I am curious as to why you didn't include Twisted Abomination in a variety of the decks. 5/3 Regenerating Zombie which is a juicy re-animation target. Swampcycles, which thins your deck, fattens up your Coffers and grabs Leechridden Swamp. Also adds fodder to all the cards that care about creatures in graveyards.
Sure, may not be as flashy as a bunch of the other rares, but considering the cheap dollar cost... Well, I'm surprised that its not included anywhere in the guide.
I am curious as to why you didn't include Twisted Abomination in a variety of the decks. 5/3 Regenerating Zombie which is a juicy re-animation target. Swampcycles, which thins your deck, fattens up your Coffers and grabs Leechridden Swamp. Also adds fodder to all the cards that care about creatures in graveyards.
Sure, may not be as flashy as a bunch of the other rares, but considering the cheap dollar cost... Well, I'm surprised that its not included anywhere in the guide.
The primary criteria that a card has to meet in order to be inducted into my guides is that they have to be cards that I would personally play. It's a subjective and biased process, but one that I would still proudly defend. I wouldn't ever tell someone to play Twisted Abom, nor would I personally play him in any of my decks. That basically nixes his chances of making it in.
A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but those kinds of cards just don't do it for me any more. Land thinning has been statistically proven to be mostly irrelevant, which means that you're basically paying 2 mana for a Swamp. I'd rather just have the Swamp. I'm also not a big fan of EOT fetching for Leechridden Swamps since they still ETBT on your turn. I'd rather field my fetchlands to avoid the tempo loss whenever possible if that's what I'm looking to do. I get that he can always be played a 5/3 regenerator, and that certainly isn't nothing in some metas, but creature power creep has grown so much over the past few years that I can't imagine fielding it over any of the broken 6 drops at our disposal. You don't compete with Harvester of Souls, Grave Titan, Massacre Wurm, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, etc. The body just isn't what it used to be, and the land thinning is irrelevant.
As much as I try to highlight budget options whenever I can, I'm still a competitive person who wants to be fielding solid decks with solid cards. I would much rather tell someone to purchase Barter in Blood, Exsanguinate, Syphon Mind, Pestilence, etc. if they're looking for budget cards. These cards (not so much Pestilence but the others) can all be slammed into any deck and be incredibly rewarding. Twisted Abom will always be a marginal, will never be "the best card" to fill a certain role, and will probably fail to meet any and all expectations that people might have for it.
Wow! Thanks for this incredibly in-depth resource. I've been playing since Ice Age and I still got a ton of ideas from this article (mainly newer cards with which I have less familiarity.)
I just have a few more suggestions for the "creature curve" section:
1cc
Will-o-the-Wisp - black has few good inexpensive flyers, wisp can keep you alive for a long time and dodges a lot of the most popular removal: bolt, earthquake, terror and all its clones, deed, disk, day of judgment... For my money, one of black's best 1-drops for MP.
2cc
Gatekeeper of Malakir - edict and a body, solid value
3cc
Royal Assassin - a classic. yes it can be a lightning rod but as long as it's alive it shouts "don't attack me"
Khabal Ghoul - it's mentioned elsewhere, but should be here too I think
Rotlung Reanimator - obviously good in the cleric deck, but arguably playable even in a non-cleric deck. there are a lot of clerics in magic (253 according to gatherer) and some are very popular in MP: soul warden, mother of runes, withered wretch, etc. This can gain you a lot of bears in some metagames, and it's good even if you're just playing with one or two other clerics (eg withered wretch.) If someone (or you) wraths, everyone's board is wiped but you'll have an army of bears. I'm not 100% on this, but my understanding is if you have 2 in play and someone wraths, you get 4 bears when the dust clears.
Undead Gladiator - another solid "undying" creature that also can filter your deck and fill your graveyard. it was good enough for the pro tour.
4cc
Mirri the Cursed - 3/2 flying, first strike, haste, drinks blood: what more do you want?
Marauding Knight - white is a very popular MP colour and this has the potential to be huge in a lot of metas
8cc
Tombstalker - worth a mention seeing as it's a top5 black creature in legacy and some decks can bring it down on t3 or 4.
Wow! Thanks for this incredibly in-depth resource. I've been playing since Ice Age and I still got a ton of ideas from this article (mainly newer cards with which I have less familiarity.)
I just have a few more suggestions for the "creature curve" section:
1cc
Will-o-the-Wisp - black has few good inexpensive flyers, wisp can keep you alive for a long time and dodges a lot of the most popular removal: bolt, earthquake, terror and all its clones, deed, disk, day of judgment... For my money, one of black's best 1-drops for MP.
2cc
Gatekeeper of Malakir - edict and a body, solid value
3cc
Royal Assassin - a classic. yes it can be a lightning rod but as long as it's alive it shouts "don't attack me"
Khabal Ghoul - it's mentioned elsewhere, but should be here too I think
Rotlung Reanimator - obviously good in the cleric deck, but arguably playable even in a non-cleric deck. there are a lot of clerics in magic (253 according to gatherer) and some are very popular in MP: soul warden, mother of runes, withered wretch, etc. This can gain you a lot of bears in some metagames, and it's good even if you're just playing with one or two other clerics (eg withered wretch.) If someone (or you) wraths, everyone's board is wiped but you'll have an army of bears. I'm not 100% on this, but my understanding is if you have 2 in play and someone wraths, you get 4 bears when the dust clears.
Undead Gladiator - another solid "undying" creature that also can filter your deck and fill your graveyard. it was good enough for the pro tour.
4cc
Mirri the Cursed - 3/2 flying, first strike, haste, drinks blood: what more do you want?
Marauding Knight - white is a very popular MP colour and this has the potential to be huge in a lot of metas
8cc
Tombstalker - worth a mention seeing as it's a top5 black creature in legacy and some decks can bring it down on t3 or 4.
The only reason why the Ghoul isn't mentioned is because of its cost. It's a $15.00 card at the best of times, and it's not that much better than say Scavenger Drake. I would never recommend buying it.
Will-o was in the guide at some point but I've since removed it. At the end of the day it's a do-nothing spell that doesn't dissuade attacking you. Sure, it can regenerate, but people should still attack you and force you to use your mana and tap him. If you rely on it for early defense and people just swing in on you then you're going to get crushed. I dislike walls in general, so the only ones that I have listed are ones that will truly dissuade attackers.
Tombstalker just isn't good enough. At best it's a cheap dragon, but dragons aren't even that good in MP. Even if you're paying ~5 for it on average, I'd rather play a Bloodgift Demon any day of the week. It brings no utility or resilience to your decks; just a random beater. I also don't think that it's a top 5 creature in Legacy, nor do I believe that that's relevant. It saw some play in Team Italia and Pox decks (maybe in some others but they wouldn't be established archetypes) but neither of those decks have put out a decent finish in a long time. While they may do fine at small event scattered across the world, they're not what the majority of Legacy players would consider to be top tier decks. Still, all of that is beside the point. There are plenty of very powerful creatures that are good in some formats but not in MP. Delver, Goyf and Dark Confidant come to mind as good examples. While these creatures may be Legacy staples, neither of them are very useful in a multiplayer setting. Bob is obviously debatable, and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have a playset that I used regularly, but no one here can argue the fact that you couldn't just toss Bob into every casual MP deck and expect him to do well. A lot of people play with mostly 4+ CMC spells, and that could get you in to a lot of trouble with Bob. This is why I write these guides. While Goblin Guide and Duress may be good in MOST formats, they're not good in ALL formats. Tombstalker is no different. He's better in duels than he is in MP.
As far as Gatekeeper is concerned, he's just not what I'm looking for in a 3 drop. He kills the worst creature from 1 opponent and sits around as a 2/2. The only reason why I have Shriekmaw listed is because he's an evasive 3 power beater that will kill the biggest threat to you. While I enjoyed playing Gateekeeper in my Standard Vampire deck (P.S. **** Jund), he's just a Gray Ogre with a marginal upside in MP. 2/2s don't win games and nor does Chainer's Edict.
M.Knight is a hoser and I purposely removed all of the hosers from the guide. I'm not a fan of hoser wars and I don't like how if one person plays Marauding Knight that every White player has to play Karma and suddenly the game becomes horrible for everyone.
