Hi guys, this is a primer that I'm making for a deck that I created. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
PS. If someone could make a banner for this primer, that would be AWESOME.
BRLittle BlackRB
Little Black is an aggro-control deck that utilizes little recurring creatures like Bloodghast and Nether Traitor as fodder for creatures and spells like Plagued Rusalka and Viscera Seer. It stalls the opponent by using disruption such as Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek so that it can start its sacrifice engine. The engine is composed of at least 2 recurring creatures and at least 1 sac outlet.
How to Play the Deck
The goal during the beginning of the game is to try to take out any threats that may mess with your sac engine by using Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, etc. Then, get the engine started by either using our engine enablers (Buried Alive, Entomb) to fetch our creature recursion (Bloodghasts, Nether Traitor, etc). From there, you use Plagued Rusalka to clear your opponents field. If something is too big for Plagued Rusalka to handle, use Go for the Throat and Dismember. Once you clear their board, start swinging in with your creatures for the win.
One Drops
- Plagued Rusalka – This card one of the best sac outlets in Little Black. Once your get your creature recursion engine started, it’s pretty easy to control the board. Usually a 4 of.
- Viscera Seer – This is another staple to the deck. It helps you control what you draw which is needed in this deck due to the fact that we need our land drops in order to allow for our Bloodghast to reoccur. Consider adding 3-4 of these guys in your deck.
- Carrion Feeder – A cheap sac outlet, but it doesn’t really bring much to the table. Sure he can grow into a monster, but he dies to removal and doesn’t have much utility.
- Mortician Beetle - I’d say that this is better that Carrion Feeder due to the fact that you don’t have a sacrifice a creature for it in order to gain a counter. I personally don’t run this, but it’s a viable option.
Three Drops
- Gutless Ghoul - This guy can give you ridiculous amounts of life.
- Pawn of Ulamog - Doubles our returns when we sac critters, and can gives us the mana for a finisher like Consume Spirit
Four Drops and Higher
- Dimir House Guard - Does everything we could want, from being a decent attacker, great blocker and sac outlet. A regenerating 2/3 allows you to chump all day long or attack. It can also tutor for spells like Chain Reaction, Damnation, Gravepact and Mutilate. Great card.
-Dross Harvester: - A good 1/2-of, especially in a pod deck. 4/4 for 3 ain't nothing to slouch over, and he can gain us a considerable amount of life.
- Birthing Pod - Sac outlet, works really well to get whatever pieces we need. Our main sac outlets are CMC 1 and can fetch our recurring creatures, our recurring creatures can get bigger beatsticks.
- Krovikan Horror - All around general goodness. Quite capable of forcing the last few points of damage through to someones face, comes back over and over again, and a nice sac outlet.
- Phyrexian Plaguelord - Plagued Rusalka's big brother. A Sac outlet that costs no mana (Thus saving your dudes from Swords to plowshares, etc), that can lock the board right down - and is quite capable of swinging, too.
One Drops:
There's none.
Two Drops
-Bloodghast - The reason why we’re playing this. A 4 of.
-Nether Traitor - Some more recursion. With shadow it’s basically unblockable, but its recursion requires mana and it requires a creatures to die. With all of this saccing it’s not hard for your creatures to die, and the one mana is trivial. I’d run 4 of these.
-Nether Shadow – Nether Traitor’s blockable twin with conditional recursion. You kind of have to play around him to make sure that there are at least three monster above him in the graveyard which is a downside, but the recursion is free and he can chump block all day. A viable option if you’re on a budget.
Three Drops
- Nether Spirit- Recursion that’s conditional, but it’s not too hard to fulfill the requirements. He’s usually better as a two, if not, he’s not used at all.
- Undead Gladiator - Doesn't look that impressive, but the ability to keep up a consistent stream of quality cards does a deck like this wonders - not to mention that discarding cards to return to your hand is hardly crippling.
- Ashen Ghoul - When you get to the late game, the 3 power and unconditional haste coming back over and over and over again ends people pretty quickly. Not to mention he can block, too.
Four and Higher [You shouldn’t really play these, but if you want to, go for it.]
- Demigod of Revenge – This can work as a finisher via Buried Alive or Hell’s Caretaker, but you sacrifice some speed due to the fact that a lot of the times, it takes up slots that could’ve been used for disruption or removal. Its recursion is a bit hard to activate due to the high mana cost, I wouldn’t consider running this.
