Not certain if you have considered it already, but I would recommend Vampire Hexmage. Absolutely wonderful for sniping planeswalkers and other pesky counter using cards while being easily reusable in Karador.

Hey! Thanks for the suggestion, I've definitely considered adding Vampire Hexmage into my deck. As of now, counter and planeswalker based strategies aren't too big of a threat for me nor occurrence and I currently have enough relevant hate cards towards those strategies that the level at which they exist in my meta isn't too threatening.

I definitely like the idea of her, especially if I included something such as Dark Depths into the mix. I'll add her to the potential inclusions section for future reference.

Ravos, Soultender is a nice pump/recursion creature and Athreos, God of Passage could fit nicely in here too.

@Total_euphoria, in other graveyard decks potentially but in this one we actively want our graveyard to be filled with creatures to constantly have Karador at a low casting cost. Compared to other creatures in the deck, those two just don't pull their weight. See they let me put creature cards back to hand however when Karador's on the field my graveyard is my hand so they'd be redundant. While Karador isn't on the field (alot of the time) we have so many ways to access the graveyard that casting creatures from our hand is actually a disadvantage.

Thankyou for your suggestion though! Those two guys are great in other graveyard-esque decks just not a Karador deck.

Hello there, awesome deck you have here. Let me see if I can help any:

Have you considered using Mulch over Grisly Salvage? Considering you'll probably just be taking a land anyway, isn't it better to get all the lands instead of just one?

Since you have a pretty strong land recursion theme going on already, how about adding cards like The Gitrog Monster or Strands of Night?

Hey mate,

Firstly, thanks so much!

Secondly, with Grisly Salvage, yeh I'm definitely always taking a land however it plays alot better in this deck than Mulch would (I originally had Mulch in here aswell). Firstly, Grisly Salvage is going to be dumping more cards into my graveyard (with Mulch, we could potentially luck out and reveal all lands, including lands we want in our graveyard such as Riftstone Portal). And another big benefit of Grisly Salvage is that we can play it on our opponents end step etc as it is instant speed. I originally ran Drown in Filth in this deck which was another big reason why I would run Grisly Salvage over Mulch as I was actively wanting lands in my graveyard.

I really want to add The Gitrog Monster, I just can't find it in me to take anything out... Maybe Magus of the Tabernacle?

Dude, I love your suggestion of Strands of Night, that's a freaking amazing card. I think that now has priority over The Gitrog Monster as an inclusion. In fact, I just ordered one!

Worth running Satyr Wayfinder for self mill/draw + land?

Along long time ago I did.

Nowadays I've found that there's been better cards to run over him.

Grisly Salvage & Commune with the Gods dump more cards into the graveyard than Satyr Wayfinder &Commune with the Gods hitting Enchantments is very relevant due to the enchantments that I run.Grisly Salvage being at the top of the ladder in terms of self mill as instant speed casting opens upa variety of plays that sorcery speed could not do. Also with these two, on the rare occasion, we'd want acreature to hand instead (for example Street Wraith).

I've been playing this deck and having a great time with it. It's very grindy and resilient. One thing I've noticed is that sometimes I wont be able to find the wincon (torment of hailfire), or one of my opponents will counter it, that forces me to go into the combat damage wincon, which can be difficult to accomplish. Have you considered adding another wincon/winning combo to the deck? or potentially adding 1-2 more tutors (demonic tutor/grim tutor/diabolic intent) for consistency purposes? I'd also be interested to know how protean hulk combos in the deck. Thanks.

Glad to see you're enjoying the deck, I've spent many years fine-tuning it to be as grindy and resilient as possible while also trying to keep it fair.

A countered Torment of Hailfire is pretty common, especially when you're pumping big mana into it. Luckily, it's just going to the graveyard (aka our second hand) and there should be ways to get it back such as Eternal Witness or shuffling it back to deck via Loaming Shaman. With an Eternal Witness in hand, cards such as Entomb also act as tutors for Torment of Hailfire. If your ToHF is in your graveyard and you don't have access to Eternal Witness or other recursion methods, cards such as Eladamri's Call can fetch Eternal Witness for you.

