I play a similar deck and I am definitely finding room for a couple Eldritch Evolution. My deck relies a little heavier on Geralfs Messenger, so being able to tutor him up will be nice. And probably gonna have to test out that m21 draw spell, too. Good stuff.
I play Hardened Scales so that I can machine gun people with Geralfs Messenger (it makes it so the Meesenger can kill itself with retribution of the ancients, thus dealing 2 damage for every 1 black mana you have available). Surely not the most competitive version of the deck, but it’s an out of left field combination that I enjoy. People are confused at first, but then they....get the...message.
Sorry, I’ll see myself out.
Thats awesome. This deck is definitely more focused on a tempo game plan that can just explode into some crazy stuff. Really any undying creature with retribution means its borderline impossible to kill if you have black mana up, and the engine is just insane.
Recently I have moved away from Eldritch Evolution and into playing Gemrazer in the main, which really helps the deck. Now you can have like 10 noncreature removal spells because gemrazer is really just good enough to mutate with no targets to destroy and lets you play that as any other card + whatever other removal spells you have. If you do want to make a build of this deck and lean more into eldritch evolution, some of the people I have been working with have opted towards no Village Rites and 4 Eldritch Evolution with more of a toolbox package as a mix between this deck and that of Yawgmoth Combo.
Hey thanks! I am not sure how I am not seeing any comments until now, but the deck is still doing well for me. In more recent versions I have pivoted the deck a bit, cutting the toolbox entirely and opting for 3 gemrazer in the main. It feels great and I don't think it is likely I will go back.
Though the deck feels very powerful, and can still be very consistent and redundant with 4x village rites and countless other multiples, I still feel like its missing something. Some incidental way to gain life on plan or a strangleroot giesttier 2 drop with undying would really push the deck over the edge in my opinion.
I do want to try to make a decent primer for the deck like so many of the primers I have used as a reference such as the Stompy Primer to give an example. Any advice on doing that would be awesome!
[spoiler=Just a Quick Disclaimer]Just as a disclaimer, I am brand new to the site. Though I have used this site a lot for looking at primers and such in the past, I never actually made an account here, and frankly thought the site was shut down. I am coming from using tappedout, where I don't feel like is a good place to improve on decks anymore (after trying to work on this deck with others). That being said, I did look over the rules, and I'm trying my best to follow the rules, so here's to hoping I didn't accidentally do something wrong. I have an attempt at a primer here, I will do my best to port it over for those who want to understand the deck. I have not done enough testing to say anything definitive about the deck
All that said, here is the list and what I have written on it:[/spoiler]
I am so unsure how anything works. I know this formatting is awful...I will work on this tomorrow. If you really want to see everything I have to say about the deck now, here's the deck and primer:
This is an aggro deck that seeks to take as much advantage of the undying mechanic as possible. In games you will be putting many creatures in the graveyard, but you can be certain they won't be there for long.
While the main plan of the deck is to play fast by sacrificing your undying creatures to play above curve threats, this deck does so much more. The deck has aggro games, tempo games, and control games. The deck even has a combo you can use to win the game. If you like a deck that is low to the ground, versatile, and resilient, this may be the deck for you.
The best way to explain the deck is to break it down into two parts: The engine and the cards that support, protect, and enable it.
[spoiler=The Engine]
There are three main parts to making the deck work at maximum capacity: Undying Creatures, Sac Outlets, and Retribution of the Ancients. The deck can operate at some capacity without all of the pieces, but is very hard to stop when you have all three.
[spoiler=The Undying Creatures]
Young Wolf: This card is probably the worst in a vacuum, but in the context of this deck, it plays a key role, and is the best at what it does in some cases. With a sac outlet, it's a one mana 2/2, and is the easiest to get out early, which can allow you to get on the board and assemble an engine easier as well as build a board state while dumping mana into other cards.
Strangleroot Geist Amazing creature, probably the best for aggro draws. Other decks that don't try to abuse the undying mechanic use this card because of its often a two for one that gets damage across fast. easily the easiest to sac for value because you can sac it, and still attack because it has haste.
Geralf's Messenger: This card was one that I left out of the deck in previous versions for the longest time. it's definitely the most awkward. It costs BBB, which makes it hard to cast or even justify casting when you already have a retribution of the ancients and another undying creature out. It also enters the battlefield tapped, which makes it a card you won't want to sacrifice all the time. That being said this card is valuable as an undying creature, and enables some seriously powerful plays. Just having it and sacrificing it to a sac outlet is 4 direct damage, pair that with an unearth or retribution of the ancients, and you have a lot of reach to kill opponents.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Sac Outlets] Carrion Feeder: Hands down the best sac outlet in the deck, makes the aggro plan all the much more feasible. Without an undying creature, this card is still very good because it makes value from creatures that are already going to die and can still be a viable threat. Making +1/+1 counters without needing undying is relevant too.
Viscera Seer: This card is Carrion Feeder 5-6. Which is good in its own way, but not as good because it doesn't bolster the aggro strategy as much. What this card does do however is fix your draws, which helps to find the other pieces to the engine as well as answers.
Village Rites: Brand new card from M21! One of the issues I cited for this deck not being as good as it could be in the past was the lack of efficient and effective sac outlets. While this is a one time use card, being able to draw two cards for one mana at instant speed means you can fade a path when your opponent would least expect it, get card advantage and help hit land drops (which I'm finding is increasingly important for the deck), and help you find the cards you need. Has been very good so far, and really helps with adding consistency to the deck. Much like the late Faithless Looting, you can keep some hands on the back of being able to cast young wolf into village rites. This card replaced some of the Eldritch Evolutions in the deck.
Eldritch Evolution: Much like Village Rites, this is a one time use sac card that can provide an awesome advantage. The card used to be a 4 of, but it is actually very awkward in a lot of instances because it leaves you tapping out for a turn, which I have been seeing as a big deal recently. That being said, The card does allow the deck to have a toolbox of sorts out of the sideboard, and can help find high value undying creatures, or just give you the combo kill with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician if possible, so I think that it is justified to have some number of this card in the deck still.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician: This card is very good a lot of the time. you can use this card to "Reset" undying creatures by putting -1/-1 counters on them which cancels their +1/+1 counters. While you can use this ability for that, I tend to find that it is a strategy I rarely employ. Yawgmoth is more of a draw engine card than a way to advance the board like Retribution of the Ancients is, which is not the best for an aggro deck, but it is very valuable for all sorts of situations. it's second ability to proliferate is actually something that would get used from time to time in this deck, being a great thing to discard extra retribution of the ancients as well as other redundant cards if need be. Finally, On top of all of that, incidentally, he can just let you combo kill with opponents.
[spoiler=How this combo works]
If you have two undying creatures and a Yawgmoth you can sacrifice one to put a -1/-1 counter on the other, this makes a loop that you can repeat as long as you have life to spend (and cards in your library to draw into I guess). While that doesn't exactly win you the game, if one of those undying creatures is a Geralf's Messenger, you can win as long as you have more life than your opponent. You can also do this loop as much as you want if you have a Zulaport Cutthroat or Blood Artist (Which is not in this deck as of right now).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Why Yawgmoth is only a two-of]Why Yawgmoth is only a two-of
First of all, being 4 mana is a lot for the deck. Even if you get to 4 mana, it sometimes feels like there are bigger and better things to do than cast him unless you have the combo online and you are up on life. Yawgmoth can sometimes just get stuck in your hand because of this. His ability to shrink a creature and draw a card is great, but this is a deck that tends to trade blows i combat in an effort to get damage in quickly and plays to the board, which means the card advantage isn't always the best, and the cost of paying a life for each activation can make it crippling to use.
[/spoiler]
This information is based on what I have found during games I have played with the deck. I have gone from having four copies, to three, and then finally to two where it is today. I think that this highlights some of the key differences between how this deck, and a similar deck, [Golgari Yawgmoth Chord] play.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Retribution of the Ancients] Retribution of the Ancients: This is the name-sake of the deck. I assure you, this is not some joke. This card is really good. Though this card is bad in multiples, I would venture to say that anything less than a 4-of is wrong for the deck. The most basic functionality of this card is that for just [mana]B[/mana[/card] you can "reset" your undying creatures while still having the upside of potentially killing an opponent's creatures. That alone is great for the deck because it is the last part to assembling the engine of the deck, but it also does stuff cheaper, more efficiently, and oftentimes just better than other cards.
