Oops, I didn't realize his build was up there already, my bad. I guess next time I should actually look, lol.

Wow the lifegain-drain deck is really fun to play. I'm still unlocking an have still just 1x Vizkopa, 1x Angelic Accord and 1x Sanguine Bond and no Thox Faithmender, what i'm hardly waiting to complete the cards!

Ok, i've pretty finished my Deck and I really like it. What do u mean about running 1 Agent of fates? At the beginning I runned him as deck-filler, but he performs really very well. Ok, he doesn't support the deck-strategie, but:
- 3/2 deathtouch for 3 mana is an awesome stand-alone card
- I run 2 copies of Gods Willing, 2x Swift Justice and 1 Undying Evil, so there are quite a bunch of spells that can target him. I also yet sacrificed him with a Ulcerate to let the opponent sac his bomb on the table
- he has won so many matches alone (in this meta with quitly few cheap removal)

Other card i'm not sure ist Undying Evil, ok worthless on a pridemate but a bomb on a Agent, Baneslayer or even nice on a child of night. I think i will cut it when I have the full card-pool (still didn't get not even one faithmender).

I think also that Angelic Accord is nearby overpowered. There is only few enchantment-removal and it's quitly easy to exploit. In this sentence I made a Selesnya-Angelic-Accord-Abuse-Deck, for those that want catch an eye on it. I wonder I've its competitive against Orzhov lifegain-drain. I think it is! I've still not the hole card-pool, but it seems to rock (only problem is that premium-cloudshift is really hard to replace:

Tribute to lifegain

2x Swift Justice
3x Gods Willing
3x Ulcerate

3x Ajani's Pridemate
2x Ordeal of Heliod
3x Reprisal
4x Lone Missionary
3x Child of Night
3x Vizkopa Guildmage

2x Mentor of the Meek
3x Tribute to Hunger

3x Angelic Accord

1x Baneslayer Angel
2x Indulgent Tormentor

LANDS
4x Radiant Fountain
3x Orzhov Guildgate
8x Plains
8x Swamp

Trying out this, runs pretty smooth. You get early aggression with Ajani's Pridemate and lategame angels. Mentor of the Meek is vital here. Main Gods Willing targets are mostly these two.

Ran Rhox Faithmender but I felt it wasn't needed. It triggers mentor which is nice tho and provides an angel with Radiant Fountain

Here's my deck - I've been pretty successful with it.

Orzhova /

:

2x God's Willing
2x Hero of Iroas
3x Wall of Omens
1x Ordeal of Heliod
2x Reprisal
2X Nimbus Wings
1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2x Mentor of the Meek
3x Banisher Priest
1x Baneslayer Angel

:

2x Quest for the Gravelord
2x Dead Weight
2x Deviant Glee
1x Undying Evil
2x Bloodghast
2x Agent of the Fates
2x Indulgent Tormentor
1x Rescue from the Underworld
2x Vizkopa Guildmage

11x Plains
9x Swamp
4x Orzhov Guildgate

This deck has a lot of synergy and counters a lot of decks in many ways. It's actually somewhat control heavy, punishing your opponent in various ways.
You use Dead Weight to get rid of weaker casters, Banisher Priest for the mid game creatures and Reprisal for the larger threats. Agent of Fates works wonderfully as long as your opponent doesn't play a token based deck and even then he's a 3/2 with deathtouch for 3 mana. Quest for the Gravelord works wonders with all this removal, along with the Bloodghasts and Rescue from the Underworld. You're going to draw enough cards with Mentor of the Meek, Wall of Omens and Indulgent Tormentor. The Tormentors along with the Baneslayer Angel are your late game finishers - protect them with God's Willing and Undying Evil. If all else fails you still have your Vizkopa Guildmages that not only work wonders with the right amount of mana in the late game but will also 1-shot your opponent if you have Ordeal of Heliod and Hero of Iroas in play.

This deck is still work in progress, though. I'm trying to squeeze in 2 more God's Willing since they are very important for protecting your crucial creatures, but I only see Deviant Glee and Undying Evil as replaceable - and then the deck would be very white mana based - which I doubt would be a good thing.

Further discussion on another thread here is a new deck I'm working on. Please bear in mind that it is early days and I've only played a few games against the ai - but any feedback welcome.

Avarice Doll
4 Cloudshift
2 Ulcerate
2 Dead Weight
4 Drudge Skeletons
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Wall of Omens
1 Reprisal
3 Tribute to Hunger
2 Phyrexian Rager
2 Avarice Amulet
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Angelic Edict
2 Creepy Doll
1 Shadowborn Demon
2 Indulgent Tormentor
2 Planar Cleansing
2 Rune-Scarred Demon

4 Orzhov Guildgate
10 Plains
10 Swamp


The idea is to get Avarice Amulet on Creepy Doll using the draw and tutors. Other than that it's just Black/White control shell with plenty of removal.

To go for a combo out of 2 cards which you have 2 of in the deck... to get a 3/1 undestructible/vigilance.. and one of them costs 5 mana. Sorry bad idea! Avarice Amulett is a dead card before you have a doll on the board. and if you have the combo out (in the lategame) enemy have all possibility to ignore your doll: evasion, bounce, exile to mention only 3. Thats really not worth the slots and the mana you spend for it.

Plus Stoneforge Mystic, Rune-Scarred Demon, and decent card draw.

...draw extra cards, chance to kill your guys if you attack or block

Yeah, that's a problem. Have to go for the mid to late game

Avarice Amulet can go on Drudge Skeletons safely to help get the draw. With Cloudshift and open mana it can go on anything else. Even if I do lose it, I can get it back with the plentiful killspells in the deck. Creepy Doll is also okay by itself making an excellent blocker and buying time.

But that's true of any win condition. Definitely evasion is an issue, with plentiful fliers I'm relying on the big angels and demons to come out. Maybe Cobbled Wings could help as a singleton? Fetchable with Stoneforge Mystic.


Even having said that it could definitely be a bad idea. I don't have any more time to test it tonight. Tomorrow I should be able to take it online and see if I get crushed.

Main problem: a combo were you play so much cards around must be a gamewinner, your 3/1 puppet just isn't one. A lot of decks can just chumb-block or ignore it taking the dammage an getting its own dammage through...


You don't run any ramp, you'll be dead in 95% of the games befor you play a puppet that you tutored by your demon


extremly high-costed for 1 card per turn (just look what indulgent tormentor does without being a combo!), and coinflip-deathtouch isn't a big argument neither


Look at the top. He just isn't a win-con. The only thing it handles more or less are single big creature without evasion. How many of them are in the game? Phytotitan and Arbor-Colossus. At its best it handels a bumped heroic creature without flying (you won't see many of them).
But it can't handle:
- flying
- trample
- intimidate/unblocable
- exiling
- bounce
- masses of creatures
- direct dammage
... sure there are lot other strategies.

In the offensive it brings 3 dammage if it doesn't get blocken by a 1/1 token/critter. So: exlain me please what your 3/1 doll with card-draw, 50% deathtouch and vigilance that you cast at its best on turn 6 exatly does??? He does neither his job in the offensive nor in the defense.

Play it if you've fun with it, but looking at its effectivity that combo is never worth to play it...

edit: If you really wanna use the doll as dammage dealer or defender with board-impact: make an Aura-deck around, at least so you can create a real indistructible monster. I don't thin its worth neither, but sure it's the better option.

Here's a deck I made before I knew this site existed
Great place to meet other players and get input.

Soul Leech

Lands:

13 x Plains
8 x Swamp
2 x Orzhov Guildgate
2 x Radiant Fountain

Creatures:

4 x Trained Caracal
3 x Ajani's Pridemate
4 x Lone Missionary
2 x Mentor of the Meek
2 x Rhox Faithmender
1 x Baneslayer Angel
3 x Vizkopa Guildmage

Spells and Enchantments:

2 x Swift Justice
2 x Ordeal of Heliod
2 x Angelic Accord
2 x Meditation Puzzle
2 x Suffer the Past
3 x Vicious Hunger
2 x Tribute to Hunger
2 x Sanguine Bond



Non-Premium :Substitute Cutthroat Maneuver for Vicious Hunger

I've done very well with this deck so far.

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to NGA!

Hey Thanks!

I'm think about swapping in 2x Hall of Triumph somewhere, but not sure what to remove for it. Since I posted this build I've won 5 straight games(one on turn 5!)

The most obvious choice is Meditation Puzzle. You do need to figure out your gameplan though, do you want to win with creatures or do you want to win with lifegain?

You should really include Gods Willing since any kind of spot removal can easily disrupt your plans. And speaking of spot removal, you should run it. Tribute to Hunger doesn't really work when your opponent has more than 1 creature on the board

I'll echo everything slodice said and will add that your Trained Caracals are pretty bad without Ordeal of Heliod on them. Where is Child of Night?

Trained Caracal has worked great getting Ajani's Pridemate as pumped up as soon as possible on turn two. I just prefer the one drop, compared to a two drop of Child of Night for speed's sake and the fact they are both only 1 toughness. I did originally have Child of Night in, but I swapped her out for Mentor of the Meek do get more draw out of the deck and to unify the colors of the creatures so Hall of Triumph could be a viable option.





The main point of this deck is to do damage as I Lifegain/lifelink. So the answer is both. But If that plan fails due to bad draws, then plan B consists of pumping up Ajani's Pridemate and getting out the Angel's for damage.