On my opening hand I always make sure I have cards to start filling the graveyard, as the second the graveyard is filled I can cast Karador and start casting creatures from the graveyard (a completely reduced CMC Karador would already have access to 5 creatures off the bat). This enables recursion of Eternal Witness for non-creature spells. Non-creature spells are typically what you're wanting to hit with Eternal Witness (View Eternal Witness as a copy of each non-creature spell, as thats what we're likely getting with her)), you can also put in cards such as Skullwinder to increase the density of Regrowth effects (Though, Skullwinder also benefits an opponent if everyone has things in the graveyard).

Speaking of self-mill, the second a Life from the Loam hits the graveyard it's pure gas. Prioritize casting it every turn to fill the graveyard and hit your land drops. Graveyard protection such as Leyline of Sanctity help keep your graveyard safe, it's not a creature however so I'd opt to have that effect on a creature such as Aegis of the Gods.

Regarding combat damage as a wincon (if Torment of Hailfire is hated on), you could always swap out Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite for a Craterhoof Behemoth and constantly recur it. One Craterhoof attack is deceptively damaging so recurring it over and over will hurt. You can also add in a Kami of False Hope to double down on the Spore Frog effect during combat so that you can hold out alittle longer to push through more damage. In addition to this, a Filth in the graveyard and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in play lets all your creatures become unblockable to start wittling down your opponents.

As mentioned previously, I wanted to keep this deck resilient but also fair, so a combo wincon is off the table for me. But simply replacing Wurmcoil Engine with a Boonweaver Giant should give you the ability to start comboing out as we run some of the main pieces. Another combo is with Karmic Guide,Reveillark and a sac outlet, I think by putting in a Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat is enough for infinite life drain? Couple that with an Ashnod's Altar and it's infinite mana for Torment of Hailfire. Altar of Dementia and this combo means everyone dumps their library to the graveyard and dies from an empty library. With a sac outlet on board, I think Protean Hulk can fetch Karmic Guide and Reveillark to begin the combo.

The more tutors added within the deck, the more consistent all of these lines of play become, so feel free to add in a Demonic Tutor or Vampiric Tutor. Increasing Ambition is a tutor that, while expensive to cast, can be played from the graveyard, so you don't have to worry about it being milled. Buried Alive and Entomb let you tutor things to the graveyard to be put into play (or hand via Eternal Witness. Sidisi, Undead Vizier is a great creature to have in the deck as she can tutor via casting from hand or from the graveyard, a tip is to pretty much always sac her to herself to be able to recast from the graveyard next turn.

Hope my reply helps, happy to answer any more questions you have or go into more depth on specific things.

Cheers

Thanks for the tips. I really enjoyed reading your primer and I appreciate the effort you put into it. The primer taught me quite a lot about how to play the deck and I got to see how awesome Karador is as a commander. I hope you keep updating and adding to it whenever you can.

I realize now that countering torment of hailfire isn't as bad as it seems because of the recursion potential we have. My main concern with relying on torment of hailfire as the only clear wincon was that it requires both Cabal Coffers and Urborg. I do utilize knight of the reliquary to fetch these pieces when I can, so I see that you've put in pieces to help with the strategy, I just wanted another wincon incase I cant get access to the pieces for torment of hailfire.

I definitely understand that you wanted the deck to be more on the fair side so that influenced your card choices. I personally would like the deck to be around a 7-8, so I think your list is a great reference point. I actually ended up making some changes to the deck so I'd definitely like to hear your opinion of them.

• -1 Manabond +1 Sol Ring

Manabond never worked out how I expected. I often had important removal pieces in my hand that I didnt feel like discarding. We do have non-creature recursion via eternal witness, but it always felt bad to discard multiple key removal spells, and I ended up just not using manabond that much. Sol ring is just a consistent mana generator so I much prefer it.

• -1 Sheoldred +1 Mindslicer

Sheoldred is a cool card but doesnt do much on ETB for the huge mana cost, people also hate playing against the praetors and seem to always remove them, getting us no value. We can spend mana to cast Sheoldred each turn, but it doesnt seem to survive. Mindslicer has a nasty ability that hits all opponents and gives us a huge edge.

• -1 Pattern of Rebirth +1 Gift of Immortality

I like pattern of rebirth but gift of immortality enables some game-winning combos with Yosei and other creatures in the deck.

