I forgot you kept dross on the side if it were me I'd keep one in the main to offset the life loss from Chainer but never running the deck I don't know if you really need it Dross Harvester seems better for big games Sangromancer should offset every time you use your fleshbag type cards no matter how many opponents you have but both are good. Then again you do have other life gainers Gary, Koko, and the whip being the best based on appearances alone. If you find you have enough life gain I suppose you really don't need it

Conspiracy would stop your nightmares from exiling should Chainer die. Although based on stacking I do believe you would need to have the target reanimated first

The 10 or so sac outlets mitigate the exile trigger well. Conspiracy would make things simpler, but it's not too much of an issue.

Dude have you seen Vampiric Rites from BfZ? Definite consideration here. I'd cut Read the Bones or Plunge into Darkness for it.

Vampiric Rites seems to only offer two advantages over Infernal Tribute: It is cheaper to cast and it gains one life. The downsides are that it only sacrifices creatures (not good for late game attrition) and that it requires B (not a huge downside).

I would recommend running Infernal Tribute if anything -- it will always be out before chainer is ready to get in motion. However, Vampiric Rites seems better in faster black heavy decks.

or idk, run them both.

And this is where reading the oracle text comes in handy:

Infernal Tribute

Enchantment

, Sacrifice a nontoken permanent: Draw a card.

Vampiric Rites lets you sac your creature tokens.

Now that I think about it, it might not be a huge plus in THIS deck, but that is still a big improvement over Infernal Tribute.

Eh. Neither really excites me. I'm considering Smothering Abomination though, or possibly throwing Necropotence back in here.

To replace Dark Prophecy

I think the clear benefit of tribute is in sacrificing excess land, enchantments, ramp artifacts for a Reprocess effect.

I dont know that I would run either here, now that I think about it more. But I would run either / both in Shirei, I guess.

But now that I mention it, Reprocess might be fun here.

I really like this deck, nice job!

Thanks, my guy.

Came for the name, stayed for the great commander choice and interesting cards in the deck

Zulaport Cutthroat is an even better Blood Artist.. highly recommeneded

Even better? It's a different drain effect. Yes, each opponent loses one life, but no, it isn't each opponents creatures. I don't think it is better, but definitely a good card

Considering Blood Artist combos with my own creatures dying for the infinite drain/gain, I would say Zulaport is a bit better. Definitely have to get one.

I don't know if it's better. Probably worth running but personally I wouldn't ditch the artist for it. I mean the cutthroat gives you one life from each player, but the artist gives you one trigger per opponent +1 for yourself and it's targeted so you can single out a player if need be

I think you could run both, I don't know about your playgroup but in mine they run lots of exile

Maybe in place of Big Game Hunter for the sake of redundancy. I already have plenty of kill effects, and it will lower my curve.

a lot of your stuff is forced sac, and something that targets is nice even if it does have a condition. Maybe Read the Bones? You seem to have plenty of draw power otherwise I'd say you could drop a swamp in my experience 36 is enough and your stuff is pretty low cmc compared to a lot of commander decks. Also side note I'm suprised at the lack of Black Market

I've just never really felt that Black Market was needed.

Black Market can get crazy really quickly -- but by the time it's out and producing value, it's essentially a win more card. That, and anyone paying attention will blow it up before you get anything from it. Works better in stax decks that depend on people not being able to use resources to deal with it in time -- would run in Nath, but probably not here.

What you should probably run is Priest of Gix -- a free body with Chainer and some major headache inducing combo fuel

my meta was never heavy with artifact/enchantment removal until I started playing equipment and even then I only started to see a couple pieces per deck. And in your deck Black Market is just as good if not better than Caged Sun it could result in a lot more mana and can be played sooner and it's just as vulnerable.

Overall, the ramp here has always served pretty well. Black Market can get pretty crazy, but the immediacy of Caged Sun and Extraplanar Lens and the recurrability of Crypt Ghast and Nirkana Revenant make Market more of a hindrance upon its removal by comparison. And in my meta it'll be out quick.

Oh, I don't know about that... I run it, and you've never blown it up. It's one of those things you just have to know the right time to play.

But it's still not the best fit in here. Mana doublers stacked on mana doublers are still more likely to give you more value if your deck isn't reliably able to sac at least four creatures before your main phase the turn after you play it. What I'm wondering is why you never tried to fit Doubling Cube in here.

Also, you guys are kind of missing the point when it comes to Blood Artist vs. Zulaport Cutthroat. It doesn't matter which one is more likely to drain the most life. Both of them are really only useful as a finisher for an infinite sac loop. In any other case the amount of life drained by either one is going to be negligible for most games, so you shouldn't be comparing them based on that criteria.

The only comparison that's of any value here is in terms of infinite sac loops: Blood Artist's perk is that it stops your opponent from being able to pull off a sac loop of their own (unless they have their own Blood Artist, in which case it comes down to waiting for the right timing and priority); and Zulaport Cutthroat's perk is that someone can't protect against your combo by giving themself shroud or hexproof.

But whatever, they're combo pieces. Run both for the redundancy.