[spoiler=This card is literally like all of these cards but wrapped into one:] Dolmen Gate: The classic plunder of aggro decks is just a good blocker. Sure, you can flood the board with creatures, but with a 4/5 Tarmogoyf, you cannot attack without losing your attack force. It doesn't take a lot to realize that this is more often than not a losing battle, and facing a large creature often results in you being forced to hold back your creatures, even if you can get some damage through. If you can attack without fear of losing out on board presence, you don't lose out on keeping a clock. This card does you one better too by literally letting you take the receiving end of beatings as well. you can chump block for _days_ by just blocking and removing counters from an undying creature.
A repeatable Fatal push: Why attack into a 4/5 Tarmogoyf when you can just kill the thing? Notice how the card says "from among creatures you control"? Yeah, for B you can give a creature more than just -1/-1. You can also activate this more than one time in a turn, making it ideal with a sac outlet as well. Also note how the creature gets -X/-X, that means that this effect kills creatures with indestructible as well as creatures that could regenerate themselves. Shrinking a creature's power seems relevant as well.
Masako the Humorless: Just remove counters from creatures to have them kill themselves, or sacrifice them to have them enter the battlefield untapped. You can block at this point and remove counters again. Doing this will most likely also kill an attacking creature.
Eldrazi Displacer But for B: just fade removal that would do anything but kill your creatures such as Path to Exile by removing counters and killing it somehow. This is especially strong for undying creatures with a base toughness of one and a +1/+1 counter because with just that creature and a retribution, you can remove counters with retribution and drain the undying creature to effectively blink it, saving the creature and putting you up on cards. Also, make sure you read the part where removing +1/+1 counters is a part of the cost for activating the ability, meaning opponents cannot just cast a fatal push in response to start a battle with the stack over you (even though if it did work that way, you would usually win those if that was how things worked)
I can't really think of cards to compare this too for some synergies, some of these are kind-of a stretch, but think about machine gunning opponents with a Geralf's Messenger, Retribution of the Ancients, and a sac outlet. You can get so much reach doing this, and win with a really gummed up board state in a pinch.
The list can go on and on. If you think about creative ways to use the card in games, you will find ways to use it that you may not have thought of before.
[/spoiler]
I cannot understate how much you want this card to be a 4-of. If you draw too many, there are ways of discarding it for value, and you can bet your opponents will want to destroy it if able. The number of times you will find this being awkward will be dwarfed by the number of times you dominate in games using it. This is not a joke, seriously, try it out if you don't believe it.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
While assembling this engine is nice and all, you can't really expect to get it every game. That being said, getting at least two parts of the engine is good enough to win a lot of games.
[spoiler=What to expect if you don't get everything]
[spoiler=Undying Creatures + Sac Outlets]
This is the best start in situations where you want to race. If you draw these parts of the engine, you're most likely on the aggro plan. Most preferable cards to have are some combination of young wolf or strangleroot geist + carrion feeder, viscera seer, or village rites. One really important thing about these draws is that you have to know when you are the aggressor however. You will have to assess your hand and matchup to determine if you want to sacrifice your undying creatures (and leave them open to removal/not be able to chump block for free) or not, but for a lot of instances, you will want to opt for speed. Your fastest kills are possible with these hands, with most optimal looking something like this:
That is just one potential route for a strong start, but as long as you have carrion feeder and a critical mass of undying creatures, maybe with an unearth, you are pretty set. Turn 4 wins are pretty attainable.
You can also get a turn three kill, but the opponent needs to have literally nothing, and you need a perfect hand + topdecks, so I'll just let you figure that one out because that's not going to happen. Good luck.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Undying Creatures + Retribution of the Ancients]
Another really strong start, if you get this you are also pretty well set up for the game. You can hide behind a young wolf while trying to get a sac outlet. If you have a critical mass of undying creatures, go ahead and go for an aggro/tempo kind of game. These games are very fun and interactive, though things will get out of hand as soon as you get a sac outlet.
Side note: I would not keep a hand with this combination if you're only undying creature is a Geralf's messenger
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Sac Outlet + Retribution of the Ancients]
This is the most awkward combination you could get. Thankfully this is a fairly unlikely occurrence because there are so many undying creatures in the deck and only four retribution of the ancients. I'd equate hands that just have this set of cards to a jund deck only drawing bloodbraid elfs and kolaghan's command, or a control deck only drawing snapcaster mages and a smattering of planeswalkers without any path to exiles, or cantrips. For some games, these hands could have potential, especially if you draw an undying creature, but you better have a _good_ reason to keep hands with just this combination of cards. If you draw your hand and see these cards, most of the time it's going to be a mulligan.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Rest of the Deck]
While these cards are not a part of the engine of the deck, these cards are very important to ensuring the deck runs like a well oiled machine. These cards help to get the engine started, keep it going, and can even act as a substitute for some of the pieces of the engine if need be.
[spoiler=The Other Pieces] Unearth: I initially avoided using this card because this deck already does a decent amount with the graveyard (since it uses undying creatures for value), which would make this deck more susceptible to graveyard hate. But recently, I have felt that there is a need for this card. This card helps to ensure that the deck has all of the pieces of the engine. With it, you don't have to fear so much about losing your undying creatures, so the card helps you be aggressive. In a way, this card acts like a retribution of the ancients lite, as it helps add to the longevity of your creatures. There is also that obligatory "If your opponent has graveyard hate, you can always cycle it as well" Clause. This card has ended up becoming the glue that brings the deck together into a more resilient and cohesive whole.
Scavenging Ooze: Great card in a lot of situations, and though it is not a part of the main game plan, it is just an all star that stabilizes the board when needed. Probably the best catch-all to get from an Eldritch Evolution in the main. Also a flex slot for siding some of the specific hate cards in and out between games.
Assassin's Trophy: Catch-all removal, deal with everything from Primeval Titan to Rest in Peace. Should really try to fit more into the deck because being able to deal with graveyard hate or just a must-remove threat is nice. It can be awkward to do stuff the same turn as casting it with the deck being so mana hungry, but it is a really good card.
Fatal Push: Must have for most black decks. just some decent creature removal that can help you tempo out games.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Lands]
_Despite this deck truly only being two colors (without even a splash), the land base is very demanding. A probably the best way to show this is by looking at strangleroot geist and Geralf's Messenger. You need GG for strangleroot geist but you need BBB for playing Geralf's Messenger. While that is the most obvious point of contention, the requirement of the manabase for this deck gets more demanding the closer you look. Just remember, you are trying to play cards like Eldritch Evolution, strangleroot geist, and scavenging ooze in a deck that's like three quarters black cards as well as trying to activate retribution of the ancients as much as possible in a turn. In order to make the mana base capable of consistently playing and activating these card, this deck employs the use of a few not so common land cards:_
Twilight Mire: This card allows you to play basics. you can have a swamp into carrion feeder on turn 1 and still play a strangleroot geist on turn two. Though this card is not commonly used for its reputation of being clunky at times, this card makes the deck very consistent with mana.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: this card also solves some of the issues Twilight mire solves. While the card doesn't totally fix mana problems if you have it, it is still very good since the deck is mostly black. There is also the added bonus of making nurturing peatland painless. You don't want more than 1 in the deck because drawing multiple is A) like drawing two swamps but worse, and B) Really bad because this land is legendary.
nurturing peatland: Costs life to make mana, but it makes the mana more consistent, and helps out a lot to prevent flooding too much. Gives you gas at the end of the game to get you over the edge and win.
Blooming Marsh: Fastlands are lands that not all decks play, but you will find that decks that try to be low to the ground play this land. This deck is no exception. For the same reason the deck plays Twilight Mire, the deck also wants to maximize the number of multicolored untapped lands it has at its disposal.
