Down with the spaghetti monsters! They're nothing but giant, floating, tentacle-y blobs that eat people's dreams and board states! I still have nightmares when Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was legal in EDH. That card terrified our playgroup because everyone had it. Bribery, if resolved, basically won games all by itself. And our playgroup could make that happen as early as T2 or T3. It was awful.
I would recommend keeping Toxic Deluge because it can come down early in the game if you need it to. There's an Animar deck in my playgroup that I have a personal grudge against that seems to always have a T2 Animar. Having early wraths really puts him into playing fair and allows me to break him... I mean his deck. Sorry. Regardless, it's a wrath that gets around indestructible things and can scale as you need it to. Did I mention that it can come down early?
I agree with your cuts concerning In Garruk's Wake, Staff of Domination, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and the Hex Parasite. I'm gonna guess that the Parasite is to deal with the Super-Friends deck that you're talking about earlier. If that's the case than I say keep it because it comes down hella early underneath counters and if it eats removal, that's fine. That's one less removal on something that you need. And if you add a slight reanimator theme than you don't care because it will come back. If you want to keep the Parasite than you can eye up Necropotence. Although I feel terrible saying that...
How has Sorin Markov been for you? It seems that more often than not it's a 6 mana "Set target opponent at 10 life and incur his anger forever." That's been my experience with him, and I cut him in my list. I have him in my Lazav deck because there's a slight Vampire tribal thing going on and his setting an opponent at 10 life is very useful. I say this because I'm actually preferring to kill people with combat damage. Sorin sets my next targeted opponent at a reasonable life total while my voltron suited-up Lazav kills my current target. Sorin potentially allows me to one shot an opponent. I don't know if you have the same strategy going on here. If you like him, cool. If not, I think he could be replaced. Yes, I know it's hard to cut good cards that you've liked and have worked for you. Case in point being the spaghetti monster. You can do it. In the words of a well-known Disney song, "Let it go, let it go..."
No, don't cut Contamination or Necropotence! They're almost too good not to play. I'd rather cut Infernal Darkness instead of Contamination. You don't lose life and you don't have a cumulative mana tax, which in reality limits your playing instead of allowing you to get ahead when your opponent's are color screwed for the turns that Infernal Darkness is in play. I think Contamination is much better, but that's just personal opinion. I can understand cutting Necropotence. I cut if from my Dralnu list back in the day and I didn't regret it.
I still think that you have too many wrath effects. Cut one more and I think that you'll have the balance that you need. How many times has the board been cleared and yet you still have another wrath effect in hand? I would bet a lot of times. I argue that you don't want to draw cards that are irrelevant to the board state too frequently. That dilutes the power of your deck and your strategy because instead of advancing your board state to a condition where you can win, you are holding an answer. Answers don't win games; they prevent you from losing games. I think with your wrath count being as high as it is --it's still 9 after you remove In Garruk's Wake--you're limiting your chances of playing the big spell that will win you the game.
Sigh. Kozilek is a big, fat, dumb spaghetti monster. How much spaghetti do you need in your deck? Ha. No worries though. If you like Kozilek than carry on. If he sticks his Annihilator 4 does a good job of clearing board states.
A card that I also really enjoy that is incredibly strong is Sadistic Hypnotist. He freaking trashes peoples hands, especially if you EOT milled someone for 3-4 faerie tokens with Oona.
This current deck list has done very well for me and has a great balance of creatures, spells, and artifacts. The only thing I wish I could add in here is Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. He was my first mono-Black general and I built him into a sweet mono-Black control deck that used Crucible of Worlds to drain people's life with fetch lands. It was pretty dumb and turning him sideways when he was a 15/15 were great moments in my EDH career. Who knows? Perhaps I'll change the deck very slightly and add him and Crucible of Worlds back in. Anyways, I'll include a dscription of why each card is included in my deck and its function. I think I'm going to link this to my Oona list and have a sort of mini-Primer going on here, Defenestrate Windows. Hope you don't mind.
Explanation of Cards
Creatures
Reassembling Skeleton - he doesn't like being dead and really enjoys being thrown under big attackers. In addition to wanting to always hop out of his grave, he has excellent interactions with the sac outlets I have, the notable ones being Sadistic Hypnotist, Ashnod's Altar, and Skullclamp. When he's died a lot of times, he makes Black Market ludicrous in mana production and Dire Undercurrents loves to salute Reassembling Skeleton as it hops out of his grave. Restless skeleton, geez.
Disciple of Griselbrand - he gains me life and is a sac outlet. It's sometimes amazing the amount o flife he'll net me and being able to sac dudes at instant speed is really beneficial. Chainer, Dementia Master agrees that the Disciple is very useful. He is very useful with the slight reanimation theme that is present in my deck, allowing me to pick up dead creatures multiple times and abuse their ETB abilities. The lifegain is also very useful, with Necropotence and Chainer, Dementia Master requiring a large portions of my life. I wonder how he manages to sacrifice creatures when he's blindfolded...
Nezumi Graverobber - grave hate that flips into reanimation. He's cheap enough that he usually slips underneath counterspells and can target specific cards when he's a little rat. When he graduates and becomes a big-boy rat his instant speed ranimation ability is very useful. All around a great card that I'm rarely sad to see.
Fleshbag Marauder - I love creature edicts that are stapled to a creature. Reanimating them is great because they'll put themselves back in the grave for you so you don't have to have a sac outlet. How thoughtful of them. The fact that it's a mass edict is very useful also.
Dark Impostor - exiling removal is great. The fact that he steals a dude's activated abilities has sometimes proven very interesting. Arcanis the Omnipotent has been really cool as an activated ability. That his ability is also instant speed is very nice, allowing some potent creature control on the board. His flaor text is also pretty amusing as well.
Disciple of Bolas - read this card very closely. Again. Yeah. It's pretty obvious why this card is here. Cards and life gain on a creature that can be reanimated? What's not to love about this chick?
Crypt Ghast - mana doubler that is a creature. It loves to be reanimated so that you always have Swamps adding and additional B. I haven't really taken advantage of the Extort mechanic going on, but the fact that it gives us a little bit more reach and pads our life total in the late game is pretty useful.
Phyrexian Metamorph - one of the primary advantages of having Oona as the Commander is that you get a clone effect. This is really quite powerful as now you don't need to wait for that awesome creature to be dead. You can clone it and then kill it. Yay! It can also copy Caged Sun and sometimes likes to moonlight as a Sword. Very useful creature that loves to be reanimated too.
Solemn Simulacrum - mana ramp on a creature that actually profits from its demise. Yes please. If Wizards prints another guy like this it would be an auto-include. Burnished Hart is really close but doesn't ETB ramp. Almost, bronze buck. Almost.
Chainer, Dementia Master - quite simply this would be my General if Oona wasn't as good as she is. He's cheap and is a reanimator that reanimates at instant speed for the paltry cost of BBB and 3 life. Totally worth it. Sac outlets become very useful with Chainer so that you can sac the creatures he's reanimated at instant speed so they're not exiled forever. I cannot recommend Chainer highly enough.