Rotlung I don't like outside of tribal decks. 3 mana for a pair of 2/2s is nothing in my mind. The section is supposed to highlight creatures that are generically strong, not ones that rely on synergizing with other cards. I would never play it "just because," so I don't want to list it.
Undead Gladiator is too slow and mana intensive to be a generically powerful card. He requires a specific deck designed to abuse him.
The Assassin and Mirri I might just have to add. Mirri has never blown me away, but she definitely has the potential to be both offensive and defensive (which I like a lot). The Assassin has always felt slow and unreliable in my games, but he could probably do some work in removal-light metas. The only issue that I have with him is that he's only good if you're making explicit deals saying things like "I won't kill your creatures if you don't attack me." I wish that his ability read "Tap: Destroy target creature attacking you" so that you wouldn't have to. I know that I personally hate it when people make "deals" and will always send everything I have at the person trying to play puppet-master. It makes for such a boring game if you don't.
Will-o was in the guide at some point but I've since removed it. At the end of the day it's a do-nothing spell that doesn't dissuade attacking you. Sure, it can regenerate, but people should still attack you and force you to use your mana and tap him. If you rely on it for early defense and people just swing in on you then you're going to get crushed. I dislike walls in general, so the only ones that I have listed are ones that will truly dissuade attackers.
Some of those suggestions are borderline I admit but thought I'd put them out there. That said I truly feel wisp is worthy of consideration. Black has a distinct lack of quality flyers in the early-midgame and for me that's what gives wisp value. Yes players "should" attack into you but a lot of the time they will look at wisp and then just attack into someone else. Unless of course they know you are the gravepact/exsanguinate/damnation packing player they can't afford to leave alone Then wisp loses value.
I'm not a big fan of defenders either but wisp is a standout among black "walls" and at a lot of tables, it WILL save you many life points. Wisp is undercosted at what it does and it doesn't fit into the modern color wheel. If I was a new player, I'd want to know about it.
Tombstalker just isn't good enough. At best it's a cheap dragon, but dragons aren't even that good in MP. Even if you're paying ~5 for it on average, I'd rather play a Bloodgift Demon any day of the week. It brings no utility or resilience to your decks; just a random beater. I also don't think that it's a top 5 creature in Legacy, nor do I believe that that's relevant. It saw some play in Team Italia and Pox decks (maybe in some others but they wouldn't be established archetypes) but neither of those decks have put out a decent finish in a long time. While they may do fine at small event scattered across the world, they're not what the majority of Legacy players would consider to be top tier decks. Still, all of that is beside the point. There are plenty of very powerful creatures that are good in some formats but not in MP. Delver, Goyf and Dark Confidant come to mind as good examples. While these creatures may be Legacy staples, neither of them are very useful in a multiplayer setting. Bob is obviously debatable, and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have a playset that I used regularly, but no one here can argue the fact that you couldn't just toss Bob into every casual MP deck and expect him to do well. A lot of people play with mostly 4+ CMC spells, and that could get you in to a lot of trouble with Bob. This is why I write these guides. While Goblin Guide and Duress may be good in MOST formats, they're not good in ALL formats. Tombstalker is no different. He's better in duels than he is in MP.
Tombstalker is borderline I admit but I think at least worthy of mentioning. I said he's a top 5 black creature in legacy and I stand by that. I dont think there are 5 other black creatures in legacy seeing more play right now. He was part of a deck that was tier 1 through much of last year, BUG. He also frequently makes the team on variants of suicide black, a perennial tier 2 deck. Like you say, not always relevant but often we can look at legacy for ideas of what will work in MP, some translate better than others. Like for example The Great One which you mentioned who's surely a top10 creature in legacy when your mana curve tops out at 3 but is pretty poor in MP when you are playing with lots of expensive spells and you can't afford to have him turn over, say, decree of pain.
You don't want tombstalker in every deck but in a deck where you expect to fill up your yard, it'd be good at least to know about him. If you can't get him down by turn 4 you probably shouldn't bother, but a 5/5 flyer on 4 or even 3 is nothing to scoff at, even though we are spoiled these days. Once upon a time juzam was one of the best creatures in magic and tombstalker is effectively a juzam that flies with no drawback. Like I said, we're spoiled if that's unplayable. Personally I like to be aggressive and again, flying quality is lacking in black, so I feel that tombstalker is something worth knowing about.
Anyway just my two cents to ponder. You have an awesome resource going here and I dare say much more useful than some of the more well read multiplayer authors out there.
I'll probably add the Will-o back to the list since you do make some compelling arguments to support it. Still a bit undecided but it's probably good enough to make the cut.
The Demon I'm just not sold on though. One of my biggest concerns with the card is that most people don't have access to fetches, and that's the only way to reliably get him on to the field with any sort of speed. He's good in BUG/Team Italia (whatever you want to call it) because those decks will often crack fetchs and play early Brainstorms and Innocent Bloods to easily be able to cast him early if needed. That's not how most MP decks play out. Take a random deck that you own and goldfish a few turns and see how fast you can cast the Demon on average. I'm willing to bet that it doesn't average out on turn 4 or 5. I mean I could be wrong obviously, I have my 8 fetches and I could reasonably cast him that quickly, but I just don't think that he's a 4 mana 5/5 flying in most decks. I don't like it when people call him a flying Juzam Djinn with no drawback because he most certainly does have one. Getting 4 cards in your GY by turn 4 isn't nothing. Given that it's also a $9.00 card that has very limited multiplayer applications, I just don't feel comfortable listing it. I would much rather see people buy any of the other 6+ drops that I have listed over him. I want to stress that these guides are not supposed to be random resource dumps. I don't want to list every possible playable card. I don't want to list Smolder Initiate because it has repeatable ability. I want to list the cream of the crop, the best buys, the cards to watch out for, etc. A $9.00 5/5 flier for~5 doesn't make the cut for me. People can spend their money on better things than that. I realize that cost is a flimsy argument, but I'm willing to stand by it. For what it's worth, I probably would have him in the guide if he were like a 25 cent uncommon or something. Cost is a very big factor in this final decision of mine.
In terms of the top 5 Black Legacy creatures, Bob, Ichorid, Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug and Bloodghast all probably see more competitive play. I don't have the exact numbers or anything, but I'm willing to wager that Dredge has posted more consistent results than BUG decks featuring Tombstalker have, and Bob is just automatically the best.
I have some good black cards you might want to consider into this guide:
Nothing beats Cabal Coffers but Crypt of Agadeem can also give good manaburst. Its also 10 times cheaper. In a correct deck it could be even better than coffers... Thinking something like Iname, death aspect
Extraplanar Lens is another way to get extra mana. I recommend using Snow-Covered swamps with this so you dont give double mana to other black mages. Again, not maybe the best but it is cheap card.
What do you think?
The Lens used to be on the guide, but then I realized that I've never played card/seen it played outside of EDH. It has potential, there's no question about that, but I find that it's far too difficult to find homes for these kinds of cards in your average decks. I'm with you on the whole Snow land thing, but that's actually quite expensive and not something that most people are willing to invest in. It's also like a $6.00 card, so when you factor in ~24 or so lands at 50 cents a piece, it's not that cheap. The lands and Lenses come out to around ~$35.00 after all is said and done, which is quite a bit in my mind. It's a fine 1-of in EDH decks, I won't argue that, but ultimately I just don't think it has enough generic power to mention given its relatively high cost ($ wise). If the choice is to buy 24 Snow swamps and 4 Lenses or 3-4x Cabal Coffers I would suggest the Coffers each and every time.
The Crypt has just never impressed me. It's going to be good in some decks, there's no question about that, but it's a not card that you're going to field in general. It only counts Black creatures so it's never going make the cut in multi-color decks, and I find that it takes too long to pay off even when your deck is filled with Black dudes. What I basically have to do is weigh it against running other ETBT lands such as Leechridden Swamp, Spawning Pool, etc. and I always find it lacking.
Man, I needed this guide. Being more a duels person, but with a group the primarily prefers multiplayer games, I needed some help in this arena since my decks are a) bad for multiplayer, b) can win in multiplayer if fewer than two people attack me, which is usually not the case since I am almost always enemy #1, or c) so incredibly powerful that it's unfair to play in a kitchen table game and pisses people off (stuff like my Elf-Ball list and 5C Slivers, or any of my infinite combo shenanigans).
I want a deck made for multiplayer that is powerful, fair, and something I can stick with that won't make my group want to kill me IRL There are lots of great suggestions here, I can't settle on one concept. I'm going to be poring over the list here for something good. I think the Vampires Suck strategy might be a good fit for my group, and might be fun to pass onto my fiance to play (she's just begun playing, I started her with White Weenie and working our way up the complexity tree).
Fantastic analysis and advice, thank you for this!
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Decks
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite) Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks) Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks) Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Updated up to M13. Lots of "under perfoming" cards have been shaved from the list and I've re-done the "Cards that Everyone Should Have" section to better reflect what it was trying to accomplish. Also added a few new budget decklists.
I was reading your section in this guide about dealing with artifacts and you mentioned Xenic Poltergeist. I was thinking about your red guide where you talk about
Liquimetal Coating. Wouldn't this card be a path for black to kill off troublesome enchantments (or anything really)? Maybe it is a bit too convoluted to be greatly effective, but then again black's options are limited.
Ward of Bones comes to mind for restricting Enchantments across the board (among others). The card is in fact quite decent I think, although I have seen it but never used it. Costs quite a lot of mana too and does basically nothing but restricting your opponents' ability to cast spells. But yeah, if you want resilience against Enchantments you really need to splash another color. Can't have everything.
It's a nice thought, but if your pro-active answer to enchantments is a 6 mana artifact... well... yeah... I'd personally never employ that tactic since, let's be honest here, it's just not realistic.
So you turn their enchantment into an artifact... then what? Phyrexian Tribute?
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough, let me try to explain it better.
You use the coating to turn an enchantment or really anything into an artifact.
You then use Xenic Poltergeist to turn the artifact into a creature.
Black can kill creatures with any number of ways. It seems like most black decks will run these without prompting.
I mentioned it was convoluted, but the list already mentions something like Xenic, it isn't a very far stretch. Plus you can do silly stuff like kill lands when you don't have an enchantment that is pressing to get rid of. Since they have no casting cost at all, they die instantly. Basically, I was suggesting the coating to get the most of of Xenic.
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough, let me try to explain it better.
You use the coating to turn an enchantment or really anything into an artifact.
You then use Xenic Poltergeist to turn the artifact into a creature.
Black can kill creatures with any number of ways. It seems like most black decks will run these without prompting.
I mentioned it was convoluted, but the list already mentions something like Xenic, it isn't a very far stretch. Plus you can do silly stuff like kill lands when you don't have an enchantment that is pressing to get rid of. Since they have no casting cost at all, they die instantly. Basically, I was suggesting the coating to get the most of of Xenic.
Ah, that makes more sense. Still, the biggest problem with that plan is that it's a 2 card combo (well it's actually more than that for all intents and purposes) and one of the combo cards (Liquimetal Coating) does stone nothing on its own. Drawing a Poltergeist is fine because at that point all you need is removal, and that's not asking for a lot. Drawing a Coating without having a Poltergeist is just miserable. I'm not just looking for "any" answer. I'm trying to suggest something that people could conceivably use. Some 3 card combo involving Coating, Geist and removal would be so inconsistent and weak that your deck would just be terrible since it would have so many wasted slots on do-nothings.
In Mono black, the best option you have against artifacts and enchantments is to kill them before they play them. I know cards like duress are not nearly as good in MP, but if you know that they have enchantments that will end you, you might want to throw a few in. And at least this way, you only have to use one card, and it can also get other spells as well. Again, not the best course of action, but black has very little against artifacts and enchantments, especially in MP.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Ward of Bones is actually very interesting, never knew about it, and in my play circle if I put it in my Cabal CoffersExsanguinate control deck it would work because my friends don't run really fast stuff.
My typical go-to answer to tokens is Massacre since it figures to be free in my games and it's just plain strong in general. You can also run with something like Night of Souls' Betrayal assuming that you're not using some Bloodghast-based Clamp build. Bloodghast is still fine since it just forces a sac every time you play a land though. Damnation is always solid but so is something like Forced March or Mutilate. I mean the basic answer is "mass removal" and it just boils down your budget and preference. My guide highlights a lot of relevant mass removal spells in the "Destructive Cards" section so it shouldn't be that hard to find one that suits your needs.
Update the guide with a new layout. I know that I've been ignoring my other ones but I'm mostly trying to "perfect" one before I move on. I'm getting very close to "finishing" this one so hopefully I can move on to the others shortly. God knows they need it lol.
Do you play a lot of EDH by chance? Your card preferences suggest to me that your primary MP outlet is EDH. For what it's worth I don't think that you can apply EDH logic to many non-EDH settings and expect to succeed.
After reading the red and black guide I think you can shorten the first parts of each guide especially the Cards That Everyone Should Have and General Deckbuilding Tips. 90% of all cards discussed in these sections are discussed later on again, which makes the guides overly repetitive. I also made a test with 3 casual gamers/beginner and non of them found these parts very helpful (I know 3 aren't that many). It's just to much in to few words and the general advice for deckbuilding is so general that nearly every black deck will violate the guidelines. Maybe just a short introduction, what basic strategies are good/can be expected from the color in multiplayer, is better.
I don't mind having repetition. If there are key cards and effects that most players should be playing with then I'm fine with drilling that in to their brains. If I just list each card once then it's almost like saying that Exsanguinate is on the same page as Blood Artist. I bet you that you got sick of reading Exsanguinate and Phyrexian Arena being listed 100 times but at the same time at least you'll remember those 2. Mission accomplished.
I could probably write something about the color's strengths though.
With respect to the beginners not finding it useful, not sure what to say about that one. No one has to listen to me and I'm fine if they don't want to. What I have written is what I think is important to know. They may not think it's useful but that's probably why they're beginners. It should be useful to them and they should probably respect that. I'm not pretending to be a God or anything but I mean if they're not interested in playing the right number of lands, draw spells, etc. then what do you want me say? I can't stop people from making poor decisions.
I mentioned the power level also in the red guide but in this guide it was even more problematic. Just an example: At first you are discussing cards like Phyrexian Arena and then Necropotence and Skullclamp with the notion that these cards are really really good. Why should anyone play the Arena, if they can play far superior cards which cost ($) even less? The answer is they can't because in most playgroups such cards are banned and if not, beginner/casual gamers are crushed by far superior decks (mostly turn 1-2 combo decks like TPS). Wouldn't it be better if you made a separate section: super strong cards but most probably banned or super strong better ask beforehand. That way you can discuss the normal cards in detail without the awkward power dance.
I don't think that's necessary. Multiplayer Magic has no defined format and I know plenty of people who can slam Clamps and Potences in their decks. My guide explains how they're typical go-tos but should only be used if people are comfortable with them. I think that's a reasonable way to tackle the subject. I like Clamp and Sol Ring because they're affordable and ridiculously strong. Anyone can play those kinds of cards and win and most people can afford them. I'm not going to impose personal beliefs and tell people to adhere to X banlist or whatever.
Also you should consider making an own guide for artifacts and lands and only discuss artifact/lands, which have a direct tie to the strategies of the color like Lashwrithe, Geth's Grimoire, Phyrexian Tower and so on. A lot of the text in these section is just to general, and I bet Glacial Chasm is praised in every guide.
Chasm isn't praised in every guide. The reason why I don't like this idea is because many artifacts and lands are, for all intents and purposes, colored. Lashwrithe is only useful in heavy Black decks. Talking about it in an artifact guide seems pointless to me. I'd rather discuss it in the context of Black lists because that's where you'll always see it.
Phyrexian Arena is in my opinion more a trap card. In terms of looks good, but in reality it's not. Compared to Nights Wisper the Arena takes 3 more turns to make more card advantage. Thats a lot of time even in multiplayer. In most groups it will die much faster and will be strictly worse than Nights Wisper or Sign in Blood.