- Hell’s Caretaker- If you want a card that has a reanimating effect, that use this. It’s a bit slow though, but if you want some fatties, he’s your go to guy.
- Ichorid-.A great card in other decks, but I found him to be a bit of a dead card in Little Black. A lot of the black creatures that are going into your graveyard are going to be the ones that reoccur, so removing them creatures would cripple your engine. It also sacrifices itself, which gives limits its flexibility.
One Mana
- Thoughtseize - Best disruption in the game, but the life loss is annoying. If you have it, run them, if not, it's not that big of a deal.
- Inquisition of Kozilek - Hits anything that's 3cc or lower. A solid card, I'd run 2-4 of these.
- Duress - A classic, cut back/ add depending on how creature based your metagame is. A solid 1-3 of
- Despise - This card can be good depending on how creature based your metagame is.
- Mind Twist - A good card for the late game when you need something to drain your mana.
Two Mana
- Hymn to Tourach One of the most powerful discard spells in the game. Unfortunately, its CC is an issue because
this deck runs many 2CC spells and adding anymore 2CC spells will make the curve awkward. I found that using 0-3 is best, 4 is a bit much unless you're opting for more hand disruption and less removal.
- Sinkhole - An expensive option, but it's a classic mono black card. Run these if you have them.
Three Mana
- Mind slash - More resuable hand destruction. Slow, but powerful.
One Mana
- Innocent Blood - Its cheap and avoids any sort of color protection, and hey, your creatures will come back.
- Bone Splinters - Same as above, but it allows you to choose which monster to kill.
Two Mana
- Urborg Justice - A mini-Gravepact, with a deck like ours I've easily made a player sac 12 creatures in one turn.
- Terror / Doom Blade - Basic black removal. Good for budget players, but there are better
choices out there.
- Smother - It's decent, but it has trouble killing fatties, just like Plagued Rusalka. There are better options.
- Profane Command - There's so much utility to this card and it's great late game.
- Grasp of Darkness - Great card that can get around indestructible creatures and it also gives Plagued Rusalka a bit more reach when it comes to removing fatties on the board. Good with or without a budget. Run 0-4
- Geth's Verdict - A solid card that gets around color protection and pings your opponent for 1.
Three Mana
- Attrition - Good removal that saves a ton of mana in the long run. Just make sure you're not facing black creatures.
- Dismember - Another great card with a incredibly flexible casting cost. The only issue is the potential life loss, because a creatures like Bloodghast and Nether Traitor can't block, but it's great regardless. Run 2-4
- Kuon, Ogre Ascendant - The abyss on a stick, plus the 4 toughness for 3 mana can put a roadblock in front of your opponents.
- Grave Pact - Overall solid addition to the deck, but a tad bit expensive to be running 4 of them. I'd run 3 at most.
- Vengeful Pharaoh: - A good 1/2-of, when running Buried Alive. Provides extra shenanigans and is no slouch on the offense or defense
One Mana
- Dark Ritual - Classic card that allows for Little Black to have explosive starts. Definitely worth considering if you want some speed.
- Quest for the Gravelord - This card is amazing. If you draw this in your opening hand, it’s not unlikely for you to get a 5/5 zombie giant by turn 3. Run 4 of these.
- Entomb - Decent card but way too expensive for what it does. Buried Alive is better in my opinion, but this is still a candidate for getting creatures into your graveyard.
- Unearth - I run these because they bring your sac engines back to life if they died from removal, and the cycling effect can be useful if I don't need to bring them back to life. I recommend running 2-3.
- Skullclamp - With most of our recurring creatures having the toughness of 1, Skullclamp allows us to have insane amounts of card advantage.
Two Mana
- Spawning pit - Another cheap, manaless sacrifice outlet - can transform your bloodghasts into blockers if need be.
- Umezawa's Jitte - One of the best equipment ever printed. Nether Traitor is a great target for it. I recommend running 2.
Three Mana
- Buried Alive - One of your engine starters. It'll get the Bloodghasts and whatever else you need. I'd run 3-4 of these
- Wasteland - An obvious choice if you're playing competitively, but if not, it's not a problem.
- Lavaclaw Reaches - A good dual that can can be very useful late game.
- Lake of the Dead - This can allow for even MORE explosive plays, and it can allow Plagued Rusalka to kill bigger creatures.
- Crypt of Agadeem - Can be good for some explosive plays. I would run 1-3
Red
Red is a solid choice when it comes to splashing because burn can hit players as well as creatures. This helps with Bloodghast's conditional haste issue and can allow you to win out of nowhere.
One Mana
- Reckless Abandon - In most decks, it's not good, but in Little Black, sacrificing your creatures are no problem, so this burn spell is amazing.
- Goblin Bombardment - Good card add in while splashing because it can deal tons of damage. Sacrifice 4 Bloodghasts deal 4 damage, play a land, rinse and repeat.
- Terminate - THE unconditional removal spell. If you're running red, run these.
- Pithing Needle - A solid sideboard card that takes care of most of the problems that this decks has. Can stop planeswalkers, and other problem cards.
- Relic of Progenitus - Good against dredge and threshold, but it doesn't remove the entire graveyard, and costs one mana. I personally prefer Tormod's Crypt over this.
Three Mana
- Engineered Plague - This card can shut down fast weenie decks, like goblins, a deck that Little Black has a little trouble against. A solid card depending on your metagame.
3. If you want to power up Mortician Beetle/power scry, sacrifice X of your Nether Traitors and then all of your Bloodghast to Viscera Seer. After you sacrifice the Bloodghasts, tap X mana to return your Nether Traitors back onto the field. Then play a fetchland to trigger Bloodghast's landfall effect so it goes back on the field to, leaving you more creatures to sacrifice. With just 4 mana you could potentially scry through 20 cards.
Couldn't have made a primer this good without the help of the MTGSalvation community, thanks to all of people who've helped me!
Terminate is already there, thanks for suggesting bone splinters!
Death render's CC is a tad bit high for this deck and there's no need to really run it unless you're running fatties, so I don't think it would be too great with this deck.
Keep em coming guys!
This is a pretty sweet deck idea. What about Reassembling Skeleton for budget options?
Thanks a lot mate! I'm hoping people at least give this deck a try before dismissing it, it's LOADS of fun, due to all of the combos you can pull off with your recursion. Reassembling skeleton sounds like a good idea, I'll be sure to add it.
Thanks guys!
I've been running a similar style of deck for the past year and a bit - heres a few cards that you might want to consider for your guide. My deck is more geared towards multiplayer, but the basic goal is the same.
Phyrexian Plaguelord: Plagued Rusalka's big brother. A Sac outlet that costs no mana (Thus saving your dudes from Swords to plowshares, etc), that can lock the board right down - and is quite capable of swinging, too.
Ashen Ghoul: When you get to the late game, the 3 power and unconditional haste coming back over and over and over again ends people pretty quickly. Not to mention he can block, too.
Eldrazi Monument: An absolute backbreaker late-game, with virtually no drawback in this deck.
Krovikan Horror: All around general goodness. Quite capable of forcing the last few points of damage through to someones face, comes back over and over again, and a nice sac outlet.
Mind slash: More resuable hand destruction. Slow, but powerful.
Undead Gladiator: Doesn't look that impressive, but the ability to keep up a consistent stream of quality cards does a deck like this wonders - not to mention that discarding cards to return to your hand is hardly crippling.
Kuon, Ogre Ascendant: The abyss on a stick, plus the 4 toughness for 3 mana can put a roadblock in front of your opponents.
Spawning pit: Another cheap, manaless sacrifice outlet - can transform your bloodghasts into blockers if need be.
Gutless Ghoul: This guy can give you ridiculous amounts of life.
Phyrexian Tower: Sac outlet, mana acceleration, what's not to love?
I usually play a bunch of these as one-ofs in my deck, along with 3-4 Beseech the Queen so I can pick out what I need, when I need it. Good luck with the guide!
I've been running a similar style of deck for the past year and a bit - heres a few cards that you might want to consider for your guide. My deck is more geared towards multiplayer, but the basic goal is the same.
Phyrexian Plaguelord: Plagued Rusalka's big brother. A Sac outlet that costs no mana (Thus saving your dudes from Swords to plowshares, etc), that can lock the board right down - and is quite capable of swinging, too.
Ashen Ghoul: When you get to the late game, the 3 power and unconditional haste coming back over and over and over again ends people pretty quickly. Not to mention he can block, too.
Eldrazi Monument: An absolute backbreaker late-game, with virtually no drawback in this deck.
Krovikan Horror: All around general goodness. Quite capable of forcing the last few points of damage through to someones face, comes back over and over again, and a nice sac outlet.
Mind slash: More resuable hand destruction. Slow, but powerful.
