Izoni, Thousand-Eyed has been spoiled for a little bit, and there are already dozens of articles written about her. I have been looking for a good Living Death deck and I think this is it!







I ended up with two very different decks, partially due to what I own but also because the meta online requires that I play a different deck. If I don't play the Gravepact style cards I often am little more than a glorified observer. In paper, I want to try to make it as close to creature only as possible.

Let me know what you think, especially since it is two very different decks. I had originally planned on copying it card for card and I may yet. I have gotten in about 40 games online and zero in paper. I am hoping that the paper deck is still strong enough that I can win 1/x games (x=number of players). Online I try to win 50%, but I know that is not super realistic as I will typically have 3 opponents playing Jin-Gitaxias, and 40 counterspells.

Black Market is cheap now. I think. You need some LD redundancy. Twilight’s Call is good, although onesided. Rise of the dark realms is also onesided, but the other way. Expensive, so not a good suggestion.

Maybe you could pick up a Meren precon. This deck could use Meren and Mazirek.

I would not go with Grave Pact. It slows down play to the point of boredom. I would go all out on Fleshbag Marauder lookalikes though, very good after a LD. Midnight Reaper is the new hotsauce.

I went to follow your advice Shabbaman, but wow... I couldn't find Plunder the Graves for less than $150! I mean I could get the second Commander Anthology for about $280. So I thought about it... but I think I am going to just buy singles, unless I just hit a good deal at some point.

OK, bad advice then. I didn't want to make you feel miserable: I knew the deck was in the second anthology set, so I figured it might not be ridiculously expensive. Anyway, I'm going to quote myself from another thread:



Nice article.

You know, with Pitiless Plunderer (and very likely with Revel in Riches as well) you can make an infinite LD loop if you have something to recur LD in your pile, like Ewitness.

Another thing worth exploring is if you can put Cryptolith Rite to good use. It's a weak version of Earthcraft, but at least it is affordable (well, it's dirt cheap on magiccardmarket, US prizes are crazy). You need a haste enabler though.

So I started reading that article, and I should probably say I have read several articles from Stephen Johnson and I thought they were really good, but whenever someone just re-types what is already on the card I lose interest. I mean there are some cards where there is 400 lines of text so paraphrasing is appreciated, but whenever a card is meantioned and they start with "Shock deals 2 damage to any target, Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to any target..." I move on.

Meren herself is a $9 at the moment, but since she is not going to be the commander I do not know if she would be worth it without a very slot intensive reanimation package. I think that is just a different deck. I kinda want to dredge a lot of stuff into my graveyard, play Izoni, then sac everything for profit before I Living Death it all back. I ended up trading for a bunch of stuff for the deck like Reclamation Sage and so I think this will be the deck I work on slowly as I trade for stuff. I currently am trying to get a Liliana, Heretical Healer filled to the brim with all the copies. I ended up trading quite a bit for a Liliana of the Veil in Russian.

I like your style of reviewing articles, you should do that on a weekly basis. Personally I'm not bothered by that though, I'm a fast reader (meaning: I read the first and last part of a paragraph and skip half the text).

Agree on Meren not being worth nine bucks to fill a slot. I just thought it'd be worth it if you could get the whole precon at a good price (and the individual cards you want or need from that deck are likely cheaper than what you'd pay for the whole deck...). Mazirek is worth it though (define "it", don't know... Excellent card in the 99, can get big and has evasion, lets you go wide.. at least worth 5 bucks (and it likely costs more, so there you go).

I like the idea of a Liliana theme. A long shot, and way outside your price range, but if there ever was a good time since its original release to get a Doubling Season, it is now. Barring another reprint it won't get cheaper.

About dredge, it's not a strategy I enjoy in EDH. I do like Deathbridge Chant, and playing Hermit Druid with several basics in the deck is very solid. You could play that in addition to your dredgers.

I found most of the cards in the precon for way less than actually buying it, and so I updated the original post with what I am actually playing. So far I have gotten in 3 games, and I haven't really been able to do much in any of them. One because there was an Eldrazi by turn 4 (Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, the commander was Selvala, Explorer Returned and he had out Priest of Titania and 3 other Llanowar Elves). I think I need to trim mana costs or maybe add some more mana fixing/fetch as I was struggling to get 6 mana before turn 9+

You could try Cryptolith Rite. And/or all Wood Elves lookalikes.

So I finally am moved in and wanting to go try out a new shop or so I have been debating what decks to bring as it will be a first impression of sorts. I recently (well it has been over a year ago so I guess not super recent0 sold most of my collection but I have this deck and a few more. If you look at the OP under Deck I am playing on Paper, I updated it as it had gotten a few upgrades. Let me know how you would feel playing against it. Also if you have some critiques that would be awesome as well. Thanks!

Honestly, I think your paper list may have too much ramp - specifically, it's FULL of ETB get a land dudes, which are nice and all, but I think you have too many, especially things like Jungle Wayfinder that are helping all your opponents... there's no need for that.

I'm encouraged that you didn't go straight to the Grave Pact well with this - those effects can be incredibly oppressive with generals that have built-in triggers for them.

Also, your intro said this was a Living Death deck, and yet I don't see Living Death in the list...

I feel like you could use some more impactful cards, especially ones that like to die or like other things to die - Solemn Simulacrum, Zulaport Cutthroat, World Shaper, Seedguide Ash, Masked Admirers, God-Eternal Bontu... I could go on and on. You could really push it and go with stuff like Protean Hulk, but I wouldn't suggest that unless you find your new meta is high-powered.

Oh, and Journey to Eternity is pretty nutty.

I think you might be right on too many ebt land dudes, I will have to change it up as soon as I get my hands on some WAR cards, been tempted to get a box of Japanese and I should do it asap if I am going to do so as they are around $200 a pop now.

I did have a Savra, Queen of the Golgari deck that ran all the Grave Pact, but it wasn't fun for anybody, so I try to steer away from that when playing with friends or people at a lgs. MTGO I have no qualms as I am likely to die before turn 5 anyways.

I did run Living Death for a while, but it got to be boring for me and opponents when I have 20 triggers on the stack and no one dies. So I cut it for now, but I might put it back in as a catch all good stuff if needed.

I really need to get out more, but mostly just been playing Arena as I can do that when I want without traveling. I will make a decision on the box of WAR soon and update decklist. Thanks for feedback.

Picked up some WAR cards, so I made some changes: