Mono Black Smack

[deldobuss]

2 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Nantuko Shade
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
3 Tombstalker
1 Platinum Angel

4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Consume the Meek
2 Damnation
2 Phyrexian Arena
4 Cruel Edict
1 Diabolic Edict

3 Nevinyrral's Disk

1 Sorin Markov
1 Liliana Vess

2 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Cabal Coffers
16 Swamps


This is my mono-black control deck that I have been working on for a few months now. It is loosely based off of a tournament deck. I have been doing fairly well with this, but it tends to be slow. I am looking for suggestions to maker it faster and pack more punch.

Liliana is thrown in mainly for dig- I use her 2-3 times and she goes bye bye. I am not sure about leaving Sorin or replacing him. I also think I could find something to replace the Consume the Meek and Phyrexian Arena. I also need suggestions for a side board. I have 3 Shriekmaw I can side in and an Avatar of Woe. ????

My three favorite cards- Tombstalker, Nantuko, and Cruel Edict

Let me know what you think!

-Aadel in KS

[arwall]

Well, for starters, all of your creatures are 2 cc

[Blackmagic]

I'm not sure why you'd play the platinum angel, I think it's way too slow.
Sorin is not always very good in my experience with him in a legacy environment.
Me and another MBC player both agree that dark ritual doesn't really fit into MBC and I'd rather take it out.

Initial changes I'd make are:

- 4 Dark ritual (Don't like it in MBC)
- 1 Platinum Angel (High costing cost low power dies easily)
- 1 Sorin Markov (Don't know if it does enough)
- 1 Cabal Coffers (too many early is bad)
- 4 Cruel Edict (Diabolic and gatekeeper are better)
- 1 Nevinyrall's Disk (tend to be too slow)

+ 3 Swamp
+ 1/2 Vampire Nighthawk
+ 3 Diabolic Edict
+ 1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
+ 2 Profane Command
+ 1 Duress/Inquisition of Kozilek?

What do you think of Massacre Wurm and Wurmcoil Engine? I've been testing them and they are surprising me.
Also Sign in blood is a good draw engine as I personally don't like arena's as they take too long to bag you card advantage (I also don't think Dark Ritual + Arena is a valid argument as you're going to take three turns to make up for the card disadvantage).

[deldobuss]

I personally don't like arena's as they take too long to bag you card advantage

I agree- Sign in Blood sounds like a workable replacement

I am going to have to get more Diabolic Edict- that makes sense

Platinum Angel was thrown in there for fun- as a psych out. It has actually saved my butt a few times but mostly against Red burn decks.

I guess I should add that I am fairly new to MTG- I used to play with my husband during Nemesis (I had the Mercenaries pre-construct deck). Then kids happened and we have just started playing again. I have placed consistently in tournaments at our local card shop, but my husband is truly the superior player. So- please be patient with me if I don't know all the terminology.

What about Dark Ritual is not good in MBC? I have had a serious advantage against some of the red creatures with flash by being able to force the edicts and hymns on turn 1 or 2 and clear their hand of burn. Either that or I can get the Nighthawk out and start killing. I will take the Cabal Coffers out- they really don't do much.

Also- with Nevinyrall- it has artifact and enchantment removal. Is there something else I can throw in for insurance?

I am going to go look up the Wurms. . .

I appreciate the help!

[deldobuss]

- 1 Nevinyrall's Disk (tend to be too slow)


For some reason I read that as take out all Nevinyrall's Disk- gotcha

[Mr. Safety]

Also- with Nevinyrall- it has artifact and enchantment removal. Is there something else I can throw in for insurance?

Ratchet Bomb

[2Rach]

No reason to run Cruel Edicts over Diabolics or Chainer's. They're not expensive. And the fourth Gatekeeper should be ran over the fifth Edict.

Inquisition of Kozilek is better than Duress 90% of the time. Make the switch.

I think taking out the Planeswalkers, Plat Angel, Consume, and Shades allows you to remove Cabal Coffers to help your manabase work with a low land count and be immune to Waste.

The only expensive addition I made was to add Abyssal Persecutors, which with all the ways to kill him, is a very good beater for you. Much better than Nantuko Shade, which ties your mana up during crucial turns and really is only superb in the end game with Cabal Coffers.