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief - instant speed removal stapled to an evasive beater. She's a great creature and does a good job of controlling creatures that timidly try to ETB and do things. With enough mana she can become a win condition. Also remember that you can kill your own dudes so that she can get the massive pump to kill that player at 11 life. The fact that she can also kill indestructible things is also pretty cool.
Sadistic Hypnotist - in my mind, he holds the spot as Slaughterer of Hands. He's a sac outlet during your turn and turns those Oona tokens, reanimate-able creatures, and himself into Mind Rots for as many creatures as you want to throw at him. Well, I guess he's throwing their corpses at our opponents or something. Very good card that I wouldn't leave home without in this deck.
Magus of the Coffers - mana ramp on a creature. Cabal Coffers number 2 in my deck, but after I get Thespian's Stage he'll be Coffers number 3. Yes. He looks kinda creepy as if he's wearing a mask from that movie The Purge or something.
Bloodgift Demon - a creature that's pretty respectable in attacking opponents with card advantage stapled onto him. He almost always draws you cards, not anybody else. It would be pretty hysterical if you could kill someone with his ability. He holds Sword of Feast and Famine very well too.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel - life gain and life drain on one creature. With just him and Oona on the field and 3 opponents that's 15 life to you and 5 life loss to your opponents. He loves to be sacrificed and reanimated as many times as mana is available. He doesn't understand why he keeps dying but he just shrugs his shoulder and happily taxes my opponents' life total.
Puppeteer Clique - being able to reanimate opponents' creatures is really cool. But when combined with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and a sac outlet, it becomes a stupid abuse of ETB triggers from the creature that you're reanimating. With the right sac outlet, it generates infinite mana but that's besides the point. These trickster faeries are happy to reanimate a super powerful creature and then watch that creature exile to. Occasionally they act as graveyard hate.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - there are only four Humans in my deck. Which means that whenever any other creature of mine dies, from wraths, sac outlets, combat, whatever, they're coming back like The Shining. He combos with Puppeteer Clique but more importantly gives each creature additional value and resiliency when they die. I like to sac things and he makes sure that the creatures I sac come back again.
Phyrexian Gargantua - he's a dude that has card advantage stapled to a body that can be reanimated. That's really why he's here because he's a sure source of card advantage when reanimated. The life loss is easily recuperated in this deck.
Geth, Lord of the Vault - this guy has the potential to completely take over games. He stinted for a while as my General for a while before I switched to Ob Nixilis. Being able to reanimate opponents' creatures at instant speed and the fact that he fuels his own ability is incredible. Steling milled mana-stone is also really, really good. He's a great creature who enjoys long walks through swamps and graveyards. When he's holding his favorite Sword he becomes even more powerful. A bomb that I am always happy to see.
Nirkana Revenant - a pretty standard mono-Black mana doubler. I think it's auto-included in all mono-Black lists.
Duplicant - being able to excuse certain creatures from the game is very useful. Yes, I'm looking at you, you spaghettimonsters. He sometimes enjoys coming out of the grave but having a permanent answer to problem creatures is very useful. Expensive as removal but has proven useful many times. Most notably being able to kill stupid, ridiculously large Animar's is the main reason he's here.
Rune-Scarred Demon - tutor on a creature. He loves to visit his grave but never really gets comfortable in his casket because he loves to be reanimated. I also think that he's pretty standard as an auto-include in mono-Black. A very useful creature that sometimes even does damage to opponents. 6 damage is a respectable swing.
Sheoldred, Whispering One - reanimation and forced edicts every turn on a big body. Very useful and makes Contamination much better because you can reanimate the creature that ideally has some sort of ETB ability.
Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet - removal on a body. But mostly, I had a slot open and I wanted to give him a try. He's proven useful in a few instances but other times has been pretty clunky. I'm up in the air on this guy as the token isn't super useful, usually.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - removal of irritating artifacts and enchantments while also being a terrifying beater. Being indestructible is also kind of cool but the Annihilator mechanic is really quite crazy.
Instants
Go for the Throat - instant speed removal that generally hits any creature. Very useful.
Tendrils of Corruption - again, instant speed removal that hits any creature that isn't pro-black. Plus lifegain.
Memory Plunder - a secret tility card that has pulled so many tricks. It's been a counterspell. It's Time Stretched me to victory. It's Tooth and Nailed me into a dominating board presence. I personally love this card and have been so happy with it. It allows you to create plays that your opponents' generally don't expect and are unprepared for. And the art is really quite cool.
Black Sun's Zenith - black wrath that can permanently shrink big things but generally wipes the field. It shuffles itself back in which means that you can use it again. Very useful.
Exsanguinate - win condition and life padder. Pretty straightforward spell.
Ancient Craving - card advantage is very important in EDH. So playing this card makes sense.
Beseech the Queen - sure, it's not the best tutor in the game. But the flavor cannot be ignored. I mean, after all, the card references my General. Very necessary, in my mind.
Mutilate - also pretty standard mono-Black wrath effect.
Increasing Ambition - tutor once, yay. Tutor twice for extra value in the late game when I need to close out the game? Sign me up for that. Besides, the art is really cool. It looks like some sort of picture from Prince of Persia or something.
Promise of Power - card advantage that sometimes even makes a giant demon. Cool stuff. The card advantage is what's most important here.
Diabolic Revelation - being able to tutor for X cards in the late game or with an abundance of mana is probably the best way to spend mana. Besides winning the game. I've used this card to tutor for a new hand of the seven best cards left remaining in my deck. That was pretty cool. I think I won that game.
All is Dust - another wrath effect that has the sweet ability to hit enchantments and indestructible things and pro-black things. The flavor text is great too.
Decree of Pain - a wrath effect with card advantage stapled to it. Huzzah! Sometimes the cycling ability is useful, but I think I've only ever done it once in the entirety of my Magic career.
Army of the Damned - pet card of mine. With Sadistic Hypnotist this usually clean opponent's out of any cards. Then being able to flashback a zombie horde and overrun the table is assured. I also really love zombies and thus have to play this card in at least one of my decks.
Enchantments
Bitterblossom - this enchantment loves Skullclamp and Contamination. Sometimes the faerie tokens like to pick up Sword of Feast and Famine and wing in to slice an opponent. Sometimes they like to chump block big fat things and squeak out of existence. Sometimes they love to explore sac outlets and usually find that that's generally not a good idea for them, but very much so for me. The assorted altars love to see faerie tokens, particularly Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar. The flavor also is great.
Necropotence - card advantage. Arguably one of the best cards in the game. Never have an empty hand again at the cost of life. Who cares if you win at 1 life? You still won.
Contamination - brutal card that punishes all people for not acknowledging Black as the best color in Magic. Yes, Blue mages. Watch those Islands do nothing for you! This card plus Oona tokens, Bitterblossom, Sheoldred, Whispering One, and Reassembling Skeleton creates a hard lock that is very, very difficult for opponent's to come out of.
Greed - Necropotence's little cousin. Card advantage at the cost of life. I like it. Plus the new art is pretty interesting. I would love to be able to vomit gold coins...
