Hey all. So I'm working on cooking up a Monoblack control deck for EDH. The focus is to have massive board advantage through mass removal and continual forced sacrifice and massive card advantage through discard and powerful draw spells. There is also some recursion. Life is used as a resource like mana, and there are some spells like Consume Spirit and such. Here's the list:
I know I'm one card over the 100, but I'm having a hard time with what to cut out of that list. I don't really want to go down on creatures any more, so most likely a spell will go.
I also want to get Cabal Conditioning and Oversold Cemetery somewhere in there. Any suggestions on any other really insane black cards to fit in here, especially to work with Death Wish if I keep that in there.
Out of curiosity, what's the reasoning behind Horobi as the general if you're going to play mass removal anyway? Wouldn't it be more profitable to build around him somehow?
I'm thinking something like....
Buried Alive into Bloodghast + Nether Traitor, cast Mortarpod and Horobi, go nuts with spot removal.
These help set up your Coffers engine and/or make it more broken. Rings lets you make infinite mana for your drain life effects. Pretty lame, but tried and true powerful stuff.
You're only playing 36 lands, which is low for EDH in general, but especially for a control deck. Cut some of your higher end stuff for some additional lands. Consider a Snow engine, if you can afford it, then you could run:
Thawing Glaciers interacts well with Deserted Temple and Rings to be "real" ramp. Mouth of Ronom is a spell-land that's pretty reasonable, and scrying sheets helps you dig for "real" spells. You can make Sheets even better with some library manipulation like:
Most of my suggestions focused pretty exlusively on the mana base, but I think that's really where the most work needs to be done. The deck will run noticeably better if you squeeze 4 more lands into the deck.
Other than that, I think it's important to know what you want the deck to do. If you want to run a mishmash of black wraths and recursion, that'll be powerful, and it'll work out well. If you want to run something more synergistic, that can be done too.
I think the -1/-1 counter theme is a little weak, to be honest, but I haven't seen anything quite like that play out before, so I could be off base.
Yeah, my reasoning for Horobi is simply a tryout right now...I don't know, I might go with Geth, Ink-Eyes, Chainer, or someone else. But Horobi does get pretty sick with things like Cauldron of Souls.
The real focus of the deck is to stay behind the constant threat of board control protecting me to the point of taking off a lot of damage through Drain Life effects. The Necroskitter theme is the main reason I wanted to build a MBC deck in the first place. Stealing other creatures is just way too fun for me.
About your suggestions: yeah, those lands I just only have 1 copy of and they are in my Teneb deck for right now, but I plan to get them in. Same with Top.
I'll have to check out the others ones too. Thanks!
1x Horobi, Death's Wail
Creatures:
[CARDS]
1x Nezumi Graverobber
1x Bloodghast
1x Necroskitter
1x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Dusk Urchins
1x Hypnotic Specter
1x Harbinger of Night
1x Mindslicer
1x Dimir House Guard
1x Necrotic Ooze
1x Chainer, Dementia Master
1x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1x Magus of the Coffers
1x Kagemaro, First to Suffer
1x Geth, Lord of the Vault
1x Midnight Banshee
1x Carnifex Demon
1x Nefashu
1x Duplicant
1x Massacre Wurm
1x Butcher of Malakir
1x Myojin of Night's Reach
1x Kuro Pitlord
1x It That Betrays
Spells:
[CARDS]
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Innocent Blood
1x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Phyrexian Reclamation
1x Black Sun's Zenith
1x Smallpox
1x Fevered Convulsions
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Profane Command
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Exsanguinate
1x Mind Shatter
1x Consume Spirit
1x Pox
1x Death Cloud
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Mimic Vat
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Death Wish
1x Damnation
1x Strands of Night
1x Barter in Blood
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Consuming Vapors
1x Syphon Mind
1x Nevinyrral's Disk
1x Deathrender
1x Promise of Power
1x Liliana Vess
1x Beacon of Unrest
1x Cauldron of Souls
1x Black Market
1x Gauntlet of Power
1x Mind's Eye
1x Contagion Engine
1x Phthisis
1x Decree of Pain
[CARDS]
1x Crypt of the Agadeem
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Urborg
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Strip Mine
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Winding Canyons
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Maze of Ith
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Miren, the Moaning Well
1x Reliquary Tower
22x Swamp
I know I'm one card over the 100, but I'm having a hard time with what to cut out of that list. I don't really want to go down on creatures any more, so most likely a spell will go.
I also want to get Cabal Conditioning and Oversold Cemetery somewhere in there. Any suggestions on any other really insane black cards to fit in here, especially to work with Death Wish if I keep that in there.
I'm thinking something like....
Buried Alive into Bloodghast + Nether Traitor, cast Mortarpod and Horobi, go nuts with spot removal.
Regardless, think about some of these inclusions:
These help set up your Coffers engine and/or make it more broken. Rings lets you make infinite mana for your drain life effects. Pretty lame, but tried and true powerful stuff.
You're only playing 36 lands, which is low for EDH in general, but especially for a control deck. Cut some of your higher end stuff for some additional lands. Consider a Snow engine, if you can afford it, then you could run:
Thawing Glaciers interacts well with Deserted Temple and Rings to be "real" ramp. Mouth of Ronom is a spell-land that's pretty reasonable, and scrying sheets helps you dig for "real" spells. You can make Sheets even better with some library manipulation like:
Most of my suggestions focused pretty exlusively on the mana base, but I think that's really where the most work needs to be done. The deck will run noticeably better if you squeeze 4 more lands into the deck.
Other than that, I think it's important to know what you want the deck to do. If you want to run a mishmash of black wraths and recursion, that'll be powerful, and it'll work out well. If you want to run something more synergistic, that can be done too.
I think the -1/-1 counter theme is a little weak, to be honest, but I haven't seen anything quite like that play out before, so I could be off base.
Yeah, my reasoning for Horobi is simply a tryout right now...I don't know, I might go with Geth, Ink-Eyes, Chainer, or someone else. But Horobi does get pretty sick with things like Cauldron of Souls.
The real focus of the deck is to stay behind the constant threat of board control protecting me to the point of taking off a lot of damage through Drain Life effects. The Necroskitter theme is the main reason I wanted to build a MBC deck in the first place. Stealing other creatures is just way too fun for me.
About your suggestions: yeah, those lands I just only have 1 copy of and they are in my Teneb deck for right now, but I plan to get them in. Same with Top.
I'll have to check out the others ones too. Thanks!
Mortarpod is not bff with hirobi. If you want to do this, use something like blasting station instead.
Never rule out stupidity on an internet forum. Ever.
To the person who only has a hammer, everything looks like a nail.