Personally i would put Dakmor Salvage into the deck

Sorry for the late reply; I was away for the New Year holiday.

• Dakmor Salvage is a good call. While it doesn't really play to my intended "Turn 3 attacking annihilator" strategy, since not every game is a Golden Hand game, I think it'll increase in utility the longer a game goes on. That's an inexpensive single to add a rather nice extra synergy/utility. Many thanks!

On average this deck doesn't usually take longer than Turn 6 to win, but there have been a few cases where games have gone longer. (Indeed, even one game I actually won just using 4 of my discard vamps and no annihilator at all haha)...I think worst case Dakmor Salvage will find a home on my sideboard just in case I face a mill deck, but I'll run it in the main deck for a while just to see how it plays.

I would personally use animate deads

Do you really run into so much enchantment hate? You might consider the very low mana Shallow Grave. It'd be solid with Annihilator, since you'd get to surprise them with it. Once you've hit them for a bunch and forced them to more or less clear their board (unless they are playing a wonky artifact or token deck), you should be in a winning situation even if you then lose the creature.

Might want to consider Dark Ritual since you're in Legacy anyways. It's a very strong card, and 3 mana is kinda a magic number for usefulness, with a great 3 drop being able to turn the game around. Buried Alive is a really good way to get a gang of your favorite baddies from your library to the graveyard. Note, if you used Dark Ritual, you could play Entomb and Exhume on your first turn, forcing them to almost certainly clear their board in one swing next turn. I'd consider Buried Alive, but it's really up to you, but Dark Ritual is a really solid card most of the time.

DreadKhan,

At least in the playgroup I use this deck in, Enchantment hate isn't super-common, but it's definitely not unheard of either. There's an array of 1 and 2-mana instants that an opponent can use to smite one off in the event I'm playing against a deck that includes it. Since Annihilator is the crux of the win strategy, that'd be unfortunate in gaining the upper hand.

Shallow Grave could be interesting to try, and yes I'm very much aware of Dark Ritual haha. The issue there is that with 3 mana the only (current) Graveyard-to-Play effect I can use it for in the deck is Exhume . By using Culling the Weak it allows me to pick from the vast array of 4-mana spells with that effect, Dread Return just happened to be my best available choice of cards that I had on-hand.

I'm still up in the air on whether to deviate from the concept of this deck of all budget cards. Entomb certainly doesn't apply (at least to my standard), but Buried Alive could be a solid choice. If I were to make this deck to play on MTGO I'd definitely include Entomb , but those are some really solid suggestions!

Thank you very much, sir! You've given me some things to ponder on this build for sure.

One of my favorite aspects of MTG is the fact that due to the local metagame, what works can vary enormously.

I look forward to replay testing your deck... I live in a pretty isolated area, so that is part of how I play. The extensive directions of how the deck plays out really helps make sure I play your deck right, so thanks for putting in the effort!

DreadKhan,

I'm glad you were able to give it a look & offer some insights! I'd be eager to hear how this build did for you; I initially threw it together just using cards I had lying around. As yet I've not purchased any singles to augment it (hence the Budget concept). I'm really on the edge as far as breaking from that though, this deck plays like a beast for me as-is & so any way to further augment it would just make it that much bolder.

What I noticed is there is an issue with being vulnerable to control/removal strategies, as it is hard to protect your big creatures once you get one out. I mean, it's great to get a 9/9 annihilator 3 out on turn 2 or 3, but an Innocent Blood can drop it just as fast. I think you are very set however vs decks that don't have a way to immediately deal with your eldrazi, including a deck that just didn't draw any removal, or used it up already.

I wonder if you might get a tad of stability from using Null Brooch to protect your big bad once they are on the field. I mean, who cares what you've got in hand if you can otherwise attack with an annihilator creature, right? It's a bit slow to set up, so maybe throw in 4 Dark Rituals too? I dunno, just a crazy idea.

@ DreadKhan

That's a fair point, but at least in my play experience with this deck, low-mana destroy isn't a major issue because of the wealth of graveyard-to-play options. (Especially since one can use Dread Return from the GY just by sacrificing discard outlet creatures.) The main goal of the deck is to get big creatures into the GY anyway, so on average this approach just slows the deck down by a turn or two.

Return-to-Hand effects are actually slightly more annoying & a bigger threat, but even then the weenie creatures all allow you to just dump 'em back into the GY the next turn. The downside is then having to play another spell to pull them out, so in my experience RTH is a far bigger pain than target destroy. There's obviously also spells like Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares which can really throw a wrench in things, but in practice I've found that a deck with enough control options to smash me up early on generally isn't going to be coming at me that hard early on either.

Any deck will run into the issue where once your opponent knows key cards/targets, they can design a deck to counter it - that's just part of M:tG. By and large though this deck seems to stand up well to almost any deck that isn't specially and specifically built to counter it.

Null Brooch might be a good Sideboard option in case this occurs, but there's lots of really decent effects that I could add, but then they really begin to detract from the quick-win condition of the "5-Card Golden Hands" (or near misses).

That's sounds reasonable, I thought I should mention it since when I playtest your deck vs my pox deck, it tends to fair poorly (run by me, so perhaps less effective than it could be), due to a mixture of things that allow the pox deck to win, including occasionally reanimating your Eldrazi's myself! Those are odd games, but 3 Animate Dead make it a reasonable possibility. My sample size isn't gigantic, I usually aim for best of 3 or 5, so it's certainly imperfect data. For that matter, you likely aren't going to face a deck like mine anyways, so stick with what's working for you!

