Buried Alive would be an excellent choice without costing an arm and a leg. Victimize might be a good choice for recursion, though if you like repeatable recursion, Demon of Dark Schemes or Hell's Caretaker could be a solid choice.

Why is Draco here? He gets his cost lowered by the number of basic land types you control, such as Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest. You're a mono black deck that can't run the other basic land types; you would be paying 14 for a 9/9 flyer, and then be forced to pay 8 mana on your upkeep in order to retain it. That's... just not a good creature choice for this deck. Gray Merchant of Asphodel would be a much, much better choice for this deck.

Also, Vesuva and Thespian's Stage are almost auto-includes in mono black to copy Cabal Coffers. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx would be great here as well due to your severe investment in black-heavy costs (better than Everglades at least).

PookandPie, thank you for the suggestions. I do have some copies of Buried Alive I can add. I think I took it out for more recursion, but I can add it back.

Draco is mainly in there as discard fodder for Volrath the Fallen. Make him big, swing hard, especially if the Loxodon Warhammer is out, or the Dauthi Trapper. But I could sub it out.

I'm also looking at adding Dauthi Embrace and Rogue's Passage to get Volrath damage through.

Vesuva is probably out, due to the cost, but I could go with Thespian's Stage. I didn't realize the value of Cabal Coffers! It might be time to get this deck into some sleeves.

No Sol Ring? Also, Jet Medallion, Commander's Sphere and Charcoal Diamond are great mana rocks, and Read the Bones, Night's Whisper and Read the Bones are all good card draw spells.

I definitely second Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, its just too good. Expedition Map is a really good option for searching for Coffers etc. Since you are keeping it budget I won't suggest the other tutors, but if you can I really like Liliana of the Dark Realms. She didn't seem like much to me at first, but she really is great card advantage that flies under most radars at a table. Graveborn Muse is my favorite card draw in black if you can't use Necropotence due to the exile/discard downside. Skullclamp/Solemn Simulacrum is in almost every deck I make, though you may not fully take advantage of them they are pretty amazing.

I completely blanked on Volrath; I thought his ability was removal, not pump. That's what I get for not looking at the Commander before commenting.

In that case, keep Draco, and then consider the following:

Shizo, Death's Storehouse is a great way to get Volrath through against nonblack/nonartifact creatures. You can basically remove any land to include it.

Trailblazer's Boots is generally better than cards like Brawler's Plate- while it doesn't contribute a +2 power increase, it is almost half as much mana to play and attach while also having significantly better evasion (as even mono color decks in Commander run a bunch of nonbasic lands).

Key to the City is a new card worth looking into, as it wouldn't require any additional mana in order to make Volrath unblockable once it is out.

Filth and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth form an excellent little combination to make Volrath unblockable. You should be running Urborg, anyway, and Filth would be a strong inclusion over something like Greven-Il Vec whose only purpose is to be tossed to Volrath (when you toss Filth, you make Volrath unblockable against 1/5th of the colors of magic. That's worthwhile even if a little less powerful).

Artisan of Kozilek, It That Betrays and other Eldrazi would be perfect in this deck. You could easily remove illegal cards like Infernal Spawn of Evil for Artisan, who actually works better in the deck as a whole. Pestilence Demon is better than a lot of your creatures on the higher end, as well, and Reiver Demon would be your new best friend.

Oversold Cemetery would probably be better than some of your other recursion cards at the moment. Or, the cheaper Palace Siege may be worth a look (perhaps over Macabre Waltz).

Pieguy396, I do have a Jet Medallion, Sol Ring, and Charcoal Diamond I can add.

dlamars, I like Liliana of the Dark Realms! And I could go $7 for that. I don't think I have enough of a zombie theme to really reap the benefits of Graveborn Muse. I do, however, own some of the other black tutors: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, Diabolic Intent. I just have them spread out in other decks, and I hate doing the card switcheroo. But I could get a few of them to run in the deck.

PookandPie, thanks for those suggestions. Lots of good ones there I will look into.

Meh Tbh tutors aren't super important, most of the time I go for lands like Cabal Coffers or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx so Expedition Map or more draw is fine.

I use Graveborn Muse more like a second Phyrexian Arena, I like that it can come out a turn earlier than Bloodgift Demon and has the potential to draw more even if it's only 2. I've even tried Grafted Skullcap and Memory Jar with some success, though it is a slow way to go.

dlamars: I kind of agree on the tutors. They're nice if you need combo pieces, but this isn't a combo deck, and I like the randomness of the game. And more tutors mean fewer creatures. You make a good point in Graveborn Muse, so I'll add it to the Maybeboard.

Memory Jar is an old favorite of mine. I used to play it in a deck in combination with Megrim. Loved it. And its great for shaking a game up.

bushido_man96,

It look like you deck has a very high casting cost here is one way to fix that Magus of the Coffers + Sword of the Paruns that would give you infinite mana.

Good way to buff your creature's or your general would Ascendant Evincar or Nightmare Lash

Also Sidisi, Undead Vizier, a good board lock would Archfiend of Depravity I have one a few games with him. Also for board control Thornbite Staff + Royal Assassin or Kiku, Night's Flower.

For graveyard recursion Beacon of Unrest because, it's a good reusable spell.

Royal Assassin and Thornbite Staff are good call. I run a Staff in my Brion Stoutarm deck, and it works wonderfully. It would also work nicely with Avatar of Woe. I'll also take you Magus/Sword of the Paruns idea into consideration, too.

Now, the hard part. To start figuring out what stays and what goes. It should probably have a good chunk of creatures, but how many? How many ramp cards? How many Voltron options? Decisions, decisions...