Here's the deck I suggest to start from:

13
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Abyssal Persecutor
3 Tombstalker

25
4 Dark Ritual
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Damnation
3 Phyrexian Arena
1 Smother
1 Go for the Throat
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Nevinyrral's Disk

22 Swamps

[Qweerios]

2Rach's list is the closest to a good MBA deck in this thread. It all depends on your budget and commitment to begin with. I have been playing black based decks for 10 years now and have yet to miss a top8. You might want to take a look at The Gate or MBA threads as you may find them to hold all the core cards for your deck.

The first step to building a monoblack deck nowadays is to decide wether or not you want to play Dark Confidant. If Tombstalker is indeed one of your pet cards, I suggest you ditch Bob (Dark Confidant), although, Tombstalker loses a lot of its speed if you don't use Fetchlands. Also, Dark Ritual is too powerful to dismiss. Unless your deck is centered on card advantage and completely ignores tempo (mono black control), dark ritual should be a no brainer, especialy with tombstalkers. Regarding your threats, you might want to look into Abyssal Persecutor. Percy will win you games in 3-4 swings and will only fall to swords or paths. The first step to using him is to use creature removal that doubles up as Percy sac outlets such as Go for the Throat, Diabolic Edict and Gatekeeper of Malakir. For 3 percy I suggest 10 outlets and for 4 I suggest 12 outlets. Oh, and 1 last thing, Phyrexian Arena is an absolute powerhouse if you do not run Bob. In most games, Bob will be removed instantly the moment he hits the board because he wins games on his own. The advantage Arena has over Bob is that it is much harder to remove for your opponent, the chances of it kicking in is much greater. Phyrexian Arena is one of those cards that is extremely undervalued and overshadowed by Bob. Here is a guideline to building a strong black deck:

4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
8-12 Threats (Abyssal Persecutor, Tombstalker, Nantuko Shade, Phyrexian Negator, etc...) Vampire Nighthawk isn't a threat but more of a stability creature when you are trying to establish a board position. I wouldn't use VNH without a significant life loss engine or equipment toolbox.

4 Dark Ritual
4-6 1CC disruption (Inquisition of Kozilek/Duress/Thoughtseize)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4-8 Removal (Diabolic Edict, Chainer's Edict, Smother, Go for the Throat, Snuff Out, Damnation, etc...)
4 Draw Engines (Bob or Arena)

18-22 Lands depending on if you have access to Wastelands or not. I highly recommend that you do not use more than 1 Urborg unless you have a strategy relying on one being in play. Cabal Coffers belong in MBC decks and are very slow and vulnerable. A strong manabase contains as many basic lands as possible. 4 Wasteland and 16-18 swamps is an extremely resillient manabase, and the main reason to run a mono colored deck. There are things that a single colored deck cannot deal with and trying to go out of your way to deal with them is one step in the wrong direction.

I hope this helped you out.

[arwall]

Well, for starters, all of your creatures are 2 cc

haha Nevermind. This is mono.

Anyway, maybe Nirkana Revenant?

[deldobuss]

Ok- updated the deck

I only used the cards I have on hand so for land I used Piranha Marsh and Terramorphic

Played 5-6 games tonight against Thopter Foundry and Grindstone/Humility and it was much faster. Going to continue to work on it over Spring Break and hopefully play it at the Legacy tourney in Wisconsin on Sat.


2 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Nantuko Shade
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
3 Tombstalker

4 Dark Ritual
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Mire's Toll or 4 Distress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sign in Blood
4 Damnation

2 Nevinyrral's Disk

4 Piranha Marsh
2 Terramorphic Expanse
16 Swamps

[Blackmagic]

Could you please clear up if you're trying to build mono black control or mono black aggro...
In you're first post you stated mono black control, that's why I said the stuff about Dark ritual, but if you're going for MBA (Like what Qweerios is going for, and with whom I agree) then you must play the rituals.

[deldobuss]

Ok- I am not sure what makes the deck aggro? Is it the Dark Rits only? I usually play hand disruption at the get-go trying to get a card advantage and then bring out my creature control. If that is aggro- then I guess I am playing MBA. I use Tombstalker or Nantuko for the win most of the time.

[Qweerios]

MBA relies on tempo and disruption while MBC relies on board position and card advantage.

