Brutal Hordechief isn't allowed in this deck. The mixed mana symbols do matter. Red is not in your commander identity.

Good to know!! I will make the necessary changes imminently.

Ok like this a lot. Have you tried Sunbond?

Nope, not tried yet, but thanks for the idea ... it would speed up the process quite significantly. Fun to combine with Greater Auramancy - another way of protecting Karlov.

I will think about it!

I like this lifegain deck! My absolute favorite combo in any lifegain deck would be Alhammarret's Archive + Vizkopa Guildmage (second ability) + Soul's Grace + Serra Avatar. Easy 80 dmg to all opponents. It's all counterable ofcourse but i got to pull it off alot of times.. I also have blue in my deck, so I have the possibility to counter spells/ ect. An extra color could be awesome in this deck, it makes you more flexible. Keep on posting cool decks like these! Thank you.

Great, thanks for the positive comment!

Just ... when you recommend another color, which commander would you have in mind?

No problemo!

If there is any commander I would recommend, it would be Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. It practically just sits there in the command zone and you gain 2 life every upkeep. If you could get Karlov of the Ghost Council and maybe something that would make it hexproof up, combined with Retribution of the Ancients, it would mean some massive removal since you have so much lifegain going on. Plus you have much more flexibility in dividing the +1/+1 counters into -x/-x against possible blockers/attackers.

Blue because I love the draw card/control. A few examples below of what I have in my EDH-lifegain deck.

Reality Shift I like removal :)

Esper Charm another removal/draw card ect..

Lim-Dul's Vault Just thinking of this card makes me wanna "Whoop-whoop"

Ephara's Enlightenment Oh yes, the combo with Retribution of the Ancients is real

Spinal Embrace Don't like that attacking/defending creature? take it and use it against them, and gain some life in the process

Arcanis the Omnipotent tap, draw three cards, okay

Lu Xun, Scholar General I mean, who the hell runs Horsemanship these days anyway? Free card draw!

Willbender yes, just yes. noticeable mention: you can't change target of target spell if the spell has 2 or more abilitys :(

Treasure Mage One card less in your deck means one card closer to the cards you want

Raven Familiar comes close enough to a scry ;)

Sphinx of the Steel Wind wow

Sharuum the Hegemon Your sphinx/Archive/any artifact just got destroyed? No problem

These are just some cards that worked out really well for me in many games. Certainly since I become the main target alot because of the infinity lifegain-shizzle.

Little extra: I really like the small texts below in some of the cards I just mentioned. Cracks me up most of the times. Everyone should consider reading the small, but also the large texts you find in alot of commons.

Hope this helped you out, any comment/critics are welcome! Thanks.

Thanks for the ideas. I like Retribution of the Ancients in this deck. Since I decided to add it, I also chose Ajani's Pridemate because this gives me one more option of removing counters (besides Sunscorch Regent, Archangel of Thune and Sunbond).

See, you had an impact on this deck, too :-)

Hey dude, no problem! I love helping out, if I was any help at all :). I hope you'll have fun playing with this deck. The best way to see if it works, is actually playing it.

You have some impact on my EDH deck aswell! Looking forward to play more EDH..

Nice. I have almost the same deck but with lots of extort. Gave ya a +1.

Any room for Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim or Cliffhaven Vampire?

Dimir Machinations gives you one more transmute tutor for Whispersilk Cloak.Also if you had Whip of Erebos does each creature trigger as a separate lifegain event or do all creatures lifegains add up and only trigger karlovs ability once?

RupertPhd: I think it's an each seperate lifegain event.

One creature with lifegain you control attacks : +2/+2 for Karlov.

Two creatures with Lifelink you control attack : +4/+4 for Karlov.

It's absolutely rediculous. Rediculously good.

A lifelink event also triggers the same way for Archangel of Thune .

One creature with lifegain you control attacks : one +1/+1 on each creature you control.

Two creatures with lifegain you control attack : two times a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.

Hope this helped, If there is anyone out there that can prove this wrong, please do. I'llbe a student to Magic for life :).. Thanks!

Nope, you are correct in what you say. The rules are exactly that! Each creature with lifelink triggers a +2/+2 counter for Karlov.

I have tested Whip of Erebos - just realised that all too often I don't have the possibility to properly use it; it was sort of just there doing nothing much. What worked much better was True Conviction due to double strike. Almost an instant winner.

However, I have some tutors in this deck which makes Dimir Machinations superfluous. Sometimes I prefer to tutor for cards with different mana cost.

Cliffhaven Vampire in itself is quite weak I think since every lifegain-event leads to a loss of only 1 life for the opponent. Much more effective are Essence Harvest and Rite of Consumption, don't you think?