Overgrown Tomb + Verdant Catacombs: Past this point you start to see lands for a typical multicolored deck’s landbase. Overgrown Tomb acts as an additional untapped multicolor lands while Verdant Catacombs, being able to “fetch” Overgrown Tomb acts as additional copies of the card while both triggering revolt for Fatal Push and having the ability to “fetch” the basic forests and swamps in the deck.
Forest + Swamp: This set of lands should go without saying. You need basic lands in the deck so you don’t get destroyed by cards like Blood Moon, Path to Exile, Field of Ruin, and so on. Every deck needs basic lands, and you’ll find very few that don’t. Key interaction here is that they can act like multicolored lands with Twilight Mire, which is one of the reasons it is so good in the deck.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Sideboard Cards]
General Hate
Gemrazer: This is an interesting card to me. I like that you can destroy graveyard hate with this card while being a 4/4. I especially like how this card can play against graveyard hate: In situations where you face graveyard hate, you just load the board with your creatures and sacrifice them after the graveyard hate is removed. This card plays perfectly with that plan while having a lot of upside. You can mutate this card onto an undying creature, and then have the ability to sacrifice it, giving you a 5/5 reach and trample threat to go with your undying creature. A three mana 5/5 that is also anti-graveyard hate is nothing to scoff at. What I especially like about this card is that it does a lot against Anger of the gods. Slap this guy on an undying creature and have protection from that card, it is also just a good creature to cast on an empty board.
Evolutionary Leap: With this card, you can pull out of grindy matchups easily, being able to draw two off of an undying creature, and even just get new creatures before one would die to removal is really nice.
Obstinate Baloth: Honestly, I am not sure why I have this card in the sideboard right now, it is a good card, and often is just a gotcha card, as well as being tutor-able burn hate, but I don't have a specific reason for playing this card over other similar ones.
Graveyard Hate
Nihil Spellbomb: Decent graveyard hate card, cycles if you don't need it.
With the general overview out of the way let's talk about some of the important information about this deck:
[spoiler=This Decks Relationship with Graveyard Hate]
This deck clearly gets a significant portion of the strategy shut down by graveyard hate. That being said, this deck handles it differently than say dredge. I think that a good way to put this is by talking about some of the graveyard hate dredge faces, and how the deck deals with it, and then comparing that to how this deck deals with it:
Dredge:
This deck operates out of the graveyard. All the deck really cares about is getting a creature with dredge into the yard and then just dumping more and more cards into the graveyard through those means. Because of this, dredge concedes to modern's most potent graveyard hate such as leyline of the void and rest in peace. This is because dredge can't get the payoff cards it plays out of the graveyard, let alone fill up the graveyard to utilize them as intended. While not all decks play such potent graveyard hate as leyline of the void and rest in peace in the sideboard, almost all decks play cards such as nihil spellbomb, scavenging ooze, tormod's crypt, surgical extraction, relic of projenitus, and other cards in the 75. These cards also do a lot to significantly hinder dredges gameplan, and slow it down enough for the opposing decks to win. To combat this, almost the entire sideboard for dredge is built to combat this, playing cards like assassin's trophy, pithing needle, blast zone, and ancient grudge. This is where dredge has the bulk of its issues, with the deck wanting to play out of the graveyard, dredge is forced to play hate cards out of the hand, which doesn't further the deck's strategy or set it up to "go off" following the removal of such spells. This is where I would like to talk about how dredge deals with grafdigger's cage This card is uniquely just okay, or usually not enough on its own against dredge if the deck can answer it. This is because while the card does put a hard stop on the deck pulling creatures out of the graveyard, dredge can still put them in there, allowing the deck to set up for a big turn, remove the grafdigger's cage when it matters most, and proceed to "go off" like there wasn't any graveyard hate there to begin with. This is where I would like to talk about how Undying Retribution would deal with graveyard hate.
Undying Retribution:
With this deck, almost all graveyard hate acts as a grafdigger's cage. This is because this deck plays cards out of your hand for its game-plan rather than directly out of the graveyard. Much like how dredge can stockpile the graveyard with creatures to bring back under a grafdigger's cage, Undying Retribution can stockpile creatures onto the battlefield, attack, block, and do whatever, and if the situation arises that the graveyard hate is removed, you can just take off as though the graveyard hate was never there. While your opponents can play removal spells to full effect while you are facing say a rest in peace, you still have access to all of the same sacrifice value with village rites or sacrificing to carrion feeder for value in response to a removal spell. The deck still operates to some capacity under graveyard hate, and unlike dredge, you don't have to hope you get anti-graveyard hate cards in your opening hand or have to choose between developing you strategy and trying to draw the much needed removal. While this deck does struggle a lot with graveyard hate, it is not nearly as bad as other graveyard-centered decks.
More Specifics
With that comparison out of the way, Here is how Undying retribution deals with graveyard hate on a case-by-case basis:
TBA
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=How is this deck different from Golgari Yawgmoth Chord?]
I get it. Looking at the deck, it almost looks like a Yawgmoth Deck with an identity crisis. I'm just adding this to show that- well, this is just a different deck. I am also keeping this as relevant info for the time being just in an effort to guide discussion. When trying to get opinions from others on the deck, they always talk about it as though it lives in the yawgmoth combo decks' shadow.
With that said, let's start with what Golgari Yawgmoth Chord actually is. Golgari Yawgmoth is a creature based toolbox deck that is built to be versatile, opting to accelerate into being able to cast cards like Chord of Calling to get desirable cards, and combo off using Yawgmoth thran Physician, or just get value through it's card draw ability and sacrificing undying creatures and mana dorks. I would also like to state that though this deck was previously played on the competitive scene, the deck relied on Once upon a time to be consistent enough to operate, and is no more of a deck than this one following the banning of that card.
Given that information, I would like to show how these decks are geared for their separate, respective play-patterns. in Golgari Yawgmoth Chord, the deck goes wide with mana dorks and attempts to get the chord of calling tutor effects online as fast as possible. Retribution of the ancients does not slot into that strategy for a number of reasons:
1) Playing it lowers the number of creatures (most likely mana dorks and toolbox targets) in the deck. This hinders the plan of being able to get a chord of calling or Yawgmoth thran Physician online as fast as possible because this card in place of a creature that would be producing mana. On top of that, you can't even search for Retribution of the ancients off of a card like Chord of calling if you wanted it.
2) This card does not play with mana dorks well at all. The only thing these things can do for each other is have the mana dorks produce mana for retribution of the ancients. If they are the only two cards on the board, you accomplished nothing. This is significant because mana dorks take up a large portion of the deck since they play a good role as early acceleration and late sacrifice fodder for Yawgmoth thran Physician
3) If you have retribution out, how are you going to get value off of it? The only sac outlet in the Golgari Yawgmoth Chord deck is yawgmoth, and at that point the deck is doing what it wants anyways.
As for this deck, playing mana dorks and tutor-spells like chord of calling just doesn't make sense. By sacrificing your undying creatures when you play them, you have a one mana 2/2, a two mana 3/2 with haste, and a three mana 4/3 that deals four damage on etb. by playing say finally of devastation, you're playing a three mana vanilla 2/2, four mana 3/2 with haste, and a five mana 4/3 that drains for four. That is just bad. The only tutor-spell that is in the deck is Eldritch Evolution because at worst when you cast it, you get Geralf's Messenger, which is on curve for that mana cost. Even then it is just a two-of because it is three mana.
Alongside that point, in order to be able to think about the undying creatures as above curve threats, the deck plays more and cheaper sac outlets than just Yawgmoth, Thran Physician such as carrion feeder. Because your sac outlet starts at one mana rather than four, the deck is able to think about the undying creatures in such a way. With this play style in mind, having Retribution of the ancients makes a lot of sense. By being able to sacrifice creatures early and generate +1/+1 counters, you can easily see how Retribution of the ancients just bolsters this strategy, doing all of the things I mentioned above and more very efficiently.
As a summation to these points, this deck plays to the board and is built around leveraging Retribution of the ancients, while the Golgari Yawgmoth is built around leveraging Yawgmoth thran Physician. This deck also plays Yawgmoth thran Physician to have the ability to play like a Golgari Yawgmoth Chord deck as an option to play towards during games or to have an out during games, but first and foremost, this deck is abusing the power of the synergies the deck has with Retribution of the ancients.