Black Market - this card has gotten so out of hand on multiple occasions. The record for me was 54 B on my first main phase. It sees any creature dying and puts a charge counter on itself. This card is great, probably one of the most powerful cards in the deck. It turns sac'ed dudes into mana, makes wraths generate mana, and loves to ensure Oona has plenty of mana to play with. An incredible card that I am always happy to see.
Dire Undercurrents - makes Oona's activated ability a source of card advantage. Yes please. Also has the potential to be rather political if you need to make some friends in a game. It usually nets me 3-4 cards per activation of Oona, Queen of the Fae's ability. I consider this to be a staple for Oona as it turns her ability into the best source of card advantage ever - the virtual removal of opponent's cards, discarding of opponent's cards, drawing of cards for you.
Skullclamp - card advantage that loves Oona tokens. They don't wear it very well though, because they keep dying. Or perhaps they wear it perfectly because they die? The debate continues... Being able to equip a dude and net card advantage from that creature dying is extremely useful.
Altar of Dementia - an instant speed sac outlet that does something useful for all the reanimators out there. But one of the weaker cards of the deck. I might switch it out for something else.
Mind Stone - mana rock that draws a card in the late game when I need it to.
Phyrexian Altar - instant speed outlet that turns creatures into colored mana. It's really awesome to turn Oona tokens into mana so that you can keep chaining Oona activations and even cast spells from my hand. With Ashnod's Altar and a bit of luck you can successfully mill an opponent out with just these two altars and an initial activation of Oona. I want to try and have it happen in a game. That would be pretty cool.
Ashnod's Altar - instant speed sac outlet that profits me some mana so that I can do more cool things. Very useful artifact.
Sword of Feast and Famine - this card is incredible, mostly for allowing a pseudo time-walk by allowing me to untap my lands so that I can cast more spells on my second main phase. It dominated standard for a reason. And still shows up in Legacy play because it's really good. Besides, what would Oona do if she didn't have a sword to lead her faerie horde?
Oblivion Stone - wrath that targets dumb enchantments and artifacts and planeswalkers and can be activated at instant speed too.
Caged Sun - mana doubler that only targets you. It makes those faeries something respectable too in combat.
Planeswalkers
Karn Liberated - mostly used as removal that can stick around for quite a while when alternating between abilities. I don't think I've ever used his ultimate and that's ok. The ability to exile dumb things, including lands, is extremely useful. Hits enchantments, other planeswalkers, and artifacts.
EDIT: Fixed some of the coding issues in this post that weren't allowing me to come back and edit this. Thanks mods!
I like Silence the Believers. The art is brutal and being able to selectively exile problem creatures at instant speed is really quite good. Black doesn't generally get a lot of removal that exiles things, because reanimation is a theme of black, so I think that Silence the Believers deserves a spot. Or at least a test run. I'm currently testing it. And I think that Sever the Bloodline usually doesn't mass exile tokens; I don't play it because it only really exiled one dude and it's sorcery speed too. Bleh. I would agree with the switch you're considering here.
Amen to Painter's Servant. It would be incredible to be have a guaranteed hit every time with Oona...
How have you liked Dire Undercurrents? Personally, I love the card and I think that it does the job of Oona's Blackguard well enough that you probably don't need the fragile little Blackguard. But I think that's just a personal preference for me. I agree with your post in Patryn's thread that discard is underrated in this format. I play Nicol Bolas as my general for my Grixis deck and when he connects with the other person who is vying for blue supremacy I always know that I will win. Always. I have yet to lose when Nicol Bolas does his thing to a person's hand. If only there were a black creature that did something similar.
How has Attrition been for you? I cut it a while back because it's usually just a dead card for me. The field is either always cleared or the only creatures I was able to target were black. There is a lot of black in the playgroup that I have and I've never been impressed with it. I think I replaced it with Dark Impostor and haven't looked back. I feel like I should post my list somewhere so that us Oona players can all compare and streamline our builds for multiplayer. I'll do it in this thread since this is the most recent one I'm looking on.
I second the suggestion for a card that generates more attack steps, particularly Waves of Aggression. Waves of Aggression is an incredible card. It turns top-decked lands in the late game into another attack step. What gets even better is when you can chain two lands together to get 3 attack steps in one turn. I'm sure with Skullclamp that your hand gets cluttered up with lands occasionally. Waves of Aggression becomes a way for you to turn lands into profit. From what I see of your list, Sun Titan looks to be the only thing that does land recursion or generally makes dead lands useful. Waves of Aggression synergizes very well with what your deck wants to do while giving you late game options with drawn lands that are less useful. It also fits into your mana curve relatively well, being less than Aurelia. I play it in my Kaalia deck and it's an absolute monster. Granted, Kaalia loves attack steps for different reasons than what your deck likes, but I think the point stands. The most ridiculous occurrence of Waves of Aggression was discarding two lands to attack two more times and spew the rest of my hand onto the battlefield, tapped and attacking. Granted, it doesn't give the dudes haste but it was back-breaking. Putting Gisela, Blade of Goldnight into play with the first attack, putting Balefire Dragon with a Harvester of Souls in play for the second attack to sweep the dude's field and draw the second land and a fresh Lord of the Void, followed by the third attack to exile the top seven cards of his library and steal his PHyrexian Metamorph to clone my Lord of the Void. I one-shotted that player in one turn and soon overwhelmed everyone else when no wraths were played. That was kind of a tangent, but I personally love Waves of Aggression.
@Patryn
Patryn, how often do you cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth? Yes, Big Black Mana decks are a lot of fun to play but I have seen my spaghetti monster sit in my hand for a lot of turns before I was able to play it. In my playgroup, there are a lot of theft effects so I've been dissuaded from running Eldrazi if I can help it. It has a high mana cost and dies to every type of removal too. It would be sad to cast a 10 mana cost Concentrate and shuffle away your graveyard. Which also isn't a good thing since you're thinking about trending towards a slight reanimator theme.
Also, I agree with the high number of wrath effects. You could probably take out one or two and free up some spots for either spot removal or card draw. But that's just my opinion. I think I run about 6 wrath effects in my mono-Black and that's usually been enough.
@ Rowan
No problem for the shout out. Your Firemind Primer was a great read. Well-constructed and very intelligent. I'm thinking about perhaps beginning to look for some of those cards and building your decklist. Your discussion with 3drinks on one of these Kaalia threads is also very insightful and entertaining.
Power Artifact is a great suggestion. I totally forgot about this card. You're right, it has incredible synergy with my general and indeed produces lots o' mana with Basalt Monoloith. If I can find a Grim Monolith somewhere in a trade binder or at a good deal online I will acquire it. I think I would include it strictly for my general though. Being able to steal something for 4 mana instead of 7 mana actually makes a big difference. Great suggestion.
Etherium Sculptor would definitely need a few more artifacts to play with in order to increase his usefulness. It's tempting to include him simply because he adds another infinite combo to the deck and has decent synergy with the deck. Reduces the mana cost of Memnarch, is a wizard for Azami to have some draw power there, but outside of that it doesn't have much. I would seriously want to evaluate it.