I have long considered Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim but don't like the "another" creature. I almost prefer Disciple of Griselbrand since he can sac himself which can be the final touch to victory ... Currently I am playing Vampiric Rites since enchantments don't leave the battlefield as fast as creatures. Sometimes I with I could play with 110 cards ...

Thanks for all the great suggestions anyway. I am really tempted to test the Whip again!!

OK, I admit that Cliffhaven Vampire is quite cool in connection with Curse of the Forsaken or Righteous Cause. Have to think about it.

Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant is pretty hilarious in any EDH deck, but especially one that keeps its life total so high. You might also be able to get good use out of Slaughter.

Thank you for the suggestions. Great ideas! But I don't find the necessary space in this deck - other cards appear more important to the concept I have worked out. Or which ones would you take out?

I just made my own Karlov deck.

I included Dying Wish in it and it helps when attached to Karlov or any other large creature you control. Though I have ways of killing the attached creature myself, I'm not sure if your deck has ways of doing that. But it will be a good way to prevent opponents from wiping the field.

Excellent idea - but then it doesn't work against removals/return to hand. However, combined with Rite of Consumption one has the double effect and a quick win of the match. Thanks for the comment & vote!

My sacrificing options are: Vampiric Rites, Miren, the Moaning Well, Rite of Consumption, Claws of Gix and my own mass removals such as Toxic Deluge. So I have ways of getting rid of Karlov when having the Dying Wish attached to him.

instead of Vampiric Rites how about Greed i imagine most games you have life to spend more than creatures. in B/W life gain i find i can play with paying life more often.

Thank you. But I play Vampiric Rites mainly for the "gain 1 life" and not for the "draw a card" effect. If it cost one mana only I would consider it but 4 mana casting cost I find a bit much just to draw a card. If I wanted something to only draw cards I would play Well of Lost Dreams.

I feel with your curve, you could afford to run more ramp to make the deck smoother. Obvious inclusion is Sol Ring but Orzhov Signet, Mind Stone, Thought Vessel and Burnished Hart are all good choices.

You should also look into running a heavier removal suite since you have access to cards like Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Anguished Unmaking, Vindicate, etc...

I think you could also do with running cards like Phyrexian Arena and Necropotence to help keep up the tempo of the deck.

you may also want to get an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to help with mana fixing. I would also cut Orzhov Basilica, it's way to slow and a magnet for cards like Strip Mine and Wasteland/Tectonic Edge which you should also be running.

When people playtest my deck they will soon realize: Its curve is just fine. It works on little mana and powerful combos. I started with some of the cards mentioned above but got rid of them piece by piece, actually focussing on life gain and combos.

It works wonders - try it out! Ramp sometimes can be overemphasized. Just my opinion.

Finally: More colorless lands would do no good since this only slows down early development. Nobody wants that. A deck that can kill in round four or five doesn't need Strip Mine and the like.

Thanks anyway.

I enjoy this deck's speed, although how fast it can be is kind of dependant on whether or not you get an early Soul Warden type creature. I don't see much issue with the mana curve, but while testing the deck there was an instance where I wished that Utter End was Anguished Unmaking for the cheaper casting cost. You may want to adjust your land base to have a few more white mana producers than black mana producers. I drew a number of starting hands that would have been great except I either didn't get any white lands or the white land came into play tapped and threw off my curve for the first couple of turns. I find that with this deck you want double white mana within the first four turns more often than you want double black.

The one real issue I find with the deck is if Karlov is either stolen early or just repeatedly removed. The deck has backup game plans, but it loses a lot of momentum without Karlov out to provide pressure and removal. Have you thought about including Sublime Archangel in the deck? With the token sub-theme, Sublime Archangel offers another way to create large creatures that can interact with cards like Essence Harvest. At 4 mana I think that it also fits your curve well.

In my Jenara deck, I have found Silverblade Paladin and Ajani, Caller of the Pride useful for suddenly crashing through for more commander damage than the opponent was expecting to take that turn. Resolving either of them usually nets a win. I have also found Flickering Ward really useful for pushing past blockers or protecting against potential removal or steal spells. I think those cards could help speed up Karlov as well.

And I suspect that you've already experimented with this, but what are your thoughts on running Bitterblossom? It's not as explosive a token generator as the other cards you have in the deck, but having a continuous source of tokens would still be useful fodder for Soul Warden, Claws of Gix, and Vampiric Rites. I can certainly see why the slow speed of the card and the fact that it doesn't gain you life on its own would lead you to exclude it though.