Vigor Mortis

**Imiak** · 02-01-2018 09:03 AM

To begin with, the card Vigor Mortis is not included in the deck. It's not a Legacy playable card, don't worry. However, the phrase and the card itself is very descriptive for the deck in a way.

Vigor Mortis (lat.) could be translated as "The liveliness of death" and as you'll notice: the dead won't just stay put!

To begin with, here's the current list:

Vigor Mortis (v. 0.9, 2018) main deck

7 [black fetches]
2 Swamp
2 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Cabal Pit
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland

4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Bloodghast
2 Gravecrawler
2 Cryptbreaker
1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Scourge of Nel Toth
4 Entomb
2 Bridge from Below
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality
2 Smallpox
2 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
1 Lingering Souls

And as can be seen, the deck (like the card Vigor Mortis) is heavy black, and doesn't necessarily need anything else to do it's thing. However, access to green gives access to some interesting maneuvers in the form of loaming and DrS activations. In addition to the green splash, SB also features white and red stuff, but the only MD white/red card is the single Lingering Souls.

The Strategy and Gameplay

The deck is generally a graveyard synergistic aggro with an Entomb-toolbox, that borrows gameplay elements from Dredge & Pox. It can also switch to combo or control mode when given an opportunity (or just chosen to go for it).

One of the sweetest aspects of the deck is that it's freaking tricky & surprising. It can suddenly go nuts after an innocent-looking one-drop by raving all around with Putrid Imps, Carrion Feeders, Bloodghasts, Entombs, Bridges from Below, Cabal Therapies and so on. Turn 2 6/6 flyer with a few 2/2 zombie companions is something to look for. The deck can also aim for a grindier game by therapying, wastelanding (with loam recursion) and smallpoxing the opponent's resources. Your opponent won't be prepared for all that's happening and probably even you'll miss lot of edges yourself that you just didn't think of.

Even though being generally a graveyard deck and really hating stuff like Leyline of the Voids, Vigor Mortis isn't as greatly impaired with gy-hosers as decks like Dredge or Reanimator-variants. We can just start dropping cheap threats and disrupt the opponent's gameplay while waiting a solution to the hoser and maybe casually win games while doing it.

Let's have a look of the current version of my sideboard.

Vigor Mortis (v. 0.9, 2018) sideboard

solutions to gy hosers & other annoying permanents

1 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge (entombable!)
1 Ray of Revelation (entombable!)
2 Wear // Tear

hand disruption

1 Cabal Therapy

creature hate

1 Grave Pact
1 Minister of Pain (small)
1 Darkblast (small) (entombable!)
1 Vengeful Pharaoh (big) (entombable!)

graveyard hate

4 Leyline of the Void (also sticks BfB on the graveyard 8) )

lockdown against control/midrange

1 Contamination

Interesting options / maybeboard: