Player History and the Interactive Philosophy of Commander
I’ve been playing Magic off and on for nearly all 20 years or so of the game’s history. I suppose I’m a fairly prototypical player in that way. I got competitive when the game got competitive, changed my opinion on it at about the same pace the game itself changed, and began playing Commander after official support for the format began. I bought the Rubinia precon deck on MTGO and haven’t looked back. So while I don’t share the perspective gained during the years of the Elder Dragon Highlander format, before it was recognized as Commander, one of the contributions of the Commander Rules Committee that I’ve taken to heart is their format philosophy:
Commander is designed to promote social games of magic.
It is played in a variety of ways, depending on player preference, but a common vision ties together the global community to help them enjoy a different kind of magic. That vision is predicated on a social contract: a gentleman's agreement which goes beyond these rules to includes a degree of interactivity between players. Players should aim to interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other players what they expect/want from the game.
People play Commander who want a different kind of Magic. They expect it to be different from sanctioned events. I think that’s certainly true of everyone who’s stuck with Commander and continues to invest in the format. The point that strikes me as especially salient, particularly during the transition from private EDH to the public Commander format, is that we want a high level of interactivity between players. We want games where every player feels that they’ve been able to meaningfully participate and affect the outcome of the game.
What we miss out on in playing Commander as a public format is the interaction before the game, and discussing what we expect. We have only the public rules to go by, and subsequent to that, only our interactions in game end up setting the tone for the format as it’s played publicly. It’s that point of difference that’s shaped my own personal approach to the format. I feel that players should approach a public game prepared to interact with and meaningfully participate in the wide variety of games that can be played under the rules.
That thinking shows up in how a player evaluates their continuity of experience or “career” with Commander. It means that when a player encounters a strategy that they don’t interact with effectively, and that strategy ends up setting the course for the game, the burden is on that player to evolve, anticipate it, and interact with it. It’s not the burden of the private group, or the public community as viewed as a private group, to adapt and shift more toward a playstyle that is expected. The public rules define the expectations for public games, in the place of private, pre-game discussions.
To that end, decks that I design for public play are capable of interacting with a wide spectrum of strategies, from the most active and board-oriented, to the most passive. I think nearly every deck, regardless of color identity, can be adapted toward that goal. That doesn’t mean that I design my decks to contain a preponderance of defensive cards, although I may include more than a lot of players. It doesn’t mean either that I’m trying to design a deck that’s “favored” to win the typical public game (I use that term loosely since wins between four players are too scarce for that kind of modeling). What it does mean is that if I lose a game, regardless of how, and there’s nothing in my deck that could have affected the course of the game if I’d drawn it, then that’s a problem with my deck. It might only be one card. My deck might not be very likely to draw a relevant card and play it in time, either. It’s about integrating accountability for game outcomes into my own deck design and play decisions, and not into a divergence of expectations between myself and another player.
With that said, here is my approach to Mono-Black Control, with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as a general.
An EDH deck in the traditional vein of Mono-Black Control is something that I’ve been trying to get sharpened up for a while. Those decks knock their opponents off their plan by a coordination of slow attrition on board and discard to attack the hand. This style of deck seems poised to have its place in Commander, since it would be capable of dealing with both aggressive and passive-reactive opponents at the same table. And the uniquely Black tool of depriving opponents of resources in hand equips this type deck to keep any sort of game stable and board-focused.
My attempts to strike this balance have taken me to commanders like Nath of the Gilt Leaf, Drana Kalastria Bloodchief, and Chainer, Dementia Master. They’ve worked with varying degrees of success, but all share the same problem. Opponents see more routes to recovery the longer the game goes, since just about every deck in EDH interacts with its graveyard at some point. Sealing up those avenues of recovery subtracts from a deck’s power to finish the game. And on the other side, gearing the deck more toward its own explosiveness lets opponents off the hook and able to play around you. Understandably then, Black’s active style of control is not as favored in EDH as Blue and White’s surgical, reactive tools.
This is another attempt with a new Commander to get this playstyle humming.
Kalitas turns your opponents’ dead creatures into your own zombie horde. While this seems straightforward, it actually sets up a few critical effects that are hard to find in one place. First, he exiles your opponents’ dying creatures. It’s easy to understate that impact until you see it in action. By changing your destroy effects to exile, Kalitas shuts down the avenues for recovery that a lot of decks count on against attrition strategies. He also deactivates “on dies” triggers, including attempts of other similar decks to control the board with Grave Pact setups. While he’s on board, graveyard based combos are also shut down. As a bonus, any persist, undying, or other on-death triggers lose their value.
On board, Kalitas gives you a horde of Zombies in return for killing your opponents’ creatures. That kind of token army can either make sure that attacks are directed elsewhere, or it can go on the offensive if conditions are right. That much extra power on the board stands to help Mono Black lean more toward control without sacrificing finishing power. The timing of the triggers also leaves finishing material on board after catastrophic effects like Death Cloud, in a similar way as Nath of the Gilt Leaf.
Most importantly, the zombie tokens fuel a lot of the more powerful cards that Black uses to control the game in multiplayer, such as Grave Pact and Mind Slash. The flexibility of sacrificing your own creatures at Instant turns Pact into a tool capable of stopping games, since you can respond to abilities of cards like Palinchron and Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker with the correct timing to shut them down.
Finally, the lifelink on Kalitas himself combined with his ability to grow bigger gives you staying power in the attrition games you create, and allows more liberal use of life to pay for abilities. Kalitas himself can even grow big enough to threaten a win by commander damage. Typically difficult to use cards like Hatred and Unspeakable Symbol refund the life spent on them and allow for abrupt kills. A few repeatable effects like Bloodghast, Gravecrawler and Blade of the Bloodchief get a lot of mileage here. Even without specifically trying, it’s easy for Kalitas to take over a complicated, back and forth board state once all players are spent, much like Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief can do.
You will enjoy playing Kalitas if:
You enjoy building around your Commander.
You find yourself running a lot of spells and effects to kill creatures.
You like long, grindy games that play out differently each time
You want to rein in a metagame of recursion-based decks or graveyard combo decks.
You value the consistent mana base, low price tag, and stable decklist that comes from running a monocolor deck.
You like investing time over many sessions to perfect your play with a deck
You will not enjoy playing Kalitas if:
You like playing multicolor decks.
You want a Control deck that has a response to everything
You like decks that lend to straightforward games
You like dismantling your decks and building a new one when you want a different kind of game
You favor spellslinger, voltron, storm, or some other strategy not represented in monoblack
Your group doesn’t like playing against discard
You like decks that have one clear route to victory
This is my current decklist for Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Right now, this build is extremely speculative, since I haven’t put in very many play hours with it. Players are encouraged to make their own modifications, and to report results. I’m sure that I haven’t arrived on an optimal list yet even for the types of games I intend to play, much less the type of games that another player might be seeing in their private group. And of course, keep in mind that this decklist is aimed at the 4-player, free for all Commander format.
