astral afterlife

[jorael]

Spirit cairn (white enchantment):
Whenever a player discards a card, you may pay W. If you do, put a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying into play.

Nice with some discarding, especially when a deck can utilize spirits, so I made this deck:

Astral Afterlife.dec

24 lands
4 barren moor
4 secluded steppe
8 swamp
8 plains

14 spells
4 wipe clean
2 devouring greed
4 spirit cairn
4 astral slide

22 creatures
4 nekrataal
4 teroh's faithful
4 undead gladiator
2 he who hungers
2 auramancer
3 twisted abomination
3 noble templar

The idea is to hang back, play some defense, slide nekrataal and teroh's faithful and slowly create a bunch of spirits. Then use Devouring Greed to finish (one of) your opponent(s).

He who hungers is a great hand destruction card for this deck: sacrifice one spirit token for a coercion effect and pay W to gain a spirit token. Repeat.

Undead gladiator is great. It let's you cycle every card in the deck for 2BB. And when needed it is a recursive blocker/attacker.

It was a dilemma to choose for a spirit deck or go for a more cycling approach. I chose the latter. The spiritcraft effect of he who hungers is now completely useless. I first added some kami of the ancient law, but replaced them with wipe clean to have some more cycling cards. I'm still not sure if this is a good approach or not.

What do you think about it? Does it need some minor changes or must it be changed completely?

NOTE: I first tried to create the deck with a pure spirit theme: afterlife & rend flesh for removal, etc. But that is not possible if I want enough cycling enablers.

 

[Ephraim]

The biggest strength I can see in this deck over W/R with Astral Slide and Lightning Rift is that you have the potential to have a much stronger white component and thus better colour consistency. With that in mind, I think that Twisted Abomination and Devouring Greed definitely belong in the deck.

However, I think you should cut Nekretaal, Undead Gladiator, and He Who Hungers from the deck entirely.

I also think that you could do with just two or three Wipe Clean (or Clear from Urza's Saga).

Summary:
-4 Nekretaal
-4 Undead Gladiator
-2 He Who Hungers
-2 Wipe Clean

I would then add:
+3 Radiant's Judgement
+2 Swords to Plowshares
+4 Renewed Faith

That leaves three positions that could be filled with some combination of Noble Templar, Radiant's Judgement, and Gilded Light.

These changes leave the deck without the potent creature-kill of Nekretaal, but replace it with Radiant's Judgement and [especially] Swords to Plowshares. Renewed Faith also helps to shore up what may be a slight loss of defense.

Although Undead Gladiator is powerful in this sort of deck, I don't the strong commitment to black that he requires. If you must keep him, use fewer than four copies. Two or three should be enough.

The changes I've suggested also actually increase the number of cycling cards in the deck by two.

 

[Reverend Love]

Jorael

Here's a link to an astral slide deck I made awhile back ago. Worked pretty well. Hopefully you might find something interesting.

One suggestion I'd like to make about your existing deck. If you've got the cards, look into replacing Nekretaals with Duplicants. Their superior targeting ability, combined with removing the creature from the game make their cost worth it.

 

[jorael]

Thanks for the replies

Ephraim: I'm not dropping He who hungers. The combo with spirit cairn just seems too much fun.

I'm also looking if I can add 2 gravediggers. Gravedigger + astral slide + undead gladiator = infinite cycling and blocking.

Hmm maybe the deck could be less black, but I think I want to keep all 4 the gladiatiors. I could drop the nekrataals for duplicants (Duplicants I have and also used them in my W/G slide deck and I had forgotten about them!).

Hard choices, I will do some relfection before presenting my test version on the boards.

EDIT: I will make the following changes:

-4 nekrataal
-1 twisted abomination
-1 noble templar
-1 plains

+2 gravedigger
+4 duplicant
+1 swamp

The deck does not have a lot of cycling cards, but Undead gladiator let me cycle other cards. When doing so I can gain 2 spirit tokens with the spirit cairn (cycle gladiator -> token, discard a card to return gladiator -> token). maybe 4 is too much, but I rather cylce an extra copy instead of not drawing any.

