I don't believe duress is still standard. Try Distress in place?

Thank you, I missed that.

Smallpox maybe?

I piloted a rock deck for quite a while in the current standard. While it may have been a bit underwhelming due to my budget, it does have success.

Don't forget the Glissa, the Traitor + Ratchet Bomb combo! It is fantastic.

@EleshBlade: I considered Smallpox but decided that it wouldn't have a positive enough or disruptive enough effect to justify the sacrifices the deck has to make.

Consider when you would normally play Smallpox. Ideally, we want to use it in a situation where we gain more advantage from it than our opponent does (turn three with a LTB effect like Black Cat on the board).

Think about it like this: We're trading Smallpox (1 card), a land (1 card), a potential creature (maybe 1 card), and a card from hand (1 card) for a potential return of the same (MINUS THE CAST OF SMALLPOX).

3 for 2 or 4 for 3 just doesn't seem good enough to me. Especially if we're on the play and have only drawn two other cards.

Sure it's disruption, but in the current environment, I believe the cost to be just a litttttle bit too high when I could instead run Geth's Verdict.

I just got done playtesting this deck against Wolf Run and I have to say that I was underwhelmed by Bloodgift Demon. He's cool in theory, but I never played him as compared to something else in my hand before it. I'd rather see those two cards go to another 5-drop, Curse of Death's Hold.

Your thoughts?

Never mind. I just reread your article and you don't want to run the Curse at all. I still feel that you would be better off with having two in the sideboard for specific match-ups with Delver, tokens, and WRR.

-1 Molgraf

-1 Distress

+2 curse of death's hold.

-1 Doom blade

+1 go for the throat (zombies are big right now)

Why do you choose Primeval Titan? You don't have any utility lands. I believe Grave Titan or Wurmcoil Engine would fill the spot nicely.

Also, Grim Backwoods could be useful in situations where your creature is getting removed.

Why not 4x Woodland Cemetery?

Either way, I like this concept. I also found that your article was very informing.

Answered in chronological order.

@dcarpntr: Bloodgift demon is a four turn flying clock that generates card advantage. Our goal is to win with midgame creatures that end the game quickly if unanswered. Bloodgift Demon fulfills this goal not only by beating for five, but also by netting cards if he lives beyond one turn.

Per the observation on Curse of Death's Hold: It's already in the sideboard that I've been playtesting. The curse simply hasn't made its way into the decklist here online. Friday is when I post up the next part of this article series and will update everything accordingly.

Those things aside, what were your experiences testing against WRR?

@Cableguy: The lack of a split between Doom Blade and Go for the Throat was intentional to reveal a weakness against black matchups. It is in the sideboard currently just like Curse of Death's Hold for dcarpntr. I wouldn't remove a Distress in favor of anything other than an information gathering discard spell. Distress is the deck's primary answer to early enchantments or problematic artifacts. Acidic Slime is a house, but he can't carry all the weight.

Per Moldgraf Monstrosity: It's only answers which do not annihilate our opponent are Fiend Hunter and Oblivion Ring. Any other answer returns dangerous threats from the grave.

@Miasma: The Woodland Cemetery as an x3 is an error. Thank you.

Grim Backwoods might be more useful if I ran a number of creatures > 13. It was in my cardpool along with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed for the shell-build but it ended up not making the cut because of the BB requirement of both Liliana and Distress. Having colorless generating land makes more awkward draws than you would think.

Primeval Titan was mainly my choice under the following logic:

1. He can't be Celestial Purge'd
2. He thins our deck out of land (of which we want to draw 0 more after we hit 6 even though I have a three spells total that cost more than that)
3. Should I add Grim Backwoods or Haunted Fengraf, he can search them out
4. He has Trample

While Grave Titan or Wurmcoil Engine may be better cards FOR the deck, they are not the right cards to have IN the deck because people are running black exile hate for Zombies and artifact destruction for swords in delver. My goal was to have no solid cards for those targets (Sheoldred, the Demons, and Liliana are my only black permanents if you noticed).

Keep your eyes open Friday to see what happens with the deck and why. A lot of your commentary (all three of you!) is spot on with what I'm seeing in testing.

I still say you need a way to remove black creatures with a 2 mana kill spell. Your just asking for a game 1 loss.

I understand distress than you might consider cutting a despise as it is much more limited.

1 curse main is never a bad thing especially against WRR delver, humans, tokens, etc. the majority of the good decks right now are aggro and should be taken into account.

Molgraf's 2nd ability is almost voided by the amount of graveyard hate in the rotation right now. Besides one scenario very well could be it recurring 2 thrun at the same which is ick. I think a grave titan instead and adding a sorin NOT the innistrad one but when you drop grave titan and their life becomes 10 they HAVE to answer and if they dont they will be hurting big time if not dead.

Go for the Throat is going to be in the main as a 2 of, 2 of Doom Blade, -1 Tribute to Hunger. That's what it's looking like.