This list looks like a lot of fun! A few questions:
- Why Hatred? Don't get me wrong, I love this card. But in multiplayer it's essentially a dead card unless you are one of the remaining 2 players at the table, and even then it's only good when you have a higher life total. This kind of card is great in 1v1 suicide black, but I can't imagine that it has much utility in a control list.
On Hatred, it's a bit ambitious, but the idea is that Kalitas kills with 21 general damage in the event that we're above 18 life. Then on damage, the lifelink refunds the life. Ideallly somewhere, someone doesn't block Kalitas, and discard paves the way against any Instant speed spot removal. But, it is risky. If it works though, I wouldn't say it's useless before you're down to 2 players left. You'd be targeting the most passive player at the table with that move, and once one URx Storm or other such player is taken care of, the table should be significantly less hostile to Mono-Black. That's the idea. Not sure if it works consistently enough here, but I've had it work similarly in other decks with generals lacking Lifelink. So, seems worth a shot.
Phyrexian Tower - It should probably be in here. I don't have a copy in paper yet, but I will try it out some online. I imagine it will be better than Swamp most of the time.
Strip Mine, etc - I am not sure how much space there should be for these lands. The tentative plan is to be tutoring for Death Cloud a lot, which solves problems with lands. Before then and after, best case is to have double mana with a basic Swamp. I like having 30 total in the list, high 20's at least.
Inkmoth Nexus, Mishra's Factory, etc - The colorless manlands might be ok, given the low equip costs here. I would be most inclined to try Inkmoth, but this is another one I don't own. And again, I wouldn't want to go below about 28 Swamps with this list.
Diabolic Intent - Seems like a good fit. I will try to find room. Maybe will cut Shred Memory, because 1 mana is about all I want to leave up for other Instants, and in that event it's always going to be Transmute.
Testing: Had two games last night. Although I usually don't say things like this, the list seems to need more creatures. The re-usable sort seem to be doing great, and I'm considering Reassembling Skeleton and Bloodsoaked Champion. I'm not sure on room. I'm also not sure whether Palace Siege, Wretched Confluence or something like that might not be better. I didn't draw Phyrexian Reclamation or Volrath's in either game.
I'm satisfied with the amount of removal that the deck has. Although looking at how much there is, it's hard not to be. Murderous Cut did sit in my hand one game though. I'm considering replacing it with Slaughter, and will probably do so for the next time I test it. It's expensive for an Instant and commits me to playing it, but I also can't imagine a situation where I'd leave mana open for it, pass with no targets, and then be upset about it.
Those two work great, depending on the situation. They are also prone to not doing what you want them to.
Imagine a continuum of flexibility versus scope of impact. Options with the widest scope are the least flexible, and the most flexible are the most narrow in impact. The widest are probably those you listed, No Mercy etc, and they're also the least flexible. They literally don't do anything your oppoonent won't have taken into account. If you're against a passive opponent who doesn't plan on developing creatures and attacking, they're essentially dead.
I wanted a little bit more flexibility with the removal cards. About the least flexible I'm running are Anowon, the Ruin Sage and Reaper from the Abyss. They are prone to doing nothing, but they can have some semi-immediate effect, and they are never absolutely avoidable unless they're killed. The most flexible options are things like Snuff Out and Slaughter Pact, which only ever kill one thing, and only then as long as it's not Black. But, they set you up to stop creatures like Consecrated Sphinx, Deadeye Navigator, and so on, before they're allowed to do their thing. And otherwise, they also let you wait until the last possible moment as an opponent declares an attack before you use them. That way, your opponent can always go somewhere else with creatures and you save your removal card. With enough time for your group to learn, they start treating open mana from you as if it were No Mercy, as they become convinced that you have a kill spell ready.
I've played a few more sessions with the deck, and I'm getting ready to do a major overhaul.
Most of all, just the mana requirements need to be adjusted. The deck just plays a lot better when more action is possible Turn 2 or 3, then it ends up not needing to do much other than load up Kalitas. It doesn't really want to spend the first turns drawing and developing the mana base. So, I'm cutting all the small draw and small mana in favor of big pieces at 5+ cmc. Small ground game with big mana and big spells later seems to be the way this deck wants to play.
There's more pinpoint removal than necessary, especially when multiple pieces are drawn. Against players trying to use timing plays, their boards are usually empty, and Grave Pact effects strand a single creature in those spots with Kalitas' activation. That goes back to playing the setup early being better, and then the deck plays a lot at instant speed post Turn 6 or so. Will definitely put in Slaughter in favor of the cheaper options.
Mind Slash, Sadistic Hypnotist and Death Cloud are the only effective options against passive decks. It comes down to a question of whether they're countered. I'm considering cutting the underperformers, and just tutoring more for more answers to try to get those players out of the way early in those games.
One situation where the deck has struggled is against boards with lots of creatures. I'm finding room for Crypt Rats and Thrashing Wumpus to clean up the X/1's. I expect to get more mileage out of the Grave Pacts at Instant speed that way. Also, they seem like they will work well with the equips. That will be one more thing for the deck to do with its mana during other players' turns.
Also that, and Kalitas is getting in for a terrific beating way more often than I thought. He usually gets big enough to two-shot players without trying too much. I want to experiment with Nighthowler and Herald of Torment because they seem to play nicely with both Kalitas and Death Cloud. Come out as pumps right away, stay behind as I get the turn back and stick the big game wipe.
I gotta do some retooling and in a more major sense than yours.
Also, Nighthowler it looks like doesn't do as well in this deck. I was running Bonehoard and had situations where it was subpar because Kalitas end up exiling too many of my opponent's creatures to create a sizable power boost.
Herald might be fine though. Kalitas does love his evasion.
I made the major overhaul to the draw and mana mechanisms of the deck, as above, and I've been pretty satisfied with the way it's been running. Less mana and more draw is definitely the way to go. If fact, I'm not even sure I'd call it "Mono-Black Control" anymore. I can update once I get some time on my home computer.
Nighthowler is inconsistent, but Herald of Torment has been pretty great. Together with the exile from Kalitas, it's also that I'm facing a lot of decks that don't run many creatures. I'm now moving my testing from Cocka into MODO, so maybe that will change. Of course, I also expect to see more wipes. I am leaving in Nighthowler for now to try to get the best assessment.
The Wumpus and Crypt Rats have both been solid, as expected. Getting them equipped up creates yet another ongoing board environment that's hostile to creatures.
Discard has been ok too, not too clunky, not too absent. I'm down to these slots for it: Mind Slash, Sadistic Hypnotist, Oppression and Death Cloud. Aside from Death Cloud which I try to access at every opportunity, I tend to see one of the three other pieces in about half my games, and each one effectively drowns opponents in it after it sticks.
It's a very simple deck, but it seems to be good at what it does. The main problems are an over-reliance on Steel Hellkite to deal with trouble permanents, but other than those that shut down creatures, there's most often been enough time through the discard to get it there. I also haven't seen anything yet like Glacial Chasm, which it can't deal with.
