a primodial hydra should never really get that big, you should win with him within like 2 turns. stuff like Skeletal Grimace and Mark of the Vampire are cards that can be replaced with things that are better. Natural End is a sideboard card.

consider adding Farseek for mana

deck:undercity-assault is another one of my decks that is more just golgari based. missing stuff from Gatecrash, but its still pretty good.

The 3x Ring of Evos Isle seems like a really bad choice, as they don't do anything for you besides having you pay 2 mana to give hexproof. Natural End is not a card that should be in the mainboard. Depending on the deck you play it can be a dead card, and should probably be in the sideboard if in the deck at all. Speaking of the sideboard, you need to trim it down to 15 cards, as that is the maximum number of cards allowed in the sideboard. I would consider Sheltering Word , card:Ranger's Guile, and Increasing Savagery in place of the ring and natural end.

Alpha Authority > card:Ranger's Guile

I think you really need to increase your number of creatures. It's too easy to remove a creature and have that affect you in big way. I would remove the artifacts and Natural End . By doing that you can remove the card:Jarad's Orders which aren't nearly as useful for the mana cost. I would personally remove the Ulvenwald Tracker . Fight can be useful, but with Lotleth Troll you should try a creature with scavenge like Slitherhead . Deadbridge Goliath is too expensive mana wise for my tastes, whether to cast it or use it for scavenge. I would do 4 Rancor , 4 Primordial Hydra , 4 Corpsejack Menace , 4 Predator Ooze , and 4 Lotleth Troll . Try adding in Alpha Authority or Sheltering Word for the hexproof. Also readjust your mana so it lines up a little better with what your costs are. You have a little too much black mana for the amount of black creatures you have. Champion of Lambholt is pretty awesome for getting past creatures without having to rely on trample or just plain overwhelming numbers.

I'd run 4 Predator Ooze s, 2 Ulvenwald Tracker , 3-4 Dreg Mangler , 4 Strangleroot Geist , 3-4 Lotleth Troll .

The tracker works with the ooze. Always declare attack phase with ooze to +1 him. THEN use the trackers ability before blockers are declared. Kill a creature with your ooze+tracker ability. He gets another +1. Then the enemy declares blockers. Your ooze just got a lot bigger and might get another +1 after blockers die.

Manglers/geists are really fast low mana cost cards.

predator ooze, geists, and lotleth trolls are all highly resistent to removal.

Then make some choices on nighthawk/hydra for slower creatures. I would go with nighthawk because sometimes that lifegain matters, he can kill sigarda, hes your only flier, and if he is exiled and comes back he won't go to the graveyard like hydra will.

Ditch the blessings of nature for the cheaper and reusable Increasing Savagery .

For artifacts -- they are too slow for this deck. They give control decks time to stabalize.

For enchantments, max out the rancor and drop the others.

For instants, pull those out for some removal like ultimate price or tragic slip. Slip is good if they try to kill your geists. Removal early on is the best counter to alot of decks like Champion of the Parish , Silverblade Paladin .

Try to get your lands to this:

13 forest

2 guildgates

4 overgrown tomb

4 woodland cemetery

You dont need basic swamps in this deck with these mana because all your costs (Exempting vampire nighthawk) only require 1 swamp. 10 sources of swamp should be fine. You want more forests than you have now to help pay for your 3 cost ooze.

Consider some of these for your sideboard:

• I like the x3 acidic slime.

1-2 Deathrite Shaman -- pull flashbacks from GY or nuke/lifegain

1 Increasing Savagery -- good if they dont have answer to ooze. Buff it up.

1-2 Knight of Infamy -- good vs white like Silverblade Paladin . Also gives +1 to your attacker with rancor. Protection from white means it can block without taking damage from white stuff, cant be targeted by white, and cant be blocked by white.

2 Thragtusk -- great card. Lifegain and good vs removal.

3-4 Tragic Slip -- best removal. period.

2 Wolfir Silverheart -- works well with predator ooze. Wolfir goes 8/8 and ooze gets +4/+4

Corpsejack Menace - love this card. Couldn't get it to work. I had a whole deck based on him. He was too slow and dispite the wow factor of the counters.. the counters where too easily removed. I dropped him, lambholdt, and hydra for basically that reason -- too easy to remove the counters. (Exile/kill/unsummon/counterspell).

