It currently suffers from the "why NOT splash other colors" and a lot of other decks offer too much inevitability. Tron feels like an auto loss for the grindier MBC as we can't really handle wurmcoil engine, karn or the eventual emrakul. Decks like Pod (all versions) are more grindy that we as so many of their dudes are relevant and resilient. It has a decent match up against relatively fair decks like Jund and BG/X though but even that feels like a 50/50. I still find myself brewing it on occasion but i haven't found some magical combination of 75 cards that makes it worth playing over my other options.
I'm not 100% it counts anymore but I got Steve Argyle to sign some FNM Bloodbraid Elf for me. Easily one of my favorite artists and was a really cool guy.
IDK what you guys are smoking. I finished in first place at my FNM.
1.) Thoughtseize is amazing. Yes i 1 for 1 on the exchange, but the way my deck draws cards it doesn't matter. Powerful 1 for 1 cards are at their best when you outdraw your opponent 3 to 1. It's great to scout the hand while removing a potential threat, not to mention preemptively making counter wars difficult for my opponent. MBC has been playing a 1cmc discard spell for ages now, and if you don't think it's a strength this deck enjoys then I recommend you testing it out. T1 Thoughtseize T2 Mana leak is one of the best starts this deck offers and when you combine thoughtseize with esper charm, it can force your opponent to play into the counter magic.
2.) Pack rat did exactly what I wanted him to do in all my match ups. Come down late and finish the game in a turn or two. Turns on Decay? Turns on Liliana? it comes with an ability that single handedly turns any card in your hand into a counterspell for both effects. Resolve the pack rat with cryptic mana back up and it's a very VERY quick clock. A game against kiki pod for example, i resolved pack rat and had the mana to cryptic my opponents attempt to combo out. I untapped dropped a land and passed. He attempted to chain into kiki again, snapcaster + go for the throat, ended his turn and i made a second rat. Untapped drew and passed the turn, he went for a top deck restoration angel to hit the combo again, but i cryptic commanded him tapped down his dude and made another token. Untapped swung in, making two more tokens and he died to lethal. This card is so good and you really are underestimating it. I want the single white sun'z zenith so i can potentially be more proactive EoT earlier in the game without worrying about protecting it.
3.) Spellsnare is something I want either in the main or side (haven't decided yet) but i want it in my 75. It's just really good on the draw.
4.) Remand is great. It's really about getting you to cryptic mana safely. I found that i do use it a lot in counter wars though, it's really good when you cast a random spell your opponent wants to cryptic and you remand your own spell. I net 0 card loss but my opponent is down a cryptic command. There is a reason so many people play this card.
5.) Go for the Throat was a test in the deck, but I chose it because I need to be able to reliably kill things like Restoration Angel, Kiki-jiki and master of waves. Smother just falls short of all of these. It's also nice that it ducks everyones Spellskites they bring in to protect their splinter twins and stuff. Yes it's dead vs affinity, but I would rather have a weakness to affinity (something my sideboard more than makes up for). If you feel like affinity is crazy in your meta run smother instead, but for me go for the throat got the nod and it was never a dead card all night for me. (i may switch to victim of night at some point but i'm going to need to stress test the mana base first to make sure it works.
6.) sweepers, I ran a mix of Supreme Verdict and Damnation in the board. I'm unsure of which i need more, but thrun and merfolk run around my meta so i'm going to wait and see, but they aren't absent from my 75. Speaking of sidebaords, i sided 3 lingering souls and frankly they were meh. The deck has so many options on any given turn that I rarely sided them in.
Obviously it needs some tuning, but it was a jumping off point for me. Here's what i felt by the end of the games. The deck feels really good! This match up is a little more skill intensive i think because we can both essentially play at the end of each other's turns, but the mass amounts of card draw backed by discard feel like they solidly put the game into my favor.