• -1 Wurmcoil +1 Yosei the morning star

Wurmcoil is mainly a beater. Gift of immortality on yosei with any sac outlets lets us keep problem opponents tapped down.

• -1 Journey to eternity +1 Stinkweed Imp

Stinkweed Imp is so good in this deck. Dredge 5 helps a lot and provides another dredge outlet beyond life of the loam. Stinkweeds also a flyer with pseudo-deathtouch and can be a solid blocker in the early game. Journey to eternity is fine but I felt we had enough recursion without it.

• -1 Loaming shaman +1 Perpetual Timepiece

I actually like both of these cards. My reasoning behind timepiece is that it can respond instant speed to opponents exiling our grave, while also providing an important mill 2. Loaming Shaman has no reactivity so you need to predict or know that an opponent has a threat that can exile our grave. Searchability of shaman is nice but I value the instant speed reaction of timepiece more because grave exiling is our major lose condition.

• -1 Strands of the night +1 Demonic Tutor

This one was just for consistency purposes, I know that you didnt want too many additional tutors in the deck to keep it fair. I just didnt like the sacrificing lands requirement on strands of the night, and I thought we had better creature recursion already in the deck.

I'm interested in knowing what cards in the deck you find least impressive (besides the cards I already removed), if you were going to remove cards from the deck which ones would they be and why? These are the cards I'm considering adding but not sure what to cut or if they'd even be worth adding. So your opinion on the below cards would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help.

• Vault of Champions (always comes in untapped for useful colors but cant be searched by other lands)
• Saffi Eriksdotter (enables extra etb's and combo loops)
• Plaguecrafter (good non-targeting removal + can hit planeswalkers)
• Zulaport Cutthroat/Blood Artist (another clear wincon)
• Gravebreaker Lamia (makes everthing cheaper and dumps a card to the grave, 5 mana might be too costly and will probably get removed)
• Fiend Artisan (Sac outlet that searches creatures and can be a big beater. Might be bad in the early game)
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel (Wincon)

I actually run Torment of Hailfire in decks that don't utilize the Cabal Coffers/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth combo and find that even dumping a small amount into Torment can be brutal for our opponents, coupled with us easily being able to recur it for the next turn to hit them again. If you want another win con that has a similar feel to it, I'd recommend either Exsanguinate or Debt to the Deathless. Another way to make the 'big X spell' wincon work but fly under the radar until you want to go off is by adding in Crop Rotation into the deck for instant speed fetching of either Urborg or Coffers, acts a lot like Knight of the Reliquary but has unconditional sacrifice and your opponents don't see it coming. Reveillark+Karmic Guide + Ashnod's Altar also makes infinite mana too, so you don't need Cabal or Urborg for that line of play to function either.

I think your changes to the deck are actually pretty good and either streamline the deck or make it hit harder. Cards like Wurmcoil Engine and Sheoldred, Whispering One are left over remnants from when this deck was a Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck (back in 2016). While I've made massive changes since this deck was a Meren deck, those are two cards that I find still have a good impact and are scary while on the battlefield. Wurmcoil Engine would be a card high on the chopping list if a big beater creature comes around that furthers our gameplan (Something akin to Reya Dawnbringer). Here's a link to my old Meren deck tech (https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/meren-carrion-queen/) if you wanted to check it out.

Your experience with Manabond it really interesting and shows the variance two people can have with the same decklist, I've always found that Manabond in an opening hand is filthy and really puts you multiple turns ahead. Further into the game when you really need to keep up removal spells, its a bit harder of a card to assess, the ability is a 'may' ability though so atleast the flexibility is there. I think Sol Ring is probably a good replacement if Manabond isn't working out for you.

Mindslicer hurts, I can agree with that and really furthers our gameplan so no argument there. I'd probably be hated out most games by my playgroup if I ran him though, since the game lock you can create with recursion and a sac outlet is hilarious.

See if you can find a spot to add Pattern of Rebirth back into the deck, it enables Boonweaver Giant and Protean Hulk combos to function. It also lets you tailor your deck strength to your playgroup as you can opt to search for Boonweaver/Hulk for the win or just a value creature to keep the game rolling against lesser experienced players that aren't on a cEDH level. Gift of Immortality is good though and can be fetched with Sun Titan if you've accidently milled it, so I'd keep that in to increase the decks resilience.