[/spoiler]
Sideboard Life goes on: Really effective lifegain to play, especially when you are almost guaranteed to gain 8 life off of this card, barring your opponent doesn't play skullcrack
Relic of Progenitus: Decent graveyard hate card, cycles if you don't need it.
Knight of autumn: If you are willing to make a white splash for this card, it can be valuable. Every mode is especially relevant for this deck. +1/+1 counters can be used by Retribution of the Ancients, additional lifegain opportunities are great to have out of the side, and you have a tutorable artifact or enchantment effect like Reclamation sage. This card does not help so much with Blood Moon as reclamation sage only requires G, but that is a judgement call if you were to try a white splash.
Ashiok, Dream Render: closes the gap with Graveyard decks, but also has text against amulet titan decks. Hopefully that is enough for those matchups.
Stain the Mind: Seems like a decent card to deal with combo and spells like Anger of the Gods. Loss in tempo seems rough though.
Damping Sphere: Tron and Storm hate. Nice. Just don't play it unless you really need to because it destroys any chance of you using twilight mire. It may be worth looking for alternatives because of this downside.
Plague engineer: Tutorable silver bullet card. I really need to find room in the deck for this card.
Fulminator Mage: I really want to add this card to the sideboard. After taking out Damping Sphere, I feel that the deck could use a little bit of tron hate. Having one of these just makes it so you can tutor it up, sacrifice it, and even do it again with unearth. This also deals with scapeshift decks and problematic utility lands.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Cards that didn't really make the cut] Fiend Artisan: This is a card that got a lot of hype, but it seems that even the decks that could use this card the most effectively don't want it. If this card were to be played in this deck, it would just be a 1/1 or a 2/2 more often than not, and it would mostly be used as a sac outlet to get toolbox cards. Unfortunately this card is underwhelming given that reality, and the fact that you cannot activate a summoning sick artisan makes it all the much worse here.
Cabal Therapist: This is a card that has some amount of promise. It is a sac outlet, though it is clunky, if the ability could be activated the same turn this card was played, the card would be much better, and it is hard to get this to line up and actually take cards out of the opponent's hand while getting value until like turn three. While I have seen this card performing well, I do not think that it is fast enough for what this deck wants to do.
Priest of forgotten gods: This is actually a great card in my opinion, it is a wonderful sac outlet that gives additional reach, ways to kill hard to defeat creatures, mana for explosive turns with retribution, and card draw. This card is seriously amazing when it works, and has turned many games around the times that I have used it. That being said it has problems that lead me to take it off the list: Being a 1/2, it has an unimpressive body, which means it does nothing to advance the board state for the first turn it’s out, and when you can't activate it. it is extremely susceptible to removal, drawing it from opponents, meaning it rarely survives long enough to do anything. If you could only activate it the turn it came out, this would be a very reasonable card to run.
Butcher Ghoul: I wish more undying creatures existed, there's really only the three in this deck that are close to modern playable, and I almost want to play this guy at times to up the undying creature count, but two mana for a 1/1 with no other abilities is just bad. Even when you sacrifice him, he is just a two mana 2/2. Not worth it.
Chord of Calling: Good modern card, not for this deck. If you want to play this card in this deck, then you're in luck, there is a similar deck that has had more success than a list like this called Golgari Yawgmoth Chord, a value toolbox deck centered around using these types of cards and mana dorks to generate value and combo off with undying creatures and Yawgmoth. Just this deck doesn't really want these types of effects.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=My History with the Deck]
I am not sure how much I remember, but this is generally how the deck came to be the way it is now plus or minus a few chronological errors. It all started with an evolve zoo deck that would play cards like experiment one, Cloudfin Raptor, undying creatures, and cards like Rapid Hybridization to make a critical mass of cheap 3/3 or 4/4 creatures. When Retribution of the Ancients came out, I added it to the deck along with Avatar of the resolute, but it was still 3 colors. The deck later morphed into a more casual golgari deck that played greenbelt rampager, Pelt Collector, and Narnam Renegade. [That was also the second deck I posted to this website.](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bg-evolve-by-snowmen1/) At this point, It was very clear to me that the deck was split between multiple strategies that both worked if you had drawn either of them, but was just clunky most the time, so I made a stompy deck and an undying + Retribution of the ancients based deck out of it. At this point, I thought that I couldn't really do much for the undying deck with the current card pool, so I left the deck like that for a while. After not looking at the deck for a while, I remember seeing a few lists that reminded me of this project, and saw some cool ideas like playing Eldritch Evolution for value with undying creatures. Around this time I stumbled upon another user named [[user:skookes[/card] (Check [Skooke's Deck](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/retribution-rock/) out by the way). We bounced ideas off of each other and we both made lists that tried to abuse this synergy. I began to take this deck seriously, and around this time I think I made and posted my second version of the deck under a new name, [Undying Aggro 1.0](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/undying-aggro-10/). A little bit later, Modern Horizons came out, giving the deck Carrion Feeder and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. This boosted the deck, but with the climate of the meta that came with the set, I did not do much in the way of magic: the gathering for this period. After that, I saw the deck deck, Golgari Yawgmoth Chord, get to the competitive scene. I began to play the deck more, seeing it as a fun, yet casual deck given the existence of Golgari Yawgmoth. Golgari Yawgmoth Chord felt like the most correct version of the deck because it seemed to deal with the lack of existing playable cards much better than what I had brewed up. Following the ban of Once upon a time, Yawgmoth Chord fell out of favor on the competitive scene, but I continued to play this deck because it was more of a fun deck than a competitive one. It did powerful things, but very often I was left feeling like the deck just needed more pieces to work well and be consistent. By this point is the deck you see here (barring the significant changes made over time). This just about brings the deck up to present day. Over the past year, I began to feel more confident in this deck's power. I began to take the deck seriously again, streamlining it as well as adding new cards as they came out. Most recently, the card village rites has really helped the deck a decent amount. Now I can say I feel confident in the deck's power, and it is only up from here. I hope you stick along to see how this deck evolves even more.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Do I Actually Have/Play this Deck?]
I am just adding this because I think it would be an important factor for some people. "How much do I actually believe in this deck?" is something that I am sure is an important piece to how people discuss what they have made (take how people would talk about a meme deck vs a tier 1 deck). I think that committing to acquiring the cards in paper can be part of showing that I really do believe in the deck enough that I want to put my resources into assembling it. That being said, I play mostly paper magic, and I really want to play the deck in paper. It is fun and can hold its own.
With the current version of the deck I do not have it in paper. I have only played with it on cockatrice, but it has felt really good to play against all sorts of decks from tier 1 to jank. That being said, I have all of the cards from when I made a previous version of the deck back before Modern Horizons (give or take a few budget concessions), and I am actively rebuilding it. I am currently missing the four twilight mires I recently added to the list, as well as the two Yawgmoth, thran physician, three newly released village rites, three newly released Gemrazer, and one assassin's trophy. I am also using wooded foothills over verdant catacombs because I actually have the wooded foothills.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
So That's the Deck
I hope you liked it. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, if you spotted any mistakes in this description, or if you have any formatting suggestions. If you have a similar deck or choose to play this deck, please let me know how you liked it. If you have any more information about matchups etc, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thats awesome. This deck is definitely more focused on a tempo game plan that can just explode into some crazy stuff. Really any undying creature with retribution means its borderline impossible to kill if you have black mana up, and the engine is just insane.
Recently I have moved away from Eldritch Evolution and into playing Gemrazer in the main, which really helps the deck. Now you can have like 10 noncreature removal spells because gemrazer is really just good enough to mutate with no targets to destroy and lets you play that as any other card + whatever other removal spells you have. If you do want to make a build of this deck and lean more into eldritch evolution, some of the people I have been working with have opted towards no Village Rites and 4 Eldritch Evolution with more of a toolbox package as a mix between this deck and that of Yawgmoth Combo.
