[Deck] Mono B aggro

[sammiel]

Threw this together real quick, preliminary testing against the big three is favorable. Haven't played enough games to call any percentages yet, but heres my analysis from a couple quick tests.

Solidarity: Only 4 dead cards MD, and those swap out post board. Resolving a turn 2 persecute is usually GG since I usually have a clock thats faster than they can recover. If I don't hit that persecute, I just rely on my other discard spells and prayer.

Threshold: UGw is actually a pretty decent match for me, first strike and pro-white means they typically can't do a damn thing to my creatures, whereas a bonesplitter lets mine do mean things to theirs. UGr is a nightmare, since all my creatures eat it to burn, frequently 2 for 1.

Goblins: Goblins is just a more brutal deck. Game 1 relies on luck, first strike owns all their creatures, but they can really overwhelm me quick. post-board I've got charm as a lackey answer, and plague as a general answer. Persecute is still a solid card in this matchup, emptying their hand can give my first strikers some much needed relief in the attrition war.



18x Swamp

4x Black Knight
4x Nantuko Shade
4x Dark Confidant
4x Order of the Ebon Hand
4x Knight of Stromgald

3x Bonesplitter
3x Persecute
4x Diabolic Edict
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Dark Ritual


SB

4x Funeral Charm
4x Engineered Plague
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Engineered Explosives


I thought about MD withered wretch, and im still torn. contagion is another one I like, but flipping one with Bob is pretty terrible. Engineered explosives may seem weird in a monocolor deck, but black is notoriously bad at artifact/enchantment hate, in this case I'm mostly just looking to pop needles and chalices.

Before anyone mentions it, in a more varied metagame im sure b/w is much better, but this is something im tinkering around with for a meta thats full of thresh and landstill.

[Maverick676]

Have you considered Hypnotic Specter? He is one of blacks best creatures and is a truely savage 1st turn play against combo.

Instead of bonesplitter you should try jittes. They provide an even faster clock, and double as creature kill. These will also improve your goblin matchup quite a bit.

To improve your goblin matchup you might consider some maindeck darkblast as recurring creature kill, and also to deal with first turn lackey.

Last but not least, if you can afford them get a playset of pithing needles. They are mono blacks best friend. Needles deal with troublesome artifacts that you would otherwise not have an answer to. Also they can be sided in against solidarity to name their fetchlands.

[sammiel]

I have all of those, and I suppose I can playtest the jittes in place of the bonesplitters. I'm not terribly worried about my goblin matchup, because theres anywhere from 0-2 goblin players at the local tournaments, and I would never take this pile to a bigger event.

what would you pull from the SB for needles?

[Iranon]

8 pump knights and 4 shades seem very mana-hungry; has this ever been a problem?

Persecute relies too heavily on Dark Ritual with only 18 lands; have you considered playing 8 1-mana discard spells instead?
I think 4 Blackmail + 4 Funeral Charm might be a good setup (strengthening problematic match-ups compared to the more widespread Duress + Therapy. Charm has particular synergy with Black Knights).

[C.P.]

Good ol' Black winnie. How sweet.:tongue:
I used to have every single blask winnie creatures just because I loved the deck.

Anyway, about your deck.

The very first thing I see is the you lack a good mana curve. unless you draw a dark ritual or duress, your first turn drop is horrorble. Persecute is another debatable card, since you only run 18 land. It is possible that you will never reach 4 mana before the end of the game. cabal theraphy, as long as you're good with it, is more reliable.

Bonsplitter is solid, but never impressive. If you can solve mana curve problem(I see a huge problem since your creatures cost 2-2-2-2-2), try Jitte or Mask of Memory. Sword of Fire and Ice helps against burn, but you need some mana commitment for it. Bad moon is another option.

Your creature base should be good against anything without red.:wink: 1 toughness creatures are not very good against Fire//Ice. Pumpknights, seeing that you only run 18 lands, is not going to get bigger than 4/1. I'd consider more durable cretures.

Here are some altenative suggestion about creatures:

Carnophage, Sarcomancy: 2/2 for B. Dies easily, but very fast. dropping three of them first turm with a ritual against a non red-deck is hot.

