A deck centered about playing Blood Artist and then burninating all opposing creatures or wiping the board to deal massive damage.
This deck is inspired by a strictly removal deck I played against a while ago (the creator is not on TappedOut), and by SlowPlow and his numerous sacrifice shenanigan decks.
I've always found Blood Artist to be a hilarious card. The raw power it expresses is immense, despite its minute stature, being a 0/1 and all. I felt I had to build a deck centered about exploiting his sadistic nature, where I stuffed it full with creatures like him, that thrive on madness; there are those who love sacrificing for their own gain, like Viscera Seer and those who are just moulded for sacrifice shenanigans, like Gravecrawler and Reassembling Skeleton.
There are a few curious inclusions in the deck that I would like to elaborate upon:
The most obvious point of intrigue here, is why am I splashing red? It is because I find having access to Dreadbore and Terminate is essential; I could just have Murder instead of Terminate and a Vampire Hexmage in sideboard to deal with potential Planeswalkers, but I find those to be too restrictive. The Mana cost of Murder is to me a bit of a repellent. I want to be able to Extort with Thrull Parasite, and the 3CMC of Murder makes that harder than I am comfortable with.
Thrull Parasite is included because there are a lot of cheap removal and creatures here. I can extort after, for instance, using Bone Splinters for some additional damage, or after casting a Gravecrawler. I find that the cards in this deck are pretty much made to be Extorted with, and as such, I couldn't resist. It can also lock down many Planeswalkers until I, for instance, draw a Dreadbore or something else to deal with it.
Grave Pact just seems to me to be made for this sort of deck. I sacrifice my creatures, for instance to a Bone Splinters. What happens then, would be, in an optimal situation: I extort for 1dmg 1 life, then sac something and Grave Pact triggers to make my opponent have to sacrifice a creature, following which the Bone Splinters kills a creature. By using that one spell, I will have dealt four damage (extort + three creatures dying) and gained four life, and killed off two of my opponent's creatures.
Viscera Seer and Attrition are included as sacrifice engines. In order to keep the damage rolling, I need to be able to sacrifice expendable (or returnable) creatures consistently to tear down my opponent's creatures and life total.
Mutilate and Killing Wave are also fairly extreme in this deck: with all the creatures dying to it, the health pool of my opponent will (if I pull it off) drop fairly fast, while letting me retain a certain level of board presence through use of Butcher Ghoul and its Undying (which would open up for returning a Gravecrawler), or returning a Reassembling Skeleton.
I'm also considering adding Vexing Devil to make use of the red splash. They seem to be good in this deck: either I get a 4/3 for R, or I deal a minimum of 4 damage, and the Vexing Devil would die, potentially triggering Blood Artist AND the casting cost is cheap, making Extort from Thrull Parasite possible. All in all, I like it.
All and any comments (or upvotes, if you're in that mood) are very welcome, and I'd love some discussion or criticism. All criticism is good criticism. Comments, upvotes and suggestions will be reciprocated. :-)
