I thought that it would be interesting to people to post a discussion of my findings from testing out card choices. I won't really spend much time talking about color staples like
Necropotence
but focus more on cards that are particular to this deck.
Why play these commanders?
Krav's ability to sac your whole board at instant speed is amazing. Regna is less good, but gives you access to white removal and relevant staples. Krav himself can win immediately with anything that will let you make infinite black mana. You just keep recasting Krav, saccing himself and forcing your opponents to draw until they have drawn out their decks.
I've aimed for a power-level on the low end of "optimized". You could bring it up to the high end of optimized with a few money cards like
Mana Crypt
,
Demonic Tutor
,
Ancient Tomb
,
Bitterblossom
etc. I've also chosen not to run the infinite combo because I am not running enough ways to tutor for them and I have no problems closing games without it. If you are interested in generating infinite mana, you can run
Magus of the Coffers
+
Umbral Mantle
or
Dark Ritual
+ isocron scepter +
Paradox Engine
The initial strategy is usually to try to get tokens out as soon as possible to start establishing a board and then only cast Krav once you have stuff to sac.
The main win-cons are:
1) token swarm buffed by Mirror Entity and elesh norn
2) drain with zulaport cutthroat / blood artist / vizkopa guildmage + vault of the archangel
3) aetherflux reservoir
Ramp:
My general observation is that you need a lot of ramp. Because it is so easy to draw cards, mana will usually be the limiting resource. Also, your commanders work well synergistically and are both expensive. I recommend spending the first few turns ramping aggressively and mulling if you don't have any ramp in your hand. Mana doublers (coffers, crypt ghast) are a must. I am running
Black Market
and
Pitiless Plunderer
. I like those (vs. cards like
Pawn of Ulamog
) because they trigger for tokens as well, and you will mostly be saccing tokens.
Legion's Landing
is fantastic and easy to flip.
Card draw:
Krav is your main card draw engine, but he comes out a bit late. Tymna has been fantastic early game and
Dark Prophecy
is crazy good.
Ranger of Eos
has been great and will let you search for soul sisters, mother of runes, weathered wayfarer, and viscera seer. I tried out
Smothering Abomination
but it often just sat in my hand; I didn't want to cast it until I got Krav out and then I didn't need it anymore.
Twilight Prophet
has been great.
Lifegain:
You are using lifegain to trigger Regna. Ideally, you want lifegain that will trigger on your opponents' turn incidentally. Unlike when playing Karlov, you don't need as many triggers as possible.
Sun Droplet
is probably the best example you can find - surprisingly, EDHrec has it in only 10% of decks. Other great choices are Kambal,
Polluted Bonds
,
Bloodchief Ascension
, sunscorcher regent and soul sisters. Cards that only trigger on your turn like
Suture Priest
, and stuff that just give you more lifegain like
Rhox
are meh.
Lifegain payoffs:
Vizkopa Guildmage
+
Vault of the Archangel
,
Crested Sunmare
, Ayli and
Aetherflux Reservoir
are the main ones I have included. I like that crested sunmare can quickly reestablish your board after a wipe without much investment. I tested out
Archangel of Thune
but I felt she was win-more. Karlov is worth consideration. I wouldn't bother with things like
Ajani's Pridemate
as they don't help the deck's general strategy. Felidar's sovereign is a trap unless you run some way of protecting it or flashing it in.
Token generators:
Lots of good options here.
Oketra's Monument
, Endrek,
Teysa, Orzhov Scion
and Elenda are all-stars and should be auto-includes for the deck. Elspeth, Sun Champion doubles as a boardwipe.
Bitterblossom
is great if its in your budget.
Leonin Warleader
seems good, but got cut from my build. Luminach ascension could be a good mana-sink but I found that I rarely had the extra mana to use it effectively. I could see
Spirit Bonds
being good, but I haven't tested it. Sunmare, as above, has been great. The surprise element of
Secure the Wastes
has been useful.
Requiem Angel
has been very good and gives you boardwipe protection, but it's expensive and competes with Regna in the 6 CMC spot. I tried out darien but never got any payoff - I don't like that he is dependent on what your opponents do in this deck as you don't have ways to damage yourself.
Token support:
Anointed Procession
and
Grave Pact
effects are auto-includes. I actually prefer
Dictate of Erebos
and
Martyr's Bond
to grave pact. Bond can protect your board a bit and you can sac pitiless plunderer's treasure tokens to take out artifacts. The flash attached to Dictate is very relevant. I chose to run those 2 together with
Enlightened Tutor
for redundancy.
Token payoffs:
Zulaport Cutthroat
,
Blood Artist
are auto-includes. I chose Elesh norn because she is good even if you have nothing else on your board.
Mirror Entity
can double as a win-con and as sac outlet.
Vault of the Archangel
+
Vizkopa Guildmage
will close out games quickly.
Ashnod's Altar
+
Torment of Hailfire
/
Exsanguinate
is worth considering but could be a blow-out against you if they get countered. As I wrote above, Archangel of Thune was win-more. I tested
Cathars' Crusade
but I think it's too expensive and never actually got value out of it.
Utility:
You want some protection for your commanders since recasting them is expensive.
Lapse of Certainty
and of course
Teferi's Protection
have been really useful (no one expects white counterspells).
Eldrazi Monument
was pretty good.
Mother of Runes
is cheap and fetchable with Ranger of Eos. A couple of cheap reanimation spells are also great since you can let them go to your graveyard and get them back for cheap. I tested out
Whisper, Blood Liturgist
but never got any value out of her. Sensei's diving top syngerizes with all the BBD commanders since you can look at the top 3 cards at end step, draw the best and then cast your commander and choose to shuffle away the other two if you don't need them.
Well, I hope people find this helpful! I've had lot of fun with the deck so far and can see myself continuing to keep upgrading and tweaking it.
Update Oct 2018:
Divine Visitation
is an awesome new win-con for this deck. It even can go infinite with
Requiem Angel
to repeatedly replace angels that you sac. If you have
Phyrexian Altar
you can use this to generate infinite black mana and win with krav. A budget alternative to this is pitiless plunderer +
Viscera Seer
to make infinite black mana. You can also just drain your opponents to death with blood artist / zulaport cutthroat + viscera seer.
Update Nov 2018: Polluted bonds is under-performing as it is coming out too later to matter. With bitterblossom and phyrexian altar getting reprinted, I'm sticking them in the deck.
