Depending on the boardstate (and target) her +1 could arguably be better than LotV's since you can target who to give -2/-1 to. Her -2 is a better version of Relentless Dead's ability on a stick for 0 mana, which is pretty sweet (can bring back an Obliterator or Gary, for example). In a deck with a lot of zombies, her ultimate can get out of hand even more quickly! I like how she looks on paper, and I may end up running her as a budget LotV (will certainly report back if I do).
Although aside from her ability to hit Snaps and Bobs, she is not great vs. control decks.
Also, tournament report from FNM tonight: Went 2-2 again, but was pretty close to going 3-1
Round 1: Jund 2-0
This is a pretty good matchup for us all things considered. Both decks have a ton of discard and removal, but the recurrant nature of our threats plus Obliterators and Garys make this a favorable matchup for us I think.
Round 2: RGw Aggro 2-0
Experiment ones, Flinthoof Boars, Rancors, oh my! Spot destruction and a timely Gary helped game 1, and game 2 went quickly after boarding in wraths to complement the spot removal.
Round 3: Affinity 0-2
Affinity is a rough matchup on the best of days, although it was a lot closer game 2. Drown in Sorrow was not strong enough, and I think I will be swapping 2 out for one more Ratchet Bomb and Languish in the sideboard.
Round 4: Nahiri Jeskai Control 1-2
Won game 1 pretty easily and almost won game 2 (super grindy), I just blanked a ton of phyrexian arena draws unfortunately. Game 3 he got there with Geist of St. Traft pretty quickly and I kept a 1-mana hand I shouldn't have (I never learn...)
Anyway, all in all very pleased. I made two play errors that I can remember mostly around Drown in Sorrow not being as good as I thought it was vs. Affinity. The lack of artifact and enchantment destruction in black is definitely our Achilles Heel...
The weakness to Affinity is one of the biggest reasons I am wanting to stay Bg, even in the face of the new cards. Having something like Creeping Corrosion for that matchup helps so much. You are still a dog in the match up, but if you can draw into it you win.
If there are any match-ups we are weakest against, it is simply decks that go wide and over the top. Most other decks we can beat in a 50/50 fight. If affinity is prevalent, Chalice of the Void on Zero is a big boon.
Pithing Needle and Spellskite can help against affinity quite a bit and same goes for Ratchet Bomb, but if they can get in early with a big Vault Skirge or go super wide it gets out of hand. I've found Tron and Scapeshift to be atrocious matches and BW tokens, Bant Eldrazi, and Affinity to be bad matches.
What are people's thoughts on whispers of emrakul? With delerium, it's a modern hymn to tourach, which seems pretty amazing. Even without it, having the opponent discard a card at random isn't bad. I may try running 2-3 in the Sideboard vs. control decks instead of wrench mind.
I'm usually not able to conistantly trigger delerium with this deck, so I would pass. Our creatures just don't stay dead so usually you'll have instant, sorcery, and maybe land if you are splashing.
I would agree in that delirium is just too inconsistent since you'd want to cast this card as early as possible. Having delirium consistently before turn four seems difficult especially without fetch lands.
I'm still trying to figure out if Cryptbreaker is a trap. I hate that you have to pay to discard, like the fact you can do it several times. The tokens are nice and the draw is interesting. In the end though it just seems like a trap. It's kinda like Pack Rat and Heritage Druid had a baby, butbit was an ugly baby.
Ben, I'm with you on Graf Harvest. Looked really interesting, and I think would work great in a straight-up zombie tribal deck, or Oops's GB deck, but not ideal for yours or mine (although it would be nice to give Geralf's Messenger menace).
I think cryptbreaker is a trap... like you highlighted Oops, the fact that you have to pay to discard and tap creatures for card draw detracts from you being able to pay for other spells and attack with those creatures (instead of tapping them).
I've also come around on Whispers of Emrakul, I think it would be challenging to reliably get delirium in the first few turns, where Whispers would be most relevant/impactful. Thus wrench mind is arguably still both better and more reliable.
Graf Harvest is one of those cards that could see play maybe against control in the sideboard, but it seems rather like a win more card. I get that ability on my two drop Relentless Dead, and there aren't a lot of creatures I can exile from my yard. When my creatures die, its usually due to exile removal, so I can never exile a creature from my graveyard anyway.
