Kothophed, Soul Hoarder

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DungeonMimic1993 on Hey Jude

1 week ago

Thank you for the feed back DreadKhan, it reminded me that I haven't edited my digital version of this deck even though I changed my physical. I've updated the above deck to match my real deck and added some of your suggestions. First of all, You were 100% right about mana being a struggle and Judith being a kill on sight. I really haven't found any ramp in rakdos so thanks for the lands, i can see them building up fast. I also added Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge to produce mana off killing creatures. he's not very fast for mana but he is a good cheep blocker too.

Aetherflux Reservoir is definitely on my to-buy-list, but when i bought this deck I opted for the Bolas's Citadel instead.

I'll probably hold off adding Sensei's Divining Top because one; It's a bit out of my budget, and two; personally, I find combo wins to be a kind of disappointing way to end a game - at lest not as exciting as dealing 20 damage to everything with starstorm. But if you are someone who likes combos that is a very solid one to add for sure.

Shock for Flare is a pretty close swap, Flare costing more mana and doing less lifelink damage, but keeping cards in your hand. Once i add the charge up lands a two mana difference won't be as big as it is currently so i think that will make it worth it to replace.

Rite of the Raging Storm is going in for sure. Because the creatures will die at the end of the turn they will trigger cards like Deathbringer Thoctar , Massacre Wurm, or any other similar creature in the deck making it a must have. Not a card i would have found otherwise so thank you so much for suggesting it.

I could add Kothophed, Soul Hoarder so i have more a chance at drawing one, but Harvester of Souls does the same minus taking lots of damage making it a better option for me.

Because most of the card in here say "each" i can almost always get around Hexproof, Shroud, and Ward, and I have cards like Burn from Within to get around indestructible and Fanged Flames to get through protection so there hasn't been a time yet were there was something i couldn't kill, but you never know when your wubrg friend is going to play Progenitus so not a bad card to put in there if you come across something really hard to deal with often.

I really appreciate your feed back, I just played this deck yesterday and in a 6 player game, and came very close to a win if i had exactly 2 more mana or one more card draw, so everything you recommended is on point with what this deck needs.

DreadKhan on Hey Jude

1 week ago

I fear and love this deck, such a terror! +1!

Seeing as people will probably try to kill your Commander a lot maybe a storage land could help? I wouldn't cut an actual land for one, but it can help you power out Judith and then cast a follow up wipe right away, as is people might have too much opportunity to kill Judith before you can wipe. Mercadian Bazaar and Subterranean Hangar are the 'better' two, but Dwarven Hold and Bottomless Vault are the worse options, I use all 4 in my Rakdos list (which does some similar stuff) and am often happy with their ability to ramp me.

Apologies if you were already aware, but with Bolas's Citadel if you have Sensei's Divining Top and Aetherflux Reservoir you usually win the game on the spot. FWIW with your life gain potential you could trigger Aetherflux Reservoir without using it's Storm ability, so that might be useful even without the combo, and Divining Top is just a great card to have around if you can afford it.

With your Commander I think I'd just as soon use Flare over Shock? 2 more mana to draw a card isn't awful, and it's still an instant, Deathtouch means it generally kills whatever you target either way.

It's a weird card but since you're pretty good at clearing the board I'm happy to suggest an old favorite of mine, Rite of the Raging Storm. If there is an opponent who neglects blockers (or you just kill them all over and over) they will quickly get swamped by the free 5/1 each turn. As an Enchantment it doesn't die very often, and 5 power with Trample is usually high enough that you can swing at someone. I use Rite with various things that help make the tokens even better, be they anthems like Berserkers' Onslaught, or equipment like Basilisk Collar. I'm not sure if you have enough high power creatures to make the card work most of the time, but Mask of Griselbrand is surprisingly powerful, even if all you're doing is drawing a 4 or 5 cards from a mid-size creature dying.

If your deck expects to kill a LOT of creatures, you might enjoy Ogre Slumlord, Sangromancer, and maybe Kothophed, Soul Hoarder? Ogre Slumlord makes token armies whenever you kill actual creatures, Sangromancer can gain you a ton of life (and win on the spot with Sanguine Bond maybe), and Kothophed can draw a LOT of cards. I think the first two are much better than the 3rd in most situations, but when Kothophed is good it means cards and cards are amazing.

I'm not sure if you run into stuff your deck can't kill very often, but Make an Example can kill just about any creature you want dead, and it hits each opponent. It's not as cheap as it was, but it's easily one of the strongest 'targeted' removal effects of all time, combining sacrifice with always hitting the exact creature you want for each opponent.