Stinkweed Imp is a good inclusion, I had it included in my 'Potential Inclusions' section but for some reason Tappedout's formatting has made that section only include the title? I'll have a look into why its currently not showing, but there's a good list of cards in there that work well for our gameplan.

What I like about Loaming Shaman is that it isn't the entire graveyard and I'll usually target a lot of my instants and sorceries instead that might've ended up there via mill or Manabond. The timepiece is good tech though, I like it. I leave my deck open to graveyard hate as I found I would always win when trying to restrict graveyard hate (That's a good thing btw) but I've now opened myself up to it to allow my playgroup to have a better chance against my deck, this is also a reason I keep combo's out of the deck (Ever though there's still the Reveillark+Karmic Guide + Altar of Dementia/Ashnod's Altar combo, which I'm usually selective based on the current playgroup as whether to utilise).

I've actually considered adding Vampiric Tutor to the list as it feels like a more interactive tutor where the playgroup knows whats about to happen on my next turn. But also allows me to draw immediately if I really want to go for the win. Being on the top of the library also enables to to act as a version of Entomb where you have to jump through some hoops with dredge to achieve. I've also considered slotting Dimir House Guard back into the deck to tutor for some of the great draw/recursion cards we run. I'll look into it more but I agree that Strands of Night has a weird feel to it. When I play, I'm so reliant on Life from the Loam, its probably one of the best cards in the deck, so I can easily get lands back (Same with Ramunap Excavator), and when I'm wanting to abuse Strands of Night I've usually got enough lands on the battlefield that its really just a resource at that point. Agreed though, it is a weird feeling card and it probably a good target to be replaced.

Regarding cards that I think underperform or I want to get replace, I think Dread Return, Birthing Pod, Knight of the Reliquary, Murderous Rider. I think there's likely better recursion options than Dread Return and the flashback cost can be a little awkward sometimes. Birthing Pod also has that awkward feel to it, where you might hit a point where there is no more chain of creatures to work up as they're all in the graveyard, so at that point its a dead card. Knight of the Reliquary is also a little awkward in that regard, she has about 11 land targets to sacrifice in my current iteration and she's really only used to fetch the cards you've mentioned. Murderous Rider also has a weirdly awkward casting clause in the sense that the body doesn't really matter and it's more so the removal that counts and all he brings the the deck is another creature in the yard to reduce Karador's casting cost. I think a good improvement for the deck overall though would be the inclusion of cards such as Wrath of God and Damnation.

Vault of Champions: Good land, I've been away from the game most of 2020 so must've missed this, will likely pick this up. You bring up a good point though, our early game ramp on creatures is usually limited to basic lands so its a really tough decision on cuts for non-basics as it reduces how effective our early game creatures are. Even cards like Hermit Druid target basics lands, but in his case the basic clause probably works well for us as we'd be dumping a lot of cards into the graveyard before we hit a basic... might want to check him out, he's cool.

Saffi Eriksdotter: Good card to compliment the combo gameplan, not what I want to do but she increases the consistancy.

Plaguecrafter: Also a good card, similar effect to Fleshbag Marauder and Merciless Executioner but stronger. In my old Meren deck he'd be amazing. I think I'd rather stick to my current removal suite as I'd rather remove the highest impact card on the board rather than have my opponents pick what they want to remove. An interesting card you might like that is creature focused is Kagemaro, First to Suffer have never actually tested how effective he is but I think its cool removal tech, like a mini Toxic Deluge strapped to a creature. Kagemaro is really dependant on what's in your hand though so that why I've never added it, as I've played lots of games with an empty hand and only using my graveyard.

Zulaport Cutthroat/Blood Artist: fantastic cards if you're going the combo route. +1 to them.

Gravebreaker Lamia: Cool card, haven't been able to test it but might be a good creature based tutor effect to have in the deck? The cost reduction is nice to have to, 5 mana might be a lot but I think it's worth a try??

