MTG Salvation

This is my first attempt at an EDH deck, and I also haven't played magic in a long time, so any help or tips would be appreciated.

+ Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
+ Deserted Temple

- Swamp
- Leechridden Swamp

Deserted temple would definitely be useful, but can you explain why Urborg is worth it? I doubt I will have all my non-Swamp lands out at once, so at most it'll give me a few extra black from Cabal Coffers. I could see it being amazing with a deck with a lot of swampwalking though.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is pretty helpful, but less so if you don't play many non-swamps. The thing is, it's pretty low cost.

I think you should look into cards like Pentavus that can sacrifice itself essentially. What is insane about Shirei is that he triggers at the end of each turn, not just your own. With Pentavus, and enough mana, that means the number of players times 5 tokens each turn. Add gravepact, and you can essentially lock opponent's creatures from the game. Add Sadistic Glee, and you can make a monstrous creature in one round.

This also means that cards like basal thrull and augur of skulls are less good, because they only can trigger on your turn.

I'm interest to hear your experience of Skullclamp. I've wanted to add it to my Shirei deck, but it often would turn off Shirei's ability by boosting the power of the creature above 1. What has been your experience?

I'm just getting back into magic, and I don't have a lot of cards, so I don't have any experience with it. Just from looking at it, with Shirei it's basically "pay 1 and draw a card". I would imagine using too much mana during your turn for this would be bad though.

Pentavus looks good, and I agree it gives you 5 more counters with Sadistic Glee, but I didn't know if I would need it, as I assumed with Grave Pact that I would have enough creatures out to sac to lock the opponent's creatures anyways, unless they can pump out massive amounts a turn through tokens or something, in which case 5 more probably wouldn't help. You would recommend taking out Augur of Skulls for it?

Well, there's definitely some sick combos in your deck here. Personally, I'd get away from all the cheap so-so creatures that rely on Shirei to be any good: Auger of Skulls, Basal Thrull, Blood Pet, Deathgreeter, Infectious Host, and Ravenous Rats. I know you need weenies to feed to the sacrifice outlets, but there just isn't the support in black to keep Shirei in play long enough to justify so many creatures that aren't good in their own right. I'd include Chimney Imp in that list too, but I think its hilarious you've actually made a deck where he's decent, so he gets a pass.

I don't much like sadistic glee - That it's an aura is bad enough, but the fact that it requires your engine to be online to even be beneficial is... eyebrow raising.

Though honestly, I'm not sure what to recommend replacing those cards with. Really depends on your meta- how immediately does your general get fried versus how often you actually get that Contamination lock in place (since it's the only one that seems self-defending).

I don't see any graveyard hate in your list, maybe Martyr of Bones? If your opponents play expensive artifacts then Timmerian Fiends FTW! OK, maybe not...

Quote from Deadseed

I'm just getting back into magic, and I don't have a lot of cards, so I don't have any experience with it. Just from looking at it, with Shirei it's basically "pay 1 and draw a card". I would imagine using too much mana during your turn for this would be bad though.

Pentavus looks good, and I agree it gives you 5 more counters with Sadistic Glee, but I didn't know if I would need it, as I assumed with Grave Pact that I would have enough creatures out to sac to lock the opponent's creatures anyways, unless they can pump out massive amounts a turn through tokens or something, in which case 5 more probably wouldn't help. You would recommend taking out Augur of Skulls for it?

The problem with Skullclamp is that sometimes it will boost the equipped creature's power to 2, thus turning off Shirei's ability...oh if it only gave the creature -1/-1 and not +1/-1.

The thing about Pentavus is that it's more of a finisher, so I would take out a big guy for it.

I'd probably add some gy hate in place of augur like Donald_McDonald says. Martyr of Bones and Heap Doll are both good...and can both sacrifice themselves, which is a plus.

See how Ichorid works in it.

Also, if you switch to Snow-Covered Swamps you could run Scrying Sheets and Extraplanar Lens.

I'd run Vesuva to potentially copy the Coffers.

I didn't really like the idea of removing cards in my graveyard from the game, as I'm hoping the two necromancer guys will be able to bring back all the useful creatures, but I guess I could always remove instants/sorceries since I have no way of getting those back out of my graveyard. So Ichorid could work.

I like Extraplanar Lens too. This is why I was asking for help, I pretty much just searched for cards with keywords like "sacrifice" and "comes into play", I don't know all the cards that exist

Do you think Shirei will really be that susceptible to dying? I was hoping, as Big Jim advised in another thread, that with all my tutor spells I'll hopefully be able to get Lightning Greaves and Shield of Kaldra on him. Sure they can get targetted, but hopefully...oh wait, I thought I had more than one creature to bring artifacts out of my graveyard.

And good point about the Skullclamp, I didn't even think about that.

I'm not sure what I would replace them with either, Maeloke, I haven't played any EDH games. Maybe since they're cheap cards I could use them at first then replace them with whatever I think I need to help my game out.

Quote from Deadseed

I didn't really like the idea of removing cards in my graveyard from the game, as I'm hoping the two necromancer guys will be able to bring back all the useful creatures, but I guess I could always remove instants/sorceries since I have no way of getting those back out of my graveyard. So Ichorid could work.