I updated the OP with the current list. I'm still working on assessing the effectiveness of the heavy-hitters, but the pistons and cylinders of the deck are firing to my liking now.
Thanks for this decklist, by the way. I'd been trying to make a mono-black deck in a style I liked work for a while, but even replacing Sidisi with Kalitas didn't do it until I saw this list and went for a far more stax oriented deck.
I will say, black market is worth considering, if only to fuel Kalitas's sacrifice ability. Contamination has almost no downside in this deck (it hurts cabal coffers, but that's about it), and effectively ends games.
Yeah, Contamination is just *ouch*. It will definitely hit for immense effect. If I feel like more "I win" cards beyond Hatred and Death Cloud, I might fit it in. As is, the lean'ness of the build in the unfair department has been one of the strengths. I thought it would get old trying to access Death Cloud every game, but it doesn't for me.
I like Black Market and would consider cutting Gilded Lotus or something else like Cathodion for it. It can get mana-intensive if you are looking to pumping Kalitas very big.
I had a few games in paper with this deck, and I was pretty happy with it. I ended up going 2-1 on the evening.
The loss was due to Sol Ring assisted draw from Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim where the Vindicate ability came online with a Bitterblossom engine. I would have had Steel Hellkite to wipe the tokens, otherwise.
The first win was versus the same Ayli and Damia players, just coming out of a really quick development of Mind Slash from me, then Gauntlet of Power coming down after the first Austere Command. Kalitas general damage was the finisher there, and he was in the 2-swing range.
The second win was v Nekusar, Aurelia, and Karn. It went back and forth for a long time with a lot of wipes from Karn, with a bunch of non-creature damage from Nekusar mixed in (and mitigated by Kalitas). The ending sequence was a D-tutor for Hatred against a very developed Karn player, on the back of a Herald of Torment.
It seems pretty similar to the casual'ish games I've had on Modo. Kalitas continues to be a solid play even on the the 3rd and 4th go around, and then as a result of that, he just keeps getting in for General damage kills. Herald of Torment continues to show up in clutch situations, and I even remember tutoring for it once or twice. Nighthowler though could probably go. There are probably 2-3 other cards on the list that I will end up cutting, just due to being good only in late game or other certain situations, and then being outclassed by other cards in those same situations. Normal cuts, really.
Good to hear! Honestly, I'm kind of surprised Herald of Torment seems to be a heavy hitter in the deck. Any other MVPs you'd like to point out?
Also, my one concern with this deck is the opponents having enough creatures to make Kalitas' token ability viable. Were you pretty successful on that front? What was token generation like?
Yeah honestly, I didn't try Herald of Torment until I wanted to experiment with Bestow and Death Cloud, but it's the flying that's critical for this deck. Specifically in the example above, it's essentially impossible to get by Karn, Silver Golem by tutoring a Sword. For situations like these, which are actually fairly commonly occurring, Flying or Trample is going to be needed somewhere. One go-to for that might be Warhammer, but it doesn't make too much sense for this Commander with redundant lifelink. And, other options are pretty bad. Herald shows up as a bit more value than usual too, because it's much easier to retrieve from the grave. I wish there were more cards like it.
Hatred and Death Cloud are the other MVP's, in that they get in there to finish the game. That type of card is the most visible, but even stuff like Graveborn Muse in this list end up being key role players to get the deck where it needs to go. Honestly, there are still more underperformers here than overperformers. Quick list of cards I'm condiering cutting - Deathrender, Wake the Dead, Nighthowler, and Tortured Existence, essentially all for the same reason. There are not enough creatures in the deck for them to do a lot of work before the late, late game. There are a few times where a late-running game benefits from a good Wake the Dead, but the others require a long game to even be average. I think putting more beaters in their place might be the way to go, since I'm still quite satisfied with the answer density in the deck.
As for the token generation, the Zombie tokens are mainly just a perk. I think the most valuable function of Kalitas is the Rest In Peace exile effect, which shuts off a bunch of combos, triggers, and recursion based value engines. And the second most important is actually probably the Lifelink. I don't think I've ever had more than 4-5 Zombie tokens on the board at a time, and games where more than 10 were generated are in the minority. When Kalitas has a method of growing huge, it's usually due to hitting Bloodghast or Gravecrawler rather than exiling a bunch. So, relying on zombies to be there will always be hit and miss. I think anything that looks for a certain card type from an opponent is going to be. There are a lot of decks that don't run many creatures, or rely mostly on creature tokens that don't get counted. But, that is kind of the spot you are in with Mono-Black in the first place. You can deal very well with small board states where there are 1-2 creatures a piece for each player, even backed up by recursion, but it's where a lot of non-creatures and tokens start getting played that you need more specific answers.
On dwelling in the space of Mono-B, I have been trying to rely on Steel Hellkite less for problem board states. Some enchantments are always a bother, but you don't see them nearly every game, and a lot of those that cause problems like Grave Pact and Debtors' Knell can be resolved by Kalitas' exile effect. Artifacts though, those are in every deck and cause some degree of problems. Having this game with Karn, Silver Golem fresh in my memory, I'm considering trying out Xenic Poltergeist. It may just be a less consistent version of Gate to Phyrexia, but changing artifacts to creatures seems to have its own perks, on top of them being affected by creature removal.
Have you tried some lifegain like bloodchief ascension, sanguine bond blood combo? How about kuon ogre ascendant as another sacrifice effect as i imagine it fairly easy to transform in this type of deck. Thanks for your decklist it is very insightfull.
Have you tried some lifegain like bloodchief ascension, sanguine bond blood combo? How about kuon ogre ascendant as another sacrifice effect as i imagine it fairly easy to transform in this type of deck. Thanks for your decklist it is very insightfull.
Do you mean Exquisite Blood-Sanguine Bond? It certainly works, but I didn't want the play of the deck to become searching for a combo. For non-combo uses, I could see Sanguine Bond and/or Defiant Bloodlord doing some work with the consistent access to lifelink. If I had a few more effects like Grey Merchant and Bloodchief Ascension, that might be a good direction to go. I don't have a lot of experience playing that style of deck, but Kalitas does offer some advantages there.
I have a copy of Kuon, Orge Ascendant sitting around since I took it out of Alesha, and I keep looking for a place to use it again. As of now, I have been playing against a lot of creature-light and creature-less decks, which makes achieving his upside a big challenge, much less flipping him. I don't mind games that much where he can't flip, but basically, I don't ever want to be in a spot where I'm the only one inconvenienced by him, even if I do have a Bloodghast or something to keep throwing into him. And it will happen every once in blue moon that he does get flipped, then something happens like my fodder for him gets exiled. If the opposition is consistently creature-based decks with less recursion than you though, then he would be a pretty consistent beast when flipped.
I'm going to try out this version a little bit. It gets rid of the discard and some other minor disruption cards and replaces them with a bunch of drain cards, like Defiant Bloodlord and Wound Reflection.
A certain scenario keeps repeating with this deck that might be favorable to the change. A lot of the other decks will trade blows, and just naturally find themselves low on life into the end game, while this deck has generally gained bits of life here and there. Maybe one player will emerge with a big board state with some hard to kill permanents, in which case they get dealt with by a Hatred to the face. But in any event, players run out of resources and slowly die to combat. Taking away the recursion from the rest of the table tends to produce this game state. Some of the things like Thrashing Wumpus already thrive in that environment, but things like Pontiff of Blight seem like they might take advantage of it better than other alternatives.
Point taken. I think all of your points are fair, so maybe I’ll just try to share a bit what my thoughts are with the deck.
To preface, I think the concept of whether a deck “works” is subjectively defined. If what is meant by “works” is to take an even 25% representation of wins on a 4-player table with the strongest decks in EDH, then I’ll be the first to admit that the deck doesn’t “work”. I don’t think mono-Black “works” in that sense at all, really. If you want to make sure you’re never the dog at any table, then you don’t play Mono-Black. If you just want to avoid the scenario where you have literally nothing to do in a game with a powerful deck at the table though, you can consider a few of these cards. My thoughts on the other points below.
1) Not having enough mass removal. Fair point, but unfortunately all of the mass removal in Black is creature removal. On Damnation effects generally, I sort of tend to stay away from them in large part. There is a strange sort of paradox within EDH right now, where players are both building with the expectation of getting their creatures wiped first thing and also not running any Wraths themselves. As a result, board states tend to be full of threats like Sword of Fire and Ice that creature-only Wraths don’t touch, Acidic Slimes and Trinket Mage that you really don’t care about, and then random artifacts and enchantments. For so long people have built this way that a lot of players just stopped running Wraths. I myself will usually only run cards like Planar Cleansing and Oblivion Stone (O-stone comes in and out of this build), and I know I’m not alone in cutting Wraths. Given that only interaction with creatures is possible generally, Grave Pact effects seem to work just fine as “mass removal”, and in the situations that they don’t, the Thrashing Wumpus and Crypt Rats can do some work to isolate out the tokens. Failing that, maybe I will draw a spot removal piece for the one thing in that pillow fort setup causing a problem. Even failing all of those results from my own deck, I’m honest to goodness never the worst off from there not being a board wipe due to the fact that Kalitas can come down, link me some life, and put the onus on someone else to answer a big board. All of the situations where it’s been a problem with removal, it’s been against something like an early Admonition Angel. Lacking for a Wrath is not a problem there, it’s spot removal that is just as good there or better, given the mana cost.
2) The effectiveness of discard against “spellslinger”. True that discard density will never really stop a Storm deck, at least as long as Yawgmoth’s Will and Vintage tutors are in the format. As above though, the question is whether you want to have nothing or something for those matchups. Laboratory effects and tax effects, at least if you’re like me and refuse to acknowledge the existence of Nether Void, are not available to enough effect in Mono-B to really make a difference. They are not effective against reanimation based combo’s unless they’re accompanied by other Stax effects besides. The other “something” I envision here would be extract effects, but I don’t really want to start putting in Sadistic Sacrament, again, because it’s not really effective against more conventional options. I’m making do with discard and spot removal because it happens to be the one serviceable options that is also useful against conventional strategies. Along with Kalitas himself sometimes being useful against creature-based reanimation, the goal here is to just do anything to help other players at the table who might be better equipped to handle combo.
3) The missing Black staples. Toxic Deluge is a good option if you want more creature-only wipes (as above, I don’t). Living Death is one of those cards I don’t play because it’s too easy. It is slightly better than normal in a Kalitas deck, which might be some justification for playing it, but it is just tiresome. I got tired of seeing it EDH after about the second time I experienced it. I also don’t want to reduce the play of the deck into tutoring for Xiahou Dun/Living Death every game. Same thing with Necropotence. It’s extremely tired, and I don’t want to replace all of the draw with tutors for it, which I would end up doing if I put it into the deck and took it to its logical conclusion. Contamination I also won’t play, because I don’t want to turn every game into a question of whether opponents have elves or mana rocks together with Enchantment removal. Related to the point above, if I wanted to abuse every broken Black card in the format, I would probably just play a tri-colored deck like Zur and include all of the other one carder’s in those colors as well. It’s hard for me to actually stay motivated to play repeat sessions with a deck like that.
4) Doing too many things at once, and the Voltron plan. Some might call that a deck that plays out differently every time. Not a positive in terms of optimization, but it’s a positive in terms of play experience for a big segment of players. Draw Hatred or Herald of Torment, you know what to do with it. Draw a Sword and Lashwrithe, put them onto the most appropriate guy and swing. Want to combo off with the same cards every game? Play something other than Mono-Black. Also, kind of odd to suggest a Mono-Black deck should be more resilient to spellslinger, then mention in the same paragraph that it’s stretching itself too thin. Pick your battles.
5) Life gain engines, generally. I suppose it is by nature that these cards are overcosted and low-impact on their own. If a player decides to play them anyway though, I think the best they can do is make sure not to play anything that can be dead without the right card. I think the most “risky” card to play in those terms would be Polluted Bonds or Alhammarret’s Archive, but at least those are very good at what they do. I would not underestimate Kalitas either in terms of the comparison to Ayli. I have only seen a couple of games where an Ayli deck (or Ghost Council, Athreos, or other Orzhov deck) has gained more than 10-20 or so life in a single game. Oloro and Trostani decks are a different story with their massive life gain, but I would rate just having lifelink on the general at a higher level of reliability for big swings of life than most of these generals. You just need any buff, of which there are many here, and Sangine Bond effects start to look pretty good. If there’s no access to the general anymore, maybe Gary, Koko, Wurmcoil, Disciple of Bolas, or something along those lines will come along.
Tombstone Stairwell might be a decent card to add into the deck. Should be able to combo with other effects and give you a nice advantage. Choice of Damnations may not suit the deck very well, but I find it a nice black card that can quickly reduce any threats on the board.
I like the deck and looking to build one with the same commander. I may take a couple of the ideas from you.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Been Playing Magic Since Late 2010. My Play Group is Commander Only.
"No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." - Clausewitz
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Player History and the Interactive Philosophy of Commander
I’ve been playing Magic off and on for nearly all 20 years or so of the game’s history. I suppose I’m a fairly prototypical player in that way. I got competitive when the game got competitive, changed my opinion on it at about the same pace the game itself changed, and began playing Commander after official support for the format began. I bought the Rubinia precon deck on MTGO and haven’t looked back. So while I don’t share the perspective gained during the years of the Elder Dragon Highlander format, before it was recognized as Commander, one of the contributions of the Commander Rules Committee that I’ve taken to heart is their format philosophy:
Commander is designed to promote social games of magic.
