patriotsfan@rochester.rr.com wrote:

Hi. My name is Chris and I live in New York. I have been playin= = g in casual tournaments for a while now but I always do badly. To try and win I have made several different decks. This is my latest deck. It's an Orzhov deck that is supposed to shut down all attacks by the opponent's creatures. Then I slowly ping and suck his life away. In the process I also gain life. To stop his creatures, I can either destroy them with Teysa or Rend Flesh or I can Pillory or the Sleepless them which also makes them lose life. Another option is Hissing Miasma. To make him lose life I use fliers or Orzhov guildmage. Most of the creatures in the deck are black and white so both of Teysa's abilities can be used with the same creature. As a finisher, I attack with several fliers at once and which ever one is not blocked I pump up with howl from beyond. This is very good when combined with Mourning Thrull. I really seem to have problems against decks that use lots of instants and sorceries since th e only thing I can do to stop them is make him discard them with Castigate. Any cards are fair game to come out but I do like the idea of cards that make my opponent lose life and me gain life. My budget is not restricted but please no cards over $10 per card. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

Lands:
11 Swamp
10 Plains
2 Orzhov Basilica
1 Orzhova, the Church of Deals

Creatures:
2 Vampire Bat (B)
1 Skeletal Vampire (4BB)
2 Order of the Stars (W)
2 Absolver Thrull (3W)
2 Belfry Spirit (3WW)
4 Mourning Thrull (1w/b)
4 Orzhov Guildmage (w/b w/b)
2 Teysa, Orzhov Scion (1WB)
3 Blind Hunter (2WB)

Instants and Sorceries:
2 Rend Flesh (2B)
2 Howl from Beyond (XB)
2 Castigate (WB)

Enchantments:
4 Hissing Miasma (1BB)
4 Pillory of the Sleepless (1WB)

Thanks again for any help.
-Chris


Chris here seems to be using a standard bleeder control strategy of arresting the opponent's offense= = , and using life-syphoning tactics to stay alive and finish the opponent off. He also has a subth= eme of Bats-- Skeletal Vampire, Blind Hunter, Vampire Bat, and Belfry Spirit have a good synergy w= ith each other. And Teysa, Orzhov Scion works well with the prescence of token creatures, as well= as creating more of them. So what's the problem=3F Well, according to Chris, one of the problem= s is instants and sorceries. He can't stop them, with anything except Castigate. That is a predi= cament. Another problem I see is that between the bleeder cards, the stall cards, and the Bat swa= rm enablers, it looks like Chris is pulling his deck in too many directions. He wants to stop the= opponent control style, and drain life, and use Howl from Beyond as the finisher with his swarm o= f flying tokens. Well, I think something's gotta give. But what=3F

Well, he could always try for a dedicated token deck. That would most likely involve pulling out = = almost all the non-Bat, non-Teysa creatures and putting in Twilight Drover and Leyline of the Meek= . A few life drain effects could stay, only if he added in a few copies of Storm Herd. Then he w= ouldn't even need Howl from Beyond; he'd have enough flying tokens to finish the opponent by attacki= ng.

But Chris did specify that he liked life-drain effects. And also that he needs help with instants= = and sorceries, and the token deck doesn't lend itself well to that. Well, it could, but I've got= something else in mind anyway.

In order to enhance the deck's control component, I'm going to eliminate some of the Bat aspect of= = it in favor of more efficien control elements. Bad news for Vampire Bat and Belfry Spirit-- they= 're cut. Next to go is Absolver Thrull-- it's good enchantment control, but its ability isn't opt= ional. So if you have a Pillory out and that's the only enchantment on the board, you have to des= troy it if you play the Absolver. And finally, drop Rend Flesh-- I have something better in mind.

To replace Rend Flesh and Absolver Thrull, add four copies of Mortify. No Black/White deck should= = be without Mortify, it's just too versatile. Next, add a fourth copy of Blind Hunter-- this Bat = is everything the deck wants; life drain, flying attacker, and a black/white creature to trigger T= eysa twice. That leaves three slots, and with those slots you should add three copies of Persecut= e. Persecute is exactly what your deck needs to deal with problematic spells before they're cast-=

- if you know which color to name (and after a Castigate you will), you can wreck the opponent's h= and and leave them nearly powerless. Granted, with Ravnica block enabling multicolor decks, it mi= ght be hard to pick the right color, but if that becomes a problem you can just use Hypnotic Spect= er instead. The Specter uses random discard, so the opponent can't just discard a land to it, it'= s a repeated effect, and it's a 2/2 flyer that can Howl, or trigger Teysa. And both Persecute and t= he Specter were reprinted in 9th Edition, so they should fit into your budget as well.

One more card to consider would be Souls of the Faultless. I don't particularly like this card, b= = ut it does do everything this deck wants to-- hold off an attack, work with both of Teysa's abilit= ies, and drain life if your opponent attacks into it.

And of course, there is the full commitment to the token deck I mentioned earlier. You could add = = Persecute and Hypnotic Specter to that and you'd have more of an aggressive deck, but it would pro= bably work too. Something to think about, anyway. Whichever way you go, best of luck to you!

~BMoor

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