The list of draw spells you suggested I've looked at also. Of those, I think I like Preordain and Brainstorm. I don't know why Brainstorm isn't in here already because in each game I've played there has been a ton of shuffling effects. The virtual card advantage of Brainstorm with fetch-lands is something I'm familiar with when I'm play-testing Legacy with my friend.
Thanks for the suggestions. I also played Kaalia yesterday twice. Descriptions are as follows:
Game 1 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was way in my favor because he got mana-screwed after T3. I had Counterspell for when he first tapped out for Kaalia and the rest was history. He was never really in the game and just kinda watched as Deadeye Navigator and Archaeomancer picked up Time Warp enough times to kill him with combat damage. Having Gauntlet of Power was very useful here, as it allowed me to combo out with 5 Islands and Academy Ruins. Turn 7 was when I started chaining turns. He insisted we play again since his deck kinda didn't show up to play. I agreed.
Game 2 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was much better. Both are decks did their thing and it was very back and forth with some ridiculous plays happening. My friend opened up with Weathered Wayfarer and that's a good card. He was able to tutor for Hall of the Bandit Lord T3 which would guarantee a T4 attacking Kaalia. Pretty good. I couldn't find removal for it, though I had a counter in hand for when Kaalia decided to come out so I wasn't worried. But, alas, I tapped out on my T2 to play Everflowing Chalice so I could catch up with him on mana (he went first). He untapped, drew and grinned to himself. He tapped his mana and seemed to casually toss Price of Glory after playing a Sol Ring. Damn. My Arcane Denial looked pretty stupid and I inwardly cringed. I decided then that basically I needed to either race him to combo out or burn through my deck as fast as possible to try and find removal for that cursed enchantment. By the way, racing Kaalia is really, really hard. I untapped, drew a land, and played Rhystic Study. He tutored for the Hall and passed the turn. I played Solemn Simulacrum and had Duplicant and Deadeye Navigator in hand, ready to go. Machine gun exile effect for 2 mana. Sounds good. He untaps, draws a card, turns Kaalia sideways and puts Rakdos the Defiler into play tapped, Annihilating me for half my board. Force of Will would have been so nice here... And in case you're wondering, yes, I die. Horribly. I untapped, played a land and my own Sol Ring, which I just drew. He untapped, didn't play a land and chose to attack with Rakdos, sac'ing half his board to cripple me and close out the game in his favor. Kaalia put Harvester of Souls into play tapped and attacking, just to seal the deal I guess. With two Islands in play I decide that he wins and scooped up my cards. If Price of Glory hadn't come down on T2, I think I would have had the game again. Dumb red cards... Haha.
I also have a Mono-Black Oona list that I've been working on for some time. Big black mana is great and there are a lot of cool things that Mono-Black can do. Some cards I run in my list that I strongly recommend:
-Memory Plunder is a great card that allows you to occasionally counter spells, but more often than not it's a Tooth and Nail or even a Time Stretch. It has great utility and people forget that you can do it all the time. Mono Black with instant speed responses to stuff; who knew?
-Dire Undercurrents is one card that I am always happy to see. It turns Oona into a card advantage machine and has great synergy with the general idea of Mono Black. Paying 7 mana into Oona;s ability and then potentially draw, on average, 3-4 cards AND cause an opponent to discard 3-4 cards? That's pure card advantage for sure. It has great synergy with reanimation tooIt's also really fun with Army of the Damned, but that one is a pet card of mine. Think about the flavor there: a horde of Zombies is summoned and your opponents are so terrified that they literally lose their minds(discard cards)!
-Disciple of Bolas is really great in reanimation themed decks. Life and card advantage for the plus of putting one of your dudes in the graveyard to be reanimated again! Yes.
Keep on Oona'ing. She is the only general I would play in Mono-Black. And she was also one of the first cards that I ever ordered online. I still have my original copy sleeved up. Ah, memories.
@AzoriusAgent
I have considered using Psychosis Crawler as an additional win condition. He has strong synergy with the idea of what I want my deck to do. The hard thing, however, is of course the ultimate question in EDH: what to cut. Every card in here has been useful in one game or another. The only card that I haven't been too impressed with has been Sphinx of Magosi. It draws cards at instant speed, turns into a beater, and is only really good in the late game when ideally removal spells have been expended, but it's usually not very impactful and the cost is expensive. I'll try out the Crawler once I find a copy of it in my stack of cards. I also just took out Treachery from another deck and I want to test that here. Moar removal! is never a bad thing and having a free spell is advantageous as well.
I played a few games this weekend. They were 1v1 against Damia and Nicol Bolas, respectively. I'll include the game descriptions and the notable plays that occurred in each game.
Memnarch vs. Damia game
This was a control-lover's dream. Incremental advantage accumulated and well-timed plays on my part allowed me to syphon out his hand of answers. There were some great plays on his part where he tutored for answers for whenever I did something that would have pulled me ahead, like Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight. Krosan Grip is a really good card, by the way, blanking the Force of Will that I had in hand as I watched my card advantage die away. It was an interesting game because I knew that he played not as many draw spells as I do because he uses Damia as a draw spell. Also, he didn't get as much explosive ramp as he normally does which helped a lot in this game. After I expended his resources, I played Memnarch with the abundance of mana that I had accumulated (I had a Crucible of Worlds and Terramorphic Expanse engine going). And eventually Memnarch stole his board and he scooped. It was a great game of back and forth plays with only one counter war over my first casting of Memnarch. MVP of the game was Memnarch, because he won me the game, but an honorable mention goes to Crucible of Worlds being able to consistently hit land drops each turn and out-mana my opponent was crucial in the game and is what allowed me to cast spells to purposely expend his resources so that I could land Memnarch. A great game.
Memnarch vs. Nicol Bolas
Whew, this was a long game. Of all the decks that my friend has, this is probably the one that is the most controlling. It has some great interactions that got this game for him and he simply drew better than I did. The game was tense and there were several notable plays that went down. There was a time when he was down to three cards and I had four. He only had three mana available and I decided to risk playing Memnarch and try to begin to steal his board. Hindered... That hurt. About mid-game, there was an O-Stone on his side of the field and I had just played Caged Sun. That was awkward and a great play on his part. I played a land and then I began to use Academy Ruins to recur Wayfarer's Bauble and just build a mana base. His Top was doing work and ensuring that he was hitting his land drops too. After enough time where he put fate counters on the permanents that he wanted, he blew up the world at the end of my turn. Oh, I also only drew three counters this whole game, which made a difference too. After he blew up the world, his surviving Nin, the Pain Artist blew herself up netting him a fresh seven cards. I think this is the point where I lost the game because he got stuck on mana drops after a while, and I was able to play Karn Liberated and start chipping away at his mana base. It was back and forth for a while with him trying to do something to kill/handle my Karn and me trying to just stay in the game with his overwhelming card advantage. He tutored for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which we had an awesome counter war over. He played Nicol Bolas, I countered with Negate, he draws a card with Sensei's Divining Top in response, plays Spell Crumple, I Top in response and Spell Crumple his Spell Crumple. Whew. But, the bad thing was is after this counter war I was out of counters and down to two cards in hand. He untaps, looks at his hand, and plays Archaeomancer to pick up Demonic Tutor, tutors for another thing, passes the turn. I draw nothing, exile a card from his hand with Karn, then pass the turn. He untaps, plays a land, then casts Time Stretch. F-Word. It resolves, and his 'Mancer pings Karn for one. He takes his first of two extra turns, plays Snapcaster Mage and Time Stretches again. 3 turns on the stack. I lose, by the way. But the gory details were actually really cool. On his next turn, he played Warstorm Surge and Deadeye Navigator, killed my Karn, then took his next turn. He then cast Nicol Bolas, his general, burns my hand away with Warstorm Surge with Nicol Bolas, and then soulbonds Deadeye Navigator to Nicol Bolas. Damn, that's a really, really good lock. But instead of doing combat damage, he alternately blinks Nicol Bolas and Deadeye Navigator until Warstorm Surge killed me. Wow. That was a great card combo and I wasn't too upset at losing. It was like Nicol Bolas had a lightning tantrum and crisped me to death.
