Kill your own creatures to proc abilities of said creatures into massive chains.
This is a deck for the Kitchen Table play of either Two-Headed-Giant, One-Body One-Mind, or Emperor.
Both Sakura-Tribe Elder and Viridian Emissary are both there for the ramp, and they both proc the abilities of Blood Artist, Butcher of Malakir and
Gutter Grime
. They both can be used as chump blockers and I still get the land for either of them. With
Gleancrawler
on the field they come straight back to my hand and I can play them again for more ramp and more proc'ing on the abilities of everything else.
Reassembling Skeletons is there once again for a chump block and the ability proc on everything else, but also like Viridian Emissary it can be used to attack since it will make some opponents op to just let them through.
Dark Prophecy replaced the 2 Harmonizes and the 2 Ancient Cravings I used to use. I choose this as because my deck revolves around self sacrificing my own creatures, that means a free draw for each sac. With Blood Artist it also means I won't have to worry about losing too much life. Also my mana ramp will guarantee a draw of non-land cards, making them a lot more useful.
Dark Ritual is there for a quick mana ramp, when you need
Gleancrawler
, Butcher of Malakir or
Gutter Grime
on the field a lot sooner.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is here to help play Dark Prophecy and also be a good use in allowing me to activate Reassembling Skeleton's return from graveyard ability numerous times.
Altar of Dementia is easily the best quick sac card in this deck. Not only does it mill, I can also mana ramp with Viridian Emissary, and then gain life and the opponent loses life with Blood Artist, and then the opponent has to sac some creatures because of Butcher of Malakir which in turn would make them lose more life and I gain more life because Blood Artist would proc again, and then finally
Gutter Grime
would proc allowing me to put some more creatures on the field.
Altar of Dementia tied with Reassembling Skeletons and
Gutter Grime
is an easy deck-mill killer. Hell, any number of creatures on the field that total up to seven will make an instant mill. For the sac on seven creatures, lets say makes the opponent mill 5, and then I get 7, 7/7 ooze tokens on the field. I sac them all and the opponent mills 49, win. The best thing about Reassembling Skeletons is even if I only have one or two other creatures on the field, I can still proc its return from graveyard ability for another sac, combing extremely well with everything.
The main reason Living Death is in this deck is because of the following scenario.
My battlefield: Viridian Emissary, Reassembling Skeletons, Butcher of Malakir, Blood Artist, Altar of Dementia and
Gutter Grime
. Dark Ritual and 2 Sakura-Tribe Elders are in my graveyard , Living Death in hand, with 3 swamps and 2 forests on field.
With Altar of Dementia, I sac all my creatures except Blood Artist and gain one land. Opponent mills 8, sacs 3 creatures, I gain 6 life they lose 6 life. Then I sac Blood Artist and I gain another life and they lose another life. I then end up with 4, 4/4 ooze token creatures on the battlefield. I sac them all for a mill of 16. Total mill is 24. I then play Living Death, and all the creatures on the battlefield and in the graveyard swap places. I can then sac 6 creatures this time. I do the proc on both Sakura-Tribe Elders to gain land and then sac everything else but Blood Artist again. This time the opponent must sac 5 creatures, I gain 3 land, opponent loses 10 life and I gain ten life and the opponent mills 8. I sac Blood Artist, opponent loses another life I gain one life. Total life gain/lost 18. With all of this I gain 6, 6/6 ooze tokens on the field. I can sac them all for a mill of 36 and have a total mill of 68, meaning a win against most decks. Or I can decide not to sac Blood Artist and instead sac the 5 5/5 oozes and the opponent dies from another 5 life lose meaning 23 life loss and they still get mill'd out by a mill of 57 as most 60 card decks by that time have less than 50 cards in their deck.
That is it in the best detail I can give, really hard to keep track of when you are facing against it, as the player playing this deck knows everything and just zips through it all confusing the hell out of you when they say, "and that is game."
