Spirit of the Pestilence [EDH]

[Oversoul]

A little over twenty years ago, I had a casual Hecatomb deck that I called "Fun With Swamps." I really enjoyed the deck, but took it apart and, unfortunately, never got around to putting it back together again. I started building a Pestilence deck for EDH, but it kind of turned into a Hecatomb deck. This is probably rather weak by the standards of today, but it has cards I love. It also has Liliana of the Dark Realms, my favorite planeswalker card. We'll see how it goes. Probably, my deck gets eaten alive by all the broken new stuff before it can do anything, but I have hope, dammit. Also, it had been too long since I played a Pestilence deck.

Commander:
1 Spirit of the Night

1 Archon of Cruelty
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Black Market
1 Bontu the Glorified
1 Bubbling Muck
1 Burnished Hart
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Cemetery Gate
1 Consume Spirit
1 Corrupt
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Crypt Rats
1 Culling the Weak
1 Damnation
1 Dark Ritual
1 Dead of Winter
1 Decree of Pain
1 Delraich
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Deserted Temple
1 Drain Life
1 Dread Return
1 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
1 Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Ever After
1 Expedition Map
1 Exsanguinate
1 Forcefield
1 Hecatomb
1 Jet Medallion
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Lake of the Dead
1 Liliana of the Dark Realms
1 Liliana's Triumph
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mox Diamond
1 Necropotence
1 Oversold Cemetery
1 Pestilence
1 Pestilence Demon
1 Phylactery Lich
1 Phyrexian Delver
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Sacrifice
1 Scaretiller
1 Sengir Autocrat
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Simulacrum
27 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Songs of the Damned
1 Stinging Study
1 Strip Mine
1 Stuffy Doll
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Hearth and Home
1 Sword of the Animist
1 The Elderspell
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Thought Vessel
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Urza's Armor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Vesuva
1 Victimize
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Withering Wisps
1 Woe Strider

 

[Oversoul]

Channeling my innner Mr. Pestilence? I don't know. There'd be a bit more Pestilence if I had found a copy of Thrashing Wumpus. Oops. But this deck did win its first game, and closed things out with, of all cards, Withering Wisps. Seriously.

 

[Oversoul]

Withering Wisps continues to impress. Go figure. I managed to ultimate Liliana of the Dark Realms, then topdecked Exsanguinate on the following turn. Despite some disruption, this deck accounted for itself better than I expected. Go, go mono-black!

 

[Oversoul]

Well, I've reassembled this deck, more or less. I haven't logged my changes yet, but the new version is slightly different from the one I played last year. So I'll have to get to work on that. Been busy lately.

My first game with this deck, it started deploying some big threats and was able to protect Liliana of the Dark Realms for long enough to ultimate her. My opponents saw me as the big threat at the table and worked together to stop me. I cast a giant Exsanguinate—poised to win me the game. One opponent managed to ruin it by casting Teferi's Protection, then assembling an infinite combo once I passed the turn to him. So in that first game, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory.

I brought this deck out again for the final game of the night. Kept an opening hand that had no strong starting lines, but had a mix of lands and spells. For the next several turns, I only topdecked either more lands or spells that I couldn't actually cast. This was compounded by my opponents in a strange way. I wasn't casting spells, so I wasn't filling my own graveyard. However, I had one opponent that cast Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger and another opponent had Deathrite Shaman. I discarded Phyrexian Delver to Kroxa, and soon saw Kroxa and Phyrexian Delver both exiled by Deathrite Shaman. If not for Deathrite Shaman, I could have cast Dread Return on my Phyrexian Delver, cast Culling the Weak on Phyrexian Delver for extra mana, and then had the mana for the big spells I'd been holding onto all game. So I kept trying. The first spell I actually managed to cast was Archon of Cruelty, and eight-drop. Ouch. Ultimately, I was able to use Rise of the Dark Realms to steal a win, despite having no plays other than land drops for the first six turns.

 

[Oversoul]

Changes:
-1 Crucible of Worlds
-1 Damnation
-1 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
-1 Mox Diamond
-3 Snow Covered Swamp
-1 Songs of the Damned
-1 Sword of Hearth and Home
-1 Thought Vessel
-1 Woe Strider
+1 Blood on the Snow
+1 Dark Petition
+1 Darkest Hour
+1 Myojin of Grim Betrayal
+1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
+1 Plague Spitter
+1 Rise of the Dark Realms
+1 Thrashing Wumpus
+1 Venser's Journal
+1 Volrath's Stronghold
+1 Wasteland

 

[Oversoul]

I'm liking this one. The deck packs a punch, but is slow enough that it's more appropriate to run at lower power-level tables. It's also a lot of fun.

 

[Oversoul]

Lost horrifically with this deck. For the first time, I saw someone actually play Break the Ice in EDH. Had my own manabase blown up while other players got to keep their lands. Ouch.

