MTG Salvation

Between Bruna, Light of Alabaster and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, B was the only piece of the color pie I was missing from my EDH repertoire. Despite the fact that monoblack has an uphill battle when it comes to artifact and enchantment removal, I knew that I wanted to play something monoblack. I've seen Cabal Coffers lead to some ridiculous plays numerous times thanks to my one friend. It would also give me the opportunity to use the mana doublers from the remnants of my very first EDH deck (Sakashima the Impostor) as well as Crypt Ghast, Nirkana Revenant, and Liliana of the Dark Realms.

I already knew that I didn't want to play reanimator, so that cut down my Commander options significantly. Ishan's Shade is a very cool card, but it's not all that stellar. Korlash, Heir to Blackblade is another card I find really cool, but he's basically just a dumb beater without any evasion. Volrath the Fallen Voltron was also considered since he's able to pump himself on his own. But it seemed that it would lead to a semi-creature-heavy deck with a decent amount of reanimation elements, two things that I wanted to avoid. And like Korlash, the lack of evasion is a bummer. I've seen first hand how crazy Geth, Lord of the Vault can get thanks to my friend, but I didn't want to run Geth since he already had it built.

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief used to be the Commander, but I switched over to Kiku because she was an old favorite of mine back during my early MTG days. For the most part, the deck is largely unchanged. I just have more control, disruption, and removal options from taking out some Equipment. I think Kiku suites my playstyle better as well. I would usually only end up killing one creature per turn with Drana's ability. Additionally, I didn't really benefit much from the pump effect because I would keep mana open to activate her ability at the end of an opponent's turn. In the long run, Kiku appears to be much more mana-efficient than Drana. Kiku's ability kills a huge portion of common EDH creatures and just creatures in general. There are a few exceptions like Karador, Ghost Chieftain, Tajic, Blade of the Legion, and Sigarda, Host of Herons.

This deck is monoblack control. The deck has quite a bit of removal, both pinpoint and board wipes, to help keep the board state in check. Mind Twist and Mind Shatter provide some light discard elements, usually aimed towards U, combo, and control players. Despite being acknowledged as kind of weak in multiplayer, I much prefer targeted discard to mass discard like Mindslicer and Myojin of Night's Reach. If there's usually only one player I'm concerned with at the table, there's no need to go a piss everyone off IMO. I'd like to fit in more land destruction, but Helldozer is apparently the only good, cheap, and repeatable source of land destruction in monoblack...But he does get the job done however.
There's a fair bit of Graveyard hate since games can easily get out of hand via Graveyard shenanigans.

CHANGELOG:

Quote from motleyslayer

I like Liliana Vess and Liliana of the Dark Realms in Mono Black edh

I only like Vess if I'm running a lot of card draw or cantrips that I can use right after tutoring with her, but this deck doesn't have too much actually. Dark Realms is already in the deck.

I've made lots of changes to the deck since the original post. List in the OP updated.

Big update because I decided to switch my Commander from Drana to Kiku

great to see another Kiku player! Here is the deck im currently working on:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/547187-kinda-budget-kinda-not-kiku-nights-flower

mine has more of a creature stealing/sac theme, but the final direction is still up in the air, i'm not sure if I can reliably get enough creatures to sacrifice all the time.


-How does your deck usually win? Eldrazi and creature beatdown? I think with so much big mana production, you might put Exsanguinate back in. I am never unhappy to draw it in my games. A few alternative cards that have performed really well for me:

Rise of the Dark realms - these decks have no problems killing creatures and forcing discard, playing this is a blowout in my games.
Pestilence - this is kind of a pet card for me, but I love it. Kills utility dudes (and kiku, but she is 2 mana so who cares), and if you are ahead in life totals, you can end the game with enough mana (which again, these decks have no problems generating 40 mana)
Army of the Damned - this card is just fun. creates buttloads of sacrifice targets, and ends games. I usually win once I play this.

-since you aren't focusing on mass discard/control, I recommend Mind Sludge. Usually discards an opponents entire hand when I play it. Also Cabal Conditioning, which can select only 1 player if you like, or all players if you are looking to close out the game.

-How is your card draw? I personally prefer constant access to card draw rather than one shot effects like sign in blood,(though I do have cards like that as well). I have greed, Erebos, God of the Dead, and Baleful Force in my deck, and they always pull their weight. Especially baleful force, I cant recommend that card enough. promise of power has also been strong for me, usually drawing 5 cards AND making a giant demon.

-I like using Kiku's ability, so I put in Illusionist's Bracers which allows a 2 for 1 activation, and Thornbite staff (which combos very well with Death pits of Rath which I have in my deck). These allow for multiple activations of kiku's ability if you are into that kind of thing.

-and if you are into losing friends, I recommend Infernal Darkness. These decks dont have a problem gaining life or making mana, so the costs is negligible. have this out for a turn or 2, and you come out way ahead.




How has the deck been performing for you since the switch? I see some fun cards in your deck that I might adopt, such as coffin queen.

I need to rework the deck a bit more. When I was running Drana, she was the win con along with Lashwrithe and Nightmare Lash. As the deck is now, it's a grindy drive to the end.

I tried Exsanguinate but never found it impressive. The deck can produce a lot of mana, but never enough to make Exsanguinate lethal.

I thought about Mind Sludge, but I'm not sure how much discard I actually want. It will most likely go in though.

Speaking of Pestilence, I do actually want to run Pestilence Demon since it's the card stapled onto a threat.

So far, I've been quite content with my card draw. Promise of Power is something I also considered.

My playgroup is pretty no-holds-barred. My friend already runs Contamination in his Geth, Lord of the Vault deck. I saw Infernal Darkness, but I'm just not a fan of cumulative upkeep cards.

I'm actually going to hopefully test it tonight after work. Switching Commanders actually judt popped in my head yezterdsy lol. But so far, the list isn't too different from Drana. That deck had a few kinks that still needed fixing, but I was generally pretty happy with how it performed.