Volrath: No School, like Old School
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 156 | 64 COMMENTS | 6759 VIEWS | IN 20 FOLDERS
Thank you for your comment! Sorry for the late answer - I've been off the grid for a while. But this is exactly what I wanted to do with my deck, get that sense of nostalgia of black coolness, while still being effective enough to compete properly. I've taken your suggestions to heart and added Strip Mine + Ancient Tomb for utility and manaboost. and yes, I'm adding a bit more card draw.
July 16, 2020 6:14 a.m.
king-saproling says... #3
Very cool! These might interest you: Oath of Ghouls, Oversold Cemetery, Minion of Leshrac, Minion of Tevesh Szat, Endbringer's Revel, Haunted Crossroads, Animate Dead, Koskun Falls, No Mercy, Null Brooch, Dawn of the Dead, Erratic Portal, Strands of Night, Endless Scream, Shade's Form, Gravestorm
July 17, 2020 1:15 p.m.
Thanks king-saproling Very nice suggestions indeed! Koskun Falls and No Mercy would be very good protection for sure. And Strands of Night seems so powerful in this deck - really need to find a spot for that!
July 18, 2020 3:43 a.m.
StasisAbuser says... #6
So happy to see someone build a commander deck exclusively with old school frames, especially black which has the best old frame IMO. I have a five color Karona, False God deck with the same theme myself :)
Only suggestions I can offer are Cuombajj Witches, Unnatural Hunger, Plague Spitter, Cabal Ritual, and Last Laugh.
Subbing to this deck as it has given me ideas to maximize the old frame cards in my own mono-black deck.
July 21, 2020 4:41 p.m.
StasisAbuser - your Karona, False God looks very interesting! Thanks for your suggestions - Cabal Ritual is almost always a good graveyard deck card. and Cuombajj Witches is such a classic IMO. I'm currently considering more card draw and more protection.
July 22, 2020 6:11 a.m.
MrKillStar says... #8
Really cool and unique deck! :3
Haunted Crossroads for very well for me, right next to Mortuary
Diabolic Intent - sac spell and good tutor.
Victimize - sac spell and double reanimator.
Insidious Dreams - discard stuff to reanimate later and find wincons!
Lake of the Dead - expensive, but can be very good burst ramp.
Carnival of Souls - might be very risky, but worth mentioning.
Ivory Tower - some very decent life gain for Necropotence and other fun stuff in black.
Restless Dreams - another creature recover spell and very cheap discard.
Songs of the Damned - Another burst ramp.
July 23, 2020 9:29 a.m.
Very nice suggestions MrKillStar.
I've already added Lake of the Dead :)
and REALLY considering Haunted Crossroads.
Thank you for your comment!
July 23, 2020 11:02 a.m.
MrKillStar says... #10
I use Haunted Crossroads as a combo piece in my For the Void, but it uses "newer" cards so I guess it would be use just as creature recovery here, but its still insant speed, so it can still be decent again some meany graveyard hate cards. I would probably change it for either Howling Mine or Stratadon? HM just draws an additional card pretty much for everyone and Stratadon is 9 mana 5/5 trample, which seems kinda underwhelming even if you somehow cheat/reanimate.
Anyway! Making mono-color deck from oldschool sets only could be pretty interesting to see! :D
July 23, 2020 12:55 p.m.
MrKillStar - thanks for your suggestions. I do find though the Stratadon works very well, discarding it for +dmg - then grabbing it from the graveyard just to do it all over again :) Still considering Haunted Crossroads though.
August 3, 2020 4:06 a.m.
MrKillStar says... #14
Asgeren - Ah, right, I totally forgot about Volrath... so Stratadon makes sense now, for my tiny brain :D
August 3, 2020 4:45 a.m.
Damn, this deck is a work of art! Thanks for sharing, Asgeren!
How does your deck fare against decks that aren't using Old School restrictions? I'm thinking mine will be fairly slow compared to some of my play group's decks. Do you have a similar problem? Your's also looks like it has much more efficient interactions than my mine too though so it might not even come up for you! :)
August 3, 2020 11:17 a.m.
Thanks Peoyogon I'm glad you like it. The deck holds up very well actually, and is very fun to pilot :) If your deck seems slow I'd suggest putting some manarocks in it, and lowering the cmc of non-essential spells - my decks actual cmc isn't nearly as big as it looks, since all my big beasties get discarded and cheated in for low costs. Hope that helps!
August 4, 2020 9:58 a.m.
MrKillStar says... #17
One thing I forgot to mention... Tortured Existence doesnt like Necropotence that much, thats why I had to cut Necropotence from my deck.. but I guess it should be fine here, drawing a ton of cards with it anyway, then swing for lethal. But just in case, watchout for that... And pretty much with any discard card in a deck with Necropotence, unless you dont care about your own graveyard. :D
But again, really amazing "themed" deck!
August 7, 2020 1:34 a.m.
That's indeed a very good point MrKillStar. I haven't had those two together yet for some reason, so I hadn't noticed. And indeed there's no problem with Volrath the Fallen as I will draw so many cards that I don't care if some gets discarded into exile. But I'll keep that in mind - thanks for heads up!
August 8, 2020 4:04 a.m.
I can now say there's no problem with Tortured Existence and Necropotence at the same time. Tortured Existence just becomes superfluous, and having only spent one mana on it, it's no biggie. Plus if Necropotence gets removed (which there's a big chance of) it comes back online.
September 9, 2020 7:38 a.m.
Update on Necropotence: Works very well with Tortured Existence and the likes, since discarded cards enter the graveyard before going into exile, which means they can actually be bounced to my hand before getting lost in oblivion. Perfect!
August 20, 2021 1:29 p.m.
Awesome deck, love the oldschool vibe. I didn't read through all of the previous comments thoroughly, but I didn't notice anyone suggesting No Mercy, so I'll just leave that here. Also, Avatar of Woe, because it's a potentially cheap bawler, and also a high CMC for Volrath.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Cheers!
December 10, 2021 1:23 p.m.
Oh, nevermind, scratch both of those suggestions. Your list isn't in alphabetical order, hahaha...
December 10, 2021 1:24 p.m.
Thanks for the suggestions still Epicurus.. They're indeed both very good cards in this deck :)
December 10, 2021 2:29 p.m.
The_Revenant_Wyvern says... #24
This deck looks quite cool! As someone who has been trying to theme out an entire deck around Hard-Rock/Metal music, this has certainly given me some food for thought (if not just a direct template to leap from). Awesome work!
December 10, 2021 11:42 p.m.
The_Revenant_Wyvern thanks for your comment! Yeah this deck definitely has that metal vibe, when smashing someone's face with 21+ commander damage in one hit! and it wins surprisingly often too - I even had a game the other night against Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Orvar, the All-Form and Prosper, Tome-Bound in which Volrath the Fallen proceeded to knock everyone out (with a bit of luck from the EDH gods of course!) single-handedly! Was so epic!
Dnonymous says... #1
I really, REALLY love this deck. You've done something awesome here. Every card evokes that teenage metal head comic book prog rock cartridge video game kinda feel you know? You've got me really wanting to try something similar with white though I'm not sure it would scale to a modern game of commander quite as well. Great work!
Here are some cards I think could be cool:
Mana Vault Greed Memory Jar Infernal Contract Ancient Tomb Chainer, Dementia Master Grim Monolith Terrain Generator Scroll Rack And I'm always happy when I have Strip Mine
Mostly I think the deck needs some more ways to keep it's hand full but beyond that it looks really solid over all.
April 24, 2020 10:17 a.m.