so just an update, I'm about to get a Sorin Markov! Someone sold it to me for an affordable price and now, yay! Any suggestions on which card I should cut for it is greatly appreciated.
Now on to game updates:
I was able to play a 4-player C14 game against a Daretti, Nahiri, and Teferi.
For most of the game, I drew nearly nothing but Swamps, although I wasn't immediately overrun thanks to an Abyssal Persecutor, a Reassembling Skeleton, and a Burnished Hart. The most useful card I got in the mid-game was Liliana Vess and since I sorely needed a boost, I decided to tutor for a Necrologia (versus say, a Phyrexian Arena). I needed cards now, versus drawing 2 per turn. So I paid 7 life and as my luck would have it, I mostly got lands again. Boo Bad shuffle, I guess?
I was pretty much on the ropes for most of the game. I was mana rich, yes, but nothing to spend it on. Swords with protection from black had me eating 7 damage every turn and discarding a card. Fortunately, the table began to gang up on Nahiri because she was earning 7 life a swing as well. Like, a monstrous Colossus of Akros that could have ended me that turn swung for 20 at her. My savior came in the form of Teferi casting a Breaching Leviathan, essentially buying me a turn from the crazy board. I topdecked an O-Stone and cleared the board. Next turn, I drew a Disciple of Bolas, cast my Phyrexian Reclamation, reclaimed my Abyssal Persecutor and sacrificed it. Drawing these next 6 cards won the game for me. Over the next 2 turns, I got a Crypt Ghast out, a couple of demons, and then with a devotion of 13, I cast a Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Deal 13 each, gain 39, and Pestilence Demon pretty much finished everybody off after that.
pfewwwww! That's a lot of Ob nixilis in two lines!
LOL! I've thought about it. I just don't know what I'll cut to make room for them. And I am pretty excited about that new Ob Nix Reignited PW. He pretty much embodies what this deck does: card draw and kill. Knowledge and Death. lol, called it before it got spoiled!
Consume the Meek doesn't look very good to me. I'd rather have Mutilate, Crux of Fate, Life's Finale or something like that. They are no Damnation but they get the job done just as well most of the time.
Ebon Stronghold is also not that great since in EDH it's usually not worth it to lose a land for such a small effect. Buried Ruin is a much better card in comparison imo (and can get back obelisk, o-stone, disk, ...).
I would cut Hypnotic Specter as well. It doesn't have much synergy or flavor with the rest of the deck and is fairly weak in edh.
Blood Speaker is a flavorful addition to demon themed decks. He recurs himself for free and if he lives one turn you get to tutor for whichever demon god you need the most. Mark of the Oni is another interesting effect not usually seen in black.
Palace Siege is a dirt cheap underappreciated EDH gem you could try out. It's doing great work in my Liliana EDH, fetching back a creature each turn. You can even swap some of your removal spells to Merciless Executioners, Fleshbag Marauders and Bone Shredders for added synergy. They play nicely with Dictate of Erebos, which is also dirt cheap and very powerful.
the reason I play Consume the Meek is because it can work like a one-sided wrath (as opposed to a total boardwipe), particularly against token decks with ridiculous synergy. Plus, it's an instant. Nonetheless, I will run Mutilate tho to see how it works in the deck. Maybe I will replace Dark Prophecy since I don't think I run enough creatures to fuel it.
Buried Ruin! Sounds like a great card. I still think this deck is in need of some ramp (tho I could be wrong). Any rocks you can suggest? And what I could possibly take out in favor of those rocks?
Hypnotic Specter is pretty powerful, IMO. And it's so satisfying when it hits. But I agree that it doesn't really fit into the deck, theme-wise It's a potential cut, along with its buddy, Shimian Specter. Altho honestly, discard is one of black's few weapons against non-creature spells. Hmm.......
I've been looking for Blood Speaker and Mark of the Oni but thus far, have been unable to find them. Will continue to keep an eye out for them in my local scene
Palace Siege does look like an EDH gem. Will definitely try that one out. The sac-creatures, I realize, are pretty important as well, particularly when hexproof, shroud, and indestructible creatures hit the table. I'm kinda torn on Dictate of Erebos though, since despite being a demon deck, it's not particularly sac-heavy. Unlike lets say, a Prossh or something.