Undead Gladiator: Doesn't look that impressive, but the ability to keep up a consistent stream of quality cards does a deck like this wonders - not to mention that discarding cards to return to your hand is hardly crippling.
Kuon, Ogre Ascendant: The abyss on a stick, plus the 4 toughness for 3 mana can put a roadblock in front of your opponents.
Spawning pit: Another cheap, manaless sacrifice outlet - can transform your bloodghasts into blockers if need be.
Gutless Ghoul: This guy can give you ridiculous amounts of life.
Phyrexian Tower: Sac outlet, mana acceleration, what's not to love?
I usually play a bunch of these as one-ofs in my deck, along with 3-4 Beseech the Queen so I can pick out what I need, when I need it. Good luck with the guide!
Wow, thanks for the suggestions! I took your opinions on the cards because my thoughts were essentially the same, so why fix something that ain't broken? [I hope you don't mind, haha]
Updated!
What else do you think this primer needs?
Mine's a bit slower but more resilient for multiplayer, but I'd highly recommend a few of the following spells:
Urborg Justice: A mini-Gravepact, with a deck like ours I've easily made a player sac 12 creatures in one turn.
Pawn of Ulamog: Doubles our returns when we sac critters.
Dimir House Guard: Does everything we could want, from being a decent attacker, great blocker and sac outlet. Can also Transmute for a 1-of Grave Pact or Birthing Pod (see below)
Birthing Pod: Sac outlet, works really well to get whatever pieces we need. Our main sac outlets are CMC 1 and can fetch our recurring creatures, our recurring creatures can get bigger beatsticks.
Dross Harvester: A good 1/2-of, especially in a pod deck. 4/4 for 3 ain't nothing to slouch over, and he can gain us a considerable amount of life.
Vengeful Pharaoh: A good 1/2-of, when running Buried Alive. Provides extra shenanigans and is no slouch on the offense or defense.
Private Mod Note
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Currently Playing (Legacy): W Send Forth My Endless Army W BU Singularity BU UBR Mishra's Machines UBR
Mine's a bit slower but more resilient for multiplayer, but I'd highly recommend a few of the following spells:
Urborg Justice: A mini-Gravepact, with a deck like ours I've easily made a player sac 12 creatures in one turn.
Pawn of Ulamog: Doubles our returns when we sac critters.
Dimir House Guard: Does everything we could want, from being a decent attacker, great blocker and sac outlet. Can also Transmute for a 1-of Grave Pact or Birthing Pod (see below)
Birthing Pod: Sac outlet, works really well to get whatever pieces we need. Our main sac outlets are CMC 1 and can fetch our recurring creatures, our recurring creatures can get bigger beatsticks.
Dross Harvester: A good 1/2-of, especially in a pod deck. 4/4 for 3 ain't nothing to slouch over, and he can gain us a considerable amount of life.
Vengeful Pharaoh: A good 1/2-of, when running Buried Alive. Provides extra shenanigans and is no slouch on the offense or defense.
Updated!
Playtested the Pharoah and Dimir House Guard. The Pharoah is great because it covers one of the little black's greatest weaknesses- a lot of our creatures can't block. Dimir House Guard was amazing as well, a regenerating 2/3 allows me to chump all day long or attack. It can also tutor for spells like Chain Reaction, Damnation, Gravepact and Mutilate. Great card.
Thanks for the suggestions!
PS. If someone could make a banner for this primer, that would be AWESOME.
Little Black is an aggro-control deck that utilizes little recurring creatures like Bloodghast and Nether Traitor as fodder for creatures and spells like Plagued Rusalka and Viscera Seer. It stalls the opponent by using disruption such as Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek so that it can start its sacrifice engine. The engine is composed of at least 2 recurring creatures and at least 1 sac outlet.
Here’s what the deck usually looks like.
6-9 Sac Outlets (Viscera Seer, Plagued Rusalka)
7-11 Recurring creatures (Bloodghast, Nether Traitor)
5-8 Card disruption (Hymn to Tourach, Duress)
5-9 Removal (Grasp of Darkness, Dismember)
3-5 Engine starters (Entomb, Buried Alive)
3-8 slots for flexibility
18-21 lands
How to Play the Deck
The goal during the beginning of the game is to try to take out any threats that may mess with your sac engine by using Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, etc. Then, get the engine started by either using our engine enablers (Buried Alive, Entomb) to fetch our creature recursion (Bloodghasts, Nether Traitor, etc). From there, you use Plagued Rusalka to clear your opponents field. If something is too big for Plagued Rusalka to handle, use Go for the Throat and Dismember. Once you clear their board, start swinging in with your creatures for the win.