Whispers of Emrakul is only a card I see play in BR Devotion decks with Faithless Looting. Delirium turn two is actually very difficult to get without extra help. In the ideal scenario for a Bg deck, you have to fetchland and dicard spell, which puts Land and Sorcery in there. Then you need an instant and creature next, which I see as rather difficult to do. I think this could fit in the Black/Red shell looting bloodghasts and demigods, but otherwise, I don't see it being a hymn to tourach.
I really want to like Cryptbreaker, but its not as valuable as bob is for draw and tapping three zombies?? Just play Phyrexian Arena instead.
Okay, I finalized a decklist with sideboard that I'm truly happy with! Long road to build the deck to completion but everything in this deck went from Budget standard to the funnest deck I've ever played!
I played this list against Bogles and Abzan midrange and hoping to get a few with scapeshift in the next while to come. I'm loving the sadisic sacrament for snatching Emrakul wincons or other shenaniguns I simply can't deal with against control/spell combo decks that draw a lot (ad naus). The 3 slots are super flexible for more land desctruction, hand attack, removal, etc. I'm just loving this list so far. The 2nd Kalitas was great, I just took out the discard spell and moved it to the board. THe threat densitiy is rather high at 19 creatures to pressure my control and midrange meta game one, while I still have enough room for the Seismic Swans, Ad Naus, and Grishoalbrand.
Three words/1 Card: Leyline of Sanctity. Got paired up against Goryo's Vengence w/ Emrakul and Grislebrand, and got owned Game 2 and 3 by it. Ratchet Bomb or Engineered Explosives could be ok? Not sure what else, especially the mono black build can do against a turn 0 Leyline. Otherwise did ok tonight, 2-2. Beat Jund and Fish, lost to Grixis Control (narrowly) and Goryo's Vengeance. Also gotta say, playing against Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet sucks...
Leyline of Sanctity is just the best card against us, sad to say. It's like a Leyline of the Void against dredge. Most decks have to gamble to get it, just hope for it.
Sadistic Sacrament is just really good against the decks with 6 or less threats and MAYBE tron. Sadly I don't think it's that good considering they have at least 10, which is bad. But against RUG Scapeshift I can steal 2 copies of Valakutif they aren't in hand. If not, I can go for the shifts themselves. The card wrecks Ad Naus as they run one wincon. And draw-go control decks (esper and usa show up here from time to time), I can take the planeswalkers out and they only have manlands that can't compete with my superior 4 drops. Plus there is a seismic swans player and stealing 3 cards out of a 40 land deck with Treasure Cruise helps immensely. It's a meta call I made, but I've had that card played against me in casual and taking threats like Erebos out and Merchant was actually devastating. And if you ever get lucky on ten lands, you CAN take away 1/8 of the deck XD.
Sadly I can't get a hold of fulminators so I'll have to settle with Rain of Tears for the time being. There is no tron player in my meta, but I think the moment I sat across from one I'd get 0-2ed pretty easy. It's not a matchup I know how to navigate, so if anyone can give advice that would be great.
Well, well, well. I was looking online and found this little link on MTGGoldfish of a black devotion deck splashing red for only one reason: Blood Moon.
I've yet to see that build be posted here. I do like it a lot though. Controlling both their land and their hand while blanking most removal in the format is a good way to win a large share of games.
Leyline of Sanctity is definitely a hard card for this style of deck to work around. Monoblack doesn't have a ton of ways to work around it, and the other splashes aren't much better off without sacrificing valuable sideboard space. Right now I've got a few Maelstrom Pulse in the side for the token match up, and it's really the best out I have. Leyline of the Void is another hard card for the deck to deal with, but luckily most people are choosing to run Relic of Progenitus or Grafdigger's Cage instead of Void to deal with graveyard decks.
Kalitas, Traitor to Ghet has been both a boon and a determent to this deck. On one hand, he is probably the best mono black four drop we have access to. On the other hand, if he comes down against you he is a must kill target, as he creates so much value, and makes all of our creatures just... well bad. Really annoying card to play against for this deck, but lucky for us we can run him to, and have the tools to remove him if we must. The Lifelink also helps offset the life loss from Phyrexian Arena, Dark Confidant and Dismember, and helps us against Burn.