Meditation Puzzle has won just too many games for me to remove it. (in an ideal draw I can win turn 4-5 with it).

All the lifegain also adds sustainability to stall in order to get the drops I need.

The weakness of this deck is that it's dependent on getting Vizkopa Guildmage or Sanguine Bond Angelic Accordto really start clicking.

I'll try swapping Tribute to Hunger for Gods Willing/Hall of Triumph and see how it does.

With this build, I've only lost around 10% so I'm really liking it.


Thanks guys, for critique!

I want you to read the text on Meditation Puzzle again; here it is:

"You gain 8 life"

Sorry man, that's a terrible card. You have to understand that Puzzle does not win you the game; Sanguine Bond or Vizkopa Guildmage do. You'd be better served running a synergistic card that actually does something.

I mean, I understand the "oh wow" factor of one-shotting someone with this card out of nowhere, but that doesn't make it a good card. Being results-oriented is generally a bad habit to get into with respect to card evaluations.

The same applies to Trained Caracal; you're telling me how great it is to pump up your Pridemate on T2, and that's fine, but what else is it doing for you? It's not attacking unless your opponent is durdling and it's not blocking without dying. It's not a good card without a Lightning Talons or something similar on it.

I think your deck is fine, and I'm sure you win with it, but you have to stop evaluating and defending your card choices solely based on an "if I curve out" mentality.

Don't take this as an attack, I like challenging people on their choices because it makes us all better players.

The best way to look at it, as a control deck I would play a card that reads. Cost 0, target opponent discards a card and gains 8 life, draw a card.

This is essentially what it goes. In fact it's worse because it taps you out. Your opponent gets to watch you lose a card and tap out all for a measly 8 life.

If you have stuck a bond or guildmage most of the cards in your deck should be geared towards abusing that effect and as long as they stay in play winning should be easy. Playing a card like puzzle can be good when everything goes perfectly but I like to build my decks for when things don't.

If you don't get one of the above cards puzzle is terrible.

I'm currently running 7 decks, so thought I'd post them here for anyone interested.

Undying Will

9 x Plains
11 x Swamp
4 x Orzhov Guildgate

4 x Cloudshift
4 x Gods Willing
3 x Wall of Omens
3 x Lone Missionary
1 x Baneslayer Angel
1 x Resolute Archangel
3 x Pharika's Chosen
4 x Undying Evil
2 x Agent of the Fates
4 x Liliana's Specter
1 x Shadowborn Demon
3 x Rescue from the Underworld
1 x Rune-Scarred Demon


Lots of ETB trickery, and ways to trigger it repeatedly along with a few finishers and lots of early stall via lifegain and deathtouch.

Shadowborn is recurrable kill with the Cloudshift/Undying package, especially convenient as he self-sacrifices for the latter. He can also force another creature of your choice to die with the sac demands, which you can give Undying to in order to re-trigger ETBs, and is obviously a great target for Rescue too.

Agent of the Fates has 12 trigger spells on top of his deathtouch, and the Specters are great value for ETB abuse too - especially for taking the last few cards from a player's hand.

I just wanted to share my current deck, so here it is:

ORZHOV MIDRANGE (Premium)
Land
4x Orzhov Guildgate
10x Swamp
9x Plains
CREATURES
4x Attended Knight
1x Baneslayer Angel
2x Banisher Priest
1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2x Cruel Sadist
2x Indulgent Tormentor
3x Wall of Omens
SPELLS
2x Angelic Edict
2x Assassinate
2x Dead Reckoning
2x Mind Rot
3x Raise the Alarm
3x Tribute to Hunger
3x Ulcerate
ARTIFACTS + ENCHANTMENT
3x Dead Weight
2x Ordeal of Heliod

The deck plays some pretty heavy value creatures and spells before it goes for the win with one of its more powerful threats like: Brimaz, Baneslayer, Tormentor or Ordeal of Heliod enchanted creature/token.

The deck runs 22 removal spells (including Dead Reckoning, Banishing Priest and Cruel Sadist - 24 if you include Tormentor as removal too) so it tends to be able to answer opponents problematic threats fairly easily. In addition to removal I run 2 Mind Rot as a way to protect my threats from my opponents removal or just out value my opponent. I play Wall of Omens, Raise the Alarm and Attended Knights as a way to defend against an opponents early onslaughts and/or to overwhelm my opponents in the early game. Ordeal is a useful inclusion for stabilizing while creating a threat (I favor putting these on Attended Knights, Brimaz or Tormentor dependent on board presence). Dead Reckoning is in the deck for value as it doubles as graveyard recursion and spot removal.

All in all, I feel that this is a very solid deck having only lost two matches with it so far due to bad luck (one due to not drawing any removal and another to not drawing any white sources).