This deck aims to play alot of resource control. If both players have low lands/life/hand/creatures while piloting this deck, you'll be at an advantage. That's what we aim to do with our cards.
Key interactions and card explanations:
-Life from the Loam
+
Raven's Crime
: This little combo is able to leave them topdecking turn 3-5, and helps us against heavy control and burn matchups.
-Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
+
Unburial Rites
and Iona, Shield of Emeria + Unburial Rites
: fatties that will usually end the game rather quickly. You'll either be dropping Iona to counter decks like scapeshift, storm or elves, or Elesh to buff your bloodghasts, souls, and imps.
-Borborygmos Enraged
+
Dakmor Salvage
+
Life from the Loam
: turning life from the loam into 3 free lightning bolts is nothing to scoff at, and can usually end the game the turn the cyclops comes out, or at least give you a decisive advantage
-Liliana of the Veil: An absolute powerhouse in this deck. Both players discard? bam, advantage. They sac a creature? giant advantage! Protecting her for an ultimate can be an out to many bad situations.
-Stinkweed Imp: definitely the all star of the deck. A chump blocker with deathtouch that recurs every turn, and dredges for five. Affordable? check. Powerful? check. Helps out in our graveyard? check! Absolutely excellent card.
-Lingering Souls: Lots of chumps, and turn sideways for quite a lot after our Elesh comes out.
-Slaughter Pact: I can imagine that abrupt decay is better in certain metas, but this deck functions incredibly well with it's 0 mana cost, as it lets you tap out when you're still on 3 lands and still have the ability to remove any threat they play.
-
Darkblast
: This card is suprisingly useful. It can give -2/-2 if used on your upkeep, and there are many creatures that die to -2/-2 (all hatebears, ooze, mana dorks).
-Tectonic Edge: This psuedo-wasteland becomes incredibly powerful when paired with loam. Keeping your opponent on 3 lands will hurt their strategy a lot.
-Smallpox: Smallpox forces both players to lose resources, which are trivial for our deck to reclaim. Keep in mind this card is not very good when you're on the draw, so board it out if you win the first game.
-
Golgari Brownscale
: our deck ends up losing quite a bit of life to our lands. This card helps immensely (in long games especially) to mitigate our life loss.
-Faithless Looting: Yes, I know this is the only red card in the deck, but it is incredibly strong. It can draw us just the right of cards in a pinch, start our dredge, or gain an extra 4 life with our brownscales. It is worth splashing red for 100% (besides, playing red lets us hardcast BorBor)
-Bloodghast: This card helps us keep up the pressure at all times, and trades with your opponents creatures extremely efficiently, gaining us yet more resource advantage. Just what we want.
Other decks that helped me to round out my strategy and tune this deck:
-http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/woo-brews-complex-dredge-for-modern/
-http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12403
