I'll comment later on some of the individual cards when I havr more time, but for now I was wondering: is your list for multiplayer or 1 on 1?
Indeed it seems you have a bit more stax approach. I imagine people you play with are fine with Contamination? A friend of mine has a really cool Endrek Sahr deck in which he used to run it too, and I have to say it's really unfun to play against.
I agree and understand that it might not directly fit as the deck stands. With the introduction of Undying and punishment cards like Warstorm Surge give sneaky options for abuse. Couple that with persist for some out of no where plays.
And like you said, it might be annoying to other players, but it does put a stop to flooding tokens and or extremely rampy builds. That being said, as it is an enchantment, it will either slow up the other players boards for a few turns or die to naturalize. Either way, in the mean time, you get potential use out of it and time to establish better board control for your self as your other sac outlets will probably seem waaaayyyy less important targets.
Agreed, a makeover of the deck would make it a lot more useful.
As for building up my board, that's exactly what I worry about it will work against. So far in the games I've played, my board has a lot of creatures. As long as Tainted Aether is in play, I'm not able to add creatures either unless I sacrifice lands, stunting my own growth as well. It is very good vs tokens however, but I think I'd rather add Goblin Sharpshooter if tokens are a problem.
I hope this doesn't come across as "too dumb" but what about Tainted Æther. I've personally never found a better sac outlet.
Nothing's 'too dumb'.
You know, I've never really looked at tainted aether as a sac outlet. What I don't like about the card is that it doesn't really synergize with my other sac outlets. If I have, for example, Goblin Bombardment and Attrition out, I can choose to which I want to sacrifice my Reassembling Skeleton. With Tainted Aether I don't have that flexibility, unless I want to sac a land.
Also, Tainted Aether doesn't produce an additional effect (it just makes me sac stuff) and I can't control timing of it (often I play a waiting game, just putting my creatures and sac outlets on the board and respond to whatever happens). The upside (forcing your opponents to sacrifice too when they play a creature), is something I'm afraid of will annoy people and make me a hate magnet.
Thanks for the suggestion though, it certainly is a card I hadn't thought of myself!
One thing I was thinking about: would Vengeful Dead be worth it? It obviously does exactly what I want, but I don't know how many zombies I would need to make it work better than, say, Hissing Iguanar.
Also, who has a good idea about what the most synergystic (sp?) way to destroy artifacts would be?
I've been playing with the deck for a while now (somewhere between 5 and 6 years), and I'm totally impressed how it turned out. My old Lyzolda deck was quite awesome, but while playing I noticed that (A) the black was doing the heavy lifting anyway, (B) the red was basically only there to deal damage, which meant that I had a couple of cards that were only useful when I was ready to win the game, and (C) as hard as I tried, Lyzolda (the way I envisioned her) was a little underpowered. I decided that I wanted to try it out as a mono black deck to see if I could finish games without the red damage. It was. Even better. On the one side it's more resilient, because there are less situational (red) cards. On the other side it's a lot more explosive because of Endrek's ability.
After seeing Sam Black's Zombie Bombardment deck in action I decided to see if I could make something like that work in EDH. (For those who didn't see the deck, scroll down a bit on http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/a ... welcome#0))
What I really like about this kind of deck is that it relies solely on synergy. It's an engine. It's power is the combined parts of the deck, while it lacks any real haymakers. Sure, some of the engine oarts are good, maybe even TOO good (looking at you Goblin Bombardment..), but they only get rolling when combined with other stuff. And even then, most of the advantage it creates is small and steady instead of big and splashy.
The problem with small and steady in EDH is that it might just not be good enough to run with the big boys. All this carefully crafted engine work might just be Undone with the casting of one big, powerful spell (or said spell might create about the same effect..). Not to mention that parts of an engine are just that. Parts. Without other parts, they're worthless.
One of most common solutions to the above problem is to make the engine an infinite combo that wins on the spot, but that's exactly what I want to aVoid. I want synergy, not combo. Which I understand has a bit of overlap and what some might call combo, others call synergy.
So, will it work? Is it too clunky? Underpowered? Can it win without resorting to combo? Is it even pretentious to call this combo stuff synergy? Is it nothing more than a glass cannon?
I don't know, but wanted to find out. Just to see if what's in my head works out. It doesn't have to be all-powerful, but don't like to sit around all game waiting for that one piece to show up either. Preferably without too many tutors. So, that means redundancy.
For now I've selected black as my main color, because of it's sacrificial nature and self-recurring guys, with red as a second and maybe green as third. I don't really want to Savra as a general, which is nothing more than a personal preference: I don't want to play straight GB as a color combination. I do like GBR though, so that's fine. Other color combinations might work too, I don't know.
