This deck focuses on pitching your hand to the graveyard to pump Lotleth Troll, using scavenge effects to buff him and Scavenging Ooze for a solid early-game board presence, and brings in fatties like Reaper of the Wilds and Desecration Demon for mid-late game.
Noncreature spells hate out the other player's card advantage, targeting their removal before it can hit the field.
Creatures:
Deathrite Shaman: A fantastic early-game play for this deck, the shaman utilizes my graveyard for much more than just the apparent scavenge effects. With the Grisly Salvages I run, a land is just as easily chucked becomes a free g/b mana, or more importantly, my removal in the form of Thoughtseize et al. becomes an extra 2 points of burn damage. He'll also eat any creatures I put in an opponent's yard. He's just a wonderful utility card.
Slitherhead: This is food for the troll, plain and simple. Slitherhead is infinitely useful in my graveyard because it's got a free Scavenge, and ends up double-pumping. Or if I don't have a troll on the field I can feed it to the Sc'Ooze. It's also a chump-blocker if I ever need one.
Lotleth Troll: Really the star of the deck here, he is the "Dump Truck". His purpose is to get big and incredibly hard to deal with, really fast. If you throw out a Slitherhead turn 2 and scavenge it, you've effectively got a 4/3 to swing with turn 3. Discarding extra creatures is a sweet ability with Scavenge, or eve
Scavenging Ooze: Another shining star; it is every bit as good as the Lotleth Troll, because it pumps and pumps and pumps. The graveyard manipulation is really solid: I can scavenge a Dreg Mangler for 1 instead of the 5, and find a use for one of my 4-drop creatures if I can't reanimate them with Whip of Erebos.
Dreg Mangler: A truly scary creature, 3/3 haste to swing on 3/3 can mean a lot of damage very quickly. The scavenge ability is nice, but at a cost of 5 it's often easier to give it to the Ooze and gain a life off it.
Reaper of the Wilds: A 4/5 body for 4 makes the Reaper very formidable. It's practically immune to burn in this meta, and can get out on turn 4 and keep up a scary board presence. If it ends up in my graveyard, I can crack it with the Whip to possibly shift the life totals by 8 points from one attack.
Desecration Demon: Who doesn't love a 6/6 flyer for 4? Granted, there are some easy ways to get around him, but he just sits and keeps getting bigger and scarier each turn. More for the board presence than anything, he's a pretty valuable creature on the roster.
Disciple of Phenax: Though it is a 1/3 for 4, the ETB effect is really solid, effectively acting as a pocket-sized Thoughtseize. Keeping a close eye on the opponent's hand is a key part of this deck, and getting this effect from a creature is excellent.
Everything Else:
Thoughtseize: An unbeatable turn 1 play, Thoughtseize is a reliable way to keep a steady advantage over your opponent early-game.
Duress: A nerved Thoughtseize that (muy importante) deals with removal. It can get rid of burn, exile, and destroy effects, which are a problem.
Grisly Salvage: An instant-speed Fact or Fiction effect, sort of. It can get me a creature or a land and fill up my graveyard with more creatures to feed Scavenging Ooze. Getting an extra land in is also nice, since I'm not running a ton and don't want to miss a land drop.
Putrefy: Excellent removal, targets creatures and artifacts and is consistently a very nice mid-game play.
Whip of Erebos: The Whip's static ability is excellent, giving me the chance to firmly rearrange life totals with a couple attacks. That being said, the activated ability is fantastic if I have one of my bigger creatures in the 'yard. With Lotleth Troll I can play him, chuck another one or two to the yard, and scavenge or reanimate them next turn.
Vraska the Unseen: I picked her up recently and wasn't sure how willing I would be or run a 5-drop, but I like her a lot so I went up to 22 lands. The +1 ability is pretty cool, because she sits and gets bigger, directing creature threats at her rather than me. The -3 is incredible, albeit it turns her into a more expensive Bramblecrush. And the -7 is just completely bonkers, though I don't know that I'll be able to get it off at all.
Let me know what you think, any suggestions are appreciated!
