Introduction
Orzhov Pestilence is a Work in Progress control deck; this has been a pet deck of mine and I'd really like feedback & suggestions from your fine minds to help me improve the deck!
The core of the deck is the enchantment Pestilence, which lets us wipe boards and hit face at our leisure.
Card draw in BW (Night's Whisper & Read the Bones) comes mainly at the cost of life; coupled with the damage from Pestilence can become pretty painful. So, I need to jam some lifegain, handily we can get a lot from lands in the form of Kabira Crossroads and Orzhov Basilica. This makes me a little slow, luckily BW has access to some of the best removal...
I run a lot of removal. Starting from the bottom: Disfigure kills almost any early threats at a very reasonable rate, Chainer's Edict is our beloved recurring edict, Victim of Night & Reave Soul fills the 2 cmc gap, Exile exiles and doubles as some life gain but is restricted to non-white & attacking targets, Unmake hits everything and Snuff Out snipes sneaky stuff and Drakes. I'm also running Consume Spirit which can act like removal in a pinch, but is better suited as a finisher, or life gain when I'm really on the ropes.
The creatures in the deck have to be aware my main plan is to blow everything up on the board. For this, I have a set of good ol' Guardian of the Guildpact whom don't take any nonsense. A pair of cheeky Sanitarium Skeletons just don't die... well, they often do multiple times... They're also great at protecting the Guardians from edicts. Crypt Rats are another board wipe and a skinny body if I'm in the market for that kinda thing.
I also run a couple Castigate to clean out any tricky cards from our opponents hands, and a Renewed Faith to gain life and handily cycles if I dont need it (2 life and a card for 2; it could be worse...).
Matchups
Drakes
Hmm. If I can sneak a Pestilence on the board, or delay their Drakes with the hand disruption/snuff I stand a good change of just burn/beating them up game 1. Post-board I bring in the disruption and hate and we have a pretty good shot, recurring skeletons and exiling key cards.
Stompy
Not played this matchup a whole bunch. The handful of matches I have either been too slow and get trampled over, or manage to stall damage and take over fairly easily. Needs more testing. I think overall I'm a bit slow, post-board with the Missionaries feels better but I just don't know if it tips the scales yet.
Delver
50:50, maybe. If we have the interaction early and can put pressure on their countermagic, resolving a Pestilence, or even a wipe with Rats quickly swings the game.
Bogles
Half of the deck is targetted creature removal, go figure... Post-board with 6 hand disruption feels better, along with the scorn.
Affinity
If they go off early there's not much we can do. If we find ourselves alive post turn 4 we're in for a good run. Board maybe needs some more hate?
Tron
Feels pretty good. They have a relatively low threat count, so I can 1-for-1 all the way and ride out to victory on the back of a Guardians; however torches to the face are not fun! Kill ceatures, remove Torches from hands.
Burn
Generally feelsbadman. So many dead cards pre-board. Post board it gets a lot better with hand disruption and a bunch of life gain.
Weenies/Goblins/Wide-stuff
Pretty good matchups. We have a reasonable selection of cheap removal and life gain to mitigate damage until a Rat or Pestilence comes along and clears the board and we assume control.
Misc. Control
Draw-go, get a Skeleton and eat up some counters removal. Timing on Guardians & Pestilence is key. Post-board gives us a whole lot more hand disruption, letting us resolve our threats. The recurrance of the skele's late game means we can often grind through their counters/removal. I've had a decent proportion of games where they've just drawn themselves to death.
Misc. Midrange
Our 1 for 1 removal and card draw early game, into board clears and Guardians feels like it's good enough to favour us most of the time.
Misc. Aggro
If I survive untill turn 4, it's usually okay.