Pack rat ended up being amazing and doing exactly what i wanted him to do... turn my excess cards into game winning threats. Hardly anyone runs hard sweepers, and most of the RWU decks have switched over to wrath of god to combat thrun, which leaves most if not all of them in my area suceptible to counter magic. That said i kind of want to add a single White Sun's Zenith to the list somewhere to diversify my win cons some. It's also much more proactive than the rat is as casting it for 1-2 at the end of an opponents turn probably feels better compared to the rat that tends to be a 6+ drop depending on the counter back up you have.
Mana Leak however just feels bad, at least in the RWU match up as it quickly becomes obsolete. Part of me wants to go -4 mana leak, +1 Remand, +1 Cryptic, +1 think twice, +1 white sun's zenith, and have some Negate/Countersquall in the sideboard for specific match ups.
Tonight's FNM so if my Sphinx's Revelations came in by the time i get home i'll probably play this and see how it goes. My meta is Twin, Kiki Pod, Melira Pod, Affinity, Goblins, RWU, BG Rock and various other decks like UW midrange and Ad Nausium.
Control does not equal blue permission. I long for a day with good old Mono Black Control can be a thing again, but that doesn't seem too likely and there aren't cards on the banned list that could really help MBC make a resurgeance so it's hardly worth discussing. Banning abrupt decay just sounds terrible to me. In fact my only issue with the can't be countered "Cycle" is that it wasn't extended to all color combinations. Counter Spells are definitive answers to everything and the only draw back is it requires special timing, and things that powerful need to have some checks and balances. If you are playing blue, then abrupt decay was designed to give you trouble, if you don't want it to give you trouble seek answers to it. A friend of mine is brewing a RUG tempo deck that utilizes Simic Charm as a swiss army knife that happens to counter the crap out of abrupt decay. Black has to dip into Green to have access to abrupt decay... maybe if you want to run shackles you should dip into green and give yourself some added coverage.
SDT would go into a vast majority of decks currently played, and will bring in other powerful decks like miracles. If you for some awful reason think that it there wouldn't be enough people playing it to cause logistic issues at major events, I don't know what to tell you.
My only issue with the demon is that Lingering Soul's is a real thing in modern, particularly my area so it's really hard for me to like him. I like the deck though, as i've been trying to find a balance between 8-rack and more traditional MBC, i'm really glad to see you putting some effort into the dieing archtype. Seems like Smallpox would be a really good card for your shell as it's just so much value, but i think maybe pack rat's would work a little better than the slower 2/1's as a finisher. He's oomph in a small package for bob, but can close a game out very fast and turn regular removal into low value draws. Just some suggestions though, test it up and I look forward to seeing where this goes for you.
Just because Pod didn't have an amazing showing at ONE particular event (which if my memory serves me it still showed up in numbers, but barely missed the top 8 because of some tie breaker reset) doesn't mean it's somehow completely fine. I personally STILL want them to ban Chord of Calling. Sure I just completed my set of them, but to me it's the real issue with POD decks. Instant speed is frankly that big of an ordeal. Birthing Pod is a permanent, sorcery speed and once per turn (typically speaking) so even though it's powerful and easily supports various decks on it's own, it's at least maneagable. Taking out Chord of Calling would be crazy considering it was just reprinted, but i think it's the correct ban from the deck without killing it.
It's completely possible I have a skewed outlook on the deck as it's pretty close to 20% of my meta and save this event most of the events I've followed have had multiple POD/X (kiki/melira) decks in the Top 8-16. The deck is just too crazy consistent from two different angles and I feel like Chord is the problem child here not necessarily POD itself.
Just because Pod didn't have an amazing showing at ONE particular event (which if my memory serves me it still showed up in numbers, but barely missed the top 8 because of some tie breaker reset) doesn't mean it's somehow completely fine. I personally STILL want them to ban Chord of Calling. Sure I just completed my set of them, but to me it's the real issue with POD decks. Instant speed is frankly that big of an ordeal. Birthing Pod is a permanent, sorcery speed and once per turn (typically speaking) so even though it's powerful and easily supports various decks on it's own, it's at least maneagable. Taking out Chord of Calling would be crazy considering it was just reprinted, but i think it's the correct ban from the deck without killing it.
