So this is a semi casual multiplayer deck, which I use to make my friends cry and wish they were as good as me to build decks :-) It basically just want to play Gray Merchant of Asphodel as many times as possible, with as much devotion as possible.
In the early game you don't mind tanking some hits, because your small creatures like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat will keep you afloat until the big life gain comes in. You can chump block some stuff, but you would rather keep them around so you can use your Skullclamp on them yourself, so you can start digging through your library and keep your hand full. By doing this, you are building your health back up, and pinging your opponents.
In the early game you wanna start by getting your Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers combo going. After this, when you have some more devotion, you really want your Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, to accelerate your game.
Now that you have your card draw and mana base going for you, the time has come for Nightmare Shepherd to some out an play. This card lets you keep your small creatures around, so their death-triggers can occur again, and lets you draw even more cards by using your Skullclamp on them again. And the good thing about the token copy that your Sherderd makes, is that the copy maintains it's devotion.
Ok, the death-triggers are up and running, now lets get our etb triggers going. First Ayara, First of Locthwain has a couple of upsides, she has great devotion, she has a sack outlet, and she has a etb trigger. So now that your are killing your own stuff and bringing them back into play with Nightmare Shepherd you are getting card draw, death-triggers and etb triggers.
Lets set up a plausible board state.
Turn 1: Play a Swamp and Skullclamp
Turn 2: Play a Swamp and Zulaport Cutthroat
Turn 3: Play a Swamp, Expedition Map activate your Expedition Map to get Cabal Coffers
Turn 4: Play Cabal Coffers tab out for 4 mana and play Nightmare Shepherd
Turn 5: Play Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, tab Cabal Coffers for 3 , play Blood Artist. With one remaining tap a Swamp and use the two to tap Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for 4 . Play Ayara, First of Locthwain (ping your oppontents for 1) equip Skullclamp to your Blood Artist = draw two cards Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat death-triggers goes of and Ayara, First of Locthwain etb trigger goes of because you are bringing the Blood Artist back into play as a 1/1 token with Nightmare Shepherd's death-trigger.
Turn 6: Tab two Swamp to play Demonic Tutor or (Diabolic Intent on your Zulaport Cutthroat it comes back as a token and ping all for 1) to get Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and play it. Tap Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and the last Swamp to tap Cabal Coffers to create 6 , use up to 4 on a high devotion card like Grave Pact, use the remaining 2 to tap Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for 10 .
Spend 5 to play Gray Merchant of Asphodel, this brings your devotion to 12 causing 12 damage to all opponents and probably scoring you 36 life-gain. Now Ayara, First of Locthwain triggers, doing one more damage to all and one more hp gain for you. Now use one to equip Skullclamp to the Gray Merchant of Asphodel, tapping Ayara, First of Locthwain to sack Gray Merchant of Asphodel giving you 3 cards. Now Zulaport Cutthroat and Blood Artist death-triggers go of, pinging all for 1 more and 1 other for 1. Now Nightmare Shepherd death-triggers goes of resulting in Gray Merchant of Asphodel reentering the battlefield, again causing 12 aoe damage and again triggering Ayara, First of Locthwain ping all for an additional 1.
Now you have done a total of 27 damage to all opponents and even 28 counting the single Blood Artist trigger to one of them. You have 4 left and 3 new cards, one of these cards could be something like a Plaguecrafter, by playing this you again get the Ayara, First of Locthwain trigger, you chose the to sack the Plaguecrafter to its own etb trigger. Triggering your gravepact, Zulaport Cutthroat, Blood Artist and last your Nightmare Shepherd, making it come back into play and additional time, making all the same triggers happen again. This does a total of 4 damage to all opponents and 5 to two of them. By this time, if you have have spread out the single target Blood Artist triggers to all opponents, they have now all taken 32 damage and gaining you 80 life.
This is scenario is quite plausible, and I didn't even plan out the best of the best turn 6. But a disclaimer though, your killing blow will usually come in turn 7 or 8 not in turn 6 as shown above.
Now as the game goes on, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed also brings back your creatures causing additional etb's. And yes I know he doesn't synergize well with Plaguecrafter and Zulaport Cutthroat due to them bieng humans, but he still an awesome card to have, when you sack your stuff again and again with cards like Ashnod's Altar, giving cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Kokusho, the Evening Star and Massacre Wurm multiple recurrences with etb and dreath-triggers going of left and right.
I know I'm missing cards like Black Lotus and Mox Jet, but since I play this with my play group, I think I'll be ok.
Comments and suggestions are always welcome.
