Phyrexian Tower should definitely be in the deck, especially now that it's price is lower with a reprint (it makes using Pattern of Rebirth substantially easier). Don't pull Urborg, Tomb though. Giving all your lands the ability to produce black mana is important, and I think you'd be better off removing one of the several enters-tapped lands like Mortuary Mire or some other.

Kederekt

Nice combo! I have to agree with goldlion. It's a little slow here, but it would be perfect for another deck employing these kinds of combos.

wyzeman

Yeah the landbase sorely needs to be updated. I just haven't wanted to tackle that just yet. Phyrexian Tower would be great, but I agree with PookandPie. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is invaluable for the black mana flood it provides especially if I want to play Necropotence or Geralf's Messenger early. Nice catch! I'll add it to the Maybeboard to be put into the actual decklist later on. I've been planning on buying some singles from Ultimate Masters before their prices go back up, so I'll add this one to my list!

wyzeman

I think a reanimator deck with Ghave would be a blast! Your list definitely looks like a good start. You'll have to let me know how it tests or if you want my opinion on anything specific. I'd be glad to help. I'll be keeping this list mostly the way it is since my whole goal is combo synergy, but I've had the perfect name for a graveyard based Ghave deck that doesn't quite fit what I'm doing here. I've been itching to use it...

I have ran last years a golgari reanimator with some of those combo and it was definitly a blast. The Necrotic Ooze allow you to play most of the combo with the pieces in the graveyard. This is why the ideas came to me when I saw your deck. As you dont have many slot left for ramp and draw, putting card in the grave and enact all combo with only one creature is a pretty good alternative.

Is the first line of the description a Hellsing ultimate abridged reference to the line "Get that bitch a cannon. Bitches love cannons."? If so I applaud you, sir.

May I suggest Pitiless Plunderer as another source of infinite combo ?

I also have Ghave deck myself and the deck has hard time protecting the commander, plus my meta is quite competitive where a threat not answered immediately will often lose you the game. Not to challenge you, but I want to know a little about your play group/experience/game plan about how to navigate without commander, because my deck doesn't function well without commander so I run cheap reanimate and protection spells. Also because the competitiveness of my meta I need to run more instant answers.

Here I can suggest two cards for you: Utopia Mycon, Metallic Mimic. You win with Hulk by searching them + blood artist

oo7x7oo

I'm currently without a playgroup at the moment, unfortunately, since I moved states a couple years ago. However in my old playgroup this wouldn't be as big of a problem as it would be in more competitive pods. Either way unless someone counters Ghave, this deck wins more often than not as soon as he hits the field.

If you're worried about him being a big target, there are plenty of ways for the deck to go off without him. There are currently 75 possible combinations of cards using persist creatures that go infinite (Going through this made me realize I really need to update my Full Combo list, so thanks!). We can use any of 5 cards to combo with a persist creature and a sac outlet. These are:

1. Cathars' Crusade
2. Ivy Lane Denizen
3. Juniper Order Ranger
4. Bloodspore Thrinax
5. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

We have three persist creatures to choose from (though you can add more if you want to focus on this strategy):

1. Kitchen Finks
2. Puppeteer Clique
3. Woodfall Primus

5 x 3 = 15. That's 15 combinations with any sac outlet. The sac outlets we have available are:

1. Ashnod's Altar
2. Phyrexian Altar
3. Carrion Feeder
4. Blasting Station
5. Viscera Seer

15 x 5 = 75. That gives us 75 possible combinations to reach infinite without Ghave. I didn't include Evolutionary Leap in the equation merely because the sac outlet isn't free. It's kind of a pseudo-Ghave with some possible tutor ability.

It's worth noting that only Blasting Station wins you the game on the spot out of these combos. Otherwise you'll need a Blood Artist effect for the win. However any of the persist creatures give us useful abilities, though Puppeteer Clique is generally more useful in long games with full graveyards. Likely if your group is competitive you won't get that far. He can be replaced with lower cmc creatures like Safehold Elite for instance if you just care about infinite death triggers. However Woodfall Primus can lock out the game by destroying all lands if you want to go that route.

