The Angel of Discard

Next on the tour of MtG decks  that I randomly found on a flash drive I lost in 2006 is a little gem I've named "The Angel of Discard."  It, like most of my other decks, is built on a delightfully shaky premise guaranteed to frustrate opponents and put you on the list of people not to play against- well, if it works anyway.



Ok, so I like really obnoxious decks.  This shouldn't be a shocker, so sue me.  I tend to favor lots of dispel and thus gravitate towards Blue and Black .  During Ravnica block, though, I got seriously into discard and the horrifying possibilities of card advantage.  Trading a card for a card to dispel is all well and good, but ensuring that your opponent is losing even the possibility of casting that card is even better.  This all propelled me toward the twisted world of this Black and White Deck seen after the jump.

Creatures
2x Shrieking Grotesque
2x Blind hunter
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Nekrataal
2x Angel of Despair

Instants
3x Ghostway

Sorceries
4x Castigate
2x Blackmail
4x Cry of Contrition

Enchantments
4x Megrim
1x Phyrexian Arena

Legendary Creatures
2x Nezumi Shortfang

Artifacts
3x Cloudstone Curio

Basic Lands
9x Plains
10x Swamps

Non-Basic Lands
4x Ohrzov Basilica 

This whole deck works due in large part to the artifact Cloudstone Curio.  Essentially the way to play this is to get the cloudstone in play as soon as possible and use it's ability to return permanents to your hand whenever you cast a permanent of the same type to bounce your creatures with "comes into play" effects from the table back to your hand.  With a mix of discard, life gain/damage dealing, and destruction, you should have all the tools you need to meet most situations.  

Here's a breakdown of the card choices:

Creatures 

Shrieking Grotesque is an underrated card that causes your opponent to discard when he comes into play.  Hilarity ensues when you are alternating casting him and the cheaper Ravenous rats which has the same ability.  When you're bouncing them to and from your hand, you're going to gain significant card advantage over your opponent quickly as the enemies hand withers and dies.  The blind hunter is useful, if slightly expensive, in that it gives you 2 life and steals 2 to your opponent when it comes into play or dies via haunt.  It's a nice little way to pull yourself out of a low life situation.  To make matters worse, that sneaky little bastard Nezumi Shortfang is in there.  Basically an auto-include in a discard deck, he'll be dealing auto damage every turn once your opponent has no hand left.  Plus, before you flip him, he can force even more discards!

In the event that your opponent actual gets to move some cards from his hand to the table, you've got some answers for that as well.  Nekrataal kills any creature on the table when he comes into play.  Bouncing him back and forth with a discard comes into play creature can lay a serious hurt down on your opponent.  Late in the game you get the Angel of Despair, your coup de grace.  Hopefully you won't be facing enough opposition to need to bounce her back to your hand, but the fact that she destroys a permanent when she comes into play combined with her 5/5 flying bodacious body makes her a real beatstick who will win you games with just a few attacks.

Instants 
Ghostway is just fucking mean here.  Like total dick move mean.  Imagine you have a Nekrataal, 2 ravenous rats, and a shrieking grotesque in play.  Ghostway them all to escape destruction at the hands of Wrath of God or the like and they all not only survive, but come into play again, allowing you to kill a creature and forcing your opponent to discard 3 cards.  Ouch!

Sorceries 

Castigate gives you some more wonderful card advantage and lets you pick the discarded card to boot.  In hindsight, there may already be enough discard here, but could easily be sideboarded out.  Blackmail gives you cheap and semi-targeted discard.  No problems with card advantage for you, really.  Cry of contrition gives you more cheap discard that also haunts to cause further discard.  Use Nekretaal's comes into play ability to geek the haunted creature.

Enchantments 

Megrim is another auto-include for discard decks.  Every card your opponent discards deals 2 damage to him.  So not only are you getting serious card advantage, but you're also killing him slowly.  Phyrexian arena lets you draw and extra card every turn in exchange for losing 1 life.  Have I mentioned how super fucking rad card advantage is yet?  The one damage shouldn't hurt too much, but you've got the blind hunters in here just in case you need more life.

Artifacts 

Without Cloudstone Curio, this deck wouldn't work.  It's that simple.  Including 3 eats up a little bit of deck space and will occasionally result in turns where you've got 2 or more in your hand, but I cannot stress enough that this card is necessary to your goal of winning.

Lands 

It's a pretty standard assortment of 23 lands, with 4 of them being B/W dual lands.  Nothing shocking here.  Most of the deck hovers around 3 or lower casting costs, so there's no need to pack in any extra lands.  You should statistically always have enough land available to cast several spells a turn during your midgame, while some 2 mana discard rats will help screw over your opponent with early card disadvantage. 

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