[SCD] Tortured Existence

[(nameless one)]

Tortured Existence :b:

Enchantment

:b:, Discard a creature card: Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand

I have not seen any discussion around this card so why not? Tortured Existence is a common card from Stronghold. Although not as gamebreaking as Survival of the Fittest, it could provide a similar effect from a different perspective. With this single card discussion thread, I will try to discuss what on and how can this card be utilized.

What decks can utilize Tortured Existence? Currently there are no decks that can utilize this obscure black enchantment. Looking at the Source's deck to beat, none of them really needs an effective creature recursion outlet. There are also no known deck established archetypes that can somehow utilize the ability it possess. Then why are we discussing about this card? It entirely possible to create a new archetype built around this deck.

One way that can be done with this deck is to build it around an aggro-oriented Madness. Madness is one of those archetypes that has been under the rocks for years. Although there are a lot of discard outlets out there, Tortured Existence has a very useful effect when you want to discard your creatures. Recurring creatures that are useful coming from your hand (such as cycling creatures) while activating Madness trigger is awesome. It creates a 1 for 2 advantage.

There are also other creature cards that can create a synergy with Tortured Existence. With Squee, it turns into a recursion engine. Bloodghasts suddenly costs: :b:, return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand. Well, that given you have triggered Landfall. It brings back discarded Loyal Retainers to recur a fallen Iona once more. It essentially turns useless creatures into useful creatures that have already been discarded.

I am certain that there are other more synergies out there that can revolve around Tortured Existence. I hope that someone will see the advantage this card creates and I hope that this single card discussion thread helps them see it. I would also like any meaningful discussion around this card under this thread. Thank you for your input.

[MGC_player]

I've actually been toying with this in multiplayer oriented decks (It's been a house actually). I've only used it for monoblack so far so I have no results yet for and color combinations of madness. I haven't tried it yet for tourney play. As mentioned, probably a Madness oriented deck would be the best way to go about using this card.

Cards I've used in a multiplayer Monoblack deck that uses Tortured Existence
Grave Scrabbler
Brain Gorgers
Viscera Dragger
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
Big Game Hunter
Shriekmaw

(Note: I know some of these are kinda scrubby, but the deck was geared more for a casual multiplayer environment)
There are probably several more that I am forgetting, but this is just a short list of things I have used with it. The usage of Squee here is a great idea. Recurring threats is always an interesting proposition. I'd be quite happy to see this work in tourney play and would happily build and test it should this idea get going.

[arebennian]

I know you mentioned it, but Survival just does this better.

Rather than just getting a creature that is in the graveyard (I.E. perhaps 3-6 at the most) you have access to what is left in your entire library.

Madness triggers and cycling would be just sas strong in Survival.

It's also far more difficult to exploit Squee because you actually have to have Squee in hand to pull off the +1 card per turn as you can't fetch for him like you can with Survival. That is an extra 3 slots that will take up your deck if you are really trying to get him in the Graveyard.

And if you are really desperate to get a card back, you just use Eternal Witness to get it back.

It really is just inferior. The only benefit it has going for it is that it is Black, and even that isn't necessarily desirable.

[Malchar]

The only reason that this could be better than survival of the fittest is because you can suddenly play a monoblack shell (or at least not go heavy green) and operate the deck with bloodghast (which in itself is already quite good). You can pitch a bloodghast to get one of anything that's in your graveyard, then play a land to get the bloodghast into play for free. Maybe you could abuse entomb with this?

Overall, it just feels like the worse-half of survival. It doesn't really let you do what you want to be able to do. Another card that might be interesting, although much most costly, is malevolent awakening:

Malevolent Awakening :1::b::b:
Enchantment
:1::b::b:, Sacrifice a creature: Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

This card creates a more interesting recursion loop with bloodghast. Something like sacrifice bloodghast to get an eternal witness back to your hand, play the witness to get any card back, play a land to get bloodghast back, sacrifice witness and bloodghast to get two creatures into your hand. The advantage in this case is that malevolent awakening lets you pitch creatures from play, which lets you operate the loop on your own rather than relying on your opponents killing your creatures.

Granted both of these cards seem rather underwhelming, I'm just trying to come up with a few interesting ideas. I would be the most enthusiastic about simply using bloodghast + survival or something like that.