It is played in a variety of ways, depending on player preference, but a common vision ties together the global community to help them enjoy a different kind of magic. That vision is predicated on a social contract: a gentleman's agreement which goes beyond these rules to includes a degree of interactivity between players. Players should aim to interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other players what they expect/want from the game.
People play Commander who want a different kind of Magic. They expect it to be different from sanctioned events. I think that’s certainly true of everyone who’s stuck with Commander and continues to invest in the format. The point that strikes me as especially salient, particularly during the transition from private EDH to the public Commander format, is that we want a high level of interactivity between players. We want games where every player feels that they’ve been able to meaningfully participate and affect the outcome of the game.
What we miss out on in playing Commander as a public format is the interaction before the game, and discussing what we expect. We have only the public rules to go by, and subsequent to that, only our interactions in game end up setting the tone for the format as it’s played publicly. It’s that point of difference that’s shaped my own personal approach to the format. I feel that players should approach a public game prepared to interact with and meaningfully participate in the wide variety of games that can be played under the rules.
That thinking shows up in how a player evaluates their continuity of experience or “career” with Commander. It means that when a player encounters a strategy that they don’t interact with effectively, and that strategy ends up setting the course for the game, the burden is on that player to evolve, anticipate it, and interact with it. It’s not the burden of the private group, or the public community as viewed as a private group, to adapt and shift more toward a playstyle that is expected. The public rules define the expectations for public games, in the place of private, pre-game discussions.
To that end, decks that I design for public play are capable of interacting with a wide spectrum of strategies, from the most active and board-oriented, to the most passive. I think nearly every deck, regardless of color identity, can be adapted toward that goal. That doesn’t mean that I design my decks to contain a preponderance of defensive cards, although I may include more than a lot of players. It doesn’t mean either that I’m trying to design a deck that’s “favored” to win the typical public game (I use that term loosely since wins between four players are too scarce for that kind of modeling). What it does mean is that if I lose a game, regardless of how, and there’s nothing in my deck that could have affected the course of the game if I’d drawn it, then that’s a problem with my deck. It might only be one card. My deck might not be very likely to draw a relevant card and play it in time, either. It’s about integrating accountability for game outcomes into my own deck design and play decisions, and not into a divergence of expectations between myself and another player.
With that said, here is my approach to Mono-Black Control, with Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as a general.
An EDH deck in the traditional vein of Mono-Black Control is something that I’ve been trying to get sharpened up for a while. Those decks knock their opponents off their plan by a coordination of slow attrition on board and discard to attack the hand. This style of deck seems poised to have its place in Commander, since it would be capable of dealing with both aggressive and passive-reactive opponents at the same table. And the uniquely Black tool of depriving opponents of resources in hand equips this type deck to keep any sort of game stable and board-focused.
My attempts to strike this balance have taken me to commanders like Nath of the Gilt Leaf, Drana Kalastria Bloodchief, and Chainer, Dementia Master. They’ve worked with varying degrees of success, but all share the same problem. Opponents see more routes to recovery the longer the game goes, since just about every deck in EDH interacts with its graveyard at some point. Sealing up those avenues of recovery subtracts from a deck’s power to finish the game. And on the other side, gearing the deck more toward its own explosiveness lets opponents off the hook and able to play around you. Understandably then, Black’s active style of control is not as favored in EDH as Blue and White’s surgical, reactive tools.
This is another attempt with a new Commander to get this playstyle humming.
Why choose Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet?
Kalitas turns your opponents’ dead creatures into your own zombie horde. While this seems straightforward, it actually sets up a few critical effects that are hard to find in one place. First, he exiles your opponents’ dying creatures. It’s easy to understate that impact until you see it in action. By changing your destroy effects to exile, Kalitas shuts down the avenues for recovery that a lot of decks count on against attrition strategies. He also deactivates “on dies” triggers, including attempts of other similar decks to control the board with Grave Pact setups. While he’s on board, graveyard based combos are also shut down. As a bonus, any persist, undying, or other on-death triggers lose their value.
On board, Kalitas gives you a horde of Zombies in return for killing your opponents’ creatures. That kind of token army can either make sure that attacks are directed elsewhere, or it can go on the offensive if conditions are right. That much extra power on the board stands to help Mono Black lean more toward control without sacrificing finishing power. The timing of the triggers also leaves finishing material on board after catastrophic effects like Death Cloud, in a similar way as Nath of the Gilt Leaf.
Most importantly, the zombie tokens fuel a lot of the more powerful cards that Black uses to control the game in multiplayer, such as Grave Pact and Mind Slash. The flexibility of sacrificing your own creatures at Instant turns Pact into a tool capable of stopping games, since you can respond to abilities of cards like Palinchron and Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker with the correct timing to shut them down.
Finally, the lifelink on Kalitas himself combined with his ability to grow bigger gives you staying power in the attrition games you create, and allows more liberal use of life to pay for abilities. Kalitas himself can even grow big enough to threaten a win by commander damage. Typically difficult to use cards like Hatred and Unspeakable Symbol refund the life spent on them and allow for abrupt kills. A few repeatable effects like Bloodghast, Gravecrawler and Blade of the Bloodchief get a lot of mileage here. Even without specifically trying, it’s easy for Kalitas to take over a complicated, back and forth board state once all players are spent, much like Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief can do.
You will enjoy playing Kalitas if:
You will not enjoy playing Kalitas if:
This is my current decklist for Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Right now, this build is extremely speculative, since I haven’t put in very many play hours with it. Players are encouraged to make their own modifications, and to report results. I’m sure that I haven’t arrived on an optimal list yet even for the types of games I intend to play, much less the type of games that another player might be seeing in their private group. And of course, keep in mind that this decklist is aimed at the 4-player, free for all Commander format.