After this game, I think I'm doing to try and find some ways to streamline the deck and add in cheap card draw, because that's what it felt like I was missing that particular game. I'll be looking at Brainstorm, Ponder, and perhaps Impulse. All in all, great games, and useful in determining what I can look to improve in the deck.
Well, I played another game last night with Nicol Bolas and I realized something very important: my favorite dragon costs a hell of a lot of mana to cast and then dies. It was kind of upsetting in some ways because I had no real threats in hand, just a lot of removal and draw spells and I needed a finisher to stick on the battlefield. If I decided to keep Nicol Bolas, I'm going to want to add something to take advantage of his ability with either haste or Pandemonium or some similar type of effect. Lightning Greaves is becoming a much more attractive option because once a creature of mine hits the field I never really try and target it again. I'm also tempted to take out ETB creatures from my deck. That's something I'll have to think about though. Anyways, I think I'm going to overhaul the decklist here soon. I'm satisfied with the removal and control package that I have and feel in some ways I have over-compensated in the removal and control elements. I'll set aside my Lazav deck until I figure out a balance between control and synergy. My Damia deck seems to be the perfect embodiment of that and I want to mirror that if I can.
Also, what are people's thoughts on the new Ob Nixilis? Kaalia will certainly be adding him no question. Does he find a home here because of the forced sac outlet when a player searches their library? (Who doesn't search their library in Commander?) It would particularly find a home here because it forces a sac outlet that grows Thrax and really, really forces a player to consider whether or not they're going to tutor. 10 life is hella steep in this format.
Scourge of Kher Ridges is powerful, but I don't like how his flyer wrath kills our own stuff, therefore it has limited use against other decks with a lot of flying creatures. Looking at my list I suppose I'm using Bogardan Hellkite is this spot. It doesn't exactly have the ability to dominate the board on his own like scourge does, but the etb ability is killer with stuff like Ghostway and Restoration Angel. It's a win condition with Worldgorger Dragon and Animate Dead. The selective damage is also more flexible since you can just hit that pesky flyer blocker that's going to block Kaalia without harming any of our own flyers.
That's a good insight and I certainly agree that the flyer wrath effect does kill most of our stuff should it happen. It sounds like you play against a bunch of decks that have flying creatures, but unless I'm playing against another one of my playgroup's Kaalia deck I tend to be the only one with flyers on the field. Everything else walks on the ground, and Scourge of Kher Ridges becomes more attractive as a flying wrath effect that I can put into play tapped and attacking, for me and my particular playgroup. The dream, of course, is to activate Vault of the Archangel and then do the ground sweep, but I haven't had that happen yet.
@Grinning Demon
I'm not looking at your OP, but how many sac lands do you have? I think I remember seeing Phyrexian Tower and Miren, the Moaning Well if memory serves me correctly. Are there other sac outlets that you run in conjunction with your land package? I used to run a Vish Kal deck but I got bored with it and I remember having Corpse Dance, a sweet creature in my graveyard that I didn't want exiled, and no real sac outlet. I vividly remember thinking "Huh. I need to have more sac outlets to really make Corpse Dance worth it and not lose this Sun Titan I want to reanimate repeatedly."
You know, I just recently played a game where I had Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Tezzeret the Seeker, and Ral Zarek on the field at the same time. I felt like a Planeswalker control deck. I might want to add Sorin Markov so that this Planeswalker control thing actually becomes true. Ha. I found myself in this most recent game with a metric ton of removal and card draw and I feel that I can cut a few thing cards from each slot in order to free up some room for more utility or "fun" cards. As hard of a cut as it will be for me, I think Phyrexian Arena will have to go because it was redundant in my hands many, many times. Either that or Necropotence because the triple black is actually pretty hard to acquire consistently in the early game when I want it to resolve. The removal piece that I'm thinking about will probably be Sheoldred, Whispering One or Black Sun's Zenith and I'm going to try Olivia Voldaren in her place for a bit and see how I like her. Mind Control effects that are activated abilities are super cool. Plus, Olivia grows stronger when that happens too! Possible win condition there that makes Cabal Coffers that much more appealing and effective also.
By the way, one of the coolest interactions that I discovered the other day was reanimating Nin, the Pain Artist with Havengul Lich and then killing Nin again with the Lich's newly acquired activated ability. It's like a complicated draw spell that requires a lot of mana to be effective but an interesting interaction that I hadn't thought about. Hmm, Olivia Voldaren becomes good as a dead card with the Lich out too because the Lich can turn into Olivia for a turn... Interesting. Maybe I need to find a few more cool activated abilities that are stapled onto Grixis colored creatures.
Thanks for the insights. Hide//Seek has been pretty useful for me when I draw it because the selective exile from a player's deck has been pretty useful for me. My friend's Damia deck basically depends on resolving Tooth and Nail to get and get Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator so exiling either Tooth and Nail or the Palinchron severely hinders his deck.
I do have a question about combating Animar decks. My friend's Animar deck is very similar to Kaalia in some ways in that his deck is very dependent on having Animar on the field for at least one turn. And then he kinda does something similar to Kaalia and begins to vomit creatures onto the board and then turns them sideways with Craterhoof Behemoth leading the way. I have cheap removal in the form of Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Earthquake, and Vindicate but 3/4 of these spells can't even target Animar. My friend, and I imagine a lot of other Animar decks, are built around being able to get Animar down on T2, which is usually either 1 turn faster than I can throw Kaalia down or about the same speed as Kaalia. I have an Academy Rector package and I think that there are some enchantments that I could take out in order to add one or two more pieces of removal for Animar. I've read some discussion about Lightning Bolt being used in some EDH decks and I am extremely tempted to run it. It's actually really good at killing utility creatures. And who knows? You might actually kill a player with it. I killed a player with Ral Zarek's lightning bolt ability. It was hilarious. We joked for a while that my friend died to a lightning bolt in EDH...
@Grinning Demon
How has Corpse Dance been working for you? I think it's a cool thing to be able to reanimate a dead A/D/D and swing with it but I'm not a fan of the whole exiling thing. I like to be able to reanimate my things continuously. But one shot effects are sometimes worth losing a big fat A/D/D to the forever gone zone.
