Mana is for weaklings, real men use their life points, because only those who are willing to sacrifice something are able to gain something...
> Introduction
K´rrik is one of the strongest mono black commanders and his ability fits absolutely well in the black color pie. As you can use your life as a resource he can finish the game very quickly with the right cards or just be grindy because of the reanimation spells. How do you get the right cards? Well we are playing black so we are going to tutor what we need because we don´t need luck, we just need enough life.
This deck will use its commander as an enabler for each infinite combo and trying to finish in early-to-mid game. K'rrik is also a good attacker and blocker. He can be a one man show if you have to block creatures and will bring back life, which is mana and his ability to get bigger and bigger just by playing black spells makes him fearsome.
>Strategy
This deck is completely based on its commander and can win the game very quickly on turn 2-3 but is also strong in midgame. The key cards are Aetherflux Reservoir, Doomsday, Peer into the Abyss and Gray Merchant of Asphodel. We will use the ability of K'rrik to pay with life points instead of mana. We will try to get the four mana in turn one or two so we can cast K'rrik with six life and four mana. After this we are going to finish the game with an infinity combo of devotion dmg or Aetherflux reservoir. It is important to keep an eye on our life as a resource because if we don´t have enough life we can´t finish the game so don´t waste your life if it is not necessary.
As already mentioned K'rrik has lifesteal and gets stronger for each black spell, so attack if possible to get life back or just keep him as a blocker if the enemies playing decks with combat dmg.
Use the recursion spells for K'rrik to get a comeback, for Vilis to draw a lot of cards or for Chainer to finish the game.
>Win Cons
>Devotion
Gray Merchant of Asphodel Devotion DMG:
Using Buried Alive to win the game in combination with a reanimate, animate dead, Goryo's Vengeance, necromancy or yawgmoth's will and K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth as an enabler.
Searching for :
Bring Chainer back to the battlefield - Using his ability to bring back Feeder and Gray, Sacrifice Gray and bring him back again till you win the game. Possible to use Chainers effect as an instant (with yawgmoth's will use Chainers ability before enemy draw step)
Also possible without Buried Alive.
If someone tries to remove Chainer, you can pay 9 life again to bring back gray.
If Chainer is exiled - Corpse Dance and Blood Celebrant can do the same for 14 Life instead of 9
Play Doomsday with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth and note some prerequisites (If you can draw more than one card and have more life then required and need some mana, change Zuran Orb with dark ritual)
Instead of Zuran Orb and 2 lands you can also just attack with K'rrik to get the 4 life back but make sure he doesn't die in the process and you shoult still play a 0 cmc spell for the aetherflux life at cast - or just use both if you need extra life.
Try to finish in the same turn where you played doomsday and use one of the cantrips, senseis divining top, tainted pact or sign in blood. If you do, try to gain life after doomsday resolves by attacking with K'rrik or starting the pile with more life.
> Sac Pile
22 life, 3 mana, 2 lands and if you want to finish in the same turn a cantrip or draw spell is needed as well as 2 or 6 life more after doomsday resolves or 4 - 8 life more before doomsday resolves.
Pile: Bolas's Citadel - Zuran Orb (For Life) - Aetherflux Reservoir - Carrion Feeder - Gravecrawler
- Cast Doomsday - 16 life
- Doomsday resolves - 8 life
- Use {3} to cast Citadel - 2 life
- Cast Zuran Orb and sac 2 lands - 6 life
- Cast Aetherflux Reservoir - 2 life
- Cast Carrion Feeder - 6 life
- Cast Gravecrawler - 11 life
- Executing the Loop: Sac Crawler to Feeder, play Crawler
Note: The calculation is without a cantrip or draw spell, if you use one of them you will have 1 cast more and will get 1 life more with Aetherflux at each step
> Leshrac's Pile
20 life , 3 mana , 2 lands and if you want to finish in the same turn a cantrip or draw spell is needed as well as 2 or 6 life more after doomsday resolves or 4 - 8 life more before doomsday resolves.
Pile: Bolas's Citadel - Zuran Orb - Aetherflux Reservoir - Lion's Eye Diamond (or lotus petal) - Leshrac's Sigil
- Cast Doomsday - 14 life
- Doomsday resolves - 7 life
- Use {3} to cast Citadel - 1 life
- Cast Zuran Orb - 1 life
- Sac 2 of your lands - 5 life
- Cast Aetherflux - 1 life
- Cast LED and activate LED - 6 life
- Cast Leshrac's Sigil - 10 life
- Activate Leshrac's Sigil with LED mana - 10 life
- Cast Leshrac again with 2 life and 1 mana from LED - 15 life
- Bounce and play Leshrac again
Note: The calculation is without a cantrip or draw spell, if you use one of them you will have 1 cast more and will get 1 life more with Aetherflux at each step
> Devotion Pile
22 life, 3 mana, 2 lands and if you want to finish in the same turn a cantrip or draw spell is needed as well as 2 or 6 life more after doomsday resolves or 4 - 8 life more before doomsday resolves.
Pile: Bolas's Citadel - Zuran Orb - Gray Merchant of Asphodel - Carrion Feeder - Chainer, Dementia Master
- Cast Doomsday - 16 life
- Doomsday resolves - 8 life
- Use {3} to cast Citadel - 2 life
- Cast Zuran Orb and sac 2 Lands - 6 life
- Cast Gray Merchant of Asphodel - 25 life (with two enemies left only 17 life)
- Cast Carrion Feeder - 24 life (with two enemies left only 16 life)
- Cast Chainer, Dementia Master - 19 life (with two enemies left only 11 life)
- Sacrifice Gray and bring him back with chainers ability
> Oracle Pile
20 life, 3 mana, 2 land and if you want to finish in the same turn a cantrip or draw spell is needed as well as 2 or 6 life more after doomsday resolves or 4 - 8 life more before doomsday resolves.
Pile: Bolas's Citadel - Zuran Orb - Lotus Petal - Lion's Eye Diamond (or Mox Opal / Mox Diamond) - Praetor's Grasp
- Cast Doomsday - 14 life
- Doomsday resolves - 7 life
- Use {3} to cast Citadel - 1 life
- Cast Zuran Orb - 1 life
- Sac 2 of your lands - 5 life
- Cast Lotus Petal - 5 life
- Cast Lion's Eye Diamond - 5 life
- Cast Praetor's Grasp and grab Thassa's oracle - 2 Life
- Sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond for 3 Blue Mana - 3 Life
- Play Thassa's oracle
> Aetherflux without pile
Using Aetherflux Reservoir with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth to win the game.
Play Atherflux and then use a few options (depends on life and cards):
- Play Carrion Feeder with Gravecrawler
- Play Leshrac's Sigil - Bounce it - play it again
- Play Sensei's Divining Top and Bolas's Citadel
There are a few other options to get the win cons like : Tainted Pact, Final Parting, or the other tutors.
> Oracle
Need 2 Blue mana (Lions Eye Diamond, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, Lotus Petal or multicolored lands like Exotic Orchard) 1-3 generic mana and at least 6 life.
- Use Praetor's Grasp or opposition agent to grab Thassas Oracle
- Play Demonic Consultation or tainted pact
- Play Thassas Oracle
- Win
> Starting Hand
We should try to hold a hand that generates four mana quickly and at least one part of our combo and a tutor. There are even hands that can win in the first turn, but you should aim at turn two or three to go infinite or try to play till midgame because of the grind potential.
Try to play K'rrik in turn one or two so he can block and let you pay life for the spells. It is easily possible to finish in turn two or three if you have the right cards in hand, if not just try to hold a hand with some draw or ramp an get to the midgame. Prepare yourself to win in one turn with some of the protection cards if possible.
It is no problem if you keep a hand with just one land if you can produce four mana quickly and cast spells with K'rrik.
> Single Card Discussion
> Inclusions
- Barren Moor : Cantrip for doomsday pile or top deck tutor. Also a good land to discard with Mox Diamond.
- blood celebrant : One of the best cards in this deck. You can use your life for colorless mana.
- Bolas's Citadel : Part of the combo and also a good way to go through the deck with necropotence and/or Sensei's Divining Top.
- Boseiju, Who shelters all : Protect your spells like shallow grave, Yawgmoth's Will, corpse dance or Peer into the abyss.
- Buried Ruin : Recursion for the Aetherflux reservoir.
- Cavern of Souls : Choose “minion” and don´t let your enemies counter your K'rrik or Chainer.
- Cling to dust : Cantrip for a doomsday pile or for top deck tutor. Also good against graveyard combos like the gitrog monster and can give you lifepoints if needed.
- Conqueror's Flail, Infernal Darkness & Defense grid : just to protect your turn to start your infinite combo.
- Demonic Consultation : see tainted pact.
- Duress, Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek : use them to get an overview about the hand of the other players and get rid of counter- or removal spells and protect your game.
- Dimir Machinations : Primary a tutor for Doomsday, Corpse Dance, Necropotence, Buried Alive, Necromancy or Yawgmoth's Will. Not as good as shred memory but can counter play the top deck manipulation from an enemy.
- Drag to the Underworld : a better version of victim of night.
- homeward path : For the gilded drakes and other stealing stuff, to bring back our enabler.
- Peer into the Abyss : Can win the game with still 1 life left after resolve (trust me it already happened a few times). Drawing the half of the library is equal to a win because of the 0 cmc mana rocks, zuran orb and K'rriks ability.
- Insidious Dreams : Instant top deck tutor can be used to build a pile like Bolas's Citadel - Aetherflux reservoir - Sensei's Divining Top or Sign in Blood - reanimate - buried alive.
- Shred Memory : Mainly as a tutor for a reanimation spell like animate dead, shallow grave, Goryo's Vengeance, dance of the dead or for sign in blood. Also a good grave hate card.
