Karlov is my favorite. The BG that can return creatures to play from GY is second. I really like kalemne. 4 mana 3/3 with double strike has potential to be a fun aggro general.
last laugh comes to mind for some reason. Bear with me:
If you have the right board position, an out of control LLaugh could leave you with a MASSIVE Karlov and an empty board. For example: LL + blood artist or best case LL + exquisite blood.
I absolutely love your primer and Xiahou as a whole, he's been a general I've been hyper interested in for a long time and finally managed to get one. That being said, looking at your list, there are four "expensive" cards that I do not have. I'm curious if I could operate on a similar game plan without these cards:
Word of Command
Grim Tutor
Abyss
Chains
Nether Void (didn't see this in your list)
also Imp Seal (will likely not have this for a while)
I'm curious if you had any potential alternatives or if I should just try again to build the deck when I had those. Also, if there are alternatives, what would you consider the order of acquisition?
Budget alternatives:
Word of Command - no alternative
Grim Tutor - Diaboloic Tutor (+1 mana)
Abyss - There are several good variants of this effect, Kuon, Anowan, the zombie variant (name escapes me at moment)
Chains - No alternative
Nether Void - Sphere of Resistance OR Trinisphere
Imperial Seal - Cruel Tutor, although more drawing could work too.
Insanely good at screwing over/containing/dominating one player but struggles with board wipes and being focus fired by removal. Lack of recursion/counters/etc make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stave off and/or recover from removal. Running cards like blood moon slows down other players but also makes you a target. Without recursion I couldn't hang with the decks build for attrition. I think if I either focused on trying to make it more of a combo deck OR played in a slightly less removal-centric group it could work.
I'm currently playing Alesha ("fling all the things" thread). For a monored fix, I play Heartless Hidetsugu. I bounce around between B, BW, R, and BWR. B is my favorite color so I have like 5 B decks I could build at any given time (Chainer, Oona, Drana, Gisa, Volrath).
I looked long and hard at Invader Parasite. Targeted land removal isn't something I've done a lot of, but I can see the merit. I'll have to reconsider that.
In my own Kiki Deck, I found invader parasite to be a nice way to permanently answer annoying non-basics and get some chip damage.
If blood moon is out, there's an enchantment that deals damage when people tap non-basics, it might be a compromise in the interim and an additional source of chip damage.
Sensei's Divining Top would also be a good add here, IMO.
Also, rings of brighthearth in for illusionist's bracers. Paying 2 per ability seems weak but copying non-creature abilities is a benefit, IMO. For example, copying fetchlands give you a rampant growth effect.
Game 2:
Lots of back and forth, I misplayed and gave up a win opportunity in an effort to try to get a life buffer against Nekusar (panicked at being < 10) (assassin game), the Edric player won that game on the back of over-whelming chip damage + nekusar damage.
Considering:
-night's whisper for skeletal scrying as I suspect the scalable draw is going to be more helpful than a quick shot of CA, same rationale behind sign in blood out for damnable pact.
Ob-Nix Reignited performed great, a non-creature phyrexian arena that sometimes kills creatures provided a ton of value for 5 mana.
An interaction that I find hilarious in these colors:
boros reckoner + spitemare + any damage doubling effect (furnace effect is even more dramatic than gratuitous violence but it's still all good).
Let's say lightning bolt hits reckoner, it becomes 6 damage, reckoner hits spitemare, it becomes 12 damage, spitemare hits something else, it becomes 24 damage (8x multiplier). Add additional doublers like Aurelia/etc for faster scaling.
This can be chained further if you have something like repercussion or wound reflection to get it 48 total damage/life lost. Finally, if you have a way to make the two creatures indestructible you can zap a single target for an arbitrarily large amount of damage.
Hmmm, I think I need to work this into my Alesha deck.
I like your ideas, but I ask myself one thing. Why do you play Alesha?
The flexible color identity plus the following interactions:
Alesha + Master of Cruelties = "one-shot" one player to death
Alesha + Sutured Ghoul or minion of the wastes = potential for massive burst damage
Fringe benefits are additional duplicant and disciple of bolas uses.
I'm still tinkering, I may try to add a few more pro-alesha cards to the deck (e.g. Wall of Blood). Alesha seemed to fit the strategy better, in color. Alternatively, I may consider Zurgo and just work on ways to pump and fling him since he starts at 7, I'm also debating other color identities to try out (e.g. monoblack, black-red, etc).
It is, but Sen's ability only lets you butthurt one player at a time, and only really if they share colors with you. Souped up Ertai oppresses the whole table by countering freaking EVERYTHING for 1U. His sac effect is also perfect with Dictate of Erebos. Not only do I counter their spell, but I make everybody sac a creature.
The only thing that can stop him really, is Stifle or a Pithing Needle. And they have to CAST it first. Ertai is just a douche commander. I'm honestly amazed more people don't run him. I always like my commanders to be a little unique and he fits to a T.
