The Ghoul, Gunslinger

Gameplan

The Ghoul is a mono-black aristocrats/sacrifice deck that profits whenever your Zombies and Mutants die. Each death hands out two rad counters, which mill the target and drain life on their next main phase, while pointing them at yourself nets a Treasure to ramp into bigger threats and reanimation. You grind value through sacrifice loops, dump your graveyard with rads, and reanimate or close out with drain payoffs.

Key Cards

• Gravecrawler — Endlessly recurs as a nontoken Zombie to repeat death triggers and rad counters with a sac outlet.
• Phyrexian Altar — Free sacrifice outlet that turns Zombie deaths into mana and infinite loops with recursive creatures.
• Viscera Seer — Cheap, repeatable sacrifice outlet to convert every Zombie into a death trigger on demand.
• Grave Pact — Multiplies each Zombie death into edicts, attrition, and stacked rad triggers across the table.
• Gisa and Geralf — Generates and recurs Zombies from your graveyard, feeding the death engine and capitalizing on self-mill.
• Pitiless Plunderer — Adds Treasure to every nontoken death, stacking with The Ghoul's own Treasure generation for explosive ramp.

Upgrade Path

Add free sacrifice outlets (Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar) and recursive bodies (Gravecrawler, Reassembling Skeleton) to build deterministic death loops, then pair with Blood Artist effects to convert loops into wins. Tighten the mana with fast rocks and dual lands, and lean into reanimation packages (Reanimate, Animate Dead) that exploit the self-mill from your own rad counters. Cut slow, fair Zombies for engines and tutors like Demonic Tutor and Diabolic Intent to assemble combos faster.