Which white black can easily prepare for if your meta involves a lot of affinity. Lingering Soul's and Zealous Persecution do ton's of work against affinity. Lingering Soul's might be too slow for what he's trying to do, but zealous persecution isn't and happens to play very nicely with white sun's zenith, pack rat, and the affore mentioned lingering souls.
I really want to try out something similar, but I want to test with Pack Rat. That card helps the esper colors switch gears almost as well as RWU. That's been my only problem with non UR control decks after all. Eventually the board is clear and my opponents hand is empty, yet I'm only drawing into more removal/discard. Pack Rat as a 2-3 of just turns all of that into a very fast clock, while primarily still remaining on the instant speed axis, all while being resilient to spot removal. With the way this deck can obviously keep its grip full I could see the pack rat putting in a lot of work mid to late game.
Gerard's Verdict is not as good as Hymn, but lets be realistic... modern's so not likely to see Hymn. It is however a significant boost over Wrench Mind since it's not terrible against affinity. In fact the color investment gives you the chance to actually gain some solid life back which could grant some room to breath with more suicidal cards like bitterblossom, bob, arena, thoughtseize.
Recoil comes from a time when UB didn't necessarily mean to mill someone. Solid card, considering after some disruption efforts becomes an instant speed Vindicate. I think a card like this could really put UB/X on the map without helping UWR.
Skeletal Scrying is just one of those cards that has serious potential while not being too busted for the format. With Fetches and Liliana running about this could potentially read BX pay x life draw x cards, which is comparable to UUWX gain x life draw x cards. It's cheaper and easier to cast for sure, but also requires some build around and gets countered by graveyard hosers like rest in peace or scavenging ooze.
Innocent Blood is far and away overdue in my opinion. I personally could see one day getting a sorcery speed B: target player sacrfices a creature. Geth's Verdict essentially pays an extra black to make it instant speed and tac on the one life loss. That said, I don't see a reason why Innocent Blood shouldn't join the format. Not as good as either bolt or path and requires a bit of work around sometimes but is definitely a desireable card none the less.
Cabal Therapy might be a little too good depending on how you view the cards but I know dredge wouldn't mind sacing a bloodghast off to interact more with an opponent.
Ideally only Gerard's Verdict would need to be a completely remade, unless they decided to do another nostalgic set and or bring Gerard back fluff wise in one way or another. These cards by themselves are solid cards that fall on the low end of high on the power scale and thus would be perfectly fine in the modern format. I also think in the right standard environment each one would be fine to introduce through standard. The real take aways for me would be Skeletal Scrying and Innocent blood. These two in particular would help push black based control without completely pushing black based midrange. Scrying plays poorly with tarmogoyf and scavenging ooze and innocent blood isn't a spell decks that run too many dudes wants to cast.
I dabbled with an esper Disciple of Deceit deck which was built around Running standard control elements at the 4 of spot, but offered singletons of betters options in the same cmc slot. I.e:
4 Thoughtseize 2 Path to Exile, 1 Spellsnare
4 Liliana of the Veil 1 Phyrexian Arena 1 Sword of X and Y
The effect is very powerful, and in a deck with plenty of disruption/removal/counters swinging in safely with a 1/3 isn't very hard to do. It does centralize your deck around specific cmc's, which the nature of modern tends to gravitate towards the lower end of the spectrum, meaning dark confidant ended up playing very well together with the Disciple. Unfortunately I found that triggering on untap was actually more difficult to work with and often times I found that I just didn't have enough cards in hand, or the ones I had were lands, or the trigger came too early to utilize bob/arena to it's fullest. Not to mention the mana base was difficult to work with. I would recommend going BUG colors in the future.
