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BeJoSe's Deck Garage
Kokusho Deck
September 16, 2008

Welcome to BeJoSe's Deck Garage. I am here to provide advice for deck building. I'm best at casual decks in the T2 format, however I do work of competitive T2 decks and casual decks of any format. I hope that you can get some ideas and learn from my fixes and articles.
Send your deck lists to benzs1989@hotmail.com in the following format and with a short description of its goal and any problems it is having.  Hope to hear from you
 
Bejose

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Spells/Artifacts/Planeswalkers/Enchantments
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please help me i know it's bad
and i didnt buy the orzhov deck and change it around
it needs to be faster
the idea is to get kokusho on the field then kill him
and keep bringing him back and killing him to gain life

creatures 24 4x kokusho the evening star 3x Korlash, Heir to Blackblade 3x ghost council of orzhov 2x Necroskitter 2x archon of justice 2x Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant 1x revenant patriarch 1x ink-eyes servant of oni 1x angel of mercy 1x myojin of cleansing fire 1x angle of despair 1x teysa orzhov scion 1x divinity of pride

spells 19 4x animate dead 2x castigate 2x pillory of the sleepless 2x Beckon Apparition 2x Beseech the Queen 2x Resurrection 1x wrath of god 1x infernal tutor 1x spirit loop 1x Boon Reflection 1x damnation 1x culling sun plainswalkers 2 1x ajani goldmane 1x liliana vess artifact 4 2x tormods crypt 1x orzhov signet 1x moratorium stone

land 17 2x godless shrine 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 1x lake of the dead 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse 1x orzhov church of deals 1x orzhov bascilia 5x plains 5x swamp

Quite the list.

Okay first thing we need to do right away is cut down the deck to 60 cards, focus your theme and improve your mana base.

So here’s how I’m going to do this one, you have a lot of cards that don’t help your theme at all, so im going to suggest a direction for this deck and then some possible cards, the numbers will be up to you to refine as you see best.

You say that you want the mina focus to be the revival and death of Kokusho so we’ll work from that.

The Combo

This will be the centerpiece of your deck, I recommend 4-ofs of each to maximize your chances of drawing them

Kokusho is a must; he’s the centerpiece of the deck

Pyrrhic Revival is a golden addition for this deck from the Eventide set, bring back 2 or more Kokusho at once and they’ll all kill each other. Other options include Living End or Patriarch's Bidding.

Buried alive is the next piece of the combo, put 3 Kokusho into the grave and revive them for an instant 30 point life swing.

Staying Alive

What good is the combo if your not alive long enough to use it?

Kitchen Finks/Aven Riftwatcher, both gain your 4 life and chump block to keep you alive I prefer the Finks as it has the ability to lock twice

Gwyllion Hedge-Mage, creates more blockers and has the ability to weaken opposing creatures.

Pillory of the sleepless is nice option, both shutting down a creature and draining your opponent of those vital 5 points

Shriekmaw is an efficient kill spell, and can help to deal the final 3 points of damage if you only mange to bury 3 Kokusho

Faith’s Fetters is an extremely potent card from RAV that will neutralize a threat and gain you life in the process.

Recumbent Bliss, similar to fetters, but can gain you more life in the long run

Unmake/Condemn, both viable creature removal options, unmake is probably superior here

Wrath Of God/Damnation are incredibly important for both killing off early creature rushes or clearing the field after a revival spell, at least at total combination of 4 (ie 2 of each)

Support

These will indirectly help you set up the combo

Diabolic tutor is superior to Beseech the Queen here, because you’re going to want to assemble your pieces often before you have the necessary land count, although you can run both

Orzhov signet, you’re going to be playing a lot of expensive spells and can really use the mana boost (defiantly recommend 4of)

Castigate is a good option to make sure your opponent can’t disrupt your combo

Other

Liliana Vess is an option although she may take some time to power up and is very vulnerable

Ajani goldmane, nice stalling option but doesn’t really contribute to the combo

You  can put in some singleton dragons so you have the option of keeping them all around when you resurrect them, plus you can  selectively search dump them into the grave with Buried Alive.

Land Base (at least 24, 23 with signet)

Need to cast those spells somehow right? You’ll want to keep the land base relatively simple just to ensure you have the correct colors of mana when you need them. If you have the money I naturally recommend more duals, however try to avoid lands that come into play tapped (basilica excluded) as they can severely hamper your tempo and you want to be firing off the combo ASAP)

Orzhov Basilica is an excellent option, basically giving you a total  of 6 mana when you only have 5 lands.

Godless Shrine, excellent color fixer though it may be a little expensive to obtain ($$ wise)

Basic Land, obviously, these also help with the mage

Tips
Try to make sure you have at least one combo piece in your hand of a relevant tutor and should be able to draw into another You may not want to devote the deck entirely to the combo, just to make sure your able to win without it.

Stillmoon Cavalier can help with this by being an effcient beater. Deathbringer Liege also can help with this. You may want to build a control deck that combo's out IF it can, rather than relying solely on the combo (this is would be my recommendation) 

Hope I’ve helped, always remember that it you get those 3 Kokusho out and sacrificed you haven’t won yet, you still need to take out the last 5 points.