Updated the OP! It features a new decklist and a longer writeup, talking about how I arrived at this new decklist. Origins has sparked my interest in Magic again, which is why I've included Kothophed
(tl;dr of OP - basically, i made a demon deck using less demons)
It's Player A's turn. Pre-combat main phase. He decides to float 8 mana. He casts Oblivion Stone from his hand (-3 mana) and triggers the ability as soon as it hits the board (-5 mana).
Player B doesn't want that to happen. He has a Krosan Grip in his hand, which can destroy an artifact or enchantment and has split second.
Does the Oblivion Stone destroy the world or does the stone break from the Krosan Grip before it has a chance to go nuclear? How is the sequence determined? I have a hard time imagining that the fate of the board will all come down to who says what they're going to do the fastest. lol
@krichaiushii: Tower of the Magistrate looks pretty sick! I should look for that card. it also gives fear creatures an extra layer of unblockability will also look into distorting lens since it looks like a cheaper option.
@Guild McCommunist: I would love to have a Karn Liberated (and rings for that matter) but yeah, it's out of my price range. I do have a Spine of Ish Sah. Will look to include it in the deck. I have a question though, how do you get some run out of its 2nd ability from a mono-B deck? Or is that ability really more for situational purposes (aka after a boardwipe or something)?
so... Rings of Brighthearth is currently out of my budget lol. i checked it out and i currently can't afford it.
Anyway, in the games i've had recently, I've won and lost here and there and that's cool and all, but one thing i can't stand is protection from black!
I can take losing from being overrun by giant weenies or being blasted to the face or even by being "control"-ed out by blue decks. But pro-black? That to me is the most annoying way to go because there was just this one creature you couldn't block. It's even more of a pain to deal with when it's in equipment form (Sword of Feast and Famine), and your opponent is running a Nahiri, the Lithomancer who reanimates equipment. So even if I nev's disk or O-stone the sword, it'll come back pretty much the next turn.
so how do you guys think I could deal with pro-black? I mean, honestly, pro-black creatures (like Akroma), while they are a problem, are not even that bad because it's possible to get rid of them with mass removals. It's really the equipment and the reanimation of it that is the biggest problem.
One thought I've had is going with Fear effects (Dirge of Dread or Cover of Darkness, if I find one) so that it becomes a race of "who can kill whom fsster", but is there another way? A black tuck spell I don't know about? A "remove artifact/permanent from the game" type card?
So let's say I have a Cemetery Gate in my yard, and I attack with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Since the gate technically has power less than 2, can I reanimate it using Alesha? Will the Cemetery Gate be attacking even if it has defender?
Another question is, let's say I have a creature with vigilance in my yard. (Ardent Militia is the first one that pops in my head. I don't know why lol). If this is reanimated by Alesha, will it be tapped when attacking? Or will vigilance kick in?
Now on to game updates:
I was able to play a 4-player C14 game against a Daretti, Nahiri, and Teferi.
For most of the game, I drew nearly nothing but Swamps, although I wasn't immediately overrun thanks to an Abyssal Persecutor, a Reassembling Skeleton, and a Burnished Hart. The most useful card I got in the mid-game was Liliana Vess and since I sorely needed a boost, I decided to tutor for a Necrologia (versus say, a Phyrexian Arena). I needed cards now, versus drawing 2 per turn. So I paid 7 life and as my luck would have it, I mostly got lands again. Boo Bad shuffle, I guess?
Meanwhile, both Daretti and Nahiri decks were cooking. The mono-Red was able to get a Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker emblem off and with Daretti's +2 and began sifting through his library pretty quick. He got an Alhammarret's Archive out, a Mindslaver, and a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Nahiri had a Puresteel Paladin and a Stonehewer Giant but it was only when the Sword of Feast and Famine combined with a Loxodon Warhammer did things really get out of hand.
