchantments as these will be the things you will have most difficulty dealing with in large numbers. Austere Command is by far the best wrath you can run for the swiss army knife worth of options on it. The next two strongest (IMO) are Merciless Eviction - exiles and has options and Akroma's Vengeance hits everything and cycles for when you don't need it.
Moving on looks like BFZ has some more random good cards for us. Mortuary Mire should slot in fairly easily
Mortuary Mire
Land - Common
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield tapped.
When Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield, you may put target creature card from your graveyard on top of your library.
T: Add B to your mana pool.
So i love the idea around this deck i took apart my Ghave deck to make this one and a 1v1 Momir deck. Im sure this has been covered before somewhere in the post but 24 pages is alot to comb through, so my meta is really good about removing graveyards via tormod's crypt and bojuka bog like effects or making it so cards cant be played from the yard. How would you suggest handling problems like that. Hexproof is also a massive problem specificly Sigarda, Host of Heronsjust says no to the whole deck for the most part. any ideas or suggestions?
In terms of how to deal with Sigarda, Host of Herons specifically, I think it is not as bad as it first appears. You can still Blood Artist the player out without any real hindrances. It mostly just removes the Smokestack of Grave Pact angle out of the picture. By far the most effective card to deal with her is from one of the new Commander sets. I think there are 3 main ways to deal with her.
1) Arcane Lighthouse absolutely hoses her and lets you just Teysa her away back to the command zone.
2) Spot Removal - I've found the best angle to attack her on is the enchantments/artifacts she will no doubt be equipped with. So long as you remove any problematic enchantments (eg something that gives trample or whatnot) with your spot removal (I'm a big fan of Disenchant type effects in EDH and think they are criminally underplayed) you can just chump block her with spirit tokens until you find a better way to go with it. Running more of this type of spot removal will also make you less soft to the above mentioned effects like Rest in Peace. I've lost to enough random artifacts/enchantments that I think its more than worth it to dedicate a few slots to this kinda spot removal.
3) Sweepers - You can always just wrath her away or better yet use an exiling wrath like Final Judgment or Merciless Eviction (which comes with the added flexibility of wrathing away her enchants/equipments if that better suits the situation)
In terms of the GY hate you face the only real killers are the continuous effects like Rest in Peace which can be dealt with by just running more enchant/artifact removal. The best approach to dealing with effects like Tormod's Crypt or Bojuka Bog are just playstyle changes. Try to keep mana open to save your Reassembling Skeleton/Nether Traitor etc , do not overload your graveyard with too many things at once if there is no reason to. Then you will find these effects don't hurt you that much. With enough spot removal you can always point your Disenchant at a Tormod's Crypt to force them to pop it before you go for your big plays also.
I just want to say omg Liliana, Heretical Healer . I play the stax version and I picked up a blacked out one for this deck because /12yolittlegirlnoises. This does everything I could want in a Planeswalker and screams abuse me. Creature? Check. <3CMC? Check. Disruption? Check. Recursion? Double Check. Top that off with the fact it is retardedly easy to flip and this is my new favorite Planeswalker it is that sweet.
The only real downside is that with Teysa, you might not get the best enemy creatures bc you're exiling them, which does happen. However, with Grave Pact or Martyr's Bond this card is the nuts.
Also, anyone hoping for some new goodies in the next commander set? Enemy generals, maybe we can get a swanky new Teysa? I'm personally hoping for a new some cards that are worth including if we're lucky enough to get an orzhov deck.
If the past EDH sets are anything to go by there will probably be nothing really to add. Off the top of my head I think it's just been Ophiomancer and Hallowed Spiritkeeper from the other EDH sets they've made. Whilst these cards are strong they aren't exactly super crazy.
I doubt we'll get an actual new Teysa and I have 0 faith in wotc's ability in designing multiplayer cards, esp generally. They can't really seem to hit a good balance between horribly powered and absolute trash when they make commanders but that's sjut my opinion.