Withered Wretch: As you mentioned, very good metagame call. Pack 4 if you hate thresh.

Mesmeric Fiend: Try it if you have lots of equipments. Very strong against landstill.

Phyrexyan negator: It eats landstill alive.

And Kaervec's Spite(my favorit BBB card ever) and wastland should be worth it if you can find a spot.

P.S. B/W is not necessary better. Go mono black.:wink:

EDIT: This (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4796)might be helpful.

[Cavius The Great]

And Kaervec's Spite(my favorit BBB card ever) and wastland should be worth it if you can find a spot.

I thought I was the only person that plays that card. It basically reads BBB - "You win the game" in alot of instances.

[etrigan]

If there's very little aggro in your local meta, give Flesh Reaver a try. It's a great clock against control and combo decks. Might be a little too much sui for what you're going for though.

[Ch33bs]

I'm thinking the infamous AEther Vial should be used. It lightens the load of mana you use every turn which makes you able to cast more business spells.

[erdjinn]

I'm thinking the infamous AEther Vial should be used. It lightens the load of mana you use every turn which makes you able to cast more business spells.

I agree. Almost all your creatures cost 2 mana and you don't have many good first turn plays.
What to take out? Probably Persecute and Hymn to Tourach.

I'd also take out 4 of 2cc knight for Carnophage.

Jitte is much stronger than Bonesplitter, just try to avoid having half your cards cost 2 mana. You currently run 28 2cc spells, that's why you're so afraid of Chalice.

[sammiel]

copy/paste from my post on starcity, suffice to say I was happy with the deck's results.

Yeah, in my MWS files, the filename is monoBaggro, so I started calling it mono-bad cause I thought it was funny. Another suggested name was 'Just plain worse than B/W.dec' but I thought MonoBad was funnier. Whatever.

18x Swamp

4x Black Knight
4x Dark Confidant
4x Nantuko Shade
2x Order of the Ebon Hand
2x Knight of Stromgald

4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Diabolic Edict
4x Aether Vial
2x Cursed Scroll
2x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Persecute

SB

4x Funeral Charm
2x Nezumi Shortfang
3x Withered Wretch
2x Sudden Death
4x Engineered Plague


Went 3-0-1 in swiss at a tournament on Saturday the 13th, the entire top 8 was able to draw in.

Round 1: Elijah playing a casual big green creature deck

Far from a bye for me, this is the kind of random deck that I hate to see. If I dont draw enough gas, or have the edicts ready to go, one big fatty can be enough to kill me.

Game 1, I've got the gas, and an edict for the creature he managed to get down.

Game 2, out goes duress for Funeral Charm, which nails an elvish piper before it can drop something stupid, and in I go.

This matchup actually had me very nervous, since I'm playing a deck to hate on the local metagame, and he runs MD loxodon warhammer. even an elvish piper with that equipped can potentially lose me the game.

Round 2: Matt playing Iggy Pop.

I'd rather play solidarity than fast combo. Although I have the tools to beat him, it's still too much of a coin flip. If I can stall him even one or two turns, my 16 discard effect post-board should do it.

Game 1: duress on brainstorm buys me the time to win. He manages to hit an EtW for 6 or 8 guys to stall, but I've got board position with pumpers and first strikers, and manage to punch through before he can rebuild his hand.

Game 2: Duress against a 4 card hand reveals cabal rit x2, infernal tutor, and gains. [Censored]!!! He's far enough into threshold that I just take one of the rits, since it gives a remote chance of fizzling him. It doesn't, but I'm not surprised.

Game 3: I ritual into a duress and pump knight. He combos but fizzles and only hits 9 storm, leaving me at two. I topdeck a swamp and a shortfang, lock him off a draw step and flip the shortfang, then lock him off another draw with a funeral charm. His life total dropped like a rock, and I breath a sigh of relief at winning the coin toss matchup.