The decklist:
4 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Creatures (27)
1 Gravecrawler
2 Myr Retriever
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Soldevi Adnate
2 Nether Traitor
2 Bloodghast
3 Cathodion
3 Nighthowler
3 Crypt Rats
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Herald of Torment
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Merciless Executioner
3 Grim Haruspex
4 Vulturous Aven
4 Graveborn Muse
4 Crypt Ghast
4 Corpse Augur
4 Magus of the Abyss
4 Disciple of Bolas
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
5 Chainer, Dementia Master
5 Thrashing Wumpus
5 Sadistic Hypnotist
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
6 Steel Hellkite
7 Butcher of Malakir
1 Blade of the Bloodchief
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
2 Jet Medallion
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Ashnod's Altar
3 Sword of War and Peace
3 Sword of Light and Shadow
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Deathrender
4 Lashwrithe
4 Nightmare Lash
4 Helm of Possession
5 Gilded Lotus
5 Gauntlet of Power
6 Caged Sun
Enchantments (9)
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Tortured Existence
2 Bitterblossom
3 Oppression
3 Attrition
3 Mind Slash
3 Dark Prophecy
4 Grave Pact
5 Dictate of Erebos
0 Slaughter Pact
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Wake the Dead
3 Dismember
4 Snuff Out
5 Hatred
5 Necrologia
5 Wretched Confluence
Sorcery (4)
2 Demonic Tutor
3 Buried Alive
3 Death Cloud
3 Beseech the Queen
Land (35 - by quantity)
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Nytthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Myriad Landscape
28 Swamp
4 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Creatures (19)
1 Gravecrawler
2 Bloodghast
2 Nether Traitor
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Bloodhusk Ritualist
3 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Merciless Executioner
4 Disciple of Bolas
4 Shimian Specter
4 Magus of the Abyss
4 Graveborn Muse
4 Crypt Ghast
5 Sadistic Hypnotist
5 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
5 Bloodgift Demon
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
6 Reaper from the Abyss
6 Steel Hellkite
6 Geth, Lord of the Vault
7 Butcher of Malakir
Artifacts (21)
0 Everflowing Chalice
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Blade of the Bloodchief
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
2 Torpor Orb
2 Mask of Memory
2 Sword of the Animist
2 Thought Vessel
3 Sword of War and Peace
3 Sword of Light and Shadow
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Ashnod's Altar
3 Worn Powerstone
4 Lashwrithe
4 Nightmare Lash
4 Hedron Archive
4 Thran Dynamo
5 Gauntlet of Power
6 Caged Sun
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
2 Bitterblossom
3 Oppression
3 Attrition
3 Mind Slash
3 Dark Prophecy
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Grave Pact
5 Dictate of Erebos
Instants (9)
0 Slaughter Pact
1 Vendetta
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Shred Memory
2 Malicious Affliction
3 Dismember
4 Snuff Out
5 Hatred
5 Murderous Cut
Sorcery (5)
2 Night's Whisper
2 Demonic Tutor
3 Praetor's Grasp
3 Death Cloud
3 Beseech the Queen
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Nytthos, Shrine to Nyx
30 Swamp
Coming soon…
Coming soon…
Coming soon…
Coming soon…
Coming soon…
- Why Hatred? Don't get me wrong, I love this card. But in multiplayer it's essentially a dead card unless you are one of the remaining 2 players at the table, and even then it's only good when you have a higher life total. This kind of card is great in 1v1 suicide black, but I can't imagine that it has much utility in a control list.
- Where are your nonbasics at? Phyrexian Tower? Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge/Wasteland/Dust Bowl? Mutavault/Mishra's Factory? I know you want a lot of Swamps, but Phyrexian Tower is just too good, especially when you have Gravepact effects on board.
- Could Diabolic Intent have a place in here somewhere? Seems good once you start developing your zombie army a bit.
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
Phyrexian Tower - It should probably be in here. I don't have a copy in paper yet, but I will try it out some online. I imagine it will be better than Swamp most of the time.
Strip Mine, etc - I am not sure how much space there should be for these lands. The tentative plan is to be tutoring for Death Cloud a lot, which solves problems with lands. Before then and after, best case is to have double mana with a basic Swamp. I like having 30 total in the list, high 20's at least.
Inkmoth Nexus, Mishra's Factory, etc - The colorless manlands might be ok, given the low equip costs here. I would be most inclined to try Inkmoth, but this is another one I don't own. And again, I wouldn't want to go below about 28 Swamps with this list.
Diabolic Intent - Seems like a good fit. I will try to find room. Maybe will cut Shred Memory, because 1 mana is about all I want to leave up for other Instants, and in that event it's always going to be Transmute.
Testing: Had two games last night. Although I usually don't say things like this, the list seems to need more creatures. The re-usable sort seem to be doing great, and I'm considering Reassembling Skeleton and Bloodsoaked Champion. I'm not sure on room. I'm also not sure whether Palace Siege, Wretched Confluence or something like that might not be better. I didn't draw Phyrexian Reclamation or Volrath's in either game.
I'm satisfied with the amount of removal that the deck has. Although looking at how much there is, it's hard not to be. Murderous Cut did sit in my hand one game though. I'm considering replacing it with Slaughter, and will probably do so for the next time I test it. It's expensive for an Instant and commits me to playing it, but I also can't imagine a situation where I'd leave mana open for it, pass with no targets, and then be upset about it.
Imagine a continuum of flexibility versus scope of impact. Options with the widest scope are the least flexible, and the most flexible are the most narrow in impact. The widest are probably those you listed, No Mercy etc, and they're also the least flexible. They literally don't do anything your oppoonent won't have taken into account. If you're against a passive opponent who doesn't plan on developing creatures and attacking, they're essentially dead.
I wanted a little bit more flexibility with the removal cards. About the least flexible I'm running are Anowon, the Ruin Sage and Reaper from the Abyss. They are prone to doing nothing, but they can have some semi-immediate effect, and they are never absolutely avoidable unless they're killed. The most flexible options are things like Snuff Out and Slaughter Pact, which only ever kill one thing, and only then as long as it's not Black. But, they set you up to stop creatures like Consecrated Sphinx, Deadeye Navigator, and so on, before they're allowed to do their thing. And otherwise, they also let you wait until the last possible moment as an opponent declares an attack before you use them. That way, your opponent can always go somewhere else with creatures and you save your removal card. With enough time for your group to learn, they start treating open mana from you as if it were No Mercy, as they become convinced that you have a kill spell ready.
Most of all, just the mana requirements need to be adjusted. The deck just plays a lot better when more action is possible Turn 2 or 3, then it ends up not needing to do much other than load up Kalitas. It doesn't really want to spend the first turns drawing and developing the mana base. So, I'm cutting all the small draw and small mana in favor of big pieces at 5+ cmc. Small ground game with big mana and big spells later seems to be the way this deck wants to play.
There's more pinpoint removal than necessary, especially when multiple pieces are drawn. Against players trying to use timing plays, their boards are usually empty, and Grave Pact effects strand a single creature in those spots with Kalitas' activation. That goes back to playing the setup early being better, and then the deck plays a lot at instant speed post Turn 6 or so. Will definitely put in Slaughter in favor of the cheaper options.
Mind Slash, Sadistic Hypnotist and Death Cloud are the only effective options against passive decks. It comes down to a question of whether they're countered. I'm considering cutting the underperformers, and just tutoring more for more answers to try to get those players out of the way early in those games.
One situation where the deck has struggled is against boards with lots of creatures. I'm finding room for Crypt Rats and Thrashing Wumpus to clean up the X/1's. I expect to get more mileage out of the Grave Pacts at Instant speed that way. Also, they seem like they will work well with the equips. That will be one more thing for the deck to do with its mana during other players' turns.
Death Cloud hits like a truck. Thinking of including Diabolic Intent, possibly taking out Beseech the Queen because it just telegraphs the play.
Also that, and Kalitas is getting in for a terrific beating way more often than I thought. He usually gets big enough to two-shot players without trying too much. I want to experiment with Nighthowler and Herald of Torment because they seem to play nicely with both Kalitas and Death Cloud. Come out as pumps right away, stay behind as I get the turn back and stick the big game wipe.
This. Also, they complement Bloodghast very nicely.
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
Also, Nighthowler it looks like doesn't do as well in this deck. I was running Bonehoard and had situations where it was subpar because Kalitas end up exiling too many of my opponent's creatures to create a sizable power boost.
Herald might be fine though. Kalitas does love his evasion.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Nighthowler is inconsistent, but Herald of Torment has been pretty great. Together with the exile from Kalitas, it's also that I'm facing a lot of decks that don't run many creatures. I'm now moving my testing from Cocka into MODO, so maybe that will change. Of course, I also expect to see more wipes. I am leaving in Nighthowler for now to try to get the best assessment.
The Wumpus and Crypt Rats have both been solid, as expected. Getting them equipped up creates yet another ongoing board environment that's hostile to creatures.
Discard has been ok too, not too clunky, not too absent. I'm down to these slots for it: Mind Slash, Sadistic Hypnotist, Oppression and Death Cloud. Aside from Death Cloud which I try to access at every opportunity, I tend to see one of the three other pieces in about half my games, and each one effectively drowns opponents in it after it sticks.
It's a very simple deck, but it seems to be good at what it does. The main problems are an over-reliance on Steel Hellkite to deal with trouble permanents, but other than those that shut down creatures, there's most often been enough time through the discard to get it there. I also haven't seen anything yet like Glacial Chasm, which it can't deal with.
I will say, black market is worth considering, if only to fuel Kalitas's sacrifice ability. Contamination has almost no downside in this deck (it hurts cabal coffers, but that's about it), and effectively ends games.
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
I like Black Market and would consider cutting Gilded Lotus or something else like Cathodion for it. It can get mana-intensive if you are looking to pumping Kalitas very big.
The loss was due to Sol Ring assisted draw from Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim where the Vindicate ability came online with a Bitterblossom engine. I would have had Steel Hellkite to wipe the tokens, otherwise.
The first win was versus the same Ayli and Damia players, just coming out of a really quick development of Mind Slash from me, then Gauntlet of Power coming down after the first Austere Command. Kalitas general damage was the finisher there, and he was in the 2-swing range.
The second win was v Nekusar, Aurelia, and Karn. It went back and forth for a long time with a lot of wipes from Karn, with a bunch of non-creature damage from Nekusar mixed in (and mitigated by Kalitas). The ending sequence was a D-tutor for Hatred against a very developed Karn player, on the back of a Herald of Torment.
It seems pretty similar to the casual'ish games I've had on Modo. Kalitas continues to be a solid play even on the the 3rd and 4th go around, and then as a result of that, he just keeps getting in for General damage kills. Herald of Torment continues to show up in clutch situations, and I even remember tutoring for it once or twice. Nighthowler though could probably go. There are probably 2-3 other cards on the list that I will end up cutting, just due to being good only in late game or other certain situations, and then being outclassed by other cards in those same situations. Normal cuts, really.
Also, my one concern with this deck is the opponents having enough creatures to make Kalitas' token ability viable. Were you pretty successful on that front? What was token generation like?
TerribleBad at Magic since 1998.A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story | Twitter | Tumblr
[Primer] Krenko | Azor | Kess | Zacama | Kumena | Sram | The Ur-Dragon | Edgar Markov | Daretti | Marath
Hatred and Death Cloud are the other MVP's, in that they get in there to finish the game. That type of card is the most visible, but even stuff like Graveborn Muse in this list end up being key role players to get the deck where it needs to go. Honestly, there are still more underperformers here than overperformers. Quick list of cards I'm condiering cutting - Deathrender, Wake the Dead, Nighthowler, and Tortured Existence, essentially all for the same reason. There are not enough creatures in the deck for them to do a lot of work before the late, late game. There are a few times where a late-running game benefits from a good Wake the Dead, but the others require a long game to even be average. I think putting more beaters in their place might be the way to go, since I'm still quite satisfied with the answer density in the deck.
As for the token generation, the Zombie tokens are mainly just a perk. I think the most valuable function of Kalitas is the Rest In Peace exile effect, which shuts off a bunch of combos, triggers, and recursion based value engines. And the second most important is actually probably the Lifelink. I don't think I've ever had more than 4-5 Zombie tokens on the board at a time, and games where more than 10 were generated are in the minority. When Kalitas has a method of growing huge, it's usually due to hitting Bloodghast or Gravecrawler rather than exiling a bunch. So, relying on zombies to be there will always be hit and miss. I think anything that looks for a certain card type from an opponent is going to be. There are a lot of decks that don't run many creatures, or rely mostly on creature tokens that don't get counted. But, that is kind of the spot you are in with Mono-Black in the first place. You can deal very well with small board states where there are 1-2 creatures a piece for each player, even backed up by recursion, but it's where a lot of non-creatures and tokens start getting played that you need more specific answers.
On dwelling in the space of Mono-B, I have been trying to rely on Steel Hellkite less for problem board states. Some enchantments are always a bother, but you don't see them nearly every game, and a lot of those that cause problems like Grave Pact and Debtors' Knell can be resolved by Kalitas' exile effect. Artifacts though, those are in every deck and cause some degree of problems. Having this game with Karn, Silver Golem fresh in my memory, I'm considering trying out Xenic Poltergeist. It may just be a less consistent version of Gate to Phyrexia, but changing artifacts to creatures seems to have its own perks, on top of them being affected by creature removal.
Do you mean Exquisite Blood-Sanguine Bond? It certainly works, but I didn't want the play of the deck to become searching for a combo. For non-combo uses, I could see Sanguine Bond and/or Defiant Bloodlord doing some work with the consistent access to lifelink. If I had a few more effects like Grey Merchant and Bloodchief Ascension, that might be a good direction to go. I don't have a lot of experience playing that style of deck, but Kalitas does offer some advantages there.
I have a copy of Kuon, Orge Ascendant sitting around since I took it out of Alesha, and I keep looking for a place to use it again. As of now, I have been playing against a lot of creature-light and creature-less decks, which makes achieving his upside a big challenge, much less flipping him. I don't mind games that much where he can't flip, but basically, I don't ever want to be in a spot where I'm the only one inconvenienced by him, even if I do have a Bloodghast or something to keep throwing into him. And it will happen every once in blue moon that he does get flipped, then something happens like my fodder for him gets exiled. If the opposition is consistently creature-based decks with less recursion than you though, then he would be a pretty consistent beast when flipped.
A certain scenario keeps repeating with this deck that might be favorable to the change. A lot of the other decks will trade blows, and just naturally find themselves low on life into the end game, while this deck has generally gained bits of life here and there. Maybe one player will emerge with a big board state with some hard to kill permanents, in which case they get dealt with by a Hatred to the face. But in any event, players run out of resources and slowly die to combat. Taking away the recursion from the rest of the table tends to produce this game state. Some of the things like Thrashing Wumpus already thrive in that environment, but things like Pontiff of Blight seem like they might take advantage of it better than other alternatives.
4 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Artifact (21)
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
2 Sword of the Animist
2 Thought Vessel
2 Mind Stone
2 Jet Medallion
3 Worn Powerstone
3 Sword of War and Peace
3 Sword of Light and Shadow
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Thran Dynamo
4 Lashwrithe
4 Nightmare Lash
4 Helm of Possession
5 Alhammaret's Archive
5 Gauntlet of Power
5 Gilded Lotus
6 Caged Sun
Creatures (21)
1 Gravecrawler
2 Disciple of Bolas
2 Bloodghast
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Myr Retriever
3 Herald of Torment
3 Crypt Rats
4 Graveborn Muse
4 Vulturous Aven
4 Corpse Augur
4 Crypt Ghast
5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
5 Chainer, Dementia Master
5 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
5 Thrashing Wumpus
6 Kokusho, the Evening Star
6 Pontiff of Blight
6 Massacre Wurm
6 Wurmcoil Engine
7 Defiant Bloodlord
7 Butcher of Malakir
1 Bloodchief Ascension
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
2 Bitterblossom
3 Tainted Remedy
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Attrition
4 Erebos, God of the Dead
4 Grave Pact
5 Polluted Bonds
5 Sanguine Bond
5 Dictate of Erebos
6 Wound Reflection
Instants and Sorceries (10)
0 Slaughter Pact
1 Vendetta
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Malicious Affliction
4 Snuff Out
5 Necrologia
5 Wretched Confluence
5 Hatred
3x Death Cloud
Land (35 - by quantity)
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Phyrexian Tower
27 Swamp
To preface, I think the concept of whether a deck “works” is subjectively defined. If what is meant by “works” is to take an even 25% representation of wins on a 4-player table with the strongest decks in EDH, then I’ll be the first to admit that the deck doesn’t “work”. I don’t think mono-Black “works” in that sense at all, really. If you want to make sure you’re never the dog at any table, then you don’t play Mono-Black. If you just want to avoid the scenario where you have literally nothing to do in a game with a powerful deck at the table though, you can consider a few of these cards. My thoughts on the other points below.
1) Not having enough mass removal. Fair point, but unfortunately all of the mass removal in Black is creature removal. On Damnation effects generally, I sort of tend to stay away from them in large part. There is a strange sort of paradox within EDH right now, where players are both building with the expectation of getting their creatures wiped first thing and also not running any Wraths themselves. As a result, board states tend to be full of threats like Sword of Fire and Ice that creature-only Wraths don’t touch, Acidic Slimes and Trinket Mage that you really don’t care about, and then random artifacts and enchantments. For so long people have built this way that a lot of players just stopped running Wraths. I myself will usually only run cards like Planar Cleansing and Oblivion Stone (O-stone comes in and out of this build), and I know I’m not alone in cutting Wraths. Given that only interaction with creatures is possible generally, Grave Pact effects seem to work just fine as “mass removal”, and in the situations that they don’t, the Thrashing Wumpus and Crypt Rats can do some work to isolate out the tokens. Failing that, maybe I will draw a spot removal piece for the one thing in that pillow fort setup causing a problem. Even failing all of those results from my own deck, I’m honest to goodness never the worst off from there not being a board wipe due to the fact that Kalitas can come down, link me some life, and put the onus on someone else to answer a big board. All of the situations where it’s been a problem with removal, it’s been against something like an early Admonition Angel. Lacking for a Wrath is not a problem there, it’s spot removal that is just as good there or better, given the mana cost.
2) The effectiveness of discard against “spellslinger”. True that discard density will never really stop a Storm deck, at least as long as Yawgmoth’s Will and Vintage tutors are in the format. As above though, the question is whether you want to have nothing or something for those matchups. Laboratory effects and tax effects, at least if you’re like me and refuse to acknowledge the existence of Nether Void, are not available to enough effect in Mono-B to really make a difference. They are not effective against reanimation based combo’s unless they’re accompanied by other Stax effects besides. The other “something” I envision here would be extract effects, but I don’t really want to start putting in Sadistic Sacrament, again, because it’s not really effective against more conventional options. I’m making do with discard and spot removal because it happens to be the one serviceable options that is also useful against conventional strategies. Along with Kalitas himself sometimes being useful against creature-based reanimation, the goal here is to just do anything to help other players at the table who might be better equipped to handle combo.
3) The missing Black staples. Toxic Deluge is a good option if you want more creature-only wipes (as above, I don’t). Living Death is one of those cards I don’t play because it’s too easy. It is slightly better than normal in a Kalitas deck, which might be some justification for playing it, but it is just tiresome. I got tired of seeing it EDH after about the second time I experienced it. I also don’t want to reduce the play of the deck into tutoring for Xiahou Dun/Living Death every game. Same thing with Necropotence. It’s extremely tired, and I don’t want to replace all of the draw with tutors for it, which I would end up doing if I put it into the deck and took it to its logical conclusion. Contamination I also won’t play, because I don’t want to turn every game into a question of whether opponents have elves or mana rocks together with Enchantment removal. Related to the point above, if I wanted to abuse every broken Black card in the format, I would probably just play a tri-colored deck like Zur and include all of the other one carder’s in those colors as well. It’s hard for me to actually stay motivated to play repeat sessions with a deck like that.
4) Doing too many things at once, and the Voltron plan. Some might call that a deck that plays out differently every time. Not a positive in terms of optimization, but it’s a positive in terms of play experience for a big segment of players. Draw Hatred or Herald of Torment, you know what to do with it. Draw a Sword and Lashwrithe, put them onto the most appropriate guy and swing. Want to combo off with the same cards every game? Play something other than Mono-Black. Also, kind of odd to suggest a Mono-Black deck should be more resilient to spellslinger, then mention in the same paragraph that it’s stretching itself too thin. Pick your battles.
5) Life gain engines, generally. I suppose it is by nature that these cards are overcosted and low-impact on their own. If a player decides to play them anyway though, I think the best they can do is make sure not to play anything that can be dead without the right card. I think the most “risky” card to play in those terms would be Polluted Bonds or Alhammarret’s Archive, but at least those are very good at what they do. I would not underestimate Kalitas either in terms of the comparison to Ayli. I have only seen a couple of games where an Ayli deck (or Ghost Council, Athreos, or other Orzhov deck) has gained more than 10-20 or so life in a single game. Oloro and Trostani decks are a different story with their massive life gain, but I would rate just having lifelink on the general at a higher level of reliability for big swings of life than most of these generals. You just need any buff, of which there are many here, and Sangine Bond effects start to look pretty good. If there’s no access to the general anymore, maybe Gary, Koko, Wurmcoil, Disciple of Bolas, or something along those lines will come along.
I like the deck and looking to build one with the same commander. I may take a couple of the ideas from you.
| WBAthreos God of Passage | WUDaxos of Meletis | WUBRG General Tazri | B Kalitast Traitor of Ghet | GPatron of the Orochi |