Not to mention we also have our recursion combo using any of Karmic Guide/Reveillark/Saffi Eriksdotter. There are 3 combinations of using any 2 of these creatures and 5 free sac outlets. This gives us 15 combinations, 3 of which win on the spot with Blasting Station. For the other 12, we can add Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat for the win. 12 x 2 = 24. Add Triskelion with any 2 of our recursion creatures for 3 more ways to win. 3 + 24 + 3 = 30 possible routes to win the game from these cards alone.

All in all the deck can work just fine without Ghave provided you know what to tutor for. The way I see it, there are two methods for reaching a game winning combo.

1. Be fast and resilient. This is the route I've chosen. There are so many different ways to make a combo that a little disruption doesn't phase us. Obviously I still need to work on my land base to make it faster for this strategy to work consistently for cEDH. Otherwise in more casual groups I can just durdle around and win whenever I want.
2. Utilize control. Cut down on the number of combos in the deck and focus on a select few that will win you the game. Use a combination of tutors to draw your combos and control to maintain your boardstate and prevent others from winning until you can play a game winning combo. For this I would go for straight up infinite damage or life drain from continuous sac outlets and forgo the infinite mana/tokens approach. If you feel this is what you need for your meta then go for it. It still works really well, though obviously I prefer the resiliency approach.

Hopefully that answered your question. If not let me know, and I'll be happy to discuss!

I used to have Utopia Mycon in the deck, but it got cut for Phyrexian Altar which is objectively better. Yes you can search Mycon with Hulk who can't get the Altar, but if you're sac'ing Hulk to pull them out, you don't really need the fungus in the first place. Viscera Seer and Carrion Feeder can be brought out with Hulk and aren't restricted to sacrificing just saprolings. I'm not sure Metallic Mimic combos enough with other cards in the deck to merit a spot with Mycon, but it's certainly an approach that can work in other builds.

Great comments! Thanks.

I guess since ghave was an earlier deck I built before my meta became competitive, I was stuck in the old mindset of "try to win with token army, but if I win combo, so be it", the reality is that 90% of the wins are through combo, so I really need is to tune the deck to not be "saproling" only theme, and be more focus on combo pieces not relying on commander, which I feel your persist strategy fits very well.

oo7x7oo

I was in the same mindset for a while. This deck used to be fungus tribal with some combos thrown in. Capitalizing on the combos definitely makes it more competitive especially if you can pull them off fast. I haven't built this list solely on on combos without Ghave because I want to use him, but there are other methods if I lose access to him. If you want to focus on combos that don't require your commander, I'd use more persist creatures than I have in this list. You also might want a few combos that utilize Ghave so he's not just sitting there for colors. That would give you another route to go if you're without some of your other combos.

Good luck! Let me know if you want me to take a look at your list.

First of all thanks for the primer, it was very interesting to read, I'm currently trying to improve my own first EDH deck, with Ghave at the helm.

I think I might be missing something but don't 28 & 30 on the Full combo list require a sac-outlet?

svsnv77

Thanks for taking a look at it! Hopefully it was helpful.

Ugh...no you're completely right. Thanks for catching that. Add any free sac outlet to those, and they'll be able to bring Triskelion back, though using Blasting Station as your sac outlet makes it redundant. I'll upgrade the list to reflect that.

Seems solid. I would cut the tap lands tho. If speed is the issue and its purely to stay "slow" for new tables maybe cut cards like necropotence and tutors to make the deck slower and more "fun" for those people. Tutoring 20 times a turn isn't fun for low level tables and does more than tap lands in lowering speed.

I applaud you in taking the time and typing that combo list.

continuum

The taplands are on the chopping block. They started there as a budget landbase and now are mostly mucking up the list. I haven’t worried about them so much because it slows the deck a turn or two for casual groups, but the idea for the deck is to be fast and resilient. I have other decks for slower metas. I just haven’t gotten around to updating the lands yet, but it sorely needs to be done.

