The General Zone: RTR Deck Series #3: Money, Money, Money, Money (MONEY!)

Hey there, planeswalkers! Welcome to another installment of the RTR deck series!

Last time, I built a deck focused on law and order-

Damnit, not that. I meant Isperia and her Azorius senate. Anyway...

This week, I decided to bring you the other side of the law, or what I like to call "When Good Priests Go Bad"-

Ughhhh, nevermind. Anyway, here's a look at the flavor of the Orzhov Syndicate:

Run by some ghost Oligarchy
Some goth lady carries out their bidding
They operate under the front of a church
Everybody in Ravnica knows, so it's a terrible mafia front
Black and White normally make grey, but in MTG, it's gold!

Obzedat, Ghost Council is basically the same thing as Ghost Council of Orzhova, except it's a 5/5; and for having to pay 1 extra mana in the casting cost, it automatically blinks and the ETB makes your opponent lose 2 life. Not the most original design, but I'll work with it.

Building a deck around the Obzedat could go multiple ways:

Blinking for life gain/loss
Sacrifice tokens and graveborn
Creature removal/control
Barrage of B/W badasses

The fatal flaw with any ONE of these is that I need ALL of them in the deck, in at least one way or the other. The only strategy that Obzedat seems naturally inclined to would be blinking, but I didn't find it worth putting in every known flicker card out there just for the general who I won't be able to cast until turn 5. Sacrifice/life gain seems to be the strategy of choice for most B/W players I've encountered, but I refuse to play Grave Pact (part of a long list of cards that go against my ethos).

My other big problem: not much money to fool around with for buying MTG singles. I decided to use only the cards that I had in my personal catalog or cards that I pulled from booster packs and drafts. After pulling two Blood Baron of Vizkopas from the same fat pack of Dragon's Maze, I didn't need to spend too much money anyway.

So life gain/loss would be the main feature of this deck, supported by creature removal/sac and a plethora of just plain crazy. The initial decklist looked like this:

Commander: Obzedat, Ghost Council

Creatures (21):

Disciple of Griselbrand

High Priest of Penance

Blood Baron of Vizkopa

Sepulchral Primordial

Artifacts (5):

Orzhov Cluestone

Orzhov Keyrune

Chalice of Life // Chalice of Death

Instants (16):

Sorceries (11):

Enchanments (6):

Land (40):

Vault of the Archangel

Plains (x16)

Swamp (x16)

The strategy is fairly plain: a mix of good black and white removal cards, token generators, a board wipe, graveyard control, and some heavy-hitters. Life gain is especially present in this deck; several creatures have lifelink or can double life gain returns. If life gain was the stock market, this deck would be doing better than the S&P 500.

A couple of the cards, I admit, are a tad odd for the strategy I'm going for: Mind Rot, Purge the Profane, and Painful Quandary, most notably so. I figured that I would explore some options as far as discard goes, plus Painful Quandary is painful to deal with.

Moriok Replica wasn't my first choice of creature card, but he presents a lot of card draw opportunities, especially with Treasury Thrull and other retrieval cards.

Very minimal extort was put in the deck. Treasury Thrull is a great retrieval engine without extort, but he happens to have it. I needed another 2 drop creature to balance out the mana curve, so Tithe Drinker went in. Lifelink 2/1 with extort? Mediocre at best, but I still wanted to play it.

Test runs had very mixed results. I first played this deck against Anowon, the Ruin Sage, and despite getting to flex some sacrifice muscles, the game was quickly lost to the vampire shaman, since I only have two vampire creatures in my deck, neither of which were drawn in the twelve turn course of the game. The next game had more luck: with enough creature removal and life loss, I was able to beat Anowon, although the game was close and he'd done 16 commander damage to me throughout the course of the game.

Against Doran the Stompy Tree, however, the deck failed miserably. My buddy's Doran deck put me in a defensive stranglehold. Either more creatures or more creature removal would have made Obzedat stand a chance, but once Rolling Stones was in play, my ass was grass.

My opponent kept saying "Man, you need a Sanguine Bond in that deck." And I realized: he's right. That card would make my deck a much more formidable threat. I, however, didn't want to pay $9.99 for a one in ninety-nine chance at being an unstoppable force. At least for the time being...

"Exsanguinate, maybe?" said my Stompy Tree friend. Now we're getting somewhere. Before making more changes, though, I tested this deck against Radha, Heir to Keld. Obzedat did surprisingly well against the red/green stomping machine. The only creature removal I had was the Archon of Justice and the High Priest (and a couple resurrection spells). Once the Rhox Faithmender and Vizkopa Guildmage were in play, my opponent was losing twice as much life. A Terrastadon plus an Elderscale Wurm slowed me down, but the Archon came back out on the battlefield for another round of exiling. Two turns after removing the Wurm from the game, Obzedat swung for the win with a Gift of Orzhova to lift him above the Terrastadon.

I was pleased with its performance, but much improvement was needed. Before getting my life gain combos on the battlefield, the game was looking to be in my opponent's favor. I seriously considered purchasing some cards like Exquisite Blood, which could infinite combo with my Vizkopa Guildmage. As the test games continued, I started getting fond of the little Guildmage. All of the Ravnica guildmages are actually pretty good; but, this one especially pleased Obzedat.

So it was time to make some revisions to the deck.

I realized how well an Exsanguinate would work in the Obzedat deck, as well as Exquisite Blood. Blood Reckoning really wasn't doing much in the deck, and neither was Cluestone; as much as I wanted to make the Cluestone work, it's performance in the deck was mediocre at best. Better card draw came from the Well of Lost Dreams and the Moriok Replica. In with the Bloody Cards, out with the Reckoning and Cluestone.

Tithe Drinker is useless unless you can beef her up somehow, and Extort wasn't doing much. A far more effective use of mana is Purgatory, my new favorite B/W Enchant. It's like graveyard retrieval only better; and paying 4 mana and 2 life is not big deal for the Obzedat. They'll simply say, "Fuggeddaboutit! That's chump change."

Mind Rot, although occasionally useful, was not as good as a good old Fleshbag Marauder. I also ditched the Cower in Fear for a Zealous Persecution, a much better and cost efficient spell. On the topic of creature removal, Unmake was put in Purge the Profane's place, since it had the advantage of also being an instant.

In favor of more creatures, I took out a Swamp for a Souls of the Faultless, a delightful little defender. My mana curve wasn't suffering.

Enough change, Obzedat wants cash money.