Locations
In this experiment, we train an avatar of Innistrad to work with one of Phyrexia’s unique mutilations, and though it may cost us our sanity, confessing to one of Otaria’s clerics will preserve our ability to close out the game.
Magic 2015 is nearly upon us, and among the previewed cards so far have been the Souls of the Multiverse. Soul of Ravnica and Soul of Zendikar were seen first, and Gathering Magic was able to preview Soul of New Phyrexia. Each of these is a 6-power creature for 6 mana that brings a keyword and two matching activated abilities—one can be used repeatedly from the battlefield, and the other generates the same effect but can only be used once from the graveyard.
These effects generally are pretty expensive, but they’re perhaps worth the cost in certain circumstances—still, who could pass on a 6/6 for 6 with upside? However, Soul of Innistrad offers something a little strange.
For 
, we can return three creature cards from our graveyard to our hand. This appears innocuous, as it’s simply three Raise Deads or a single Font of Return. But because it’s repeatable, and because we can exchange cards for mana, we can turn this into a loop.
Familiar Training
in order to return three creature cards. That’s an even trade. It doesn’t net us any advantage, but it’s interesting enough to look further into. For example, with two copies of Training Grounds on the battlefield, our Soul’s activated ability will cost only , and we can start netting mana from the loop: for each iteration.
Alternatively, we can find triggered abilities that benefit us for any element of our loop. For example, if we had a creature card that gave us a benefit each time it hit our graveyard, looping it from the graveyard and back to our hand repeatedly with Soul of Innistrad and Skirge Familiar could generate us infinite of whatever that trigger generated. However, no such card comes to mind (or to my Gatherer search).
We could also work with a creature card that triggered whenever it was put into our hand from the graveyard—again, no such card seems to exist. However, there are a few cards that trigger whenever a player discards a card, and one among them—Confessor—happens to not require mana for its trigger. With Confessor on the battlefield while we loop, we can gain an unbounded amount of life. From there, let’s just hope our opponent can’t kill us and that we can somehow win before the game goes to time—or, in the more common casual-play scenario, decking.
Spending Infinity
, we make our opponent lose 3 life, and we gain 3 life. With Training Grounds around, we may pay less. With all four copies of Training Grounds out, we only have to pay 
for each activation. (Unfortunately, Training Grounds sets a Limbo-style limit on how low we can go.)
Soul Burn, one of the Drain Life variants before Consume Spirit showed up, is a card with quite a bit of text, but we can also use it to end our opponent. Incidentally, it’s also useful for staying alive an extra turn or two when we point it at an opponent’s creature. Why do we have the awkward, expensive, Tsabo Tavoc–themed Drain Life instead of the more versatile Consume Spirit? Well, we might just have some 
to spend.
You see, we might have infinite mana to spend from a loop with Soul of Innistrad and two copies of Training Grounds, in which case Bloodrite Invoker or Consume Spirit would work just fine. But in the case that we’re just using a Confessor and have a ton of life instead, we might just want to make use of that life total for more than just a cushion.
Griselbrand and Treasonous Ogre both allow us to spend life for resources, and if we have an unbounded amount of life to work with, we should be able to close out the game in short order from there. Griselbrand can find us whatever card or cards we need (unless they’re all nested together in the bottom of our library in an unreachable clump of fewer-than-seven), and Treasonous Ogre can afford us any amount of mana we need—as long as we don’t mind it being . Thus, Soul Burn, for once in its life, becomes more relevant to us than Consume Spirit. Thanks, Tsabo Tavoc and Invasion!
Ooze Again
Turn one: Hallowed Fountain, Confessor
Turn two: Arcane Sanctum, Training Grounds
Turn three: Swamp, Buried Alive for Soul of Innistrad, Skirge Familiar, and Griselbrand
Turn four: Swamp; Necrotic Ooze; discard three creatures with Ooze’s Skirge Familiar ability, gain 3 life and ; activate Ooze’s Soul of Innistrad ability to return the three discarded creatures; repeat discarding for mana and life until a ten-digit life total is reached; activate Ooze’s Griselbrand ability, draw seven cards multiple times; discard Treasonous Ogre for and 1 life; activate Ooze’s Treasonous Ogre ability twenty-two times; cast Soul Burn on the opponent for 20
Finally, Opaline Unicorn pops in to round out the deck, helping us with our many colors of mana and letting our Necrotic Ooze tap for any color as well in case we require it.
Soul Skirge ? Casual | Andrew Wilson
- Creatures (26)
- 1 Treasonous Ogre
- 4 Bloodrite Invoker
- 4 Confessor
- 4 Necrotic Ooze
- 4 Skirge Familiar
- 4 Opaline Unicorn
- 4 Soul of Innistrad
- 1 Griselbrand
- Spells (10)
- 2 Buried Alive
- 4 Soul Burn
- 4 Training Grounds
- Lands (24)
- 8 Swamp
- 4 Arcane Sanctum
- 4 Drowned Catacomb
- 4 Hallowed Fountain
- 4 Isolated Chapel
If you were looking for something silly to do with M15’s Soul cycle, or if you just can’t get enough of the standby combo enablers Necrotic Ooze, Skirge Familiar, Training Grounds, Buried Alive, and Griselbrand and the up-and-coming combo enabler Treasonous Ogre, give this deck a try. Also, hey, at least Confessor and Soul Burn finally get some time to shine.
Andrew Wilson
fissionessence at hotmail dot com