Though the deck feels very powerful, and can still be very consistent and redundant with 4x village rites and countless other multiples, I still feel like its missing something. Some incidental way to gain life on plan or a strangleroot giesttier 2 drop with undying would really push the deck over the edge in my opinion.
I do want to try to make a decent primer for the deck like so many of the primers I have used as a reference such as the Stompy Primer to give an example. Any advice on doing that would be awesome!
[spoiler=Just a Quick Disclaimer]Just as a disclaimer, I am brand new to the site. Though I have used this site a lot for looking at primers and such in the past, I never actually made an account here, and frankly thought the site was shut down. I am coming from using tappedout, where I don't feel like is a good place to improve on decks anymore (after trying to work on this deck with others). That being said, I did look over the rules, and I'm trying my best to follow the rules, so here's to hoping I didn't accidentally do something wrong. I have an attempt at a primer here, I will do my best to port it over for those who want to understand the deck. I have not done enough testing to say anything definitive about the deck
All that said, here is the list and what I have written on it:[/spoiler]
I am so unsure how anything works. I know this formatting is awful...I will work on this tomorrow. If you really want to see everything I have to say about the deck now, here's the deck and primer:
So this is Undying Retribution
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Carrion Feeder
2 Fatal Push
2 Forest
4 Geralf's Messenger
3 Nurturing Peatland
3 Overgrown Tomb
4 Retribution of the Ancients
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
2 Swamp
4 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Viscera Seer
2 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
4 Young Wolf
4 Village Rites
3 Unearth
2 Eldritch Evolution
1 Blood Artist
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Thoughtseize
1 Yixlid Jailer
2 Collective Brutality
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Plaguecrafter
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Gemrazer
This is an aggro deck that seeks to take as much advantage of the undying mechanic as possible. In games you will be putting many creatures in the graveyard, but you can be certain they won't be there for long.
While the main plan of the deck is to play fast by sacrificing your undying creatures to play above curve threats, this deck does so much more. The deck has aggro games, tempo games, and control games. The deck even has a combo you can use to win the game. If you like a deck that is low to the ground, versatile, and resilient, this may be the deck for you.
The best way to explain the deck is to break it down into two parts: The engine and the cards that support, protect, and enable it.
[spoiler=The Engine]
There are three main parts to making the deck work at maximum capacity: Undying Creatures, Sac Outlets, and Retribution of the Ancients. The deck can operate at some capacity without all of the pieces, but is very hard to stop when you have all three.
[spoiler=The Undying Creatures]
Young Wolf: This card is probably the worst in a vacuum, but in the context of this deck, it plays a key role, and is the best at what it does in some cases. With a sac outlet, it's a one mana 2/2, and is the easiest to get out early, which can allow you to get on the board and assemble an engine easier as well as build a board state while dumping mana into other cards.
Strangleroot Geist Amazing creature, probably the best for aggro draws. Other decks that don't try to abuse the undying mechanic use this card because of its often a two for one that gets damage across fast. easily the easiest to sac for value because you can sac it, and still attack because it has haste.
Geralf's Messenger: This card was one that I left out of the deck in previous versions for the longest time. it's definitely the most awkward. It costs BBB, which makes it hard to cast or even justify casting when you already have a retribution of the ancients and another undying creature out. It also enters the battlefield tapped, which makes it a card you won't want to sacrifice all the time. That being said this card is valuable as an undying creature, and enables some seriously powerful plays. Just having it and sacrificing it to a sac outlet is 4 direct damage, pair that with an unearth or retribution of the ancients, and you have a lot of reach to kill opponents.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Sac Outlets]
Carrion Feeder: Hands down the best sac outlet in the deck, makes the aggro plan all the much more feasible. Without an undying creature, this card is still very good because it makes value from creatures that are already going to die and can still be a viable threat. Making +1/+1 counters without needing undying is relevant too.
Viscera Seer: This card is Carrion Feeder 5-6. Which is good in its own way, but not as good because it doesn't bolster the aggro strategy as much. What this card does do however is fix your draws, which helps to find the other pieces to the engine as well as answers.
Village Rites: Brand new card from M21! One of the issues I cited for this deck not being as good as it could be in the past was the lack of efficient and effective sac outlets. While this is a one time use card, being able to draw two cards for one mana at instant speed means you can fade a path when your opponent would least expect it, get card advantage and help hit land drops (which I'm finding is increasingly important for the deck), and help you find the cards you need. Has been very good so far, and really helps with adding consistency to the deck. Much like the late Faithless Looting, you can keep some hands on the back of being able to cast young wolf into village rites. This card replaced some of the Eldritch Evolutions in the deck.
Eldritch Evolution: Much like Village Rites, this is a one time use sac card that can provide an awesome advantage. The card used to be a 4 of, but it is actually very awkward in a lot of instances because it leaves you tapping out for a turn, which I have been seeing as a big deal recently. That being said, The card does allow the deck to have a toolbox of sorts out of the sideboard, and can help find high value undying creatures, or just give you the combo kill with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician if possible, so I think that it is justified to have some number of this card in the deck still.
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician: This card is very good a lot of the time. you can use this card to "Reset" undying creatures by putting -1/-1 counters on them which cancels their +1/+1 counters. While you can use this ability for that, I tend to find that it is a strategy I rarely employ. Yawgmoth is more of a draw engine card than a way to advance the board like Retribution of the Ancients is, which is not the best for an aggro deck, but it is very valuable for all sorts of situations. it's second ability to proliferate is actually something that would get used from time to time in this deck, being a great thing to discard extra retribution of the ancients as well as other redundant cards if need be. Finally, On top of all of that, incidentally, he can just let you combo kill with opponents.
[spoiler=How this combo works]
If you have two undying creatures and a Yawgmoth you can sacrifice one to put a -1/-1 counter on the other, this makes a loop that you can repeat as long as you have life to spend (and cards in your library to draw into I guess). While that doesn't exactly win you the game, if one of those undying creatures is a Geralf's Messenger, you can win as long as you have more life than your opponent. You can also do this loop as much as you want if you have a Zulaport Cutthroat or Blood Artist (Which is not in this deck as of right now).
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Why Yawgmoth is only a two-of]Why Yawgmoth is only a two-of
First of all, being 4 mana is a lot for the deck. Even if you get to 4 mana, it sometimes feels like there are bigger and better things to do than cast him unless you have the combo online and you are up on life. Yawgmoth can sometimes just get stuck in your hand because of this. His ability to shrink a creature and draw a card is great, but this is a deck that tends to trade blows i combat in an effort to get damage in quickly and plays to the board, which means the card advantage isn't always the best, and the cost of paying a life for each activation can make it crippling to use.
[/spoiler]
This information is based on what I have found during games I have played with the deck. I have gone from having four copies, to three, and then finally to two where it is today. I think that this highlights some of the key differences between how this deck, and a similar deck, [Golgari Yawgmoth Chord] play.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Retribution of the Ancients]
Retribution of the Ancients: This is the name-sake of the deck. I assure you, this is not some joke. This card is really good. Though this card is bad in multiples, I would venture to say that anything less than a 4-of is wrong for the deck. The most basic functionality of this card is that for just [mana]B[/mana[/card] you can "reset" your undying creatures while still having the upside of potentially killing an opponent's creatures. That alone is great for the deck because it is the last part to assembling the engine of the deck, but it also does stuff cheaper, more efficiently, and oftentimes just better than other cards.
[spoiler=This card is literally like all of these cards but wrapped into one:]
Dolmen Gate: The classic plunder of aggro decks is just a good blocker. Sure, you can flood the board with creatures, but with a 4/5 Tarmogoyf, you cannot attack without losing your attack force. It doesn't take a lot to realize that this is more often than not a losing battle, and facing a large creature often results in you being forced to hold back your creatures, even if you can get some damage through. If you can attack without fear of losing out on board presence, you don't lose out on keeping a clock. This card does you one better too by literally letting you take the receiving end of beatings as well. you can chump block for _days_ by just blocking and removing counters from an undying creature.
