"The core card to this deck is Death's Shadow . With all the cards that have you lose life a certain way, and with your opponent dealing damage to you every now and then, this card just gets stronger and stronger. Till your opponent will be quickly staring at a 6/6 for one mana, and potentially way stronger."

not even in the deck...otherwise... looks awesome

Uh, what are you talking about jaimegomez27? Look in the creatures. It's right there as a 4 of.

So it is, im getting blind in my old age :(

+1 tho, i may just have to build this deck :D

Combo Phyrexian Unlife with Melira, Sylvok Outcast , though I'm not sure what you would take out. Great deck! +1

Awesome deck. definitely +1. The Krosan Grip does however seem more useful than Nature's Claim because it is better against control decks and it doesn't gain them life.

Caves of Koilos could be good here. Varolz, the Scar-Striped could be decent to either scavenge a Death's Shadow for 13 +1/+1 counters, act as a sac outlet to save your guys from being exiled with Path to Exile /Karn Liberated , or simply produce a tough-to-deal-with threat for longer games. Cool deck!

Awesome as usual. +1

Thanks for the +1 buffy, graft, jaimegomez27, octopus13 and SignMaster99 ~ This is my first competitive use of black, so I'm happy that others seem to enjoy it

The main problem with the Melira, Sylvok Outcast combo is that I would need more than just Melira in there, I would have to place in tutors for both cards. Putting her in would require me adding anywhere from 7 - 13 cards, and in doing so, would destroy the original synergy of this deck.

Krosan Grip will be added, though is very susceptible to being swapped as it costs three and not one.

Caves of Koilos is a really good suggestion. I will put them and maybe the other pain-lands in as well. As for Varolz, the Scar-Striped , I have two problems with this. One is that I don't ever want to scavenge my Death's Shadow , I always want to keep them for the Orzhov Charm reanimation, that leaves only three creatures for scavenge, all of which don't have very high toughness to make the scavenge worth-while. Number two is that I really don't like him being three mana. I find that I don't get to have a large amount of mana at any time, generally the game ends with only 3 or 4. This deck thrives with the ability to play one or two creatures and being able to remove one or two permanents every turn, dramatically increasing my tempo while decreasing my opponents.

this is going to sound stupid, but have you considered using an Immortal Servitude x=1 to get around Engineered Explosives ? it gets back most of your creatures including what could be multiple Death's Shadow s.

Phyrexian Arena or Dark Tutelage ?

Immortal Servitude is actually a wonderful suggestion merrowMania, you always do know what cards are best~. At the moment it will require play-testing. I may only put it in as a two of for the main-board having it require 4 mana, or it may end up going into the side-board or this side-side-board that I've been developing for when meta's change.

Phyrexian Arena and Dark Tutelage are 1 mana too costly Virgys. Having a two mana draw engine that doubles as a 2 power creature is what makes the card so good. I can keep my land relatively low and still be functioning extremely well. The fact that it is a creature also means that I have an easy time removing it myself if my life gets too low. Thusly the enchantments are too slow, too risky, and don't help my tempo all too much.

Unfortunately, Immortal Servitude didn't make the cut. By the time I could use it I was either already long since winning or losing and it didn't change a thing. When I did think it would the lack of available mana for my spells made me lose. It was such a good suggestion too...

Rite of Consumption could be fun to throw at your opponent with a huge Death's Shadow and you can always return the Shadow again if anything.

Must say i love this deck idea very cool +1 for me

You have wrote about removing creatures my Femme_Fatale and first thing I imagine was the Dismember .

Choice, that can also simply deal with indestructible creatures but in addition it share your deck theme. Does it find its place in your mainboard?

ever considered Souls of the Faultless ? this card is monstrous to any aggro player and is quite low on the CMC AND will further complicate removal since Dark Confidant and Death's Shadow are meaty targets

Thanks for the suggestion Infral, it looks interesting and I'll have others play-test it for me, at the moment I'm tired of the play-tester.

Oh hello ... ghost user ... I used to use Dismember , but I took it out for a variety of reasons. I don't want TOO much life-loss, which is why I'm not putting in so many shocks and fetches. I need a balance between life-loss and productivity. Path to Exile goes past indestructible creatures, and it does so even to the 8/8's or 10/10's I might face.

I don't want to use Souls of the Faultless for one reason amishrambo, it gives me life. Which is anti-synergy with Death's Shadow and I don't want that. It is also why I don't run Vault Skirge .

Thanks for the suggestions everyone and for the +1 from TheLaw2013~

good point forgot that it gained life too

I think there happens to be a slight misunderstanding with Orzhov Charm s abilities. First is return a creature YOU control and all aura's you control that are attached to it to it's owners hands. Meaning it does not work the way it is hinted at in the description for the first mode. Modes two and three are right, just the first one seemed to be misunderstood. Sill +2 from me, +1 I mean sorry.

If you're going to have Leyline of Sanctity for anti-mill, you're going to want 4. That way chances are you'll never need to mulligan more than twice to miracle draw it.

Also, you might want more green mana. Splashing to play Abrupt Decay is good, but when I playedtested your deck against a mill, both were milled instantly, leaving you with no more green mana.

Have you considered Sangrophage ?

Good deck. A few issues I have is that you are talking about the cards in your description and they don't do the things you think it does. Firstly, orzhov charm cannot return an enemies creature to their hand. Just yours. Which like you said, is still effective when trying to keep from dying to your bob.

The other is phyrexian unlife. I'm not 100% positive, but I think you can't go negative life, and even if you did, death's shadow doesn't ever get bigger than a 13/13 since after you get to seven life he has lost all counters.

Just some info so you don't try to do these things in a match.

Other than that I love the idea, it's amazing how useful bob can get and how dirty black can get :P

You can definitely go to negative life, and Death's Shadow does get bigger from negative life. From Death's Shadow 's Gatherer page:

"If your life total is less than 0 and an effect (such as the one from an opponent's Abyssal Persecutor) is keeping you from losing the game, Death's Shadow's ability will actually increase its power and toughness. For example, if your life total is -2, Death's Shadow gets +2/+2."

that would only work if you have unlife out you have 1 or more life left and they hit you for enough damage to make it negative it wont transfer the extra damage to poison counters

Loss of life, like from Dark Confidant , isn't damage, but will still drain away your life total into the negatives. If you're at 1 life with Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Unlife in the field, if you get another Unlife with the Confidant's ability, you'll be at -2 life, not losing the game because of Unlife. And since loss of life isn't damage, you won't get any poison counters when you lose life that's not from damage. So you'll continually lose life, getting deeper into the negatives, continually buffing Death's Shadow .