Though I am hoping for a teysa reprint with new art. It would be good to have something without Creepy McCreeperson standing behind her.
But now we got some sweet conspiracy spoilers
Kaya, Ghost Assassin - seems pretty strong, I've moved into more a harder stax approach since combos are pretty tough to get off in my meta now, too much spot removal running rampant so games tend to go long and so PWs have started to shine. This one seems particularly strong since she is pretty hard to kill. Lets you save creatures before Death Cloud or Cataclysm.
Recruiter of the Guard - tutors pretty much every relevant creature in the deck, is a creature itself which allows you to recur easily, also passes both the Sun Titan and Reveillark test, just seems incredibly solid.
Spot removal is the best way to go, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile and Snuff Out are my creature removals of choice for the fast creature based combos - Dismember and Slaughter Pact are also good options.
Mix this with a decent amount of artifact/enchantment spot removal and you should have most of your bases covered, Abolish has been my mvp in more games than I can count, Disenchant, Seal of Cleansing and a bit more expensive - Anguished Unmaking and Aura of Silence cover me a bit later.
There's a strange mentality on this forum that spot removal is in general bad because you lose value in multiplayer. The amount of times you lose to random artifacts/enchantments/creatures or to combos that can be easily interupted at instant speed (which are always present in high-powered metas) makes these kinda cards worth running even if you miss out having sick value card #15 in your deck
The other approach you can take which is a bit more meta dependent is the stax angle - Spirit of the Labyrinth, Ethersworn Canonist, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Kataki, War's Wage all go in and out of my deck depending on the meta. Nihil Spellbomb and Relic of Progenitus are great is there are lots of GY based combos in your group
Another thing to note is that Blood Artist and Suture Priest randomly wreck a lot of infinite creature combos
Praetor's Grasp is cute but the utility of those kinda cards is limited outside of stopping a combo which might not even go off. That said I'd run it if you know other people at the table are running cards part of their combos that are also your combo pieces (Blood Artist, Triskellion, Phyrexian Altar etc)
Random Aside: finally got aroudn to getting a Death Cloud and this card is the bee's knees. Never been sad to play it, either it wins you the game or it's a giant middle finger to everyone else who is about to win - win/win situation
The land is fine, it's almost a free roll and better (I think) than most colourless lands in this deck already. Hopefully there are some other abusable BW token makers in this set or the next
Also there's Forsaken Sanctuary more dual lands are always welcome, I'm probably at max for the amount of taplands I want to run or I'll replace scoured barrens with this, the art is orders of magnitude better.
the 2 cards that really caught my eye so far are
Call the Bloodline which could be a decent discard outlet for a more reanimator focused build but probably still worse than Zombie Infestation, although not having to discard 2 cards might make it better. Certainly has fewer combo applications though
Diregraf Colossus could be amazing but would require a dramatic shift in deckbuilding, might be worth it though. atm I only have Carrior Feeder as my only zombie so I probably won't bother trying to make this guy work, but I coudl see it being very strong
Surprising amount of changes for my deck at least for this set after playing a couple games these look to be my changes so far
+ Kalitas Traitor of Ghet - this guy has been pretty good get a surprising amount of zombies and randomly exiling creatures is a fairly good upside
+ Matter Reshaper - nice little value play been pretty happy with him, sometimes you just flip a Phyrexian Altar and win the game. THe hitrate on this guy is pretty good at least in my deck, I have 13 cards with higher CMC than 3 and of those with lower than 3 CMC I have 9 that are non-permanents, most of which are draw spells (for a total of 22 cards this does not put into play)
+ Corpse Churn - been pretty happy with this, instant speed Disentomb is surprisingly useful in the later stages and the extra self mill is always nice
+ Sea Gate Wreckage - nice when you stall out, replaced Ghost Quarter with this as I've actually used Ghost Quarter maybe once to destroy a land
+ Mirrorpool - this card is amazing value for a land
- Ghost Quarter - explained above
- Read the Bones - removed to test Corpse Churn in its place, seems it'll stay out
- Nim Deathmantle - after a lot of thought I finally removed this card, most of the time it sits there and does nothing. The cost is expensive to get any kinda value and while it does go infinite with Ashnod's Altar, so do a lot of things and I felt this one two-card interation was not enough to keep it in the deck
- Vampiric Rites - slower than I thought initially
- Bojuka Bog - another niche card, the effect is nice sometimes but as a general trend I am moving away from large amounts of tap lands in my deck as I think the value of not being slowed down is more valuable than the niche effects some of the tap lands give
In terms of Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim she doesn't quite cut it in my deck. Paying for the sac effect is rough and there are not a lot of high toughness creatures. I also don't have that much lifegain but I have a lot of self-damage cards from draw spells/mana base making the second ability almost impossible to trigger. If you have more lifegain I can see her being decent but she just doesn't fit in my deck.