DreadKhan on Rakdos' Captivating Carnival

5 months ago

I like what you're doing here!

Since he's riding a unicycle and throwing fireballs around maybe Mayhem Devil?

It won't help you get your Commander out, but Dream Devourer is a pretty nifty Demon, and it can help out as a back up Commander by letting you bank some mana for big effects. You could also take a look at stuff like Golden Guardian  ^Flip, which is a weird card that has pretty good synergy with your Commander. You might also try Burnished Hart type stuff, it's nowhere near as busted as Guardian would be, but if you pay 3 to ramp out 2 lands you're able to recast your Commander.

If you want another big creature for your list, have you considered Kothophed, Soul Hoarder? It's not a great fit if people are all on sacrifice strategies, but it's a pretty impressive draw engine that's also a Demon.

While I'm not the only person who likes Allure of the Unknown (there are several of us!), it's the kind of card that deserves an asterisk, because while it's won me more than a few games, it does straight up cost you one sometimes. I like to offer the free card to someone who's behind, in some pods it can be possible to get them to not use the freebie vs you, but it's at it's worst when the game is 1v1. Drawing 5 cards for 5 mana is a very strong effect in my experience, and making a short term alliance can be it's own upside. It's up to you obviously, but I've been very happy with it in a deck that's a fairly strong 6, the only times I don't want to cast it are when I'm already ahead and don't want to give someone a free wipe (my deck uses a lot of wipes), it often generates decent advantage in practice.

I was going to suggest some Morph cards, but I looked and the only one really worth mentioning is Gift of Doom, which I think is a real gem. The two demons with Morph are some of the worst Morph cards I've ever seen, at least Gift is playable. The big feature to Gift is that using a Morph doesn't follow the same rules as other cards, meaning even if you can't activate a spell or ability you can still hold up Gift and attach it to something by sacrificing a creature.

With your relatively high MV I wonder if Protection Racket would help? It's a source of life loss if people don't want you to have free cards, and it happens during your upkeep, so you can play stuff during your main phase, to take advantage of Haste.

FauxFaux on Card creation challenge

6 months ago

Kothophed, Soul Hoarder. Specifically his Magic: Origins art.... Interesting!

Devil's Due

Tribal Instant - Demon

You may cast ~ only if an opponent controls a planeswalker, or activates an ability of a planeswalker.

Counter target activated or triggered ability of a planeswalker. Remove all loyalty counters from that planeswalker. You gain X life, and draw X cards, where X is the amount of loyalty counters removed this way.

"In another time, a mere twist of fate, Liliana wasn't able to renegotiate her debts. They soon came to collect."

Repeat!

zelous666 on The Masochism Tango

6 months ago

I considered Angel's Trumpet before and dismissed it as too much of a drawback for my own side. Many of my creatures either can't attack or are only there for utility so they're too weak to attack. That leaves more of an uncontrollable pain point than I want if I want to be able to control where my life is. Same thing with Kothophed, Soul Hoarder. Great draw power, but it let's my opponent control my life instead of me and that's what I'm trying to avoid. Once I'm down to low life all they have to do is sacrifice a couple things to finish me off at instant speed, or attack with creatures they know will die. Nemesis Mask seems like it wouldn't get much use in the deck. It would be pointless on Teysa and the only creature I WOULD want to put it on would be Stuffy Doll. Other than that it would just be used as a lure to clear blockers when swinging with other creatures.

Hatred looks promising. I don't mind doing commander damage with Teysa, I just didn't want to sacrifice slots in the 99 to boost it. But this card synergizes well. Pretty expensive mana cost, so that limits being able to cast it with any other spells that would take advantage of the loss of life like Reverse the Sands, but being able to pay any amount of life at instant speed is gold in this deck. Top it off with a boost to unblockable commander damage and that's pretty strong.

DreadKhan on The Masochism Tango

6 months ago

Sorry I brought Storage Lands up if you've got such bad memories of them!

My 2 cents is that you probably can keep some of the better low to the ground ramp to help get to the more splashy options online, having only high MV ramp with a relatively low land count might not work ideally, having some faster rocks will lead to some games where you have an early Sol Ring into a Thran Dynamo!

I totally understand not wanting infect, it's just hard to not mention something with that level of synergy, I often struggle with 'deck flavor vs powerful cards' problem, nice to see you've got a great handle on it! I guess Inquisitor's Flail has a bit more of a flavor win, since the flail theoretically bops the creature for double as well, but with Protection it won't come up.

