[SCD] Songs of the Damned

[ykpon]

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/2347/songsofthedamnedfullh.jpg

it can produse huge amount of mana for a single black at instant speed, but the only use of this card i have seen was in a fluctuator deck. can it be somehow broken in something more stable?

some ideas:
1) Street Wraith
2) alara reborn one mana cyclers
3) Dredge
4) Survival
5) Glimpse the Unthinkable, Mental Note etc
6) odyssey block draw-discard stuff

[Elfrago]

Getting creatures in the graveyard isn't hard, the real problem is doing it quickly.
Ritual is good becouse it's three mana NOW, in the very first turn turn of the game. Drawing ritual past turn three sucks more often than not.
Even if you can dump creatures in the 'yard really quickly you usually will get only a couple of mana from Yoke before turn three, when it's already useless.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

To what end would you be playing Songs? You'd need to spend time, resources, and deck space to get a potent ritual. Cabal Coffers, Extraplanar Lens, and Heartbeat of Spring can all get you large amounts of mana in the long run while requiring less set up then Songs of the Damned.

Songs is poor for fast mana because you'd either need to spend your turns, mana, and cards putting creatures in the graveyard, or you need an instantaneous way to discard your library, at which point there are better options then Songs of the Damned.

[DrJones]

I've tried Songs on non-fluctuator decks, but in those decks the card worked worse than Soulshriek (if the deck is aggro) or Tombstone stairwell (if it's midrange). Also, these decks are worse than ichorid but affected by the same graveyard hate, and black combo decks have replaced Drain Life by Tendrils as the wincon, so they don't require as much mana as before.

[Zir]

How about an ichorid list with some of the 1 mana cyclers from ARB tossed in?
Returns for Witness, grabbing Songs of the Damned into Drain Life for 20!
Dredge - now with added oldschool.

On a more serious note, this is too clumsy to be used anywhere except for fluctuator. It forces you to have >3 creatures in the yard to make it better than a Dark Ritual, and you have to have a worthwhile out for all of the mana, which'll be hard considering half your deck is probably dedicated to tossing creatures into the yard.

[Occam]

I played this in SI previously, but not as a 4-of. I included Street Wraiths as well to increase its usefulness. I can't remember how many creatures I played in total, but i remember having tinder walls in addition to the typical kobolds, and songs was typically a dark ritual or better when it was cast. Its biggest problem is its instability in most opening hands.

[freakish777]

On a more serious note, this is too clumsy to be used anywhere except for fluctuator.

And Fluctuator decks are terrible.

[mercenarybdu]

It could see some play for being priced at a reasonable convert. Now the cost that will need to be furfilled is the creature part of it.

3 creatures = 3 mana

But how fast can you trash? that is the question.

Could work in a weenie deck. It trashes left and right allowing for fast mana to make the card effective. Good enough to make expensive removal to actually be affordable.

It would be funny if someone actually won an event with such a card, after everyone has been calling it shit for the longest of times.

[rufus]

Maybe some kind of combo deck using Necrologia - discard a bunch of critters into the GY, and then combo out.

[DrJones]

The problem is that combo and control decks don't usually work with few lands and a lot of creatures, and aggro builds with cards like vampire hounds/skyshroud vampire/zombie infestation don't require the extra mana of Songs of the Damned because they aren't playing their spells. Maybe if there are good black cards that can be played from the graveyard (flashback, unearth, carrionette, nether traitor...) you could find an aggro-control deck with an use for the card. Another option is going aggro-combo with Recurring Nightmare + Eternal Witness + any creature with comes into play ability.