Upgrading C14 Black: My Dearest Gisa
Death, ambition, darkness. Have you been terrorizing your opponents with 5/5 flying demons? Looking to upgrade your Sworn to Darkness Commander 2014 deck and take it to the next level? No worries, I've sold to my soul to Griselbrand for insider knowledge on how to be the true Lord of Darkness. Today we'll talk about some cards you can use to upgrade your Commander 2014 black deck. Remember, it's your deck and you ultimately get to choose what you put in or take out. I've listed a lot of alternatives, so think carefully and don't just jam everything your deck! If you don't have the C14 deck yet, you can still grab all five on ebay for just under $140 shipped as of this writing. The full decklists can be found here.
Sworn to Darkness out of the box plays like a Black Good Stuff deck. Board wipes and removal? Check. Card draw? Check. Big bad demons? Check. So there are a few directions we can go with this deck. You can continue the theme and make it an Even Better Black Good Stuff, you can return to our planeswalker's roots, Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, and go Demons. Or, you can take my preferred path and play with a special girl and her friends from Innistrad.
After reading the story of Gisa and Geralf from Innistrad block, I knew she had to be my commander when C14 was first spoiled. So move over Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath; you've been demoted. The first order of the day to make Ghoulcaller Gisa the commander of my horde. The first thing I want to do is make Zombies. Lots of Zombies. Not big zombies. Not smart zombies. Not fast zombies. Just lots of 2/2 Zombies. To do this, we'll need to abuse undercosted creatures with high power.
Phyrexian Dreadnought was made for Ghoulcaller Gisa. 2-mana for 24-power of Zombies? Yes please. You can activate Ghoulcaller Gisa in response to the sacrifice trigger and get 12 Zombies! The deck already runs Abyssal Persecutor, so you can throw in his buddy Desecration Demon. These guys hit hard and in the air, and you can always sacrifice them for 12-power worth of ghouls. And let's not forget Hunted Horror. 7/7 for BB? Sign me up. Sure you might get hit by some pro-Black Centaurs, but you have 14-power worth of Zombies! Braaaaains~.
How else can we abuse Ghoulcaller Gisa? How about Undying. Sacrificing your creatures once is not enough! Sacrifice them a second time when they return from the dead with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Geralf's Messenger provides cheap interaction in the early game, and Gravecrawler can be used to make 2 zombie tokens whenever you have BB.
Unbreathing Horde is just a fatty zombie depending on your board. You can sacrifice him to make even more Zombies rather than letting the horde fall apart.
And incase Ghoulcaller Gisa is too busy battling Stitcher Geralf, you can manually create your own Zombie horde with Empty the Pits and Army of the Damned. Before you even sleeve up this deck, make sure you pick up a stack of 100 Zombie tokens. Yes, 100. I don't want to see any dice on tokens. Make sure you overflow your zombies onto your opponents' mats to show them who's boss. Yes, Endless Ranks of the Dead gets out of hand very quickly.
Rather than sacrifice fatties, we can make any old 2/2 zombie into an army with pump effects. The deck already comes with a lashwrithe, but you can add a second one in nightmare lash. You can also go Suicide Black and play Hatred. If you're feeling ballsy, you can use 6-mana and 39-life to make 39 2/2 zombies. Liliana of the Dark realms lets you keep drawing your Swamps and her -3 gives you an EOT lashwrithe.
What would a black deck be without a reanimation sub-theme? Whip of Erebos can provide some needed life-gain and you can double-dip on your sacrifices. Grave Betrayal lets you build your army by stealing your opponents' creatures on death!
You can be an obnoxious Ghoul and continually wipe everyone's board. If you sacrifice a 6 power creature with Ghoulcaller Gisa with Noxious Ghoul in play, you get six 2/2 Zombies and everything non-Zombie gets -6/-6. Seems good. Thornbite Staff lets you make as many zombies as your mana will allow (B each). Equip it to Ghoulcaller Gisa and sacrifice a zombie to make two more. Gisa will untap and you can keep sacrificing Zombies, with each activation netting you +1 Zombie. Gempalm Polluter can just hit people directly in the face with direct damage. With Contamination you can be super annoying by locking out all non-Black decks. They won't be able to cast anything and you can just keep making Zombies every turn to keep Contamination going.
Sacrifice Effects
Now that you have an unending horde of Zombies, you have a few choices. You can just turn them sideways and attempt to smother your opponents. This is my preferred approach. For the more tricksy, you can incorporate a sacrifice and drain theme:
If you have Phyrexian Altar and Thornbite Staff, you can get infinite sacrifice triggers: Use Ghoulcaller Gisa to make two Zombies. Use one Zombie to get B from Phyrexian Altar. This will trigger Thornbite Staff and untap Gisa. Use the B and the remaining Zombie to make two Zombies. If you have Blood Artist in play, you can do this loop infinitely and drain everyone out.
Anthem Effects
Or you can go the big-Zombie route:
I'm not a fan of the big zombie route (what are we? a green mage?), but hey, who am I to tell you how to play your deck? You can fill out the rest of your deck with some black good stuff. These are pretty self explanatory so I won't go into too much detail. Remember, there are a lot of staples here and some of them are quite pricey. You don't need to jam all of them into your deck. Just pick and choose as your budget allows:
Black Staples
Utility Lands
Use Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage to make a cool 20/20 Marit Lage.
Broken Mana
Everyone needs more mana. Use these to get more B from your lands.
Sacrifice Outlet Lands
Incase you needed to do more sacrificing:
Card Draw
What would a black deck without these cards?
Tutor Effects
More ways to dig into your combo pieces or that key removal spell:
Board Control
These are super annoying with tons of Zombie tokens and sacrifice effects.
Board Wipes
When all goes wrong, you can always hit the reset button:
Life Gain
And sometimes you need a way to gain life. These are especially potent with Crypt Ghast and Liliana of the Dark Realm emblem.
Bonus: Demons!
Ok, so some of you may not like brains as much as I do. You might prefer the original commander, and you might prefer to beat people down with gigantic flying demons. Here are some demons if you want to go the demon-tribal route:
Conclusion
Well, I think that should be enough to start you on your path to ambition and power. If I've missed anything, let me know in the comments below. If you don't have the Sworn to Darkness deck yet, you can grab them for $30 shipped from Amazon. Until next time!
