Mono Black Myr Sacrifice deck.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Could a mod please move this to the Casual forum for me (if somehow y'all drop by here)? I seriously thought I was posting it there, but somehow it ended up in New and Developmental... *My bad*

Ok, so the folks I play casual with are mostly pretty cutthroat, which is why I have 4 Skullclamp in this deck. :wink: We mostly play multiplayer games, so that's what I'm trying to gear this for.

I'm not even going to post the version of this deck that I currently use, because some of the card choices in it are just sooo janky it's not funny. It's built from some random commons I took a liking to and a bunch of random black rares in my collection.

This is the "new improved" version of this deck, which I wanted to submit for critique before I buy the extra cards I'm missing. I'm just trying to build a fun, semi-competitive casual deck for multiplayer. Anyhow:

"Sacrifice The Robots for Profit and Fun!!"

4 Ornithopter
4 Myr Servitor
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Myr Retriever
2 Glaze Fiend
2 Moriok Rigger
3 Braids, Cabal Minion
2 Fallen Angel

4 Skullclamp
2 Cranial Plating
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Recurring Nightmare
3 Grave Pact

4 Vault of Whispers
4 Darksteel Citadel
14 Swamp (maybe cut 4 Swamp for Mishra's Factory or Blinkmoth Nexus?)

I'd really appreciate any ideas/critique, because as I said I own a lot of these cards, but not all. Mostly I just want feedback and ideas. I'm particularly interested if there are any other black or artifact creatures that are as awesome sacrifice targets as Myr Retriever and Myr Servitor? And please keep in mind that this is supposed to be a multiplayer deck when giving me critique.
One thing that comes to mind is I probably need a better source of lifegain than just Jitte, so if y'all have suggestions for that I'd also appreciate it.
Thanks y'all. Cheers.

[Exospaciac]

If you wanted more creature-y goodness, you can add Genesis Chamber.
I was going to suggest some form of evasion for your Glaze Fiends and Riggers, but you should have no problem clearing the board.

Looks both really fun and tough to beat.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

If you wanted more creature-y goodness, you can add Genesis Chamber.
I was going to suggest some form of evasion for your Glaze Fiends and Riggers, but you should have no problem clearing the board.

Looks both really fun and tough to beat.

I don't think Genesis Chamber would work all that well in this deck, because it would give my opponents stuff to sacrifice to Braids and Grave Pact, otherwise I'd like it.

Do you think Spawning Pit might be worth trying though, since it gives me another sac outlet and a way to make more random sacrificial robots?

Also, what would the best form of "moar dumb life-gain" for this deck be? Loxodon Warhammer maybe?

One more thing: Do y'all think Skeleton Shard is "too janky" to run as a one-or-two-of? How about Skull Catapult?

How about other "sacrificial lamb" creatures to compliment the Super Myr brothers, Servitorio and Retrievio? Nether Traitor? Bloodghast (ugh)? Anything worth using?

EDIT: Nether Traitor seems really sick with Skullclamp, since I can just chain two of them together on a single clamp to refill my hand (basically drawing two cards for each :1::b: I spend). Also, he's an awesome equipment carrier, because shadow is pretty good evasion. Do y'all think it's worth including four of them? If so, what should I cut?

[Vacrix]

It would require splashing a color, but you know what would be hilarious in this? Reins of Power. I will laugh my ass off when I steal my opponents creatures and then use them to draw cards with Skull clamp, and reanimate creatures with Recurring Nightmare. It would probably be another deck entirely but it looks pretty strong, especially if you add in more non-creature sac outlets like Spawning Pit.

