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Updated Sept. 16, 2017I finally got around to updating this Top Deck from 2011!Gideon Jura has found a nice home here as a kill condition! He serves more than one purpose, of course, but that goes without saying.I've balanced land draw/flexibility (Caves and Fields) and tried to balance the curve more (being able to swap Edicts (preference), Swords, or Rebuff the Wicked based on the meta).By an large, the deck is quite similar to it's original creation, but still a blast to play!Top Deck: April, 2011Very rarely will/do you see a deck built around First Strike. But when cards like Death Pits of Rath are lying around in your binder, sometimes you get struck with a brilliant idea.The concept is simple, get Death Pits out ASAP. With the Death Pits on the board, your tiny 1/1 Tundra Wolves (and other First Strikers) become a force that no '10/10' can handle. First Strike damage gets put onto the stack, Death Pits' effect triggers, and the First Striker survives.Speed was an issue with the first couple drafts of the build. The implementation of Chainer's Edict helps with blanket protection to keep your opponent's creature board relatively clear if you need time; Swords to Plowshares assists in this manner as well). Rain of Blades becomes a board wiper as the 1 damage triggers Death Pits, and well, you get the idea.And then they print Porcelain Legionnaire.... Not really much to explain with this one, he hits the board quickly without color bias and is a beast that needs quick attention.Thanks in advance for any comments or criticism you have to offer on this or any other deck I have posted here.
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Try basilisk collar! :D deathtouch AND lifelink!
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Ooo! That would be a good add here. Almost better than the Longbows.
Personally I like Death Pits + Pestilence + indestructible creature combo Dark Rituals or Culling the Weak really can help to get out Death Pits fast. Just For Fun Example 1st Turn - lay swamp + dark ritual + ornithopter + culling the weak creates enough mana to cast Death Pits 1st Turn check out my Dark Steel/Death Pits of Rath Deck if you'd like to see different take on Death Pits Deck link: http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=140140
cool deck. ever seen stillmoon cavalier?
I'm going to play around with a proxy of this deck for a while and try and come up with something to help (: Ill be back in a few days haha.
Oh! Perhaps Sunlance?
I'll be honest, the biggest issue with the deck is the dependence on Death Pits. That is why Wing Shards, Swords to Plowshares, and Lose Hope all found places in the build (Lose Hope for weenies and the Scry which is oh so nice). Thanks for helping!
Greater auramancy could work in this build, gives shroud to your enchantments.
This deck is pretty sweet... Black/White decks facinate me because of the untapped power they hold. Life and death in your hands! LOL... I really like this deck man... good job... Sure, its a 'get this card out ASAP' to really do well deck... but that is what makes it fun!
hmm y not add just one tutor???? it would solve the prob of hunting for pits would it not?
You know...I should. But with everything already cut to 3 as it is, what should I swap out for one? I don't want to drop the Rits or the Pits, those need to remain at 4.
its risky in my opinion also no heavy hitters, it needs more kill cards.
That is a concern. When the deck fires the way it's supposed to, Desolation Angel is the perfect kill card. However, and again when it's working as intended, my opponent is working with so few creatures, or creatures that he refuses to block with. This in turn allows me to ramp up 2-6 damage per turn (more as the game continues) while I hide behind Rain of Blades, Crossbow Infantry's tap ability, Wing Shards, and Swords to Plowshares. Exalted Angel used to be in the deck, but she became a target very easily with Terror, Doom Blade, and Throat. Desolation at least gives me some protection to swing for 5 per turn once it hits the board kicked so my opponent has no lands to address it. Thanks for your continued support!
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hmm u could try to drop just one land it would be ur pick on which one and it would require some play testing to get a better judge of it but its a possiability.
man O_o brillant, i can feel myself cringe after reading half the decklist
i built 2 decks simular to this built around first strike one is vintage the other is standard. basically their anti-infect decks. this deck would stop that too, good build
if your using knights, you should use knight exemplar, along with pestilence and death pits, all your first strike knights can attack your opponents unopposed. you would have to sacrifice speed, but you should be building a knight army while the death pits and pestilence combo is coming together...it just sucks that so much mana has to be dished out either way
Gideon Jura would be an amazing control card for this combine that with rain of blades and death pitts of rath equals a guaranteed field wipe =D
Absolutely agree. Gideon is one of the best cards EVER for SO many different types of decks. Replace a Dark Ritual with a Gideon. If you can, put 2 Gideons in! Also, consider putting Lightmine Field and Safe Passage in your sideboard. Lightmine + Rath = your opponent is never going to be able to attack. You could then use a Safe Passage when you want to attack your opponent (or disenchant Lightmine, though that is counter-intuitive.) Just a thought!
Btw New Phyrexia has Marrow Shards = Rain of Blades. But if all of your mana is tapped, you can pay 2 life and sling it at your unsuspecting opponent's face!