Another card I think is worth considering that I completely passed over when I was looking at this set is Holdout Settlement It's an untapped rainbow source with a fairly minor stipulation so I'll be giving it a go in theme with removing as many tap lands as I can. Including so many colourless utility lands definitely is starting to have issues in my deck so I'm trying to up the fixing in untapped form where I can. Might try out Tendo Ice Bridge and Tarnished Citadel if I can get my hands on some.
Non-set cards worth considering
Painful Truths with the rule change regarding off colour mana this thing can now be cast for its full converge value using rainbow lands (City of Brass and co) so I'll probably add it when I get around it.
90% to include tier
Matter Reshaper - This gets me all kinds of happy A pity it's 3 power but at worst it cantrips, I feel it may be amazing if you engineer the deck a bit more to work with it
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet - not great token production to be honest however exiling enemy creatures is good enough that I think this will find a slot. You won't go crazy with tokens with this guy but even if you can get him to make one token you're doing alright and I can conceive of games where he makes far more.
Corpse Churn - small term value card, I am considering replacing one of my draw spells with this thing. It seems fairly strong actually when compared to something like Sign in Blood.I am always looking for stuff to go into my graveyard. In the early game it will kinda suck if you want to draw to more lands however later on it lets you fetch a creature you really need to return for whatever reason (blood Artist to get ur combo, Auramancer to get back another enchantment or whatever) i naddition to putting more stuff in your GY and again, instant!
Either the best or the worst thing ever tier
Inverter of Truth - this also gets my gears turning, I don't know what I want to do with this thing yet but I will pick one up for I feel there is some kind of wonky combo that this will be good for.
Null Caller - probably not going to include but seems like he could go a long way with a different build. I am not really about exiling my creatures though
Fits the theme of the deck but not good enough to include tier
Eldrazi Displacer - seems like value but i doubt ill actually play it in this deck
Sifter of Skulls - worse Pawn of Ulamog, a card which is already on my chopping block so eh, whatever
Drana's Chosen - way too slow
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - probably a good general in its own right but here it's a sac engine with a cost (bad) and an ability that we will probably never meet the condition for
Yeah Nether Traitor > Reassembling Skeleton > Tenacious Dead > Bloodsoaked Champion , imo at least I run the first 3 but it becomes a bit hard to justify a 4th worse copy down the line.
New cards coming out, Daxos the Returned seems lacklustre, wonky art too. I guess you can spam the ability for 0 p/t guys for value but at 3 mana that ability is costed way out of the realm of playability in this deck at least.
Dawnbreak Reclaimer and Dread Summons have potential but they'll be fairly average I suspect so far none of the new cards excite me at all
Pretty much in my opinion speeding the combo is the worst option because it has many more moving parts than most other combos in EDH. So you will always be slower than your counterparts or if you are faster you will have dedicate a lot more to even get there and will have a lot of trouble protecting it. That's why I think disrupting the combos then grinding out your own combo a bit slower is the more advisable route.