- Plagued Rusalka – This card one of the best sac outlets in Little Black. Once your get your creature recursion engine started, it’s pretty easy to control the board. Usually a 4 of.
- Viscera Seer – This is another staple to the deck. It helps you control what you draw which is needed in this deck due to the fact that we need our land drops in order to allow for our Bloodghast to reoccur. Consider adding 3-4 of these guys in your deck.
- Carrion Feeder – A cheap sac outlet, but it doesn’t really bring much to the table. Sure he can grow into a monster, but he dies to removal and doesn’t have much utility.
- Mortician Beetle - I’d say that this is better that Carrion Feeder due to the fact that you don’t have a sacrifice a creature for it in order to gain a counter. I personally don’t run this, but it’s a viable option.
Three Drops
- Gutless Ghoul - This guy can give you ridiculous amounts of life.
- Pawn of Ulamog - Doubles our returns when we sac critters, and can gives us the mana for a finisher like Consume Spirit
Four Drops and Higher
- Dimir House Guard - Does everything we could want, from being a decent attacker, great blocker and sac outlet. A regenerating 2/3 allows you to chump all day long or attack. It can also tutor for spells like Chain Reaction, Damnation, Gravepact and Mutilate. Great card.
-Dross Harvester: - A good 1/2-of, especially in a pod deck. 4/4 for 3 ain't nothing to slouch over, and he can gain us a considerable amount of life.
- Birthing Pod - Sac outlet, works really well to get whatever pieces we need. Our main sac outlets are CMC 1 and can fetch our recurring creatures, our recurring creatures can get bigger beatsticks.
- Krovikan Horror - All around general goodness. Quite capable of forcing the last few points of damage through to someones face, comes back over and over again, and a nice sac outlet.
- Phyrexian Plaguelord - Plagued Rusalka's big brother. A Sac outlet that costs no mana (Thus saving your dudes from Swords to plowshares, etc), that can lock the board right down - and is quite capable of swinging, too.
There's none.
-Bloodghast - The reason why we’re playing this. A 4 of.
-Nether Traitor - Some more recursion. With shadow it’s basically unblockable, but its recursion requires mana and it requires a creatures to die. With all of this saccing it’s not hard for your creatures to die, and the one mana is trivial. I’d run 4 of these.
-Nether Shadow – Nether Traitor’s blockable twin with conditional recursion. You kind of have to play around him to make sure that there are at least three monster above him in the graveyard which is a downside, but the recursion is free and he can chump block all day. A viable option if you’re on a budget.
Three Drops
- Nether Spirit- Recursion that’s conditional, but it’s not too hard to fulfill the requirements. He’s usually better as a two, if not, he’s not used at all.
- Undead Gladiator - Doesn't look that impressive, but the ability to keep up a consistent stream of quality cards does a deck like this wonders - not to mention that discarding cards to return to your hand is hardly crippling.
- Ashen Ghoul - When you get to the late game, the 3 power and unconditional haste coming back over and over and over again ends people pretty quickly. Not to mention he can block, too.
Four and Higher [You shouldn’t really play these, but if you want to, go for it.]
- Hell’s Caretaker- If you want a card that has a reanimating effect, that use this. It’s a bit slow though, but if you want some fatties, he’s your go to guy.
- Ichorid-.A great card in other decks, but I found him to be a bit of a dead card in Little Black. A lot of the black creatures that are going into your graveyard are going to be the ones that reoccur, so removing them creatures would cripple your engine. It also sacrifices itself, which gives limits its flexibility.
- Thoughtseize - Best disruption in the game, but the life loss is annoying. If you have it, run them, if not, it's not that big of a deal.
- Inquisition of Kozilek - Hits anything that's 3cc or lower. A solid card, I'd run 2-4 of these.
- Duress - A classic, cut back/ add depending on how creature based your metagame is. A solid 1-3 of
- Despise - This card can be good depending on how creature based your metagame is.
- Mind Twist - A good card for the late game when you need something to drain your mana.
Two Mana
- Hymn to Tourach One of the most powerful discard spells in the game. Unfortunately, its CC is an issue because
this deck runs many 2CC spells and adding anymore 2CC spells will make the curve awkward. I found that using 0-3 is best, 4 is a bit much unless you're opting for more hand disruption and less removal.