To get the most mileage out of a the Demigod I think you need to run the playset and have more ways to dredge or discard. Demigod is a beadt, but he really warps the deck, and makes it even more dependant on the yard than it already is.
I think you can run both RD and Bloodghast, but how many of which depends highly on your meta and just how aggressive you'd like your build to be.
I would cut Liliana Heritical Healer, put in at least 2, if not 3, Phyrexian Arena, and then cut the Alters Reaps for more disruption. On cutting Gravecrawler, I wouldn't go under 3, but others here have cut him entierly. If you do cut him, I would add more RD or Bloodghast to keep your recursion up.
On Bob and LotV; both are powerhouse cards than help the deck. Lili drops right in with no modifcation, but bob rewuires a bit more care. Having said that, they aren't absolutly needed for the deck, espeically when you are just starting out with the deck. They are cards you can work towards, but I personally would start budget to make sure you enjoy the deck before spending that kind of cash on Liliana.
@ Hotchil: Vs. Tron it's all about racing them, and doing whatever disruption you can (land and hand) to stop them from getting the Tron lands in play for as long as possible. If you can hand disrupt the cards that search for Tron lands, and destroy the Tron lands once they hit play sadistic sacrament and extirpate would work very well here, and apply pressure with creatures you're good to go.
@Veltomentaa: looks like a solid deck! If you enjoy the deck and buy into the more expensive cards over time, then you'll be good to go. Any recursive threat is a budget Gravecrawler or Relentless Dead, Phyrexian Arena is solid on its own, and in certain decks better than Bob, and if you have enough hand disruption and creature kill than you can do a pretty good job at mimicking Liliana of the Veil (or you could test out Liliana the Last Hope). Otherwise you're off to a pretty good start.
Won't be able to play at FNM tomorrow, but looking forward to trying out new Lilly next week!
Tron is just a bad match up for us. You can devote your whole side board to stopping Tron, but I dunno how well that will work out for your deck over all. It's modern and it's ok to have a couple bad match ups.
Velt, your list as said is pretty solid. Keep playing it... A lot. It's taken me over a year of testing to get my list where it is now. Find out where you feel the deck could improve based on the decks you play against and upgrade or swap from there.
I like most of it. Other than the Gatekeepers, Nighthawks and that Shadow of Doubt. There are just better options today for these slots. Overall though it's a nice direction for the BR builds. I'm still hung up on trying to get the Liliana, Defiant Necromancer+Fulminator Mage working for now. That plus Blood Moon and a few Ghost Quarters.... I'm beginning to see why my friends don't like it when I play red.
Red does give us access to some of the best anti-tron and early aggro tools while giving us access to some great artifact hate. Enchantments could still be an issue, but other than that, Terminate would replace all Victim of Nights in my deck. If you can come up with a list let me know! I play skred red as well so I have the stuff for a red black devotion deck except for fetches and shocks. I can proxy those parts up and see how it plays out.
Most low CMC black creatures worth their salt either can't block (e.g. gravecrawler, bloodsoaked champion, bloodghast) or enter the battlefield tapped (e.g. diregraf ghoul). Valut Skirge is a good choice for its abilities and ability to come into play on turn one by paying 2 life. You could argue that a card like Oona's Prowler could also be good/useful, depending on the situation or deck.
But yeah, Relentless Dead's ability to block is one major reason why I run him over bloodghast and other lower cost "good" black creatures like the ones I have listed.
Hello folks, I have been out of magic for a while now, (play tested a lot with tappedout) but I'm considering getting back into modern with mono black devotion. After some tinkering, this is what I plan on playing (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/28-07-16-modern-mono-black-devotion/). Mind you I was running a slightly different list at the time with 2 fewer Garys, some bloodghast main board, no thoughtseize or IOKs, and averaged 3-2 at the shop. The meta at the shop was mainly burn, jund, twin(rip), grixis control, and grixis delver with a few creature based decks like zoo here and there. Assuming this what the meta looks like, what suggestions do you all think I should make to the deck.
