[Deck] Sadistic Sacrament

[apple713]

Updated:11/28/2015

Goal: eliminate opponents ability to win. Bridge stops most creature decks, Sadistic sacrament removes any problematic removal for bridge. Chalice and discard slow combo decks until you can hit them with a liliana / sadistic.

Ive tested this deck and I like it a lot. I'd really like help optimizing it and get some feedback.

Exile spells - 4
4 Sadistic Sacrament

Discard - 7
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

Removal - 13
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Snapcaster Mage

Draw - 3
3 Sylvan Library
1 Bottled Cloister

Lock Pieces - 9
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Lands - 24
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Island


SB: 2 Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
SB: 4 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Krosan Grip


Cards for consideration

Bitter Ordeal
Cursed Scroll
Neverending Torment

Gatherer search

Matches

Grave yard decks (dredge, manaless dredge, reanimator) are generally favorable at least in my experiences. The few outs they have to bridge are easily removed with sadistic sacrament. Chalice shines in the reanimator match and dredge as it slows them down significantly in addition to the discard available.

Delver matches are fairly good with exception of shard less / team america. Most delver decks don't have main deck answers for bridge. Their mana base is weak. Against RUG i actually removed all of the tropicals with 1 sadistic sacramnt to cut them off from green and it was easy from there. It is important that you mulligan correctly to have a faster hand so you can empty it and take advantage of bridge.

Sneak And show: really good since bridge wrecks them game one. You can put it into play off a show and tell. Some lists don't even run an answer for it post board.

ANT: chalice, and discard are effective at slowing them down till you can land a sadistic sacrament. Many lists only run 1 tendrils so its game if you can resolve it. TES and lists with burning wish are more difficult because of the additional outs. Burning wish can get a card removed with sadistic sacrament.

Enchantress: typically low threat count and gets punished hard by chalice.

Miracles: generally favorable depending. They can still draw well and make it difficult to land what you need. Mentor and entreat can end the game very fast if you struggle to locate a bridge. Generally the only issue I had with this matchup was jace the mind sculptor, BUT since I've added maelstrom pulse to take care of planes walkers it has not been an issue. Sadistic sacrament can remove their red mana sources to cut them off of blood moon, wear/tear. Council's judgement and engineered explosives are the only other threats I typically encounter.

Dark Depth's Variants: They can be fast but if you can wasteland them and surgical (game 2) that can often be enough to secure a victory. RG combo lands is slightly harder because of the wasteland lock but its possible especially with snap casters. Their only removal is krosan grip out of the board. If they are dredging they can mill some and you can remove others with sadistic.

Jund: Exile abrupt decay, chalice on 2 to stop loams / punishing fires / creatures. Watch for Liliana's.

The bad matches

Generally decks with a lot of threats / removal / multiple win conditions. I'm sure there are more than listed below but they are not coming to mind.

Shard less / team america: main deck abrupt decays with some tempo can that be enough to end a game quickly.

Painter: not terrible but not easy. 2 Win conditions. Must stop the painter combo first, then lock them out of beatdown mode while dodging blood moon effects.

Aluren: similar to painter. Stop the combo, stop the aggro, dodge counterpsells. Decay doesn't hit aluren. It didn't help that i wasn't familiar with this match.

Pox: idk what happened it just seemed to be more difficult that I wanted. This deck is mana hungry so anything that attacks the mana base is gonna be tough. Even though you can reliably get basics into play sinkhole and smallpox hurt.

Goblins: they are fast and sometimes you don't have enough time to stick a bridge and remove their artifact hate.

Death and Taxes: Can be bad since this deck needs to hit 3-4 mana to really get going. Early mother of runes can be a problem because they can poke you down with thalia and get though bridge since you can't empty your hand. You really need to hit a toxic deluge and remove their flicker wisps to be successful.




I'm really impressed with the deck so far however It hinges heavily on drawing bridge. I added bottled cloister to help and it does.

Adding blue was worth it because Snapcaster is a cheap way to recur either your removal, discard, or exile depending on the matchup. 1 of Jace is really good just because he fits the theme so well in denying them access to their outs.

I'd really like to get some input and ideas and possibly make this into a working deck.

[jrsthethird]

Smells like Lantern, but with better cards. I like it.

MD Surgical/Extirpate is a way to cheaply force Archive Trap. If you could line those up with Bitter Ordeal, that would be sexy as fuck. Too hard to reliably cast all three of those in 1 turn though. You would have to catch them fetching before your EOT step to really make Trap + Ordeal work.

Obviously there's discussion of colors. B/G gives you Decay and Library, but obviously running U gives you FOW/Brainstorm/etc. This kills the Chalice plan though.

Painful Truths is an option here, since you're splashing for blue in the SB you can make it a draw 3.

[apple713]

Smells like Lantern, but with better cards. I like it.

MD Surgical/Extirpate is a way to cheaply force Archive Trap. If you could line those up with Bitter Ordeal, that would be sexy as fuck. Too hard to reliably cast all three of those in 1 turn though. You would have to catch them fetching before your EOT step to really make Trap + Ordeal work.

