I would still keep the innocent bloods (around 3). The risk of getting the bayou wasted is worth it since with drs you could have a turn 3 obliterator as wellOriginally Posted by beez
I would also ad something like maelstrom pulse on the sideboard, because it has a broader range than decay, and also helps with annoying planeswalkers (but bitterblossom already does that, so maybe it's not needed)
This is still a heavily black-based deck with seven basic lands. Obliterator is much better than Abyssal Persecutor and is easily castable with the mana base I posted. Persecutor makes you play Innocent Blood and Gatekeeper, both suboptimal in my opinion. The former is addressed below and the latter is too mana intensive for a card that only deals with creatures. Anyways, there are three Bayous and you don't need to fetch them unless you are holding Decay. You can put the fourth in if you want too. The green ability on DRS is typically used towards the end of the game when you've drawn a fetch or two along the way; guaranteed. In the early turns, get a Bayou if you need to Decay something, but you can always wait. This is one of the lightest splashes I've ever played. Getting the correct mana has not been difficult at all.
You don't need Innocent Blood. The best thing it does is kill Nimble Mongoose, but that is not worth mb space to me. Liliana provides the same sac effect and Decay is better at sniping what you actually want to kill.I would still keep the innocent bloods (around 3). The risk of getting the bayou wasted is worth it since with drs you could have a turn 3 obliterator as well
I would also ad something like maelstrom pulse on the sideboard, because it has a broader range than decay, and also helps with annoying planeswalkers (but bitterblossom already does that, so maybe it's not needed)
The Quad Cities: twice as nice as the Twin Cities.
This deck needs to play 4 Funeral Charm. This card is insane in Legacy.
- Spot removal for many troublesome creatures such as Mother of Runes, Thalia, Dark Confidant, Delver, Goblin Lackey, Noble Heirarch, Young Pyromancer.
- Instant speed discard, which is rarer than rare in this game. This means that it's discard that is *not dead* in the late game when opponent is topdecking. Cast Funeral Charm after draw step and before main phase and you just killed his topdeck.
- If you don't need to remove any x/1s and discard is not necessary, it's still not dead! Pump most of your creatures to do 2 extra damage, which can be huge when you are trying to close the game out.
Funeral Charm is the removal spell/discard spell/pump spell that is literally *never* dead like other cards that only do one of those things.
Seriously, ever since I started playing this card in my Gate deck, it's made all of my matchups better.
Funeral Charm has some corner-case application against Storm decks, too. Once an opponent plays out their hand, before they cast their Burning Wish or Infernal Tutor, cast Charm and force them to discard it. You would probably do this with a Ritual, cantrip or some sort of artifact on the stack, of course.
I think Funeral Charm is a decent card and merits a look-see for folks looking at utility slots.
This guy was recently spoiled. I think in this deck he can be better than Liliana, but you have to build the deck to fit his Heroic ability.
I've been playing anywhere from 2-4 Darkblast MAINDECK in this deck for a while and it has proven to be very valuable on its own vs the swarm of x/1s in this format (Mother of Runes, Delver of Secrets, opposing Dark Confidants, Grim Lavamancer, Young Pyromancer, Goblin Lackey, etc etc).
If you now play 4 of these guys, alongside maindeck Darkblast, then not only will Darkblast handle the x/1s but if you dredge it and cast it on this guy, you can force your opponent to sac ANY creature. This is absolutely amazing. I'm going to sub this guy as a 4-of into my Gate deck (playing Darkblast and NOT playing Innocent Blood btw) ASAP. I have a feeling that this combo will make the deck a serious tier 1 contender.
And stuff like Funeral Charm will function not only as a pump spell on this guy (making him attack for 5 damage) but will simultaneously clear the path for his attack by Edicting the opponent!
This guy will also be a complete LOAD in Standard and Modern and subsequently his price tag will skyrocket upward, so grab as many of these guys as you can when the set hits the card shops.
That's a sweet interaction! Could you post your proposed list? Curious to see how the gate has evolved in the past year or two.
This guy was recently spoiled. I think in this deck he can be better than Liliana, but you have to build the deck to fit his Heroic ability.
I've been playing anywhere from 2-4 Darkblast MAINDECK in this deck for a while and it has proven to be very valuable on its own vs the swarm of x/1s in this format (Mother of Runes, Delver of Secrets, opposing Dark Confidants, Grim Lavamancer, Young Pyromancer, Goblin Lackey, etc etc).
