I would suggest looking into some buyback cards, capsize is a great card to begin with. Now that it also makes a 2/2 flyer at instant speed, it's outstanding. The others can be used just as well.
Erebos is the go-to mono black general now. He's actually the only mono black general I see people play anymore. If anything, make something cool and play volrath the fallen, and kill people with eldrazi, and Draco, the unique way.
But, if that's not a choice, erebos, hands down. He can mitigate that life loss with all the ways to steal and extort it from your opponents. (Extort is usable in mono black as its a reminder, like this, not color identity) Grey merchant is actually a beast of a wincon in erebos, with any sac outlet and reanimate. *cough**cough* chainer, dementia master.
Corpse dance is my favorite reanimater for a sneak attack. Myojin of life's web, if you can get to 9, is a beast. More so when the trigger is on the stack and you sac to greater good to draw 8 discard 3, put your hand into play.
Venser, shaper savant would be my suggestion. While he is abusable, he is also one of the more rare generals for mono blue. He's also awesome, and dead.
The horse is bad, and donate isn't needed since that card is on your general, and she can't go anywhere now. Gwafa is great, but you have all the enchantments to do what he does in these colors. Bazaar trader is underwhelming too. Those would be my first cuts.
That's some of the stuff I used in my version of zedruu, the dickhearted. She just likes to play you can'ts and cost mores. It works surprisingly well. Open the vaults and replenish might be needed after you play your first game though.
Primeval Titan and Rofellos are banned. Khalni garden probably won't do enough, as a few things care about forests exclusively for doubling plus mana. I'd say make it either another forest, or a terrain generator. You also want some more draw, 8-10 pieces at least in my opinion, so you can start with or find one quickly. I don't treat tops and the like as draw so much as card quality, not that card quality is by any means bad. But yeah, it's looking better, try it out in a few games and tweak as needed for your meta.
Ah, you took your mana doublers out, put them in. You have a lot of things that just get better when you have more mana.
Intuition. I would argue it's the single most useful tutor in the deck. Grab what you need to feed the field and graveyard. O stone, academy ruins, crucible could be one of the choices. Time twister, time spiral, time reversal if you need to draw 7.
5 color enchantments: all the trolling enchantments like invoke prejudice with sliver queen as my only (and mandatory) creature.
Karador: creatures only attrition, mostly things that one+ for one.
Melek: instants and sorceries mostly. A few cards to make things cost less, otherwise a bunch of fetches for additional shuffle the top away.
Bobo lands: 60 of them, to be precise. Soon to be maelstrom wanderer for blue.
Bosh, more innocuous then memnarch: artifacts, kill people with spines.
Mono-blue wizards: nothing but wizards as creatures, there are some very bad wizards. Some really good ones too. Support cards usually try to have a wizard flavor.
Mono-green: make more tokens than you. things that generate tokens or double something, ideally.
Phenax mill: no bad walls, just value creatures that happen to have some sort of toughness.
Some of these decks have the same cards. Sacrifice lands, gauntlets of power/caged sun, sol rings, future sight, oblivion stone, perilous vault, all is dust, any utility or board-wipe I would say is fine sharing. None of them share the same win-cons though, unless I absolutely have to annihilate someone with a koz or Ulamog, because they had it coming. I play eldrazi as a utility card only, if I can. I wouldn't play them at all if they didn't shuffle/protect graves to feed me more cards.
Well did we actually ever determine whether or not this was for duel or multiplayer? I was just giving my opinion. No reason to be condescending.
I wasn't trying to be condescending, although text has a hard time displaying emotion, and appears I was.
I was offering a counter argument against it. He's great for 1 vs 1. Keeping him alive means the end of a game. Multi player he just doesn't do enough, no real card advantage, removal, or combo possibilities tacked on makes him less useful. Plus, People are still used to thinking about him the way he played in standard too, and will do what they can to keep you from having a hexproof 2/2. I've played with people who play Geist and they'd often get the shaft from half the table because he is viewed as a threat. It depends on how much hate you want to draw with certain decks and if you can deal with it.
I second Geist he is very powerful and can seriously punish decks that start to slow.
Geist is adequate at best in multi-player. He usually dies to everyone's anything, and picking on the worst player won't make you friends. I'd say ephara, God of the polis with all of the flash shenanigans available in those colors.
But, if that's not a choice, erebos, hands down. He can mitigate that life loss with all the ways to steal and extort it from your opponents. (Extort is usable in mono black as its a reminder, like this, not color identity) Grey merchant is actually a beast of a wincon in erebos, with any sac outlet and reanimate. *cough**cough* chainer, dementia master.
There are also taxing effects you might want. monastery siege, suppression field, rhystic study, aura of silence, squeeze, in the eye of chaos, invoke prejudice, static orb, winter orb, ward of bones, stranglehold, damping matrix, null rod, collective restraint, norn's annex, solitary confinement, stony silence, slow motion, energy flux
The horse is bad, and donate isn't needed since that card is on your general, and she can't go anywhere now. Gwafa is great, but you have all the enchantments to do what he does in these colors. Bazaar trader is underwhelming too. Those would be my first cuts.
That's some of the stuff I used in my version of zedruu, the dickhearted. She just likes to play you can'ts and cost mores. It works surprisingly well. Open the vaults and replenish might be needed after you play your first game though.
Ah, you took your mana doublers out, put them in. You have a lot of things that just get better when you have more mana.
Rofellos is banned.
Karador: creatures only attrition, mostly things that one+ for one.
Melek: instants and sorceries mostly. A few cards to make things cost less, otherwise a bunch of fetches for additional shuffle the top away.
Bobo lands: 60 of them, to be precise. Soon to be maelstrom wanderer for blue.
Bosh, more innocuous then memnarch: artifacts, kill people with spines.
Mono-blue wizards: nothing but wizards as creatures, there are some very bad wizards. Some really good ones too. Support cards usually try to have a wizard flavor.
Mono-green: make more tokens than you. things that generate tokens or double something, ideally.
Phenax mill: no bad walls, just value creatures that happen to have some sort of toughness.
Some of these decks have the same cards. Sacrifice lands, gauntlets of power/caged sun, sol rings, future sight, oblivion stone, perilous vault, all is dust, any utility or board-wipe I would say is fine sharing. None of them share the same win-cons though, unless I absolutely have to annihilate someone with a koz or Ulamog, because they had it coming. I play eldrazi as a utility card only, if I can. I wouldn't play them at all if they didn't shuffle/protect graves to feed me more cards.
I wasn't trying to be condescending, although text has a hard time displaying emotion, and appears I was.
I was offering a counter argument against it. He's great for 1 vs 1. Keeping him alive means the end of a game. Multi player he just doesn't do enough, no real card advantage, removal, or combo possibilities tacked on makes him less useful. Plus, People are still used to thinking about him the way he played in standard too, and will do what they can to keep you from having a hexproof 2/2. I've played with people who play Geist and they'd often get the shaft from half the table because he is viewed as a threat. It depends on how much hate you want to draw with certain decks and if you can deal with it.
Geist is adequate at best in multi-player. He usually dies to everyone's anything, and picking on the worst player won't make you friends. I'd say ephara, God of the polis with all of the flash shenanigans available in those colors.
USA, Minnesota, Burnsville: modestbreed - legion games - Tuesdays
Sigh, thought this was the edh forum.