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I would recommend keeping Toxic Deluge because it can come down early in the game if you need it to. There's an Animar deck in my playgroup that I have a personal grudge against that seems to always have a T2 Animar. Having early wraths really puts him into playing fair and allows me to break him... I mean his deck. Sorry. Regardless, it's a wrath that gets around indestructible things and can scale as you need it to. Did I mention that it can come down early?
I agree with your cuts concerning In Garruk's Wake, Staff of Domination, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and the Hex Parasite. I'm gonna guess that the Parasite is to deal with the Super-Friends deck that you're talking about earlier. If that's the case than I say keep it because it comes down hella early underneath counters and if it eats removal, that's fine. That's one less removal on something that you need. And if you add a slight reanimator theme than you don't care because it will come back. If you want to keep the Parasite than you can eye up Necropotence. Although I feel terrible saying that...
How has Sorin Markov been for you? It seems that more often than not it's a 6 mana "Set target opponent at 10 life and incur his anger forever." That's been my experience with him, and I cut him in my list. I have him in my Lazav deck because there's a slight Vampire tribal thing going on and his setting an opponent at 10 life is very useful. I say this because I'm actually preferring to kill people with combat damage. Sorin sets my next targeted opponent at a reasonable life total while my voltron suited-up Lazav kills my current target. Sorin potentially allows me to one shot an opponent. I don't know if you have the same strategy going on here. If you like him, cool. If not, I think he could be replaced. Yes, I know it's hard to cut good cards that you've liked and have worked for you. Case in point being the spaghetti monster. You can do it. In the words of a well-known Disney song, "Let it go, let it go..."
I still think that you have too many wrath effects. Cut one more and I think that you'll have the balance that you need. How many times has the board been cleared and yet you still have another wrath effect in hand? I would bet a lot of times. I argue that you don't want to draw cards that are irrelevant to the board state too frequently. That dilutes the power of your deck and your strategy because instead of advancing your board state to a condition where you can win, you are holding an answer. Answers don't win games; they prevent you from losing games. I think with your wrath count being as high as it is --it's still 9 after you remove In Garruk's Wake--you're limiting your chances of playing the big spell that will win you the game.
Sigh. Kozilek is a big, fat, dumb spaghetti monster. How much spaghetti do you need in your deck? Ha. No worries though. If you like Kozilek than carry on. If he sticks his Annihilator 4 does a good job of clearing board states.
Decklist:
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
Creatures
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Disciple of Griselbrand
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Dark Impostor
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Crypt Ghast
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Slum Reaper
1 Chainer, Dementia Master
1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Magus of the Coffers
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Phyrexian Gargantua
1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
1 Nirkana Revenant
1 Duplicant
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Go for the Throat
1 Tendrils of Corruption
1 Memory Plunder
Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Exsanguinate
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Ancient Craving
1 Damnation
1 Mutilate
1 Increasing Ambition
1 Diabolic Revelation
1 Promise of Power
1 All is Dust
1 Army of the Damned
1 Decree of Pain
Enchantments
1 Bitterblossom
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Necropotence
1 Contamination
1 Greed
1 Black Market
1 Dire Undercurrents
Artifacts
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Mind Stone
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Mimic Vat
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Caged Sun
1 Karn Liberated
Lands
26 Swamp
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Leechridden Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Deserted Temple
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Temple of the False God
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tectonic Edge
A card that I also really enjoy that is incredibly strong is Sadistic Hypnotist. He freaking trashes peoples hands, especially if you EOT milled someone for 3-4 faerie tokens with Oona.
This current deck list has done very well for me and has a great balance of creatures, spells, and artifacts. The only thing I wish I could add in here is Ob Nixilis, the Fallen. He was my first mono-Black general and I built him into a sweet mono-Black control deck that used Crucible of Worlds to drain people's life with fetch lands. It was pretty dumb and turning him sideways when he was a 15/15 were great moments in my EDH career. Who knows? Perhaps I'll change the deck very slightly and add him and Crucible of Worlds back in. Anyways, I'll include a dscription of why each card is included in my deck and its function. I think I'm going to link this to my Oona list and have a sort of mini-Primer going on here, Defenestrate Windows. Hope you don't mind.
Explanation of Cards
Creatures
Instants
Sorceries
Enchantments
Artifacts
Planeswalkers
EDIT: Fixed some of the coding issues in this post that weren't allowing me to come back and edit this. Thanks mods!
Amen to Painter's Servant. It would be incredible to be have a guaranteed hit every time with Oona...
How have you liked Dire Undercurrents? Personally, I love the card and I think that it does the job of Oona's Blackguard well enough that you probably don't need the fragile little Blackguard. But I think that's just a personal preference for me. I agree with your post in Patryn's thread that discard is underrated in this format. I play Nicol Bolas as my general for my Grixis deck and when he connects with the other person who is vying for blue supremacy I always know that I will win. Always. I have yet to lose when Nicol Bolas does his thing to a person's hand. If only there were a black creature that did something similar.
How has Attrition been for you? I cut it a while back because it's usually just a dead card for me. The field is either always cleared or the only creatures I was able to target were black. There is a lot of black in the playgroup that I have and I've never been impressed with it. I think I replaced it with Dark Impostor and haven't looked back. I feel like I should post my list somewhere so that us Oona players can all compare and streamline our builds for multiplayer. I'll do it in this thread since this is the most recent one I'm looking on.
Patryn, how often do you cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth? Yes, Big Black Mana decks are a lot of fun to play but I have seen my spaghetti monster sit in my hand for a lot of turns before I was able to play it. In my playgroup, there are a lot of theft effects so I've been dissuaded from running Eldrazi if I can help it. It has a high mana cost and dies to every type of removal too. It would be sad to cast a 10 mana cost Concentrate and shuffle away your graveyard. Which also isn't a good thing since you're thinking about trending towards a slight reanimator theme.
Also, I agree with the high number of wrath effects. You could probably take out one or two and free up some spots for either spot removal or card draw. But that's just my opinion. I think I run about 6 wrath effects in my mono-Black and that's usually been enough.
I would suggest cutting:
In Garruk's Wake -> Chainer, Dementia Master because reanimating dudes is really good in this format, as you know.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth -> Dire Undercurrents because this card is really, really good with Oona. Seriously. Try it out once or twice. I promise you won't regret it.
No problem for the shout out. Your Firemind Primer was a great read. Well-constructed and very intelligent. I'm thinking about perhaps beginning to look for some of those cards and building your decklist. Your discussion with 3drinks on one of these Kaalia threads is also very insightful and entertaining.
Power Artifact is a great suggestion. I totally forgot about this card. You're right, it has incredible synergy with my general and indeed produces lots o' mana with Basalt Monoloith. If I can find a Grim Monolith somewhere in a trade binder or at a good deal online I will acquire it. I think I would include it strictly for my general though. Being able to steal something for 4 mana instead of 7 mana actually makes a big difference. Great suggestion.