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Although aside from her ability to hit Snaps and Bobs, she is not great vs. control decks.
Also, tournament report from FNM tonight: Went 2-2 again, but was pretty close to going 3-1
Round 1: Jund 2-0
This is a pretty good matchup for us all things considered. Both decks have a ton of discard and removal, but the recurrant nature of our threats plus Obliterators and Garys make this a favorable matchup for us I think.
Round 2: RGw Aggro 2-0
Experiment ones, Flinthoof Boars, Rancors, oh my! Spot destruction and a timely Gary helped game 1, and game 2 went quickly after boarding in wraths to complement the spot removal.
Round 3: Affinity 0-2
Affinity is a rough matchup on the best of days, although it was a lot closer game 2. Drown in Sorrow was not strong enough, and I think I will be swapping 2 out for one more Ratchet Bomb and Languish in the sideboard.
Round 4: Nahiri Jeskai Control 1-2
Won game 1 pretty easily and almost won game 2 (super grindy), I just blanked a ton of phyrexian arena draws unfortunately. Game 3 he got there with Geist of St. Traft pretty quickly and I kept a 1-mana hand I shouldn't have (I never learn...)
Anyway, all in all very pleased. I made two play errors that I can remember mostly around Drown in Sorrow not being as good as I thought it was vs. Affinity. The lack of artifact and enchantment destruction in black is definitely our Achilles Heel...
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BMono Black DevotionB RMono Red ControlR
BRGLiving EndBRG
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I'm mildly interested in Graf Harvest. Less good that Relentless Dead already has menace, but menace on Geralf's Messenger would be nice. Those two and Gray Merchant of Asphodel are my only other zombies besides Kalitas tokens so I don't think I'll be using it. Seems like it would be good for GB with Gravecrawlers and Lotleth Troll. Also Grim Flayer seems like a nice addition.
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I think cryptbreaker is a trap... like you highlighted Oops, the fact that you have to pay to discard and tap creatures for card draw detracts from you being able to pay for other spells and attack with those creatures (instead of tapping them).
I've also come around on Whispers of Emrakul, I think it would be challenging to reliably get delirium in the first few turns, where Whispers would be most relevant/impactful. Thus wrench mind is arguably still both better and more reliable.
Whispers of Emrakul is only a card I see play in BR Devotion decks with Faithless Looting. Delirium turn two is actually very difficult to get without extra help. In the ideal scenario for a Bg deck, you have to fetchland and dicard spell, which puts Land and Sorcery in there. Then you need an instant and creature next, which I see as rather difficult to do. I think this could fit in the Black/Red shell looting bloodghasts and demigods, but otherwise, I don't see it being a hymn to tourach.
I really want to like Cryptbreaker, but its not as valuable as bob is for draw and tapping three zombies?? Just play Phyrexian Arena instead.
BMono Black DevotionB RMono Red ControlR
2 Mutavault
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Creatures
4 Relentless Dead
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4 Thoutseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Victim of Night[
4 Liliana of the Veil
3x Phyrexian Arena
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Inquisiton of Kozilek
2 Pithing Needle
2 Languish
1 Disfigure
1 Go for the Throat
2 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Lifebane Zombie
I played this list against Bogles and Abzan midrange and hoping to get a few with scapeshift in the next while to come. I'm loving the sadisic sacrament for snatching Emrakul wincons or other shenaniguns I simply can't deal with against control/spell combo decks that draw a lot (ad naus). The 3 slots are super flexible for more land desctruction, hand attack, removal, etc. I'm just loving this list so far. The 2nd Kalitas was great, I just took out the discard spell and moved it to the board. THe threat densitiy is rather high at 19 creatures to pressure my control and midrange meta game one, while I still have enough room for the Seismic Swans, Ad Naus, and Grishoalbrand.
Edit: I forgot to add 3 cards...
BMono Black DevotionB RMono Red ControlR
Pithing Needle naming Lightning Storm is usually good enough to stop Ad Nauseam since removal can be used on Laboratory Maniac. I might have to try Sadistic Sacrament in my sideboard. I like what it can potentially do to Tron, Scapeshift, and Ad Nauseam. I'm currently testing out two Fulminator Mages because I was finding that Evil Presence often isn't enough against Tron and is almost useless against Scapeshift.