[Nelis]

Just for reference. This has been played a lot at our local peasant tournament:

Creatures
4 Spore Frog
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Crypt Rats
1 Eternal Witness (U)
2 Farhaven Elf
4 Golgari Brownscale
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Vampire Nighthawk (U)
3 Wickerbough Elder
1 Battlefield Scrounger
1 Krosan Tusker

Spells
4 Tortured Existence
3 Sylvan Library (U)

Lands
12 Forest
12 Swamp

Sideboard
SB: 2 Grim Harvest
SB: 2 Mesmeric Fiend
SB: 4 Nausea
SB: 2 Night Soil
SB: 4 Nourish
SB: 1 Crypt Rats

[android]

I was trying to think of a way to recur Oriss, Samite Guardian for a lock and this could work with Squee but then I already have a bad deck going with all these sub-par cards running around. Being in black, you could then run Infernal Tutor to ensure you get 2 Oriss in hand. Another idea would be to recur Dryad Arbor as a landfall enabler but then how good is that really if you then need to sac it every turn and you're only getting one trigger out of the deal. I'm running out of bad ideas. This is like trying to come up with ways to break Blood Funnel. Probably not going to happen with the cards currently at our disposal.

[morgan_coke]

This card is an absolute house in MTGO Pauper, but in Legacy it suffers from three problems which aren't present in Pauper: namely, Oath of Ghouls, Oversold Cemetery, and Survival of the Fittest. All three cards do essentially what this does, except they generally do it better, cheaper, and with fewer restrictions.

I think this is a strong card in the abstract, but when compared to what else is available, it just doesn't quite cut it. Think Cycling cards and Spirit Cairn vs. Cycling cards and Astral Slide. They're both strong, and do a lot of the same things, but one's just a whole lot better.

For Tortured Existence to work, you'd need to find a deck/shell where it's particularities were exploited much more fully than any of the other similar cards its competing with.

[DrJones]

I think Phyrexian Reclamation has more potential than Tortured Existence because it doesn't require you to discard creatures, and the life loss is not too serious. I think it works best against blue decks because it can be played first turn, they have a slow clock, and it basically annuls their counters by constantly recurring your creatures. It's also works a bit differently than other famous recurring engines like
Recurring Nightmare
Survival of the Fittest
Oath of Ghouls
so it might have a place in decks that cannot take advantage of those. I haven't found a deck for it yet, sadly.

[Leftconsin]

I have considered a Tortured Existence a couple times in Survival builds as a way to recur at a cheaper cost than Genesis, but always found that the four slots it needs to take up to be reliable just aren't worth it in that deck.

Trying to build around it would be tough. You need to fill your deck with creatures that like to be in the graveyard many of which have already been mentioned. But this opens you up to yard hate even more than Survival because you have to maximize TE's power over just searching out another copy of Goyf or whatever, which is what Survival just does. Another problem is that TE requires you to find other means of finding what you try to go broken with. Its great with Squee, but you need another card to find Squee, or run an unhealthy number of Squees. So, we can't have a TE based deck all that similar to Survival, because for the most part, Survival is the better card.

So far Shriekmaw like cards seem like the best idea. Anything that loves to be brought back with Volrath's Stronghold or Genesis.

[sclabman]

Indeed there's quite a good pauper/peasant deck that utilizes Tortured Existence. I thinking up a legacy deck that utilizes it, but the effect it makes just isn't all that great.

[MattH]

I had a really sweet Survival/TE deck back when Legacy was new. I called it Sea World for some long-forgotten reason. But there's no way it could be competitive today.

[freakish777]

As stated the problem is how it stacks up against Survival, which being in a better color (in Legacy) for 1 more mana let's you run a bunch of 1-of tutor targets and go broken instead of running a bunch of 4-ofs that give you incremental gains.

For reference, in Survivial:

1 Squee
1 Genesis
1 Anger
1 Rofellos
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona
4 Goyf
1 Spore Frog
etc
etc

Which creatures exactly did you have in mind that are better than setting up haste dudes with Survival of the Fittest that get Rofellos'd into play?

[Brushwagg]

I love this card. But I think it's more a casual card. A while back there was a article on Wizard's Site asking for deck lists. The one I tried out was a blast to play.

The deck had and was Extended Legal at the time:

4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Tortured Existence
3x Phyrexian Altar
3x Fecundity

With some other stuff I really can't remember. But you wanted to get Phyrexian Alter in play with Tortured Existence and 1 Basking Rootwalla. Sac the Rootwalla for Black then pitch a Rootwalla to bring the sacced one back. Add in Fecundity to draw the deck. I can't remeber if Storm was around then or not. But it was pretty fun.