Etherium Sculptor would definitely need a few more artifacts to play with in order to increase his usefulness. It's tempting to include him simply because he adds another infinite combo to the deck and has decent synergy with the deck. Reduces the mana cost of Memnarch, is a wizard for Azami to have some draw power there, but outside of that it doesn't have much. I would seriously want to evaluate it.
The list of draw spells you suggested I've looked at also. Of those, I think I like Preordain and Brainstorm. I don't know why Brainstorm isn't in here already because in each game I've played there has been a ton of shuffling effects. The virtual card advantage of Brainstorm with fetch-lands is something I'm familiar with when I'm play-testing Legacy with my friend.
Thanks for the suggestions. I also played Kaalia yesterday twice. Descriptions are as follows:
Game 1 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was way in my favor because he got mana-screwed after T3. I had Counterspell for when he first tapped out for Kaalia and the rest was history. He was never really in the game and just kinda watched as Deadeye Navigator and Archaeomancer picked up Time Warp enough times to kill him with combat damage. Having Gauntlet of Power was very useful here, as it allowed me to combo out with 5 Islands and Academy Ruins. Turn 7 was when I started chaining turns. He insisted we play again since his deck kinda didn't show up to play. I agreed.
Game 2 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was much better. Both are decks did their thing and it was very back and forth with some ridiculous plays happening. My friend opened up with Weathered Wayfarer and that's a good card. He was able to tutor for Hall of the Bandit Lord T3 which would guarantee a T4 attacking Kaalia. Pretty good. I couldn't find removal for it, though I had a counter in hand for when Kaalia decided to come out so I wasn't worried. But, alas, I tapped out on my T2 to play Everflowing Chalice so I could catch up with him on mana (he went first). He untapped, drew and grinned to himself. He tapped his mana and seemed to casually toss Price of Glory after playing a Sol Ring. Damn. My Arcane Denial looked pretty stupid and I inwardly cringed. I decided then that basically I needed to either race him to combo out or burn through my deck as fast as possible to try and find removal for that cursed enchantment. By the way, racing Kaalia is really, really hard. I untapped, drew a land, and played Rhystic Study. He tutored for the Hall and passed the turn. I played Solemn Simulacrum and had Duplicant and Deadeye Navigator in hand, ready to go. Machine gun exile effect for 2 mana. Sounds good. He untaps, draws a card, turns Kaalia sideways and puts Rakdos the Defiler into play tapped, Annihilating me for half my board. Force of Will would have been so nice here... And in case you're wondering, yes, I die. Horribly. I untapped, played a land and my own Sol Ring, which I just drew. He untapped, didn't play a land and chose to attack with Rakdos, sac'ing half his board to cripple me and close out the game in his favor. Kaalia put Harvester of Souls into play tapped and attacking, just to seal the deal I guess. With two Islands in play I decide that he wins and scooped up my cards. If Price of Glory hadn't come down on T2, I think I would have had the game again. Dumb red cards... Haha.
I also have a Mono-Black Oona list that I've been working on for some time. Big black mana is great and there are a lot of cool things that Mono-Black can do. Some cards I run in my list that I strongly recommend:
-Memory Plunder is a great card that allows you to occasionally counter spells, but more often than not it's a Tooth and Nail or even a Time Stretch. It has great utility and people forget that you can do it all the time. Mono Black with instant speed responses to stuff; who knew?
-Dire Undercurrents is one card that I am always happy to see. It turns Oona into a card advantage machine and has great synergy with the general idea of Mono Black. Paying 7 mana into Oona;s ability and then potentially draw, on average, 3-4 cards AND cause an opponent to discard 3-4 cards? That's pure card advantage for sure. It has great synergy with reanimation tooIt's also really fun with Army of the Damned, but that one is a pet card of mine. Think about the flavor there: a horde of Zombies is summoned and your opponents are so terrified that they literally lose their minds(discard cards)!
-Disciple of Bolas is really great in reanimation themed decks. Life and card advantage for the plus of putting one of your dudes in the graveyard to be reanimated again! Yes.
Keep on Oona'ing. She is the only general I would play in Mono-Black. And she was also one of the first cards that I ever ordered online. I still have my original copy sleeved up. Ah, memories.
I have considered using Psychosis Crawler as an additional win condition. He has strong synergy with the idea of what I want my deck to do. The hard thing, however, is of course the ultimate question in EDH: what to cut. Every card in here has been useful in one game or another. The only card that I haven't been too impressed with has been Sphinx of Magosi. It draws cards at instant speed, turns into a beater, and is only really good in the late game when ideally removal spells have been expended, but it's usually not very impactful and the cost is expensive. I'll try out the Crawler once I find a copy of it in my stack of cards. I also just took out Treachery from another deck and I want to test that here. Moar removal! is never a bad thing and having a free spell is advantageous as well.
I played a few games this weekend. They were 1v1 against Damia and Nicol Bolas, respectively. I'll include the game descriptions and the notable plays that occurred in each game.
Memnarch vs. Damia game
This was a control-lover's dream. Incremental advantage accumulated and well-timed plays on my part allowed me to syphon out his hand of answers. There were some great plays on his part where he tutored for answers for whenever I did something that would have pulled me ahead, like Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight. Krosan Grip is a really good card, by the way, blanking the Force of Will that I had in hand as I watched my card advantage die away. It was an interesting game because I knew that he played not as many draw spells as I do because he uses Damia as a draw spell. Also, he didn't get as much explosive ramp as he normally does which helped a lot in this game. After I expended his resources, I played Memnarch with the abundance of mana that I had accumulated (I had a Crucible of Worlds and Terramorphic Expanse engine going). And eventually Memnarch stole his board and he scooped. It was a great game of back and forth plays with only one counter war over my first casting of Memnarch. MVP of the game was Memnarch, because he won me the game, but an honorable mention goes to Crucible of Worlds being able to consistently hit land drops each turn and out-mana my opponent was crucial in the game and is what allowed me to cast spells to purposely expend his resources so that I could land Memnarch. A great game.