If you now play 4 of these guys, alongside maindeck Darkblast, then not only will Darkblast handle the x/1s but if you dredge it and cast it on this guy, you can force your opponent to sac ANY creature. This is absolutely amazing. I'm going to sub this guy as a 4-of into my Gate deck (playing Darkblast and NOT playing Innocent Blood btw) ASAP. I have a feeling that this combo will make the deck a serious tier 1 contender.
And stuff like Funeral Charm will function not only as a pump spell on this guy (making him attack for 5 damage) but will simultaneously clear the path for his attack by Edicting the opponent!
This guy will also be a complete LOAD in Standard and Modern and subsequently his price tag will skyrocket upward, so grab as many of these guys as you can when the set hits the card shops.
One card that's probably more cute than good is Mourning. Ratatatatatat.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
So this is my first time playing legacy and i wanted to run a mono colored deck and i do love black so i picked this one. I have made some small changes to include some of the newer cards.
2 Ghost Quarter
18 Swamp
3 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
3 Bitterblossom
2 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Desecration Demon
2 Phyrexian Obliterator
#60
Sideboard:
1 Deathrite Shaman
2 Extirpate
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Engineered Plague
3 Hero's Downfall
2 Cabal Therapy
#15
That is a lot of badass black cards stuffed into one deck.
yeah, almost every card packs a punch..and i like the high threat density!
i'm assuming the ghost quarters are budget replacements for wastelands..
Running DRS without Fetches doesn't make any sense in the slightest nor does DB DRS do
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What does DB stand for is that double black or something else? Shaman may not be the most optimal card and currently i don't have access to fetches.
and yes ghostquarters is a budget wastelands new to legacy so dont have many of the land cards those seem to be hard to come by.
I assume it's a typo and should be SB since you have 1 DRS for whatever reason (since it's not a good sb card, specially not without fetches) in your sideboard.
Yeah, it was just a typo. Having several DRS but no Fetches or Wastelands is not only a very questionable choice to build a deck, but also one hilarious to invest money (especially paired with other big-buck items like confidants and lilly)
You'll get more value out of Dark Ritual than from DRS under such conditions.
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not actually sure why that DRS was in the SB to be honest i think it was supposed to be something else but not sure what (don't have my deck list on me) so you think i could replace the DRS with dark rituals? also a question that has bugged me which one is better Surgical Extraction or Extirpate?
So True Name Nemesis is getting a lot of play, and a mono black devotion deck day-2'd GP DC. Anyone think the meta-shift could make The Gate more playable right now?
Also, what do you guys think of replacing the wastelands with Scrying Sheets for late game draws?
Yeah, the devotion deck is actually very similar to this deck - it swapped Bob for Arena and Wasteland for Nykthos, then added 2x Grey Merchant of Asphodel. Otherwise the deck is almost identical. It looks too slow to me personally (and Nykthos seems mediocre when you barely have anything to ramp into), but I guess you can't argue with the winning record. I'm more interested in the deck's potential in Modern than anything.
As for the Gate itself, I feel like the meta is shifting in our favor, and drastically. I mean, our fast combo matchup was never great but isn't unwinnable either, and it looks like TNN might make other mid-range decks that have better cards than us less playable (Shardless BUG for example). The more tempo and nonbasic hate there is in the meta, the better this deck is. It's also pretty good against the stoneforge decks. We suffer against fast combo and hard control (Miracles) but you can't do well against every matchup. I'm going to test Hero's Downfall in a couple slots to see if it helps with the "losing to Jace" problem.
Lord of the Chalice
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And now we have Toxic Deluge for threat-dense aggro like Merfolk, Maverick and Affinity post-board.
Does someone have the Devotion list for the Gate? I am intrigued by this.
Hello, all. My name is Matt and you might have seen me at the GP wearing a "Team 0-3 Drop" shirt, running Mono B Devotion. I had around 30 people come up to me and ask to take a look through the deck, so I figured some may have some interest in learning more about it. The reason I chose this was the whole TNN craze and the rogue factor. Going in I liked any match that wasn't storm or OmniShow. As far as a tourney report, I'll just go through the matches and give the result since I'm not that good with remembering turn for turn what happened.
Decklist:
Land
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx - Obvious Reasons
20 Swamp
Sorcery
3 Inquisition of Kozilek - Good early disruption.
4 Hymn to Tourach - Best hand disruption.
2 Duress - Best against thing I care about (walkers).
1 Toxic Deluge - Just in case.
Creature
4 Phyrexian Obliterator - STP or bust.
4 Vampire Nighthawk - Trades with Emrakul.
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir - Removal + creature = value.
