Intro
What to do when you win an off-meta legendary from weekend ranked? You don't really want to sell it for $7. It could get a buff or someone could discover its power later and then the price skyrockets. Instead, I like to try and build new decks. Who knows? Maybe I'll be the one to discover its power and then I've done my wallet a favor.
To that end, I'm having a lot of fun with this control Death deck featuring Takhat, the Forgotten. It's been playing pretty well after a few revisions, so I figured it was time to share it. (It will probably continue to evolve.)
The Deck
Deck Code:
GU_1_1_BAuCCbCCbCCcCCcCESBEXBEXGCOGCOCBhCBhCDSCEaCEaIADIADIAJIAJIACIACCAPCCeCCeICHICHCAgCAgIAHIBW
Strategy
This one is currently called "Revive" in my list of decks, and that's the basic idea. We run big-stat creatures that the opponent has to beat several times. Like my weekend ranked Nature deck, this deck also features a distinct early game and late game set of cards (only 2 4-mana cards).
Early Game
Ideally, early game is zombies. As I mentioned in one of my other Death decks, you only need 2 cards to have a powerful early game.
Unlike a true zombie deck, you don't need to get a combo off with Netherswarm Lord or Corpse Explosion. When you open with zombies and Soul Burn, your opponent is going to change strategy and assume you're a standard aggressive zombie deck. Deck peeking ruins this, so I would absolutely hide my name if playing this during the weekend (but then don't go looking at your opponent's cards!).
Late Game
I've played with several decks featuring early zombies as a stall tactic to get to midrange, but this deck stretches this concept out almost to a full control deck. You are looking to wrap up before 9 mana, as this deck has absolutely zero answers for Polyhymnia in its current form.
Instead, once you hit 5-6 mana, this deck changes entirely. You start playing big creatures and reviving them.
This preserves one of the strongest combos that I now run in all my death decks. For 6 mana on an empty board, Vampyric Skull gives you:
This is an absolutely enormous swing turn, and as far as combos go, it's easy to pull off. Also, if they kill your Vampiric Skull, it will be the strongest creature in your void. Takhat will pull it back immediately. Assuming you burned through some big creatures while waiting for Takhat, she pulls back in the following order:
- Vampiric Skull
- Decaying Rhino
- Guild Enforcer
Raise Dead vs Pull the Strings
This is an obvious debate to have over which to choose. In an aggro zombie deck, I favor Pull the Strings. With this deck, being able to summon stronger creatures is potentially huge. Additionally, taking 5 damage hurts your ability to stall aggro decks into the 6-7 mana range.
I haven't done it yet, but I can't wait to raise a Pangolin and immediately wipe out a Moose or something.
Healing and Card Draw
This is the part of the deck I'm most actively debating, and these might change. On balance, this may be too much card draw, but it has gotten me out of bricked opening hands several times. Getting to an obelisk/scepter early greatly increases your chances of surviving to your win conditions.
My thought process on each one:
Untold Greed (1x): Killing a 1/1 zombie to draw two cards is too strong not to include a copy. However, we aren't running tons of small creatures, so I opted for only 1. I don't want to draw 2 of these and have no good targets.
Brimstone (2x): Easy include. Procs frenzy early game and two damage isn't the end of the world.
Fleshbind (1x): I may remove this one, but the idea is the opposite of Untold Greed. We have some creatures with big stats. If we get desperate, we can heal and draw a card. We're a revive deck, which mitigates the downside. I'm just not sure if it mitigates it enough.
Vow of Champions (2x): Nibble is a conditional heal for 5. This is an unconditional heal for 4, but it comes with options if you'd get more value from something else. Remember I said this deck has no answers for Poly? Well, technically Vow + Ray of Disintegration would get the job done (don't count on it, though). I really like the flexibility of this card. Reaching ordered creatures is now possible. A monolith can be killed with Vow + Blight Bomb. You can also go face with it to finish the game or just draw a card if that's what you need.
Takhat
One of your major win conditions. How do we get the most out of her? Firstly, it's important to know that resurrected creatures do not roar, so avoid them (I'm making an exception for skull). You want creatures that get their value out of pure stats or because of something they do while on the board. Anubians also get blitz + leech. Two candidates I don't currently have:
Bringing 'ol Porphy back is just as good as when you played him the first time. The Core Set Refresh is lowering him to 5 mana (with lower stats), and he will be great in this deck. I'm not sure I want to run him at 7 mana in this deck (more later).
Corpse Swallower is tempting. More card draw is great. Coming back with leech and blitz would be good. We could potentially make room for 4 6 drops, so I'll be considering it.
Removal
If you are looking to push to 7 mana to play Takhat (and we don't have any ramp), we have to have some answers for opponents also looking to play big creatures. Ray of Disintegration is an obvious 2x include. The Plague is a poor man's substitute for Apocalypse Now. Unfortunately, ward blocks it. On the plus side, because it's a "transform", it bypasses any nasty afterlife abilities creatures may have. Just be careful because transforming a creature does put the original creature in the void for some unknown reason (looking at your Neferu). On the flip side, this gives us amazing targets for Raise Dead.
The Soul Burn god power is primarily to support our early game, but if you can't win by 8 mana, your GP + The Plague is a powerful combo. Helian Elites are toast.
Even so, this is a card I'm not wed to. Maybe Porphyrion or one of the 7-drop Anubians would work better.
Conclusion
This isn't Board Wipe Death, but it's also not 2 ETH in price. So far, it's working well against removal-happy decks like Magic and Deception. They burn up their removal right as your big creatures start coming back from the void. If an aggro opponent draws the perfect curve, you'll probably lose, but that's the norm for slower decks. Zombies give you a fighting chance, though.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Sources:
https://gu-list-creator.vercel.app/
https://gudecks.com/