I disagree with this one. I see dozens of multiplayer decks posted every day and the vast majority of them are slow and pack little-if-any enchantment removal. Maybe your meta has a lot of it but I don't think that an average meta has solid answers to early Arenas.
My philosophy on multiplayer is that you need to go big or go home. Arena isn't the best draw on turn 10 but it's basically broken on turn 3 in my experience. Sign in Blood offers consistency but has nothing in the way of actual power. It can never take control of a game and propel you into a dominant position. A turn 3 Arena that gets left unchecked can.
Another point is flexibility. The more roles one card can fulfill the better. Promise of Power is a good example of such a card. Its main purpose is card draw but it can double up as a threat. I don't know your stand on this, but for me flexibility is a very important characteristic of multiplayer decks.
Flexibility usually comes at a cost. PoP is flexible but that doesn't make it inherently powerful. If you need a threat then your hand is probably small and so making a demon isn't going to be of much help. Otherwise it's just a 5 mana draw spell that, at least for me, is probably going to be worse than Syphon Mind. It costs 1 less mana and 5 less life to do basically the same thing. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Profane Commands and such at times, I just feel that you're often better off playing cards that do one thing very well.
A card I was totally missing in the card draw discussion is Moonlight Bargain. Its a very solid card draw spell for reanimator style decks but i can understand if it is to narrow.
I don't think that it should be played in an average multiplayer deck which is why I don't really have it listed anywhere. It's not unplayable but I don't think that it's good either.
Wayfarer's Bauble is also missing from every ramp section or discussion. It beats most of the alternatives because the basic land it fetches is not vulnerable to mass removal like Oblivion Stone. Another plus is that the bauble feeds Cabal Coffers or similar cards.
It's possible that I should give the Bauble and Expedition Map a bit of love.
Also I can't understand the love for Massacre. It's perfect against token decks, but most of the time token decks come with mass pump effects to be safe against cards like Massacre Wurm or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. The other big downside is that it can't answer big threats. Later in the game when 5/5s and bigger gobble up the battle field a lonely Massacre won't do anything.
You're missing the point of the card entirely. It's not supposed to be an answer to everything. Sometimes you're playing a deck that doesn't have early drops but you don't want to lose to aggressive decks. They're terrible but people still play them. Being the guy who loses to the Goblin player sucks. It doesn't matter if he loses too because all that matters is whether or not you succeed. Massacre is way for any Black to, without using mana, clear the field of early threats to protect itself. That means that you can play your ramp spell/draw engine on 2 and 3 and still be fine. You get a free Wrath for early weenies. I like Massacre and Innocent Blood for that reason alone. They are not replacements for Damnation; they help you survive long enough to get there.
Unmake and Duplicant are also staples in mono black decks to answer resilient creatures like Wurmcoil Engine or creatures with Persist/Undying/indestructible.
Duplicant I should add but I'm not a fan of Unmake personally.
Oblivion Stone is mentioned later but it is the mass removal for colors which have trouble to kill artifacts and enchantments. Every mono black control is better with 2-3 of these little gems. Besides that the possibility to activate it in an opponents turn is invaluable and it can be unsymmetrical on its own.
If you need them, run them. That's what my mono-Black Control section says. Sometimes artifacts and enchantments aren't an actual threat. I don't care what people are doing if I'm just going to Exsanguinate you all from behind a Glacial Chasm. You can have cards like Moat and Repercussion for all I care.
Beacon of Unrest could probably get a bit more love. I've never really played with DD though. Still, it does seem like a pretty solid card. I like that it's an instant.
In the repeatable graveyard hate section one flaw of the overall segmentation becomes apparent. As a reader of such a guide I will be looking most of the time for cards that fill a specific role. Like I need answers to graveyard recursion. It doesn't really matter if the card has a repeatable effect it just has to be good in multiplayer. But due to the separation there is no good way of finding them, if they are mentioned at all.
Fair. I'll try to think of a good way to rectify this.
A good example would be Suffer the Past. This card is an excellent addition to any black (beat down) deck. Depending on the situation it can be an alternate win condition, mass graveyard hate and surprise lifegain. This card is most of the time very useful in comparison to cards like Planar Void, because of its higher flexibility. Similar arguments can be made for Nezumi Graverobber and I would even play Nihil Spellbomb over Planar Void.
Spellbomb cantrips and leaves your GY untouched. The Graverobber is a 2 power body on turn 2. An early Void can just end the game for every GY-based deck at the table. In an 8 player game that can often be 3 or more of them. Each of these has a time and a place where it can be worthwhile.
StP is interesting though. I might have to try that one out.
A black weakness many player underestimate is that black can't destroy lands without going full stone rain like spells. Helldozer is one of the few good choices the other is Karn Liberated.
... huh? Smallpox, Pox, Death Cloud and more can all pressure the table with land destruction. Are you talking about persistent spot land destruction? I don't think many colors get that. Helldozer is fine but at the end of the day he's a 6 mana spell with no real immediate impact. He's not very big nor evasive and you have to sink mana into him before he does anything.
A strength of black you almost neglect are tutor effects. Thats one of the biggest things black has in multiplayer. It is so easy to run silver bullets in black decks. Of course you have to build your decks around your tutor engine but in black it's most of the time just a matter of mana and that is a much lesser problem in multi than duels. And the other big advantage is, you can tutor anything. Other colors are far more confined. In short it often boils down to: get your mana, play with your deck. The funny thing is in the Additional Card Choices section you mention the broken tutor spells and stop by Beseech the Queen with the words "Not the best tutor ever" but it is the best fair tutor and one of the best cards for MBC decks. Diabolic Intent, Diabolic Tutor, Dimir House Guard, Increasing Ambition and Diabolic Revelation are all good choices for black decks. Of course each with it's own pros and cons. Most of the time people argue that those tutor spells are to mana intensive and not worth it because they block important turns. But that is the challenge in building and playing such decks. Tutoring for any card in your deck should not be easy.
Fundamental difference of opinion I suppose. The only decks that want to play tutors, in my mind, are Combo and Control decks. They're obviously good in Combo decks and you'll probably always play some. I don't personally like them in Control decks however. Control decks are rarely trying to win games quickly and so you're almost never grabbing a threat with it. The vast majority of the time you're grabbing removal with it. Spending 2 turns to cast a removal spell is typically far too slow in my experience. Tapping out at Sorcery speed to do nothing relevant is just a recipe for disaster when you're already a threat at the table. If I'm going to do that then I'd rather play draw. Syphon Mind is almost always going to draw me a removal spell and a whole bunch of other stuff as well. It's not guaranteed but when it works it has a much higher payoff.
What it boils down to is that tutors are never going to be unfair cards in fair decks. Tutoring up a silver bullet isn't actually that powerful. It's taking you a lot of time and mana after all. Draw, on the other hand, can be unfair. When you're drawing cards and other players aren't the game is often a forgone conclusion.
Put yourself in my shoes. Everyone playing Blue has Rhystic Study, everyone in Black has Syphon Mind, everyone in Green has Lurking Predators, etc. How do you win games using tutors outside of Combo? You find your 1 answer spell once. Fine. What happened in the interim? Each other player just played a draw7? How do you figure to pull ahead when they play draw and you play tutors? The reason why I plug draw is because fair decks that draw extra cards tend to beat fair decks that don't assuming that the game runs long enough. Multiplayer games typically do. That's why draws beats tutors in my opinion.
I don't think that most fair tutors are worth playing. Orrery is a fine singleton but I don't think that it's an auto-include or anything. I talk about O-Stone in the comments and explain that you should always add an effect like that if you need it. Duplicant I don't think is worth running on average.
Every meta is different. I can't showcase a perfect MBC build. I list decks that I like to play and that work for me. It's not supposed be an exhaustive list.
What I'm totally missing are reanimator decks. Not the bonkers legacy decks but casual ones. Especially deck which can mass reanimate are really good in multiplayer.
Mostly because I don't play many of them. I could probably throw up a Buried Alive + Living Death build or something though.
