Erika Shiragami [EDH]

[Oversoul]

Biollante is a monster that is part Godzilla, part rose, part dead lady. Makes sense, right? Nethroi is a monster that is part cat, part nightmare, and part beast. Somehow, Biollante is also Nethroi. I don't make the rules. There aren't any great commanders for W/B/G Pattern Rector shenanigans. In the past, I used Karador. Nethroi is just a bit more useful than Karador, or so I've come to believe. I really wanted build a Pattern Rector deck again. So, here we are.

Commander:
1 Nethroi, Apex of Death

1 Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward
1 Academy Rector
1 Activated Sleeper
1 Allosaurus Shepherd
1 Animate Dead
1 Apprentice Necromancer
1 Arbor Elf
1 Arid Mesa
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Bayou
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Buried Alive
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Chrome Mox
1 Crop Rotation
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Culling the Weak
1 Dance of the Dead
1 Dark Ritual
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Dread Return
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Genesis
1 Godless Shrine
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Golgari Thug
1 Harrow
1 Karmic Guide
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Life from the Loam
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Necromancy
1 Necropotence
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Pattern of Rebirth
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Prismatic Vista
1 Protean Hulk
1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
1 Reanimate
1 Regrowth
1 Reveillark
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Saffi Eriksdotter
1 Savannah
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scrubland
1 Sol Ring
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Strip Mine
1 Sun Titan
1 Survival of the Fittest
2 Swamp
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sylvan Library
1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
1 Temple Garden
1 Terastodon
1 Triskelion
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Victimize
1 Village Rites
1 Viscera Seer
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wall of Roots
1 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

 

[Oversoul]

Lost my first game with this one when I had a slow start and no answers to anything. One of my opponents ramped and rushed out a Narset Transcendent, ticked the planeswalker up and used its ultimate, ending the game uneventfully.

Second game, I had a slightly better start, but not a great one. Worked to turn things around. With Viscera Seer as my only remaining creature I was able to cast Dread Return on Karmic Guide, bringing back Reveillark. I cast Knight of Autumn to blow up an opposing Mimic Vat, and was able to combo off. Looping Karmic Guide, Abdel Adrian, Reveillark, and Knight of Autumn for infinite life and infinite soldier tokens, I thought I'd be stuck in a position of needing to pass the turn, and was scrying stuff the bottom of my library to look for my best topdeck. I was pretty stupid about this, actually. I'm rusty with this sort of deck. I had Bazaar of Baghdad in hand and hadn't dropped a land yet, so I was scrying and struggling to think of what I wanted on top. Then I noticed that I could just have Karmic Guide bring back Razaketh, the Foulblooded from my graveyard, sacrifice soldier tokens and tutor up anything I needed. So I put the Trike & Mike combo in my graveyard and brought them back for infinite damage to my opponents.

 

[Oversoul]

Lion's Eye Diamond and a couple of mana dorks got me above eight mana. I attempted to mutate Biollante for the win, but an opponent saw that coming and stopped me with Counterspell. On my next turn, I topdecked Regrowth and used it to bring back Reanimate, which brought back Razaketh, which sacrificed Academy Rector, which fetched Pattern of Rebirth, which fetched Protean Hulk, which assembled a win. Sounds about right.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this one some more. Waffling on whether to keep it around longer. The deck performs nicely and does the sort of thing I had been wanting to do. Won my last game despite being manascrewed and getting my Carpet of Flowers blown up by targeted removal because I was able to use Viscera Seer to scry for a fourth land and cast Pattern of Rebirth on one of Abdel Adrian's soldier tokens. I really like the deck and it is appropriate for the high-power tables that seem to make up the majority of available EDH gameplay at my LGS. On the one hand, I should keep this around as my default high-power deck. On the other hand, it ties up several cards that I only have single copies of and could use in other decks.

 

[Oversoul]

In an increasingly consistent high-power environment, this deck has been my only recourse a lot of the time. It keeps winning. It's very good.

 

[Oversoul]

-1 Body Snatcher
+1 Activated Sleeper

Body Snatcher is a classic backup option used in Protean Hulk loops. If a key creature is stuck in your hand and you don't have a discard outlet, just grab Body Snatcher instead, then sacrifice it and get the creature from your hand. I believe that this deck has enough redundancy that it can spare such a cornercase. Activated Sleeper is a new combo piece that I'm excited about. So, out with the old and in with the new.

 

[Oversoul]

Got a lousy start with this deck and ended up hardcasting Golgari Grave-Troll (with zero creatures in my graveyard) just to start dredging and find some way to build toward a win once I had the mana for it. Before I got another turn, one of my opponents cast Mari, the Killing Quill. He was running a deck helmed by Etrata, the Silencer and seriously seemed to expect that he'd be getting to exile my creatures. Of course, my deck doesn't really work that way, and all that Mari did was stop me from playing at all until I could topdeck an answer. And we did not have the time for that. Our other opponent beat us both down with Titania's 5/3 elementals. I eventually topdecked Eladamri's Call and got Fiend Hunter to take care of Mari, but it was a turn too late.

 

[Oversoul]

Activated Sleeper rules! By all rights, I should have lost my most recent game with this deck, but the opponent directly before me in turn order cast Windfall for 16, drawing me into a win. Activated Sleeper pretending to be Reveillark is some great tech.