[Biz Caz] Mono Black Control

[TsumiBand]

My primary playgroup these days is at work, and we find ourselves playing a range of formats depending on who's available and what decks they have on hand. By and large they follow the Legacy banlist (or EDH if you're into that sort of thing) and while no one is necessarily a "bad player" there are plenty of pet decks floating around; GW Populate, Rats, BW Arcane Tokens, etc etc.

Anyway, it has been bugging me for a while that everyone seems to be incredibly soft on removal. I finally decided I'd had enough of the constant large Green things going unanswered and on a whim I threw together one of my favorite decks to lose to back in the day, plus a handful of newer tech.


4x Nantuko Shade
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
1x Braids, Cabal Minion

4x Geth's Verdict
1x Bile Blight

4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sign in Blood
4x Rancid Earth
4x Mutilate
2x Mind Sludge

4x Tangle Wire

2x Cabal Coffers
22x Swamp


It's a mite unfocused, and I'm not at all sure about those Tangle Wires.

There's no one-drop discard spell, which is probably because the only one I could have spared was Duress, and Duress fucking sucks in casual.env because there's all these bloody creature decks running around. I might maindeck Despise or something, but I will probably not have a set of Thoughtseizes anytime soon so wtfever.

I can't help but think that I'm missing a real obvious budgety printing from the last few years that would look really good in here. I just can't think of wtf it actually is.

I'm not even sure what I'm asking, except "here's a deck i'm playing at work, how can i make it more betterer without dropping trow for a set of $20 spells?"

EDIT: the decklist was 58 cards, hurp

[Mr. Safety]

An urborg, tomb of yawgmoth or two will help power up your coffers. I have always liked Vampire Nighthawk in casual decks, and if you are seeing a ton of beef than Enslave seems pretty hot. You could go uber old skool and play icy manipulator and royal assassin. Overall, you have a deck that does what black does (discard, kill stuff, small dudes with benefits.) Massacre Wurm, kokusho the evening star, and liliana vess all are great casual/multiplayer all stars. I used to love multiplayer free-for-all! Before edh was a thing...

[Teluin]

If creatures are your concerns and want a 1-drop spell, why not Ostracize?

[TsumiBand]

If creatures are your concerns and want a 1-drop spell, why not Ostracize?

It isn't so much that creatures are a concern - I have 4 Gatekeepers, 4 Mutilates and 4 Geth's Verdict after all - the problem I was more referencing was that I really wanted to have a 1-drop discard spell but the first one I knew I had four-of that weren't otherwise occupied was Duress.

I mean I *could*, I guess, it isn't like there are zero noncreatures in my 'work-meta'. Maybe I'm a little turned off because I got this weird smug guy coming back at me all the time because I've been playing a long time and he hasn't and he likes being a micro-managing clown car. So when I come loaded for bear and my opponents are sporting kittens, hopping around all nimbly-bimbly with their Bloodrush creatures and shit and I go "Duress you" and this dude is like, "umadbro?".... juuuuust fuck you.

But really I should probably just put it back in. Someone actually cast a Day of Judgement the other day, I was impressed. Clearly I'm not the only one who's over the creature beatdown spectacular.


An urborg, tomb of yawgmoth or two will help power up your coffers. I have always liked Vampire Nighthawk in casual decks, and if you are seeing a ton of beef than Enslave seems pretty hot. You could go uber old skool and play icy manipulator and royal assassin. Overall, you have a deck that does what black does (discard, kill stuff, small dudes with benefits.) Massacre Wurm, kokusho the evening star, and liliana vess all are great casual/multiplayer all stars. I used to love multiplayer free-for-all! Before edh was a thing...

These are all pretty good ideas. I strong considered Vampire Nighthawk, in the end I went with the Gatekeeper. I did also briefly consider Enslave, because I really just want more opportunity to throw that jank on the table. I love that goddamned card. I need 6. I think I have 6.

I like the idea of Massacre Wurm. I very very nearly maindecked Massacre the sorcery, to be honest - and I would have been right to do so, there were exactly two decks at the table without Plains. But that's such an obvious dick move for your work buds, I mean - some of these guys write the code for our software, I can't just metagame against their whole deck and then be like "oh hey so I noticed one of your Obj-C calls is always crashing when our users try to save under this particular view and it's really creating a lot of redundant work for my department", dude be like "yeah bet that sucks *goes back to /r*"

And yeah, EDH makes it weird right, but I feel like getting away from Highlander and back into a format with small decks and 4-ofs makes it a lot more tolerable. It's like the difference between flying a Borg Cube (Highlander) and the Defiant (60-card).

[Ace/Homebrew]

You are 2 cards shy of a legal deck. :tongue:

I was going to suggest Phyrexian Obliterator, but holy shit that card is $25! :eek:

A 1-of Erebos, God of the Dead could make for some fun games. Especially if you find a black creature to replace Tangle Wire.

[TsumiBand]

You are 2 cards shy of a legal deck. :tongue:

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/72/728ab3ddef0123f9663919989f1bc9adfa3ae0bef9e2ef3b27ce91e6280deb1f.jpg

You're right! I corrected it, and now I see what I think is a flaw - that's probably not enough land to support the Coffers plan. God, no wonder I felt like I was drawing Swamps a turn too late.