My two suggestions for this deck are:

Abundant Maw ($0.25) and Distended Mindbender ($1.00).

They're both easy on the budget, have HUGE CMC for Vorlath to swing with, and a good way to alternate cast them for cheap while using your other graveyard return to return the creatures they emerge from if you decide you need them on the field instead. (the cast ability on Distended Mindbender can really ruin someone's plans, in particular if they tutored for something.

Looking like a fun deck!

+1

Hey, so I looked back at some of my decks and realized I forgot to mention some ramp options:

Sword of the Animist, Burnished Hart and Myriad Landscape are all great. Solemn Simulacrum I mentioned earlier, it goes in all my decks with Sol Ring. All those extra swamps allow me to use cards like Lake of the Dead(buyout caused this card to Spike unfortunately) which is great but requires a bit of forethought on when to use it, same with Strands of Night which is my second favorite card for Reanimator decks next to Corpse Dance. Anyway hope it helps.

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. I think its really starting to smooth things out. I've dug out some of the options mentioned already, and look to add them in soon, I hope.

Panzerforge, I think I even have those two cards lying around here, so they'll make a nice fit. At any rate, easy to try.

suggestions:

mana rocks, more rocks, lopsided boardwipe, Decree of Pain, Diabolic Tutor, Chainer, Dementia Master, more tutors, even more tutors, not urborg sadly, fuel for reanimation, oh you're trying to kill my creature? cute, cheaper than plate

How do you like the kruphix deck or still in the process of being made? Phelddacombo is coming at some point.

chaosumbreon87, thanks for chiming in. All good suggestions, and I'll be considering some of them, for sure. My deck is going to look so much different by the time I get through with it here. So many good options, its probably over 100 cards by now.

I've put in an order for a chunk of the cards for the Kruphix deck, and hope to finish it with another order in a few weeks. I'm really looking forward to playing it. Pfelddacombo- love that name! May I use it? :)

No problem. I havent had much time to build magic due to the holidays but I think I can push the phelddacombo deck if you would like to see it by a certain day or time. Of course you can use the name. Ill build the deck with the same restrictions as earlier (5$ unless really important to the deck). I usually check with TCGplayer if a card goes to 6-7$. ill try to suggest cuts when I have time to sit down and think.

Thanks, chaosumbreon87. That would be really great. No real hurry with Phelddacombo; priority right now is Kruphix, and I will try to work on Volrath in between, too. I'll have family in town in early February, and my hope is to have those three decks up and running by that time.

The Phelddagrif decklist I had found on this site had a win condition involving card draw, but seemed to be a late game win, staying really political throughout. Problem is, I found the deck in a Google search, and just jotted it down. I had not joined the site yet, so I don't recall whose deck list it was. I'll try to search for it later, that way that person gets some credit. I do know the deck list did not have the Laboratory Maniac in it, but did have Blue-Sun's Zenith, along with some other card draw spells.

Ok, I've made some changes with what I had on hand. Here's what I've done so far:

In: Charcoal Diamond, Dauthi Embrace, Sol Ring, Hell's Caretaker, Ascendant Evincar, Distended Mindbender, Abundant Maw, Artisan of Kozilek, and Thornbite Staff.

Out: Soratami Cloud Chariot, Western Paladin, Eastern Paladin, Distorting Lens, Delraich, Wall of Shadows, Infernal Spawn of Evil, Sorceress Queen, and Commander Greven il-Vec.

Now, as I acquire some of the other cards, I'll need to decide what stays and what goes. What should I switch out for Buried Alive at this point? I do have a Jet Medallion, but do I really need it? Hopefully I'll get some play testing done with it this weekend and see how it goes.

hythonia is kind of a nonbo. Word of binding is not that good. Dead>tapped. There are the 2 cuts. Not sure but Elixir of Immortality might be fine if deckout becomes a problem. another card that might stop decking out: Dread. Now back to the depths of the internet. Have fun.

Ok, I'll cut those two and add Buried Alive and Jet Medallion. I plan on getting the pieces to run the swampwalk theme as well.

Now, my next question is, how many creatures should I run in the deck? There are 26 in the deck right now. With the primary theme being discard to Volrath and swing big, then reanimate or recur to hand, how many creatures should there be? Along with that, how many Voltron options for Volrath should I run? I plan on cutting Brawler's Plate for Trailblazer's Boots, and I plan on keeping Loxodon Warhammer and Lashwrithe, but am not as sure on some of the others. But, they were what I had, and they help make Volrath a bit more intimidating. I guess I'm asking what the balance would be, and how do you usually figure things like this?

There is no distinct amount for ratios as each commander ratio will be different. Cards I can suggest at some point: Grave Scrabbler, Grim Harvest, Living End (6.52 tcgplayer)/Rise of the Dark Realms (6.23 TCGplayer). Really the only way to know is to play test with the numbers and different cards and test which cards work. For some commanders, the path and ratios are already set but that is mainly for the commonly used commanders.

Imo I'd cut any equipment that doesn't give great evasion or hexproof. The standard Lashwrithe just isn't necessary here and you haven't really solved your issues with speed yet. I would limit creatures to your very best 15 to 20(keep it at around 20%) and focus on draw/getting Volrath out turn 3 or 4. Rituals(Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual), artifact ramp(2cmc and under) and even group hug draw cards under 3 CMC(Howling Mine) are all acceptable if your game plan is to use a large volrath to kill someone turn 4-6. The deck sets itself up for mid to late game Reanimate strategy but there are going to be combo/control decks that you need to take out before they can get going. Just my 2 cents.