Teneb, the Harvester is too conditional for me. I have really reliable ways of getting my own creatures back and when I want to interact with an opponent's graveyard Puppeteer Clique does the job. And Homeward Path is a thing now.

Nice deck, I got another Karador deck although much more black-based, could use some advice if its not much trouble, just started playing commnader a couple of months ago and i'm really diggin this format. Deck is called Please don't touch my graveyard

Blood Baron of Vizkopa ? Archangel of Thune ? Corpsejack Menace ? Ready / Willing ? Golgari Charm ? All of these would be fantastic in a deck like this! D:

I'm really not trying to be rude, but what do any of these cards do that isn't already being done better by something already in the deck?

Blood Baron of Vizkopa is a dumb, conditional beater. Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter fills that role and more with absurd amounts of utility.

Archangel of Thune is basically the same dumb beater with the added disadvantage of actively ruining Mikaeus, the Unhallowed 's synergy with the rest of the deck by preventing Undying triggers.

Corpsejack Menace does nothing since this isn't a Ghave combo deck and also ruins synergy with Mikaeus and my persist combos.

Ready / Willing is already covered by Vault of the Archangel which also happens to be a repeatable effect and more easily tutored for. Golgari Charm is flexible but again, there are cards that already do what it does but better (Necroplasm vs. tokens, for instance).

Again, not trying to be rude, but please don't just spam suggestions without even glancing at the deck or the description.

Here's where you fail to see where most of them would be quite relevant:

Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter also costs 7 mana, doesn't have removal protection (which could save him from stuff like Dark Betrayal or Hero's Downfall ), and can be destroyed if your opponent copies him with any Clone .

Ready / Willing also grants your creature indestructible and allows you to untap them. Unless you wanted to run Rootborn Defenses , which half of that card is useless in this deck, and doesn't untap your already tapped creatures.

Golgari Charm 's one purpose is saving your creatures from Supreme Verdict . All it's other abilities are junk at this point, but saving you from board clearers like this it's where it truly shines, and pretty much everybody loves running Esper because of Oloro, Ageless Ascetic or Sen Triplets .

Don't tell me I'm spamming suggestions. I know exactly what I'm talking about. While I can see where Archangel of Thune or Corpsejack Menace would hurt this deck, cards like Blood Baron of Vizkopa aren't just dumb, conditional beaters. Half the time, I don't even get to use his ability. But he is a 4/4 with lifelink and protection from white and black, which unlike Vish Kal, protects him from most forms of removal, and makes him unblockable against a large number of favorable creatures, and untouchable by them as well.

On one last side note, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Lord of Extinction conflict because of his Undying gift, which lowers the amount of cards in your graveyard, making Lord of Extinction much weaker in the long run. Besides, if you think about, Lord of Extinction is kind of a dumb, conditional beater as well.

I didn't "fail to see" anything you pointed out, I've already moved way past that point in this deck's development. I've been playing the thing for two years, both IRL and online. I've seen a lot of matchups and played against a huge pool of decks.

But you really are spamming suggestions, you provided just a list of cards with no explanation of what any of them would do to further my gameplan. Instead of offering any potential cuts for what you are suggesting or commentary on why you suggested them in the first place, you just vomited a list of cards at me that you yourself just admitted more than half of was incredibly limited in scope or actually had a detrimental interaction with the deck. I'm willing to place money on the fact that you initially did not examine the deck.

Since you "know exactly what you're talking about," you know that clones don't actually kill Legendary creatures and haven't been able to since the Legendary rules change in like May of 2013.

You know that suggesting a card that reactively answers one single other card that I may not even encounter is terrible in a 100-card singleton format. You'll notice that all my instants are either removal or tutors. I don't care for or much less need any combat tricks. I'd rather run another threat or more removal. I'm playing Karador; I don't care if someone wipes the board. If anything, it's helping me, I get another round of ETB triggers from my creatures and Karador is the single best commander at rebuilding after a wipe. I actually get to outrace everyone else back to a boardstate. I want the game to go long and get grindy. That's what this deck does.

You also know that there are more efficient ways to give creatures indestructible in these colors that interact better with my commander (in other words, they are creatures and can be recast out of the graveyard easily). Dauntless Escort and Avacyn, Angel of Hope are some of the best and most commonly run I've come across. Don't worry, I've already tested them both extensively. If you checked the latest deck update, you'd actually find that I took the Avacyn out of the deck. I just don't need it.

