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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Mr. Traitor and his Shiny Door
March 25, 2008

Technically, this is a first for my Deck Garage-- someone bringing me a deck I'd already fixed before and asking for another go at it  I've fixed multiple decks for the same person before, but nobody's ever been dissatisfied at my work enough to bring the same deck back twice!  Jared here had a good reason, though-- he switched his focus from Aggro to Control.
 
           Greetings Bmoor!  First off, thanks for the help with my spirit tribal deck.  I found the suggestions to be highly valuable.  Unfortunately, I found that my idea of making a spirit deck off the Suicide Black premise was just a bad idea…  Spirits are slow; don't have near the raw efficient power that creatures like Phyrexian Negator have and kinda fail at being aggro in general.  I tried to kid myself and make it work but it was not meant to be…  From there I tried going back to Ghost Dad with Dimir Cutpurse and Sleeper's Robe as a tutor target, but I missed the ole' Mono Black goodness.  So I went back to your deck garage to review what you wrote, and came to the realization that Black Spirits are meant to play control!  Mono Black Spirit control has tools like Kagemaro and Kokusho.

          Nether Traitor, however is the feature creature.  For starters, I am going to be blowing up the field a lot with this deck.  I am running 4x Damnations and 3x Kagemaro.  Mr. Traitor is awesome here because he keeps coming back for more, even after I nuke him a billion times.  Two, a cute tribal card by the name of Door of Destinies was released in Morningtide.  It is usually inferior to Coat of Arms, but in my deck were my own creatures are getting blown up its superior.  Also, my deck can slow the game down enough were the slowness of the Door becomes irrelevant.  Door plus Mr. Traitor is unblockable beats that just keep on coming.

          Here is the list that will make all other tribes quiver in their tribally boots (well hopefully.)
           
Creatures
 
4x Graveborn Muse
4x Nether Traitor
4x Thief of Hope
4x Wicked Akuba
3x Kagemaro, First to Suffer
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
 
Non Creatures
 
2x Door of Destinies
4x Damnation
4x Nameless Inversion
4x Consume Spirit
2x Profane Command

Mana
 
4x Cabal Coffers
17x Swamps
1x Tomb of Urami
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
 
Side Board
 
4x Pithing Needle
4x Thoughtseize
4x This space for rent...
3x Same as above

       The major problem with my deck is I only have 2x Door of Destinies in the deck…  Any suggestions on what to cut?  What I am slightly worried about is, the whole Door of Destinies and Nether Traitor thing is not even worth it…  Its really fun swinging with huge unblockable Nether Traitors mid to late game, but would it be better to just put other things in that slot?  The Timmy in me is crying and wants there to be 4x Doors, but the Spike in me wants the deck to be all it can be.  I am in an existential crisis here!  Can you with your awesome Bmoor powers make it work with the Doors and all? 

-Jared
Imagine the scenario, Jared.  You have a Nether Traitor in play, and another in your graveyard.  The one in play dies.  What happens now?  You pay B, and the one in the graveyard comes back to replace its fallen brother.  This doesn't put a counter on the Door, because you're not PLAYING them, you're putting them INTO play, but each Traitor will still get the bonus from any counters already on the Door. 
 
Now that one dies.  Another B, and the first one is back!  And this can just continue for as long as you have Swamps open and your opponent is foolish enough to keep throwing kill spells at your Traitor.
 
But what if that's not why the Traitor was dying?  What if you were actually sacrificing it for an effect?  Why, any card that said "Sacrifice a creature" now just says "Pay B"!  It's liek regeneration, but you can do it when you sacrifice the creature too!  (For any who didn't know, you can't regenerate from a sacrifice) And this, Jared, is the combo that Nether Traitor has been famous for ever since its printing.  This is how we will reconcile your Timmy side with your Spike side-- by giving your deck two routes to victory: the inevitable endgame of a 5/5 with shadow that won't stay dead, or the explosive recursion of abusing a sacrifice outlet.
 
The first thing we need to do is ensure that the control elements are there.  Damnation and Kagemaro have the creature front covered from Turn Four onward, but I am a bit concerned about your defensive deck speed.  Since Traitor's shadow preempts him from blocking (usually), I want to put in an early blocker.  Wicked Akuba may look suited to the task, but look at his ability!  This is a holdover from when the deck was Aggro, and it's time to bring him out.  In his place goes another Spirit who can spend a B to cheat death, Will-o'-the-Wisp.  Black control players have held off the advancing army with this little mote for years.
 
Next, I'm removing Consume Spirit.  You already have Profane Command and Thief of Hope covering that angle, and it's just not efficient enough.  To replace it, I have a control card that will give you added power as well as solve your dilemma of wanting more Doors, and her name is Lilianna Vess.
 
Vess gives you three abilities you want, Jared.  Her first ability, the one you're likely to use most often, is hand disruption, something all black control decks should have.  You can kill creatures easily, but spells will give you a harder time.  Vess can strip a player's hand of them.  Her second ability nicely solves your issue about how many Doors to run, because now you can tutor for a Door if you need it, or for any other card.  Having two Doors and four Vess is like having six Doors, four of which can turn themselves into any other card in your deck instead.  This also lets you use your last two counters on a dying Vess to get you a replacement Vess.  And of course, if your opponent is foolish enough to let your planeswalker live long enough, all that Damning and Kagemarring will surely leave a bountiful harvest for Vess's Ultimate move.  However, and I can't stress this enough, do not get distracted by her thrid move if spending some loyalty on tutoring is worth more.  Vess will almost never go four turns unmolested, and you should understand that.  Don't get too greedy with her.
 
So Lilianna Vess in favor of Consume Spirit.  That's great, but I was taking about some sort of Nether Traitor sacrificing combo, wasn't I?  I get too distracted by these planeswalkers I guess.
 
Now then, all you need is something to sacrifice a creature to that won't interfere with your deck as is.  If we want to delve into the Spirit world of Kamigawa block, there's always reject rare He Who Hungers.  What was I saying about hand disruption?  Or if you'd rather draw more cards yourself, why not try Phrexian Vault?  "2B: Draw two cards" doesn't sound too bad, but you do already have Graveborn Muse.  Perusing the options also brings me to Oni Possession, which would likely be a good finisher on an already-enlarged Spirit in the late game.  Oni Possession does have that "you beat me with what?" feel to it, but I have to admit that you can get the same effect, but better, with Fallen Ideal.  This pretty much equates to flying and "B:+2/+1 until end of turn", which will pretty much decimate a lot of things.  And since we're running tutoring technology now, you can make room for these things by cheating on the copy numbers of other cards, turning four-ofs to three-ofs for maximum utility.
 
Except with Vess herself, since she is the tutor and you can only run fewer copies of other things because you have her.  And Nether Traitor.  You need four Nether Traitor.  We've grown a bit dependant on that, you see.
 
Hopefully this will help you out, Jared.  If you came to me a second time, you must have some faith in me.
 
Good luck!
 
~BMoor


 

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