If you want to encourage people to attack there is always Angel's Trumpet, this also punishes people for not playing the game you want them to. Nemesis Mask would be avoiding using your Commander for damage and might have some flavor win to it (not only can all of your other attackers get in, Teysa gets to deal her damage to any blocker you want, Banding aside, so you can potentially kill off some utility creatures with each swing), it lets you make use of Vigilance without dealing Commander damage!

If you like paying life Kothophed, Soul Hoarder will let you pay a ton of life/live fast, the better the decks people play the more cards you'll end up drawing. I'm really trying to avoid the 'commander damage' thing, but what about Hatred? You pay life and remove a player who needs to be gone ASAP, then switch life? I could see that being too 'Voltron' for your tastes, but maybe it's on flavor enough to get a pass?

I've heard of people building this type of deck around Selenia, Dark Angel before, maybe she'd work in the 99 to pay life with something like Axis of Mortality's trigger on the stack? She's also an evasive and can protect herself, so she's not 1 dimensional, but a 3/3 isn't very big in Commander!

Hope this stuff isn't too voltron-y for you!

DreadKhan on Merieke Esper Control

1 year ago

I had a longer post but it got lost in the shuffle. Anyways, I like what you're doing here and hope some of these janky ideas will work!

I like Grasp of Fate in a deck like this. If you know who is able to remove it you can make a point of not targeting anything too serious of theirs, in some metas it's not hard to keep this out (lots of decks without Green or White). Stroke of Midnight is another reasonable removal spell with a high level of versatility.

Since you run a lot of wipes and removal I feel like Kothophed, Soul Hoarder is a pretty solid include. As long as he kills what he blocks he'll draw a card each time, any removal that sends stuff to the graveyard is much better, and your wipes can easily feel like Decree of Pain, obviously not great if everyone is on infinite creature combo (in which they don't win that turn as well) but if people have ~10 creatures out you'll get a new hand. Kothophed also draws cards vs things like Fetchlands and Treasure/Clue tokens, I think he's more risky if you don't have a good counter package.

Have you thought about something like Sakashima the Impostor to copy Ioreth? If you have your Commander out she can kill off the entire table except the best thing, which you can keep.

Liliana, Death's Majesty is a nice fit in cards that like the idea of a wipe but might already have several, this Liliana makes tokens and can reanimate stuff in a pinch, but it's the wipe that's extra spicy.

War Tax is a janky card that can be used to protect your planeswalkers, but it can also be used politically, though it suffers a lot of people don't keep their word, the way I like to use it is to make deals with people, they agree either to not send at me (or send less at me), and if they do I don't tax, if they don't I either tax or remove stuff of theirs as punishment. It's really good if the next player is the most aggressive, and the effect is worse if you have 'better' things to do with your resources, but this is a mana sink that people really sleep on.

DreadKhan on Super Juri-o Galaxy

1 year ago

Have you thought about Prosper, Tome-Bound in here to make Star Bits/generate card advantage? People usually use it as a Commander, but I suspect it'll do work in the 99 too. Any reason (price comes to mind, I missed my opportunity on these) you don't use The Ozolith? It seems like it has huge synergy with your Commander.

There is a fair bit of Voltron that might work in here, Juri can get big enough for Mask of Griselbrand to be very useful (he'll have Lifelink when he dies if he was equipped, so you can just deal damage and gain cards instead of life), Dauthi Embrace is very good at helping any creature attack safely, yours or an opponents even, you might try out Shizo, Death's Storehouse and/or Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep, either works for Juri or another Legendary, but I think Witch's Clinic offering Lifelink, even if it's only to your Commander, will be quite useful. I also like Berserkers' Onslaught for Double Strike on your entire board, 5 mana to permanently double your attacking power seems like good value. Finally, there is the new (and fairly unusual) Scavenged Brawler, this is a way to put 4 +1 counters on Juri once the card is in the graveyard, but you also get a bunch of very powerful keywords that synergize very well with a +10 power Juri. Since you like to sacrifice stuff, if you choose to try out some of those voltron cards you might like Rite of the Raging Storm, it makes plenty of tokens, and they aren't coming your way. Rite really likes Exquisite Blood and Kothophed, Soul Hoarder, and both I would argue are independently playable. All of these cards do a surprising amount of work in my own Rakdos deck, and I think your Commander is also pretty beefy.