You know that Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter , in addition to being a 5/5 with flying and lifelink, also acts as a repeatable, free sac outlet (which also makes him huge), as removal (that can even kill indestructible creatures), and as a two-card combo with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed . I don't care if he eats removal. This is EDH. The argument "well it dies to removal" just doesn't hold up. If he gets removed, good. One less answer in my opponent's hand. I can play him again. The entire point of the deck is to recycle things from the graveyard until my opponents run out of the answers to keep up. Otherwise I'd play something with blue.

You know that every single creature in the entire deck has an activated or triggered ability that provides utility beyond its combat stats, except for four. The four that don't (Gaddock Teeg , Mikaeus, the Unhallowed , Oracle of Mul Daya , Lord of Extinction ) are all lynchpins of their own different strategies and have static effects that make them very valuable. So with this in mind, you know that Blood Baron of Vizkopa brings literally nothing to the table besides a body with some lifelink and evasion, something I just don't need.

Lastly, thanks for pointing out the discrepancy between Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Lord of Extinction . Lord of Extinction scales off of every graveyard in the game, not just mine and not just creatures. Yes, it's a dumb beater, I even say it's a big dumb beater in the deck description, but it's a dumb beater that scales to any stage of the game and often provides a OHKO with Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord . And if one activation isn't enough to do the trick, the "conflict" with Mikaeus allows me to do it a second time immediately.

If you read this far, I seriously, genuinely, was not trying to be rude earlier. I'm not saying your suggestions are bad in every EDH deck. I'm really not. I'm just saying that there are already better cards in this specific deck. It's moved past cute combat tricks and cards that aren't interactive or don't serve multiple purposes. Thanks for taking the time to comment.

my only concern with this is the ramp... it doesnt seem to ramp as well as other decks do? Can you explain why not? I have playtested this alot and often am stuck behind other decks...

Hmm, that's weird, I haven't found the deck to be that slow. However, I know it does fall behind dedicated ramp decks because that isn't really the game I'm trying to play. I can't really race a mono-green Azusa deck and I'm not trying to. My early game is generally more about reacting to threats and stabilizing. I've found that, while I can't keep up with ramp decks, on average I have enough to get ahead of decks that aren't running green. Here's my reasoning about the amount and type of ramp I'm running.

My playgroup uses Partial Paris Mulligans so it's typically quite easy to get a ramp spell in my opening hand, so I can be a bit greedy with the number of ramp spells I run. I have 9 ramp spells if you count Green Sun's Zenith , which I do since I aggressively use it to tutor for ramp dorks in the first 2-3 turns or to bust out a Turn 1 Dryad Arbor . This does not include Mirari's Wake which I don't really count as ramp. Oracle of Mul Daya is kinda iffy as it doesn't actively search me lands, but it helps find them and play multiple lands each turn so I count it as a ramp spell. With 9 ramp spells out of 99 I should see one every 11 cards, ideally. Counting the 7 cards from my starting hand I should hit some sort of ramp in the first 4 turns of the game (ignoring my ability to mulligan to find ramp). Sometimes I don't and it sucks, but hey that's Magic. Variance is part of the game. I have run more ramp in the past and I agree with you that it can really speed things up, but top-decking ramp lategame was getting super annoying and I trimmed the excess to what I have now. I'd prefer to have a higher density of threats, utility, and removal.

I should also note that my meta is becoming more and more aggressive, in my primary playgroup people tend to start dropping their commander or crapping out tokens on turns 3-4, so that's where I want to start casting actual spells and interacting with the board. That's why I'm avoiding some of the more powereful ramp spells at the CMC 4 slot, like Explosive Vegetation and Skyshroud Claim . I just can't afford to wait that long.

I'm curious, what have you been playtesting against? Does your meta run more heavy ramp packages?

I've done tests against aggro (red, green and black), white weenies/lifegain and some controlish types.

I've found it completely shuts out any white dominant and red dominant decks. They just don't have the board presence to compete.

Against mono green (azusa and omnath), it cant compete. By the time your dropping any real board presense, there already too far ahead.

Against any aggro thats not mono color (thrax, kaalia and the like), it matches up pretty well. I tended to split 50/50 but I think this was mainly due to me not being familiar enough with how the deck worked.

However, here is the catch. When I was playing against aggro/control, if they even dropped a sol ring turn one or even a signet or something of the like, I was behind enough to not have any advantage. I almost never drew into ramp and if I did, it was too late.

