Collectible Card Game Headquarters

60 Total Cards

15 Creatures
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4x Ali from Cairo
3x Dark Confidant
4x Death's Shadow
4x Juzam Djinn

21 Spells
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2x Bitterblossom
4x Bituminous Blast
4x Dark Ritual
3x Doom Blade
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Pestilence
2x That Which Was Taken

24 Land
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4x Badlands
4x Blood Crypt
2x Cabal Coffers
6x Mountain
8x Swamp

Scared of reaching 0 life? This deck is designed to function with powerful black cards with drawbacks when your life is very low. Platinum Angel would even be better if it was in Forge. But thankfully, cards like Ali from Cairo can make this work.

Death's Shadow is obviously the main beatstick here. It becomes 12/12 when you are dangerously sitting at 1 life.

Dark Confidant allows you to lower your life and at the same time draw cards. Bitterblossom adds some fliers to your arsenal. That Which Was Taken also makes Ali from Cairo indestructible, essential if the match isn't over by the time you have Death's Shadow out.

Burn decks hurt you though. In some cases having an Ali of Cairo out fast made indestructilbe with That Which Was Taken often helps.

But should Ali from Cairo prevent the loss of life from Dark Confidant and Bitterblossom?

Triadasoul wrote:But should Ali from Cairo prevent the loss of life from Dark Confidant and Bitterblossom?

Good point. Thanks for pointing that out. I reread the card over and over. And based on your question it shouldn't. Ali from Cairo only cares about cards that explicitly state "damage" and not as a cost or a means of reducing life.


I also checked the card's rulings here:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/ ... erseid=957

Dark Confidant should cause you to still lose the game, and so does Bitterblossom because they don't technically cause damage to your life total since they bypass Ali from Cairo's effect. A card that also causes a player to lose life like Acolyte of Xathrid will ignore Ali from Cairo too.

I play tested this deck, and Dark Confidant or Bitterblossom indeed does not cause you to lose the game when at very low life. That's why I made use of the combo and added them to the deck.

I better report this to the bug thread instead

Yes, except it doesn't make a difference in Forge yet (no difference between lifeloss and damage).

DennisBergkamp wrote:Yes, except it doesn't make a difference in Forge yet (no difference between lifeloss and damage).

As for now, people will really have no choice but to abuse it