I am looking to build this deck for pauper but I am taking out a few of the rats for Grey Merch...just seems to good for this deck not to run him. Also for a side board suggestion, what would your thoughts be on running some Gruesome Fate?

cool deck! sideboards vary pretty widly and i have trouble with them also, but it cant hurt to put a relic of progenitous in there for the graveyard hate. gruesome fate would be awesome in this deck i think! i would probably cut the 3x moment of craving for those.

and i would def run a grey merhcant for the finisher!

looks fun!

ektoe253, thanks for the comment! This is an early build. I had just started playing pauper and just threw this together. I haven't had a chance to get back to it and improve it. I think your suggestions are great and I'll certainly consider them when I circle back to this in the near future!

Thanks for the comment and upvote!

This is silly in the best way possible, that being said I think these changes would help. -2x Grasp of Darkness and -2x Echoing Decay for +4x Victim of Night , put the decays in the sideboard replacing the Cower in Fear . Decay is good in certain matches and a single target removal in others, making Victim better in most situations. I'd also put in +3x Barren Moor s and -3x Swamp s. I'd try and work in another Gray Merchant too since it's just too good not to have 4 of them. 4x Sign in Blood could also help with card draw and using the big life total to your advantage. Unearth ing the rats sounds like just the right amount of wackiness this deck needs, not sure what to cut though. I'd also remove the 2 Dead Weight s for 2 more edicts. Really cool deck idea, I'll have to try this out sometime.

marcello627, thank you for the suggestions! I have found Victim of the night to occasionally not be able to target creatures, so I prefer Grasp of Darkness as it kills a significantly high proportion of threats with significant efficiency, and Echoing Decay is used far more that I had expected to kill two or more targets. Way more than I expected, to be honest. I think both have performed well.

Cower in Fear is absolutely worth the sideboard card spot. That card is GREAT against so many decks.

Another Gray Merchant of Asphodel is fine, but I'll stick with 3. It definitely swings games wildly. I don't know, 3x just seems like a good fit for now.

I like Barren Moor quite a bit, but I think 2x is enough (currently have 1x and have been toying with 2x). There is an element of speed needed for this deck, and tapped lands aren't helpful. Barren Moor is definitely a useful card, so I'll definitely be tinkering with that one.

Sign in Blood is really good; I just haven't needed it and prefer to stick with the removal instead. Personal preference based on play with this so far. That's another card that may make it eventually. At this point, I haven't needed the extra cards. I prefer to keep the creatures and removal higher for now. Still, 2 cards for the casting of a single card is pretty efficient, so it's definitely a card on my radar.

I tried Unearth and found the removal was better to have.

Dead Weight is extremely underrated! That card is amazing for slowing down Gurmag Angler , killing faeries, killing delvers, slowing down other threats, AND it is a permanent (if it didn't kill the target) that helps with devotion. I like Chainer's Edict a lot, but in this case (because of devotion) dead weight synergizes a bit better.

Thanks again for the suggestions!

ektoe253, MJS154, and scotchtapedsleeves-- thank you for the upvotes!

BioProfDude No problem!

Awesome, this deck looks fun! I'll have to buy the cards and play with it. I'm not very experienced with mtg, so I just might not be understanding, but how is Barren Moor more important than the Bojuka Bog ? I guess I don't understand how cycling is useful, wouldn't a card that let's you draw more cards than just one be more useful? And speaking of it, why is Bojuka Bog in the deck instead of the Tormod's Crypt , in the sideboard? Is the artifact too easy to destroy and counter? Oh I guess it's because the artifact has to be sacrificed. If you use the land, you also get a land that stays on the field, but is that worth more than playing a swamp that is tappable and the Crypt (which costs no mana) on the same turn? Let me know what you think, thanks.

astrix, thank you for the upvote!

keinsteinkenten, cycling is useful when you have enough land in play and don't really need another-- it allows you to draw a card and get a bit further into the deck without having to just play another land. It can also be useful if you need something and cannot wait for regular card draw to get you there. It's a small amount, but card advantage definitely wins game because it allows players to get through their deck more quickly than their opponent, which means they can more efficiently find what they need to win.

Bojuka Bog is great against any deck that has cards with flashback, or any sort of recursion. In pauper, there are a lot of cards that allow instants, sorceries, creatures, whatever to be returned to the hand or even the battle field from the graveyard, so Bojuka Bog helps with that. It's better than Tormod's Crypt in a few ways, not the least of which is that playing a land cannot be countered, but casting an artifact or other spell can be countered (even if it's zero mana it is still cast).

I have very few lands (3, actually) that entered the battlefield tapped-- and I do that for efficiency. There are many players who don't mind tap-lands, particularly in pauper. I find them to occasionally be a bit slow, so I try to minimize their use where possible. However, nearly all (maybe all?) dual lands in pauper enter the battlefield tapped, so tap-lands are really very common. I try to exploit that a bit by having very few so that I might be able to get a half turn ahead of my opponent. Sometimes it works... :-)

This deck is moderately competitive. It won't do well against top tier decks, but it's fun to play and it has fun synergy. I have some success against some higher tier decks, but they are certainly favored.

In short, play it because it's fun!

Thanks for the upvote! I hope that this explanation helped!

Greetings! Instead of Disfigure consider using Defile it has potential for getting rid of all sorts of "late" game creatures.

Jomse, excellent suggestion! Thank you!

Feel free to leave a comments on my own shadow deck. And have a great Day :)