1.) Thoughtseize is amazing. Yes i 1 for 1 on the exchange, but the way my deck draws cards it doesn't matter. Powerful 1 for 1 cards are at their best when you outdraw your opponent 3 to 1. It's great to scout the hand while removing a potential threat, not to mention preemptively making counter wars difficult for my opponent. MBC has been playing a 1cmc discard spell for ages now, and if you don't think it's a strength this deck enjoys then I recommend you testing it out. T1 Thoughtseize T2 Mana leak is one of the best starts this deck offers and when you combine thoughtseize with esper charm, it can force your opponent to play into the counter magic.
2.) Pack rat did exactly what I wanted him to do in all my match ups. Come down late and finish the game in a turn or two. Turns on Decay? Turns on Liliana? it comes with an ability that single handedly turns any card in your hand into a counterspell for both effects. Resolve the pack rat with cryptic mana back up and it's a very VERY quick clock. A game against kiki pod for example, i resolved pack rat and had the mana to cryptic my opponents attempt to combo out. I untapped dropped a land and passed. He attempted to chain into kiki again, snapcaster + go for the throat, ended his turn and i made a second rat. Untapped drew and passed the turn, he went for a top deck restoration angel to hit the combo again, but i cryptic commanded him tapped down his dude and made another token. Untapped swung in, making two more tokens and he died to lethal. This card is so good and you really are underestimating it. I want the single white sun'z zenith so i can potentially be more proactive EoT earlier in the game without worrying about protecting it.
3.) Spellsnare is something I want either in the main or side (haven't decided yet) but i want it in my 75. It's just really good on the draw.
4.) Remand is great. It's really about getting you to cryptic mana safely. I found that i do use it a lot in counter wars though, it's really good when you cast a random spell your opponent wants to cryptic and you remand your own spell. I net 0 card loss but my opponent is down a cryptic command. There is a reason so many people play this card.
5.) Go for the Throat was a test in the deck, but I chose it because I need to be able to reliably kill things like Restoration Angel, Kiki-jiki and master of waves. Smother just falls short of all of these. It's also nice that it ducks everyones Spellskites they bring in to protect their splinter twins and stuff. Yes it's dead vs affinity, but I would rather have a weakness to affinity (something my sideboard more than makes up for). If you feel like affinity is crazy in your meta run smother instead, but for me go for the throat got the nod and it was never a dead card all night for me. (i may switch to victim of night at some point but i'm going to need to stress test the mana base first to make sure it works.
6.) sweepers, I ran a mix of Supreme Verdict and Damnation in the board. I'm unsure of which i need more, but thrun and merfolk run around my meta so i'm going to wait and see, but they aren't absent from my 75. Speaking of sidebaords, i sided 3 lingering souls and frankly they were meh. The deck has so many options on any given turn that I rarely sided them in.
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Marsh Flats
3 Watery Grave
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Godless Shrine
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
3 creeping tar pit
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Pack Rat
4 Snapcaster Mage
Other 30
4 Thoughtseize
4 Esper Charm
4 Path to Exile
4 Go for the Throat
3 Think Twice
4 Mana Leak
3 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
2 Sphinx's Revelation
Obviously it needs some tuning, but it was a jumping off point for me. Here's what i felt by the end of the games. The deck feels really good! This match up is a little more skill intensive i think because we can both essentially play at the end of each other's turns, but the mass amounts of card draw backed by discard feel like they solidly put the game into my favor.
Pack rat ended up being amazing and doing exactly what i wanted him to do... turn my excess cards into game winning threats. Hardly anyone runs hard sweepers, and most of the RWU decks have switched over to wrath of god to combat thrun, which leaves most if not all of them in my area suceptible to counter magic. That said i kind of want to add a single White Sun's Zenith to the list somewhere to diversify my win cons some. It's also much more proactive than the rat is as casting it for 1-2 at the end of an opponents turn probably feels better compared to the rat that tends to be a 6+ drop depending on the counter back up you have.