But against any control, I constantly got outramped, outplayed and outcontrolled. This deck is meant to be a control/combo deck if I'm not mistaken and against anything that isnt mono aggro, I find myself behind very quickly.

I think that you might try adding a heavier artifact ramp package and see what it does for you. Focus on one combo/set of combos and remove anything else that doesn't benefit you. Then add a bit of artifact ramp and see.

This is great advice. What mana rocks would you recommend? Mana Vault seems like a no-brainer but I've had varying success with signets and the like.

I'm still not sure I really want to go all in on making this a combo deck, I already have two other dedicated combo decks that are much faster and more consistent. I feel like I'd be better off playing Ghave in that case. Might just end up taking out some of the combo pieces for more ramp.

I tested again tonight in an entirely new playgroup at my LGS and again never really had problems hitting my ramp early. The only deck I fell behind was some mono-red deck running a stupidly high percentage of rocks and mana doublers, but even then I was able to play out a pretty early Pernicious Deed and send him back to the stone age. Perhaps my local meta just isn't as competitive.

@Internet_the_Explorer:

I've reread your previous comment a few times now and it's caused me to take a really long and hard look at what I'm actually trying to accomplish this deck. At the moment I feel like I'm trying to do so many different things with it that it's become so fragmented that it doesn't really even function smoothly any more. I said myself earlier, if I really wanted to play a Junk combo deck, I'd be playing Ghave.

It's for this reason I think I'm going to take most of the combos out of the deck and focus on what it used to be, a very grindy and controlling build that wins more through attrition and synergies than from combos out of nowhere.

I'm taking out Bitter Ordeal and Blasting Station , as these don't really do much for me outside of winning through an infinite combo. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Lord of Extinction are almost surely coming out too, because while it's nice to get a random Tooth and Nail into them for the win, they often don't do much on their own and Jarad's casting cost can be extremely rough if I intend on using his sac ability in the same turn. I'll probably prune a few more cards out that aren't really performing how I'd like, too.

As for what's coming in, I'm not entirely sure yet. Probably some artifact ramp, Gilded Lotus has been wonderful in the past at allowing me to hit some of the more restrictive casting costs I have. I will probably take a look at some fast mana artifacts as well, like Mana Vault . I'm going to be taking a look at my creature-based ramp package again and trying to improve it some, although I think it's pretty optimized at the moment. I'm also looking to add some creature-based card draw, Erebos, God of the Dead seems tailor-made for this.

I've grown so complacent lately that I really haven't analyzed my deck from a macro standpoint in a long time. I've been so focused on tweaking tiny little micro-interactions that I've ignored the fact that I've been slowly cutting ramp and utility for cute combos. Thank you for challenging me in such a respectful but knowledgeable way, this has actually been super helpful.

Your build is by far the most intelligently structured one I have seen on this website.I run something very similar but with a very intensely competitive playgroup. Therefore the need for land destruction is quite more prevalent. Most of the success I have seen with this deck comes not with feeding the graveyard, but playing it out as any typical Rock deck out there but with the graveyard for after sweep plays.

I might suggest looking into cards such as Hunting Grounds Geth, Lord of the Vault and Desolation Angel for some good ideas on quick early game aggression :)

Nothing better than coming back with a Life from the Loam after a great land sweep

Keep up the good work :)

So, tell me. How do you usually win? Is the deck best as aggro or "this is my table fuck you combo and destroy everything" ?

Greetings! As an experienced player of Karador, I have a couple important suggestions to this excellent list.

1: You need a pod target for your commander, which one you pick is up to you, I chose Blazing Archon2: You need Loaming Shaman and Mistveil Plains The shaman can put your non creature permanents back into your library to keep them safe, or destroy another persons graveyard while keeping hostilities to a minimum. Both of these cards can be used with the Pod for hilarious value. The plains can get fetched, does it really get better than that?

I like Phyrexian Reclamation as a way to return stuff targeted for exile in the graveyard, personally

Sorry, my english is not very good.

Many years ago I played with Karador, it was the m deck I played the most.

The time has passed and he has gone beyond here where I play.

I wonder if you have played with it against competitive decks.

Would the deck be just for fun or is it competitive?

And what is his main way of winning?

Thank you very much for your attention.

Have you done any playing around with hulk for non-infinite combos, Just setting up large board states (stax) etc?