MTG Salvation

Hello people, made my first attempt at an EDH deck a few months back, and have been slowly tinkering it, the most recent time being after acquiring Zombie Empire. Was wondering if you fine folks would mind giving me a few suggestions as to how it could be improved.
My ability to acquire cards isn't great as I'm a poor student, but I do have a number of friends who are more than willing to lend me cards for indefinite lengths of time (Got to love those friends)

My normal opponents run a Golfball deck with Radha, Heir to Keld, a wizard draw with Azami, Lady of Scrolls, a token/removal Teysa, Orzhov Scion and finally an ever annoying Sen Triplets deck.

Any suggestions on cards which just don't work, or cards which are easy to get and better would be appreciated
Key things which screw me the most is the lack of Artifact and Enchantment removal.



Deck Change Log:

Cards planning to acquire at some point:

Combos/Win Conditions

No one got any suggestions?

Cadaverous Knight is way to small to be useful. So is Dauthi Ghoul... his effect won't happen nearly often enough to make him worth running unless you go all out Shadow Theme... and that is a bad idea. Festering Goblin is useless in this format. Warpath Ghoul would need an effect to make him worth it.

I would replace the above cards with the following:

Commander Greven Il-Vec
Lim-Dûl the Necromancer
Tombstalker

And any number of other fat beefy guys to help you win. You don't want ALL of your creatures to be Zombies, as that would weaken your deck.

Replace Terror with Doom Blade. In the case of "Hideous End" did you mean Hideous Laughter? Replace Reaping the Graves with Patriarch's Bidding. Replace Disentomb with Entomb or Buried Alive. Replace Bubbling Muck with... something... preferably a more permanent source of mana acceleration. Replace Death's Duet with Living Death. Replace Raise Dead with Entomb or Buried Alive. Replace Soul Strings with some other more permanent Resurrection system... preferably a multi-recursion tool as outlined below:

In otherwords, you want this deck to focus on Reanimation, not on returning cards to your hand, where you have to recast them. With a reanimation theme you can manage to get much more card advantage than your opponent is capable of dealing with. Especially if you have a way of recurring more than once in a given turn (i.e. a sac engine along with a multiple recursive engine). That would be ideal, I know such a system exists, I unfortunately just don't remember what it is.

And might I add.... Koskun Falls... WOW... didn't know Black had a propaganda effect

Try and get the following Artifacts: Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and Mana Vault... those will greatly accelerate your deck.

Quote from DalkonCledwin

Cadaverous Knight is way to small to be useful. So is Dauthi Ghoul... his effect won't happen nearly often enough to make him worth running unless you go all out Shadow Theme... and that is a bad idea. Festering Goblin is useless in this format. Warpath Ghoul would need an effect to make him worth it.

I would replace the above cards with the following:

Commander Greven Il-Vec
Lim-Dûl the Necromancer
Tombstalker

And any number of other fat beefy guys to help you win. You don't want ALL of your creatures to be Zombies, as that would weaken your deck.

Don't have any of them, but I can have a hunt for some misc big black creatures to put in.

Quote from DalkonCledwin

Replace Terror with Doom Blade. In the case of "Hideous End" did you mean Hideous Laughter? Replace Reaping the Graves with Patriarch's Bidding. Replace Disentomb with Entomb or Buried Alive. Replace Bubbling Muck with... something... preferably a more permanent source of mana acceleration. Replace Death's Duet with Living Death. Replace Raise Dead with Entomb or Buried Alive. Replace Soul Strings with some other more permanent Resurrection system... preferably a multi-recursion tool as outlined below:

In otherwords, you want this deck to focus on Reanimation, not on returning cards to your hand, where you have to recast them. With a reanimation theme you can manage to get much more card advantage than your opponent is capable of dealing with. Especially if you have a way of recurring more than once in a given turn (i.e. a sac engine along with a multiple recursive engine). That would be ideal, I know such a system exists, I unfortunately just don't remember what it is.

I plan to swap in a doom blade when I get around to getting one. Whenever I get cards, the pack never has a doom blade, and I'm too lazy to go hunting through singles for it. By Hideous End, I mean Hideous End. I think one of my friends has a Patriarch's Bidding I might be able to beg/borrow/steal from him, will try that when I next see him. I know I have a Buried Alive somewhere, remember when I first got it thinking wtf is this good for. Will hunt around for more return to play instead of to hand.