A repeatable Fatal push: Why attack into a 4/5 Tarmogoyf when you can just kill the thing? Notice how the card says "from among creatures you control"? Yeah, for B you can give a creature more than just -1/-1. You can also activate this more than one time in a turn, making it ideal with a sac outlet as well. Also note how the creature gets -X/-X, that means that this effect kills creatures with indestructible as well as creatures that could regenerate themselves. Shrinking a creature's power seems relevant as well.
Masako the Humorless: Just remove counters from creatures to have them kill themselves, or sacrifice them to have them enter the battlefield untapped. You can block at this point and remove counters again. Doing this will most likely also kill an attacking creature.
Eldrazi Displacer But for B: just fade removal that would do anything but kill your creatures such as Path to Exile by removing counters and killing it somehow. This is especially strong for undying creatures with a base toughness of one and a +1/+1 counter because with just that creature and a retribution, you can remove counters with retribution and drain the undying creature to effectively blink it, saving the creature and putting you up on cards. Also, make sure you read the part where removing +1/+1 counters is a part of the cost for activating the ability, meaning opponents cannot just cast a fatal push in response to start a battle with the stack over you (even though if it did work that way, you would usually win those if that was how things worked)
I can't really think of cards to compare this too for some synergies, some of these are kind-of a stretch, but think about machine gunning opponents with a Geralf's Messenger, Retribution of the Ancients, and a sac outlet. You can get so much reach doing this, and win with a really gummed up board state in a pinch.
The list can go on and on. If you think about creative ways to use the card in games, you will find ways to use it that you may not have thought of before.
[/spoiler]
I cannot understate how much you want this card to be a 4-of. If you draw too many, there are ways of discarding it for value, and you can bet your opponents will want to destroy it if able. The number of times you will find this being awkward will be dwarfed by the number of times you dominate in games using it. This is not a joke, seriously, try it out if you don't believe it.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
While assembling this engine is nice and all, you can't really expect to get it every game. That being said, getting at least two parts of the engine is good enough to win a lot of games.
[spoiler=What to expect if you don't get everything]
[spoiler=Undying Creatures + Sac Outlets]
This is the best start in situations where you want to race. If you draw these parts of the engine, you're most likely on the aggro plan. Most preferable cards to have are some combination of young wolf or strangleroot geist + carrion feeder, viscera seer, or village rites. One really important thing about these draws is that you have to know when you are the aggressor however. You will have to assess your hand and matchup to determine if you want to sacrifice your undying creatures (and leave them open to removal/not be able to chump block for free) or not, but for a lot of instances, you will want to opt for speed. Your fastest kills are possible with these hands, with most optimal looking something like this:
Turn 1: play Carrion Feeder
Turn 2: play strangleroot geist, sacrifice to carrion feeder, then attack for 5
Turn 3: play Geralf's messenger, sacrifice to carrion feeder to deal 4 damage total and drain opponent to 11. Attack for 6.
That is just one potential route for a strong start, but as long as you have carrion feeder and a critical mass of undying creatures, maybe with an unearth, you are pretty set. Turn 4 wins are pretty attainable.
You can also get a turn three kill, but the opponent needs to have literally nothing, and you need a perfect hand + topdecks, so I'll just let you figure that one out because that's not going to happen. Good luck.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Undying Creatures + Retribution of the Ancients]
Another really strong start, if you get this you are also pretty well set up for the game. You can hide behind a young wolf while trying to get a sac outlet. If you have a critical mass of undying creatures, go ahead and go for an aggro/tempo kind of game. These games are very fun and interactive, though things will get out of hand as soon as you get a sac outlet.
Side note: I would not keep a hand with this combination if you're only undying creature is a Geralf's messenger
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Sac Outlet + Retribution of the Ancients]
This is the most awkward combination you could get. Thankfully this is a fairly unlikely occurrence because there are so many undying creatures in the deck and only four retribution of the ancients. I'd equate hands that just have this set of cards to a jund deck only drawing bloodbraid elfs and kolaghan's command, or a control deck only drawing snapcaster mages and a smattering of planeswalkers without any path to exiles, or cantrips. For some games, these hands could have potential, especially if you draw an undying creature, but you better have a _good_ reason to keep hands with just this combination of cards. If you draw your hand and see these cards, most of the time it's going to be a mulligan.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Rest of the Deck]
While these cards are not a part of the engine of the deck, these cards are very important to ensuring the deck runs like a well oiled machine. These cards help to get the engine started, keep it going, and can even act as a substitute for some of the pieces of the engine if need be.
[spoiler=The Other Pieces]
Unearth: I initially avoided using this card because this deck already does a decent amount with the graveyard (since it uses undying creatures for value), which would make this deck more susceptible to graveyard hate. But recently, I have felt that there is a need for this card. This card helps to ensure that the deck has all of the pieces of the engine. With it, you don't have to fear so much about losing your undying creatures, so the card helps you be aggressive. In a way, this card acts like a retribution of the ancients lite, as it helps add to the longevity of your creatures. There is also that obligatory "If your opponent has graveyard hate, you can always cycle it as well" Clause. This card has ended up becoming the glue that brings the deck together into a more resilient and cohesive whole.
Scavenging Ooze: Great card in a lot of situations, and though it is not a part of the main game plan, it is just an all star that stabilizes the board when needed. Probably the best catch-all to get from an Eldritch Evolution in the main. Also a flex slot for siding some of the specific hate cards in and out between games.
Assassin's Trophy: Catch-all removal, deal with everything from Primeval Titan to Rest in Peace. Should really try to fit more into the deck because being able to deal with graveyard hate or just a must-remove threat is nice. It can be awkward to do stuff the same turn as casting it with the deck being so mana hungry, but it is a really good card.
Fatal Push: Must have for most black decks. just some decent creature removal that can help you tempo out games.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Lands]
_Despite this deck truly only being two colors (without even a splash), the land base is very demanding. A probably the best way to show this is by looking at strangleroot geist and Geralf's Messenger. You need GG for strangleroot geist but you need BBB for playing Geralf's Messenger. While that is the most obvious point of contention, the requirement of the manabase for this deck gets more demanding the closer you look. Just remember, you are trying to play cards like Eldritch Evolution, strangleroot geist, and scavenging ooze in a deck that's like three quarters black cards as well as trying to activate retribution of the ancients as much as possible in a turn. In order to make the mana base capable of consistently playing and activating these card, this deck employs the use of a few not so common land cards:_
Twilight Mire: This card allows you to play basics. you can have a swamp into carrion feeder on turn 1 and still play a strangleroot geist on turn two. Though this card is not commonly used for its reputation of being clunky at times, this card makes the deck very consistent with mana.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: this card also solves some of the issues Twilight mire solves. While the card doesn't totally fix mana problems if you have it, it is still very good since the deck is mostly black. There is also the added bonus of making nurturing peatland painless. You don't want more than 1 in the deck because drawing multiple is A) like drawing two swamps but worse, and B) Really bad because this land is legendary.
nurturing peatland: Costs life to make mana, but it makes the mana more consistent, and helps out a lot to prevent flooding too much. Gives you gas at the end of the game to get you over the edge and win.
Blooming Marsh: Fastlands are lands that not all decks play, but you will find that decks that try to be low to the ground play this land. This deck is no exception. For the same reason the deck plays Twilight Mire, the deck also wants to maximize the number of multicolored untapped lands it has at its disposal.
Overgrown Tomb + Verdant Catacombs: Past this point you start to see lands for a typical multicolored deck’s landbase. Overgrown Tomb acts as an additional untapped multicolor lands while Verdant Catacombs, being able to “fetch” Overgrown Tomb acts as additional copies of the card while both triggering revolt for Fatal Push and having the ability to “fetch” the basic forests and swamps in the deck.
