Sacrifice - Undying

Casual* Budget Casual

TheMadRocketeer

Creature (25)

• 3x Bloodthrone Vampire
• 3x Butcher Ghoul
• 1x Butcher of Malakir
• 3x Cadaver Imp
• 1x Hex Parasite
• 1x Nether Traitor
• 1x Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
• 2x Ogre Slumlord
• 1x Reaper from the Abyss
• 1x Reassembling Skeleton
• 4x Tenacious Dead
• 4x Young Wolf

Land (20)

• 2x Bojuka Bog
• 5x Forest
• 4x Jungle Hollow
• 8x Swamp
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Instant (9)

• 2x Altar's Reap
• 3x Hunger of the Howlpack
• 2x Noxious Revival
• 2x Tragic Slip

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Dark Privilege
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Gutter Grime
• 2x Snake Umbra

Artifact (3)

• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Jar of Eyeballs
• 1x Jinxed Idol

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Bone Splinters
• 1x Bubbling Muck

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Fecundity

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Theme and Goals

A Black/Green Sacrifice/Undying deck for casual play. This is a kitchen table deck based on the cards I have and ones I could find locally for a moderate price.

The idea is to use undying creatures and other creatures that can return from the graveyard to gain extra value, provide sacrifices for things that benefit from same, and to trigger "when a creature dies" effects.

Some of the card choices, especially the one-ofs and two-ofs, are based on how many of that card I have.

Categories and Cards

Undying

Butcher Ghoul

Young Wolf Green does this more efficiently.

Returns From Graveyard Some Other Way

Nether Traitor Haste and Shadow. Can get this back on a later turn if you don't have the mana now. Wish I had more.

Reassembling Skeleton Can be brought back from the graveyard whenever you have the mana, but it does cost more to do. Wish I had more of these too.

Tenacious Dead This one needs 2 mana held open in order to get it back. Not as good.

Sacrifices Creatures for Benefit

Bloodthrone Vampire A nice beater. Sacrifice outlet. By mid-game, you can be buffing this 2 or 3 times in a turn pretty easily. Wish it had trample or evasion.

Ashnod's Altar Gets me mana. Sometimes useful in helping to get the creature I just sacrificed back.

Jinxed Idol This thing is fun in a deck like this one. Since we want to sacrifice things, it's no hardship to pay to give this to an opponent. Then it will hurt him/her until he/she sacrifices something to give it back (or to give it to another opponent). Either way, you benefit. And if they want to play "hot-potato" with you, well, you're going to win, aren't you? :-)

Bone Splinters Kill a creature of yours you wanted to kill anyway to get rid of a creature your opponent wanted to keep. And trigger the "something died" effects twice. All for 1 black mana.

Altar's Reap Lets you sacrifice a creature and gets you 2 cards.

Dark Privilege Helps you hang onto one of your big expensive valuable things by sacrificing a creature.

Provides Benefit When Something Dies

Butcher of Malakir The most expensive card in the deck. Probably too expensive to run with just 20 lands and 1 Ashnod's Altar. Sweet if you can get it out and keep it, though. Once you get multiple creatures dying on your side, the opponent is very hard pressed indeed to keep creatures on the board.

Ob Nixilis, Unshackled One of my second most expensive cards. Very nice benefits if you get to play it, though. A flying, trampling beater that grows each turn that something dies on either side of the table. I think we can arrange that, don't you? To top it off (as if it really needed more), it makes it very expensive for an opponent to search his/her library.

Ogre Slumlord Whenever any other nontoken creature dies on either side of the table, this guy pumps out a 1/1 rat token with Deathtouch. That could get really ugly really quickly if left unanswered.

Reaper from the Abyss This is the other guy in the second most expensive slot. He's the most color-intensive too, but by the time you get enough lands to cast this, it's usually OK. If you have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth out, it's definitely OK. So what does he do for us? Well, he's a nice big beater with flying that lets us kill something of our choice every end step where something died that turn. It can be almost any creature any opponent has or even one of our things if, for some odd reason, we have no other way to do it and really need it done.

Jar of Eyeballs Love this thing. It goes so well with a Sacrifice deck. By mid-game, this can give you a surprising amount of draw. What works best for me is to cash in the tokens whenever practical (i.e. mana free that's not needed for something more urgent). The reason is that this gives you more draw overall. You get just one card per activation, but each time costs all of the tokens. The benefit of more tokens is a deeper search for that best card to draw. The shallowest search you can make is 2 cards, which is already pretty good. Unless I just don't have the mana to spend this turn, I find it better to draw the best of 2 this turn and maybe the best of 4 next turn (depending on how many creatures are dying), getting 2 cards total, than to wait and take the single best card of the same top 6 next turn.

Dictate of Erebos Sure wish I had more of these. It's like Butcher of Malakir without the body, for 2 CMC less. Plus, it's an enchantment, which some colors (black and red) find problematic to handle.

Gutter Grime Similar in use to the Ogre Slumlord . In this case, though, the token creatures don't have Deathtouch, but they all get bigger each time a new one is made. Something dies, you get a 1/1 Ooze token creature. Something else dies, you get another Ooze token, and they're both 2/2s. Every time a nontoken creature dies on your side of the table. Absolutely demands an answer.

Sacrifice Outlets: (All mentioned above.)

Bloodthrone Vampire

Ashnod's Altar

Jinxed Idol

Bone Splinters

Altar's Reap

Dark Privilege

Other

Cadaver Imp Mainly serves to bring things back from the graveyard that didn't make it back some other way. A flying chump blocker can be handy too, though.

Hex Parasite Utility. This is here to reset creatures with Undying.

Bojuka Bog Occasionally handy against some decks. This would be a Sideboard card if I was using one.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Makes every land a Swamp in addition to whatever else it is. Wish I had some Swampwalking creatures in here, but this is a 1-of, and I have no nonbasic land fetching, so it doesn't come out every game. Helps with some of the double black costs (and the one triple black), especially if I want to cast more than one in a turn. Helps with holding black mana open to get some of the creatures back from the graveyard.

Hunger of the Howlpack Great in a deck where stuff dies a lot. My favorite trick for this is to put it on the Undying creature that just came back from the graveyard. My 1/1 you just killed? It's now a 5/5 for 1 green mana. Worth having in here just to watch the opponent's face when that happens. Worth having in here just to watch the opponent letting that 1/1 Undying creature come through because you have a green mana open and he/she doesn't want to risk it.

Tragic Slip Morbid is just so easy to arrange.

Snake Umbra Helps you keep that important creature that's causing your opponent so much pain. Gets you cards when the enchanted creature does damage. I love it on Ob Nixilis, Unshackled. He flies, tramples, starts at 4/4, and grows, so he usually gets damage through, and you definitely want to protect him. This is great on Nether Traitor as well, benefiting from the Shadow.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	7 years
Legality	This deck is Casual legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 11 - 0 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 25 - 0 Commons
Cards	64
Avg. CMC	2.32
Tokens	Ooze X/X G, Rat 1/1 B
Folders	My Active Decks