Dies to Removal

This is a work in progress thread for Chainer, Dementia Master. Rather than lose the discussion in my other thread on repeatable recursion, I wanted to go ahead and start a thread specifically for brewing Chainer. The deck started out as a scrubby casual deck I threw together to grief someone who joined our group to troll us. It was a mono-black deck with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed as the general, utilizing as many win-on-the-spot combos as I could fit into a mono-black pile. Once that guy was gone, it turned into a zombie tribal deck with Lim-Dul the Necromancer at the helm. From there it evolved into Chainer as I started tuning it up.

What got me to thinking about changing generals was how conditional Lim-Dul's ability is. I can only reanimate creatures that enter the graveyard from play, and only as
they enter the graveyard. That restriction, combine with Lim-Dul's CMC of 7 put me pretty well behind the pace of our average game. To counter this, I was packing the deck full of more and more recursion spells and fewer actual win conditions. Chainer's ability is less conditional, and Chainer himself has a lower CMC, but the price of using him is a fair bit steeper. So the deck went from a reanimator shell to more of a suicide black model.

As I see it, I will need to focus on three things to make Chainer work: sac outlets (ideally free sac outlets) to control the exile effect of Chainer's ability, life gain to mitigate what it costs me to use him, and abusive ETB effects that I can loop through my sac outlets and back into play with recursion engines.

[deck]Chainer, Master of ETB Abuse[/deck]

It takes some setup, but there's plenty of tutor to get what you need if you're short on parts, and Chainer himself provides consistent access to one of those parts. So really you're just looking for an outlet and something with a degenerate ETB effect, and enough life gain to keep your head above water. I have noticed that having a ton of mana at your disposal makes life way, way easier as well so I've opted to run an above average land count and mana doublers over mana rocks. Lily is to fetch out more Swamps. Her second ability is useful in an emergency, but she's there for ramp. Gauntlet of Power didn't make the cut
because black is a pretty common color at the table and I specifically want to avoid helping an opponent with that broad a stroke.

The idea is to create recursion loops with reanimation effects and sac outlets to abuse an already degenerate ETB effect by repeating it as many times as I have the mana to afford. Add undying from Mikaeus the Unhallowed for extra fun! [card]Geralf's Messenger[/card] lands for 2 life per ETB, and sacs once for free with his own undying. Kokusho, the Evening Star drains 5 life from everyone and nets me the total loss in gain every time he dies. Massacre Wurm can become a one sided board wipe that dodges indestructible. Duplicant exiles something every time it enters. Solemn Simulacrum is a Swamp on ETB and a draw upon death. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is either as good or
better than Kokusho a majority of the time. Wurmcoil Engine leaves behind two mini Wurmcoils when it dies, then comes back as a fully grown Wurmcoil ready to split in half again. Sepulchral Primordial is ETB recursion, and Rune-Scarred Demon is ETB tutor. Fleshbag Marauder and Slum Reaper are my weak links, I think. I don't like the conditional "each player" that their forced sacrificing carries. Its okay if I have an empty board, but not okay enough to double up on. I'm yanking out the Slum Reaper to replace with a Bone Shredder as we speak. It'll do until I get a Grave Titan or something.

I ran it once, and it worked okay. And by "okay" I mean when the table figured out how the deck was supposed to work they dropped what they were doing to archenemy me. I held them
all off and won. BUT I got really lucky on my draws with an opening hand of both Urborg and Coffers, an early Caged Sun that stuck, and someone else ditched a Mikaeus to their 'yard for me to take from them. After that it was just a matter of sticking a sac outlet and beating face until Rise of the Dark Realms into Gary for 31, sac Gary to whatever, Undying Gary returns for another 31. I expect them to be a little more attentive to my board state next time, possibly earning me the first Bojuka Bog instead of Scion or Karador. Luckily I play enough red to know not to overextend. Even so, I'm considering cutting Crystal Ball to run a [card]Feldon's Cane[/card] just in case.