- Tainted pact : Without any cards twice in this deck (only one swamp and one snow-covered swamp) you can go through your deck and find the missing card for your win. Also a win condition with thassas oracle which you can grab with Praetor's Grasp or if Oracle is in the enemy graveyard use a reanimation spell and tainted pact to win.
- Sign in Blood : Draw two cards for the doomsday pile or top deck tutor.
- Wishclaw talisman : Just for tutor and win in the same turn, don´t let someone else use this.
- Vilis, Broker of Blood : Our yawgmoth's bargain, pay 4 life and draw 4 cards. as a bonus you can kill some tiny creatures.
- Praetor's Grasp : Flexible usage to get a Doomsday or get rid of a combo piece from the enemy if needed. Also a win condition with thassa's oracle and Demonic Consultation. Or just look for a tutor for yourself.
- Final Parting : Usually brings a reanimate into your hand, and Vilis, Broker of Blood into your graveyard for a quick set-up. This can also put Chainer, Dementia Master in hand, and put Gray Merchant of Asphodel in the graveyard for a solid 2/3 combo pieces at the ready.
- Imp's Mischief : change the target of a counterspell or removal.
- Font of Agonies Paying 2 life and 1 mana to destroy a creature and get back 2 counter because we paid 2 life.
- Zuran Orb : We don´t need lands if we can finish the game (same is true for rain of filth), so use the lands for mana and sac them for life which is basically mana in this deck.
> Exclusions
- Ad Nauseam : Paying life to draw cards can be good but this card is more a gambling in K'rrik. Paying too much life will inhibit the play and the {3} generic mana are too expensive for such a gambling. The Instant speed doesn´t makes it better because winning with instant speed is very difficult in this deck.
- Wandering Archaic : Nice Stax, but very vulnerable with his creature subtype and quickly becomes the target of removal spells. It also costs {5} mana, which we cannot reduce with K'rrik's ability.
- Baleful mastery : Good removal for a creature or planeswalker, which can be very cheap for {1} and 2 life - the downside ist, that you will let an enemy draw a card and with the same reason why you should pay {1} more for the rhystic study trigger, you shouldn´t play this removal. Never let them draw a card.
- Scheming Symmetry : Without a cantrip, a draw spell or an opposition agent you will let an enemy find an answer for you or even worse he will go infinite with this free tutor.
- Diabolic Intent : with only 10 creatures (one of them is K'rrik himself) I don´t think that this tutor will be consistent in this deck.
- Slaughter pact : The nonblack requirement and the two mana in the upkeep makes this removal only good to interrupt someone to win the game with a nonblack creature combo piece. Deadly Rollick is better.
- Cruel Bargain : Only good for a doomsday pile, I prefer sign in blood.
- Exhume : strong but if the enemy can react with a entomb or something like that, you will get a problem. Also not a good card if someone else has a important creature in his graveyard.
- Varragoth, Bloodsky sire : too slow for his important top deck tutor.
- Overeager Apprentice : too slow to ramp.
- Contamination : Only good for one turn, because we don´t run enough creatures to hold this card on the battlefield.
- Phyrexian obliterator : Not necessary in this deck, it will get removed or ignored.
- Cremate : cling to dust is more flexible.
- Command Beacon : Our commander is important and commander taxes will hurt us but we have enough cards to bring him back to the battlefield from graveyard.
- Stinging Study : Draw 7 cards for {4} Mana and 9 life with instant speed is really nice but like ad nauseam it is too expensive and 9 life is like 22,5% of our starting life.
- Extort: It does not work as well as many people thought. For example you will drain 3 opponents, you have to pay 2 life to get 3 life back but you also need to pay mana for a spell which will trigger extort. So in best case you have to pay 2 life for the spell and 2 life for the extort cost and will get back 3 life which means 2 instances of extort will bring back the life lost in this case. But what if the spell costs more then just one {b}? And every mana besides of black mana can´t be replaced with life which means you need to use blood celebrant to change out mana for life. This means that you need a lot of pieces to even get this loop started.
Another problem is, that you usually need 3 opponents to stay alive while using the loop so if one of them die because he had the lowest life, you can’t continue with the loop. In this case you need to try to win another way if you haven’t gotten your other opponents low enough to kill them before you kill yourself by continue the loop in a life-negative situation.
> Strengths and Weaknesses
> Strengths
- This deck ist extremely fast and can tutor all important combo pieces without mana just with life.
- It is just mono black so in a cEDH group it shouldn´t get the most attention, use this and finish the game out of the nowhere.
- High comeback potential (midgame) if you don´t play too agressive.
> Weaknesses
- Just mono black, lack of counter and protection
- K'rrik as an important component and at the same time bottleneck of this deck
- Late game, lack of lands and engines (and the life loss will bring us into a dangerous position)
- Countermagic can be a problem
> Budget alternatives
If you don´t have the budget to buy all these cards, there are few budget cards which you can play instead
> Changelog
See revision : https://deckstats.net/decks/118014/1634363--primer-k-rrik-the-dark-prince#show__revisions
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