EDIT:
Add Cabal Therapy. Protection + Sac outlet = Sexy.
Culling the Weak and Diabolic Intent are old School tech worth exploring too. All non-creature sac outlets btw.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Could a mod please move this to the Casual forum for me (if somehow y'all drop by here)? I seriously thought I was posting it there, but somehow it ended up in New and Developmental... *My bad*

EDIT: @Vacrix: Reins of Power is kind of a neat idea... Honestly though, I'm just trying to make this on the cheap, and although I already have 4 Glimmervoids and Seat of the Synods for days, I'm not sure if splashing a color would be worth it. Although Academy Ruins would be kinda sweet.

DOUBLE EDIT: REally though, what about Nether Traitor? I'm pretty convinced that I want four of them, but what do I cut? Also, how do I work in one or two Spawning Pits into here? Is Spawning Pit strong enough to include without ways to steal my opponents' creatures?

[Vacrix]

Spawning Pit is primarily a way to abuse Reins. Its actually nuts with Grave Pact in that you can sacrifice the creatures it makes to itself to make your opponent sacrifice more creatures. If you have 2 spawn tokens, you can make your opponent sac 3 creatures. Looks good to me. Its also great against removal like STP so that you can use Recurring Nightmare later, and it provides creatures to use with Recurring Nightmare.

I guess if you don't want to run Ravager for budget reasons, then you are missing out on a lot. What are the advantages of sticking to a mono-black build? Red gives you Atog, Shrapnel Blast, etc. There are a lot of options.

Nether Traitor.. is certainly nuts with Skullclamp and Spawning Pit for that matter. I'd cut Fallen Angel. Its expensive, you don't really have a way to accelerate it into play. By the time it comes out, you should already be sacrificing your creatures to fuel various engines as it is. I doubt you will have enough resources to take advantage of it effectively.

Also, Smoke Stack > Braids. Its more expensive and its not a creature, but you can ramp it up to 2 and do some disgusting things with Nether Traitor. It might even be worth it to get some Bitterblossum action in here to fuel your sacrifice engines. Then you could add contamination as a hard lock against non-B.dec

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Spawning Pit is primarily a way to abuse Reins. Its actually nuts with Grave Pact in that you can sacrifice the creatures it makes to itself to make your opponent sacrifice more creatures. If you have 2 spawn tokens, you can make your opponent sac 3 creatures. Looks good to me. Its also great against removal like STP so that you can use Recurring Nightmare later, and it provides creatures to use with Recurring Nightmare.

I guess if you don't want to run Ravager for budget reasons, then you are missing out on a lot. What are the advantages of sticking to a mono-black build? Red gives you Atog, Shrapnel Blast, etc. There are a lot of options.

Nether Traitor.. is certainly nuts with Skullclamp and Spawning Pit for that matter. I'd cut Fallen Angel. Its expensive, you don't really have a way to accelerate it into play. By the time it comes out, you should already be sacrificing your creatures to fuel various engines as it is. I doubt you will have enough resources to take advantage of it effectively.

Also, Smoke Stack > Braids. Its more expensive and its not a creature, but you can ramp it up to 2 and do some disgusting things with Nether Traitor. It might even be worth it to get some Bitterblossum action in here to fuel your sacrifice engines. Then you could add contamination as a hard lock against non-B.dec

Arcbound Ravager would definitely be sick, but yeah, you pretty much hit the nail on the head I don't want to spend the money on a set of those right now (it's kind of hard to justify, because Affinity is a terrible deck in Legacy)....

Another reason against Ravager is that my casual group plays like high powered jank decks if that makes sense... Last game I had a bunch of Rancored Albino Trolls swinging at me, for example. Lol. Shit like that. So not only do I not have the "I can use him in tournament-level play justification" to buy Ravager at the moment, there's a good chance it would actually raise the deck's power level well above the median of my group.

Smokestack might be better than Braids. I like that it hits enchantments and planeswalkers. On the other hand, in a 4-5 person multiplayer game, Smokers can be kind of slow, because you have to wait for your turn to come back around before it even starts to do anything. And it is more expensive, monetarily. I could see doing like a 1-2 or a 2-1 split between Braids and Stacks though.

