If you your trying to go for some reanimator lose some Fated Retribution for some Champion of Stray Souls since after you get some pack rat token you can sac them off to get a mass of your creatures back at instant speed just the same and he also provides you with a 4/4 that can continuously comeback, and maybe some more inspired to go with your epiphany storms, and I don't think Champion cost that much as well, keeping with your budget theme, as always tho' great deck +1 good luck tomorrow! I know I'll be testing too,

Yup, he is only about three dollars.

I didn't see this. Lava Axe Bro, five damage for five? Is crap in a speed deck I understand the trying to get it out with Oracle of Bones but there are so many other cards that you could use in it's place such as Magma Jet which gives you both a burn and scry engine that you desperately need for two rather than absurd FIVE mana,

SilentChibi- Thanks for the feedback and the upvote. Honestly, I wasn't feeling Lava Axe 100%, but I am keeping the Fated Return ... it's the only other way to properly re-animate besides Rescue from the Underworld . Now, having said that, I had two more Felhide Spiritbinder in there instead of Lava Axe, and that was a lot of dead weight in my hand. I was thinking a Flame-Wreathed Phoenix and an Underworld Cerberus that I have. Know what? That's what I'll do. I love Champion of Stray Souls , but he's got more of a post-rotation spot in this deck as of right now.

Thanks for the feedback, as always!

Really what champion is for when I talked about him is that, he provides mass reanimate, with the pack rat tokens your going for you could sack them off for that five mana that you would use to try and pay for your Fated for one cast and you'd have an extra two mana to do something else with like more tokens, I meaning for the wave reanimate rather than the single indestructible one. You can do it on your oppnents turn as well, making a crap load of blockers for the token you had or on an end step to prepare for a massive swing, Just in my opinion I like the more bang for your buck, I mean indestructible is nice but you WANT things like Ashen Rider to die again thats your whole goal here , also maybe put in a Whip of Erebos To help with life and to provide a third source of reanimate,

Very nice ideas, +1 :)

Thanks, m-d-an, any suggestions I can do to improve the performance of the deck? I'd almost think there's a place for Gift of Immortality here, but then I'd have to start putting white mana in there, and part of this deck's strength lies in how it's got two colored mana cost creatures (D. Demon, Rakdos, Oracle, Ash Zealot, Phoenix...), but since it doesn't splash white, the mana performance is a lot more consistent. I don't know. I mean, I have got a Temple of Triumph and some Temple of Silence. Think I should put them in, then splash the Gift of Immortality with the intent of casting it on the Ashen Rider and sending him on suicide missions?

This looks like tons of fun for a budget deck. +1 from me.

Why not Entering part of Breaking//Entering? +1 from me though, I never thought of that Oracle of Bones combo before. I like it!

Well, scottynapalmn, I can tell you why. I dug Oracle of Bones. Loved it. But tried as I might I couldn't make it work. Enchantment mainboard/burn sideboard and then switch for Round 2 so that no matter what answer they gave was the "wrong" one for tribute... that didn't work very well. Straight up mono-red burn didn't work. They would constantly pay tribute on a creature they would take out with a Desecration Demon.

Then I thought about fuse spells. Fuse spells started to give me this idea, since they were big, expensive cards that you could cast both halves for free without paying the mana costs you couldn't accomodate. A Red/Black deck where you could cast "Far" from Far / Away or an Armed / Dangerous deck where you could make "Dangerous" fire for nothing? Great! Hell, even if they DID pay tribute you could still cast the half of the card you did have mana for... BUT! I was frequently left wanting them to pay tribute to get the bigger creature which I needed, or wanting them to not pay tribute so I could cast the spell that would mean the difference between winning and losing... and sure enough, they always picked wrong.

I needed a spell which didn't care where the creature was... Hell, it didn't care about what my opponent was doing at all. If they didn't pay tribute, oh well, I still had something I could use the spell for... and if they did, I'd get what I needed all the earlier. And then I realized... unless they run graveyard hate, I can discard a creature, and they either let me cast Rescue from the Underworld for free (after which I sacced either the Oracle of Bones to get that Tribute they denied me before or one of my smaller creatures which couldn't help as much anymore in the midgame... or they paid tribute and I just use Rescue the next turn), and then get the creature I discarded back. Epiphany Storm was perfect for the deck cycling, while getting those highly troublesome CMC/alt cost creatures into the graveyard (Rakdos- dream to use, pain in the ass to cast), and Pack Rat even left a body behind!

When I saw SwiftFatality's deck, I felt vindicated in my logic. While he did some things I wouldn't do, like Pain Seer in a deck with CMC eight, seven, and six spells... I started inventory of my rares, and this is the result I came up with. At any rate, thank you for the upvote, and if you have anything else you'd like to suggest, or comment on, let me know.

(PS- the sideboard's got some Fuse stuff that is specific to my meta- LOTSA Detention Spheres/Jace Architect in my neck of the woods, so I need some enchantment/planeswalker hate. Also why I have Pithing Needle and Slaughter Games)

If you happen to need more discarding there's always Wild Guess . I had a sort of similar deck a while ago at I Bestow Value Upon Thee. Its gimmick is very different, but the methods aren't too different. At some point I had Kragma Butcher running with Epiphany Storm , though. Someone also gave me the wonderful idea of using Epiphany Storm to stop Deathbellow Raider from attacking. Fortunately that's not needed in my deck (because he will always be heavily buffed), but you know... Now you know.

/rant, +1

I would look at using 1 or 2 Rakdos's Return .

Devastating to your opponent if it's late game... but more importantly, for 3 mana and 1 life, you can discard your Ashen Rider , without having to hope your Pack Rat or creature enchanted with Epiphany Storm lives long enough to let discard.

I think it's a better option that Wild Guess in your Maybe board, as it has the potential to devastate an opponent... Just a guess though, you would probably want to play test it a bit.

oops... nevermind... I thought it was target player... it's target opponent.

I got mixed up because of the "That player discards..." part of the text.

Check out my updated version of the old deck:

Standard Land Destruction [Competitive]