Round 3: Chris playing U/W landstill

The 4 of us that were 2-0 at this point were Me, Chris playing Landstill, Johnson playing B/W confidant, and Nate playing 45 land. I listed them in the order that I wanted to play them in, and lucked out into getting a hugely favorable matchup in landstill.

Game 1: All of my creatures give him problems, 8 of them are immune to swords and cant be chumped by decree tokens, and standstill is almost completely dead. He plays a real sweep heavy version of landstill, but the early card advantage from confidant wins me the game. There were a couple hairy moments where I had to overextend to get past a factory, but I put beats to face.

Game 2: He dropped a chalice for 1, which we both agreed was a huge play mistake. We had playtested for 2-3 hours the night before, and the few matches he won were when he was able to keep vial shut down and resolve chalice at 2. Being unable to brainstorm for his critical 4th land drop or swords my confidant meant he got buried in a sea of card advantage.


Match 4: Nate with 45 lands.

We all drew into top 8, which was good cause I had no idea how this match would have gone.


Round 1: Matt with Iggy

Neither one of us wanted to play one another again, and we contemplate just letting the die roll determine the match results. As it turned out, we did, and I lost the roll.

Game 1: Empty the Warrens for 6. Im sitting there with the duress in hand, but it doesnt matter when all my guys are 2/1. To add insult to injury, I managed to get a pair of confidants down to chump and buy myself one more turn (which wouldn't have mattered) but he had echoing truth in hand. Gaaaaay.

Game 2: I mulligan a no-lander into a 6 card hand with no duress. With only 18 lands, its perfectly possible to not hit a land at all if I drop to 5, and I have a hymn, so I drop a swamp and pass. He kept a no lander, ripped a fetch off the top, and hit a lethal tendrils. My next topdeck was the duress that I would have had if I was on the play. Gaaaaaay.


Fortunately, I like Matt, he's a cool guy, and I know that sometimes you just lose when combo decks god draw. Twice in a goddamn row. Oh well.



Aside from the obvious power of nantuko shade and dark confidant, Short-fang was a [Censored] powerhouse every time I brought him in. Flipping into a 3/3 black vise is just absolutely brutal.

Another power card was aether vial. Although ducking counters wasn't terrible relevant, what was relevant was my ability to play creatures around sorcery speed removal, play creatures and still have mana to use my discard spells, and still have mana available to run all my creature abilities. I've finally found a deck where I don't think Aether Vial sucks! Obviously I don't have the oomph of vial in goblins, but I was really happy with how well it performed.

Persecute, persecute, persecute. I love this card, but it hated me. I only saw it against landstill, where I flipped both of them off of confidant, but clearing his hand was pretty sweet. I'm gonna leave it in for at least one more tournament before I pull it.

Cursed Scroll wasn't terribly relevant at the tournament, but I think that was just because of my matchups. I'm definitely not gonna cut it yet.


Anyway, I had a good time, and felt good to do well with my own creation for once. I'll probably stay with this at least another tournament or two before I go back to angel stax

[Cait_Sith]

Honestly I am a bigger fan of suicide black over Mono Black Aggro.

What purpose does Sudden Death serve in the sideboard? I would honestly put Phyrexian Negator in that spot.

[sammiel]

Honestly I am a bigger fan of suicide black over Mono Black Aggro.

What purpose does Sudden Death serve in the sideboard? I would honestly put Phyrexian Negator in that spot.


Those were supposed to be Negators, I was in a hurry before the tournament and forgot to ask my friend to bring his.

[Poron]

you have to be faster with this deck.

4x Carnophage
perhaps Sarcomancy too..

[Clark Kant]

Why not just run a modified version of Red Death

17 Swamp
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole
4 Sarcomancy
4 Carnophage
4 Dark Confidant/Nantuko Shade/Wretched Anurid
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Rotting Giant

You'll be better off for it.

[C.P.]

Why not just run a modified version of Red Death

17 Swamp
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole
4 Sarcomancy
4 Carnophage
4 Dark Confidant/Nantuko Shade/Wretched Anurid
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Rotting Giant

You'll be better off for it.

That's called Suicide Black (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4796), dude. Not modified Red death.