I was pretty much on the ropes for most of the game. I was mana rich, yes, but nothing to spend it on. Swords with protection from black had me eating 7 damage every turn and discarding a card. Fortunately, the table began to gang up on Nahiri because she was earning 7 life a swing as well. Like, a monstrous Colossus of Akros that could have ended me that turn swung for 20 at her. My savior came in the form of Teferi casting a Breaching Leviathan, essentially buying me a turn from the crazy board. I topdecked an O-Stone and cleared the board. Next turn, I drew a Disciple of Bolas, cast my Phyrexian Reclamation, reclaimed my Abyssal Persecutor and sacrificed it. Drawing these next 6 cards won the game for me. Over the next 2 turns, I got a Crypt Ghast out, a couple of demons, and then with a devotion of 13, I cast a Gray Merchant of Asphodel. Deal 13 each, gain 39, and Pestilence Demon pretty much finished everybody off after that.
LOL! I've thought about it. I just don't know what I'll cut to make room for them. And I am pretty excited about that new Ob Nix Reignited PW. He pretty much embodies what this deck does: card draw and kill. Knowledge and Death. lol, called it before it got spoiled!
Agreed on power level. That said, do you think I should run more discard shenanigans or cut that part out of my deck completely?
the reason I play Consume the Meek is because it can work like a one-sided wrath (as opposed to a total boardwipe), particularly against token decks with ridiculous synergy. Plus, it's an instant. Nonetheless, I will run Mutilate tho to see how it works in the deck. Maybe I will replace Dark Prophecy since I don't think I run enough creatures to fuel it.
Buried Ruin! Sounds like a great card. I still think this deck is in need of some ramp (tho I could be wrong). Any rocks you can suggest? And what I could possibly take out in favor of those rocks?
Hypnotic Specter is pretty powerful, IMO. And it's so satisfying when it hits. But I agree that it doesn't really fit into the deck, theme-wise It's a potential cut, along with its buddy, Shimian Specter. Altho honestly, discard is one of black's few weapons against non-creature spells. Hmm.......
I've been looking for Blood Speaker and Mark of the Oni but thus far, have been unable to find them. Will continue to keep an eye out for them in my local scene
Palace Siege does look like an EDH gem. Will definitely try that one out. The sac-creatures, I realize, are pretty important as well, particularly when hexproof, shroud, and indestructible creatures hit the table. I'm kinda torn on Dictate of Erebos though, since despite being a demon deck, it's not particularly sac-heavy. Unlike lets say, a Prossh or something.
Thanks! Glad I could help out
(tl;dr of OP - basically, i made a demon deck using less demons)
Player B doesn't want that to happen. He has a Krosan Grip in his hand, which can destroy an artifact or enchantment and has split second.
Does the Oblivion Stone destroy the world or does the stone break from the Krosan Grip before it has a chance to go nuclear? How is the sequence determined? I have a hard time imagining that the fate of the board will all come down to who says what they're going to do the fastest. lol
@Guild McCommunist: I would love to have a Karn Liberated (and rings for that matter) but yeah, it's out of my price range. I do have a Spine of Ish Sah. Will look to include it in the deck. I have a question though, how do you get some run out of its 2nd ability from a mono-B deck? Or is that ability really more for situational purposes (aka after a boardwipe or something)?
Anyway, in the games i've had recently, I've won and lost here and there and that's cool and all, but one thing i can't stand is protection from black!
I can take losing from being overrun by giant weenies or being blasted to the face or even by being "control"-ed out by blue decks. But pro-black? That to me is the most annoying way to go because there was just this one creature you couldn't block. It's even more of a pain to deal with when it's in equipment form (Sword of Feast and Famine), and your opponent is running a Nahiri, the Lithomancer who reanimates equipment. So even if I nev's disk or O-stone the sword, it'll come back pretty much the next turn.
so how do you guys think I could deal with pro-black? I mean, honestly, pro-black creatures (like Akroma), while they are a problem, are not even that bad because it's possible to get rid of them with mass removals. It's really the equipment and the reanimation of it that is the biggest problem.
One thought I've had is going with Fear effects (Dirge of Dread or Cover of Darkness, if I find one) so that it becomes a race of "who can kill whom fsster", but is there another way? A black tuck spell I don't know about? A "remove artifact/permanent from the game" type card?
Another question is, let's say I have a creature with vigilance in my yard. (Ardent Militia is the first one that pops in my head. I don't know why lol). If this is reanimated by Alesha, will it be tapped when attacking? Or will vigilance kick in?
so does that mean a Nightmare (assume there are 3 swamps under your control) cannot be targeted by Alesha?