Quote from DalkonCledwin

And might I add.... Koskun Falls... WOW... didn't know Black had a propaganda effect

That is pretty much the exact reaction whenever I cast it

Quote from DalkonCledwin

Try and get the following Artifacts: Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and Mana Vault... those will greatly accelerate your deck.

Will keep an eye out for them, suppose I can splurge a little

Quote from Chineselegolas

I think one of my friends has a Patriarch's Bidding I might be able to beg/borrow/steal from him

Whatever you do, if you want to keep him as your friend... don't steal it from him

Also, Tombstalker is relatively innexpensive, so he should be easy to get. I think Lim-Dul the Necromancer is the same way, and I wouldn't be surprised if Greven Il-Vec is as well... seeing as how he is only really good in EDH. They should all be under 5 USD on ebay (assuming you can find auctions for them all)... and should be easily available from cardshark.

I just found out about Gate to Phyrexia, and it's pretty amazing. Mono B artifact destruction is too good to pass up. It comes up to $3.5 US, so it shouldn't be terribly hard to get a hold of, I think.

Quote from Drahcir_Nagrom

I just found out about Gate to Phyrexia, and it's pretty amazing. Mono B artifact destruction is too good to pass up. It comes up to $3.5 US, so it shouldn't be terribly hard to get a hold of, I think.

Gate to Phyrexia is only really good with cards like Breeding Pit or Bitterblossom to feed into it. With the Blossom being the preferable one of the two of course.

Quote from DalkonCledwin

Gate to Phyrexia is only really good with cards like Breeding Pit or Bitterblossom to feed into it. With the Blossom being the preferable one of the two of course.

Or his general?, Or Puppeteer Clique, Corpse Connoisseur, Grixis Slavedriver, Body Snatcher, Coffin Queen, Sundering Titan, Epochrasite, or even Solemn Simulacrum? You don't need to destroy everything they have. If it has destroyed even two things, coupled with the recursion black has that you seem to be unaware of, it has done its job. Maybe I'm crazy.

Quote from Drahcir_Nagrom

Or his general?, Or Puppeteer Clique, Corpse Connoisseur, Grixis Slavedriver, Body Snatcher, Coffin Queen, Sundering Titan, Epochrasite, or even Solemn Simulacrum? You don't need to destroy everything they have. If it has destroyed even two things, coupled with the recursion black has that you seem to be unaware of, it has done its job. Maybe I'm crazy.

the recursion black has is better used on actually recurring cards that have been killed in battle or for other reasons... instead of being wasted in order to help you kill artifacts. I personally heavily dislike Gate to Phyrexia as it is a card you have to dedicate precious resources to in order for it to work, and unfortunately that nets card disadvantage unless you are using something like Bitterblossom or Breeding Pit.

Quote from DalkonCledwin

the recursion black has is better used on actually recurring cards that have been killed in battle or for other reasons... instead of being wasted in order to help you kill artifacts. I personally heavily dislike Gate to Phyrexia as it is a card you have to dedicate precious resources to in order for it to work, and unfortunately that nets card disadvantage unless you are using something like Bitterblossom or Breeding Pit.

if Balthor is your general you can recur black creatures as much as you want to destroy opponents stuff and it is advantageous to you, I play a balthor deck with a ton of recursion and sac effects, Im speaking from experience. There are some powerful artifacts out there, especially in EDH. For monoblack, creatures aren't a precious resource, I mean zombies are all reanimated corpses, that shows right there that a black mage doesn't have high regard for protecting its creatures, both flavor wise and gameplay wise

I think Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni or Throat Slitter would do nicely, mostly for a little trick with their Ninjutsu ability (only think there are 4 black cards with Ninjitsu, Okiba-Gang Shinobi and Skullsnatcher being the other 2), if your General is ever unblocked, send him to your hand. You can also use any of your spells you already have that return cards from the graveyard to you hand. The second part of this though, is Soul Foundry. Pay 4 to exile him from your hand, then only 4 more for a token of him, making it easily expendable and activated.

Edit: Also, possibly remove Armillary Sphere for Journeyer's Kite.

With the Zombie Master giving all your zombies swampwalk, consider adding Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Crypt of Agadeem is another good land to add.