I'll be on later and we can battle our B/W fail decks at each other until one ultimate mega fail is victorious!

After testing it is a total fail, this B/W cannot win in this meta is gets beat by even **** decks.

Hate it when that happens. It's too often... I hope mine fairs better. I'm giving it a shot tonight.

Hmm, I hate admitting defeat so now i'm thinking if maybe adding the swamp and plains battle lands for Unified Front synergy with the life drain healer. If you had 2 healers down and cast UF it would drain for +/- 8 Life which could be just the spike this deck needs. The rest of the deck could be aggro and anthem styling.

Thinking about it, we might need to go Esper Aristocrats to support the life drain with possible Husk wins.

Tainted Remedy + Jorubai exists there too.

Not sure about any other B/W decks but at least this control build i tried gave me 6-2 record (i didn't count it until i got the build right). I have tried some allies deck etc. but those didn't work for me.

Deck list:
1x Vampiric Rites
3x Felidar Cub
2x Shadows of the Past
1x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3x Fleshbag Marauder
3x Blood-Cursed Knight
3x Read the Bones
2x Smothering Abomination
3x Retreat to Emeria
3x Suppression Bonds
2x Languish
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Cruel Revival
2x Planar Outburst
3x Angelic Edict
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
2x Emeria Shepherd

9x Plains
2x Swamp
2x Shambling Vent
2x Isolated Chapel
4x Mortuary Mire
4x Orzhov Guildgate

Oh the Timmy in me approves of that on a Husk

@Flayer I was more talking about allies and life drain/aggro any deck with white can build decent control in this meta

Yeah i thought so. Just haven't had any luck with W/B ally or aggro

This deck is poor... Don't play it. I realized a fatal flaw on the third turn of playing it against Barney, lol. I've got 3 new ideas, and I'll test them later today. Aggro, aggro control v2, crats (which may actually be really good, can't believe I'd never thought of crats in these colors before).

Re crats... I mean seriously... Something in this rough vicinity must be decent, maybe even amazing.

.unsaved.dec, Built with Decked Builder
http://decks.deckedbuilder.com/d/146306

I mean seriously... Tragic arrogance + abomination? Are you kidding me? Lol. Must get that to go off once in my life. Lol - soooooo Johnny!

Holy crap I never thought about the Tragic A-bom combo, that is epic!

Lol, it came up in the very first game, and then I screwed it up, because I was so excited to see it. Just stupids over here. I'll let you know how epic/not epic it is, if I ever see it again.

Base build should be -2 priest +2 Emeria shepherd. (Last minute change after posting).

I tried several versions of Orzhov (aggro was too slow compared to other aggro decks, control was even slower etc) but i find this one the most suitable (at the moment 7-3 whereas i never started first for once)

Kytheon, Hero x 1
Vampiric Rites x 1
Serene Steward x 1
Kor Castigator x 3
Kalastria Healer x 4
Shadows of the Past x 1
Reprisal x 1
Reave Soul x 2
Lantern Scout x 2
Liliana, Heretical Healer x 1
Graveblade Marauder x 2
Malakir Familiar x 3
Fleshbag Marauder x 2
Drana's Emissary x 3
Blood-Cursed Knight x 3
Retreat to Hagra x 2
Retreat to Emeria x 2
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar x 1
Ob Nixilis Reignited x 1

23 Lands
Plains x 7
Swamp x 9
Shambling Vent x 2
Mortuary Mire x 1
Evolving Wilds x 4

Tactics

Depending on your opponent you can play this deck either aggressive (against slow decks, i never had issues against the land destructions because most cards are 3 drops anyways) or defensive (i literally destroyed all aggro decks so far) but you can also put (some) pressure against the opponent with both playing styles

I won quite many games with also unusual cards like Retreat to Hagra, Drana's Emissary or/and Kalastria Healer, also Evolving Wilds is a great combo with Retreat to Hagra which can stall creatures (from attacking) or even kill huge creatures if they decide to swing

But the deck has a really huge problem against other lifegain decks (1-3 score so far against those) - if you dont put enough pressure at start then you lose and get destroyed

Oh, nice

In fact, you just triggered a brain frenzy about what is Crats and what can be its core(s). Rant incoming
I make you personally responsible (that means I'll send you the psychiatrist's bill...)


Btw, I take for granted you are gonna put Rogue's Passages there?

I tried to make a deck with that concept without looking at yours, and I came with this:

2 x Felidar Cub

2 x Lantern scout

1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 x Retreat to Emeria

2 x Tragic Arrogance

1 x Emeria shepherd

*************

3 x Perilous Myr

**************

1 x Vampiric Rites
3 x Bone Splinters

2 x Corpse Hauler
3 x Carrier Thrall

1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
4 x Nantuko Husk
1 x Read the bones

2 x Smothering Abomination

1 x Priest of the Blood Rite
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

****************

5 x plains
7 x swamp
3 x rogue's passage
2 x shambling vent
2 x isolated chapel
1 x Orzhov Guildgate
4 x evolving wilds


As you can see, practically identical...just 1 Splinters, 1 Myr and 1 Rites for 1 Read the bones and 2 Lantern scout (ok creature per se, goes well with Ob, Read, Priest...really well with Husks...and amazing with Gideon/Emerias. You really can't ask for more, lol)

The land, the usual plus trying to optimize Husks, Emerias and Sheperd

Edit: played half a dozen games, undefeated, 3 against + AI 3 against players...lol, here for your pleasure, meet my friend Johnny



Edit2: I must say, after 10 games...probably best Orzhov deck with this pool, at least the best of those I have tried, by far...just one tricky thing: playing your own enchantments around your TAs, main problem of the build imo, not the best synergy there, hence Shepherd...but she's maybe too costly to have 2, i dunno, difficult decision, playtesting will say, i guess

59 cards

Hello to all the lifegain lovers! It's my first post in the Orzhov thread and first (ever) try at building an Orzhov deck. It's not based on a lifegain (not a fan of this theme, although I can see its capabilities) but rather is a re-invention of my mono-b deck which was advised to me by our fellow Frayer. It adds the stuff I lacked in MBC (enchantment and PW hate, reliable removal and sweepers, additional finishers) and feels more suitable for current meta, at least on Steam.

Things I've decided to cut are:

Vampiric Rites and Shadows of the Past - cut due to low number of creatures. They were good with 18 but I'm not so sure about 13

Sludge Crawlers – they served as enablers for Ruin Processor but since we have more interesting finishers in W now, they’re both gone

Graveblade Marauder – he was one of the last additions to the deck and allowed a few easy wins but I don’t see him working here

Carrier Thrall – still not sure about this one. They were cut because 1) Bone Splinters are gone too and 2) deck heavily relies on a color of mana so colorless source were often irrelevant during my testing

Erebos's Titan – I love this dude but he was the first thing I’ve decided to cut because of BBB in mana cost, that’s too unreliable for a two-colored deck

All the other cuts were made due to include more important control stuff or because of a superior choices in W.

Also, a small note regarding sticking to 2 colors instead of 3 (abzan, esper) – I’ve decided to do it because of Moss currently ruining my mana base every other game. Two-colored variant is more resilient to this and due on Moss’ popularity in current meta, I’ve decided to use a BW variant for now.

So, after about a week of testing my decklist looks like this:

Creatures x 13

2 x Felidar Cub
3 x Perilous Myr
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Oblivion Sower
1 x Kothophed, Soul Hoarder
1 x Emeria Shepherd
1 x Ulamog, The Ceaseless Hunger

Spells x 22

1 x Gideon’s Reproach
2 x Celestial Flare
2 x Reprisal
1 x Complete Disregard
2 x Read the Bones
1 x Rising Miasma
1 x Bitter Revelation
2 x Languish
2 x Suppression Bonds
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 x Angelic Edict
2 x Planar Outburst
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 x Cruel Revival
1 x Necromantic Summons

Lands x 25
8 x Swamp
8 x Plains
2 x Evolving Wilds
2 x Orzhov Guildgate
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Shambling Vent
1 x Mortuary Mire


Card choices except the obvious ones:

1 x Rising Miasma is not only to deal with tokens, but also to awaken more lands

1 x Sower because a) of Ulamog and b) in my experience this deck needs lots of mana late game. Manlands love to have lots of mana

1 x Kothoped to finish off Planeswalkers. Yeah, I hate them.

2 x Cubs because they are useful 90% of a time. Good bye Leaps, Roils, From Beyonds and Retreats! If you're running against aggro with no enchantments, they're still bears

I feel that right removal suite will be the hardest to calibrate, so I’m open to your advices regarding that. Not having enough instant speed removal to deal with un-flipped Planeswalkers concerned me so that’s why 1 x Complete Disregard is here. Not consistent enough but I like it so far. Also, sometimes I want 1 more Celestial Flare to deal with Gideon, Ulamog and GR.

Initially I run 2 x Mire's Malice (perfect late game move vs control decks, great when awakened) but it was cut due to the addition of 1 more bomb. Still considering to swap it back.

