I considered Cauldron of Souls and Living Death . LD actually ends up being counter-productive, since the deck is based around keeping my creatures out of the graveyard and putting yours in, it helps opponents more than me.

Cauldron is a little too slow, since you can only use it once per turn, and it's only one mana less than Mikaeus, who does a lot better job at keeping stuff alive. It is really good against board wipes, but I don't run into too many of those in my group.

I like Body Snatcher , it's like a reusable reanimate with feet. I'll try to find a place for it. Thanks!

Ok, i've seen this a few times and I still can't follow it. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed gives non-humans +1/+1 and undying. Triskelion is a non-human creature, so it is a 2/2 with some +1/+1 counters on it. even with all the counters removed, it is a 1/1 creature, so how do you kill it by just removing counters? is there another way to drop the toughness that i'm missing? using Heartless Summoning x2 would do it, but people don't mention that as part of the combo. help me see here.

Correction, is a 2/2 creature.

oh wait, do you use one of the altars to get it going?

Out as a 5/5 with 3 counters, remove one to ping something then remove two to kill himself. undying triggers and he comes back with 4 counters this time. rinse and repeat.

Yeah, ideally you use it with a sac outlet like Phyrexian Altar for some extra gravy, but you can target it with it's own ping ability twice so that it dies to lethal damage when it gets down to a 2/2.

good god, i cant believe i didn't see that....thanks, i'm retarded.

This is, while pretty typical for Mikaeus, very well designed! I'd recommend finding a copy of card:Volrath's Stronghold (because why the hell not) and Necrotic Ooze (you have a ton of activated abilities and he can turn himself into a combo piece with relative ease). My version focuses a bit more on reanimation with fewer total creatures (though the redundancy is nice). Beseech the Queen while a pain that you have to reveal should probably find its way in here as this is primarily a combo deck, and possibly Liliana Vess (omg she's slow but still...) I do feel that you could probably cut some of the utility cards for some control (Thoughtseize , Duress ) but that is a meta choice really. I play with a lot of blue mages, so I can't expect to win with a non-blue combo deck without hand control. Another combo piece you could throw in is Genesis Chamber to get infinite creatures with any of your vanilla persist/no counters allowed creatures. If you randomly find you need a card, Steel Hellkite can kill leyline =P. Cheers! +1

LOL I just thought of something... If you have a sac outlet and someone has killed your Triskelion , Necrotic Ooze will have the "remove a counter from triskelion: triskelion deals 1 damage to target creature of player." ability. This can allow you to go infinite easier.

I love Necrotic Ooze , he even nabs activated abilities of other people's creatures. I've had more than a few Visara Oozes bonking people in the past. Too much swag.

You had me until that last word Sakashima...

Ya, and when Neil Patrick Harris is dead in a ditch because of Grave Pact , my Necrotic Ooze will also be able to snarkily tip a fancy glass at my enemies.

Thoughtpicker Witch Could also be a good mill (exile) option as well as provide a way to control what your opponent gets to draw if you don't have a creature to infinitely sacrifice.

so, you have my deck lol. here's some cards you're missing. Mephidross Vampire (for Triskelion and shenanigans), Fleshwrither , Beseech the Queen , cards like Felwar Stone, Jet Medallion Grim Monolith , card:Lion's Eye Diamond, Mox Diamond , etc. (to speed up), Victimize and other reanimation, Flesh Allergy (another bitter ordeal), Midnight Banshee , Necroskitter , Soul Snuffers (very aggressive combos to take all their creatures and sacing loads of them)

Add in more tutors, more win cons, and less protection, (viscara)

Haha, I'd say you have my deck :)

I had Fleshwrither in at one point, but it isn't that good since it only tutors 4 drop creatures. The 4 drops I really want to get are Liliana of the Dark Realms and Grave Pact . Beseech the Queen would be better, but there are so many combos in here I do fine with just 5 tutors.

Mephidross Vampire adds +1/+1 counters to my creatures, which is the opposite of what I want. Soul Snuffers is more like what I need, I don't know how I've missed that for so long. And Triskelion has enough shenanigans on his own, he doesn't need help. :)

Adding Jet Medallion back in would be a good. I had Victimize in, but never really needed it, so I cut it.

I really like Necroskitter , but it has the same problem Puppeteer Clique has. Undying returns any creatures I steal from an opponent to their control with a +1/+1 when they die, so if I reanimate too many of theirs a board wipe really hurts. I'm trying to make room for Grave Betrayal , which does the same thing better than either.

I like Flesh Allergy and Midnight Banshee too. The Banshee would be particularly good against my friend's Animar deck.

By less protection, do you mean the equipment like Swiftfoot Boots ? My group plays a lot of general removal, so they come in handy. And are you saying to take out Visara the Dreadful ?

@ hunter9000 (#90)

So Fleshwrither is more for getting Lingering Tormentor /Flesh-Eater Imp /Solemn Simulacrum . basicly the missing creatures of your combos (sacker/sackee).

Mephidross Vampire + Triskelion = win w/o Mike, people dont ecpect it untill its too late.

Keep Puppeteer Clique , it is better than Grave Betrayal and here's my reason why. 1st off you can inordinate combo with Puppeteer Clique as long as the opponent has =<1 creature in their GY and you can bring that creature onto the battle field then sac it infinitely as well, & t is cheaper/ easier to reanimate.

Less protection = go for combos to win and reanimation spells to backup your win cons for less. reanimation is cheaper and more versatile than equipment and other creatures your running like Dread , card:Champion's Helm, Darksteel Plate and Visara the Dreadful , you should be able to separate your entire deck into 4 piles (mana, sackers, sackees, reanimation). Stuff like Cinderhaze Wretch (it doesnt use mana) are fine Everything else in your deck is wasted space.

oh. and every black deck need Hatred .

here's my deck Dark Mike Forever, made it like 2 or 3 months ago, its not updated to my actual deck but I haven't lost to anything yet... and my playgroup has banned me from playing it bc of regular t4/5 wins...

I tried a deck like this a while ago. I found Kagemaro, First to Suffer and Braids, Cabal Minion to be really strong plays. Xathrid Demon can win you the game.

If your running Cabal Coffers and Liliana of the Dark Realms , I strongly recommend Mutilate .

Looks good though, +1 from me.

I'd swap Liliana of the Dark Realms for Liliana Vess . Her tutor ability is awesome and beats out the pseudo-ramp that LotDR offers. My personal opinion but if it works for you, go for it.

Good deck. Looks fun and tough. +1 from me

Avatar of Woe ?

Falkenrath Noble and/or Deathgreeter ?

You can't have Crypt Ghast, there's a white mana symbol. Other than that, I really like it. +1 from me.

Thanks! Crypt Ghast's white symbol is in it's reminder text, which is technically not included in the color identity of a card! I was really happy when I found that out, he's exactly the card I needed for this deck.

903.4b. Reminder text is ignored when determining a card's color identity. See rule 207.2.

207.2a. Reminder text is italicized text within parentheses that summarizes a rule that applies to that card. It usually appears on the same line as the ability its relevant to, but it may appear on its own line if it applies to an aspect of the card other than an ability.

@hunter9000 I have had to explain that so many times on Team Blade and Aura Mind Trick... lol

You may want to consider Thrull Parasite as a way to reset undying on key creatures just because he can easily pay for his own ability.