The church seems to have a bit of a clerical error. :') Amazing deck.

Love your deck it was the base for my cleric deck still waiting for a few cards to come in. I went with going for big mana to drain as another win con Clerical Error

I like the theme and many of your card choices. I usually find that making cuts is a lot more difficult than finding great cards, so here goes.
I have some suggestions for cuts:
Priest of the Blood Rite-really flavorful, but at 5 mana I think it should do more in your favor.
Ancestor's Prophet- This one won't win games. Even if you can manage to activate once it's still a really bad deal.

Okay I do have 2 card suggestions:
Dark Supplicant + Scion of Darkness

Thank you for the suggestions electromancer, I have until recently run both Dark Supplicant and Scion of Darkness before with mixed results; however, I can safely say when it does work it is VERY hilarious but I often find I lack real targets for his reanimation and it makes me sad. Still I may work him back in as it curves very well into the deck (I never bother to actually cast Scion of Darkness).

I can definitely see your view on Ancestor's Prophet, although I have had games stalled out where the 10-50 life it got me has mattered but at 5 CMC and requiring four other clerics can be rough... I suspect replacing it with another soul sister variant of cleric to gain life would honestly be more effective. I suppose it really comes down to just being hesitant to pull out more clerics matter cards. But I think your analysis on him being one of the most replaceable is correct.

I have had a lot of luck lately assembling infinite reanimation loops without the life drain aspect that I am now looking to add more ways to abuse it such as Priest of the Blood Rite in regards to infinite reanimation loops and careful stack usage to create arbitrary large demon token armies to swing with. Also, large flying bodies can be nice when I need cards or just looking uninviting to attack.

Overall I think your observations are pretty spot on; I think I will put the two back in but I just need to agonize over cuts...

Not trying to make things complicated but I found a couple others that are kind of interesting:
Cover of Darkness You might want to skip this suggestion if you know you're not going to win through combat damage.
Harsh Mercy I didn't know this existed until a couple minutes ago, but it looks like it could be fun.
Ok more suggestions for cuts:
True Conviction- I think you should reserve this CMC slot for cards that will guarantee a high impact. Since all of your creatures are utility, I don't think this card makes as much sense in this deck as it would in others.
Custodi Lich- CMC is a bit much for giving your opponent the choice of what to sac. It also looks like you can only do this once per game unless someone else likes being the monarch, so it's anti-synergetic with flicker and reanimation.

Thanks electromancer for the comments I always appreciate an outside eye for critiquing the deck. I have run Cover of Darkness from time to time and found its usually better in aggressive builds, encourage card draw, but its always one of those cards that never seems to quite make the cut but I always like what it could potentially do. Were I to add it I would probably replace Bitter Ordeal but I am still testing that card.

Harsh Mercy seems on the surface to be a good pick but the problem is I typically play multiplayer so a total of four creature types will be exempt and odds are pretty slim I will actually kill what I really needed removed. Kindred Dominance or Toxic Deluge would probably be suited to my needs for filling in removal duty, although I don't know how I missed that one when I used to play tiny leaders.

True Conviction is a test card currently, I have it in as part of a suite of enchantments to use with Academy Rector depending on the situation it seems like it could be a high impact card. The theory is that it will make a difference by giving me an edge on any defensive blocking and forcing opponents to make unfavorable blocks when my humble 2/2's can hit for four, also the life gain is definitely useful and nightmarish if I have Archangel of Thune out. However, it still needs to be tested and if found lacking I would probably swap it out Cover of Darkness.

Custodi Lich is mainly in here because he tends to net me 2-4 cards is a 4/2 blocker/attacker and sticks it to someone else. Currently the best gotcha moment I have had with it is when a player managed to get a turn two The Gitrog Monster out and nobody had a response, I play my second land for the game and proceeded to cast Custodi Lich using Mana Vault... the laughter at the table man... While he does not work with the reanimation schemes of the deck I don't think I can really replace him unless I find another fairly reliable source of card draw while keeping cleric count up. If they would just print an etb Human Cleric with card draw...

Love the deck, love the flavor. But where's Westvale Abbey  ^Flip? If you have previous thoughts and experiences with it I'd love to here why it's not in the list.

Thanks for looking the list over SandwichMan007. I have used Westvale Abbey  ^Flip in other builds of the deck with some success but the short answer why its not here anymore is to increase mulligan consistency. The long answer is that I find it necessary to start with three lands that let me cast Tymna the Weaver and without greens color fixing ability to protect me I find my deck will brutally betray me if I don't have that in my starting hand, like 10 cards till the next land levels of spite and betrayal. The strangest thing is I have seen people play less lands then me and NOT be consistently screwed by it whereas I literally need to fight to need consistent land drops.

So to recap, to strengthen my first five turns, current low creature count, used to have 34 clerics at one point, and poor interactions with my main reanimation loop, typically powered by Mirror Entity as the sacrifice outlet... it feels waaay bad when that happens. To give you an idea how important that meeting necessary colors is I have even toyed with removing Reliquary Tower but its general interaction with Necropotence always stops me. Although with the recent inclusion of Crucible of Worlds I may reevaluate it.

