A few years ago, I was regularly playing multiplayer with a lot of friends back at Eastern Michigan University. While rolling up the cards in my last year there, I built a mono-black multiplayer deck that had two hundred fifty cards and was all highlander. This fun deck was dubbed the Quagmire.

The problem was that I left for London a few months after making the Quagmire, so I only played it a few times. I edited it with new cards after Lorwyn and Morningtide, and then I never touched it again.

I jotted down the list of cards that were in the deck into an Excel spreadsheet, split them up among my normal boxes of rares and uncommons by color, and then moved on.

Today, I rediscovered my spreadsheet and the Quagmire, and I realized that I had never written this deck into an article. As I looked over the list, I saw a lot of fun and pet cards that I have rarely talked about in my columns. This seemed like a good time to dust off this old deck for another day.

Now, none of the one hundred fifty-four non-Swamps in the deck were printed after Lorwyn/Morningtide. I don’t have anything from Shadowmoor or forward in the deck. That means two major things: First, it excludes a ton of great cards from the last few years, including the entire mythic rare era. Second, however, it also includes a bunch of cards in the pre-mythic era that do not receive a lot of press but that are cheap and give a lot of power for your game.

For those reasons, I thought reanimating this deck from the sands of time would prove an interesting experiment for deck-building today. So, without further ado, here is my two-hundred-fifty-card, mono-black multiplayer extravaganza.

"The Quagmire"

• Creatures (58)
• 1 Avatar of Woe
• 1 Bane of the Living
• 1 Big Game Hunter
• 1 Bone Shredder
• 1 Bringer of the Black Dawn
• 1 Cackling Fiend
• 1 Carrionette
• 1 Coffin Queen
• 1 Corpse Harvester
• 1 Dark Hatchling
• 1 Doomed Necromancer
• 1 Dread
• 1 Filth
• 1 Gravedigger
• 1 Guiltfeeder
• 1 Laquatus's Champion
• 1 Magus of the Coffers
• 1 Mortivore
• 1 Nantuko Shade
• 1 Nekrataal
• 1 Nezumi Graverobber
• 1 Notorious Assassin
• 1 Phyrexian Gargantua
• 1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
• 1 Reiver Demon
• 1 Sanguine Praetor
• 1 Scion of Darkness
• 1 Shriekmaw
• 1 Silent Assassin
• 1 Silent Specter
• 1 Skinthinner
• 1 Stinkweed Imp
• 1 Stronghold Overseer
• 1 Throat Slitter
• 1 Twisted Abomination
• 1 Undead Gladiator
• 1 Warren Pilferers
• 1 Bottle Gnomes
• 1 Darksteel Colossus
• 1 Darksteel Gargoyle
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Mindless Automaton
• 1 Mirror Golem
• 1 Platinum Angel
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Wall
• 1 Stuffy Doll
• 1 Triskelion
• 1 Ascendant Evincar
• 1 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
• 1 Kagemaro, First to Suffer
• 1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
• 1 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
• 1 Lim-Dul the Necromancer
• 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
• 1 Mirri the Cursed
• 1 Spirit of the Night
• 1 Visara the Dreadful

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Liliana Vess

• Spells (87)
• 1 Corpse Dance
• 1 Death Denied
• 1 Diabolic Edict
• 1 Expunge
• 1 Feast or Famine
• 1 Rend Flesh
• 1 Sudden Spoiling
• 1 Tainted Pact
• 1 Tsabo's Decree
• 1 Vampiric Tutor
• 1 Ambition's Cost
• 1 Barter in Blood
• 1 Beacon of Unrest
• 1 Buried Alive
• 1 Chainer's Edict
• 1 Consume Spirit
• 1 Corrupt
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Decree of Pain
• 1 Demonic Collusion
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Diabolic Tutor
• 1 Drain Life
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Dregs of Sorrow
• 1 Hex
• 1 Living Death
• 1 Mutilate
• 1 Plague Wind
• 1 Profane Command
• 1 Promise of Power
• 1 Sins of the Past
• 1 Swallowing Plague
• 1 Syphon Mind
• 1 Twilight's Call
• 1 Unnerve
• 1 Victimize
• 1 Yawgmoth's Will
• 1 Zombify
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Dauthi Embrace
• 1 Enslave
• 1 Fevered Convulsions
• 1 Gate to Phyrexia
• 1 Grave Pact
• 1 Hecatomb
• 1 Larceny
• 1 Mind Slash
• 1 Night Dealings
• 1 No Mercy
• 1 Oversold Cemetery
• 1 Recurring Nightmare
• 1 Seal of Doom
• 1 Subversion
• 1 Tortured Existence
• 1 Charcoal Diamond
• 1 Citanul Flute
• 1 Crumbling Sanctuary
• 1 Extraplanar Lens
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Guardian Idol
• 1 Heartseeker
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Horn of Deafening
• 1 Icy Manipulator
• 1 Jayemdae Tome
• 1 Jet Medallion
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Loxodon Warhammer
• 1 Memory Jar
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1 Nightmare Lash
• 1 Oblivion Stone
• 1 Planar Portal
• 1 Scroll Rack
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Serum Tank
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Snake Basket
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Mindslaver
• 1 Mirari

• Lands (104)
• 96 Swamp
• 1 Cabal Coffers
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Mishra's Factory
• 1 Spawning Pool
• 1 Strip Mine
• 1 Wasteland
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

Buy This Deck

And there is the deck, with one hundred four lands and five mana artifacts, such as Sol Ring and Charcoal Diamond. The deck includes more than fifty creatures, many great spells, some great artifacts, plus some powerful enchantments.

Many of the cards here need no embellishment. Cards such as Damnation, Avatar of Woe, and Volrath's Stronghold have obvious uses and power. Many writers have long extolled their virtues. (Plus, this article does not have enough space for just one single sentence spoken for each of the one hundred fifty-four cards in the list!)

