Bats for the Bat God [EDH]

[Oversoul]

A couple of years ago, I built a mono-black discard EDH deck helmed by The Haunt of Hightower. It was very explosive, but tended to falter once opponents started hitting my commander with removal, especially multiple times in the same game. I recently brought most of those cards back together for an updated version of my deck, but quickly found that this issue was even more pronounced than I'd remembered. During a couple of games, I commented that I'd probably be better served with Aclazotz in the command zone and The Haunt of Hightower in the maindeck. Then it occurred to me: if I want to do that, I can. I'm an adult. They're my cards. No on can stop me. So I did it. Kind of. I didn't just swap the commander. I actually did build a new deck for this. Yeah, there's a ton of overlap between this and the Haunt deck, but it plays differently. I think that it's a more robust and interesting deck.

Remind me to dig through my collection at some point and swap out those snow lands, though. I've got Sceptre of Eternal Glory in this deck, so I want to improve my chances of getting lands with the same name.

Commander:
1 Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal

1 Ancient Brass Dragon
1 Anvil of Bogardan
1 Archon of Cruelty
1 Black Market
1 Breach the Multiverse
1 Burglar Rat
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Cabal Conditioning
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Coiling Rebirth
1 Corrupted Conviction
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Culling the Weak
1 Dark Deal
1 Dark Petition
1 Dark Ritual
1 Decree of Pain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Desecrated Tomb
1 Deserted Temple
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Dread Return
1 Elderfang Disciple
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Ever After
1 Exsanguinate
1 Finale of Eternity
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 Geth's Grimoire
1 Grave Titan
1 Hypnotic Specter
1 Jet Medallion
1 Junji, the Midnight Sky
1 Lake of the Dead
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Diamond
1 Necrogoyf
1 Nezumi Informant
1 Nighthawk Scavenger
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Oppression
1 Oversold Cemetery
1 Painful Quandary
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Rankle, Master of Pranks
1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
1 Reanimate
1 Rite of Consumption
1 Sceptre of Eternal Glory
1 Sheoldred
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Skeletal Vampire
13 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Strip Mine
1 Stronghold Rats
12 Swamp
1 Sword of Hearth and Home
1 Syphon Mind
1 The Abyss
1 The Eldest Reborn
1 The Haunt of Hightower
1 Tourach, Dread Cantor
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Twilight Prophet
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Victimize
1 Village Rites
1 Virus Beetle
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Waste Not
1 Wasteland

 

[Oversoul]

I got to play this deck twice last week. In the deck's first showing on Wednesday, it struggled through various swings of the board state, but eventually the card advantage from Aclazotz helped push me ahead of my opponents. I won with beatdown, and The Haunt of Hightower was the biggest contributor there.

The second game, which was on Friday, didn't go so well. I was manascrewed, and Aclazotz turning into a land was one of the only things that even kept me in that game. Eventually, I did get to six mana and was able to present some threats, but by that point I'd fallen too far behind. I thought that the opponent who killed me was making a tactical error: he put himself in a 1-on-1 situation against a more formidable opponent and the game dragged on for a very long time after I was eliminated. If he'd focused the other player first, he might have won much sooner.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck in a very long game on Wednesday. I won a game that I had no business winning, to the point that I don't even know that I'd count it. I kept forcing the Ashling player to blow up the board, which kept pressure on him from another deck. It was a five-player pod, and two players were eventually picked off. I can't remember what exactly the other player at the table was running, but his deck went kind of crazy in the long game. With my help, he took down the Ashling player. But he didn't pay close attention to his combat math and didn't finish me off in that same turn, although he certainly could have. Knowing that I was dead on board and couldn't punch through his blockers (despite his low life total), I snuck in a win by decking him with Geier Reach Sanitarium. Yeah, really.

 

[Oversoul]

Got to play this one some more. It was pretty fun. I almost ran away with the game and managed to totally shut down the strongest deck at the table. But I kind of became archenemy and had enough focus from my opponents that eventually they broke me down. In the technical sense, not a win. But I'll take it. Forcing the deck that would otherwise dominate the game into a badly losing position and focusing all of the players to target me in order to bring me down is even better than merely winning the game.

 

[Oversoul]

Played this deck yesterday. Got run over by slivers. Oh well.