Mana Leak however just feels bad, at least in the RWU match up as it quickly becomes obsolete. Part of me wants to go -4 mana leak, +1 Remand, +1 Cryptic, +1 think twice, +1 white sun's zenith, and have some Negate/Countersquall in the sideboard for specific match ups.
Tonight's FNM so if my Sphinx's Revelations came in by the time i get home i'll probably play this and see how it goes. My meta is Twin, Kiki Pod, Melira Pod, Affinity, Goblins, RWU, BG Rock and various other decks like UW midrange and Ad Nausium.
SDT would go into a vast majority of decks currently played, and will bring in other powerful decks like miracles. If you for some awful reason think that it there wouldn't be enough people playing it to cause logistic issues at major events, I don't know what to tell you.
It's completely possible I have a skewed outlook on the deck as it's pretty close to 20% of my meta and save this event most of the events I've followed have had multiple POD/X (kiki/melira) decks in the Top 8-16. The deck is just too crazy consistent from two different angles and I feel like Chord is the problem child here not necessarily POD itself.
Recoil
Skeletal Scrying
Cabal Therapy
Innocent Blood
Gerard's Verdict is not as good as Hymn, but lets be realistic... modern's so not likely to see Hymn. It is however a significant boost over Wrench Mind since it's not terrible against affinity. In fact the color investment gives you the chance to actually gain some solid life back which could grant some room to breath with more suicidal cards like bitterblossom, bob, arena, thoughtseize.
Recoil comes from a time when UB didn't necessarily mean to mill someone. Solid card, considering after some disruption efforts becomes an instant speed Vindicate. I think a card like this could really put UB/X on the map without helping UWR.
Skeletal Scrying is just one of those cards that has serious potential while not being too busted for the format. With Fetches and Liliana running about this could potentially read BX pay x life draw x cards, which is comparable to UUWX gain x life draw x cards. It's cheaper and easier to cast for sure, but also requires some build around and gets countered by graveyard hosers like rest in peace or scavenging ooze.
Innocent Blood is far and away overdue in my opinion. I personally could see one day getting a sorcery speed B: target player sacrfices a creature. Geth's Verdict essentially pays an extra black to make it instant speed and tac on the one life loss. That said, I don't see a reason why Innocent Blood shouldn't join the format. Not as good as either bolt or path and requires a bit of work around sometimes but is definitely a desireable card none the less.
Cabal Therapy might be a little too good depending on how you view the cards but I know dredge wouldn't mind sacing a bloodghast off to interact more with an opponent.
Recoil
Skeletal Scrying
Cabal Therapy
Innocent Blood
Ideally only Gerard's Verdict would need to be a completely remade, unless they decided to do another nostalgic set and or bring Gerard back fluff wise in one way or another. These cards by themselves are solid cards that fall on the low end of high on the power scale and thus would be perfectly fine in the modern format. I also think in the right standard environment each one would be fine to introduce through standard. The real take aways for me would be Skeletal Scrying and Innocent blood. These two in particular would help push black based control without completely pushing black based midrange. Scrying plays poorly with tarmogoyf and scavenging ooze and innocent blood isn't a spell decks that run too many dudes wants to cast.
4 Thoughtseize 2 Path to Exile, 1 Spellsnare
4 Liliana of the Veil 1 Phyrexian Arena 1 Sword of X and Y
The effect is very powerful, and in a deck with plenty of disruption/removal/counters swinging in safely with a 1/3 isn't very hard to do. It does centralize your deck around specific cmc's, which the nature of modern tends to gravitate towards the lower end of the spectrum, meaning dark confidant ended up playing very well together with the Disciple. Unfortunately I found that triggering on untap was actually more difficult to work with and often times I found that I just didn't have enough cards in hand, or the ones I had were lands, or the trigger came too early to utilize bob/arena to it's fullest. Not to mention the mana base was difficult to work with. I would recommend going BUG colors in the future.