Fiend Artisan: I like him as a creature replacement for Birthing Pod... He doesn't allow you to go up the pod chain though, so I think you're always breaking even with him in the sense that what you're replacing is always going to be of similar impact? It's probably a card that needs hands on testing rather than speculaton.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel: If you can infinitely loop him as a combo piece he's cool. I think in a 3 colour deck the density for black devotion is hard to achieve for it to be impactful. A lot of the cards that end up recurring easily off the top of my head is Reveillark, Karmic Guide or Sun Titan with Animate Dead so the amount of black here is quite low etc. Also, just quickly counting, if every black permanent was on the battefield all at once, I think that's only a devotion of 24. While 24 is a lot and you'll be gaining tonnes back, that's having literally every black card on the battlefield so I'm not sure of his impact. In a heavy black deck or even a 2 colour deck he might be impactful but once you're into 3/4/5 the density for specific colours goes down. Same with how Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx starts to lose its impact.

Alright, massive essay over, hope its helped, and sorry for the massive wall of text I've just written haha.

I'll try out Manabond a bit more. It seems that I'm undervaluing its potential to get us ahead in the early game, so I'll see how it performs after longer testing.

I'll definitely put pattern of rebirth back into the deck, I think the protean hulk interaction you brought up is way too good to miss out on. I'm not fully convinced by the gift of immortality and yosei inclusions yet, so those are on my list to potentially replace. What do you think of Luminous Broodmoth? It's a 4 mana flyer that recurs everything once for free, while also giving them flying. I think it has potential.

I agree with you on dread return being somewhat average, its 4 mana and the flashback cost is super clunky. I think we should consider Victimize as a replacement for dread return because its 1 mana cheaper, can get 2 creatures instead of 1, and gives us a sac outlet.

Birthing Pod and Knight of the Reliquary seem like must haves for the deck. I really like having the birthing pod chains and toolbox ability, and I think the flexibility/advantage it provides is worth the occasional clunkiness. Knight of the Reliquary is another one where its just the case of Cabal Coffers and Urborg being so key in the deck, having that dedicated tutor is important, searching for ghost quarter is a really nice niche play that can help take out problematic lands, like an opponents cabal coffers or gaea's cradle.

Murderous rider is definitely a cut I plan on making myself, I noticed that you said it was mainly in the deck because it provides removal, while also being a creature in the grave to reduce Karadors cost. However, murderous rider gets exiled after you cast him as an instant, so he doesnt even reduce Karador, and if you cast his creature side and that side dies, he goes to the bottom of the deck, so Karador never sees any reductions from murderous rider. I think damnation would be a nice upgrade over murderous rider. If we want a creature to replace rider, I really think stinkweed imp does a lot of heavy-lifting so id suggest giving him a try.

One last change I made that I forgot to mention before was swapping out avenging druid for birds of paradise. I think avenging druid has a really good ability but I rarely saw him damaging opponents, he either got removed or they had enough board presence to block. How did he perform for you? Birds of paradise is a flyer that helps with early game color fixing, and having access to any color can be nice.

I'll have to test the other cards mentioned like gravebreaker lamia/fiend artisan. I'll let you know how they perform after testing. I also agree that gray merchant isnt right for a 3 color deck like this. I also think Saffi is a bit winmore. Dimir House Guard is an awesome card, and I'll have to figure out how to fit that one in as well. The problem is having so many cool options and only limited card slots. Dont worry about the wall of text, I also tend to write a lot, I had fun reading all your suggestions and advice.

Yeh, with Manabond I find that early game its amazing and then later into the game its really based on how our current hand is looking and how our lands are looking. From experience, early game mana bond is enough to outweigh the late game negatives, especially if you have a Life from the Loam and Manabond in your opening hand. Functions similarly to the Lands Legacy deck. If you have a lot of blue players, you could maybe look into Carpet of Flowers as the Manabond replacement.

Patterns good and enables a lot of the combos that Karador is know for, Luminous Broodmoth is a pretty cool card, I think it'd be worth testing. Like I mentioned before, was sort of away from MTG in 2020 and have only just gotten back into it over the past few weeks, might spend the rest of the weekend updating the deck based on what has come out over the past year.