The mana base is a bit shaky, but I think with the auramancers and gravediggers this B/W version is pretty resistant vs. any disruption I might face. If I have too much mana problems I'll add some basic lands and drop a wipe clean and... 1 undead gladiator ( )

The deck after the changes:

Astral Afterlife 1.1.dec

24 lands
4 barren moor
4 secluded steppe
9 swamp
7 plains

14 spells
4 spirit cairn
4 astral slide
4 wipe clean
2 devouring greed

22 creatures
4 undead gladiator
2 twisted abomination
2 noble templar
2 he who hungers
2 auramancer
2 gravedigger
4 teroh's faithful
4 duplicant

 

[jorael]

An update for those interested:

The whole astral slide + spirit thing is too much for one deck. Either I go for a B/W cycling slide deck OR I go spirits all the way.

I did the last thing and decided to make a B/W showcase deck for the spirit theme.

Yin-Yang

24 lands
12 plains
12 swamp

14 spells
4 gerrard's verdict
2 rend flesh
2 afterlife
4 spirit cairn
2 devouring greed

22 creatures
2 he who hungers
2 blinking spirit
2 hikari twilight guardian
2 emissary of hope
2 emissary of despair
4 kami of the ancient law
4 thief of hope
4 undead gladiator

The gladiators combo with the spirit cairns and from a flavor point of view... whell..... they are the mortals that have given the spirits reason to beat an opponent into the afterlife. The rest of the deck is all spirits. I did not include Kokusho, the evening star, because that spirit hardly needs showcasing in our group.

 

[Force of Will Smith]

I think your ying yang deck has a lot of synergy, and incredibly stylish to use the gladiator with the spirit cairn.

In the current build there just isnt enough discard.

right now theres gerrard's verdict, which is awesome. But youd want to play that turn 2. instead of when you have spirit cairn out and an extra White mana to waste.

He who hungers is good for what he is, but its a discard card that costs 5. 5. By the time your opponent has 5 mana the game is shifting towards who's probably gonna win and who's probably gonna lose.

The gladiator is solid at 4. If only there was a way to add gempalm polluter .


Id recommending adding a little more of that discard element with either

4 Nezumi Shortfangs or
4 Cabal Interrogator,
whichever works with your budget


I think emissary of hopes/ despair are good in group games with people playing lots of artifacts... the WW and BB in the cost makes me hesitant.

he who hungers is a little slow for my tastes and you dont really want to sacrifice your creatures for 1 card a piece, seeing as how most of them give continual effects you dont pay for. (shortfang, thief, hikari, kami)


This way.. turn 1 is a land drop..
Turn 2 is either gerrards or a nezumi
Turn 3 you have afterlife, rend flesh, thief of hope, spirit cairn
Turn 4 you can start recycling your guardian or go for a blinking spirit (which stealthly fits into a spirit deck)
I think kami of the ancient law shouldnt be at 4, as well as the thief of hope.


Lands:

11 plains
12 swamp

Gold
4 gerrard's verdict
2 Vindicate

Black:
4 undead gladiator
4 Nezumi Shortfang
4 rend flesh
3 thief of hope
3 Necrogen Mists
2 devouring greed

White:
4 spirit cairn
2 Eternal Dragon
2 Angelic Curator
2 Windborn Muse
2 Ghostly Prison

I still think hikari and blinking should be cut entirely due to the high casting cost.. imean... 4 mana to trigger 1 life loss and a continual chump blocker?

I think Necrogen mists would help a ton.. one its a continual effect that doesnt really hurt you so much. Also it makes nezumi's ability much easier to flip and animate the dead cards your opponent discarded. I also think rend flesh is infinitely better than afterlife, and should replace it entirely.

I'd actually replace all the white cards other than Hikari, Blinking and Kami.

Eternal Dragon will help you out tons to get the white mana you need for repeated cairn activations, and when you can go for the kill.

Angelic curator is just good, pro artifacts 2cc spirit.

3rdly the Windborn muse is a spirit and provides a veritable propaganda.

With the listed land ratio, by the time you could cast your windborn you'd have already gone through a minimum of 11 cards from your deck from drawing.

youd have a a 4% higher chance to get a single plains by turn 4 than you ordinarily would. Bumping your chances from 18% to 22% and in magic thats huge. (considering the chance to draw 1 of 11 cards in a deck increases by 1% after every 3 cards drawn or removed.