Yes, Marrow Shards will be an excellent addition in place of Blades, and will be incredibly easy to obtain. Gideon concerns me. All to often I see people throw in planeswalkers just for the sake of throwing them in. I do like how I can thing out an army with his first loyalty ability. However, the biggest issue I have with the deck right now is consistency with mana. If I still had my Scrublands, Caves of Koilos, and fetches this deck would be infinitely better consistency wise. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to steer away from Gideon for now since his 5 CC cost could slow the deck until I can reobtain duals. I love the comments so far, though, keep them coming!
Thanks for the comments and suggestions. This deck is a blast to play when it fires off, so acceleration and consistency is something that I need. I intend to implement a Demonic and Enlightened Tutor, I'm just having a really hard time deciding what to remove since everything has such great synergy now as it is. As always, I welcome comments on anything. Thanks again for making this my first trip to the 'big board.'
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Be wary of the amazing Enlightened Tutor (unless you can draw it immediately)! I'm sure you are aware of this, but if you use those you have to make sure to swap them out when you play against a discard deck! There are so many ways to get of the top card of someone's library... As for what to switch out for Tutors...it's really a hard call. Like you said, your deck looks like it has great synergy as is, but I could see dropping 1 Wing Shards, 1 Black Knight and 1 White Knight, and putting in 3 Demonic Tutors or Enlightened Tutors. The Knights cost 2 of the same color, so it seems like they have the highest chance to trip you up (mana-wise) out of any of your creatures. Also I could see Harm's Ways fitting quite nicely in this deck. They are very cheap and VERY effective, especially against red, which can quickly turn your own Pits against you (even with the Circle of Protection!) Knight of Dawn and Knight of Meadowgrain are worth a look too. Meadowgrain can help if you are having life issues, and Knight of Dawn - while slightly expensive at 3 - can protect itself from any color on the fly. Get those dual lands back!!! At least Marsh Flats and Caves of Koilos aren't absurdly expensive (I'm looking at you, Scrublands), and just 1 Gideon in here would serve your deck oh-so well! Sorry for the long-winded comment lol and congrats on all the likes, you deserve it. I love this deck! (Btw, could you check out my new Black/White deck and tell me what you think? It utitlizes the Bloodchief Ascension/Mindcrank combo!) http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=177609
Oh yeah, consider Lotus Petals for mana acceleration. They also have the added bonus of not getting smashed by your Desolation Angel when you blow up all the land, so you could feasibly still be able to play spells if you need to. Although honestly I don't see anything you could get rid of for those, except maybe lands themselves...actually, switching out 1 Plains and 1 Swamp for 2 Lotus Petals could possibly work - free mana is so keeeeeeeeeeewl
Just found 4 Koilos' on eBay for $8, so those will be here once they arrive. I'm really becoming to hate Terramorphic. They're great to pop at the EOT, but, you're right, you basically lose out on a land drop when you have them in hand. It would almost be better to stay with basic land, to be honest. Around my area, I'm not too concerned about he potential backfire on Enlightened Tutor. Either way, though, I always use it at my opponent's EOT so the likelihood if the card gets milled or extracted is lower than normal. Thank you for the concern, though. But for placement, I'm actually considering now to replace the Lose Hopes for the Tutors. They were added recently more for their Scry ability (which is handy) but the Tutors would be accomplishing the same thing as Scry and be much better at it. Shaving creatures concerns me, and Wing Shards has become so pivotal in some games because of the time I need to get up and online. Regardless, great suggestions, you made me pull the trigger on the Caves (which will help immensely); gonna stick with the Terramorphics for the time being to see if they will become more forgiving with some duals in. Might even toss in City of Brass, we'll see. Thanks for the continued support!
So I didn't really take the time to look at the full deck, because I only know standard (only started when zendikar came in) but I read first strike. so I decided to take a looksy. anything with first strike just RAPES with deathtouch. and i see you're running white. so why not try running 3 stoneforge with 2 basilisk collar? like I said, i dont know what you could take out, but first strike and deathtouch is just so good. I'd seriously give it some thought.
Deathtouch is pretty redundant with Death Pits of Rath. If Stoneforge ever got involved in this deck, it would probably be to bring out a baller sword (hmm what color is my opponent playing with?...I think I'll grab this one...)
Not sure if this has been brought up already or not, but since the deck does run off of Death Pits so much, why not run Idyllic Tutor so that you an pop it into your hand and make sure you have one? Also, Marsh Flats are so much nicer than terramorphics, since you can play the land and use it that turn.
love this deck man, you could take out the terramorphic expanses and put in real lands though because its a two color deck it wont be a problem.
i love this! i've been thinking about making a first strike deathtouch deck. the only thing that doesn't work (and i might be wrong) is white knight. since it has protection from black, i don't think death pits of rath affects it
I believe the actual ruling is that the damage that is dealt/received will be the color in which deals it. As Death Pits isn't a source that deals damage, it's ability will resolve regardless of protection. White Knight's Prot: Black protects it from black, damage dealing sources and therefore can't be killed by black spells that would have triggered Death Pits. But the knight's damage still can trigger Death Pits as the trigger is not targeting the knight itself.