Mikaeus's interaction with the deck makes things a little awkward. Still worth it, you just have to pay attention to the wording on undying; (When this creature dies, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its
owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it.) So anything I steal out of an opponent's graveyard with Chainer or Reanimate comes back into play under that opponent's control if I sac it while it has undying. That's not a deal breaker, but its something to be aware of before you go sacing everything.

Nobody understood the Snow-Covered Swamps. I didn't explain them, and I didn't draw into Extraplanar Lens so I'll just save that little bomb for later. I like when I can do something they didn't expect. Like run four mana doublers outside of green.

The thing I foresee needing to work on the most are my life gain engines and sac outlets. If I need more they will come at the cost of cutting redundancy and removal. Altar of Dementia is another free sac outlet, so there's that. And there are functional reprints of Bloodflow Connoisseur and [card]Bloodthrone Vampire[/
card] in Nantuko Husk, Blood Bairn and Carrion Feeder. Life gain engines are a bit clunky; one relies on creatures attacking, one is a Sorcery I can't get back unless Xiahou Dun is in play, and one gets treated like half of a win-on-the-spot combo even if I've made it clear that its not. But I guess black isn't the perfect answer for life gain.

That's were its at. Its not much right now, but I'm confident that it will become something and excited to try and develop it.

What about erebos, god of the dead over phyrexian arena? It requires activation and costs, but you get a lot more out of that slot, including a big indestructible beater and you neuter life gain, which depending on your play group could be a ton of virtual damage.

That could be a thing. I tend towards Phyrexian Arena as an automatic inclusion in black, but Erebos can probably work too. I do like the dirty looks Oloro will give me if I stick him.

Mogis's Marauders seems very good here. I also prefer Sever the Bloodline over Murder.

Murder is a weak inclusion. I was initially resistant to exile removal because I can't steal it from their graveyard if its exiled, but then I remembered Riku with Rite of Replication and Progenitor Mimic making multiple Seedborn Muses or Terastodons and I'm suddenly more okay with Sever the Bloodline.

Chainer derped hard all night. Opening hand had three lands and Lens. Kept them, then drew no lands for six turns. Finally played my Lens just to get some mana going and proceeded to draw nothing but lands for the next twelve-ish turns. Planar Cleansing killed Lens, then I drew an Exsanguinate. Got Bojuka Bogged, then top decked Feldon's Cane. It really just wasn't my night.

I've found that I don't need targeted removal as much as I thought I would. Murder is already out for Sever the Bloodline. Hero's Downfall stays because stopping a planeswalker cold is a thing I can live with for 3 mana. Tragic Slip is out now. It's useless to me unless morbid triggers, and while it pretty much kills anything on morbid I just think the slot is better filled by another sac outlet. Altar of Dementia is in. Black Sun's Zenith is out because the number of times I'm casting it
for X=4 or greater makes it strictly worse than [card]Life's Finale[/card]. Sure, it's great as an X=1 vs. Storm Herd, or some other token swarm, but that's not all too frequent a scenario at my table. It's just a board wipe with an inconsistent CMC. Corpse Dance is out because I don't like it. Either Living Death or Animate Dead is in. Lashwrithe is out because it's unnecessary. Was more of a bomb when I was still running Skithiryx. Trying Rings of Brighthearth.

Entertaining the notion of making it a Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter deck and seeing what adding white can do for it, and how much it would change to accommodate a sac outlet general instead of a necromancy general. And there could, perhaps, be a much longer term project in Tariel, Reckoner of Souls. Or I could have a totally different idea by next week. Who knows?

Vish Kal is sweet. If you're into repeatedly killing all of your opponents' creatures for free, grab a [card]Horobi, Death's Wail[/card].

Wow. That's a real card. If I understand that properly... I can use Vish Kal's second ability, for example, to target an opponent's creature for the -X/-X counters, which Horobi then destroys, making it an illegal target? So I'd pick another one, destroying it too, repeat until there are no targets and the ability fizzles? And then when someone tries to use Horobi against me I just sac it to something.

You do still have to remove the counters (since that's part of the cost and has nothing to do with whether or not the ability resolves), but there's nothing stopping you from removing zero counters over and over again.

