Enjoy.

I'm doing my daily read at StarCityGames when I read about Power Conduit being able to remove cumulative upkeep tokens in the Ask the Judge series:

Q: With the release of Power Conduit, is it now possible for me to remove the age counters that are created as a part of the cumulative upkeep process?

A: Excellent question, but I'm sure the R&D guys thought of it. You can indeed remove an age counter to activate the Power Conduit. That being said, you can't do so in the middle of resolving Cumulative Upkeep; you have to do so beforehand. The adding a counter and paying (or sacrificing) happen without you getting priority in the middle. That means if there are no counters on it, you'll still have to pay. You can use the Conduit to keep from having age counters pile up, but you'll never be able to avoid having to pay at least one"unit" of Cumulative Upkeep.

Here's the reference from the comprehensive rules regarding cumulative upkeep:

502.13. Cumulative Upkeep

502.13a Cumulative upkeep is a triggered ability that imposes an increasing cost on a permanent. The phrase"Cumulative upkeep [cost]" means"At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice this permanent unless you pay [cost] for each age counter on it."

502.13b If a permanent has multiple instances of cumulative upkeep, each triggers separately. However, the age counters are not linked to any particular ability; each cumulative upkeep ability will count the total number of age counters on the permanent at the time that ability resolves.

So, I asked myself,"What kind of cumulative upkeep goodness is there out there?" Then, I searched out the cards with cumulative upkeep and found several interesting possibilities.

Brand of Ill Omen
Breath of Dreams
Dystopia
Energy Storm
Glacial Chasm
Infernal Darkness
Musician
Naked Singularity
Reality Twist
Ritual of Subdual
Sustaining Spirit
Tombstone Stairwell
Tornado

Since I had wanted to build a Zombie deck, Tombstone Stairwell would be my choice. I had some experience with the Stairwell from back in the Mirage Block days.

Most of my multiplayer decks start out like this - two cards that interact in some interesting way.

Next, I searched out all the cards that were Zombies or Zombie related.

Carrion Feeder was the first to jump off the page. The thought of saccing all of your Tombspawn tokens for +1/+1 counters before the end of turn is a great start for this deck. In addition, Power Conduit can move the counters around to the other zombies. The Carrion Feeder seemed a natural fit.

The next Zombie to grab my attention was Gempalm Polluter. The Stairwell will be pumping out Tombspawn tokens, and I'll have pretty good insight as to how many creatures are in everyone's yard. The Polluter should be a pretty efficient finisher. I can use Unholy Grotto for repeated use.

A few slots down the list I find Gravedigger. I'm not exactly sure what I might use this guy for (I've used him in the past with Anarchist), but he is a great utility creature, so I'll keep him on the list.

With Anarchist fresh in my mind, Lava Zombie jumps out and says,"I'm better with Anarchist than Gravedigger" so he makes the list.

Llanowar Dead could be good for some early acceleration if I feel I should need it.

Nantuko Husk would be good, but I think Carrion Feeder is better since he gets counters, and they can be moved around with Power Conduit.

I'm not sure what colors I'll be playing in addition to black, but Anarchist and Lava Zombie pop back into my head when I see Nightscape Familiar.

Then my jaw drops when I read Noxious Ghoul. Here's the text for a quick review:

Whenever Noxious Ghoul or another Zombie comes into play, all non-Zombie creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn.

Think about that with Tombstone Stairwell and how it applies to a multiplayer game for a moment... Okay... That would be good.

I search down the list before I find another potential inclusion for this zombie deck. I could very well have missed some good zombies since after Noxious Ghoul... Well, let's just say it's hard to shine when you're standing next to the sun. It was Quagmire Druid that shone through with his"Destroy target enchantment" ability. Yeah, Quagmire Druid is a zombie, and yeah, he's Black, and yeah, he destroys enchantments. Yeah, I thought Black couldn't deal with enchantments either - you can see why this guy caught my eye even after being blinded by the Ghoul. Okay, so you need Green to activate the ability but he is a utility zombie that will make the initial list.

Rotlung Reanimator - Oh how I wish you triggered on zombies instead of clerics. I suppose I could play Artificial Evolution... hmmm... definitely a possibility.

The next four cards on the list will all make the cut:

Twisted Abomination - This guy will smooth the mana, thin the deck, and fill the yard. He will allow splashing any color since he can fetch dual lands. This will be a four-of.

Undead Gladiator - This guy will fill the yard and draw cards. Another four-of.

Undead Warchief - This guy will make my Tombspawn tokens bigger and other zombies cheaper to cast.

Vengeful Dead - Oh my God, with Tombstone Stairwell this is a kill condition on its own.

Finally, I make my way down to Withered Wretch. When I started thinking about the Stairwell/Conduit deck, I thought the Wretch would be an automatic inclusion. However, with Noxious Ghoul and Vengeful Dead, I prefer my opponents' yards to be filled with creatures. I could add a copy for anti-recursion utility, but at this point, I doubt he'll make the cut.

I have a pretty good selection of zombies. I seem to be looking at B/r/g but with Twisted Abomination and dual lands, I can go into any color. I search the card text for zombie to see which cards might fit the theme.

I don't find anything too interesting....

Strength of Night looks interesting, but doesn't look to be too promising for this deck.

Unholy Grotto could be useful with the Twisted Abomination, Gravedigger, and the Polluter.

Now on to the support cards.

Multiplayer games are the hardest games in Magic to win. Want to make your tournament game better? Play some multiplayer chaos magic. When you are able to keep up with four or five (or more) opponents' permanents, graveyards, hand sizes, and life totals, then you will find your tournament duels a breeze to keep up with.