- Sinkhole - An expensive option, but it's a classic mono black card. Run these if you have them.
Three Mana
- Mind slash - More resuable hand destruction. Slow, but powerful.
- Innocent Blood - Its cheap and avoids any sort of color protection, and hey, your creatures will come back.
- Bone Splinters - Same as above, but it allows you to choose which monster to kill.
Two Mana
- Urborg Justice - A mini-Gravepact, with a deck like ours I've easily made a player sac 12 creatures in one turn.
- Go for the Throat - Removal with almost no conditions. Run 3-4.
- Terror / Doom Blade - Basic black removal. Good for budget players, but there are better
choices out there.
- Smother - It's decent, but it has trouble killing fatties, just like Plagued Rusalka. There are better options.
- Profane Command - There's so much utility to this card and it's great late game.
- Grasp of Darkness - Great card that can get around indestructible creatures and it also gives Plagued Rusalka a bit more reach when it comes to removing fatties on the board. Good with or without a budget. Run 0-4
- Geth's Verdict - A solid card that gets around color protection and pings your opponent for 1.
Three Mana
- Attrition - Good removal that saves a ton of mana in the long run. Just make sure you're not facing black creatures.
- Dismember - Another great card with a incredibly flexible casting cost. The only issue is the potential life loss, because a creatures like Bloodghast and Nether Traitor can't block, but it's great regardless. Run 2-4
- Kuon, Ogre Ascendant - The abyss on a stick, plus the 4 toughness for 3 mana can put a roadblock in front of your opponents.
Four Mana and Higher
- Mutilate - Mass removal. Yum.
- Damnation - Same as above.
- Barter in Blood - A budget sweeper for those on a budget.
- Grave Pact - Overall solid addition to the deck, but a tad bit expensive to be running 4 of them. I'd run 3 at most.
- Vengeful Pharaoh: - A good 1/2-of, when running Buried Alive. Provides extra shenanigans and is no slouch on the offense or defense
- Dark Ritual - Classic card that allows for Little Black to have explosive starts. Definitely worth considering if you want some speed.
- Quest for the Gravelord - This card is amazing. If you draw this in your opening hand, it’s not unlikely for you to get a 5/5 zombie giant by turn 3. Run 4 of these.
- Entomb - Decent card but way too expensive for what it does. Buried Alive is better in my opinion, but this is still a candidate for getting creatures into your graveyard.
- Unearth - I run these because they bring your sac engines back to life if they died from removal, and the cycling effect can be useful if I don't need to bring them back to life. I recommend running 2-3.
- Skullclamp - With most of our recurring creatures having the toughness of 1, Skullclamp allows us to have insane amounts of card advantage.
Two Mana
- Spawning pit - Another cheap, manaless sacrifice outlet - can transform your bloodghasts into blockers if need be.
- Umezawa's Jitte - One of the best equipment ever printed. Nether Traitor is a great target for it. I recommend running 2.
Three Mana
- Buried Alive - One of your engine starters. It'll get the Bloodghasts and whatever else you need. I'd run 3-4 of these
- Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of Fire and Ice, and Sword of Light and Shadow - All solid equipment, but to be honest, Umezawa's Jitte is way better than any of these due to the sheer utility you get out of it.
- Beseech the Queen - A solid addition to the deck, helps get the engine started.
Four +
- Eldrazi Monument - An absolute backbreaker late-game, with virtually no drawback in this deck.
- Phyrexian Tower - Sac outlet, mana acceleration, what's not to love?
- Undiscovered Paradise - Amazing with Bloodghast. I'd run 2-4, although 4 seems like a bit too much seeing as you only need 1 in your hand.
- Verdant Catacombs, Bloodstained Mire, Marsh Flats - Fetch lands are great for Bloodghast, but with no blockers, all of that life lost can be a bit risky. I would add no more than 6.
- Terramorphic Expanse/Evolving Wilds - The slower and cheaper version of the fetchlands listed above, but they could work if you were on a budget.
-Mutavault - A good card to have post wrath, but this deck is heavy on the black mana so it might not be the greatest choice.
- Dragonskull Summit - Run 4 of these for a red splash.
- Blackcleave Cliffs - Same as above.
- Wasteland - An obvious choice if you're playing competitively, but if not, it's not a problem.
- Lavaclaw Reaches - A good dual that can can be very useful late game.