For what it's worth I think that the vast majority of Reanimator decks are pretty terrible. I don't see the point in cheating a creature into play on turn 4 using 2-3 cards when I can do the same thing with Worn Powerstone and still have that mana for the rest of the game. Reanimator decks tend to lose hard and fast to removal unless they're broken insane versions. Still, at that point you're running a broken deck. In other words, I think that most "fair" Reanimator decks are just plain worse than ramp decks. That's why I don't like posting midrange Reanimator decks.
Yeah I think our metas are different. We play in 95% of all cases non EDH games. EDH is just not different enough and you can actually do more crazy stuff with 60 card decks.
I've only played like 2 EDH games in my life. I was asking because every card that you listed is basically an EDH staple. In the dark it seemed like you played a lot of it. I mean, where else do you see cards like Xiao-Dhoun and Diabolic Revelations played heh?
Another point is that we are very aggressive toward permanents which allow card advantage, because in the end card advantage wins most multiplayer games.
This is why I don't understand your love for tutors. Beseech the Queen gets you 1 card once. Phyrexian Arena doubles your draws for the entire game. If you play fair cards like tutors when other players are playing draw spells I don't know how you expect to pull ahead.
A fun story is always Rhystic Study in our group. The other day a new (to our group) player was running a blue deck with 4 Studies and he never got a card out of them, because everyone was paying the extra mana.
This, to me, comes across as saying "we picked on the new guy." In practice I don't see how that happens unless the entire table basically agrees to it. People behind on board or who need answers typically cannot afford to wait for the extra mana. They usually have to play stuff or else they'll lose. That's what happens in my big 8 player games anyways. I'm just having a hard time imagining a scenario where no one was "forced" to play spells without paying unless the table went out of their way to do it.
The same is true for Planeswalkers. They are just an invitation for free card advantage and if you are able to fend of 3-4 players to protect your walker you would have won anyways.
You will see exactly 0 Walkers in the vast majority of my guides for this reason alone. I believe that they are horrible cards in multiplayer that should almost never be played.
I should have written my standpoint about the artifacts/lands more clearly. Cards like Lashwrithe should be in this guide but the universal ones which can go in any deck should be discussed in an own guide.
I don't see why. I like explaining how my MBC deck can cast and recur Wurmcoil Engine until the end of time to gain tons of life and trade with anything that comes my way. While it's perfectly playable in Red decks (or ANY deck for that matter) I don't see why I wouldn't plug cards that I like to field while playing Black decks.
A lot of time you argue that you would rather play Syphon Mind than card x but that is not the point. Lets look at a card draw/tutor core of one of my MBC decks
3* Beseech the Queen
1* Diabolic Revelation
4* Syphon Mind
3* Promise of Power
So Syphon Mind is never in question. It's more the cards around it. Such a setup doesn't need Phyrexian Arena at all and I go so far and claim that this package gets worse if you exchange any card with Phyrexian Arena. The tutor spells double the Syphon Mind count and Promise of Power is faster and more reliable than Arena and can be a win con, especially in combination with Syphon Mind. In addition the tutors can find Cabal Coffers in the early game and from the mid to late game, when you have your Coffers running, they can fetch anything you need. I find it hard to argue against such a versatile package.
First of all, that package eats up a lot of deck slots. That isn't irrelevant when you're facing off against competent opponents. I don't personally believe that you can run tons of draws/tutors and minimal answers in multiplayer decks. The argument that "you can find your fewer number of cards easier" has never jived well with me. What happens in practice is that fast decks gang up on you when they see that you're trying to draw tons of cards and such. Casting your tutors and draw spells eats turns that you sometimes just don't have. I'm looking at a list 11 cards that have no board impact in a deck that's probably playing 26-27 lands. Basically a deck with little meaningful action. If you draw a slow hand with lots of draw spells you could easily be dead before you get a chance to cast everything.
Moreover, your package is also slow. Using BtQ to find a SM is very slow. That's 2 turns of basically doing nothing. I like Arena because when I play it on turn 3 my investment is over. I'm going to double my draws for as long as it lives. I'm free to slam my turn 4 Lashwrithe or whatever and move on with my life. BtQ isn't like that. If I want to find a good 4 drop I have to cast it on turn 4 and waste a mana. Unless that 4 drop is a good threat I probably can't cast it on turn 5 because otherwise I'll probably die to the creatures in play.
Finally, PoP is often a very difficult card to field in practice. Tapping out on turn 5 to do nothing and take 5 is awkward. It leaves you vulnerable to alpha strikes. This is especially true if your deck has a ton of draw and tutor spells which means that it won't always have early action. The alternative is to play it as a creature. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how that's going to be relevant very often. The creatures that I'm used to seeing are things like Hunted Horror, Taurean Mauler, Forgotten Ancient, Lord of Extinction, etc. 5 mana vanilla creatures better be HUGE, not just "big." Otherwise it's probably worse than a Typhoid Rats which can actually trade with something. It's just chumping otherwise.
The argument for PoP are games where you go turn 4 Damnation into a turn 5 PoP. Maybe after than you slam Wurmcoil or Exsanguinate or something. That's fine, but that's not going to happen every game.
If I would rate black anti graveyard stuff for multiplayer, it would look like this.
(0. Bojuka Bog) -> not really black
1. Nezumi Graverobber
2. Suffer the Past
3. Withered Wretch
4. Nihil Spellbomb
5. Haunting Echoes
6. Leyline of the Void
7. Planar Void
Mmm. The way I read is that you were bashing the Spellbomb. This makes more sense.
But i would only recommend the cards from place 0-4 because they get the job done without being dead cards, if you don't need them. The other are just to rigid compared to the alternatives and in case of the last two you really need them before the bad cards hit the graveyard. Of course they are very good if you really need anti graveyard stuff from the very beginning. But really this is not the case in most playgroups and even if someone is in need of stopping a broken reanimator or dredge deck i would play Relic of Progenitus or Extirpate/Surgical Extraction over Leyline of the Void and Planar Void. This doesn't mean that Leyline of the Void has no place in niche decks that are build around it (Web of Inertia, Gravestorm, Helm of Obedience). But that doesn't make it the best solution for multiplayer.
I agree with your conclusion but not with your reasoning. The reason why I wouldn't play LoTV is because it might accidentally ruin the game for someone. If I'm playing a HelmLine deck then it's too bad so sad (we only play broken decks when we all agree to play one, there's no hurt feelings if people get crushed that way) but I don't like adding hate cards that could prevent someone from playing the game. I like Spellbomb and Bog and such because they're basically Wrath spells. Exiling a GY is a lot like Wrathing a creature deck's board. Does it hinder them? Yes. Does it oppress them? It shouldn't no.
Grave-Pact control deck looks interesting. Noticed it was only at 58 cards however; are the last two spots meta dependent or just an inadvertent exclusion?
Also, is Nether Traitor worth running? It is in the mold of Reassembling Skeleton, and Bloodghast but with better evasion for toting equipment yet less reliability in terms of recursion.
I personally would rather use Bloodghast than Nether Traitor because not only is his recursion free, he also has 1 more power. Though the evasion is nice I don't like paying to get things back unless its with Reassembling Skeleton because he can block. It really depends on whether evasion is really important in your meta.
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My lame attempt at humor...
Why does everyone in Bant hate the Lord of Riots? 'Cause they're all, Rakdos-intolerant! Awwww, yeah...
Cz - I know you have posted a bunch of sample decks. Could you please post 2 or 3 of your favorite black decks that you actually play, regardless of costs? I would love to see a more refined deck from someone with more multiplayer experience such as yourself.
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Sure, may not be as flashy as a bunch of the other rares, but considering the cheap dollar cost... Well, I'm surprised that its not included anywhere in the guide.
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The primary criteria that a card has to meet in order to be inducted into my guides is that they have to be cards that I would personally play. It's a subjective and biased process, but one that I would still proudly defend. I wouldn't ever tell someone to play Twisted Abom, nor would I personally play him in any of my decks. That basically nixes his chances of making it in.
