I have always been fond of the extort mechanic, its only problem up until this point was it wasnt as aggresive as i would have liked it to be once they removed the Vizkopa Guildmage , Exquisite Blood combo. But with the release of Athreos, God of Passage I believe this problem has been solved.
First lets explain the idea of the deck. I wanted to go with a fairly heavy life gain deck, and the reason ive always loved extort cause its life gain that hurts my opponent.
The best thing about extort in a deck like this is now you can use cards like Thoughtseize to actually do damage to the enemy without fear of taking the 2 dmg yourself. I have actually ended games with the dmg off a thoughtseize extort play.
Now i have always been a fan of Crypt Ghast and his ability to give you mana for days, but before athreos his biggest problem was the giant target on his head, i mean for being a 4 drop he doesnt have the greatest power and toughness and gets killed fairly quickly, but now with Athreos in the game he has a slightly higher chance of survival and if he doesnt, hey you at least get to do 3 dmg to your opponent on the play.
Some people ask why i have a Liliana of the Dark Realms in this deck and its fairly simple really, with having such a mid range deck i need to hit that five mana marker, Especially for Obzedat, Ghost Council so Liliana actually serves two important rolls, 1st if i only have 4 mana on the field i can at least play her to get that much needed 5th. Especially cause Godless Shrine counts as a swamp so you can get your duel with ease, 2nd she can zero out an indestructible god if you have enough swamps or make your obzedat or blood baron hit harder. Lastly if she somehow makes it to 6 counters you can kill her off and never have to worry about mana for the rest of the game.
Now my favorite combo in this deck is Atheros and the High Priest of Penance As if black didnt contain enough kill cards now you can put what is in my opinion, THE best blocker in the format right now, on the field and just say come at me bro. Odds are he will always cause your opponent to pay the three life to send him to the graveyard, and if they dont, bam just play him again and extort on his cast and he is back for more fun. Definitely my favorite combo in the deck.
As for my second favorite combo Sanguine Bond and a Gray Merchant of Asphodel , not only does Sanguine bond add to your devotion, it doubles the merchants dmg, just 2 underworld connections, followed by a sanguine bond and gray merchant then bam 16 dmg to the face!
An idea i actually had with this was to put an elixer of immortality on the merchant and heros down fall him so he can just do the dmg again, and again every time he dies. but that may be to costly on mana.
My hopes are to have enough control to make it to turn five where this deck can really start to shine, I have thought about taking out my baron for an elspeth for a little more aggro but havent decided on how i feel about that just yet, how ever i do plan on switching out some basic lands for 4x Mana Confluence cause really what is 1 life per mana in an extort deck? I mean it only takes a couple thrull parasites to make the extort really start adding up, And people often forget that a thrull parasite can remove any counter off a permanent, the includes keeping plainswalkers from reaching their max loyalty counters and avoiding say a -7 elspeth.
I really enjoy this deck, all though all my friends i play against it with despise seeing that atheros turn 3 play. Some cards i have thought about putting into the deck are things like Deiacide and maybe riot control against heavy aggro decks to avoid dying to a brave the elements combo turn 4. but this is my attempt at an aggressive extort deck, which if you compare this one to my old one on my profile you can definitely see the difference
Anyway any thoughts or criticizium on the deck would be greatly appreciated,