2 Desecration Demon - 6/6 that can't be Decayed.
2 Gray Merchant of Asphodel - Win con.
Planeswalker
2 Liliana of the Veil - Everything I want.
Enchantment
3 Phyrexian Arena - Card advantage + devotion
Instant
3 Hero's Downfall - Stupid Jace.
2 Geth's Verdict - TNN, GoST, Emrakul, Griselbrand primarily.
2 Disfigure - Delver, Bob, Deathrite, SFM, Lavamancer, Lackey, Elves, etc.
Sideboard
2 Ashen Rider - SnT decks
2 Mindbreak Trap - Storm, Elves, etc.
2 Pithing Needle - Walkers, Sword of Feast and Famine, EE, Vial.
2 Toxic Deluge - Creature based decks, TNN, GoST.
2 Extirpate - Reanimator, storm, dredge.
2 Ensnaring Bridge - Elves, SnT.
1 Sorin Markov - Control matches, storm.
1 Whip of Erebos - Anything where creature are good, but they'll probably not be around long.
1 Liliana of the Veil - Rarely didn't come in.
Tourney Report
Round 1 - I had a bye somehow, so already a good day. [1-0]
Round 2 - U/W Stoneblade - (2-0) The main thing in winning this match is not letting Jace hang around. STP can be a pain, but otherwise its cake. [2-0]
Round 3 - B/U/G Delver - (0-2) I somehow lost this match. My opponent was shocked when he won as I drew a bunch of swamps. [2-1]
Round 4 - ANT - (2-1) Got crushed first game, won at 1 life second game, and Mindbreak Trap third game. [3-1]
Round 5 - Shardless B/U/G - (0-2) A timely Jace was able to unsummon my Obliterator for a lethal swing. Second game cascading into Visions was a thing. [3-2]
Round 6 - Omnishow - (2-1) Hand disruption was key in winning first game. He won turn 3 game 2 thanks to Leyline, but game 3 he mulled to 5 and couldn't find one so I tore his hand apart and took it down. [4-2]
Round 7 - R/U/G Delver - (2-1) Won in three games. Quite possibly the best match for me thanks so cards that aren't very efficient against me. I did almost punt insanely hard game, luckily I wasn't punished. [5-2]
Round 8 - Esper Stoneblade, Jarvis Yu - (2-1) Went to three games. After winning the first one handily, I found out that people still run Sword of Feast and Famine. I brought in Needle for it and won with Merchant. [6-2]
Round 9 - R/U/G Delver - (2-1) Lost game 2 to a top deck Bolt. Third game we found out that 2 Obliterators are better than 3 Mongoose. [7-2]
Day 2
Round 10 - B/U/G Delver - (2-1) Won the usually game 1. Lost to some 2CMC Demons. Last game a top deck Lily was able to let me survive then take over the game. [8-2]
Round 11 - R/U/G Delver - (0-2) Had to mulligan a bunch and he had all the relevant cards. [8-3]
Round 12 - ANT - (1-2) Lose the usual game 1. Second game I Duress Tendrills and Extripate the following turn and he scoops. Game three he rips exactly Tutor, LED to win. [8-4]
Round 13 - R/U/G Delver (2-0) The second game I had the most dominating win of the day with a Whip, Lily with 9 counters, and Merchant. [9-4]
Round 14 - American Delver (1-2) - Another game where I drew nothing but lands in games 2,3. [9-5]
Dream over at that point. I had a blast. Some opponents had a blast. Tons of spectators had a blast. As far as changes I think -1 Downfall, -1 Nykthos, +1 Volrath's Stronghold, +1 Victim of Night. If I had the money, I would drop the Arenas for Chains of Mephistopheles potentially. That's all I can think of. I'm gonna continue to work on this, as well as a few other devotion projects. Feel free to ask any questions. Sorry if I wasn't thorough enough. Take care all :)
Great report. When I was at the GP, I heard about a mono-black devotion deck making day 2. Cool. Surprised at record vs the Delver decks. 4-3 I believe? I thought it would be better.
I count 14 creature kill cards Main. That's a lot. Plus, with 20 Basic Swamps the Stifle/Wasteland strategy that the Delver decks use is rendered useless. And if Obliterator lands it's GG, unless they have a Stifle.
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