Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Creatures – 22

 

3 Doomed Traveler

2 Onyx Mage

2 Restless Apparition

1 Stillmoon Cavalier

2 Vampire Nighthawk

1 Ghost Council of the Orzhova

1 Keening Banshee

2 Voracious Hatchling

1 Angel of Flight Alabaster

3 Bloodgift Demon

1 Deathbringer Liege

2 Divinity of Pride

1 Angel of Despair

 

Other Spells – 14

 

1 Reanimate

2 Castigate

3 Zealous Persecution

4 Unmake

1 Vindicate

1 Damnation

2 Debtors’ Knell

 

Land – 24

 

3 Terramorphic Expanse

10 Swamp

11 Plains

 

General Strategy: Basic control gameplan. Stall with your early cards like Doomed Traveler, Onyx Mage, and Zealous Persecution, then start dropping the heavy hitters like the hatchling, the angels, and the demons. As you can probably tell by the Angel of Flight Alabaster and 3 Bloodgift Demons, I built this deck with card advantage in mind, but there’s many ways to build this deck, and you can’t really go wrong with such a good card pool.

 

Doomed Traveler – These are great early game, and still have functional purposes later on either as chump blockers or fuel for the Ghost Council. There’s only 3 because 4 just felt like I was drawing them too often, and I needed room for the angel.

 

Onyx Mage – Even though there’s no pingers to combo with, the Onyx Mage is still great. Suddenly, your Doomed Travelers are chump blockers with deathtouch. The Onyx Mage can also draw removal away from your bigger threats, but do be cautious of cheap burn like Arc Lightning when you have the mage and a traveler out. And there’s always the standby of turning the mage itself into a suicidal chump blocker with deathtouch.

 

Mourning Thrull – Some people got really excited because they’re gitty about thrulls for some reason, but personally, I’ve never been attracted to a 2 mana 1/1 with flying and lifelink. If I’m going to spend 2 or more mana for a 1/1, I need more than just a couple generic keywords attached to it. On the positive side, it is a cheap B/W card to use when you have a liege out.

 

Orzhov Guildmage – It’s not terrible, but not overly spectacular either. Another cheap B/W card, and it can provide an outlet for extra mana you have floating around.

 

Edge of Divinity - +3/+3 to a B/W creature for 1 mana is pretty good. Suddenly your thrull is a 4/4 with lifelink and flying on turn 3, and the guildmage is a 5/5, so it can be good for a more aggro build. On the downside, it is an aura, which opens you up to card disadvantage.

 

Restless Apparition – One of my favorite cards in the deck. Persist makes it potent against standard removal tactics, and the self pumping lets it take out bigger creatures and put your opponent on a fast clock.

 

Stillmoon Cavalier – I’ve seen some people say they don’t want to include this due to Mind Control and Bribery. If that happens, you can always get rid of it with a quick Zealous Persecution. Protection from white and black gives it the edge you need against those matchups, and the self-pumping goes well with first strike. Once again, the downside here is against burn decks with his 1 toughness.

 

Voracious Hatchling – One of my other favorite cards in the deck. He starts off as a 2/2 for 4 mana, but can quickly grow to his full potential as a 6/6. He also combos well with a liege or persecution as a follow up. This will be another dangerous creature your opponent will need to deal with quickly, which again draws removal away from your 5+ mana creatures.

 

Keening Banshee – Similar to its cousin Steamcore Weird, the banshee can take out creatures with 2 or less toughness upon entering the battlefield. That makes it great to take out opposing utility creatures, and you get a nice 2/2 with flying to boot. This allows you to save one of your unmakes for something bigger.

 

Ghost Council of the Orzhova – a 4/4 for 4 mana with a life drain ability is nice. For the cost of 1 extra creature and 1 mana, he can dodge any sort of removal, including mass removal. It’s really nice to have a 4/4 on the board after your opponent uses Day of Judgment. It can also prevent Mind Control and Rite of Replication from happening, and free you from life loss from a Pillory of the Sleepless. The life drain ability can also be used to finish off the final few points of your opponent’s life, and get’s around things like Worship. Overall, a great utility card that’s also a nice beatstick.

 

Guardian Seraph – I like this card, I do, but in a deck with so many good cards to choose from, some good cards had to get cut. When it came down to it, I liked every other 4 mana creature better than this. It has a good ability and power/toughness for its cost, but the lifelink in this deck can usually make up for any sort of life loss.

 

Gravedigger – It took me a while to cut this guy, because I really enjoyed bringing back a Nighthawk or Onyx Mage for another go. The main downside to this is that the creature returns to your hand, so you have to cast it again (aka, you’re probably not going to play gravedigger and the creature you return on the same turn).

 

Falkenrath Noble – Blood Artist just barely made the cut for my SS deck, and that was mostly due to being cheap and not really caring for anything else at that mana cost. Here, you’re paying 4 mana for it, and a good portion of your removal doesn’t put creatures in the graveyard (unmake and pillory). I’d rather have gravedigger or guardian seraph back before putting these in. The ability can be devastating at times, especially if you have multiple nobles out and play a Damnation, but I’ve never desired for it or felt it necessary. Not bad, but imo, there’s better stuff.