Obviously there's discussion of colors. B/G gives you Decay and Library, but obviously running U gives you FOW/Brainstorm/etc. This kills the Chalice plan though.

Painful Truths is an option here, since you're splashing for blue in the SB you can make it a draw 3.

Unfortunately you cannot force an archive trap, at least not with surgical. Surgical allows you to search not your opponent.

One main reason to include BG was for decay. Its important that you have access to abrupt decay because you absolutely need your removal to hit the intended creatures. Against decks like rug you can get can get behind if they counterspell removal.

Bitter ordeal was cut after a few games because i couldn't get it together work well. Its harder to coordinate than you think and just planning to use fetches and wasteland isnt reliable. Often times i found that it was just an extra sadistic sacrament and currently im only running 3. So unless i included something else to synergize with bitter ordeal ill just add a 4th sadistic sacrament. I considered something drastic like armageddon + bitter ordeal (would be epic) but that would require a clean board which is fairly easy but then if i'm not able to recover fast enough my ensnaring bridge might not save me because cards can get backed up in my hand.

Im not sure what you want to include blue for? Force of will seems unnecessary since the deck sideboards into mass discard / exile.

I think painful truths is ok. Ive heard other decks talk about it but it doesnt seem that good. Pretty sure sylvan library is better. Because the deck runs 3 colors sdt comes to mind but that clashes with chalice.

[apple713]

Significantly Updated deck list. Included more information on matches. Still looking for help / suggestions.

[wcm8]

Life from the Loam is an obvious inclusion. It has synergy with Wasteland + Liliana + Jace + (to some extent anyways) Sylvan Library.

I'm not sure if Snapcaster Mage is worth running. I mean if it's just to recur cards, you could consider Regrowth, considering that A) you aren't forced to cast the targeted spell right away, and B) it recurs *everything*, even planeswalkers. I realize Snap has the added benefit of Flash and being a 2/1 is occasionally helpful, but, ehh..

Along with Loam, a couple man-lands might be okay. Mishra's Factory, Faerie Conclave, Creeping Tarpit... and I'd imagine that there's going to be a B/G man-land in the next set.

Loam doesn't force you to go all-in on the graveyard plan, but there are other things to start considering within a Loam BUG shell: Entomb/Intuition, Volrath's Stronghold, Engineered Explosives + Academy Ruins, etc.

[apple713]

Life from the Loam is an obvious inclusion. It has synergy with Wasteland + Liliana + Jace + (to some extent anyways) Sylvan Library.

I'm not sure if Snapcaster Mage is worth running. I mean if it's just to recur cards, you could consider Regrowth, considering that A) you aren't forced to cast the targeted spell right away, and B) it recurs *everything*, even planeswalkers. I realize Snap has the added benefit of Flash and being a 2/1 is occasionally helpful, but, ehh..

Along with Loam, a couple man-lands might be okay. Mishra's Factory, Faerie Conclave, Creeping Tarpit... and I'd imagine that there's going to be a B/G man-land in the next set.

Loam doesn't force you to go all-in on the graveyard plan, but there are other things to start considering within a Loam BUG shell: Entomb/Intuition, Volrath's Stronghold, Engineered Explosives + Academy Ruins, etc.

My hesitation about running some sort of loam engine is that if you mill it the card is gone... for the most part. Since this deck relies on making sure you draw certain cards like bridge and sacrament it would be very difficult to find what you need if there were copies lying in the grave.

I really like the loam engine but I don't think it adds that much. This deck doesn't take advantage of lands enough to really make it worth it. I do see the benefit in speeding up the deck but what do you suggest cutting to make it work? I like the idea of mox diamond because it would synergies with loam AND reduce hand size for decks that are faster where I struggle to empty my hand. Chrome mox might be better for cards that get stuck in my hand. It would provide an outlet for the discard spells after chalice for 1 hits.

If you are running a loam engine the deck could possibly benefit from a punishing fire engine too. I tried running fire and groves without loam and it didn't work. It's possible if we are cutting blue you can add red in its place. I also though about adding red because it gives you access to mizzix's mastery an alternative to snap caster. No body but cheaper in the case of sadistic sacrament.


Snapcaster is pretty good because it does provide a body but I do understand what you are saying about regrowth. It could get anything and i'd be able to drop blue at that point. I don't use much blue to begin with and splashing blue for a solitary jace is most certainly not worth it.


After playing several matches the deck does has some issues with "brew" decks especially with high threat counts. The one brew i ended up losing to ran jace, the living guildpact along with vensur, mangara, and karakas. In the board it also had nevinyrral's disk. I could have drawn better in one of the games but having that many cards to remove since they all pose a threat to bridges was very difficult. The main problem in that match was the 4 CMC planes walker. I do play maelstrom pulse for those main deck but it just wasn't enough with everything else.

Ideally, if the deck could be sped up without hurting itself due to chalice and possible include some other ways to deal with planes walkers that's something that this deck could really benefit from.