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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
"My Deck is like the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages..."
March 24, 2009

> Dear Bmoor,
>
> If you're reading this, then thanks a ton! My name is Robert and I
> come from Massachusetts, so here is my deck!
>
> Creatures (23)
>
> 4x Dark Supplicant
> 3x Cabal Archon
> 3x Rotlung Reanimator
> 2x Orzhov Pontiff
> 3x Souls of the Faultless
> 3x Vile Deacon
> 3x Blind Hunter
> 2x Scion of Darkness
>
> Artifacts (1)
>
> 1x Coat of Arms
>
> Enchantments (5)
>
> 2x Grave Pact
> 3x Conspiracy
>
> Instants (8)
>
> 4x Dark Ritual
> 4x Unmake
>
> Lands (25)
>
> 4x Starlit Sanctum
> 5x Plains
> 16x Swamps
>
> What i hope for is a turn one Supplicant, then another one on turn
> two.
> On turn three I want to play dark ritual and get out conspiracy,
> choosing clerics(conspiracy is where i got the name :-) ).
> Turn four, I want Rotlung,
> followed turn five by either another Rotlung or an Archon. Then I get
> another cleric and get out my Scion, but then i get three zombie
> CLERICS. At this point I haope to have an Archon, and then play a
> Grave pact, so i can have: B; gain 2 life and target opponent loses 2
> life, and each opponent sacs a creature.
>
> However, this deck doesn't work for a few reasons. One is that
> sometimes i can't get my combo, and then I usually either do okay or
> absolutely die. Another thing is that this deck gets killed by weenie
> rush, burn, and flying decks. Also, when my opponents get their big
> creatures out, sometimes i don't have Unmake handy, and am pulverized.
> I feel i need more creature control. Also, i usually don't play the
> Coat (either i don't need it or my opponent has a tribal deck), and
> extra copies of conspiracy go unused. I feel I could cut white, it
> currently doesn't do much for the combo. Also, getting my combo out
> faster would be nice. By the way, I know i need more copies, but I am
> on a sort-of-low budget*. I have four Willow the Wisps, and one
> Damnation I am considering.
> I also have another Vile Deacon to add. I already read the other
> cleric deck you did, but the strategy was different. Also, I do
> casual play, so any card from any expansion is useful.
> I'm a big fan of your articles, and if you are reading this, THANK YOU
> in advance.
>
>
>
>
> ~your humble fan, Robert
>
> P.S. If I sac my scion as a cleric for Dark Supplicant, and he goes
> to the graveyard, can i use the ability to bring him back?

Well, Robert, first I'll answer your last question: yes, you can sacrifice a Conspirator Scion to Dark Supplicant and then search your graveyard for that same Scion. The Supplicant's ability doesn't target the Scion in any zone, it just says to search those zones for a card named Scion of Darkness. Since the Scion will be in one of those zones by the time the ability resolves, you can get him back into play.

Now then, onto your deck. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if your deck relies on a combo, you need the rest of your deck to support that combo. The first way to do that is to HAVE FOUR COPIES of the Supplicant, Archon, and Reanimator. Conspiracy I'm not too worried about, since you've slipped in a decent Plan B: Scion of Darkness beatdown. You dont really need your Zombie tokens to be Clerics too if you're just going to bash face with that guy, so it's alright if you don't have four of Conspiracy. You also don't need four Scion, solely because your combo finds him for you no matter where he is.

Next, you need to increase the probability that you'll draw your combo pieces, or find ways to tutor for them. Black can draw cards if it's willing to pay life, but it's better at tutoring. Add in some Diabolic Tutor wherever you can find room. The best way to make room is to drop the white cards. They really aren't doing anything for you. You can also drop Coat of Arms, since it doesn't do much for you either.

You can further enhance your capability to draw your combo using mroe draw power. In black, that usually means trading life for cards. Fortunately, there's a Cleric that can do it painlessly-- Disciple of Malice. Cycle it if a 1/2 with pro:white isn't what you need at the moment and get yourself one card closer to comboing out. Or if you already have the Archon and Reanimator, play it, sacrifice it, and upgrade it to a 2/2 Zombie Cleric... which you could then sacrifice and get another one back, and so forth.

So, that'll speed you up a bit. Now for those problem areas: weenie rush, burn, and flying decks. Your deck is a bit of a weenie rush itself, needing so many Clerics out. But in all three of these match-ups, the problem is the same-- your opponent can deal a lot of damage to you.

My recommendation here is life drain abilities: if you gain more life than they deal damage, you live long enough to combo out. The Archon helps out a lot with that-- another reason you need a full four-- but since we dropped Blind Hunter, we'll need to replace it with something. Consume Spirit is an old favorite, but a bit pricey. My personal favorite is Feast of Flesh, as its cheap and it scales well over the course of the game, but the first one looks pretty anemic at only 1 damage/1 life. It could take out a few early weenies or small flyers though, which lets it pull double duty against those decks. Trouble is, it can only hit creatures, so against creature-light burn you may find yourself desperate to cast it and lacking in targets. I've recommended Syphon Life before, and while that one can only hit the opposing player, it can also reuse itself with discarded lands. And speaking of lands, Tendrils of Corruption made a big hit in Time Spiral block for its ability to take out an offensive creature as well as give you a sudden jump up in life. It really depends on what target you need to drain your life out of, and how big of a blast you want to hit it with. Against weenie rush I'd say Feast of Flesh, against burn Syphon Life, against flying decks either Feast or Tendrils, and against players with big 6/6-and-up monstrosities Tendrils. As for Consume Spirit, I don't actually like it that much. It's the most versatile of the above listed spells, but as a result it tends to be pretty overcostly compared to any other drain life spell at the same size. Compare it especially to Tendrils of Corruption, which will count all your Swamps but only ask you to tap four of them.

Honestly, I would recommend cutting Dark Ritual for the life drain. Why? Because a) four Unmake just isn't enough to keep you safe, and b) Dark Ritual just doesn't do too much for you. It gives you one big turn, but so many of your spells are cheap anyway that you'd be better off drawing another business spell than a spell that just gives you more mana for another spell that turn.

Give these changes a try, Robert, and see how they work for you. Hopefully you'll be showing your opponents the light, or in this case the Inquisition, soon enough.

Good luck!

~BMoor