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hank you u gave me idea for knight deck idea.
This deck would beat 5 of 6 of mine.
why not use idyllic tutor? it only gets enchantments but you can use more then one of them maybe swappp -1 dark ritual -2 lose hope +2 idyllic tutor? just a thought it would be easier to get your enchantment that the deck is based on 7 ways to get it you could add more too but thats what i would do xD
you could sideboard in the silver knight and take a guy out to switch for a knight exemplar or two that would be good and help with the game until you get your enchantment online um i had another thought but forgot lol um crud seriously cant remember xD oh wellll there ya go also if you wanna go with idyllic tutor maybe put some oblivion rings in for some in board enchantment/planeswalker/artifact/deuchy anything other then land xD
xD okay so i remember now hero of kinsbaile it does 2 damage to every attacking creature while crossbow only does damage to one
I found the Kingbaile you're thinking about. What concerns me is that he costs 2 more mana to do one more damage. Not only that, but the damage really isn't that concerning as with Death Pits out 1 damage is all it takes. In regards to the Idyllic, I like it, and it's been suggested before. Currently, however, I don't own any but I might be able to pick one up tomorrow. Originially, Enlightened Tutor would have been in the build, but alas, I sold that off many years ago. The Lose Hopes are definitely the most viable option to remove from the deck. Frankly, the only reason they are there is for the Scry ability in the hopes to move things along. Idyllic will fit nicely there, however, I'm not a fan of reveal (and Enlightened does the same thing) so I'm trying to get a line on a Vampiric as it will give me another black source to spend mana on. Recent changes have brought forth the addition of the Caves of Koilos and City of Brass (as I don't have the B/W fetch lands or Scrublands (any longer)). Otherwise, Oblivion Ring is a great suggestion, though stacking more white concerns me with so little black in the deck as it is. The Examplars are something I'm trying to get a hold of, two would be ideal, also possibly in place of the Lose Hopes. Thanks for the suggestions, it really gives me some things to think about as the deck is still very slow. The tutor route has definitely not fallen on deaf ears, it's just a matter of obtaining some as most of my quality collection I sold off years ago (back when original duals were $60 a playset...yeah, I'm ticked).
the hero of kinsbaile does damage to EVERY attacking creature though so for two more mana you stop every single non indestructible creature they have
lol, awsome deck, try adding mirran crusader, it has double stike(which as I hope you know hits like first strike and a regular attack) then there is an artifact equipment that is called quietus strike, also very good. I'm not sure how much it would help, but they are definatley good cards. Also, what block could i play this in, extended, vintage, legacy, or something I haven't heard of?
This is technically Vintage legal though it wouldn't stand a chance in an actual Vintage format (removing the Demonic Tutor would make it Legacy legal). It's purely casual, as most of my decks are. I just happen to follow the Vintage Banned/Restricted list with everything I build.
Maybe mother of Runes to protect your creatures from removal.
+3 Rebuff the Wicked for your sideboard! That makes it 15, and it will help out against pesky burn/destroy that targets your fragile lil' first strikers! I just found out about this card a few days ago, and ordered a playset (actually a few haha) for my green/white deck that my friends love to Lightning Bolt/Shatter/Doom Blade
Again, wow! Gotta be honest with this one, didn't know that that even existed. Definitely something to consider. For some reason, the SB isn't correct. I've been running into a few snags with the site the past few days, I'll get it updated here in a bit.
I like it. Have you considered swapping Caves of Koilos with a multicolor land and adding 4x Foursee or 4x Preordain or a combination of both? They will help you find Death Pits of Rath and dig up more creatures. Foursee is a tad slow since it's a four drop, but you'd populate the table pretty quickly with some of that selective card draw. Shame to introduce a new colour though, I like that it's black/white. Of course, 4x Demonic Tutor does the job even better, but with that price tag... I wouldn't.
(Oh and isn't Porcelain Legionnaire just SO good?)
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Woah, this is a great deck, really liking the idea. Pure genius!!!!!
Try bone splinters over rain of blades. Is much better. Also you might want mirran crusader or silver blade paladin
Marrow shards would work wonders with this deck, Midnight charms work with the theme, and can do serious damage with Death pits. Dry spell hits everything, but Icatian Javelineers can be used for quick hits. Other than that, I quite enjoy this deck and may make one of my own soon. Thank you.
Another card you could use is Enlightened Tutor, since the only enchantment you run is Death pits.