I know it Says Razaketh, the Foulblooded is banned but at this time he is not on the EDH banlist, probably just the card being new. Hes good but I don't really think hell be banned, not with some of the cards that don't get banned.
Ghoulcaller Gisa just loves to sacrifice things and its such a fun black mechanic that with the mass token generation that this deck can accomplish I couldn't resist piling in the fun sacrificial mechanics. Much of the goal here is to build a big wide sticky board state while punishing the hell out of opponents that have any creatures on the board. The deck can be down annoying to swing at because in the right conditions the board just starts flooding with the army of the dead.
This deck is very strong against opposing creatures, but since it is mono black your artifact hate is extremely limited (really just gate to phyrexia) and true enchantment removal is nonexistant so enemy enchants will bring some serious hurt and there is nothing you can do. Now I'm not willing to use the colorless permenant destruction like nev disk I find as a oneshot removal it just doesn't live to resolution often enough to justify putting it in, your options for it are just overcosted and just plain suck to use and you will definitely run out of removal for artifacts and enchants faster than the opponent will run out of their stuff. I would consider Karn, Silver Golem to remove artifacts because of the graveyard interaction this deck had and how well this deck can force the opponent to sac creatures.
Obviously grave hate can be devastating to this deck. Not much to be done about that one.
Something to remember, with a pile of sac outlets you have plenty of options to sacrifice blockers, targets of spells and abilities to get some use out of your fodder on the way out. Once a creature blocks something if it would die its usefulness has ended and it should be sacrificed to one of your many outlets to thin the board or buff another creature while still blocking that unwanted damage. Same sort of principle applies to blocked attackers you want to squeeze all that delicious value out of your cannonfodder you can.
======Tutors======
- Pretty straight forward Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor are obvious choices
- The New HOD Razaketh, the Foulblooded is semi easily forced into play or just hardcast and you will never have problems feeding him corpses to tutor for wincons/ answers as an added bonus his status as an 8/8 means you can do some fun stuff with him, Gisa and hells caretaker in a pinch.
- Thanks to the buyback Demonic Collusion is great because it lets you force extra creatures from your hand into the graveyard in addition to the tutoring, thats no cost thats a side benefit.
- I'll count Expedition Map in this too for your land hunting need, really its there to get Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or Cabal Coffers, whichever you are missing, failing that you are looking for Thespian's Stage or Vesuva to make additional cabal coffers so that the mana well will never run dry or your emergency Stripmine if you need to emergency hate opponent lands
=======Land and Mana stuffs======
- Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth I dont know about you but i rather like every land tapping for black if i want and upping the swamp counter
- Cabal Coffers with the above its just gross
- Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx works well, many of your cards end up giving you some hefty devotion to black making this a powerhouse manawise
-
Thawing Glaciers
will let you build your swamp count up if things haven't been going your way a reusable evolving wilds at 1 mana is acceptable to me in black
-
Bog Initiate
a 2 drop to do some colorless manafixing is nice it helps you cope with the amount of lands that dont have taping for black early on and later in the game it lets you do shenanigans in conjunction with Ashnod's Altar to feed an infinite zombie loop with Gisa when she is all hooked up with Thornbite Staff
- Speaking of altars for mana Why not a nice little Phyrexian Altar getting the mana you need for sac engine or to fuel captured creatures abilities is a no brainer
- Crypt Ghast extra mana for every swamp cool, wait Urborg is out and all my lands are swamps.... Tasty
=======Gadgets and Gimmicks======
- Helm of Possession steal your opponents creatures and commanders and if you don't like them sacrifice them to an outlet and take another next turn I suggest waiting until the end of the last players turn to sacrifice your filched friend since he can block something for you in a pinch before being sacrificed.
-
Fallen Ideal
I love this card I tend to use it on disposables unless i think i can swingout with Gisa for commander damage wins. What you do when Gisa is on the board is enchant something with fallen ideal, usually a zombie have him eat all your board fodder (other zombie tokens) and get pumped up and swing out in the air (better with swampwalk or rogues passage down). Afterwards you simply Sac the amped creature to Gisa get Fallen ideal back in your hand and get 2 creatures for every 1 that was sacrificed to your zombie. Now you are able to swing out in a sense and still have a board full of blockers every turn. Its like having a vigilance that doubles your tokens.
- Lashwrithe and
Nightmare Lash
- swamp based buffing in a swamp deck.... Yes please. with these bad boys you can create huge creatures to make an army when Gisa does her sac and with the use of Miren, the Moaning Well you should never run into health issues with these on the field.
- Balthor the Defiled can be a real blowout if your grave has been getting loaded up either by game progression or dredging the Stinkweed Imp
- Geth, Lord of the Vault Stealing artifacts and creatures from the opponents grave and then milling them is adorable Especially since if you hit an infinite mana combo you just mill your opponents out
======Combos======
Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar
- infinite zombie enter and zombie leaving the battlefield effects. Gravecrawler is actually the most combotactular creature in the deck because of his ability .
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion
Mike and Trike is pretty known so yeah Infinite damage use your counters to deal 1 damage to the enemy and 2 to your trike and you just keep recurring the trike until win.
Ghoulcaller Gisa + Thornbite Staff
Every time you sac something to Gisa she untaps immediately if you have if you have just about any of your zombie lords or +1 buffs and Phyrexian Altar you have infinite zombies. if you dont you can just drain all your mana at the end of your opponents turn to make a boatload of zombies
with Hell's Caretaker + Thornbite Staff
you have near infinite creature recursion from your graveyard. with Grave Titan or some of the other shenanigans available it is infinite
Grave Betrayal + Homeward Path
Need to wipe the board? Maybe the opponent thinks it would be cute to kill all those creatures you worked so hard to put on your side of the field. Well with Homeward path its going to be happening on your terms. If a board wipe and it resolves you tap homeward path and give your opponents back their creatures in response. Suddenly they have their creatures back and they die to the wipe then betrayal returns them to your control anyway. Make sure to thank them for the creatures by punching them in the face with their own dudes.
Any of the many ways you get zombies on the field and
Gempalm Polluter
cycle your undead nuke and watch the enemy go bye bye. For added salt use Volrath's Stronghold or Unholy Grotto and you can pull off 2 suboptimal cycles before and after your card draw and kill everyone before they know what happened. ======Hate/Counterplay=======
There is plenty of targeted removal and some wipes but they are straight forward I don't think they need much going into but that doesn't mean I don't have removal that is worth a note.
- Gate to Phyrexia its not great but is IS artifact removal once a turn powered by your corpse factory but I could see subbing this with Karn, Silver Golem
-
Stromgald Cabal
This dude is here to help deal with some of those nasty white enchantments that wreck your world hes not a great option and is pretty specific but with white enchantments being able to hose you so bad I can think of worse things to do with a card slot. Thornbite Staff here in a pinch just careful about draining yourself too low while your sacing zombies and life to hose the white player
-
Helldozer
a beefy reusable
Sinkhole
that untaps busting nonbasics mmmm spicy
- Trespasser's Curse is really here because I regularly play against a "Rhys the Redeemed" deck i want to be the widest kid on the block and that puts a damper in his token doubling
- Sudden Spoiling Great for killing those tough things the opponent thinks made a good blocker 5 seconds ago but more importantly it hoses creature based abilities like those of
Angel of Jubilation
that are disrupting your operations long enough for you to deal with them.
