Ok so this is for sure the sickest deck I've made, let alone seen in pauper (no shade, I just take a.. little too much pride in my "work"). But for real, this deck is sweet and is a joy to pilot, with a fair learning curve, so I'd definitely recommend playtesting for a short while; after you read the combo, of course. Enough chit-chat, lets get to the combo.
THE COMBO-OMBO-MBO-BO-O:
This deck is based off of one of my oldest decks, Otk mill, however doesn't suck and can win consistently on turn 4-6, depending on if you play your cards right.
Step 1: Dig, dig, dig.
The deck is mostly comprised of the combo itself, some fail-saves, and the dig package. And the dig package definitely carries it's weight. At the bottom of the totem pole in my opinion is Vampire's Kiss. Cracking the blood tokens is a very relevant tempo hit for only a double-rummage. Still, it is our win-con, and could bail us out in a pinch, so the little value that we can get out of it; for how small it is, is still gravy nevertheless. A leap above it are our cyclers. All of them can cycle for just one black, and most often cascade into more into more, which can put you in a good position. Everything goes up from there, with Street Wraith being free and Sign in Blood being two cyclers in one with minimal downside.
Step 2: Mill.
Once you hit a Tortured Existence (and preferably a Songs of the Damned), stop and zero-in on the Main Milling Process™. This involves having a Cycler and a Dredger. For this example, we will have a (exp.) Street Wraith in hand and (exp.) Stinkweed Imp in graveyard with Tortured Existence on battlefield. Cycle your Cycler, Dredging your Dredger. In this case, mill 5 and (essentially) swap the placements of Stinkweed Imp + Street Wraith
. Then activate Tortured Existence, returning Street Wraith to your hand and pitching Stinkweed Imp. Congratulations, you have affectively paid 1 mana and 2 life to mill 5. Do that a lot. Refer to this list for your wacky Cycler + Dredger combos.
Street Wraith + Golgari Brownscale = 1 mana: Mill 2.
Street Wraith + Stinkweed Imp = 1 mana, pay 2 life: Mill 5.
Lurching Rotbeast + Golgari Brownscale/Horror of the Broken Lands + Golgari Brownscale = 2 mana: Mill 2 + gain 2 life.
Lurching Rotbeast + Stinkweed Imp/Horror of the Broken Lands + Stinkweed Imp = 2 mana: Mill 5.
Street Wraith + Golgari Brownscale + Stinkweed Imp = 2 mana: Mill 5.
Step 3: Actually do some amount of damage.
This is where we combo off, so buckle up.
In order for the combo-ing to commence, we'll need a few conditions to be met.
We'll need Repository Skaab, Sanitarium Skeleton, Songs of the Damned, Blood Celebrant, and Tortured Existence within reach. We also need quite a bit of bodies piled up in the yard, ready to become the best choir in magic.
Let's get the whole thing set up, then get the party starting.
1a. Cast Songs of the Damned (if possible), then use Tortured Existence to get the pair of Blood Celebrant and Repository Skaab.
2a. Play Blood Celebrant, then use Celebrant to play Repository Skaab, exploiting itself and fetching back Songs.
3a. Play Songs of the Damned.
Alright, that's the setup. Here we go with the funny.
1b. Pay 3 black to get Sanitarium Skeleton to your hand than use Tortured Existence twice, once to retrieve Golgari Brownscale (gaining 2 life to counter the life loss of Celebrant), and than discarding Golgari Brownscale to get Repository Skaab.
2b. Play Repository Skaab, getting Songs of the Damned, and play Songs. Yep. There's the loop. Go back to 1b if you don't have 100 billion mana by now; and if you do, continue.
3b. Alright, now for the win. Simply, just replace Songs of the Damned in the loop with Vampire's Kiss. If our opponent has Infinite Life or just doesn't die to our Drain, we can mill them out in the most painful way possible with Sign in Blood.
This is probably one of the most complicated decks I've ever made, which is great since I like complicated decks. Hopefully this was worth a +1 and I am open to card suggestions in the comments. I also tried to keep it budget because duh
Take this explanation with a few grams of salt. Of course this is very bare-bones. There is actually a lot of deviance, with some of the steps possibly subbing out Sanitarium Skeleton for a spare creature in hand to keep the mana spending to a minimum.
Thank you so much for reading, and as always, keep having yourself a Tortured Existence!
-Cya.