The bread and butter of the deck. Without these, especially the ones that are free to use, the deck falls flat. Phyrexian Ghoul/Nantuko Husk/Carrion Feeder might look underpowered, but the fact that they are (A) creatures to trigger Endrek/stuff when it dies, (B) unlimited free sac outlets, (C) cheap, makes them very important to the deck. Note the variety of effects these sac outlets create: from lifegain to removal to mana.
self-recurring creatures - unlimited Gravecrawler, Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, Nether Traitor, Endless Cockroaches.
I think these speak for themselves. Most of the time you only need 1 of these creatures each game, preferably Gravecrawler or Bloodghast because they are free. However, these creatures are so useful you don’t mind the redundancy and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example: Endless Cockroaches is the worst of the bunch, but makes the most tokens with Endrek and makes infinite mana/triggers with Phyrexian Altar. Also, you want more than one in the deck to be able to bounce back easier after graveyard removal.
self-recurring creatures – once Corpse Conoisseur, Puppeteer Clique
When Lyzolda was the general, there were some more undying/persisting dudes here, but these were the only 2 left. Both pretty nice though: Corpse Conoisseur is an interesting tutor (the only acceptable type) that can either find one of the creatures in the above category, or a bomb if you have a recursion effect. Puppeteer Clique is one of a few ways for this deck to access effects it doesn’t have in the deck. It’s pretty great to steal someone’s Terastodon for example.
does something when dies Solemn Simulacrum, Filth, Mindslicer,
No explanation needed for Solemn, I think. Filth is nice with Urborg to push potentially large Carrion Feeders through. Mindslicer is a mean card and probably on it’s way out.
2 cards to note in this category are Dark Prophecy and Dross Harvester. I think I can safely say that Dross Harvester is one of the best cards in the deck. It has a very unique and very needed effect. This is mainly because of Dark Prophecy being busted, but very scary as well. When this deck gets its gears going, Dark Prophecy will kill it. Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble offset this as well, but the added lifegain is what sets Dross Harvester apart because it also makes sure you have a nice life buffer against the attacks that will come your way at this point. (This also is the reason that Disciple of Bolas and Disciple of Griselbrand are in the deck: lifegain can make a difference).
Coffin Queen, Balthor the Defiled, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Phyrexian Reclamation, Victimize, Dread Return, Living Death, Nim Deathmantle, Lifeline, Unholy Grotto, Volrath’s Stronghold
Easy feature for black decks. Especially good in this deck because this deck tends to kill its own men. Especially Balthor, Mikaeus and Living Death are nuts.
Dread Return is often a wild card. I’ve had numerous times where I had all kinds of creatures in play but was facing lethal if I passed the turn unless I found a certain creature (mostly Dross Harvester). If you have an Altar of Dementia in play, you can mill yourself to find the creature and Dread Return to bring it to play. Obviously, if that creature happens to be Balthor, it’s gravy.
Withered Wretch, Shriekmaw, Massacre Wurm, Phyrexian Arena, Damnation, some of the utility lands.
Just adding a bit in area’s where the deck could use some help. Wretch is good when you’re planning on casting Living Death. Shriekmaw is very nice to recur. Massacre Wurm is a nice token sweeper and can actually kill the opponent (with or without the help of a Grave Pact), Damnation is a needed reset button and the lands are just nice to have. Note that I have a couple tutors to find these bullets. Also, with one of the carddraw engines in place, you see a lot of your deck.
Try the deck, it's a total blast to play.
If anyone wants to see the old Lyzolda deck, shoot me a PM.
I'll comment later on some of the individual cards when I havr more time, but for now I was wondering: is your list for multiplayer or 1 on 1?
Indeed it seems you have a bit more stax approach. I imagine people you play with are fine with Contamination? A friend of mine has a really cool Endrek Sahr deck in which he used to run it too, and I have to say it's really unfun to play against.
Agreed, a makeover of the deck would make it a lot more useful.
As for building up my board, that's exactly what I worry about it will work against. So far in the games I've played, my board has a lot of creatures. As long as Tainted Aether is in play, I'm not able to add creatures either unless I sacrifice lands, stunting my own growth as well. It is very good vs tokens however, but I think I'd rather add Goblin Sharpshooter if tokens are a problem.
Nothing's 'too dumb'.
You know, I've never really looked at tainted aether as a sac outlet. What I don't like about the card is that it doesn't really synergize with my other sac outlets. If I have, for example, Goblin Bombardment and Attrition out, I can choose to which I want to sacrifice my Reassembling Skeleton. With Tainted Aether I don't have that flexibility, unless I want to sac a land.