P.S. My meta reaaaally likes their combos and clerics are terrible at beating people down so I find constancy to be VERY important as the best case scenario of me durdling around tends to be dragon tribal value engine to the face and from there it only gets darker and more heinous, where Westvale Abbey tends to be a speed bump at best.

duffman24 thanks for looking the deck over, I am not quite sure how well Leonin Relic-Warder would interact with my enchants except perhaps Necropotence just to get it off the board as for the reanimation enchantments it would just cause the enchanted creature to die after the enchantment leaves play removing shenanigan possibilities. Another strike against it in the deck is that it lacks the human sub-type preventing it from interacting with the reanimation cycles this deck likes to do, which is a shame because it would be an all star in the deck otherwise by abusing triggers like Fiend Hunter does. As he is now I would probably only run him with a commander like Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim so I could sack him in response to his enter the battlefield effect to permanently exile the target.

Altar of the Brood can be good but outside the combo it does not have a lot of utility and takes a precious card slot where cuts are getting harder to make.

I have run Altar of Dementia before and it is VERY good and has great utility outside of the main combo as a sacrifice outlet and self milling mechanism, setting up reanimation power plays or milling out opponents. Slots are kind of tight but I may have to look at putting it back in as the deck has changed a lot since I first initially removed it.

duffman24 thanks for explaining the combo to me, I completely missed that interaction when you made your previous comment and now the recommendations make a lot more sense to me as the interaction between Leonin Relic-Warder with Animate Dead and friends could be powerful. As an added bonus it would provide another way to gain an arbitrarily large life total with Soul Warden and her sisters while providing additional artifact/enchantment removal. I will really have to rethink Leonin Relic-Warder as it adds another combo backup with Altar of Dementia.

Now, if they would just print a Wayward Disciple that does not need to be flipped...

Gadianten

Love the deck build, reminds me back of the days when I got my ass whooped by a constructed cleric deck. +1 for that trip down memory lane. Great job :P

Love the deck! Took many pages out of your book and built a similar list with a twist for my meta. Thank you for sharing the ins and outs, it's been a wild ride watching the deck at the table go from value train into highway bandit, and I could not have done it without your deck guidance.

Thank you sagegrouse, I have been trying to fine tune the deck over the years to streamline it and increase its resilience. I am interested in seeing what you built if possible, but I am glad you enjoyed the deck and found it helpful.

I'll bring up my list for you here in a bit!

Here's my early take on B/W clerics, started as a budget tribal deck but I would like to bring it more to combo, could use some ideas with razaketh lines.

Hey sagegrouse, I took a look and it seems you have a couple of combo loops set up there's only a couple more combo finishers I could recommend that I did not mention in your deck and those are Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond with Academy Rector being a good add and Bitter Ordeal if you have a infinite recursion loop setup. As for Razaketh, the Foulblooded the things I would add would be some "free" mana sources like Mox Diamond so you can get the mana needed to cast your main combo, also Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak because explosive mana is often necessary.

This deck looks awesome! Suture Priest (one of my favorites) may be a nice addition. Good luck with it!

Although it isn't a cleric, which is a shame, he could help you lots here: Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker. Most of the clerics with a sac ability are 1 power, so...

Also, have you considered Scion of Darkness with Dark Supplicant?

Thanks for the suggestions DarkRequiem, I have had both Scion of Darkness and Dark Supplicant in the deck, in foil to boot, and I tend to cycle them in from time to time. The only real problem I have had with them is the lack of haste in the deck. Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker is fun but gets kinda shut down hardcore by Ravos, Soultender with his anthem effect although if I were to go Shadowborn Apostle it would be hilarious. I really wish they had a partner cleric with red in the cost for the haste...

Hey doctorstrangedays the only reason and I mean ONLY reason I have not added Suture Priest is because she is not human so I cant reanimate her easily, also my meta is not typically creature heavy, it really makes me sad shes not a Human Cleric as she would be brutal otherwise. Although depending on how the meta evolves who knows, she might make it in.

Have you thought about adding Orah, Skyclave Hierophant?

are you going to update this deck now that commander legends is out? Also, why not use Phyrexian Tower as one of your lands? Getting creatures into your graveyard seems optimal in your deck, so getting 2 black mana for doing so feels like a nice bonus :)

Thanks for the comment Elasar99, I have not obtained Orah, Skyclave Hierophant or any of the new clerics as of yet. With the new additions to cleric tribal I am having to rethink the deck quite a bit as I pushed human subtribe to take advantage of Angel of Glory's Rise. With the new additions the deck might morph quite a lot soon.

Hey Jack_83 I used to run Phyrexian Tower but found the decks low land count punished me for running lots of colorless land and have generally found my self not wanting to sacrifice to be able generate black even if it is extra. However, if I boost my land count I would definitely run it then. On second thought I may replace High Market, I might need to rethink my lands a bit.

No suggestions to offer. It's just a beautifully brewed deck.