Why Child of Alara?
Because she rocks! A 6/6 trampler for 5 (if you've got your mana sorted out, which this deck usually does) stapled to a Planar Cleansing is pretty dang fine. Child is great when you're behind - swing with her, and your opponent decides between blowing up the world or taking 6 commander damage!
The Deck
The deck has several themes - self mill, reanimation, sacrifice and land usage. It revolves around the use of Living Death, Twilight's Call or Living End and self-mill, especially Hermit Druid, Traumatize and dredge.
There are two main sub-themes. Firstly, I use creature sacrifice for a bunch of shenanigans - I'm looking at you It That Betrays!. It's worth noting that Living Death now sacrifices the creatures on the board thanks to its oracle text. It That Betrays + Living Death
is thus quite a lot of fun. Archfiend of Depravity, Sheoldred, Whispering One and Thraximundar help to represent this theme (amongst others).
The second sub-theme is lands. Fetch lands and Crucible of Worlds work together well. I particularly like Borborygmos Enraged + Life from the Loam
and Crucible of Worlds + Strip Mine + Titania, Protector of Argoth
. There's a bunch of other land tricks that can be pulled, but this blurb is already pretty long!
You might notice that Living Death is pretty central to the deck (although I have won games without it!). As a result I have a fair bit of tutoring which generally gets used to find it including Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Liliana Vess, Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Insidious Dreams. Regrowth, Eternal Witness, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
and Down / Dirty work somewhat like a tutor once I've milled enough.
Win Cons
These require some amount of self milling first.
Hermit Druid + Living Death
- insta-horde!
Flayer of the Hatebound + Living Death
Flayer of the Hatebound + Lord of Extinction
Brion Stoutarm + Lord of Extinction
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord + Lord of Extinction
Altar of Dementia + Lord of Extinction
Altar of Dementia + Living Death
- Sometimes requires a Regrowth or an Eternal Witness on the Living Death to finish the job.
Notable combos
Child of Alara + Prince of Thralls
Avacyn, Angel of Hope + Child of Alara
+ sac outlet like Butcher of the Horde - One sided Planar Cleansing!
Archfiend of Depravity + It That Betrays
Butcher of the Horde + Child of Alara
- Instant speed board wipes.
Fauna Shaman + Golgari Grave-Troll
.
Eternal Witness + Living Death
+ sac outlet like Phyrexian Tower - Use Living Death every turn! Works great with Altar of Dementia or Flayer of the Hatebound to kill multiple opponents.
Doomed Necromancer + Sun Titan
- recurring reanimation. Titan also works well with Eternal Witness, Qasali Pridemage and all the lands that sac themselves.
Child of Alara + Sidisi, Undead Vizier
- Blow up the world and then fetch a Living Death. Diabolic Intent can be used in this way too.
It That Betrays + Sheoldred, Whispering One
Finally...
If you have any questions or any suggestions I'd love to hear them! Just a note, I'm not hugely into infinite combos or lock downs ;)