- Lake of the Dead - This can allow for even MORE explosive plays, and it can allow Plagued Rusalka to kill bigger creatures.
- Crypt of Agadeem - Can be good for some explosive plays. I would run 1-3
Red is a solid choice when it comes to splashing because burn can hit players as well as creatures. This helps with Bloodghast's conditional haste issue and can allow you to win out of nowhere.
One Mana
- Reckless Abandon - In most decks, it's not good, but in Little Black, sacrificing your creatures are no problem, so this burn spell is amazing.
- Shattering Spree - Add these if you're splashing red, it deals with Relic of Progenitus, Tormod's Crypt and other sorts of nasty grave hate that can cripple this deck.
- Lightning Bolt - A classic.
- Seal of Fire - A shock that you can activate at any time.
- Forked Bolt - Solid shocker that can 2 for 1.
Two Mana
- Goblin Bombardment - Good card add in while splashing because it can deal tons of damage. Sacrifice 4 Bloodghasts deal 4 damage, play a land, rinse and repeat.
- Terminate - THE unconditional removal spell. If you're running red, run these.
- Arc Trail - A solid 2-1er.
- Pyroclasm - A good sweeper against weenie decks.
Three Mana
- Blightning - This card is absolutely devastating. 2 cards and 3 damage is nothing to scoff at. Run these if you're splashing red.
- Lyzolda, the Blood Witch - A mana drain and it has good synergy with Viscera Seer. Only draw back is that its legendary.
- Volcanic Fallout - The better version of Pyroclasm. A nightmare for Merfolk.
Four Mana
- Tears of Rage - A finisher that can catch your opponents off guard.
Zero Mana
- Tormod's Crypt - Card that's a champ against dredge and threshold. Classic sideboard card.
One Mana
- Deathmark - A solid card when playing against Bant or any aggro deck runnning green/white creatures, really.
- Surgical Extraction - A solid card against combo and for taking out key cards in other decks.
- Shattering Spree - Solid card to fight against nasty grave hate like Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, and it can get rid of Umezawa's Jittes, Aether Vials.
- Pithing Needle - A solid sideboard card that takes care of most of the problems that this decks has. Can stop planeswalkers, and other problem cards.
- Relic of Progenitus - Good against dredge and threshold, but it doesn't remove the entire graveyard, and costs one mana. I personally prefer Tormod's Crypt over this.
Three Mana
- Engineered Plague - This card can shut down fast weenie decks, like goblins, a deck that Little Black has a little trouble against. A solid card depending on your metagame.
- Perish - It. Hoses. Elves.
11 Swamp
3 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
CREATURES (19)
4 Plagued Rusalka
4 Bloodghast
4 Nether Traitor
3 Viscera Seer
4 Quest for the Gravelord
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Duress
REMOVAL (7)
3 Grasp of Darkness
4 Go for the Throat
OTHER SPELLS (7)
3 Buried Alive
2 Unearth
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Pithing Needle
4 Engineered Plague
4 Deathmark
2 Mutilate
1 Duress
6 Swamp
4 Dragonskull Summit
2 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Mountain
CREATURES (15)
4 Nether Traitor
4 Bloodghast
4 Plagued Rusalka
3 Viscera Seer
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
REMOVAL (7)
3 Terminate
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Arc Trail
OTHER SPELLS (10)
2 Skullclamp
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Beseech the Queen
4 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Plague
4 Shattering Spree
4 Pyroclasm
MORE DECKLISTS COMING SOON.
1. When sacrificing creatures it's best to sacrifice your creatures with recursion.
2. If Nether Traitor and Bloodghast are in play at the same time, sacrifice Nether Traitor first and then sacrifice Bloodghast, that way, you can pay one B to return the Nether Traitor so that it can be sacrificed again.
3. If you want to power up Mortician Beetle/power scry, sacrifice X of your Nether Traitors and then all of your Bloodghast to Viscera Seer. After you sacrifice the Bloodghasts, tap X mana to return your Nether Traitors back onto the field. Then play a fetchland to trigger Bloodghast's landfall effect so it goes back on the field to, leaving you more creatures to sacrifice. With just 4 mana you could potentially scry through 20 cards.
Couldn't have made a primer this good without the help of the MTGSalvation community, thanks to all of people who've helped me!
Under removal you should put Barter in Blood as it's a budget option sweeper.
Disruption should include Mind Twist.
Dark Ritual deserves a mention in any decks of this sort.