Seeing as you've got some experience running a solid reanimation deck with discard, I wonder if you've ever considered Dragon Breath to give a creature haste potentially? Also, how would Rotting Regisaur fit in such a deck, as a dual purpose threat? Is the Regisaur too slow do you think for a good reanimator deck?

Sorry for the late replay, DreadKhan.

I considered Dragon Breath but at this point it'd only serve to increase the number of cards needed for a Golden Hand, and its only real use is as discard ammunition since I have no intentions of splashing a second color. I'd be interested to see how games would test using this method, but finding opponents willing to subject themselves to this deck even in its current incarnation is challenging haha - so getting a sizable sample size to make evaluations on is difficult anymore.

Rotting Regisaur is kind of in the same boat, though I'll admit I haven't revamped this deck since M20 release. There's some new & interesting cards out now that I haven't taken into account, but again I'd be hard-pressed to determine what card(s) to drop to make room for him. I do really enjoy that card though, so I appreciate the suggestions.

If you end up making any of these modifications to your build of this deck, I'd be glad to hear about how it worked out for ya!

Hey thanks for the up-vote and the comment! I'd considered using ETB discard effects, and looking at Rotting Rats that may find a way into the build the next time I sit down to run "test tweaks" on it.

The Geier Reach Sanitarium isn't a bad call either since it's only a 2-mana activation and doesn't come into play tapped; one thing this deck certainly lacks is any form of card draw. I'm aware of a few lands which can help correct this, but I don't want to throw off "Gold Hand" (or near-miss) draws too much by including lots of "enters tapped" lands, which a lot of the other draw-lands seem to be.

I'm also trying to keep the overall cost of this deck to a minimum as a kind of concept, so I appreciate you recommending similar budget-range cards at least! Some of these have definitely made my list to try if/when I attempt a rebuild. Great suggestions!

Great build, however I know dark ritual was shut down but dark ritual, swamp, putrid imp and any annihilator in hand which would be only a 4 card golden hand could play an annihilator turn one. Attacking turn 2 wiping their board instantly if you play first correct?

I'm sorry it's still a 5 golden hand but turn 1 with exhume, animate dead or shallow grave sorry.

Actually I guess you can sacrifice putrid imp after you use it's ability so technically culling of the weak still fits amazingly. Great build sir. I built a copy and took out 1 unearth, and 1 heir and 1 artisan added 3 shallow grave, and 3 entomb, 4 it that betrays and 1 ulamog the ceaseless hunger for laughs. I think that is 64 cards but I mean you just need that golden hand constant there is no limit to the deck you just need to be able to shuffle without assistance.

Hello, great deck!

Besides the power and speed of this deck, I love the Vorthos feel of it as well. Since, according to magic lore, the vampires of Zendikar were created by the Eldrazi Ulamog. So it is flavorful that vampires have a role in this deck to bring the eldrazi forth.

Regarding card choices; have you considered adding to the sideboard Not of This World? I feel it's an even better sb choice than Null Brooch because it would cast for free if used to protect an Eldrazi and it would be an unpleasant surprise to your opponent in game 2.

Then you would get zero takers for games using this deck instead of rarely.

That is not a bad idea, I might do some test runs with that sideboard switch - good suggestion (particularly because it's still a budget card). Thanks!

As someone who’s always heard things about legacy being pricy, I find this deck’s low cost amazing! I might play it, ngl.

@ VampDemigod

Thanks! Let me know how it goes.

Legacy/Casual formats can certainly end up with some pricey deck builds. This deck has MORE than held its own against much, much more expensive decks though. (Couple of really bitter opponents with several hundred dollars invested in their decks, actually.)

No deck is completely unbeatable, particularly as opponents become more familiar with the construction. It's not always about overall costs though; with such a variety of options to choose from across all the sets, in many cases it just boils down to digging around & doing some research.

With this build, forcing the opponent to eat mana (land) early on really doesn't leave many options for most decks you run across.

@ Apollo_Paladin

For the Annihilators, put a couple of Ancient Tomb in the deck. It would move way faster. I would say 2 or 3.

@ joe_mama_joe

Hey, thanks for the suggestion and for taking a peek at the deck. However, none of the annihilators in this deck are set up to be hand-cast. It's actually much quicker and reliable to dredge them out using this deck's mechanic; and colorless mana doesn't do a whole lot for any of my quick-play combos. Dread Return is the only creature dredge it could trigger, with Exhume still requiring a Black despite being only 2 CMC.

Purely colorless mana also completely prevents me from casting some of my key early-play Combo cards in the deck such as Putrid Imp and Culling the Weak, as well as some key Support/Backup options such as Unearth and Stromkirk Condemned. For that reason alone I'm not a fan since it could throw off Land ratios too much (I was already apprehensive about Dakmor Salvage going in just because it enters tapped; not having a Black option seems really limiting here)

Not saying they wouldn't help at all, but apart from being more of a mid-game focus (which this deck doesn't really need since it tends to have games in the bag by turn 4 or 5 at the latest) this is also something of a budget deck as a concept so singles like Ancient Tomb are definitely out for me unfortunately. Especially, since as you pointed out, you really want multiples in a deck which runs & relies on them).

If you end up doing a clone build of this deck to playtest and toss some in, I'd still be interested to hear how they work in conjunction with the strategies outlined in the deck description.

Cheers!