In this experiment, we dig up the bloodsoaked dead and go from being initiates to being champions of the profane.

Khans of Tarkir is now fully revealed, and while I’m not blown away, there are definitely some cards that piqued my interest. Anything that can repeatedly return from the graveyard is just asking to be abused, and Bloodsoaked Champion is definitely in that category.

All we have to do is attack, and for the rest of the turn, we can spend to return Bloodsoaked Champion from our graveyard to the battlefield. The creature we attacked with might even have died, but it’ll still work. Heck, the Champion might even be the creature that attacked.

At that point, all we need is a sacrifice outlet (or death-trigger suite) that will generate us at least worth of value, and we can repeatedly gain said value. For example, with Phyrexian Altar, Carnival of Souls, and Blood Artist, we can just loop the Champion until our opponents die of Blood Artist triggers.

With Ashnod's Altar and Bog Initiate, we can loop Bloodsoaked Champion over and over and then add whatever trigger we want to generate from there.

There’s another creature that looks a lot like Bloodsoaked Champion in terms of looping potential. Gravecrawler costs only to recur, and its requirement is that we control a Zombie. This time with Ashnod's Altar and Bog Initiate, we can actually generate mana. We could win with triggers, such as Blood Artist’s, or with a big spell, such as a massive Profane Command. The additional requirement here, of course, is that we control another Zombie to act as an anchor for the ’Crawler.

Going Aggro

I frequently build my decks such that they go all-in on a particular combo, but today’s concepts lent themselves quite nicely to an aggro strategy.

Carnophage and Diregraf Ghoul – These are other 2-power creatures for 1 mana, and they’re Zombies for Gravecrawler’s sake.

Initiates of the Ebon Hand – This is a cheaper alternate to Bog Initiate. Its drawbacks are the less exciting artwork and the fact that it will die at the end of a turn during which it activate its superpower too many times. That shouldn’t be an issue since we should win on that turn.

Bog Initiate – For redundancy, we’ll keep two of her around. These mana-filtering creatures aren’t particularly aggressive, but they are inexpensive; we won’t be waiting around for 5-, 6-, or 10-drops in order to combo out.

Pain Seer and Blood Scrivener – A deck like this will have a reasonable early game, and its reach comes in the form of the combo. However, to keep up fuel and reach the necessary combo components, these 2-drops will toss some extra cards our way. Blood Scrivener is weaker and may end up rarely triggering, but it is a Zombie. Of course, if you have a few spare copies of Dark Confidant, run with those.

Profane Command – Finally, we’ll need a finisher. Preferably, this is something with in its cost, such as this Command, Maga, Traitor to Mortals, or Consume Spirit. While I’m always tempted to go with something such as Army of the Damned or the new Empty the Pits, winning immediately is a much better route. Profane Command will even be relevant on some early turns, even if it’s just for 1 to remove a small blocker, give something evasion, Hornet Sting our opponent, or return a Diregraf Ghoul. (Oh, and choose two!)

Gameplay

Of course, this deck doesn’t have to actually combo to win. With all the early aggression, some wins will just be handed over on a silver platter. And often, we won’t need infinite mana or infinite Blood Artist triggers as our finisher. Just an Ashnod's Altar with a few creatures out can do the trick.

If, for example, we have four creatures on the battlefield, we can sacrifice them for 8 mana, and if we have the to back it up, we can reduce our opponent’s life total by 8. That won’t be happening until at least turn four, which isn’t particularly quick, but it’s still pretty reasonable.

On the other hand, with either of our combos, we can win on turn three, immediately after resolving an Ashnod's Altar.

Bloodsoaked Champion, Initiates of the Ebon Hand, and Blood Artist

On turn three, we play a third Swamp and cast Ashnod's Altar. We attack with the Champion, this time as a necessity to turn on the raid status. We sacrifice the superfluous 1-drop for and change that to with the Initiates. With that, we cast Blood Artist.

Then, we sacrifice the Bloodsoaked Champion (which needs to have survived combat) for and turn it into to activate the Champion’s return ability. This will have triggered Blood Artist, and we can loop the Champion from the graveyard to the battlefield repeatedly for the Blood Artist victory.

To achieve this, we will have used a total of eight semi-specific cards, though three just needed to be lands and one needed to be any 1-drop.

Gravecrawler, Initiates of the Ebon Hand, and Profane Command

On turn three, we play another Swamp cast Ashnod's Altar. We sacrifice the Gravecrawler for and turn it into with the Initiates. Spending , we cast Gravecrawler from our graveyard, and we repeat from there, netting each time. With enough , we can cast a Profane Command for enough to kill our opponent.

For this, we also used eight semi-specific cards; again, three were Swamps, but for this version, the 1-drop needed to be a Zombie.

Later On

Of course, those were just the situations for winning on turn three; if we’re willing to go more with an aggro or non-combo plan, winning later is always an option—unless we lose sooner than that.

And here’s the deck:

Bloodsoaked Altar ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (32)
• 2 Blood Scrivener
• 2 Bog Initiate
• 4 Blood Artist
• 4 Bloodsoaked Champion
• 4 Carnophage
• 4 Diregraf Ghoul
• 4 Gravecrawler
• 4 Initiates of the Ebon Hand
• 4 Pain Seer

• Spells (8)
• 4 Profane Command
• 4 Ashnod's Altar

• Lands (20)
• 18 Swamp
• 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1 Volrath's Stronghold

Buy This Deck

If you’ve always wanted to sacrifice your Zombie army to an altar in order to fuel a massive Profane Command, or if you just want to try something with the new Bloodsoaked Champion, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com