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Hello Everyone,

I have been working on a B/R undying deck and was hoping for some suggestions on improvements (especially with Return to Ravnica just around the corner). Thanks!!

4 x Bloodthrone Vampire
3 x Disentomb
2 x Nearheath Stalker
2 x Sign in Blood
2 x Pyreheart Wolf
2 x Markov Warlord
2 x Erdwal Ripper
2 x Vengeful Vampire
4 x Doom Blade
3 x Undying Evil
4 x Stromkirk Captain
2 x Elixir of Immortality
2 x Demonlord of Ashmouth
2 x Butcher Ghoul
2 x Flayer of the Hatebound
9 x Mountain
13 x Swamp

It looks like your deck is trying to be half undying/graveyard interactions and half tribal vampire. I would remove the vampires but keep Bloodthrone Vampire as it can be used as a decent sac engine.

Personally I find green better for undying cards with Young Wolf , Strangleroot Geist and Vorapede .

In Black I would highly recommend Geralf's Messenger , despite it entering the tapped it forces your opponent to lose life.

I would add an incentive to sac your creatures. Blood Artist can be really helpful as you can sacrifice your own creatures to gain life and deal damage to your opponent. 

To take full advantage of your undying and graveyard interactions I would add a few different sacrifice engines in like Altar's Reap , Bloodthrone Vampire , Bone Splinters  and Fling .

Hellhole Flailer can be really aggressive and can help push through damage via its self sacrifice ability, if you use Undying Evil to bring it back it should enter the battlefield with 2 +1/+1 counters if you choose to unleash it making it a more formidable beater and allowing you to sacrifice it again.

Mana-wise I would suggest adding some dual lands like Blood Crypt , Dragonskull Summit , and Rakdos Guildgate . Rakdos Keyrune can provide a decent body and help with your mana base.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed gives all of your creatures a boost and undying (providing they're not human). If you do add Mikaeus I'd suggest only 1 or 2 copies.

I'm a fan of Deviant Glee as it's a decent pump and can grant Trample.

Oct 4, 2012 -- 11:54AM, Bloodartist wrote:

Couple things to remember,
first: undying only works if flailer didnt have +1/+1 counter to begin with, so you cant unleash it  on the first go if  you want to use undying evil on it. 

That's very true, I overlooked that point. It's still possible to make it return with Undying Evil but like you said it's unlikely unless you choose not to unleash it for some reason.

Oct 4, 2012 -- 11:54AM, Bloodartist wrote:

I  agree with suggestions of young  wolf  and strangleroot geist, although I doubt its a good idea to use both vorapede and geralf's messenger in the same deck. Thats stretching the manabase too much.

Agreed, when I ran both in the same deck it was a Birthing Pod deck that used Birds of Paradise  for mana fixing and acceleration, both of which unfortunately rotate tomorrow. For this deck if the OP is sticking with I would suggest Geralf's Messenger , however if going for I would suggest Vorapede and base a deck around graveyard interactions. 

Also if the deck is Corpsejack Menace would work really well with Undying creatures.

Sticking with green I've found Rancor handy in undying decks as it makes your creatures bigger and returns each time it goes to the graveyard from the battlefield allowing you to keep reusing it.

I would consider adding more Flayer of the Hatebound and trying to get him out even faster, since his six mana cost is a bit of a drawback.

Ok, here is my attempt to improve the deck:

Creatures

4 x Flayer of the Hatebound
3 x Pyreheart Wolf
3 x Butcher Ghoul
2 x Blood Artist
1 x Geralf's Messenger
4 x Bloodthrone Vampire
1 x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
3 x Demonlord of Ashmouth


Other Spells

2 x Bone Splinters
3 x Infernal Plunge
2 x Blood Reckoning
2 x Altar's Reap
3 x Undying Evil
2 x Traveler's Amulet
2 x Disentomb


Lands

4 x Dragonskull Summit
7 x Mountain
12 x Swamp