 

[Oversoul]

Won my most recent game with this deck, but I really should not have. With a lot of stuff going on and making plays I didn't normally resort to, I mistakenly targeted Spirit of the Night with the -3 on Liliana of the Dark Realms. Shouldn't be possible because Spirit of the Night has protection from black. We caught the mistake later, but it was too late to back the game up by that point. Oops. Guess I'm a dirty cheater. Shame.

 

[Ferret]

This reminds me of a deck that used Pestilence along with Glacial Chasm to cause board wipes (and severe damage to opponent's life totals while leaving me relatively unharmed...good times...

 

[Oversoul]

Won a game with this deck. I got to use my super-secret tech of Forcefield + Urza's Armor, and that's always a win in its own right. My opponents seemed to be poorly positioned against Withering Wisps, so I used Demonic Tutor to fetch it. Chaos Warp on my Wisps hit Urza's Armor, suddenly putting the Forcefield + Urza's Armor combo online. Using Cabal Coffers, I cast Spirit of the Night and left it up as a blocker, knowing that the Vampiric Tutor in my hand could grab Pestilence. No one stopped me, and Pestilence took over the game.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck twice last night. First game, an opponent blitzed out a Shard of the Void Dragon on an early turn and no one killed it. I quickly lost all of my permanents and was completely shut out of the game. Since I basically didn't get to play at all, I shuffled the deck back up for another game. Second game I was able to assemble the Necropotence + Venser's Journal engine, and my opponents didn't do much to threaten my life total or stop me, so I was able to get half of my library into my hand. Withering Wisps gave me some board control while I built up a strong presence. I struck down one opponent by using Dread of Night followed by Myojin of Grim Betrayal, which let me swing in on one player with all of the creatures that had died to the Dread of Night. Then I closed out the game with a giant Consume Spirit, fueled by Bubbling Muck, Candelabra of Tawnos, and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.

Venser's Journal isn't always worth the cost, but sometimes, it's delightfully overpowered.

 

[Shabbaman]

Hey Oversoul, just popped in to mention that this thread was one of the first to pop up when I googled for Hecatomb. I don't have a monoblack EDH deck, a pile of black cards and a Hecatomb, so I'm close to calling it a deck.

 

[Oversoul]

I was too lazy to build a new deck, and this one came back out from the bottom of my bag for my final game last night. It was a good game with some careful positioning and plays all around. For most of the game's length, everything revolved around an indestructible land that had been targeted with Awakening of Vhitu-Ghazi. I used Beseech the Queen to tutor for Forcefield, which bought me some security against the unstoppable land. Had to be careful with my life total against a couple of curses. Eventually, with my own Pestilence taking me down to 3 life, I was able to swing in for lethal damage against my last opponent.

 

[Oversoul]

Horribly manascrewed. It was painful. I thought that maybe this would be the next deck I'd scrap for parts, but I can't let it end on this note. That game was terrible. With two Snow-Covered Swamps on the field and Strip Mine in my hand, I thought nothing of using a second-turn Demonic Tutor to find Necropotence. I had Venser's Journal in my hand too. Well, by the time I found a fourth land, the game was basically over anyway.

 

[Oversoul]

This new tutor is bonkers good and belongs in my deck...

-1 Bubbling Muck
-1 Liliana's Triumph
+1 Beseech the Mirror
+1 Myriad Landscape

 

[Oversoul]

Well, both new additions to this deck showed up in my most recent game with it. I even copied Myriad Landscape with Vesuva. It wasn't the fastest start, but I got an opening to cast Venser's Journal and used Beseech the Mirror to fetch Necropotence, which let my deck go crazy. My opponents banded together to stop me, but I was able to hold them off and cast a lethal Exsanguinate to close the game out.

 

[Oversoul]

Swap to run a card I've been wanting to try for a while now...

-1 Phylactery Lich
+1 Night Dealings

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck twice last night. First game, neither I nor two of my opponents got to really do anything. The player with the high-powered Maelstrom Wanderer deck popped off and murdered us all uneventfully. In the second game, Plague Spitter put in work, wielded Sword of Feast and Famine, and dished out considerable damage. Opponents wiped the board to kill my Withering Wisps, but I was able to get Sengir Autocrat into Hecatomb. My last opponent standing had a decent board state that I couldn't get rid of, so I hit him in the face with a big Consume Spirit, bringing him down to 4 life and hoping that my own life would now be high enough that he couldn't kill me and Hecatomb could kill him. After a long turn spent digging for answers, he ultimately wasn't able to save himself. He passed the turn to me and I immediately finished him off with Hecatomb.

 

[Oversoul]

And this deck steals another win! My last remaining opponent at the table had me outclassed when it came down to the two of us, but his life was low. I topdecked Nykthos and had enough mana for Exsanguinate to put my opponent's life total within striking distance for Sheoldred to swing in for a swampwalking kill.