The first order of business for a multiplayer deck is survival. To me, nothing says,"Attack someone else" better than Propaganda. And if I'm playing Blue, you can bet I'll have a couple of these in the deck. Of course, I'm not playing Blue, but these are so good that I am now. With Blue in the deck, I can start to consider Artificial Evolution with Rotlung Reanimator.

Another aspect of survival in multiplayer is damage prevention. This has many forms, most of them white. I like Kor Haven, the Circles of Protection, and Maze of Ith, but nothing keeps you alive better than Worship. Sustaining Spirit has appeal as well, and it fits well with the idea of the deck being to use Power Conduit to remove age counters for affordable cumulative upkeep, but Noxious Ghoul will kill him. Another non-creature card I've discovered to get better with more players is Sun Droplet. These are all pretty good options, but one card works hilariously well with the Stairwell. Have you guessed it? It's Sphere of Grace! Preventing two damage from a Black source is pretty good when your giving your opponents lots of hasty 2/2 Black zombies each turn.

There are a couple staple cards that go into any multiplayer deck: Sol Ring, and Demonic Tutor. I'm always happy to draw either if these, and lately, I've been using Anarchist with Demonic Tutor.

I always look forward to Peter Jahn's articles. Peter named Mind's Eye as the best multiplayer card ever. My group has been playing with Mind's Eye ever since. Today, I'm going to break Mind's Eye wide open. The problem with Mind's Eye is all the land you accumulate. The answer is Burgeoning. Mind's Eye is a house with Burgeoning. I think that, in multiplayer games, Mind's Eye and Burgeoning will go together like Ensnaring Bridge and Grafted Skullcap.

Lifegain has always been a controversial subject in both competitive and multiplayer magic. However, multiplayer magic is about survival first, and lifegain could allow the player of a deck like this to survive the extra round or so necessary to let Tombstone Stairwell and Vengeful Dead win the game. I've already mentioned Sun Droplet, and there are a host of other possibilities including Congregate. Congregate could work well with the Stairwell, but I ruled it out because it's an instant. Yeah, I ruled it out because it's an instant.

This deck will require several permanents to be in play in order to win. I'll want to get them into play as fast as reasonably possible, and I don't want to have to keep 3W open when it would have been better to play Vengeful Dead and just win. Sorcery lifegain would be recurable with Anarchist, but that is a heavy investment and it would likely be my next turn before I got to recast it. So I looked to the artifacts and enchantments. With Mind's Eye filling up my hand round after round, I considered Ivory Tower and Spellbook. That has potential, but it's two cards and I'd hate to be tutoring for either part. I looked through the enchantments and found the perfect fit with Tombstone Stairwell: Moonlit Wake.

The list of potential cards is coming together nicely, but I'm getting concerned about finding the pieces. I don't want to have to run multiple copies of any of the important pieces of the deck, so I want more tutors. Diabolic Tutor will recur with Anarchist, but I'll need some redundancy. I considered Planar Portal (figuring I'd be using Cabal Coffers), and it went into my first draft of the deck, but was cut. The others I considered were Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Tutor, and Diabolic Intent. I like all of these because I don't have to reveal what I tutored for. In the end, I chose Diabolic Intent.

I assembled a rough decklist and started goldfishing to see how the deck played out. The first thing I decided to do was cut down on the number of multiples of the enchantments and add Auramancer and Replenish. I had lots of White, so I added a single Vindicate to go with the other sorceries that Anarchist could fetch. Both Gravedigger and Lava Zombie were less than stellar with the Anarchist, so I added Recurring Nightmare (usually saccing a Tombspawn token) to really make Anarchist/Tutor efficient. I also swapped out Propaganda for Collective Restraint, since I was now five colors. I never tested Rotlung Reanimator/Artificial Evolution because Tombstone Stairwell/Noxious Ghoul/Vengeful Dead is so strong on its own.

I played it during one of my group's six-player games and won the round. We were playing Hunt and my hunter had some huge Green fat waiting to attack me once he could pay for dual Restraints (ten mana per attacker). He played Mirari's Wake and expected to kill me the next turn. I had nine creature cards in my yard and with Wake, his biggest was a 10/10. I Vindicated his Wake and then dropped the Stairwell. He told the table,"We're all going to die." He was right!

Here is the finished deck with after-game-night modifications:

Stone-Cold Zombies
4 Twisted Abomination
4 Undead Gladiator
3 Undead Warchief
3 Festering Goblin
2 Noxious Ghoul
2 Vengeful Dead
1 Quagmire Druid
3 Tombstone Stairwell
2 Collective Restraint
2 Mind's Eye
2 Burgeoning
1 Anarchist
1 Auramancer
R Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Moonlit Wake
1 Sphere of Grace
1 Recurring Nightmare
1 Vindicate
1 Replenish
R Sol Ring
1 Worship

10 Swamp
2 Unholy Grotto
2 Cabal Coffers
2 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
2 Badlands
2 Bayou

You might be wondering,"What happened to the Carrion Feeders and Power Conduit?" I cut the Feeders for two reasons. First, I found myself saccing them to pay for the Recurring Nightmare, so they generally weren't around when I got Tombstone Stairwell into play. Second, once I got the Stairwell into play, I wanted to use the Power Conduit to remove the age counter. I took out the Power Conduit because I don't expect the game to last too many rounds once the Stairwell gets played, and if it does, I can simply cast another one.

Next time, I'll have a trick (Memory Lapse) and a trap (Booby) that you can set up on your unsuspecting opponents time and time again.

Thanks for reading,
-G. H. Bartz
clmaxNO@SPAMev1.net (remove NO_SPAM)