Well he's not run more because his ability requires a tap, so without help he's a recurrent single counter per orbit, assuming you have a consistent stream of "food". That doesn't make him bad, per se, but the brokenness of Zur and the stability of Oloro put them ahead of him on the "Esper totem pole". I'd even rank Sharuum above Ertai for this strategy as she'd leave you with combo outs or enhance an artifact based lock down (e.g. lattice + forge + disk).
Indifferent to the rest.
If you have the right board position, an out of control LLaugh could leave you with a MASSIVE Karlov and an empty board. For example: LL + blood artist or best case LL + exquisite blood.
Budget alternatives:
Word of Command - no alternative
Grim Tutor - Diaboloic Tutor (+1 mana)
Abyss - There are several good variants of this effect, Kuon, Anowan, the zombie variant (name escapes me at moment)
Chains - No alternative
Nether Void - Sphere of Resistance OR Trinisphere
Imperial Seal - Cruel Tutor, although more drawing could work too.
Insanely good at screwing over/containing/dominating one player but struggles with board wipes and being focus fired by removal. Lack of recursion/counters/etc make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stave off and/or recover from removal. Running cards like blood moon slows down other players but also makes you a target. Without recursion I couldn't hang with the decks build for attrition. I think if I either focused on trying to make it more of a combo deck OR played in a slightly less removal-centric group it could work.
I'm currently playing Alesha ("fling all the things" thread). For a monored fix, I play Heartless Hidetsugu. I bounce around between B, BW, R, and BWR. B is my favorite color so I have like 5 B decks I could build at any given time (Chainer, Oona, Drana, Gisa, Volrath).
I abandoned it because it wasn't competitive in my meta.
If blood moon is out, there's an enchantment that deals damage when people tap non-basics, it might be a compromise in the interim and an additional source of chip damage.
Sensei's Divining Top would also be a good add here, IMO.
Also, rings of brighthearth in for illusionist's bracers. Paying 2 per ability seems weak but copying non-creature abilities is a benefit, IMO. For example, copying fetchlands give you a rampant growth effect.
Game 1:
Turn 4 -> dark depths + vampire hexmage -> 20/20 Marit Lage
Turn 5 -> Swing with ML -> cast rush of blood with tainted strike backup, won game (assassin game, first to kill target wins)
Game 2:
Lots of back and forth, I misplayed and gave up a win opportunity in an effort to try to get a life buffer against Nekusar (panicked at being < 10) (assassin game), the Edric player won that game on the back of over-whelming chip damage + nekusar damage.
Game 3:
Marathon game -> was locked out by opponent's mindslicer + gift of immortality + greater good. (star with planechase)
Tweaks:
-sign in blood +damnable pact
-soul's fire +vampire hexmage
-wall of blood + name escapes me, it's the viashino that casts a spell from opponent's hand
Considering:
-night's whisper for skeletal scrying as I suspect the scalable draw is going to be more helpful than a quick shot of CA, same rationale behind sign in blood out for damnable pact.
Ob-Nix Reignited performed great, a non-creature phyrexian arena that sometimes kills creatures provided a ton of value for 5 mana.
"Huge Creatures":
"Cheat into Play"
"Sudden Damage":
"Removal":
"Draw":
"Tutor":
"Ramp":
"Misc Utility":
I think the main gaps are in draw and ramp. Would love upgrade ideas for those slots or other slots.
boros reckoner + spitemare + any damage doubling effect (furnace effect is even more dramatic than gratuitous violence but it's still all good).
Let's say lightning bolt hits reckoner, it becomes 6 damage, reckoner hits spitemare, it becomes 12 damage, spitemare hits something else, it becomes 24 damage (8x multiplier). Add additional doublers like Aurelia/etc for faster scaling.
This can be chained further if you have something like repercussion or wound reflection to get it 48 total damage/life lost. Finally, if you have a way to make the two creatures indestructible you can zap a single target for an arbitrarily large amount of damage.
Hmmm, I think I need to work this into my Alesha deck.
The flexible color identity plus the following interactions:
Alesha + Master of Cruelties = "one-shot" one player to death
Alesha + Sutured Ghoul or minion of the wastes = potential for massive burst damage
Fringe benefits are additional duplicant and disciple of bolas uses.
I'm still tinkering, I may try to add a few more pro-alesha cards to the deck (e.g. Wall of Blood). Alesha seemed to fit the strategy better, in color. Alternatively, I may consider Zurgo and just work on ways to pump and fling him since he starts at 7, I'm also debating other color identities to try out (e.g. monoblack, black-red, etc).
Still ideating at this point.
0,1,6,7 + 7-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 is ideal (shuffle or not is up to you)
The new scry rule for <=6 starting hands tacks on fine.
Well he's not run more because his ability requires a tap, so without help he's a recurrent single counter per orbit, assuming you have a consistent stream of "food". That doesn't make him bad, per se, but the brokenness of Zur and the stability of Oloro put them ahead of him on the "Esper totem pole". I'd even rank Sharuum above Ertai for this strategy as she'd leave you with combo outs or enhance an artifact based lock down (e.g. lattice + forge + disk).