New deck -- Goal is fast attacking, resistance to removal, trample. Play only 1-2 creatures at a time vs control so they cant Terminus them all. Troll, ooze, geist, and thragtusk all dodge/mitigate supreme verdict one way or another.

All I can say is that I went from (2-2 FNM) (1-3 TNM -- usually harder at my location) with this sort of counter deck, to 3-1-0 or 3-0-1 with the new deck. Much more consistent.

Heres what I was using. Unending Assault

I'm going to splash blue for this: Nutshot to Control

Gigglestomp Thank you for the lengthy response, I'm taking your advice into consideration, though I really like having Corpsejack Menace as that card is just fun for me. With that said, A lot of yours make sense and I will be making some changes. I really appreciate the advice and the details on why you suggested those things.

Gatecrashed You are right about the Ring of Evos Isle , so I removed them for Alpha Authority and a Glaring Spotlight for now, swapped Natural End with Naturalize , and will make some more changes later. I will take a look at card:Ranger's Guile, Sheltering Word and Increasing Savagery . The later looks like it would be a great bet, though I like the blessings miracle cost.

jmallette1 You are right about the mana, but I can not afford the dual lands to replace the guild gates at the moment. It is on my list of changes to make when I can. Revenge of the Hunted and Forced Adaptation look nice, I will consider them.

Thank you everyone for the comments, I will post how my deck does on Saturday.

Please consider taking out the Naturalize . its a dead card if they aren't running artifacts or enchantments, you cant afford to have cards that do nothing for you. if they aren't running hexproof creatures, Glaring Spotlight is kinda bad, but at least it does something in beig able to make your creatures unblockable.

to take care of Oblivion Ring try Sundering Growth

LDCummins the problem with Oblivion Ring was that it removed the counters on my creatures after I buffed them, so I am using Alpha Authority to prevent that now. I'm looking for other ways to keep the counters on my creatures. Thank you for the suggestion though, I was a little to vague in my request for help.

Try Bioshift . It works great. It's instant so you can play it in response to being targeted, it moves the counters off a creature to another, and if a Corpsejack Menace is there then you get double the counters.

Thank you Zurnic, I think I will give that a try.

You could also try Sheltering Word . It can be useful for a sideboard card if you find your creatures being targeted.

I really need to order/trade for some Sheltering Word 's, I only have one.

They're pretty good. I'd recommend it. They're amazing with Primordial Hydra .

Have you considered Ring of Kalonia in place of Rancor or Gift of Orzohva in place of Mark of the Vampire?

l00ke00 Ring of Kalonia costs three to get on a creature compared to the 1 cost Forced Adaptation and Rancor . Rancor returns to my hand if they destroy it, unlike the ring. The ring was in an earlier build, and from the few FNM's I've found rancor works better.

Gift of Orzhova is an interesting suggestion, but I really don't need the flying as much, though it is a slightly cheaper version of Mark of the Vampire . I think I will sideboard that one to help against flying decks, while my Ulvenwald Tracker s will take care of the occasional flier.

Vines of Vastwood or card:Ranger's Guile could be really useful in your deck. I think that Gift of Orzhova is better than Mark of the Vampire because of the 3 cmc and the flying. Although you're right in that you already have something to "take care of the occasional flier", the flying will give your own creature some evasion, allowing your attacks to be more devastating to the opponent.

Look at Troll Ascetic for earlier in game, or counter storage while you're waiting for Primordial Hydra and Corpsejack Menace.

Crowned Ceratok?

Bioshift

@ someponyonfire Crowned Ceratok is great that he add's trample, but its to easy for an opponent to get rid of it and take away trample from the other creatures. I've found its easier for my build to use Rancor or have creatures with trample already, so that once Alpha Authority hits and they start building they have to many enchants to deal with to stop the damage. It only works mid range but it hits the sweet spot for how I want it to play. I am playing with the Crowned Ceratok and a Sapphire Drake in another deck I'm working on and it fits really well in that build.

@ deadtrojanman I tried bioshift, but I found that with my high cost creatures I usually don't have enough mana left to use it when I need it in this build.