A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but those kinds of cards just don't do it for me any more. Land thinning has been statistically proven to be mostly irrelevant, which means that you're basically paying 2 mana for a Swamp. I'd rather just have the Swamp. I'm also not a big fan of EOT fetching for Leechridden Swamps since they still ETBT on your turn. I'd rather field my fetchlands to avoid the tempo loss whenever possible if that's what I'm looking to do. I get that he can always be played a 5/3 regenerator, and that certainly isn't nothing in some metas, but creature power creep has grown so much over the past few years that I can't imagine fielding it over any of the broken 6 drops at our disposal. You don't compete with Harvester of Souls, Grave Titan, Massacre Wurm, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, etc. The body just isn't what it used to be, and the land thinning is irrelevant.
As much as I try to highlight budget options whenever I can, I'm still a competitive person who wants to be fielding solid decks with solid cards. I would much rather tell someone to purchase Barter in Blood, Exsanguinate, Syphon Mind, Pestilence, etc. if they're looking for budget cards. These cards (not so much Pestilence but the others) can all be slammed into any deck and be incredibly rewarding. Twisted Abom will always be a marginal, will never be "the best card" to fill a certain role, and will probably fail to meet any and all expectations that people might have for it.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I just have a few more suggestions for the "creature curve" section:
1cc
Will-o-the-Wisp - black has few good inexpensive flyers, wisp can keep you alive for a long time and dodges a lot of the most popular removal: bolt, earthquake, terror and all its clones, deed, disk, day of judgment... For my money, one of black's best 1-drops for MP.
2cc
Gatekeeper of Malakir - edict and a body, solid value
3cc
Royal Assassin - a classic. yes it can be a lightning rod but as long as it's alive it shouts "don't attack me"
Khabal Ghoul - it's mentioned elsewhere, but should be here too I think
Rotlung Reanimator - obviously good in the cleric deck, but arguably playable even in a non-cleric deck. there are a lot of clerics in magic (253 according to gatherer) and some are very popular in MP: soul warden, mother of runes, withered wretch, etc. This can gain you a lot of bears in some metagames, and it's good even if you're just playing with one or two other clerics (eg withered wretch.) If someone (or you) wraths, everyone's board is wiped but you'll have an army of bears. I'm not 100% on this, but my understanding is if you have 2 in play and someone wraths, you get 4 bears when the dust clears.
Undead Gladiator - another solid "undying" creature that also can filter your deck and fill your graveyard. it was good enough for the pro tour.
4cc
Mirri the Cursed - 3/2 flying, first strike, haste, drinks blood: what more do you want?
Marauding Knight - white is a very popular MP colour and this has the potential to be huge in a lot of metas
8cc
Tombstalker - worth a mention seeing as it's a top5 black creature in legacy and some decks can bring it down on t3 or 4.
The only reason why the Ghoul isn't mentioned is because of its cost. It's a $15.00 card at the best of times, and it's not that much better than say Scavenger Drake. I would never recommend buying it.
Will-o was in the guide at some point but I've since removed it. At the end of the day it's a do-nothing spell that doesn't dissuade attacking you. Sure, it can regenerate, but people should still attack you and force you to use your mana and tap him. If you rely on it for early defense and people just swing in on you then you're going to get crushed. I dislike walls in general, so the only ones that I have listed are ones that will truly dissuade attackers.
Tombstalker just isn't good enough. At best it's a cheap dragon, but dragons aren't even that good in MP. Even if you're paying ~5 for it on average, I'd rather play a Bloodgift Demon any day of the week. It brings no utility or resilience to your decks; just a random beater. I also don't think that it's a top 5 creature in Legacy, nor do I believe that that's relevant. It saw some play in Team Italia and Pox decks (maybe in some others but they wouldn't be established archetypes) but neither of those decks have put out a decent finish in a long time. While they may do fine at small event scattered across the world, they're not what the majority of Legacy players would consider to be top tier decks. Still, all of that is beside the point. There are plenty of very powerful creatures that are good in some formats but not in MP. Delver, Goyf and Dark Confidant come to mind as good examples. While these creatures may be Legacy staples, neither of them are very useful in a multiplayer setting. Bob is obviously debatable, and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't have a playset that I used regularly, but no one here can argue the fact that you couldn't just toss Bob into every casual MP deck and expect him to do well. A lot of people play with mostly 4+ CMC spells, and that could get you in to a lot of trouble with Bob. This is why I write these guides. While Goblin Guide and Duress may be good in MOST formats, they're not good in ALL formats. Tombstalker is no different. He's better in duels than he is in MP.
As far as Gatekeeper is concerned, he's just not what I'm looking for in a 3 drop. He kills the worst creature from 1 opponent and sits around as a 2/2. The only reason why I have Shriekmaw listed is because he's an evasive 3 power beater that will kill the biggest threat to you. While I enjoyed playing Gateekeeper in my Standard Vampire deck (P.S. **** Jund), he's just a Gray Ogre with a marginal upside in MP. 2/2s don't win games and nor does Chainer's Edict.
M.Knight is a hoser and I purposely removed all of the hosers from the guide. I'm not a fan of hoser wars and I don't like how if one person plays Marauding Knight that every White player has to play Karma and suddenly the game becomes horrible for everyone.
Rotlung I don't like outside of tribal decks. 3 mana for a pair of 2/2s is nothing in my mind. The section is supposed to highlight creatures that are generically strong, not ones that rely on synergizing with other cards. I would never play it "just because," so I don't want to list it.
Undead Gladiator is too slow and mana intensive to be a generically powerful card. He requires a specific deck designed to abuse him.
The Assassin and Mirri I might just have to add. Mirri has never blown me away, but she definitely has the potential to be both offensive and defensive (which I like a lot). The Assassin has always felt slow and unreliable in my games, but he could probably do some work in removal-light metas. The only issue that I have with him is that he's only good if you're making explicit deals saying things like "I won't kill your creatures if you don't attack me." I wish that his ability read "Tap: Destroy target creature attacking you" so that you wouldn't have to. I know that I personally hate it when people make "deals" and will always send everything I have at the person trying to play puppet-master. It makes for such a boring game if you don't.
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Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Some of those suggestions are borderline I admit but thought I'd put them out there. That said I truly feel wisp is worthy of consideration. Black has a distinct lack of quality flyers in the early-midgame and for me that's what gives wisp value. Yes players "should" attack into you but a lot of the time they will look at wisp and then just attack into someone else. Unless of course they know you are the gravepact/exsanguinate/damnation packing player they can't afford to leave alone Then wisp loses value.
I'm not a big fan of defenders either but wisp is a standout among black "walls" and at a lot of tables, it WILL save you many life points. Wisp is undercosted at what it does and it doesn't fit into the modern color wheel. If I was a new player, I'd want to know about it.
Tombstalker is borderline I admit but I think at least worthy of mentioning. I said he's a top 5 black creature in legacy and I stand by that. I dont think there are 5 other black creatures in legacy seeing more play right now. He was part of a deck that was tier 1 through much of last year, BUG. He also frequently makes the team on variants of suicide black, a perennial tier 2 deck. Like you say, not always relevant but often we can look at legacy for ideas of what will work in MP, some translate better than others. Like for example The Great One which you mentioned who's surely a top10 creature in legacy when your mana curve tops out at 3 but is pretty poor in MP when you are playing with lots of expensive spells and you can't afford to have him turn over, say, decree of pain.
You don't want tombstalker in every deck but in a deck where you expect to fill up your yard, it'd be good at least to know about him. If you can't get him down by turn 4 you probably shouldn't bother, but a 5/5 flyer on 4 or even 3 is nothing to scoff at, even though we are spoiled these days. Once upon a time juzam was one of the best creatures in magic and tombstalker is effectively a juzam that flies with no drawback. Like I said, we're spoiled if that's unplayable. Personally I like to be aggressive and again, flying quality is lacking in black, so I feel that tombstalker is something worth knowing about.
Anyway just my two cents to ponder. You have an awesome resource going here and I dare say much more useful than some of the more well read multiplayer authors out there.