Also, Tainted Aether doesn't produce an additional effect (it just makes me sac stuff) and I can't control timing of it (often I play a waiting game, just putting my creatures and sac outlets on the board and respond to whatever happens). The upside (forcing your opponents to sacrifice too when they play a creature), is something I'm afraid of will annoy people and make me a hate magnet.
Thanks for the suggestion though, it certainly is a card I hadn't thought of myself!
One thing I was thinking about: would Vengeful Dead be worth it? It obviously does exactly what I want, but I don't know how many zombies I would need to make it work better than, say, Hissing Iguanar.
Also, who has a good idea about what the most synergystic (sp?) way to destroy artifacts would be?
I've been playing with the deck for a while now (somewhere between 5 and 6 years), and I'm totally impressed how it turned out. My old Lyzolda deck was quite awesome, but while playing I noticed that (A) the black was doing the heavy lifting anyway, (B) the red was basically only there to deal damage, which meant that I had a couple of cards that were only useful when I was ready to win the game, and (C) as hard as I tried, Lyzolda (the way I envisioned her) was a little underpowered. I decided that I wanted to try it out as a mono black deck to see if I could finish games without the red damage. It was. Even better. On the one side it's more resilient, because there are less situational (red) cards. On the other side it's a lot more explosive because of Endrek's ability.
The basic premisse of the deck is combining self-recurring creatures like Bloodghast and Gravecrawler together with free sac-outlets like Goblin Bombardment and Carrion Feeder and stuff that benefits from creatures dying like Blood Artist, to create a synergistic Wrecking Ball.
What I really like about this kind of deck is that it relies solely on synergy. It's an engine. It's power is the combined parts of the deck, while it lacks any real haymakers. Sure, some of the engine oarts are good, maybe even TOO good (looking at you Goblin Bombardment..), but they only get rolling when combined with other stuff. And even then, most of the advantage it creates is small and steady instead of big and splashy.
The problem with small and steady in EDH is that it might just not be good enough to run with the big boys. All this carefully crafted engine work might just be Undone with the casting of one big, powerful spell (or said spell might create about the same effect..). Not to mention that parts of an engine are just that. Parts. Without other parts, they're worthless.
One of most common solutions to the above problem is to make the engine an infinite combo that wins on the spot, but that's exactly what I want to aVoid. I want synergy, not combo. Which I understand has a bit of overlap and what some might call combo, others call synergy.
So, will it work? Is it too clunky? Underpowered? Can it win without resorting to combo? Is it even pretentious to call this combo stuff synergy? Is it nothing more than a glass cannon?
I don't know, but wanted to find out. Just to see if what's in my head works out. It doesn't have to be all-powerful, but don't like to sit around all game waiting for that one piece to show up either. Preferably without too many tutors. So, that means redundancy.
For now I've selected black as my main color, because of it's sacrificial nature and self-recurring guys, with red as a second and maybe green as third. I don't really want to Savra as a general, which is nothing more than a personal preference: I don't want to play straight GB as a color combination. I do like GBR though, so that's fine. Other color combinations might work too, I don't know.
1 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Creatures
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Gravecrawler
1 Viscera Seer
1 Blood Artist
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Skirsdag High Priest
1 Zulaport Cutthroat
1 Bloodghast
1 Nether Traitor
1 Withered Wretch
1 Coffin Queen
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Ophiomancer
1 Dross Harvester
1 Pawn of Ulamog
1 Kuon, Ogre Ascendant
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Balthor the Defiled
1 Smothering Abomination
1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
1 Corpse Conoisseur
1 Shriekmaw
1 Fallen Angel
1 Ogre Slumlord
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Grave Titan
1 Harvester of Souls
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Reaper from the Abyss
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Vampiric Rites
1 Bitterblossom
1 Gate to Phyrexia
1 Attrition
1 Dark Prophecy
1 Death Pit Offering
1 Tomstone Stairwell
1 Grave Pact
1 Black Market
1 Dictate of Erebos
Sorceries
1 Victimize
1 Damnation
1 Dread Return
1 Living Death
1 Army of the Damned
Instant
1 Plunge into Darkness
1 Corpse Dance
1 Wake the Dead
Artifacts
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Helm of Possesion
Lands
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Crypt of Agadeem
1 High Market
1 Phyrexian Tower
29 Swamp
1 Temple of the False God
1 Unholy Grotto
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
The cards are basically divided into one or more categories (some cards have changed, but the explanation still holds):
Carrion Feeder, Disciple of Griselbrand, Phyrexian Ghoul, Nantuko Husk, Dimir House Guard, Fallen Angel, Phyrexian Plaguelord, Gate to Phyrexia, Attrition, Skullclamp (sort of), Altar of Dementia, Spawning Pit, Phyrexian Altar, Helm of Possesion, High Market, Phyrexian Tower, Vampiric Rites
The bread and butter of the deck. Without these, especially the ones that are free to use, the deck falls flat. Phyrexian Ghoul/Nantuko Husk/Carrion Feeder might look underpowered, but the fact that they are (A) creatures to trigger Endrek/stuff when it dies, (B) unlimited free sac outlets, (C) cheap, makes them very important to the deck. Note the variety of effects these sac outlets create: from lifegain to removal to mana.