Horobi does work against you too, unfortunately. You can sac the thing that's targeted, but only Stifle can stop Horobi's trigger once something's targeted by a spell. Sac'ing Horobi himself won't stop it unless you sac him before they ever cast the spell. If you're scared of that happening, a good way to go might be just to cast him, kill everything, then sac Horobi to get 4 counters. If you declare that you're maintaining priority (assuming it's your turn), your opponents won't even get the chance to respond to anything in that chain. By the time they can, Horobi will be gone and you'll be well on your way to a 9/9 Vish Kal on an empty board.

That is a concern. Timing and holding an answer to it, like Living Death, is probably the only way I'll get away with using him with no detriment to myself. That said, I don't think anyone at my table has ever seen this interaction before so I will get away with it at least one time.

There's not much they can do to stop you. Worst case scenario, Horobi acts like a Wrath instead of a Plague Wind.

I played Horobi as a general for quite a while. Once you realise that most spells that target in EDH are removal anyway, Horobi gets a lot less scary for you and a lot more scary for your opponents.

As an aside, I hate when I go fishing for ideas on the internet and 90% of what I find is "this deck -blah-blah-blah- until infinite combo". Seems uninspired. Different strokes, I guess.

Probably because most of the people posting decks online are looking to improve it. As you continue down that road, you eventually end up playing a whole different game - competitive EDH.

Magic is like onions!
"It stinks?"
Yes... No!
"Oh, it makes you cry?"
No!
"Oh, you leave it out in the sun, it gets all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs..."
NO! Layers! Onions have layers! Magic has layers, onions have layers. You get it? They both have layers.


I can get that. Actually, I think I've hit that wall a few times. More than once I've almost settled on a strategy that could really upset the table, only to back off it because it's against the group's ground rules on going infinite, running mass land destruction and taking excessive multiple turns. We're definitely not a competitive group, but I can see where those things would be more common in one that is.

So Erebos is a thing that makes life difficult here. Any ideas for answers other than Karn Liberated?

Black has lots of exile effects for creatures (usually at 4CC ), if you can manage to wait for him to get active. Otherwise, yeah, Karn's the only one I can think of in black.

Probably your best bet is to just go suicide black for a bit and kill the player who has Erebos. Chainer's really good at doing that, though you might die in the process.

I should probably just chin up and get a Karn regardless. It's not like I won't use him in some other deck if I don't use him now.


EDIT: $35 on eBay? Yes, I will buy that.

Subject: Should I take out Black Mike?

Pros:
- Undying with sac outlets and ETB effects is value.
- The +1/+1 effect helps a bit when I need to be attacking.

Cons:
- Undying with sac outlets and ETB effects is win-more.
- Weird interaction with creatures I steal from an opponent's graveyard being sac'd while they have undying puts them straight back onto their owner's battlefield.


Possible replacements:
- Geth: Big mana beater, recursion source (can steal artifacts!), mills more stuff into opponent 'yards for me to take
- Karn: Aformentioned source of Enchantment hate, generally good card

Karn is one of those cards that is always a consideration. At his worst he's two terminates, but if you ever ultimate him it becomes a story worthy game. Only time I ever did it was in a three player game, and Nicol bolas was one of the removed cards. Needless to say it was a hilarious curbstomping.

At worst he's one terminate. Karn's with Sheoldred on the list of cards we're not going to let go around the table if we can help it.


I found a weird interaction I didn't know existed. Cabal Coffers, Deserted Temple and Rings of Brighthearth. Pay 2 and tap Coffers for X mana, pay 1 and tap Deserted Temple to untap Coffers, trigger Rings to untap Deserted Temple, tap Coffers for more mana, untap with Temple, trigger Rings to untap Temple... tl;dr, generates infinite mana as long as Coffers taps for more than 5. Then I take that infinite mana, with Kokusho and Gary in the yard, and I cast Living Death to return them, play Xiahou Dun and sac him to return Living Death, play Living Death again to return Xiahou Dun, Gary and Kokusho, sac Xiahou Dun to return Living Death, play Living Death... repeat as many
times as it takes to win, and then have to promise to never do that again.

Grave Betrayal, anyone? Could potentially do a lot of work. Could also just immediately fish out a counter and waste 7 of my mana.