The Demon I'm just not sold on though. One of my biggest concerns with the card is that most people don't have access to fetches, and that's the only way to reliably get him on to the field with any sort of speed. He's good in BUG/Team Italia (whatever you want to call it) because those decks will often crack fetchs and play early Brainstorms and Innocent Bloods to easily be able to cast him early if needed. That's not how most MP decks play out. Take a random deck that you own and goldfish a few turns and see how fast you can cast the Demon on average. I'm willing to bet that it doesn't average out on turn 4 or 5. I mean I could be wrong obviously, I have my 8 fetches and I could reasonably cast him that quickly, but I just don't think that he's a 4 mana 5/5 flying in most decks. I don't like it when people call him a flying Juzam Djinn with no drawback because he most certainly does have one. Getting 4 cards in your GY by turn 4 isn't nothing. Given that it's also a $9.00 card that has very limited multiplayer applications, I just don't feel comfortable listing it. I would much rather see people buy any of the other 6+ drops that I have listed over him. I want to stress that these guides are not supposed to be random resource dumps. I don't want to list every possible playable card. I don't want to list Smolder Initiate because it has repeatable ability. I want to list the cream of the crop, the best buys, the cards to watch out for, etc. A $9.00 5/5 flier for~5 doesn't make the cut for me. People can spend their money on better things than that. I realize that cost is a flimsy argument, but I'm willing to stand by it. For what it's worth, I probably would have him in the guide if he were like a 25 cent uncommon or something. Cost is a very big factor in this final decision of mine.
In terms of the top 5 Black Legacy creatures, Bob, Ichorid, Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug and Bloodghast all probably see more competitive play. I don't have the exact numbers or anything, but I'm willing to wager that Dredge has posted more consistent results than BUG decks featuring Tombstalker have, and Bob is just automatically the best.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
The Lens used to be on the guide, but then I realized that I've never played card/seen it played outside of EDH. It has potential, there's no question about that, but I find that it's far too difficult to find homes for these kinds of cards in your average decks. I'm with you on the whole Snow land thing, but that's actually quite expensive and not something that most people are willing to invest in. It's also like a $6.00 card, so when you factor in ~24 or so lands at 50 cents a piece, it's not that cheap. The lands and Lenses come out to around ~$35.00 after all is said and done, which is quite a bit in my mind. It's a fine 1-of in EDH decks, I won't argue that, but ultimately I just don't think it has enough generic power to mention given its relatively high cost ($ wise). If the choice is to buy 24 Snow swamps and 4 Lenses or 3-4x Cabal Coffers I would suggest the Coffers each and every time.
The Crypt has just never impressed me. It's going to be good in some decks, there's no question about that, but it's a not card that you're going to field in general. It only counts Black creatures so it's never going make the cut in multi-color decks, and I find that it takes too long to pay off even when your deck is filled with Black dudes. What I basically have to do is weigh it against running other ETBT lands such as Leechridden Swamp, Spawning Pool, etc. and I always find it lacking.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I want a deck made for multiplayer that is powerful, fair, and something I can stick with that won't make my group want to kill me IRL There are lots of great suggestions here, I can't settle on one concept. I'm going to be poring over the list here for something good. I think the Vampires Suck strategy might be a good fit for my group, and might be fun to pass onto my fiance to play (she's just begun playing, I started her with White Weenie and working our way up the complexity tree).
Fantastic analysis and advice, thank you for this!
Commander
Ezuri, Renegade Leader (Aggro/Combo - Favorite)
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave (Sac and Grave hijinks)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking (Landfall hijinks)
Kaalia of the Vast (Heavily modded)
Standard
Waiting for Innistrad...
Extended
Hah!
Modern
Living End Cascade (RGB)
Legacy
Burn
Vintage
None
Casual
WB Aggro-Control
Green Stompy
Pink Floyd (UWr Wall Control)
Lunch Box (Fatty ramp)
D-Bag (White Control)
Level 13 Task Mage
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Liquimetal Coating. Wouldn't this card be a path for black to kill off troublesome enchantments (or anything really)? Maybe it is a bit too convoluted to be greatly effective, but then again black's options are limited.
^ This unfortunately lol.
It's a nice thought, but if your pro-active answer to enchantments is a 6 mana artifact... well... yeah... I'd personally never employ that tactic since, let's be honest here, it's just not realistic.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough, let me try to explain it better.
I mentioned it was convoluted, but the list already mentions something like Xenic, it isn't a very far stretch. Plus you can do silly stuff like kill lands when you don't have an enchantment that is pressing to get rid of. Since they have no casting cost at all, they die instantly. Basically, I was suggesting the coating to get the most of of Xenic.
Ah, that makes more sense. Still, the biggest problem with that plan is that it's a 2 card combo (well it's actually more than that for all intents and purposes) and one of the combo cards (Liquimetal Coating) does stone nothing on its own. Drawing a Poltergeist is fine because at that point all you need is removal, and that's not asking for a lot. Drawing a Coating without having a Poltergeist is just miserable. I'm not just looking for "any" answer. I'm trying to suggest something that people could conceivably use. Some 3 card combo involving Coating, Geist and removal would be so inconsistent and weak that your deck would just be terrible since it would have so many wasted slots on do-nothings.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Updated the guide up to RTR, while shaving some of the cards that shouldn't have made it on to the list to begin with.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Again, if anyone has any feeback, lay it on me.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
My Decks:
Casual MP
:symg::symb:GB Glissa Pod:symg::symb:
:symu::symw::symb:Esper Artifacts:symu::symw::symb:
:symu::symb::xmana:Ninjas!:xmana::symb::symu:
I don't mind having repetition. If there are key cards and effects that most players should be playing with then I'm fine with drilling that in to their brains. If I just list each card once then it's almost like saying that Exsanguinate is on the same page as Blood Artist. I bet you that you got sick of reading Exsanguinate and Phyrexian Arena being listed 100 times but at the same time at least you'll remember those 2. Mission accomplished.
I could probably write something about the color's strengths though.
With respect to the beginners not finding it useful, not sure what to say about that one. No one has to listen to me and I'm fine if they don't want to. What I have written is what I think is important to know. They may not think it's useful but that's probably why they're beginners. It should be useful to them and they should probably respect that. I'm not pretending to be a God or anything but I mean if they're not interested in playing the right number of lands, draw spells, etc. then what do you want me say? I can't stop people from making poor decisions.
I don't think that's necessary. Multiplayer Magic has no defined format and I know plenty of people who can slam Clamps and Potences in their decks. My guide explains how they're typical go-tos but should only be used if people are comfortable with them. I think that's a reasonable way to tackle the subject. I like Clamp and Sol Ring because they're affordable and ridiculously strong. Anyone can play those kinds of cards and win and most people can afford them. I'm not going to impose personal beliefs and tell people to adhere to X banlist or whatever.
Chasm isn't praised in every guide. The reason why I don't like this idea is because many artifacts and lands are, for all intents and purposes, colored. Lashwrithe is only useful in heavy Black decks. Talking about it in an artifact guide seems pointless to me. I'd rather discuss it in the context of Black lists because that's where you'll always see it.
I disagree with this one. I see dozens of multiplayer decks posted every day and the vast majority of them are slow and pack little-if-any enchantment removal. Maybe your meta has a lot of it but I don't think that an average meta has solid answers to early Arenas.
My philosophy on multiplayer is that you need to go big or go home. Arena isn't the best draw on turn 10 but it's basically broken on turn 3 in my experience. Sign in Blood offers consistency but has nothing in the way of actual power. It can never take control of a game and propel you into a dominant position. A turn 3 Arena that gets left unchecked can.
Flexibility usually comes at a cost. PoP is flexible but that doesn't make it inherently powerful. If you need a threat then your hand is probably small and so making a demon isn't going to be of much help. Otherwise it's just a 5 mana draw spell that, at least for me, is probably going to be worse than Syphon Mind. It costs 1 less mana and 5 less life to do basically the same thing. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Profane Commands and such at times, I just feel that you're often better off playing cards that do one thing very well.
I don't think that it should be played in an average multiplayer deck which is why I don't really have it listed anywhere. It's not unplayable but I don't think that it's good either.
It's possible that I should give the Bauble and Expedition Map a bit of love.
It's a $26.00 card or something.
You're missing the point of the card entirely. It's not supposed to be an answer to everything. Sometimes you're playing a deck that doesn't have early drops but you don't want to lose to aggressive decks. They're terrible but people still play them. Being the guy who loses to the Goblin player sucks. It doesn't matter if he loses too because all that matters is whether or not you succeed. Massacre is way for any Black to, without using mana, clear the field of early threats to protect itself. That means that you can play your ramp spell/draw engine on 2 and 3 and still be fine. You get a free Wrath for early weenies. I like Massacre and Innocent Blood for that reason alone. They are not replacements for Damnation; they help you survive long enough to get there.