Forest + Swamp: This set of lands should go without saying. You need basic lands in the deck so you don’t get destroyed by cards like Blood Moon, Path to Exile, Field of Ruin, and so on. Every deck needs basic lands, and you’ll find very few that don’t. Key interaction here is that they can act like multicolored lands with Twilight Mire, which is one of the reasons it is so good in the deck.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Sideboard Cards]
General Hate
Gemrazer: This is an interesting card to me. I like that you can destroy graveyard hate with this card while being a 4/4. I especially like how this card can play against graveyard hate: In situations where you face graveyard hate, you just load the board with your creatures and sacrifice them after the graveyard hate is removed. This card plays perfectly with that plan while having a lot of upside. You can mutate this card onto an undying creature, and then have the ability to sacrifice it, giving you a 5/5 reach and trample threat to go with your undying creature. A three mana 5/5 that is also anti-graveyard hate is nothing to scoff at. What I especially like about this card is that it does a lot against Anger of the gods. Slap this guy on an undying creature and have protection from that card, it is also just a good creature to cast on an empty board.
Phyrexian Revoker: Tutorable all-purpose sideboard card.
Reclamation sage: Tutorable artifact and enchantment hate. good for taking out graveyard hate as it so happens.
Collective Brutality: Really good against a number of combo deck and decks like burn. Usually a mistake not to play this card in the 75 if you can.
Thoughtseize: Anti-combo card, also good for taking out silver bullet cards.
Silent Gravestone: Untested card, seems decent to deal with a lot of graveyard hate cards.
Silent Gravestone: deal deal with the cards that this deck has the most trouble with such as Scavenging Ooze and Surgical Extraction. Also has text vs other graveyard decks even if it is slow. This does shut down your unearth and scavenging ooze, but it may be worth it.
For Grindy Matchups
Evolutionary Leap: With this card, you can pull out of grindy matchups easily, being able to draw two off of an undying creature, and even just get new creatures before one would die to removal is really nice.
Obstinate Baloth: Honestly, I am not sure why I have this card in the sideboard right now, it is a good card, and often is just a gotcha card, as well as being tutor-able burn hate, but I don't have a specific reason for playing this card over other similar ones.
Graveyard Hate
Nihil Spellbomb: Decent graveyard hate card, cycles if you don't need it.
Yixlid Jailer: Tutorable hate that you can also get back with unearth. Hits so much stuff from Uro, titan of nature's wrath, to conflagrate. also does _not_ impede on your undying plan.
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Additional Info]
With the general overview out of the way let's talk about some of the important information about this deck:
[spoiler=This Decks Relationship with Graveyard Hate]
This deck clearly gets a significant portion of the strategy shut down by graveyard hate. That being said, this deck handles it differently than say dredge. I think that a good way to put this is by talking about some of the graveyard hate dredge faces, and how the deck deals with it, and then comparing that to how this deck deals with it:
Dredge:
This deck operates out of the graveyard. All the deck really cares about is getting a creature with dredge into the yard and then just dumping more and more cards into the graveyard through those means. Because of this, dredge concedes to modern's most potent graveyard hate such as leyline of the void and rest in peace. This is because dredge can't get the payoff cards it plays out of the graveyard, let alone fill up the graveyard to utilize them as intended. While not all decks play such potent graveyard hate as leyline of the void and rest in peace in the sideboard, almost all decks play cards such as nihil spellbomb, scavenging ooze, tormod's crypt, surgical extraction, relic of projenitus, and other cards in the 75. These cards also do a lot to significantly hinder dredges gameplan, and slow it down enough for the opposing decks to win. To combat this, almost the entire sideboard for dredge is built to combat this, playing cards like assassin's trophy, pithing needle, blast zone, and ancient grudge. This is where dredge has the bulk of its issues, with the deck wanting to play out of the graveyard, dredge is forced to play hate cards out of the hand, which doesn't further the deck's strategy or set it up to "go off" following the removal of such spells. This is where I would like to talk about how dredge deals with grafdigger's cage This card is uniquely just okay, or usually not enough on its own against dredge if the deck can answer it. This is because while the card does put a hard stop on the deck pulling creatures out of the graveyard, dredge can still put them in there, allowing the deck to set up for a big turn, remove the grafdigger's cage when it matters most, and proceed to "go off" like there wasn't any graveyard hate there to begin with. This is where I would like to talk about how Undying Retribution would deal with graveyard hate.
Undying Retribution:
With this deck, almost all graveyard hate acts as a grafdigger's cage. This is because this deck plays cards out of your hand for its game-plan rather than directly out of the graveyard. Much like how dredge can stockpile the graveyard with creatures to bring back under a grafdigger's cage, Undying Retribution can stockpile creatures onto the battlefield, attack, block, and do whatever, and if the situation arises that the graveyard hate is removed, you can just take off as though the graveyard hate was never there. While your opponents can play removal spells to full effect while you are facing say a rest in peace, you still have access to all of the same sacrifice value with village rites or sacrificing to carrion feeder for value in response to a removal spell. The deck still operates to some capacity under graveyard hate, and unlike dredge, you don't have to hope you get anti-graveyard hate cards in your opening hand or have to choose between developing you strategy and trying to draw the much needed removal. While this deck does struggle a lot with graveyard hate, it is not nearly as bad as other graveyard-centered decks.
More Specifics
With that comparison out of the way, Here is how Undying retribution deals with graveyard hate on a case-by-case basis:
TBA
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[spoiler=How is this deck different from Golgari Yawgmoth Chord?]
I get it. Looking at the deck, it almost looks like a Yawgmoth Deck with an identity crisis. I'm just adding this to show that- well, this is just a different deck. I am also keeping this as relevant info for the time being just in an effort to guide discussion. When trying to get opinions from others on the deck, they always talk about it as though it lives in the yawgmoth combo decks' shadow.
With that said, let's start with what Golgari Yawgmoth Chord actually is. Golgari Yawgmoth is a creature based toolbox deck that is built to be versatile, opting to accelerate into being able to cast cards like Chord of Calling to get desirable cards, and combo off using Yawgmoth thran Physician, or just get value through it's card draw ability and sacrificing undying creatures and mana dorks. I would also like to state that though this deck was previously played on the competitive scene, the deck relied on Once upon a time to be consistent enough to operate, and is no more of a deck than this one following the banning of that card.
Given that information, I would like to show how these decks are geared for their separate, respective play-patterns. in Golgari Yawgmoth Chord, the deck goes wide with mana dorks and attempts to get the chord of calling tutor effects online as fast as possible. Retribution of the ancients does not slot into that strategy for a number of reasons:
1) Playing it lowers the number of creatures (most likely mana dorks and toolbox targets) in the deck. This hinders the plan of being able to get a chord of calling or Yawgmoth thran Physician online as fast as possible because this card in place of a creature that would be producing mana. On top of that, you can't even search for Retribution of the ancients off of a card like Chord of calling if you wanted it.
2) This card does not play with mana dorks well at all. The only thing these things can do for each other is have the mana dorks produce mana for retribution of the ancients. If they are the only two cards on the board, you accomplished nothing. This is significant because mana dorks take up a large portion of the deck since they play a good role as early acceleration and late sacrifice fodder for Yawgmoth thran Physician
3) If you have retribution out, how are you going to get value off of it? The only sac outlet in the Golgari Yawgmoth Chord deck is yawgmoth, and at that point the deck is doing what it wants anyways.
As for this deck, playing mana dorks and tutor-spells like chord of calling just doesn't make sense. By sacrificing your undying creatures when you play them, you have a one mana 2/2, a two mana 3/2 with haste, and a three mana 4/3 that deals four damage on etb. by playing say finally of devastation, you're playing a three mana vanilla 2/2, four mana 3/2 with haste, and a five mana 4/3 that drains for four. That is just bad. The only tutor-spell that is in the deck is Eldritch Evolution because at worst when you cast it, you get Geralf's Messenger, which is on curve for that mana cost. Even then it is just a two-of because it is three mana.
Alongside that point, in order to be able to think about the undying creatures as above curve threats, the deck plays more and cheaper sac outlets than just Yawgmoth, Thran Physician such as carrion feeder. Because your sac outlet starts at one mana rather than four, the deck is able to think about the undying creatures in such a way. With this play style in mind, having Retribution of the ancients makes a lot of sense. By being able to sacrifice creatures early and generate +1/+1 counters, you can easily see how Retribution of the ancients just bolsters this strategy, doing all of the things I mentioned above and more very efficiently.