Instead, I want to focus on the unusual cards or those that some might call underpowered. Let’s look at those cards.

Creatures

Nantuko Shade – I could be playing a lot of Shades, and in a deck like this, there’s reason, too. But Nantuko Shade has always been the best because of its aggressively-priced cost. That makes this an incredible body for the cost, and I have few early creatures to drop, so it should come down easily.

Warren Pilferers and Gravedigger – In case you missed it, I regularly harp on how great these sorts of medium-cost bodies that turn into Raise Deads can be. No one feels threatened by the 2/2 or 3/3 that’s on the table, and you can keep them back for blocking and swing in occasionally for a bit of a nip, and all while bringing back your best dead creature. These are quite valuable.

Doomed Necromancer – A lot of people forget this card when looking for good reanimation options. It was once commonly played, but you see them rarely these days. Another creature in this vein is the more-than-serviceable Coffin Queen. It taps to bring back a creature from any graveyard, and you can untap her to exile that body and make another friend. From the sacrifice and reanimation of the Necromancer to the rebirth stylings of her majesty, both of these are great additions to this deck and your table.

Carrionette – It lurks in your graveyard, ready to exile a creature. Sure, it takes 4 mana to activate and just 2 to stop. Yet, it works a lot as people tap out; or you can use it, the opponent taps out, and then you untap your lands and hit your target creature again. It’s great to stock the ’yard with a Buried Alive.

Laquatus's Champion – Black rarely has strong regenerating beaters. I included a few, such as Twisted Abomination and Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, but the Champion is another solid entrant. Don’t neglect the loss of 6 life by a foe as well, which can finish off some players.

Notorious Assassin – Let’s see. You tap this for 3 mana and discard a card. For your trouble, you enjoy a repeated Dark Banishing effect. That sort of repeat removal acts as a strong rattlesnake against opposing foes, but the facts that it requires 3 mana and a card and that the creature is just a 2/2 means it ranks much lower on the must-be-killed list from all-stars such as Avatar of Woe and Visara the Dreadful.

Instants and Sorceries

Corpse Dance – This card was once the belle of the isle in Casual Land. It had several nifty combos with cards such as Composite Golem and Bottle Gnomes. I am running the Gnomes, so that trick is here. (See also: Triskelion and Mindless Automaton). Yet, the Dance has really dropped in play value. I have not seen one played in years. NBC used to run promos in summer to convince people to watch reruns, saying, “If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!” Corpse Dance makes the same promise.

Feast or Famine – You tend not to see a lot of these either, and today, I understand why—so many Terror variants have been made that this drops. I like a card that can do two different things, and this gives you a nice bit of flexibility—either instant creature removal or instant token-making. You’ll probably Terror nine times out of ten, but it’s good to have the other option when you want to kill a small attacker, want to make another body to swing, or want to block a creature you can’t target for removal. You get the idea.

Dregs of Sorrow – I remember an old magazine that marketed the upcoming Tempest by saying there was a powerful card that went by the name in playtesting. I loved that idea, and I have always called this by that call-sign. is rather quite good at a table with more foes, and therefore more targets to destroy and draw cards from. It’s like a targeted Decree of Pain.

Victimize – Another powerful reanimation spell that has fallen by the wayside, you trade a cheap spell and a silly ol' creature for two of your best dead creatures right onto your battlefield tapped. Victimize is a great card to slide into a multiplayer deck to add to the seriousness of your plan.

Enchantments

Fevered Convulsions – A short while ago, I used Consumptive Goo in my budget Ghave, Guru of Spores Commander deck. It’s ironic that I have its similarly rare cousin here in this deck as well. If you go mana-crazy later with Coffers, this is a repeatable mana sink. With some mana open, you massively threaten to change combat math, and things brighten. You can kill smaller creatures easily. This has a stronger impact on the board than you might otherwise think.

Hecatomb – This is an old-school nightmare for some decks. Yes, when it arrives, you sacrifice some dumb creatures. But then, your Swamps turn into machine guns of love. I like to use this as a pseudo-Wrath. I lose some guys; you will, too. But my Swamps stay out, and I can blast new creatures or players at length. It wins the game quickly on its own.

Mind Slash – Speaking of sacrificing dorks for an effect, this will sacrifice them to Coercion your foes, and a few iterations of it will force them to drop their cards or else lose them. When people play cards on your timetable instead of theirs, you have really disrupted their plans, and it puts you in a stronger position to win.

Artifacts

Crumbling Sanctuary – In any large deck, this basically increases your life total massively when it arrives. Sometimes, people shy away from cards like this because they don’t want to accidentally exile important things. Have you ever been milled by someone using a Millstone and when the player sees what great card was left the player thinks he or she did something important? It’s the same thing here. You have just as much of a chance of exiling a land as you do of a good card, and neither matter—you will survive with whatever you draw. This card is nuts-good.

Heartseeker – While a bit heavy on the mana, a creature equipped with this and untapped is a powerful sign saying, “Keep Away.” You can also kill multiple nasties if you have a lot of mana and more than one creature to equip. This is a deck that can make a lot of mana . . .

Snake Basket –  . . . Speaking of which, you can produce a ton of Snakes with that mana and crash through an opponent’s defenses or make fodder for things such as Attrition, Mind Slash, Corpse Harvester, and Hecatomb.

These twenty-one cards are just some of the interesting cards that I rolled into the Quagmire. Having fun with old gems like these is one of the things that makes me really excited when I play Magic. Unearthing a great card that was once great (Corpse Dance) or never was (Larceny) and really pushing them can surprise a lot of folks. That may help you win—true. But it also makes it fun!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent