Video: Gray Sultai In Standard!
There are all kinds of Whip decks flying around Standard going into #SCGCOL, but you haven’t seen this one yet! Sam Black gets his brew on!
Today I had an idea for a new deck: I wanted to use Gray Merchant of Asphodel as my end game in a basic Sultai Reanimator shell. The trick was keeping my devotion to black high and ideally pressuring my opponent’s life total early, which lead the deck in some interesting directions.
To start with, I wanted black two-drops, and the most fitting that came to mind were Rakshasa Deathdealer and Disciple of Deceit. Disciple of Deceit would allow me to turn Sidisi, Brood Tyrant into Whip of Erebos, or chain Gray Merchants to fill my graveyard to fuel the Whip, as well as letting me find other bullets.
Disciple of Deceit also encourages me to play a handful of bullets including removal spells at a variety of costs. I’m playing three different gods to tutor for. Phenax, God of Deception isn’t a card that’s seen a lot of play, but I think it might be among the best cards in a Sultai mirror, and this deck seems like a great home for it.
Nighthowler complements Rakshasa Deathdealer in making the deck more aggressive and helps with devotion to black for Gray Merchant of Asphodel.
The sideboard is fairly standard, except that not using Courser of Kruphix or any cards with constellation allows me to play Back to Nature, and I’m using Dark Betrayal.
Round 1
Well, that was a quick match. I’m not sure why my opponent conceded that early in game 1, but U/B can have some really awkward hands. Rakshasa Deathdealer seems amazing in that matchup, and Disciple, while less impressive, wasn’t too bad, allowing me to find a few great cards.
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Round 2
I love it when a plan comes together, and that first game, despite a weak start, was basically exactly how I drew it up. I was shocked to lose the second game, but I got pretty unlucky with Ashiok, and my opponent’s draws after the Thoughtseize were great. I wish we’d had time to finish the third game, as I really wonder if I was actually winning there.
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Round 3
I’m pretty sure I should have taken the Savage Knuckleblade in hindsight. I probably could have overpowered Courser of Kruphix, but Knuckleblade didn’t give me time to get my Whip of Erebos online.
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Round 4
Once again, I’ve built a deck that’s fairly weak against Stormbreath Dragon. I have answers to it, but only about as many as my opponent has Stormbreath Dragons, and with no way to block fliers, I’m very likely to lose if I don’t have one of them right away.
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Overall, I was really impressed by Rakshasa Deathdealer, and I wonder if more Sultai decks should be using that. Erebos, God of the Dead is also a card that I think people have forgotten about which might have a place in some of the Whip mirrors.