I think there's a few cards that might be stronger than Victimize for us:

• Stitch Together: 2 mana recursion effect for us 99% of the time.
• Dance of the Dead: It's basically an Animate Dead except it enters tapped and doesn't untap unless you pay. Most of our creatures bring value on ETB anyway so being tapped doesn't matter but 2 mana to untap is easy if you really need it. Can be recurred with Sun Titan too which is cool.
• Shallow Grave: Cool card as it's instant speed recursion but it is only the top creature which means you have to keep track of the order of your graveyard which is a little cumbersome... And you get ETB and attack but then it goes back to the graveyard.
• Footsteps of the Goryo: Similar to Shallow Grave but Sorcery speed, Useful if you just want to abuse ETB effects, lets you grab Karmic Guide to perminantly bring something back etc.

I think out of those, Stitch Together and Dance of the Dead are likely the strongest, then Victimize. The other 2 are pretty interesting but not sure how relevant. Another creature based recursion card akin to Victimize is Hell's Caretaker

Birthing Pod and Knight of the Reliquary both do increase how toolboxy Karador is I agree. I'm probably undervalueing them tbh. Since Karador is a little bit more grindy, a cool line of play with Knight of the Reliquary you could do is fetch a Maze of Ith or Glacial Chasm to prolong your life total if you ran them, so I can see her really being the core of a land focused toolbox. Alternatively, you could just run Peacekeeper which I might slot back in cause he's amazing.

I had planned to swap out Murderous Rider for either Damnation, Wrath of God, or Deadly Rollick. I think another boardwipe is probably good for us. We already run Toxic Deluge, Living Death, and Cataclysmic Gearhulk but a 4th likely wouldn't hurt, especially since its pretty much one sided as we can rebuild our boardstate so quickly. I want to try out Kagemaro, First to Suffer, I think a potential boardwipe on a creature could be cool. He's pretty cheap so I might pick one up and test him. If he sucks, I'll just swap him out for Damnation and Wrath of God since I know they work well.

My experience with Avenging Druid is that people underestimate him since he's only 1 damage. In addition to this, you've got 3 people to chose from to hit so there's usually a good chance he'll make it through. Mid and late game he kind of sucks, but by then our engine doesn't care about mana dorks or ramp. I think Birds of Paradise is a good swap over him if he's not performing. You could also look into trying out Hermit Druid as your early game land/graveyard centred card that works well at any stage of the game.

Dimir House Guard is a fun card, can't remember why I removed him? A lot of great cards are 4 mana: Magus of the Disk, Magus of the Tabernacle, WORLDSHAPER!, Debt to the Deathless, Smothering Tithe, Damnation, and Wrath of God which is just naming great cards that aren't even in the deck. And while he's almost always used to tutor (since he gets you great cards but also adds to the graveyard creature count) if you want to cast him, he acts as a sac outlet for us. He also can grab a Mortal Combat if your creature count is even higher than what is currently run.

Karador's colour identity leads to way too many options honestly, the new Ikoria legend Nethroi, Apex of Death looks like a sweet commander or even an add in for the 99. I think Karador probably comes out on top with regards to sheer power level and being able to rebuild the board state after removal. But yeh, Abzan just has too many good options.

In addition to the above comment, I'd like to add that I think I've fixed the 'Upcoming Additions' and 'Potential Inclusions' accordions in the deck primer. There's a large quantity of cards in the Potential Inclusions that I think you might like. It's missing a lot of suggestions I've made already so I'll likely add some of those in the coming days.

Another reanimate card I neglected to mention was Death + Life , with Death being a more expensive version of Reanimate.

A thing to note with Death + Life is that if you also run Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Gaea's Cradle, you should be able to tutor out all your combo pieces if you're wanting to go the combo route.

I think the Death + Life with Razaketh line of play is actually pretty neat and might not even need Gaea's Cradle?

1. Have Razaketh in the graveyard
2. Sac a creature, pay 2 search for Death + Life and cast Life
3. Float Mana and use the lands as the sac outlets
4. Tutor for whatever combo or finisher you want to hand and use the floating Mana to cast

I actually like that as you only need a reanimate spell, and a creature to sac to get the ball moving. Might add in Life//Death and Razaketh as a way to win against strong decks and just not opt for the combo if the playgroup is lower power.

I think that's what I like about Karador, he's easy to match power levels this he's versatile.