Duplicant I should add but I'm not a fan of Unmake personally.
If you need them, run them. That's what my mono-Black Control section says. Sometimes artifacts and enchantments aren't an actual threat. I don't care what people are doing if I'm just going to Exsanguinate you all from behind a Glacial Chasm. You can have cards like Moat and Repercussion for all I care.
Beacon of Unrest could probably get a bit more love. I've never really played with DD though. Still, it does seem like a pretty solid card. I like that it's an instant.
Fair. I'll try to think of a good way to rectify this.
Spellbomb cantrips and leaves your GY untouched. The Graverobber is a 2 power body on turn 2. An early Void can just end the game for every GY-based deck at the table. In an 8 player game that can often be 3 or more of them. Each of these has a time and a place where it can be worthwhile.
StP is interesting though. I might have to try that one out.
I don't think that MotC is playable outside of infinite combos. It's not a very good card. I only list Revvy because she doubles as a win condition.
... huh? Smallpox, Pox, Death Cloud and more can all pressure the table with land destruction. Are you talking about persistent spot land destruction? I don't think many colors get that. Helldozer is fine but at the end of the day he's a 6 mana spell with no real immediate impact. He's not very big nor evasive and you have to sink mana into him before he does anything.
How are you holding up 4 lands for the entire game more-or-less?
Fundamental difference of opinion I suppose. The only decks that want to play tutors, in my mind, are Combo and Control decks. They're obviously good in Combo decks and you'll probably always play some. I don't personally like them in Control decks however. Control decks are rarely trying to win games quickly and so you're almost never grabbing a threat with it. The vast majority of the time you're grabbing removal with it. Spending 2 turns to cast a removal spell is typically far too slow in my experience. Tapping out at Sorcery speed to do nothing relevant is just a recipe for disaster when you're already a threat at the table. If I'm going to do that then I'd rather play draw. Syphon Mind is almost always going to draw me a removal spell and a whole bunch of other stuff as well. It's not guaranteed but when it works it has a much higher payoff.
What it boils down to is that tutors are never going to be unfair cards in fair decks. Tutoring up a silver bullet isn't actually that powerful. It's taking you a lot of time and mana after all. Draw, on the other hand, can be unfair. When you're drawing cards and other players aren't the game is often a forgone conclusion.
Put yourself in my shoes. Everyone playing Blue has Rhystic Study, everyone in Black has Syphon Mind, everyone in Green has Lurking Predators, etc. How do you win games using tutors outside of Combo? You find your 1 answer spell once. Fine. What happened in the interim? Each other player just played a draw7? How do you figure to pull ahead when they play draw and you play tutors? The reason why I plug draw is because fair decks that draw extra cards tend to beat fair decks that don't assuming that the game runs long enough. Multiplayer games typically do. That's why draws beats tutors in my opinion.
I don't think that most fair tutors are worth playing. Orrery is a fine singleton but I don't think that it's an auto-include or anything. I talk about O-Stone in the comments and explain that you should always add an effect like that if you need it. Duplicant I don't think is worth running on average.
Every meta is different. I can't showcase a perfect MBC build. I list decks that I like to play and that work for me. It's not supposed be an exhaustive list.
Mostly because I don't play many of them. I could probably throw up a Buried Alive + Living Death build or something though.
For what it's worth I think that the vast majority of Reanimator decks are pretty terrible. I don't see the point in cheating a creature into play on turn 4 using 2-3 cards when I can do the same thing with Worn Powerstone and still have that mana for the rest of the game. Reanimator decks tend to lose hard and fast to removal unless they're broken insane versions. Still, at that point you're running a broken deck. In other words, I think that most "fair" Reanimator decks are just plain worse than ramp decks. That's why I don't like posting midrange Reanimator decks.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I've only played like 2 EDH games in my life. I was asking because every card that you listed is basically an EDH staple. In the dark it seemed like you played a lot of it. I mean, where else do you see cards like Xiao-Dhoun and Diabolic Revelations played heh?
That's true for mine as well.
This is why I don't understand your love for tutors. Beseech the Queen gets you 1 card once. Phyrexian Arena doubles your draws for the entire game. If you play fair cards like tutors when other players are playing draw spells I don't know how you expect to pull ahead.
This, to me, comes across as saying "we picked on the new guy." In practice I don't see how that happens unless the entire table basically agrees to it. People behind on board or who need answers typically cannot afford to wait for the extra mana. They usually have to play stuff or else they'll lose. That's what happens in my big 8 player games anyways. I'm just having a hard time imagining a scenario where no one was "forced" to play spells without paying unless the table went out of their way to do it.
You will see exactly 0 Walkers in the vast majority of my guides for this reason alone. I believe that they are horrible cards in multiplayer that should almost never be played.
I don't see why. I like explaining how my MBC deck can cast and recur Wurmcoil Engine until the end of time to gain tons of life and trade with anything that comes my way. While it's perfectly playable in Red decks (or ANY deck for that matter) I don't see why I wouldn't plug cards that I like to field while playing Black decks.
First of all, that package eats up a lot of deck slots. That isn't irrelevant when you're facing off against competent opponents. I don't personally believe that you can run tons of draws/tutors and minimal answers in multiplayer decks. The argument that "you can find your fewer number of cards easier" has never jived well with me. What happens in practice is that fast decks gang up on you when they see that you're trying to draw tons of cards and such. Casting your tutors and draw spells eats turns that you sometimes just don't have. I'm looking at a list 11 cards that have no board impact in a deck that's probably playing 26-27 lands. Basically a deck with little meaningful action. If you draw a slow hand with lots of draw spells you could easily be dead before you get a chance to cast everything.
Moreover, your package is also slow. Using BtQ to find a SM is very slow. That's 2 turns of basically doing nothing. I like Arena because when I play it on turn 3 my investment is over. I'm going to double my draws for as long as it lives. I'm free to slam my turn 4 Lashwrithe or whatever and move on with my life. BtQ isn't like that. If I want to find a good 4 drop I have to cast it on turn 4 and waste a mana. Unless that 4 drop is a good threat I probably can't cast it on turn 5 because otherwise I'll probably die to the creatures in play.
Finally, PoP is often a very difficult card to field in practice. Tapping out on turn 5 to do nothing and take 5 is awkward. It leaves you vulnerable to alpha strikes. This is especially true if your deck has a ton of draw and tutor spells which means that it won't always have early action. The alternative is to play it as a creature. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how that's going to be relevant very often. The creatures that I'm used to seeing are things like Hunted Horror, Taurean Mauler, Forgotten Ancient, Lord of Extinction, etc. 5 mana vanilla creatures better be HUGE, not just "big." Otherwise it's probably worse than a Typhoid Rats which can actually trade with something. It's just chumping otherwise.
The argument for PoP are games where you go turn 4 Damnation into a turn 5 PoP. Maybe after than you slam Wurmcoil or Exsanguinate or something. That's fine, but that's not going to happen every game.
I didn't make any :P.
Mmm. The way I read is that you were bashing the Spellbomb. This makes more sense.
I agree with your conclusion but not with your reasoning. The reason why I wouldn't play LoTV is because it might accidentally ruin the game for someone. If I'm playing a HelmLine deck then it's too bad so sad (we only play broken decks when we all agree to play one, there's no hurt feelings if people get crushed that way) but I don't like adding hate cards that could prevent someone from playing the game. I like Spellbomb and Bog and such because they're basically Wrath spells. Exiling a GY is a lot like Wrathing a creature deck's board. Does it hinder them? Yes. Does it oppress them? It shouldn't no.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Also, is Nether Traitor worth running? It is in the mold of Reassembling Skeleton, and Bloodghast but with better evasion for toting equipment yet less reliability in terms of recursion.
My lame attempt at humor...
Why does everyone in Bant hate the Lord of Riots? 'Cause they're all, Rakdos-intolerant! Awwww, yeah...