I considered Retreat to Emeria but without any ramp I'm not sure about its usefullness.

All in all, that's a fun build to play with, and that's what important for me.

As always, any critics and suggestion are more than welcome!

PS. I’ve checked last 5 pages of this thread and stumbled upon Nighthawk’s version of control build that we share a lot of cards with Cool build, Nighthawk! I’ve seen you piloting it on YT and winning

So yeah; Orzhov Control remains to be quite an enigma. Here is my modest attempt at it, which has been working out pretty nicely so far.

Creatures (13):
2 x Knight of the White Orchid
4 x Felidar Cub
3 x Pilgrim's Eye
1 x Oblivion Sower
2 x Emeria Sheperd
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Non-creature spells (23):
3 x Celestial Flare
3 x Reprisal
3 x Complete Disregard
3 x Read the Bones
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 x Languish
3 x Suppression Bonds
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
2 x Planar Outburst
2 x Tragic Arrogance

Lands (24):
8 x Plains
6 x Swamp
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Orzhov Guildgate
4 x Evolving Wilds


I'd love to hear your input, especially considering the fine-tuning of the deck. How do you like the spell base? Should any of the 3-ofs definitely be 4-ofs, which spells should I cut for it?

EDIT: At the moment, I think this is where I'll stay. The deck works nicely against anything that does not use Moss, and it even has a shot against those decks. I've been toying around with which removal spell to cut (mainly because I'd love the fourth copy of Read the Bones), but all of them have proven their worth multiple times.

CovertGo blue played against me with his WB Control deck so I figured I'd see what was inside and add my twist. This is my concept.
2 x Vampiric Rites
4 x Perilous Myr
2 x Knight of the White Orchid
2 x Felidar Cub
3 x Shadows of the Past
1 x Reprisal
2 x Celestial Flare
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
3 x Fleshbag Marauder
1 x Complete Disregard
4 x Read the Bones
2 x Suppression Bonds
2 x Languish
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 x Planar Outburst
1 x Angelic Edict
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
5 x Plains
3 x Swamp
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Isolated Chapel
3 x Foundry of the Consuls
3 x Mortuary Mire
4 x Orzhov Guildgate
4 x Evolving Wilds

Looks good. Don't know how good Rites and Shadows are with low creature count though. Also, Shepherd is insanely good late game, I'd cut any other card to take her. Getting your Gideon back on the field with a simple Plains? Priceless.

I've been working on and off at a Mardu control list for quite some time and more often than not, it comes back to Orzhov. With that being said, even with such a low creature count, Shadows is an incredible card in the shell. The repeated scry is great for fixing but the activated ability almost always comes on line and tends to become a win condition. The games go extremely long if the deck is going to win and most of your creatures end up in the bin anyway (chump, die to your own sweepers or fleshbag which just jumps in there on his own). Now I don't agree with 3 copies of Shadow, but do think it should be in the deck. I tried Rites out and did find that lack luster. Having said that, it does have good synergy with Shadow and Lily so there's that (I gave up on Lily since I didn't find her PW abilities synergizing well unless there was a fleshbag in the bin or had Rites in play).

The one downside is that several options lead to life loss. I had been loving Bitter Revelation since it went deeper than Read the Bones and it allowed me to bin creatures to turn on Shadow. I also had found room for Ob Nixilis Reignited and Kothophed, Soul Hoarder. All that on top of what your opponent does resulted in some tight games. I've recently been using both Bones and Revelation to ensure the deck could draw into the answers it needs/wants (Ob is still there but Koth is on the sidelines) therefore have been looking at life steal effects (Retreat to Hagra and Drana's Emissary). So far these have turned into it's own win condition since the games go long enough for this to actually work (outside of life gain). I just don't like taking the turn off for the Retreat and the Emissary is removed instantly.

There's definitely a control deck here (Mardu or Orzhov) but it's just finding the right blend of answers, win conditions and support (it reminds me of Hakeem's 2015 Grixis control. Let them play stuff, dig for the right answers to crush their hopes/dreams and then find your own win conditions).


I'm sure the deck will surface sooner or later. Probably just in enough time for the card pool to change again

elk

Great post, elk! I agree with you on most points.

As you can see by checking my list a few posts earlier, I've come to these conclusions myself. But I haven't yet tested Shadows of the Past. Guess I should give it a try.

I haven't yet tried brewing Mardu control but I also do keep jumping back to Orzhov from Abzan and Esper builds!

I hope OGW will give us more options and wincons, as should Innistrad (which always focused on B and W), so let's wait