The other side of attack which is far less popular on these forums because there's this perception that these cards are anti-value in multiplayer but I think is far more important is spot removal for Artifacts/Enchantments. You will be surprised how many combos you can completely demolish if you have a Disenchant sitting in hand. My weapons of choice are Abolish, Seal of Cleansing, Revoke Existence, Fate Forgotten, Aura of Silence. I try to hit a good balance between instant speed interaction/exiling effects/recurrability/converted cost but you can't have it all.
The other route you can take is disruption which I find significantly more effective since people are often not prepared for it. They are often well prepared for a race but can do next to nothing if you throw a good spanner in the works. I'm talking full lockdown Contamination (by far and away the best card in this category, might be the best card in my whole deck) A lot of decks are just stone cold to Contamination, Ethersworn Canonist, Rule of Law, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Containment Priest, Suppression Field Armageddon and perhaps my favourite Tainted Æther. If you're crazy you can run Rest in Peace but this hoses you just as bad as the other heh. I like the disruptive creatures the most because you have a lot of the control over turning them on/off with your sac engines, so you can just bin them when they start to hurt you. A lot of these will stop combos until they are removed from the board and so should give you some more breathing room. Fast combos are pretty scary but pretty disruptible. There are more but this was just from the top of my head.
Just on Smothering Abomination - it triggers on any creature you sac - doesn't have to be black/white and most importantly there is no non-token restriction this card is the bees knees. The upkeep sac is an upside if anything. If you are hurting for a sac engine it turns into a phyrexian arena that also lets you bin your dudes (which should not really be a downside in this deck)
In order of just my personal opinion
1. Grim Haruspex just a solid card draw engine that lets you go nuts
2. Ophiomancer probably the 3rd-4th best token spell in black behind Endrek Sahr and Sengir Autocrat, not sure if it's better than Marsh Flitter but its pretty damn good. If the game goes long its amazing.
I don't really run token producers anymore unless they are really good quality, a lot of the time it is better to just go looping Reassembling Skeleton/Nether Traitor/Tenacious Dead with your general to make spirits - sidenote I think Bloodghast is weak because you can't fit it into an infinite combo like these other ones so it's pretty far down my recursive creature list
3. Smokestack uncontested this will just win you the game
4. Vulturous Aven like Read the Bones/Sign in Blood/Night's Whisper but attached to a creature which makes it recurrable
5. Xathrid Necromancer I dunno I kinda lost favour with this card it's good but it's not any better than Liliana, Heretical Healer in most circumstances I just straight up replaced it when Origins came out
6-8. Plunge Into Darkness, Spirit Bonds, Meekstone I've tested these all out and they're pretty bad imo. Plunge Into Darkness is pretty cute but super niche and most of the time won't do what you want it to do. Spirit Bonds it just a more expensive and worse version of our commander. If you are after an additional effect like this I'd suggest Field of Souls it's more expensive to drop down but has no further investment. Meekstone is just pointless you have a massive creature removal suite so you should not be having trouble with large creatures.
Zulaport Cutthroat I guess is just (almost) a strict upgrade to Blood Artist shame that the art isn't as sweet but whatever. There was also Falkenrath Noble for additional Blood Artist effects, not sure I'll run 3 but who knows. Though I guess at this point it might be worth slotting it in over Soul Warden.
If you are after extra wincons in addition to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite I'd recommend Cathars' Crusade and Vizkopa Guildmage for alternate angles or even Pontiff of Blight if you want to really grind it out.
The other card on the fringe I'm considering is Emeria Shepherd, it costs a lot but once you have a good stax lock going it pretty much just lets you edge out the game. Might have to up the plains count in my deck for this to work though hah and might need some other structural adjustments. It lets you get back Altars and stuff and it might be good to re-include something like Oblivion Ring or whatever to take extra advantage of this effect.