Both cards also play different roles at different points of the game, you can cast the Death side for a reanimate spell or Razaketh as a big beater or instant speed tutor for removal etc.

** between step 1 and 2 in that line of play you also have to obviously recur Razaketh to the battlefield, looks like I forgot to mention that part

Sorry for the spam worth of messages but I've been thinking of competitive combos that might be good in Karador since you mentioned you wanted more wincons. Since you've added/thinking of adding a Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat, you could also potentially add in a Food Chain which if I'm not mistaken goes infinite with Karador? With a Blood Artist or Zulaport Cutthroat on board you should be able to win on the spot.

Correct me if I'm wrong though

Yeah I do believe food chain can end the game, but food chain is an expensive card, and I think that might make it a little too easy. I added in a copy of zulaport (didnt add blood artist) for the altar combos. I think I'm trying to find the perfect balance of wincons for the deck. I want to be able to end the game when I have a clear advantage, I dont want to get stuck in a grindy game for hours and hours without an end in sight, but at the same time, I dont want to blitz out a game winning combo before my opponents gets a chance to play. Finding that perfect balance is the key for me, which will take more testing on my end.

I think that's a similar stance I have on the deck, combo in the sense that I don't want to win on the spot out of no where and rather give my opponents an opportunity to react.

I added Death + Life to the deck today and gave it a test run in a 1v1 against my partner. Death works well as another copy of reanimate and is likely the main mode to be used. Life is usually not relevant but I might add Razaketh, the Foulblooded in over one of the big beaters. He himself is a 8/8 flying trample so does well in combat already, but the tutor effect is strong but I think is also a fair form of tutoring. And then he also goes well with the Life side of Death + Life to assemble the altar loop if the game is beginning to drag out.

I think this keeps the deck fair and gives my opponents a chance to fight back.

Let me know your thoughts. I'm interested to hear how your testing of the new additions go. I'm likely going to do some research and see if I missed anything in 2020 that's functions well within the deck list.

Nice update. It would be cool if you can make a combo section in the primer and just go over all of the decks combos in detail. I think it would be useful. That razaketh combo seems pretty cool. I'm guessing you would need a good amount of mana though because razaketh would cost 8 mana to get back with karador, and since you're casting life and saccing lands for razaketh to tutor out the combo pieces, you'd need to ensure you had enough mana floating to close the game out. So 8 mana for razaketh, plus 3 mana for ashnods, and getting karmic guide/reveilark on the field as well will cost mana as well. Considering razaketh can tutor any card you could definitely find stuff to make the process easier? Altar + Reveilark + Karmic Guide + Hailfire/Cutthroat would end the game on the spot. I think the razaketh idea is pretty cool.

I think its one of those combos thats fair because it requires a lot of moving parts and pieces to assemble. So that definitely fits the objective we're going for with having combos that aren't super fast.

Good idea, I might start working on a combo/how to win section.

Thanks, I think with the Razaketh combo, the quickest route to victory using it requires 6 mana, but has Razaketh, Reveillark, and Karmic Guide already in the graveyard, which I think still isn't a fast combo and requires a lot of pieces to be already set up. If you're missing Razaketh in the graveyard but the others are there then it's 7 mana because you need to use Entomb . If Reveillark or Karmic Guide are also missing from the graveyard, the route starts getting more expensive by having to tutor for Entomb with Razaketh or cast either of them from hand.

The route that costs 6 mana is as follows:

• Have Razaketh, the Foulblooded , Karmic Guide , and Reveillark in the graveyard, 1 creature on board (total: 0 mana)
• Reanimate Razaketh (total: 1 mana, 8 life)
• Razaketh for Life / Death , using the creature on board as sac fodder (total: 1 mana, 10 life)
• Float remaining 5 lands, cast Life / Death (total: 2 mana, 10 life)
• Razaketh for Animate Dead using a land as sac fodder (total: 2 mana, 12 life)
• Razaketh for Altar of Dementia using a land as sac fodder (total: 2 mana, 14 life)
• Cast Animate Dead, targeting Karmic Guide, bringing back Reveillark (total: 4 mana, 14 life)
• Cast the Altar, sacrifice Karmic Guide, targeting an opponent to mill (total: 6 mana, 14 life)
• Sac Reveillark, targeting opponent to mill, bringing back Karmic Guide with Reveillark's death trigger.
• Karmic enters, bringing back Reveillark, repeat.
• Pass turn, on each opponents draw step they fail to draw and die.