Memnarch vs. Nicol Bolas
Whew, this was a long game. Of all the decks that my friend has, this is probably the one that is the most controlling. It has some great interactions that got this game for him and he simply drew better than I did. The game was tense and there were several notable plays that went down. There was a time when he was down to three cards and I had four. He only had three mana available and I decided to risk playing Memnarch and try to begin to steal his board. Hindered... That hurt. About mid-game, there was an O-Stone on his side of the field and I had just played Caged Sun. That was awkward and a great play on his part. I played a land and then I began to use Academy Ruins to recur Wayfarer's Bauble and just build a mana base. His Top was doing work and ensuring that he was hitting his land drops too. After enough time where he put fate counters on the permanents that he wanted, he blew up the world at the end of my turn. Oh, I also only drew three counters this whole game, which made a difference too. After he blew up the world, his surviving Nin, the Pain Artist blew herself up netting him a fresh seven cards. I think this is the point where I lost the game because he got stuck on mana drops after a while, and I was able to play Karn Liberated and start chipping away at his mana base. It was back and forth for a while with him trying to do something to kill/handle my Karn and me trying to just stay in the game with his overwhelming card advantage. He tutored for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which we had an awesome counter war over. He played Nicol Bolas, I countered with Negate, he draws a card with Sensei's Divining Top in response, plays Spell Crumple, I Top in response and Spell Crumple his Spell Crumple. Whew. But, the bad thing was is after this counter war I was out of counters and down to two cards in hand. He untaps, looks at his hand, and plays Archaeomancer to pick up Demonic Tutor, tutors for another thing, passes the turn. I draw nothing, exile a card from his hand with Karn, then pass the turn. He untaps, plays a land, then casts Time Stretch. F-Word. It resolves, and his 'Mancer pings Karn for one. He takes his first of two extra turns, plays Snapcaster Mage and Time Stretches again. 3 turns on the stack. I lose, by the way. But the gory details were actually really cool. On his next turn, he played Warstorm Surge and Deadeye Navigator, killed my Karn, then took his next turn. He then cast Nicol Bolas, his general, burns my hand away with Warstorm Surge with Nicol Bolas, and then soulbonds Deadeye Navigator to Nicol Bolas. Damn, that's a really, really good lock. But instead of doing combat damage, he alternately blinks Nicol Bolas and Deadeye Navigator until Warstorm Surge killed me. Wow. That was a great card combo and I wasn't too upset at losing. It was like Nicol Bolas had a lightning tantrum and crisped me to death.
After this game, I think I'm doing to try and find some ways to streamline the deck and add in cheap card draw, because that's what it felt like I was missing that particular game. I'll be looking at Brainstorm, Ponder, and perhaps Impulse. All in all, great games, and useful in determining what I can look to improve in the deck.
7x Memnarch
Mana Sources (17)
0x Mana Crypt
0x Mox Opal
0x Mox Diamond
0x Chrome Mox
0x Everflowing Chalice
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Voltaic Key
2x Grim Monolith
2x Sky Diamond
2x Coldsteel Heart
2x Fellwar Stone
3x Basalt Monolith
3x Grand Architect
4x Thran Dynamo
5x Gilded Lotus
6x Coveted Jewel
Combo Pieces (4)
2x Isochron Scepter
2x Dramatic Reversal
2x Pili-Pala
5x Paradox Engine
Win Conditions (3)
2x Pull from Tomorrow
3x Blue Sun’s Zenith
4x Aetherflux Reservoir
Utility (3)
1x Grafdigger’s Cage
3x Back to Basics
3x Narset, Parter of Veils
1x Mystical Tutor
2x Reshape
2x Transmute Artifact
2x Merchant Scroll
3x Whir of Invention
3x Fabricate
3x Intuition
3x Trinket Mage
3x Spellseeker
5x Tezzeret the Seeker
Counterspells (12)
0x Pact of Negation
1x Swan Song
1x Flusterstorm
1x Spell Pierce
2x Mana Drain
2x Counterspell
2x Delay
2x Trickbind
2x Muddle the Mixture
3x Disallow
5x Force of Will
5x Mystic Confluence
Removal (9)
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Rapid Hybridization
2x Cyclonic Rift
2x Blink of an Eye
2x Reality Shift
2x Gilded Drake
3x Capsize
3x Vedalken Shackles
8x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Brainstorm
1x Preordain
1x Mystic Remora
2x Impulse
3x Windfall
3x Timetwister
3x Rhystic Study
4x One with the Machine
4x Fact or Fiction
5x Future Sight
6x Recurring Insight
Lands (30)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Academy Ruins
1x Buried Ruin
1x Inventors’ Fair
1x Seat of the Synod
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Polluted Delta
1x Flooded Strand
1x Misty Rainforest
21x Island
Also, what are people's thoughts on the new Ob Nixilis? Kaalia will certainly be adding him no question. Does he find a home here because of the forced sac outlet when a player searches their library? (Who doesn't search their library in Commander?) It would particularly find a home here because it forces a sac outlet that grows Thrax and really, really forces a player to consider whether or not they're going to tutor. 10 life is hella steep in this format.
That's a good insight and I certainly agree that the flyer wrath effect does kill most of our stuff should it happen. It sounds like you play against a bunch of decks that have flying creatures, but unless I'm playing against another one of my playgroup's Kaalia deck I tend to be the only one with flyers on the field. Everything else walks on the ground, and Scourge of Kher Ridges becomes more attractive as a flying wrath effect that I can put into play tapped and attacking, for me and my particular playgroup. The dream, of course, is to activate Vault of the Archangel and then do the ground sweep, but I haven't had that happen yet.
@Grinning Demon
I'm not looking at your OP, but how many sac lands do you have? I think I remember seeing Phyrexian Tower and Miren, the Moaning Well if memory serves me correctly. Are there other sac outlets that you run in conjunction with your land package? I used to run a Vish Kal deck but I got bored with it and I remember having Corpse Dance, a sweet creature in my graveyard that I didn't want exiled, and no real sac outlet. I vividly remember thinking "Huh. I need to have more sac outlets to really make Corpse Dance worth it and not lose this Sun Titan I want to reanimate repeatedly."
By the way, one of the coolest interactions that I discovered the other day was reanimating Nin, the Pain Artist with Havengul Lich and then killing Nin again with the Lich's newly acquired activated ability. It's like a complicated draw spell that requires a lot of mana to be effective but an interesting interaction that I hadn't thought about. Hmm, Olivia Voldaren becomes good as a dead card with the Lich out too because the Lich can turn into Olivia for a turn... Interesting. Maybe I need to find a few more cool activated abilities that are stapled onto Grixis colored creatures.
Hide//Seek has been pretty useful for me when I draw it because the selective exile from a player's deck has been pretty useful for me. My friend's Damia deck basically depends on resolving Tooth and Nail to get and get Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator so exiling either Tooth and Nail or the Palinchron severely hinders his deck.
I do have a question about combating Animar decks. My friend's Animar deck is very similar to Kaalia in some ways in that his deck is very dependent on having Animar on the field for at least one turn. And then he kinda does something similar to Kaalia and begins to vomit creatures onto the board and then turns them sideways with Craterhoof Behemoth leading the way. I have cheap removal in the form of Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Earthquake, and Vindicate but 3/4 of these spells can't even target Animar. My friend, and I imagine a lot of other Animar decks, are built around being able to get Animar down on T2, which is usually either 1 turn faster than I can throw Kaalia down or about the same speed as Kaalia. I have an Academy Rector package and I think that there are some enchantments that I could take out in order to add one or two more pieces of removal for Animar. I've read some discussion about Lightning Bolt being used in some EDH decks and I am extremely tempted to run it. It's actually really good at killing utility creatures. And who knows? You might actually kill a player with it. I killed a player with Ral Zarek's lightning bolt ability. It was hilarious. We joked for a while that my friend died to a lightning bolt in EDH...
@Grinning Demon
How has Corpse Dance been working for you? I think it's a cool thing to be able to reanimate a dead A/D/D and swing with it but I'm not a fan of the whole exiling thing. I like to be able to reanimate my things continuously. But one shot effects are sometimes worth losing a big fat A/D/D to the forever gone zone.