Bitterblossom could be pretty cute, and I have been meaning to start testing Hollywood's list "The Gate" (over in N&D), so I might be tempted. On the other hand, I'm trying to fit more life gain into the deck, so it's kind of counterproductive towards that goal. Contamination is actually a decent thought no matter whether I run Bitterblossom or not, because it works fine off of Servitors and Retrievers.

The advantages of sticking to mono-black are threefold: 1. theme- I want this to be an "evil robots" deck basically; 2. budget- I'm building this for casual, and I'm not living a baller lifestyle at the moment, so it doesn't make sense to spend too much on it; 3. consistency- Grave Pact is a significant part of the backbone of this deck, and it costs :b::b::b:. As I see it, the main thing this deck is weak to right now is not being able to destroy artifacts and enchantments anyways, so green or white would make more sense to me than red or blue splashes, to be honest. I mean, Reins of Power and Atog are cute and all, but are they really necessary? Does what they add outweigh what they take away in mana consistency?

[Vacrix]

Rein's of Power is straight up the funniest thing you can do in a casual game. Especially when you only steal one dudes creatures and everyone else is laughing.. until Gravepact makes them sac all their shit too. I used to play it as a singleton in control w/ Mystical Tutor and Burn. It was hilarious. I would burn my opponent, let him play his creatures. Then steal them and kill him with his own medicine. Sure its cute. Its also awesome for casual games.

Also, if you are doing +4 man games, look into Subversion. Funniest shit ever in larger games.

It is true though that you are weak against artifacts and enchantments. Smokestack does take care of that pretty well, even if you have to wait a few turns for it to take effect, if affects everyone and is teh hax with Gravepact because once they lose one creature, they lose the next one, and then have to revert to sacrificing their lands since they will run out of creatures so quickly. In that case, Bitterblossum looks even more attractive as it will continue to provide you with creatures.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Yeah, I'm pretty sold on Smokestack, although I'm gonna keep at least 1 Braids in there because I love that crazy bitch. Lol.

Do you think this deck is getting enough out of Recurring Nightmare? It seems like Spawning Pit might be a decent replacement actually (which would take some money off the purchase in order for me to order a couple Smokestacks...) It just seems like since there are so many creatures in here that reanimate themselves, and so few huge juicy reanimation targets, it might not end up doing as much as it looks like it would.

Also, Subversion seems pretty sweet. Kind of expensive though... I'm not sure how well it would play out. I'm thinking Basilisk Collar/ Loxodon Warhammer might end up replacing Cranial Plating, but I'm not so sure about that either. I just know you gots to be gaining some life in multiplayer games.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Updated list:

"Sacrifice The Robots for Profit and Fun!!"

4 Ornithopter
4 Myr Servitor
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Myr Retriever
4 Nether Traitor
1 Braids, Cabal Minion

4 Skullclamp
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Spawning Pit
2 Recurring Nightmare (or maybe Contamination??)
2 Smokestack
3 Grave Pact

4 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Volrath's Stronghold
17 Swamp

Ok... Does this look like an improvement?

EDIT: Is Ornithopter actually the best use for that slot? I'm kind of having second thoughts on how good he's going to be, I might end up putting some combination of Glaze Fiend or Moriok Rigger back in in his place... (If Glaze Fiend comes back in, Darksteel Citadel/ Vault of Whispers probably takes the place of Blinkmoth Nexus and 4 swamps)... Maybe even Desecration Elemental? Any opinions?

Also, is Glaze Fiend possibly better than Disciple of the Vault if I build around him enough, or is that just crazy talk? I feel like this deck benefits from creatures with evasion...

[DuxDucis]

Whoops.

[Darkenslight]

This deck should SOOOO be called Corporate Greed! :D

I like the idea of this ebiung casual, but I also think it has potential. The only suggestion I'd make is to lose the hammers for Basilisk Collar. It adds to the massive death theme, to boot!