The final installment of week one is here! When I sat down to write today’s article, I wondered at what sort of deck I could build. I thought about some of my previous articles, and then inspiration hit. Wouldn’t it be nice to build a deck using one or more of the cards that I tout in my Underused Card articles? Ah synergy, I knew you well.
Today I am going to build one of my all-time favorite decks. None of the cards in it are expensive, although a pair of cards, one Antiquities and Legends, are not that commonly seen (they’re still cheap, though). Anyway, without further ado, I bid you welcome to:
Andre Rison
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Nether Shadow
4 Undead Gladiator
2 Nekrataal
2 Carrionette
2 Krovikan Horror
2 Sengir Autocrat
2 Necrosavant
2 Decree of Pain
2 Stronghold Assassin
2 Buried Alive
1 Hell’s Caretaker
1 Attrition
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Infernal Tribute
1 Tortured Existence
1 Gate to Phyrexia
1 Life Chisel
1 Skull Catapult
1 Phyrexian Vault
22 Swamp
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
The deck’s name, by the way, is a football joke. If you don’t get it, don’t worry about it. One clue to the deck name is that an early version of the deck included Bad Moons. The deck name stuck with me, though, so even after I pulled them out, the name stuck.
This deck is great at recovering from various Wrath of God effects. If Wraths get tossed around your table regularly, then this might be your deck. You have your own potential Wrath effects with the Decrees, but even cycled they are pretty good. Although they will kill all non-Necrosavants in play on your side, your creatures are highly expendable. You could also probably find room for Living Death, but I think that would alter the deck too much.
This deck is very cheap, with only a handful of rares. Even those rares have low value, except for the lowly Stronghold. If you have the cards, Avatar of Woe would be a nice addition to the deck.
The deck plays rather smoothly. Ashen Ghouls and Nether Shadows regularly come to the party. A quick Buried Alive can really mess with your opponent’s day as you get a trio of Ghouls. Sacrifice these creature whenever you can bring back another by doing so. There are several sacrifice effects, allowing you to bring back any creature, draw a card, destroy an artifact, gain some life, deal damage, mill some cards or destroy a creature.
You can win by sending lots of expendable creatures into the fray. Alternatively, you can just burn them out with Skull Catapult and Krovikan Horror. You also have a single Altar of Dementia, incase you want to deck an opponent. With three possible methods of winning the game, this deck can end up being quite diverse.
The Autocrat brings three friends to play, each of which can be sacrificed for that same variety of effects. Recurring Autocrat should give you an endless legion of bodies.
If you want more deck manipulation, look at Scroll Rack, the ubiquitous deck manipulation card for non-Blue decks. I really wish that Scroll Rack was an uncommon, because I’d use even more of them then.
This deck includes three cards from my first two Underused Card articles: Krovikan Horror, Carionette, and Tortured Existence. Tortured Existence is especially useful for its ability to rearrange the creatures in your graveyard to take advantage of the abilities of the Horror, Ghoul and Shadow. I hope that you have enjoyed this week of decks. Especially today’s, it’s my favorite of the week.
Until Later,
Abe Sargent