As a summation to these points, this deck plays to the board and is built around leveraging Retribution of the ancients, while the Golgari Yawgmoth is built around leveraging Yawgmoth thran Physician. This deck also plays Yawgmoth thran Physician to have the ability to play like a Golgari Yawgmoth Chord deck as an option to play towards during games or to have an out during games, but first and foremost, this deck is abusing the power of the synergies the deck has with Retribution of the ancients.
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[spoiler=Not Immediately Relevant Info]
[spoiler=Maybeboard (Main and Side)]
Mainboard
Blood artist: Unsure of if this or Zulaport Cutthroat is the better card. Chose Zulaport Cutthroat for the time being because it has 1 power.
Sideboard
Life goes on: Really effective lifegain to play, especially when you are almost guaranteed to gain 8 life off of this card, barring your opponent doesn't play skullcrack
Relic of Progenitus: Decent graveyard hate card, cycles if you don't need it.
Knight of autumn: If you are willing to make a white splash for this card, it can be valuable. Every mode is especially relevant for this deck. +1/+1 counters can be used by Retribution of the Ancients, additional lifegain opportunities are great to have out of the side, and you have a tutorable artifact or enchantment effect like Reclamation sage. This card does not help so much with Blood Moon as reclamation sage only requires G, but that is a judgement call if you were to try a white splash.
Ashiok, Dream Render: closes the gap with Graveyard decks, but also has text against amulet titan decks. Hopefully that is enough for those matchups.
Stain the Mind: Seems like a decent card to deal with combo and spells like Anger of the Gods. Loss in tempo seems rough though.
Damping Sphere: Tron and Storm hate. Nice. Just don't play it unless you really need to because it destroys any chance of you using twilight mire. It may be worth looking for alternatives because of this downside.
Plague engineer: Tutorable silver bullet card. I really need to find room in the deck for this card.
Collector Ouphe: Tutorable silver bullet for some artifact based decks. Also deals with cards like Relic of Projenitus and Nihil Spellbomb if you expect to see it.
Fulminator Mage: I really want to add this card to the sideboard. After taking out Damping Sphere, I feel that the deck could use a little bit of tron hate. Having one of these just makes it so you can tutor it up, sacrifice it, and even do it again with unearth. This also deals with scapeshift decks and problematic utility lands.
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[spoiler=Cards that didn't really make the cut]
Fiend Artisan: This is a card that got a lot of hype, but it seems that even the decks that could use this card the most effectively don't want it. If this card were to be played in this deck, it would just be a 1/1 or a 2/2 more often than not, and it would mostly be used as a sac outlet to get toolbox cards. Unfortunately this card is underwhelming given that reality, and the fact that you cannot activate a summoning sick artisan makes it all the much worse here.
Cabal Therapist: This is a card that has some amount of promise. It is a sac outlet, though it is clunky, if the ability could be activated the same turn this card was played, the card would be much better, and it is hard to get this to line up and actually take cards out of the opponent's hand while getting value until like turn three. While I have seen this card performing well, I do not think that it is fast enough for what this deck wants to do.
Priest of forgotten gods: This is actually a great card in my opinion, it is a wonderful sac outlet that gives additional reach, ways to kill hard to defeat creatures, mana for explosive turns with retribution, and card draw. This card is seriously amazing when it works, and has turned many games around the times that I have used it. That being said it has problems that lead me to take it off the list: Being a 1/2, it has an unimpressive body, which means it does nothing to advance the board state for the first turn it’s out, and when you can't activate it. it is extremely susceptible to removal, drawing it from opponents, meaning it rarely survives long enough to do anything. If you could only activate it the turn it came out, this would be a very reasonable card to run.
Butcher Ghoul: I wish more undying creatures existed, there's really only the three in this deck that are close to modern playable, and I almost want to play this guy at times to up the undying creature count, but two mana for a 1/1 with no other abilities is just bad. Even when you sacrifice him, he is just a two mana 2/2. Not worth it.
Chord of Calling: Good modern card, not for this deck. If you want to play this card in this deck, then you're in luck, there is a similar deck that has had more success than a list like this called Golgari Yawgmoth Chord, a value toolbox deck centered around using these types of cards and mana dorks to generate value and combo off with undying creatures and Yawgmoth. Just this deck doesn't really want these types of effects.
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[spoiler=My History with the Deck]
I am not sure how much I remember, but this is generally how the deck came to be the way it is now plus or minus a few chronological errors. It all started with an evolve zoo deck that would play cards like experiment one, Cloudfin Raptor, undying creatures, and cards like Rapid Hybridization to make a critical mass of cheap 3/3 or 4/4 creatures. When Retribution of the Ancients came out, I added it to the deck along with Avatar of the resolute, but it was still 3 colors. The deck later morphed into a more casual golgari deck that played greenbelt rampager, Pelt Collector, and Narnam Renegade. [That was also the second deck I posted to this website.](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bg-evolve-by-snowmen1/) At this point, It was very clear to me that the deck was split between multiple strategies that both worked if you had drawn either of them, but was just clunky most the time, so I made a stompy deck and an undying + Retribution of the ancients based deck out of it. At this point, I thought that I couldn't really do much for the undying deck with the current card pool, so I left the deck like that for a while. After not looking at the deck for a while, I remember seeing a few lists that reminded me of this project, and saw some cool ideas like playing Eldritch Evolution for value with undying creatures. Around this time I stumbled upon another user named [[user:skookes[/card] (Check [Skooke's Deck](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/retribution-rock/) out by the way). We bounced ideas off of each other and we both made lists that tried to abuse this synergy. I began to take this deck seriously, and around this time I think I made and posted my second version of the deck under a new name, [Undying Aggro 1.0](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/undying-aggro-10/). A little bit later, Modern Horizons came out, giving the deck Carrion Feeder and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. This boosted the deck, but with the climate of the meta that came with the set, I did not do much in the way of magic: the gathering for this period. After that, I saw the deck deck, Golgari Yawgmoth Chord, get to the competitive scene. I began to play the deck more, seeing it as a fun, yet casual deck given the existence of Golgari Yawgmoth. Golgari Yawgmoth Chord felt like the most correct version of the deck because it seemed to deal with the lack of existing playable cards much better than what I had brewed up. Following the ban of Once upon a time, Yawgmoth Chord fell out of favor on the competitive scene, but I continued to play this deck because it was more of a fun deck than a competitive one. It did powerful things, but very often I was left feeling like the deck just needed more pieces to work well and be consistent. By this point is the deck you see here (barring the significant changes made over time). This just about brings the deck up to present day. Over the past year, I began to feel more confident in this deck's power. I began to take the deck seriously again, streamlining it as well as adding new cards as they came out. Most recently, the card village rites has really helped the deck a decent amount. Now I can say I feel confident in the deck's power, and it is only up from here. I hope you stick along to see how this deck evolves even more.
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[spoiler=Do I Actually Have/Play this Deck?]
I am just adding this because I think it would be an important factor for some people. "How much do I actually believe in this deck?" is something that I am sure is an important piece to how people discuss what they have made (take how people would talk about a meme deck vs a tier 1 deck). I think that committing to acquiring the cards in paper can be part of showing that I really do believe in the deck enough that I want to put my resources into assembling it. That being said, I play mostly paper magic, and I really want to play the deck in paper. It is fun and can hold its own.
With the current version of the deck I do not have it in paper. I have only played with it on cockatrice, but it has felt really good to play against all sorts of decks from tier 1 to jank. That being said, I have all of the cards from when I made a previous version of the deck back before Modern Horizons (give or take a few budget concessions), and I am actively rebuilding it. I am currently missing the four twilight mires I recently added to the list, as well as the two Yawgmoth, thran physician, three newly released village rites, three newly released Gemrazer, and one assassin's trophy. I am also using wooded foothills over verdant catacombs because I actually have the wooded foothills.
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So That's the Deck
I hope you liked it. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, if you spotted any mistakes in this description, or if you have any formatting suggestions. If you have a similar deck or choose to play this deck, please let me know how you liked it. If you have any more information about matchups etc, that would be greatly appreciated.
Anyways, thanks for reading!