Think ill include both the new lands Mortuary Mire and Blighted Fen I love me some incidental value. Shambling Vent is like whatever, tapped dual land with very marginal upside don't think I need more tap lands.
Think FearDReaper answered the first 2 spot on.
In terms of wraths, in my opinions Martial Coup isn't even great in this deck. I've been running this EDH deck for a long time and tried lots of iterations including wrath heavy and wrath light versions with pretty much every wrath you could imagine. I think any wrath that only hits creatures is not worth running except for maybe Rout for the instant speed. This deck is already well equipped to deal with creature heavy board states (Grave Pact et al or just having Teysa, Orzhov Scion pewpew everything down). Instead I think the most effective wraths to run are the ones which can hit Artifacts/Enchantments as these will be the things you will have most difficulty dealing with in large numbers. Austere Command is by far the best wrath you can run for the swiss army knife worth of options on it. The next two strongest (IMO) are Merciless Eviction - exiles and has options and Akroma's Vengeance hits everything and cycles for when you don't need it.
Moving on looks like BFZ has some more random good cards for us. Mortuary Mire should slot in fairly easily
Mortuary Mire
Land - Common
Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield tapped.
When Mortuary Mire enters the battlefield, you may put target creature card from your graveyard on top of your library.
T: Add B to your mana pool.
Nothing will top this from this set to include in this deck. It's just disgusting on so many levels; it doesn't even say non-token ...
There are a couple cards like this that just hit the deck pretty hard. Angel of Jubilation is particularly bad and Sigarda, Host of Herons is definitely up there with the likes of Rest in Peace or Containment Priest et al
In terms of how to deal with Sigarda, Host of Herons specifically, I think it is not as bad as it first appears. You can still Blood Artist the player out without any real hindrances. It mostly just removes the Smokestack of Grave Pact angle out of the picture. By far the most effective card to deal with her is from one of the new Commander sets. I think there are 3 main ways to deal with her.
1) Arcane Lighthouse absolutely hoses her and lets you just Teysa her away back to the command zone.
2) Spot Removal - I've found the best angle to attack her on is the enchantments/artifacts she will no doubt be equipped with. So long as you remove any problematic enchantments (eg something that gives trample or whatnot) with your spot removal (I'm a big fan of Disenchant type effects in EDH and think they are criminally underplayed) you can just chump block her with spirit tokens until you find a better way to go with it. Running more of this type of spot removal will also make you less soft to the above mentioned effects like Rest in Peace. I've lost to enough random artifacts/enchantments that I think its more than worth it to dedicate a few slots to this kinda spot removal.
3) Sweepers - You can always just wrath her away or better yet use an exiling wrath like Final Judgment or Merciless Eviction (which comes with the added flexibility of wrathing away her enchants/equipments if that better suits the situation)
In terms of the GY hate you face the only real killers are the continuous effects like Rest in Peace which can be dealt with by just running more enchant/artifact removal. The best approach to dealing with effects like Tormod's Crypt or Bojuka Bog are just playstyle changes. Try to keep mana open to save your Reassembling Skeleton/Nether Traitor etc , do not overload your graveyard with too many things at once if there is no reason to. Then you will find these effects don't hurt you that much. With enough spot removal you can always point your Disenchant at a Tormod's Crypt to force them to pop it before you go for your big plays also.
If the past EDH sets are anything to go by there will probably be nothing really to add. Off the top of my head I think it's just been Ophiomancer and Hallowed Spiritkeeper from the other EDH sets they've made. Whilst these cards are strong they aren't exactly super crazy.
I doubt we'll get an actual new Teysa and I have 0 faith in wotc's ability in designing multiplayer cards, esp generally. They can't really seem to hit a good balance between horribly powered and absolute trash when they make commanders but that's sjut my opinion.
Though I am hoping for a teysa reprint with new art. It would be good to have something without Creepy McCreeperson standing behind her.