If there's a quicker route then let me know, but I think at 6 mana, 14 life, and having a graveyard favourably filled with the pieces, it's quite fair. Adding in Zulaport Cutthroat / Blood Artist adds more lifedrain and mana cost as you'll also need to used Razaketh as the sac outlet to drain, Cutthroat and Blood Artist will make you technically lose only 1 life to Razaketh each sacrifice, but be careful you have enough life to drain everyone, as you might take yourself down aswell.

I'm looking at replacing Journey to Eternity  ^Flip with Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip. I was thinking over how you mentioned that Journey wasn't performing very well for you, I think I agree the more I think of it, the flipped side is an overcosted, once a turn reanimation, and the front side allows one creature to be essentially flickered once, and that's all. Growing Rites is still a permanent fetchable with Sun Titan , gives us a weird form of card draw and should be pretty easy to flip into a Cradle with our deck having a high creature count. It'll also allow Torment of Hailfire to hit even harder, as I've seen my playgroup live through a Cabal Coffers Torment.

Yeah that razaketh combo looks good and makes sense to me. I should test it out at some point and see how it performs. I'd be interested to read that combo section when its done. I'm currently playing with this list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/-cwZ9rD2MUC6piBoYm68bA , it has many of the changes I mentioned above.

I see the use in manabond now, its insane with the life from the loam combo. I've probably played like 6-7 games in the last 24 hours just testing stuff out. I like the list that I linked a good amount, I had multiple games where I was bojuka bog'd and had a 7-10 creature graveyard exiled, putting me super far behind. I actually managed to win a seemingly lost game with an exiled grave by refilling my grave by using birthing pod shenanigans. Getting dryad arbor off a fetch land to sac to birthing pod and start the ladder to refill the grave is a such a great feeling. I also topdecked pattern of rebirth plus I had birthing pod on field, so I was able to birthing pod into Disciple of Bolas and sac the protean hulk I got from pattern of rebirth which refilled my hand and put me too far ahead after the protean hulk triggers. I'm playing my EDH games online so I come up against an extremely diverse group of decks, a lot of the newer commanders especially, so its useful for testing.

The things id potentially like to improve is seeing if 1-2 instant/sorcery removal options can be cut in favor of creature removal that accomplishes a similar goal. Creatures are always more searchable vs instants/sorceries and help reduce Karadors cost further. Im considering adding ravenous chupacabra and plaguecrafter into the deck, they're both reasonable cmc creatures that can be easily searched and laddered into via birthing pod, providing efficient removal options at that lower mana cost. Plaguecrafter can actually hit planeswalkers if we remove their creature first. The planeswalker focused decks seem to be fairly popular these days, so I definitely like having plaguecrafter and cataclysmic gearhulk as my insurance policies. Windgraces judgement is a card im not too fond of. 5 mana to hit 1 permanent of each player is a steep cost, and a lot of times 1-2 players wont have anything good to hit anyways, I think a boardwipe would just be better. I've been having success with Elesh Norn because a lot of swarm decks are being played, and having a repeatable boardwipe in elesh is extremely useful.

Growing rites of itlimoc is a card thats good in many decks, but im skeptical on how useful it would be in this one. Usually when we've got multiple creatures on board we're in an extremely good position and controlling the game. I think i would prefer cards that help us when we're struggling to fill up the graveyard and get going, as opposed to cards that are winmore (really good when we're developed on board with 4 or more creatures, but not so good when we dont have those creatures and are struggling to get the dredge/mill going). I'm also planning on getting rid of Ancient Ziggurat for Vault of Champions. Ancient ziggurat is another land thats really bad if we didnt draw well, with the amount of non-creature removal/mill/utility cards we play, having a land that locks us to only creature spells is a problem in the early game when we need mana to get those instants/sorceries going. A non-creature card that I like the look of is Dark Deal . It lets us hit the reset button if we draw badly, while also filling up our grave. Another 2020 card that you might have missed out on is Eerie Ultimatum , its a 7 mana card that basically wins the game with a developed grave.