I started playing magic when a friend brought me to Toys R Us and insisted I buy a starter deck. After fifteen minutes of comparing the feature cards I fell in love with the art of Corpsejack Menace. A year later it is still my favourite card, and while my deck has morphed beyond recognition from its Intro Pack roots, I still want to make a deck that makes it shine.
The name is a homage to two locations in Dark Souls (Dark Souls locations being the basis of the naming of all my decks). Darkroot Basin is a dark forest filled with crystal golems and a giant water spewing hydra in a lake. The Depths are sewers filled with hollowed undead, rats, basilisks, oozes, and a boss called Gaping Dragon that has a gaping toothy hole in its body where its face should be.
My current iteration of Darkroot Depths centers around building up counters to overwhelm my opponent. The deck is composed of creatures that generate counters to maximize the effectiveness of Corpsejacks' doubling effect as well as removal spells to disrupt my opponents strategy.
Corpsejack Menace, my favourite card of all time. It doubles the counters placed on a Predator Ooze when attacking or destroying a creature, gives Lotleth Troll and Scavenging Ooze extra mileage out of pitching creatures and scavenging them respectively, gives extra counters when scavenging Dreg Mangler, and allows Primordial Hydra and Kalonian Hydra to enter and expand exponentially larger.
Kalonian Hydra hits hard and doubles the counters on all permanents I control whenever it attacks. Suffice to say it ends games, especially with Lightning Greaves attached and a Corpsejack in play.
Predator Ooze is able to generate counters by both attacking and destroying a creature. While rather small and slow at first its indestructibility makes it a powerful and resilient threat after a few turns. Rancor allows it to bypass chump blockers and trade with larger creatures sooner while Lightning Greaves allows it to attack sooner (growing quicker) and prevent it from being bounced or exiled. It is usually attacking on turn three thanks to Birds of Paradise and Lightning Greaves.
Scavenging Ooze provides a very valuable utility in interrupting graveyard strategies (which are very common in my local metagame) and life gain. It capitalizes on creatures destroyed via removal and combat, as well as creatures discarded via Lotleth Troll abilities. Overall an awesome utility creature that can pack a serious punch with a Corpsejack or Kalonian in play. Rancor and Lightning Greaves function as they did for Predator Ooze, but the shroud is particularly valuable in match ups where the graveyard hate is necessary.
Lotleth Troll is a solid two drop that has several useful abilities for the deck. The ability to discard creatures for a plus one counter allows it to trade up with larger creatures at a moments notice while also filling the graveyard with fodder for Scavenging Ooze and preparing my Dreg Mangler to be scavenged. While I usually avoid pitching creatures (since I lose card advantage) there are instances where it is incredibly useful, such as during a mana screw or a mana flood (discarding creatures that are too expensive in the first or mana dorks/Dreg Mangler in the latter). Its innate trample ability makes it a fantastic target to scavenge on to and its ability to regenerate for one black mana makes it a resilient defender should I need to stall.
Primordial Hydra is a card that has been in and out of the deck. As of now it is in because it provides two very valuable functions. One, it is a ticking time bomb when the board is stalled, especially when my opponent has many strong defensive creatures that would make attacking with a Kalonian Hydra not worth it. Secondly it is the ultimate top deck card when the game has been drawn out. Often unless it is answered the game is over when it goes to attack. This is especially true when a Corpsejack Menace on the field makes it twice as large as it enters the battlefield, and makes it three times as large during my next up keep. It wins games, as long as you don't play it too early and give your opponent plenty of opportunities to remove it. The protection and haste from Lightning Greaves are a nice bonus as well.
Dreg Mangler provides some solid early game pressure on my opponent thanks to haste, especially with a Rancor slapped on it as it bursts out of my hand. Late game its ability to be scavenged for three counters can help my tramplers break through an opponents defense, especially if that number is boosted or the creature has trample. Adding counters to my Hydras helps them grow much quicker and Lotleth Troll can discard them for an extra counter. Overall it is a solid three drop that's not essential but is very reliable.
Birds of Paradise help ensure I have black mana available, provide a flying blocker (and attacker in a pinch with rancor and scavenge), and help play creatures a turn faster, most significantly Predator Ooze/Dreg Mangler on turn two, and Corpsejack Menace on turn three.
Go for the Throat is a great removal spell that hits almost any creature, not much else to say other than it helps fill my opponents graveyard with Scavenging Ooze fodder and removes key threats.
Maelstrom Pulse is here mainly for its versatility. Its ability to destroy multiples, tokens, enchantments, artifacts and plainswalkers makes the sorcery speed an afterthought. Overall it is much more useful in my metagame than its instant speed uncounterable counterpart, Abrupt Decay.
Rancor allows my large creatures to trample over chump blockers and my small creatures to trade favourably with larger ones. Even on creatures that have trample it can be valuable for the extra reach and it can turn my Birds of Paradise into flying Grizzly.
Lightning Greaves helps protect my creatures and their counters, and gives the deck the speed to outpace my opponent. The haste is especially relevant to Kalonian Hydra which when it attacks the turn it is played the game is usually over.
***A special mention goes to Ulvenwald Tracker which was recently removed. It provides extra removal and many of my creatures love fighting (especially Predator Ooze, Scavenging Ooze, and Lotleth Troll). Unfortunately I've been finding it hard to use the Tracker's ability without messing with my curve, and without it my deck functions much faster. Some matchups were over if I had a Tracker and a Predator Ooze online, other matchups it was only good as counter fodder.
