Here Come The Butchers

I wanted this to be a brutal deck, so I picked a brutal song. I read about a Death Cloud deck back in the Mirrordin days but it never took off. Pox effects are always hyped because breaking them usually wins you the game but Death Cloud is expensive which conflicts with the Pox deck rule: Pox early, Pox often. So there are some barriers but what I figured I would do is work with the original Undying/Persist creatures: Penumbras.

I guess I ought to inform that I made this deck before those mechanics existed. Which is why it's a great time to revisit this:

9 Swamp
1 Thran Quarry
9 Forest
4 Woodland Cemetery

3 Penumbra Bobcat
3 Penumbra Spider
2 Body Snatcher
4 Bone Shredder
3 Walker of the Grove
4 Tukatongue Thallid
3 Tilling Treefolk
2 Viridian Zealot

4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Death Cloud
3 Unmask
2 Revive the Fallen

At 23 land, this may be playing the knife's edge of mana. Also, Body Snatcher is a card I can't figure out why I put in the deck. Sure, it has a great effect if it dies but I need to not be discarding cards in hand. Rationing out what to save and what to pitch is really important to a deck like this: the wrong decision can ruin you, even if you do get a Death Cloud off.

I dunno. Maybe I just had an attack of The Stupid.

So what needs to change? First, I think the Walker of the Grove is a clear weak spot, now that cards like Vorapede exist. It doesn't have any kind of evasion, is extremely expensive and provides a significantly smaller body once it dies; there's so much to improve upon!

Body Snatcher should certainly become something else; Puppeteer Clique might be a delicious substitute, given this deck's bent. After that? I guess I'll test and see.