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.