MBA is characterized by Dark Ritual, Wasteland, Hymn to Tourach, Sinkhole, Dark Confidant, fast/fat creatures such as Tombstalker and Phyrexian Negator. The deck contains a high amount of creatures and disruption spells, and a low land count. The deck plays proactively and attempts to disrupt the opponent's ressources early on while laying down threats. The deck is strong in the early game and slowly becomes weaker the longer the game drags on.

MBC is characterized by Cabal Coffers, Damnation, Duress, Sign in Blood/Phyrexian Arena, Innocent Blood, and costly finishers such as Consume Spirit, Helldozer, even Emrakul. The deck contains a low creature count, a high land count, and a high amount of board clearing spells. The deck plays reactively and lays a threat only when the opponent is stripped of all defenses. The deck is weak in the early game and strong in the mid and late game.

Your deck contains elements of both MBA and MBC which is not necessarily a bad thing but most likely hurts your consistency, speed, and overall cost/effectiveness.

I highly suggest that you invest in some Inquisition of Kozilek and Duress instead of Mire's Toll/Distress as 1CC disruption on your first turn allows you to: see your opponent's hand, remove a card you dont want to deal with, and adjust your plays according to what you now know what your opponent will play. Up your VNH count to 4. Lose Damnation and Disk in favor of targeted removal and/or threats (smother, go for the throat, etc). Take away all sorts of "come into play tapped" lands. Playing only swamps is as strong a manabase you can get.

[deldobuss]

Ah- and I thought going Mono was easy! Thank you for the clarification you have been very helpful. I think I like the sound of both decks but right now I am probably building MBA more than anything. I like the idea of disrupting their hand straight out of the gate and that is the way I have been playing it.

I also had someone suggest Thoughtseize- should I run that over Duress?

Thank you again

[2Rach]

doublepost

[2Rach]

The deck I suggested isn't MBA, it's MBControl.

Gatekeeper/Nighthawk/Confidant are just creature form role fillers. Keeper/Hawk being removal and Confidant(not applicable to my deck) being a card advantage engine.

Dark Ritual is good acceleration for any deck that can use the tempo and handle the card disadvantage. Aggro or control.

You shouldn't look at what cards are in a deck but what they're trying to accomplish.


Terramorphic Expanse is terrible in your deck. The thinning is negligible and you can't search for anything but a swamp, so it's just a swamp that enters tapped. Piranha Marsh is a marginal effect, Bojuka Bog would have the most impact while being low budget, I suggest 2-3 of those if you want a little utility in your lands.

Yes, definitely Thoughtseize over Duress if you can afford it. And Inquisition over Duress too.

[Qweerios]

Thoughtseize is definitely the best 1CC discard spell availlable. However, sometimes its drawback when compared to Inquisition or Duress can be too much to be optimal. If you have Thoughtseizes laying around, by all means, use them but if you don't then I suggest you don't go out of your way to find some as IoK is often times as good if not better. I would even invest in fetchlands for a mono colored deck before investing in TS>IoK.

@2Rach, I agree with you on the idea of looking at what cards accomplish and for that very reason your deck is not MBC. Control decks don't abuse tempo very well. Good MBC lists don't run Dark Ritual and Hymn to Tourach for various reasons: they are terrible top decks, they don't affect your board position, they are tempo based, they take up valuable deck space and would be better substituted by Duress or additional lands/coffers. Aside from 1 Damnation and 3 Disks your deck is all MBA. One of the first premises to building a control deck is to be able to fuel your hand with quality cards that will enable you control over your opponent. MBC accomplishes that goal through hand control, card advantage, and board control. Your list uses cheap disruption coupled with acceleration to fuel out cheap and effective beaters, it is MBA.

Here is a sample MBC list from the top of my head:

Creatures (6)
4 Nantuko Shade
2 Tombstalker

Spells (24)
4 Duress
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Innocent Blood
4 Damnation
3 Consume Spirit
4 Sign in Blood
3 Phyrexian Arena

Artifacts (5)
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Nevinyrral's Disk

Lands (25)
3 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
21 Swamp


Lots of lands, lots of card drawing, lots of board clearing, few finishers. In all honesty though, MBC is a thing of the past. As you can see, black has no good answers to artifacts or enchantments. There is no good reason to run a mono colored control deck nowadays as splashing colors has become so easy and the control player is pretty much forced to take on another color to deal with more than 1 type of deck.