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Sadistic Sacrament is just really good against the decks with 6 or less threats and MAYBE tron. Sadly I don't think it's that good considering they have at least 10, which is bad. But against RUG Scapeshift I can steal 2 copies of Valakutif they aren't in hand. If not, I can go for the shifts themselves. The card wrecks Ad Naus as they run one wincon. And draw-go control decks (esper and usa show up here from time to time), I can take the planeswalkers out and they only have manlands that can't compete with my superior 4 drops. Plus there is a seismic swans player and stealing 3 cards out of a 40 land deck with Treasure Cruise helps immensely. It's a meta call I made, but I've had that card played against me in casual and taking threats like Erebos out and Merchant was actually devastating. And if you ever get lucky on ten lands, you CAN take away 1/8 of the deck XD.
Sadly I can't get a hold of fulminators so I'll have to settle with Rain of Tears for the time being. There is no tron player in my meta, but I think the moment I sat across from one I'd get 0-2ed pretty easy. It's not a matchup I know how to navigate, so if anyone can give advice that would be great.
BMono Black DevotionB RMono Red ControlR
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/443581#online
Was this any one of you active posters on the forum? If it is, I really like the list!
BMono Black DevotionB RMono Red ControlR
Leyline of Sanctity is definitely a hard card for this style of deck to work around. Monoblack doesn't have a ton of ways to work around it, and the other splashes aren't much better off without sacrificing valuable sideboard space. Right now I've got a few Maelstrom Pulse in the side for the token match up, and it's really the best out I have. Leyline of the Void is another hard card for the deck to deal with, but luckily most people are choosing to run Relic of Progenitus or Grafdigger's Cage instead of Void to deal with graveyard decks.
Kalitas, Traitor to Ghet has been both a boon and a determent to this deck. On one hand, he is probably the best mono black four drop we have access to. On the other hand, if he comes down against you he is a must kill target, as he creates so much value, and makes all of our creatures just... well bad. Really annoying card to play against for this deck, but lucky for us we can run him to, and have the tools to remove him if we must. The Lifelink also helps offset the life loss from Phyrexian Arena, Dark Confidant and Dismember, and helps us against Burn.
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I think you can run both RD and Bloodghast, but how many of which depends highly on your meta and just how aggressive you'd like your build to be.
I would cut Liliana Heritical Healer, put in at least 2, if not 3, Phyrexian Arena, and then cut the Alters Reaps for more disruption. On cutting Gravecrawler, I wouldn't go under 3, but others here have cut him entierly. If you do cut him, I would add more RD or Bloodghast to keep your recursion up.
On Bob and LotV; both are powerhouse cards than help the deck. Lili drops right in with no modifcation, but bob rewuires a bit more care. Having said that, they aren't absolutly needed for the deck, espeically when you are just starting out with the deck. They are cards you can work towards, but I personally would start budget to make sure you enjoy the deck before spending that kind of cash on Liliana.
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@Veltomentaa: looks like a solid deck! If you enjoy the deck and buy into the more expensive cards over time, then you'll be good to go. Any recursive threat is a budget Gravecrawler or Relentless Dead, Phyrexian Arena is solid on its own, and in certain decks better than Bob, and if you have enough hand disruption and creature kill than you can do a pretty good job at mimicking Liliana of the Veil (or you could test out Liliana the Last Hope). Otherwise you're off to a pretty good start.
Won't be able to play at FNM tomorrow, but looking forward to trying out new Lilly next week!
Velt, your list as said is pretty solid. Keep playing it... A lot. It's taken me over a year of testing to get my list where it is now. Find out where you feel the deck could improve based on the decks you play against and upgrade or swap from there.
BRGLiving EndBRG
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Who's the Beatdown
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BMono Black DevotionB RMono Red ControlR
I'm still running mono black for the time being though (mostly for budget reasons/duals and fetches are expensive).
But yeah, Relentless Dead's ability to block is one major reason why I run him over bloodghast and other lower cost "good" black creatures like the ones I have listed.