pie chart

Necromantic Evolution (featuring Obliterator)

Modern BG (Golgari) Competitive Devotion Zombie

robbnoble

Edit Live Edit
Edit
Upvote 0
0
Deckcycle Feature Queue
Feature Queue
Playtest v1
Similar Deck Space Card Recommendations

Land (22)

Creature (23)

Instant (8)

Sorcery (5)

Planeswalker (2)

Sideboard

Sorcery (10)

Instant (5)

Maybeboard

Land (5)

Planeswalker (1)

Enchantment (1)

Sorcery (2)

Creature (1)

Deck Tech

Who can resist playing Phyrexian Obliterator whenever the opportunity arises? I knew as soon as I happened to pick one up in a random foil lot that I would have to fit him somewhere. For a while, he was seeing play as a value creature in my Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief EDH deck as a value creature, but I wanted more than that from Obliterator. I wanted to play him in modern.

With a casting cost of , it's hard to fit Phyrexian Obliterator anywhere, outside of mono-black, which does not tend to produce very strong decks. At 5/5 trample for 4, the creature already has value that you usually don't see outside of green. Add in that triggered ability though, and phyrexian obliterator has your opponent shaking in fear the entire time he is on the battlefield, whether their own creatures outclass him or not. That casting cost is a problem, though.

So let's turn that weakness into a strength. Thanks to Phyrexian Obliterator's best buddy, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, black devotion is a (somewhat) viable strategy. He is a very powerful finisher, swooping in to drain your opponent's life and increase your own for an amount equal to your black devotion. Even with obliterator and himself on the board, he's hitting the board with 6 devotion for a 12 life swing. Ideally, though, you will have more than just Gray merchant and obliterator. The deck should be full of permanents that are good at staying on the battlefield so you can merchant your opponent for the maximum possible.

If black isn't great at keeping permanents on the board, I can think of one archetype that is good at recurring them. Coincidentally, it is also one of the strongest archetypes in black -zombies. As an added bonus, gray merchant itself is a zombie, giving it even more synergy with the deck.

Having devotion alone isn't enough, though. Running 4 phyrexian obliterators and 4 gray merchants is really rough on the mana curve, and in a lot of games, you will have the board stacked with devotion, but have no gray merchant available -or vise versa. For this reason, I decided to splash green for Eldritch Evolution. A powerful search engine that lets us bring out our higher costed creatures from anywhere in the deck for only a creature and 3 mana. This allows us to cut down to two copies of gray merchant, and also allows us a dreaded turn three phyrexian obliterator. Splashing green also gives us another perk. We can now make phyrexian obliterator fight, forcing our opponents to sacrifice a number of permanents equal to the power of the creature obliterator fights, often leaving them with nothing.

Let's move on to Card Choices:

Weighing in at one devotion, Gravecrawler is a two point swing in life totals when gray merchant hits the field. He is easily recurred and is good for sneaking in some early damage. Your opponent won't often use removal on him, and you can use him to fight or sacrifice just to bring him right back, so long as you control another zombie. I really enjoy giving him deathtouch with Death Baron, and using him to fight or swing as a 3/2 creature that your opponent is unlikely to block. He is also a very valuable discard for Liliana of the Veil.
Relentless Dead is a must in this deck. 2 devotion for 2 mana, and when he dies, he can not only return himself to your hand, but if you have the mana, he will return another zombie to the battlefield. I especially enjoy using his ability to recur a Geralf's Messenger who has already gone through his cycle of undying. Of course, if you have enough mana, he can also be used to bring back a gray merchant for some major life drain.
Well, he's not a zombie, but Gatekeeper of Malakir still provides two black devotion and some non-targeted removal for . Once the etb is done, he's often pretty useless, so he is a good target if you need to fetch out Obliterator with eldritch evolution.
A whopping three devotion for -the card already has a lot of value, but when you figure he's coming in with two damage from the get-go, then when he dies you get an additional 2 damage in and he gets bigger, the choice to include Geralf's Messenger is obvious. My favorite play is sacrificing him to Eldritch Evolution, allowing him to come back with undying for 2 damage, and searching out gray merchant, who will provide at minimum a 5 life drain to the opponent and gain for you.
I figure if we're running a primarily tribal deck, and a little bit of fight club, why not include a lord of the tribe that not only buffs the zombies, but also gives them deathtouch? Death Baron is two devotion for .
Our highest devotion creature, Phyrexian Obliterator provides instant value at 5/5 trample for . While he's in play and not attacking, he provides a Moat effect, and when he is attacking, they're usually not blocking. Your opponent will not want to burn him to death, but he is still vulnerable to a lot of common removal spells in white and black.
Gray Merchant of Asphodel is our finisher, or at the very least, our way to get back into a losing situation. With 4 toughness, he's a decent blocker and provides life gain on entry. He can be fetched out with eldritch evolution and recurred with relentless dead.
Prey UponOur one mana fight spell can be a game ender in conjunction with phyrexian obliterator. Otherwise, it can be used as removal with recurring zombies such as grave crawler or geralf's messenger. It has incredible value with deathtouch creatures as well, thanks to death baron. Hissing Quagmire is also included in the deck for this reason.

Q&A

A: Though Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is a card that runs on devotion, we won't be running a whole lot to ramp to in this deck. While it can help net us a couple extra mana to make better use of Relentless Dead's ability, or to bring out gray merchant a little earlier, the drawbacks are more severe, in that our deck is so heavy , that an early nykthos instead of a swamp or dual land will actually prevent us from playing cards we want to play if we don't have three or more devotion and two other lands in play. Initially, I built the deck with Nykthos and Profane Command. While it was awesome when it worked, it was more often that I drew Nykthos and wished it was another land, or drew profane command and wished it were a better removal spell.
I strongly considered cryptbreaker. I ended up deciding against it because I want to spend my mana filling the field with permanents that give me devotion, not creature tokens, and I usually want to tap my creatures to attack whenever possible, lowering my opponent's life total to get within kill range for gray merchant. I feel like cryptbreaker is awesome in a zombie tokens deck. Not so much in a deck that usually only has 2-3 creatures on the field.

Liliana of the Veil is almost always better than Phyrexian Arena. If I were to make more slots for three drops, it would be for more liliana, who acts as both discard and non-targeted removal. I'd rather have phyrexian obliterator hit the field when my opponent is top-decking than when they have cards in hand, regardless of how many cards I have in my own hand.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Image View Timeline
Card Odds v1 Draw hand
Add to folder Copy
Download / Export / Embed Code

Comments View Archive

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Date added 7 years
Last updated 7 years
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)

10 - 3 Mythic Rares

28 - 4 Rares

11 - 5 Uncommons

2 - 3 Commons
Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.45
Folders Decks I own, Control deck, Ideas
Votes
Ignored suggestions
Shared with
Views