 

Bloodgift Demon – So I hear drawing extra cards is good. This is what lets me get away with running three 7 mana cards with 24 land, the card draw just helps smooth things over. The lifelink can also make up for the life loss. The only sad part is having 4 toughness, which makes it susceptible to the likes of Chandra’s Outrage, Flame Slash, and Prophetic Bolt.

 

Angel of Flight Alabaster – I’m running all 6 spirits, so I had to make room for this. Returning any one of them is going to be good, especially if you have a liege out, since 5 of the spirits are both black and white. Returning the Restless Apparition is also good since that means it’s coming back for another 2 rounds.

 

Ob Nixilis, The Fallen – Once again, a good card had to get cut. There was just so much that I needed to include on the upper end of the mana curve. The decision to cut this guy is based on my focus of card advantage. Every other 5 mana creature offers card advantage in some way, other than the Divinity of Pride, but those are needed for their lifelink and the Angel. Ob Nixilis is still a good way to drain your opponent’s life total quickly. Don’t play him on turn 5 though. Play him on turn 6, then play your land for the turn. It’s even better when that land is a Terramorphic Expanse.

 

Angel of Despair – Vindicate costs 3 mana, so if you deduct that from the cost of the angel, that leaves you with 4 mana for a 5/5, so you’re really getting the value for your mana. The downside is that you have to pay all 7 mana at once. Another thing to note is that aside from 1 vindicate, this is your only other way of destroying artifacts and enchantments.

 

Debtors’ Knell – From using this in Exalted Darkness, we know this card can end games quickly if it’s left unchecked. This is probably my favorite enchantment in the game… well, it’s up there with Fable of Wolf and Owl and Future Sight.

 

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter – I don’t really care for this guy, and personally, I think he’s a bit overrated. Sure, you can set up a nice sacrifice engine with Vish Kal, Debtors’ Knell, and Angel of Despair/Noble/Keening Banshee/whatever, but if you have all that other stuff out already, why do you need Vish Kal? Another popular argument I see in favor of Vish Kal is that he forces your opponent to remove Vish Kal first. Now generally, I’d say that a creature getting hit with removal is a testament to how good it is. But here, that “getting hit with removal” is a bit of an illusion. Your opponent is forced to remove Vish Kal first, due to Vish’s sacrificing ability which renders removing any other creature neigh pointless. If you don’t have any other creatures out, Vish Kal is just a 7 mana 5/5 with flying and lifelink, which is just overcosted. If you do have other creatures out, you’re probably doing well anyways. This makes Vish Kal a bit of a win more card and not something that can turn around a losing game for you. I found that I’d rather have a second Debtors’ Knell instead of Vish Kal, since Knell is more of an “I win” card than Vish Kal, and Knell is more resistant to removal since it’s an enchantment and not a creature.

 

Zealous Persecution – My favorite non-creature card in the deck. You can sweep away 1 toughness creatures while boosting your guys for an attack. It makes a great combat trick for any of your creatures. Doomed Traveler can now trade with a 3/3. The turn after playing Voracious Hatchling, you can turn it into a surprise 5/5.

 

Castigate – This is one of the most auto-include cards in the deck. For just 2 mana, you get to see your opponent’s entire hand and get rid of their best card. Furthermore, since you saw their hand, you can easily plan out the next few turns, as you know what your opponent will have coming up.

 

Reanimate – I’ve seen some people take this out, and I don’t know why. It’s good early game and late game. For just 1 mana, you can bring back Onyx Mage or Vampire Nighthawk for another go, or Restless Apparition for another 2 rounds. Later you can bring back you lone liege or one of your angels. And there’s also your opponent’s graveyard you can use it on.

 

Pillory of the Sleepless – I do run this as a 1-of in ED, due to ED having less removal options and less multicolor options for the Lieges. It’s not terrible, but with the amount of other good cards and removal, I don’t like running it if I don’t have to. My biggest problem is that it doesn’t remove the creature from the field. This allows creatures to still use their abilities, and opens the door for your opponent to remove the Pillory with enchantment removal or bounce, effectively nullifying your Pillory. I’d rather have something that removes the creature outright. On the positive side, running Pillories can shift enchantment removal away from the Debtors’ Knells that you will want to play later on.

 

Midnight Haunting – It’s not a bad card, but if I want two 1/1s, I’ll run all the Doomed Travelers first. It can make for a nice combat surprise, especially pared with Onyx Mage, but that requires at least 5 mana, and when I get to 5 mana, there’s other things I’d rather be doing than making a couple deathtouching chump blockers.

 

Necromancer’s Covenant – I’m applying the rule that I used for White Sun’s Zenith in Celestial Light. For 6 mana, I want to get at least 6 power, so that requires at least 3 creatures to remove from the graveyard. And with 2 Debtors’ Knells and Angel of Flight Alabaster, I don’t really want to use it on my own graveyard. With removal like Unmake, Castigate, and Pillory (if you run those), that’s less cards that are being sent to the graveyard. It only took a couple of instances where I had 6 mana ready to cast this and my opponent with less than 3 creatures in their graveyard for me to cut this. The covenant became too situational, and in a deck filled with good cards at the 5+ mana level that are more readily castable, there’s no room for something situational. It’s a shame too, because I really wanted to like this card, but it just doesn’t mesh well with the removal package. Maybe in a future B/W deck we can make a better use for this.