Fetch lands should definitely be mentioned here as they are great with Bloodghast, I'd recommend them over Undiscovered Paradise.
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"STAY CLEAR OF WHITE POWDER"
311 "Who's Got the Herb"
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Thanks for the feedback!
I'm sure I'm missing many more things, keep them coming!
for recursion consider deathrender
EDH
GWSigarda, Host of EnchantressGW[Primer]
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"STAY CLEAR OF WHITE POWDER"
311 "Who's Got the Herb"
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Terminate is already there, thanks for suggesting bone splinters!
Death render's CC is a tad bit high for this deck and there's no need to really run it unless you're running fatties, so I don't think it would be too great with this deck.
Keep em coming guys!
Updated!
If you suggest a card to add to a deck, suggest one to take out as well.
Added, thanks!
RGGruul Aggro
WSoul Sisters
WBTokens
BUGRRestore Balance
BMono-Black Infect
EDH:
RGWMayael, the Anima
GWURoon of the Hidden Realm
BDrana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Thanks a lot mate! I'm hoping people at least give this deck a try before dismissing it, it's LOADS of fun, due to all of the combos you can pull off with your recursion. Reassembling skeleton sounds like a good idea, I'll be sure to add it.
Thanks guys!
Phyrexian Plaguelord: Plagued Rusalka's big brother. A Sac outlet that costs no mana (Thus saving your dudes from Swords to plowshares, etc), that can lock the board right down - and is quite capable of swinging, too.
Ashen Ghoul: When you get to the late game, the 3 power and unconditional haste coming back over and over and over again ends people pretty quickly. Not to mention he can block, too.
Eldrazi Monument: An absolute backbreaker late-game, with virtually no drawback in this deck.
Krovikan Horror: All around general goodness. Quite capable of forcing the last few points of damage through to someones face, comes back over and over again, and a nice sac outlet.
Mind slash: More resuable hand destruction. Slow, but powerful.
Undead Gladiator: Doesn't look that impressive, but the ability to keep up a consistent stream of quality cards does a deck like this wonders - not to mention that discarding cards to return to your hand is hardly crippling.
Kuon, Ogre Ascendant: The abyss on a stick, plus the 4 toughness for 3 mana can put a roadblock in front of your opponents.
Spawning pit: Another cheap, manaless sacrifice outlet - can transform your bloodghasts into blockers if need be.
Gutless Ghoul: This guy can give you ridiculous amounts of life.
Phyrexian Tower: Sac outlet, mana acceleration, what's not to love?
I usually play a bunch of these as one-ofs in my deck, along with 3-4 Beseech the Queen so I can pick out what I need, when I need it. Good luck with the guide!
Wow, thanks for the suggestions! I took your opinions on the cards because my thoughts were essentially the same, so why fix something that ain't broken? [I hope you don't mind, haha]
Updated!
What else do you think this primer needs?
I think there's a typo in the creature list, Nether Horror should be Nether Shadow
Mine's a bit slower but more resilient for multiplayer, but I'd highly recommend a few of the following spells:
Urborg Justice: A mini-Gravepact, with a deck like ours I've easily made a player sac 12 creatures in one turn.
Pawn of Ulamog: Doubles our returns when we sac critters.
Dimir House Guard: Does everything we could want, from being a decent attacker, great blocker and sac outlet. Can also Transmute for a 1-of Grave Pact or Birthing Pod (see below)
Birthing Pod: Sac outlet, works really well to get whatever pieces we need. Our main sac outlets are CMC 1 and can fetch our recurring creatures, our recurring creatures can get bigger beatsticks.
Dross Harvester: A good 1/2-of, especially in a pod deck. 4/4 for 3 ain't nothing to slouch over, and he can gain us a considerable amount of life.
Vengeful Pharaoh: A good 1/2-of, when running Buried Alive. Provides extra shenanigans and is no slouch on the offense or defense.
W Send Forth My Endless Army W
BU Singularity BU
UBR Mishra's Machines UBR
Testing (Legacy):
BGW Sisay's Control BGW
Updated!
Playtested the Pharoah and Dimir House Guard. The Pharoah is great because it covers one of the little black's greatest weaknesses- a lot of our creatures can't block. Dimir House Guard was amazing as well, a regenerating 2/3 allows me to chump all day long or attack. It can also tutor for spells like Chain Reaction, Damnation, Gravepact and Mutilate. Great card.
Thanks for the suggestions!