Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Introducing Blood Therapy

  1. #1

    Introducing Blood Therapy

    Hi everybody! My name is BoltTheBird, and for the last couple years, I've been working on the following deck. I'm new to The Source, but not to Magic- feedback is very welcome, and I'll try to explain as much of this deck's design and build notes as I can.

    Blood Therapy


    4 Verdant Catacombs
    3 Marsh Flats
    2 Bayou
    2 Swamp
    1 Forest
    1 Dryad Arbor
    1 Cabal Pit
    1 Tranquil Thicket
    2 Barren Moor
    1 Phyrexian Tower
    1 Dakmor Salvage
    4 Wasteland

    4 Bloodghast
    1 Gigapede
    3 Deathrite Shaman
    2 Stinkweed Imp

    3 Mox Diamond
    4 Cabal Therapy
    1 Darkblast
    2 Entomb
    1 Raven's Crime
    3 Abrupt Decay
    2 Grisly Salvage
    2 Life From the Loam
    4 Smallpox
    1 Sylvan Library
    3 Liliana of the Veil
    1 Worm Harvest


    The Sideboard is currently under review, but the confirmed cards moving forward are some number of each of the following:


    Thoughtseize
    Leyline of the Void
    Golgari Charm
    Syphon Life
    Hymn to Tourach



    So the deck operates as a kind of Pox/Loam Control hybrid. This deck is very clearly a student of the Sean O'Brien School of Magic, as the focus is playing a game of resource denial backed up by complimentary threats. The difference between this and the more traditional Pox strategies is that most traditional Pox lists play more 1-for-1s ( Sinkhole , Thoughtseize) as their primary disruption, whereas I operate on the Bloodghast/Cabal Therapy engine (hence the name of the deck!). Not only does this give me the value of being able to flashback my early Therapies, but dredged copies are no longer just Shaman fodder. The abuse of Bloodghast doesn't stop there though- being able to consistently get BB without consequence from Phyrexian Tower allows you to cast some of the more expensive finishers or just operate on a thin land count (a definite issue at times). Also, while this is rarely necessary, it is possible to [CARDS] Darkblast your own Bloodghast in order to dredge for whatever answers you might need.

    The threats are not heavy hitters in the Legacy world, but they are both recursive from the graveyard so there is never a fear of milling away your win conditions. Gigapede is hard to kill, and one hit is typically enough to give your Bloodghasts haste the next turn, so he actually is able to close out games quickly. Worm Harvest can get out of hand quickly, or make enough blockers to stem some of the slower creature decks. While it's never great to see either of these in your opening hand, they can easily be pitched to a Smallpox without losing you the value of getting rid of a card more valuable in the early stages of the game. Also, you can sometimes just kill your opponent with Bloodghasts or Wasteland lock, so that's nice.

    Stinkweed Imp serves primarily as a blocker/dredge enabler that is surprisingly important against decks like Death & Taxes and anything with Knight of the Reliquary.

    From there, much of the rest of the deck is self-explanatory, but I'll happily post match-up notes (based on experience against known and proven archetypes) if people are interested! Thanks for reading!

  2. #2
    Member

    Join Date

    Dec 2013
    Location

    in my head
    Posts

    18

    Re: Introducing Blood Therapy

    Haha! I actually love this deck. Its very similar to what I ran a while ago. Mine also ran off the bloodghast Therapy engine (and ive actually been mentioning that in a few other pox threads to try out). Mine was BW and also made use of lingering souls with Crucible as its version of LftL.

    Overall your deck will likely be a tad more consistent than mine was as it has a way to generate true advantage through the dredging and cycle lands (which I was unable to play).

    I would suggest -1 arbor +1 urborg. I understand the reasoning of having arbor but I dont really like it in this pox kind of deck. I just feel like its very weak and honestly I would rather play Mishras Factory even though it cant be fetched. Urborg allows you to tap fetches for mana while saving them up to bring back BG instant speed whenever you need him and also help mitigate the life loss from them if you need to late game.

    I would also try -1 diamond +1 LotV. diamond I have always preferred as a 2 of unless you absolutely NEED the speed which this deck does not really. True its always nice to have but I think overall the extra Lilly would be far more powerful for the deck. This would slightly slow the deck down while giving you another creature kill, steady hand destroyer, and if ultimates can seal up a game almost as well as mindsculptor (of course her ult isnt THAT powerful but it is backbreaking to most decks)

    I look forward to seeing where this deck goes as it is a list that I can really relate to. Ill help contribute as I can but unfortunately there is almost zero legacy within reasonable distance of me and I cant afford to start MtGO atm.
    "I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them" -Volrath

  3. #3

    Re: Introducing Blood Therapy

    Hello,

    your decklist immediately catched my eyes, thanks for posting it! It looks so well thought out and it even plays like that! I really love all those sweet interactions within your list. Every card has its merits.

    I'd like to hear your thoughts on some of the matchups. I'd guess everything that wants to play fair seems like a pretty good matchup for you. Combo decks like the Show and Tell variants and Storm do not look that good on paper. Even Elves could cause you some problems... What's your opinion on that and what kind of SB strategies do you have against these decks?

    My first rough draft would be:
    4 Thoughtseize
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Engineered Plague
    2 Dread of Night
    2 Ensnaring Bridge
    2 Golgari Charm

    Thoughtseize and Extraction against Storm.
    Thoughtseize + E-Bridge against Sneak Show
    Dread of Night against Lingering Souls and Death and Taxes
    Golgari Charm looks great against a couple of decks like Elves, Death and Taxes and everything with TNN. This is where E-Plague also shines.

    With this SB I tried to adress the Swarm decks like Goblins and Elves and the Combo Decks as well.

    Thanks again for posting this really nice decklist.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)