A singleton curse isn't bad but if we're considering dropping it against the field of 1/1s then it needs to be reliable @ at least 2, if not 3.

Sorin Markov was indeed in Rawked and I'm strongly considering putting him into the Main over the Moldgraf monstrosity.

Def use Sorin Markov in main. Its a great way to add some non-creature threat to the deck and throw some non-CB damage at your opponent while gaining life. And his ultimate is a complete game ender.

I'd run Sorin Markov over Moldgraf Monstrosity

When I platested last time against WRR, this deck won 3-2. Both losses were to a pumped Inkmoth Nexus. I went back today and playtested some more with a better understanding of the deck and it beat WRR 3-1 this time (only win was by top-drawing a Slagstorm targeting players after a non-metalcraft Galvanic Blast to the face on the previous endstep). And now I find myself in agreement with you, Bloodgift Demon is really good. But possibly my favorite spell in the whole deck is Life's Finale. It kills WRR if you take out 3 of the 4 Primeval Titan from the deck. Sure, Inkmoth, Inferno Titan, Huntmaster, and Thrun are big threats, but having no Prime Times really slows the deck down.

One thing I will suggest is that you need to sideboard that 2nd Thrun, the Last Troll . Too many times I was sitting there with one on the battlefield and the other in hand or the graveyard and Sheoldred, Whispering One was in hand or on the battlefield as well. Legendary ruling yourself sucks. I was thinking that a couple of decent replacements for the 2nd Thrun might be Batterskull, or even a Pristine Talisman if you're interested in life gain and/or mana ramping, since you're not looking to mainboard one Curse of Death's Hold.

I hope the sideboard that you're releasing later has three Surgical Extraction and a couple Nihil Spellbomb in it.

I really like the deck thus far, and am eager to see the changes you make this Friday. Keep up the good work!

@dcarpntr: Doesnt sound like a very good WRR player. As a wolf run player I win 65% of my matches without Primeval Titan on the large stage. He speeds things up but played the wrong way he is often a Harrow minus the destroy your own land clause. Playing primeval should be a finisher or first step to finishing and not be seen as a mana ramper the two concepts are completely different. Most bad WRR players toss him out asap and usually right into the opponents kill spell. That play is ONLY logical if and only if you have 2 or more in your hand or if you have a green sun and one.

I think you've taken a step backwards with these changes.

One thing to note is that you have 6 copies of loses a ton of value when he only pumps out 1/1s and Phyrexian Obliterator doesn't get the heartless discount. Due to your discard/removal suite Sangromancer might be worth a look, but I think Entomber Exarch seems like the best option. I think the best plan of action is to not worry about a turn 1 Heartless Summoning.

Outside of heartless, Chancellor of the Tangle is still a particularly useless addition to your list. The only other cards he allows you to cast turn 1 are Doom Blade and Go for the Throat, which are two cards that chances are you would rather save for a larger threat than a 1-drop. Moldgraf Monstrosity was a much stronger card in your list and was one of the very few that play well with Liliana.

The problems with Liliana of the Veil still haven't been answered. There is no way to break the symmetry but more importantly she is completely defenseless in the early turns when she can do her most damage.

Increasing Ambition isn't a good card, and is easily outclassed by another tutor if you are running Heartless Summoning. Why not just go for spending five mana and getting a 5/5 flying demon to go along with your tutor? Rune-Scarred Demon would also help shore up flying defense if you get rid of the chancellor. Truthfully I don't see a reason to use tutoring effects in this deck at all. Is the card you are searching for worth timewalking yourself? It better straight up win the game when you cast it, and nothing in this list does that.

On the positive side, I like Sorin Markov here. Even though he costs 6 mana this list probably wouldn't have done a ton of damage to the opponent by then. Would you pay 6 mana to do an immediate 10 damage to an opponent after spending the first five turns establishing board dominance? I think in this case the answer is yes. With the rope-a-dope style of this deck the lifegain aspect is not irrelevent.

I still think this deck will have trouble with creature swarms (in particular humans that use Thalia) but Curse of Death's Hold and the extra Sever the Bloodline are smart additions. They will be extremely useful against spirits and zombies.

Ditching Praetor's Grasp and Distress I also think will help this deck a lot. The power to colored-mana ratio just wasn't there for deck that chooses to go the Heartless Summoning route instead of using traditional ramp spells.

In regards to 6x , but the more I play around with Liliana, the more I feel like I cut the wrong walker. To make her function correctly, I feel like we would need Birds of Paradise as our ramp so that a T2/3 Discard effect would catch an Unburial Rites from our hand and break the +1 balance.

I appreciate the constructive comments and honesty. Check back in on Wednesday to see what testing showed and what changes were made!

+1 because Sorin Markov is sooo underrated.

Under-used I think is a more accurate assessment... there's just so few strategies that he fits with in standard.

Is anyone else seeing a 40 card deck?

No. 14 + 7 + 6 + 7 + 3 + 23 = 60