Deck Components
The main idea is to use Pestilence as a 1 sided board sweeper and also a win condition.
The
Guardian of the Guildpact
has protection from the pestilence which ensures it will stick around and can also get in for some damage.
Wall of Hope
, Aven Riftwatcher, Kabria Crossroads, and Renewed Faith ensure this deck stays ahead on life so that Pestilence won't kill us before the opponent.
Dimir House Guard is an extra Pestilence or
Guardian of the Guildpact
or an extra attacker/blocker.
Castigate
acts as protection for the big 4 drops (gets counterspells out of hands) or to remove combo pieces.
Unearth
and
Grim Harvest
give some creature redundancy (typically Aven Riftwatcher and
Guardian of the Guildpact
respectively).
Removal is Journey to Nowhere and
Curse of Chains
.
Curse of Chains
has the benefit of not removing the creature to ensure pestilence sticks around, but also doesn't remove the creature if it has a non-tap ability.
Bojuka Bog gives some graveyard hate.
Sideboard
Duress comes in against control and combo to ensure my 4 drops can hit the board.
Prismatic Strands
is good against storm combo and big burn as well as goblins, stompy, infect, white weenie, etc.
Echoing Decay makes goblin, stompy, infect, white weenie, even easier.
Rancid Earth
comes in for post and I've also started bringing it in against hexproof since they are usually light on land and load them up with enchantments.
The good and the bad
This deck performs well against most creature-based strategies. Once Pestilence hits the board it's usually GG against goblins, stompy, infect, white weenie, elves, etc.
What it struggles against are non-creature based decks, or U control decks with counters and bouce.
I've also had trouble against hexproof as they can get their creature big before Pestilence can deal with it.
Changes & Recommendations
Echoing Decay might be redundant in the sideboard. It comes in against aggro creature decks, but those are good matchups to begin with because of the lifegain and once Pestilence resolves it's GG anyway. Might remove this.
I might add
Standard Bearer
to the sideboard in its place to help against hexproof, and it's also good against infect and stompy.
I'm also debating replacing
Curse of Chains
with Unmake.
Curse of Chains
will leave the creature behind, which is nice if I don't have a
Guardian of the Guildpact
out to keep pesilence alive. It's also cheap at 1W. Unmake has the advantage of removing creatures that have passive or activated abilities and can't be soft-countered by bounce spells. It's a bit more expensive though at essentially 3. Both have the upside of being multicoloured to hit opponent's
Guardian of the Guildpact
.
I'm also not sure about Renewed Faith. Sometimes the lifegain is absolutely critical, but most of the time I use it to cycle and gain two. Not sure if this is the best card for the job, so I'm open to suggestions.
