MTG Salvation

This was the first PDH deck that I built and still my favorite. Back when my play group only allowed a common general I used Phyrexian Rager (or Lilian's Specter if I wanted to be the archenemy). My first uncommon general was Shriekmaw which quickly turned to Skinrender, but I was losing a lot to an Invisible Stalker deck so I switched to Fleshbag Marauder. I still lose if they draw enough counterspells of course.

Looks like a pretty polished list. Can you talk about your play style for the deck, or some typical strategies, synergies you employ? Under what circumstances do you drop your general? Does it work to prevent opponents from dropping their generals/threats while FbM is in the command zone?

Thanks, I've been working on this deck for a while. Having a sacrifice effect as your general certainly makes the card weaker since people will know to play around it. The large amount of spot removal in the decks helps minimize this problem though since you can usually kill what ever little creatures they were planning to sac in place of their big/hexproof/regenerating ones. Just the threat of Fleshbag Marauder helps slow the game down which is what black control wants. I just want to get to the late game with a lot of mana available.

The game often ends with Crypt Rats or Pestilence taking out several players at once. I hope I've been able to Drain Life the turn before so that I don't die at the same time. Most of the card draw causes life loss as well which is why I play as many life gain cards as I do. Sylvok Lifestaff is great since my creatures are dying all the time.

I guess all PDH decks with black play some Gravediggers since they usually lead to endless card advantage. Once I can can't afford to recast Fleshbag Marauder anymore from the command zone it's fine to let it hit the graveyard so I can start casting it for 3 again. I have some graveyard hate and discard to prevent other decks from doing similar things to me. The discard is also useful against counterspells and buyback.

Cards I want to add include Unearth and Cremate, and I think Dead Ringers is probably the worst of my removal so that's probably the first cut.

Thanks for the rundown. I play a falkenrath noble/blood artist discard deck based on an old pauper shirei list, posted here a few years ago. Lots of my games also come down to crypt rat wrath, raise dead, wrath, repeat ad nausium. I'll definitely give the lifestaff trick a shot; that seems like a good plan when your black weenies are dying left and right.

I don't know if it would break your play group's heart, but I've met a lot of folks that have spot banned stalker for being too degenerate to deal with.