MonoGreenKing

Thanks! It’s truly been a work in progress. I keep reviewing it and realize that I’ve missed some, so the list keeps growing.

continuum

I have been considering recently building a budget list for this deck. Taking out many of the expensive cards will naturally slow it down, and it should still be able to pull of many of these crazy combos.

Just checked your new update. For what it's worth, I don't think you really need that many utility lands in Ghave. You typically have other things to do with your mana. Volrath's Stronghold and Phyrexian Tower are, I think, the only ones I run anymore, and I haven't missed any of the others. Okay, maybe sometimes I've missed Shizo, Death's Storehouse , but that's on very thin occasions. You could probably get away with Westvale Abbey  ^Flip as a kind of, "Break in case of emergency" win condition. I ran it for about two years and only used its second ability once, but it's not like I was unhappy to draw it most of the time (I removed mine for Ancient Tomb though, lol).

As a quick aside, Ancient Tomb is at the cheapest right now it's probably going to be for a while. I'd snap one of those up if you have the chance.

PookandPie

Thanks for the tips! Utility lands have really been more of an afterthought and one I would toy with later. It's good to know you haven't run across much of a need for them. I'm not even sure which ones Ghave would put to good use to be honest, and most utility lands only add so that would cut into my colors a bit.

I like Westvale Abbey  ^Flip but I've used it in more traditional Aristocrats decks where it can be really powerful. I don't think it's really high on my priority list for Ghave. Lol

My main thoughts for upgrading the landbase in the future are more fetch lands. While the current list excludes taplands and makes getting mana faster, sometimes I'm stuck with Earthcraft and no basics which is a no go. Once I can get my hands on single color fetches, it will make those combos more accessible at least.

Don't worry the cards should come in any time this week buddy! :P

Look I could try to offer suggestions or feedback of some kind but you seem to already have the deck the way you want it from the way your comments look so... I'll just say this...

You got an upvote simply because... your deck title is brilliant!

DrkNinja

Haha! Thanks! I’m particularly proud of the name. Glad you liked it.

Yo Abzkaban, have you thought about using Walking Ballista over Trike ? Or as another inclusion for outlet with infinite mana?

hkhssweiss

That’s actually a really good idea... I don’t know why I’d never considered using Walking Ballista before. I’m only slightly hesitant to remove Triskelion , and I can see benefits to having either one of them in the deck. Forgive me while I take this space to “think out loud” so to speak. I have a few thoughts on this.

Triskelion

Pros:

1. Makes a two-card combo with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed .
2. Combos with my recursion combo although needs a sac outlet if Saffi Eriksdotter is involved.

1. Combo with Mikaeus is a 12 mana combo if straight casting and 9 mana if entwining Tooth and Nail .
2. Doesn’t combo with any other cards in the deck outside of the recursion combo.

Walking Ballista

Pros:

1. Interacts with many more combos than Triskelion by serving as an outlet for infinite mana.
2. Less cmc to combo with Mikaeus even if a third card is needed.

1. Needs a third card like a Blood Artist effect or a sac outlet in order to make a game winning combo with Mikaeus.
2. Doesn’t combo with the recursion combo due to not entering the battlefield with +1/+1 counters.

Mike and Trike is the only two-card combo in the deck and allows Tooth and Nail to straight up win. That’s the main reason I’m hesitant to remove it in the first place. However Walking Ballista can interact with many more cards and still works with Mikaeus as a 3-card combo. The fact it doesn’t mix as well with the recursion combo isn’t as big of a deal since there are many other cards that do. It might be worth making the switch.

If I do replace Trike with Ballista, it raises the question of Tooth and Nail ’s value. It’s mostly included in the deck to grab Mike and Trike. If that combo is no longer present, would it be worth the 7-9 mana to grab other combo pieces next to the other tutors I have available? Removing it means I could add a maybeboard card like Reclamation Sage . What are your thoughts on this?

You’ve given me a lot to think about, and it’s possible I’ll be tweaking the list again soon.