Ichorid requires the removal of black creatures. Don't think he is the right card for a creature recursion deck...

Quote from Donald_McDonald

Ichorid requires the removal of black creatures. Don't think he is the right card for a creature recursion deck...

Ooops, true, I skimmed him over too quick, thanks.

Throw in Night of Souls' Betrayal

Kill opponents weenies, makes it so you do not need sac outlet for some dudes, pushes some dudes so skullclamp is its friend... seems pretty good to me

Night of Soul's Betrayal isn't good enough in my opinion. You don't really need sacrifice outlets, you need sacrifice outlets that give you profit. There's plenty of good ones.

In fact, one of the best sacrifice outlets is Infernal Tribute. I'd cut Phyrexian Altar for it. Tribute is good because, a) it draws you cards, which is always good, and b) you can sacrifice anything to it. That means you can sac necropotence after it's fulfilled its usefulness. You can sac lands that get blown up by Obliterate. You can sac that Gravepact that just got targeted by Krosan Grip.

Also, I'm not playing it, but if you're into infinite combos, you can add Memphidross Vampire for the combo with Triskelion.

Corrupt Seems like it might be a good replacement for a drain life effect, Barter in Blood might be nice, and Bile Urchin could be a very slow win condition...

Quote from Big Jim

Night of Soul's Betrayal isn't good enough in my opinion. You don't really need sacrifice outlets, you need sacrifice outlets that give you profit. There's plenty of good ones.

In fact, one of the best sacrifice outlets is Infernal Tribute. I'd cut Phyrexian Altar for it. Tribute is good because, a) it draws you cards, which is always good, and b) you can sacrifice anything to it. That means you can sac necropotence after it's fulfilled its usefulness. You can sac lands that get blown up by Obliterate. You can sac that Gravepact that just got targeted by Krosan Grip.

Also, I'm not playing it, but if you're into infinite combos, you can add Memphidross Vampire for the combo with Triskelion.

[CARD]
Infernal Tribute[/CARD] is good, and I could replace Skullclamp with it, since my creatures won't get ressurected with +1/-1.

And I do like infinite combos So I think I might make room for Mephidross Vampire, although it's kinda iffy, since he doesn't go with the rest of the deck well. How would it work with Crypt Rats? The damage would probably apply before the counters went on it, right? I guess it would have to, to trigger the counters in the first place.
[CARD]
Corrupt[/CARD] is good, but not as a replacement. If I have Cabal Coffers out I would be able to do much more damage with Drain Life.

And I wouldn't even consider Bile Urchin a win condition, just a sacrificer with a slight bonus. I guess he's easily replacable for all the suggested cards I want to throw in.

Alright, I'm going to revisit this deck, just cause I really really like the idea of Shirei.

I've been making other decks with Shirei in it, mostly involving at least blue for some control, just because with monoblack I can really see problems keeping Shirei alive to keep his ability going. With blue you get counters and whatnot, with white you can give him protection from whatever. With black the only thing I can think of is slapping Lightning Greaves/Shield of Shield of Kaldra/whatever on him, but I'm sure many people run ways of taking care of artifacts, so what does everyone suggest? Abandon monoblack?

Whispersilk Cloak for another artifact shroud giver thing.

Also, Dusk Urchins FTW in this deck.

Question for this possible deck.

Say I have Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker in play, as well as Kormus Bell and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, then I use Pestilence for 1 damage. Do all my swamps come back to play at the end of the turn?

I know it's a lot of cards for a combo, but I'm just wondering.

Asked your question in the Magic Fundamentals area (Ruling) and got the following reply:

Quote from 13055 »

As far as I can tell, yes. Shirei specifies the cards entering the graveyard as creatures, but note the lack of descriptors as it mentions what comes back to you. It labels them as simply "cards". This is mainly to bar tokens from illegally returning to play, as they disappear when they leave the battlefield, but it also means man-lands would be brought back, even if they aren't creatures by the end of the ability.

Myr retirever is junk diver #2

Viscera Seer is pretty much the best card they could have printed for this deck. I'm reasonably sure it's the best sacrifice outlet in this deck, though this is based on some initial testing.

Viscera Seer is a slam for this deck for 2 reasons. Obviously, scrying is good, but being able to scry X where X is the number of 1/1 creatures you have every turn is bonkers. But wait! It's even better than that, because it's not just scry x, it's scry 1 x times, which is waaay better when you factor in that you have access to instant speed draw in this deck.

But in response to the OP's question. If you are focused on a multiplayer deck, which I believe Shirei inherently is, then you pretty much only need lightning greaves, shield of kaldra, and tutors. Anything else is just subpar usually, and Shield is sort of a combo with things like Nevinyrral's Disk/O-Stone.

First, at least in my meta, people play little, if any, spot removal. Most will just upgrade to mass removal. The little spot removal that is played usually exiles stuff or tucks stuff (like Swords to Plowshares or Bant Charm) so there's little chance of defending against it.

Usually you can battle through Shirei dying a couple of times, and if they try to tuck him, you can usually sacrifice him to put him in the command zone.

The deck isn't bullet-proof, and that's part of the fun, at least to me, but it's certainly resilient enough to allow a few turns of maniacal cackling while you Grave Pact away everyone else's boards.

How about Summoner's Egg or Stuffy Doll?