I was going to suggest Phyrexian Obliterator, but holy shit that card is $25! :eek:

A 1-of Erebos, God of the Dead could make for some fun games. Especially if you find a black creature to replace Tangle Wire.

Yeah I think Erebos should come in at some point. Everyone's so bloody hung up on life gain around here. I had half a mind to maindeck Everlasting Torment. Sheesh.

It will probably never work, but what I'd really like to do is figure out how to make Death Wish not suck. I know it says "half your life" right there on the card, so that dog will probably never hunt, but... 3 mana for any card ever? Can't be all bad!

[Ace/Homebrew]

You could probably swap Rancid Earth for Pox and Hymn to Tourach for Smallpox. That would probably allow you to lose some copies of Mutilate. Those cards also scale better in multiplayer than targeted cards like Rancid Earth and Hymn.

With all the universal sac effects, running Geralf's Messenger could be good. I searched for Persist but all the options are pretty terrible...

[TsumiBand]

You could probably swap Rancid Earth for Pox and Hymn to Tourach for Smallpox. That would probably allow you to lose some copies of Mutilate. Those cards also scale better in multiplayer than targeted cards like Rancid Earth and Hymn.

With all the universal sac effects, running Geralf's Messenger could be good. I searched for Persist but all the options are pretty terrible...

I think I can get behind that. Would be a bit bummed to lose Mutilates, but it's mostly for the nostalgia of watching people get like 7 mana and a Coffers and go "Mutilate for a bunch, pump my Shade, -2 your fase, go"

And yeah the Persist/Undying stuff is only okay in Black, I thought about maybe going UB for those flying Undying guys but then I was like... meeeeeh. Maybe I should do the little-kid combo of having all the decent Green Undying guys and then playing like sac effects? I'd move Cabal Therapy out of its current deck just to sac Undying Wolf to it, seems fair and balanced

[Mr. Safety]

You know what some are some sweet cards for casual multiplayer?


Chimeric Egg
Tendrils of corruption
Nevinyrral's Disk
Drain Life
Corrupt



Edit: Blackmail could be your 1 mana discard.

[TsumiBand]

See I could have sworn I had a set of Blackmails around, and I can't fscking find them. Kind of like that time I knew - like, really knew, in my heart of heart of the cards knew - that I had a Replenish. Blackmail would probably be decent.

[cherub_daemon]

I've been looking for a place to run Abyssal Gatekeeper. That thing is rude as hell in multiplayer.

[Mr. Safety]

Cabal Interrogator

[HdH_Cthulhu]

I've been looking for a place to run Abyssal Gatekeeper. That thing is rude as hell in multiplayer.

Dont like it! Why not Fleshbag Marauder?

[sampi]

I recently felt like making a budget black deck.

20x Swamp (M10)

4x Nantuko Shade (M11)
4x Oona's Prowler (10E)
4x Vampire Nighthawk (ZEN)
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir (ZEN)
4x Abyssal Persecutor (C14)

4x Duress (M10)
4x Hymm to Tourach (FE)
4x Sign in Blood (M10)
4x Geth's Verdict (NPH)
4x Go for the Throat (MBS)

Very cheap and good for casual play. Maybe switch Duress for Diabolic Edict or something if your in a creature heavy meta.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I'd rather play Hypnotic Specter instead of Oona's Prowler. Dredge, Reanimator, etc.

[sampi]

I actually had Hypnotic Specter in the Vampire Nighthawk slot before.

[TsumiBand]

I tried Hyppie but my workplace is so GW large aggro stall dumb-stuff, that it gets outclassed quite quickly. That's why the Shade is appealing, because it can pull the old Mutilate + Coffers routine and survive a giant -x/-x event.

I do like the idea of Nighthawk for being able to trade with damn near everything. I should take another look at that guy.

[sampi]

Also if you have a problem with green creatures. Try perish :)

Edit: I updated my list also if your interested.

20x Swamp

4x Nantuko Shade
4x Bloodghast
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Geralf's Messenger

4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymm to Tourach
4x Innocent Blood
4x Geth's Verdict
4x Sign in Blood
4x Rancid Earth

[sampi]

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/72/728ab3ddef0123f9663919989f1bc9adfa3ae0bef9e2ef3b27ce91e6280deb1f.jpg

You're right! I corrected it, and now I see what I think is a flaw - that's probably not enough land to support the Coffers plan. God, no wonder I felt like I was drawing Swamps a turn too late.



Yeah I think Erebos should come in at some point. Everyone's so bloody hung up on life gain around here. I had half a mind to maindeck Everlasting Torment. Sheesh.

It will probably never work, but what I'd really like to do is figure out how to make Death Wish not suck. I know it says "half your life" right there on the card, so that dog will probably never hunt, but... 3 mana for any card ever? Can't be all bad!

Death's Shadow might be cool with death wish. But then you have to build the deck around that idea. And then you can add things like perish and engineered plague to the board.