once
Disciple of Bolas, Fleshbag Marauder, Diabolic Intent, Victimize, Dread Return, Ritual of the Machine, Plunge into Darkness
Same story as with the engine cards, but less important. Disciple of Bolas has very nice synergy with the above mentioned Phyrexian Ghoul and pals.
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder, Pawn of Ulamog, Sengir Autocrat, Ogre Slumlord, Grave Titan, Bitterblossom, Tomstone Stairwell, Army of the Damned
Spearheaded by Endrek, there are a couple of token producers that produce quite a lot of tokens in various ways. Tokens are one of the best ways to go crazy with your unlimited sacrifice outlets and a card that triggers from your creatures dying.
self-recurring creatures - unlimited
Gravecrawler, Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, Nether Traitor, Endless Cockroaches.
I think these speak for themselves. Most of the time you only need 1 of these creatures each game, preferably Gravecrawler or Bloodghast because they are free. However, these creatures are so useful you don’t mind the redundancy and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example: Endless Cockroaches is the worst of the bunch, but makes the most tokens with Endrek and makes infinite mana/triggers with Phyrexian Altar. Also, you want more than one in the deck to be able to bounce back easier after graveyard removal.
self-recurring creatures – once
Corpse Conoisseur, Puppeteer Clique
When Lyzolda was the general, there were some more undying/persisting dudes here, but these were the only 2 left. Both pretty nice though: Corpse Conoisseur is an interesting tutor (the only acceptable type) that can either find one of the creatures in the above category, or a bomb if you have a recursion effect. Puppeteer Clique is one of a few ways for this deck to access effects it doesn’t have in the deck. It’s pretty great to steal someone’s Terastodon for example.
does something when dies
Solemn Simulacrum, Filth, Mindslicer,
No explanation needed for Solemn, I think. Filth is nice with Urborg to push potentially large Carrion Feeders through. Mindslicer is a mean card and probably on it’s way out.
The other pillar this deck rests on, finishing the unholy trinity of sac outlet/fodder/benefit. These are some of the cards that usually take a game over when going unanswered. The Grave Pacts essentially Plague Wind the table, Dark Prophecy/Harvester can draw your deck, etc.
2 cards to note in this category are Dark Prophecy and Dross Harvester. I think I can safely say that Dross Harvester is one of the best cards in the deck. It has a very unique and very needed effect. This is mainly because of Dark Prophecy being busted, but very scary as well. When this deck gets its gears going, Dark Prophecy will kill it. Blood Artist/Falkenrath Noble offset this as well, but the added lifegain is what sets Dross Harvester apart because it also makes sure you have a nice life buffer against the attacks that will come your way at this point. (This also is the reason that Disciple of Bolas and Disciple of Griselbrand are in the deck: lifegain can make a difference).
Easy feature for black decks. Especially good in this deck because this deck tends to kill its own men. Especially Balthor, Mikaeus and Living Death are nuts.
Dread Return is often a wild card. I’ve had numerous times where I had all kinds of creatures in play but was facing lethal if I passed the turn unless I found a certain creature (mostly Dross Harvester). If you have an Altar of Dementia in play, you can mill yourself to find the creature and Dread Return to bring it to play. Obviously, if that creature happens to be Balthor, it’s gravy.
Just adding a bit in area’s where the deck could use some help. Wretch is good when you’re planning on casting Living Death. Shriekmaw is very nice to recur. Massacre Wurm is a nice token sweeper and can actually kill the opponent (with or without the help of a Grave Pact), Damnation is a needed reset button and the lands are just nice to have. Note that I have a couple tutors to find these bullets. Also, with one of the carddraw engines in place, you see a lot of your deck.
Try the deck, it's a total blast to play.
If anyone wants to see the old Lyzolda deck, shoot me a PM.