If for some reason you were holding 2 eternal dragons, and cycled them back to back on turn 2 and 3... it would be closer to 24.

Sorry to bore.. blah.. i just like this version.. tell me what im missing.

 

[jorael]

all great advice FoWS!

I'm hesitant to remove the 'he who hungers' because they are worth a lot of style points But you made your point: the deck needs some tuning.

I'll play my current version a few times and then I'll do some adjustments (you certainly gave good advice). I don't have any eternal dragons or windborn muses, but I'll choose some nice substitutes.

 

[Limited]

He Who Hungers and Spirit Cairn.. I think it's brilliant!

But to make it work (which seems hard, I gather) maybe you could try to build a white Spirit Cairn Deck, and just add a splash of black for the Hungry Ones?
It's not really taken advantage of the fact that you are creating spirit tokens.
Stuff like Confessor, Emmessi Tome and Devout Witness would seem to be solid.

Or, try to make it a Soulshift deck. I don't know if this is possible for i haven't seen a deck that really takes advantage of this ability yet.
4x Spirit Cairn
4x He Who Hungers
4x Malevolant Awakening
3x Cryptic Gateway
Xx Soulshifting Creatures?

I don't know CoK well enough to complete the decklist.. suggestions?

 

[Force of Will Smith]

Ok. He who hungers is good above all for one reason i overlooked. The second he hits the table, you can destroy hands.. which makes him a good last-ditch effort. Let's say you have 3-4 creatures that pale in comparison to your opponents. With the cards in your hand, you could remove a few of them or deal a mess of damage to your opponent.

Say you have 8 mana... pay 5... then 3
He who hungers hits play, sac 3.. empty their hand. It's already a 2 card advantage assuming you do NOTHING else.. I've been drafting quite a bit lately and this guy = game. Continual effects are almost always good.


Ill explain what i think of the card/cardtypes listed:

Cryptic Gateway: I've tried this in a few decks, and you usually end up tapping your threats to get that extra bomb out. At 5 mana in a tribal deck, coat of arms is a "tiny" bit better.

Malevolent awakening: I think as long as your going back to odyssey, you might as well go back to stronghold.. for a common that does the same.
Tortured Existence is an amazing card, thwarting even counter decks. It costs 1B less to cast, ability costs 1B less to use. The only difference is you sacrifice something in play for whats in your grave. Tortured switches a card in hand for one in your grave, which is almost always better assuming you dont have a swarm of creatures and useful cards in your graveyard... Malevolent could have some sick synergy with the Dripping-Tongue Zubera albeit a little expensive..

1BB:sac a green zubera <to bring back a black zubera> get a 1/1 token. Play black zubera and sac... hmm thats actually really good.. hmmm.... ok moving on.

Soulshifting can be good, except for the fact that you always get 1cc less from a creature. I don't think they have any that go up in cost either, that too would make for an explosive deck. (sac a low for another low, come into play effects trigger,etc)

There is one green creature from betrayers with soulshift 4,4 fetching you 2 shifters (which could potentially go infinite). If they ever make a soulshift creature with mana cost the same as the shift, then they're really good.

I think for a soulshift deck to work you'd need to really abuse it. The immediate thing i thought of [which doesnt work] was to use lifeline to net you more creatures then your... yea still thinking


other possible thoughts..


Spirit Cairn +Zombie infestation: Pay WW for 2 1/1's and a 2/2. repeat

Twisted Abomination+Tortured existence: pay 2, get a swamp,
pay B, get him back

Mindslicer+Carrion Feeder+Lifeline. Your threats re-emerge, there's are simply discarded, and cannot be returned to play.

 

[jorael]

Some great ideas have been mentioned. I'll certainly try to make some kind of deck with 'He who Hungers' (best card name of Cok IMO). It will be based on discarding with the Spirit Cairn and the soulshift should do something usefull.

I'll ponder on it some more. Maybe even until BoK comes out and see what other spirits it gives us (and arcane spells!).

 

[Force of Will Smith]

Yeah i can't wait till arcane and spirits are actually tournament worthy.