Just played mono B again with a terrible janky UR control deck.
T1 he Thoughtseizes an Izzet Charm (and sees Syncopate, so he tries to play around that all game). T2 Pack Rat, which eats Magma Jet. T3 I drop Goblin Electromancer which eats Devour Flesh. T4 I drop Guttersnipe. Opponent tries to Hero's Downfall but it gets Mizzium Skinned LOL. Next turn opponent tries Specter, which gets Syncopated. Opponent Thoughtseizes me again taking Voyage's End, my last card. Next turn he drops Whip of Erebos and I drop Spellheart Chimera. Chimera eats a Hero's Downfall before it can attack for lethal.
So far we've just exchanged 1-for-1s, except I've managed to gain life, scry, and deal a few damage from combat and Snipe's ability. From the same 1-for-1 exchanges and double Thoughtseize draw, opponent has only Lightning Blasted himself. Guttersnipe single-handedly killed him in short order (he tried to cast Gray Merchant I think the next turn and I finished him off with Lightning Strike for 5 in resp).
IMO this is a weakness of mono B. The deck is rather mana-intensive and runs a ton of fair 1-for-1s, falling behind if you can cast multiple efficient things a turn or generate synergistic advantages to break the symmetry. Other decks can find similar ways to exploit weaknesses to win.
Sounds like that player made several play mistakes, had bad draws and missed a land drop.
There is no reason to kill random creatures that are not threats on their own if you have other plays available that turn. I see it a lot that people waste their all their removal spells on random creatures instead of advancing their own position. He clearly made a mistake if he had that Specter the whole time but casted Devour Flesh instead of his Specter on Turn 3.
Just played mono B again with a terrible janky UR control deck.
T1 he Thoughtseizes an Izzet Charm (and sees Syncopate, so he tries to play around that all game). T2 Pack Rat, which eats Magma Jet. T3 I drop Goblin Electromancer which eats Devour Flesh. T4 I drop Guttersnipe. Opponent tries to Hero's Downfall but it gets Mizzium Skinned LOL. Next turn opponent tries Specter, which gets Syncopated. Opponent Thoughtseizes me again taking Voyage's End, my last card. Next turn he drops Whip of Erebos and I drop Spellheart Chimera. Chimera eats a Hero's Downfall before it can attack for lethal.
So far we've just exchanged 1-for-1s, except I've managed to gain life, scry, and deal a few damage from combat and Snipe's ability. From the same 1-for-1 exchanges and double Thoughtseize draw, opponent has only Lightning Blasted himself. Guttersnipe single-handedly killed him in short order (he tried to cast Gray Merchant I think the next turn and I finished him off with Lightning Strike for 5 in resp).
IMO this is a weakness of mono B. The deck is rather mana-intensive and runs a ton of fair 1-for-1s, falling behind if you can cast multiple efficient things a turn or generate synergistic advantages to break the symmetry. Other decks can find similar ways to exploit weaknesses to win.
Sounds like that player made several play mistakes, had bad draws and missed a land drop.
There is no reason to kill random creatures that are not threats on their own if you have other plays available that turn. I see it a lot that people waste their all their removal spells on random creatures instead of advancing their own position. He clearly made a mistake if he had that Specter the whole time but casted Devour Flesh instead of his Specter on Turn 3.
I wouldnt if I were playing Modern and the Izzet guy would be playing Storm. But there is not much upside to him in Standard besides making Lightning Strike into Lightning Bolt or something like that.
Just played mono B again with a terrible janky UR control deck.
T1 he Thoughtseizes an Izzet Charm (and sees Syncopate, so he tries to play around that all game). T2 Pack Rat, which eats Magma Jet. T3 I drop Goblin Electromancer which eats Devour Flesh. T4 I drop Guttersnipe. Opponent tries to Hero's Downfall but it gets Mizzium Skinned LOL. Next turn opponent tries Specter, which gets Syncopated. Opponent Thoughtseizes me again taking Voyage's End, my last card. Next turn he drops Whip of Erebos and I drop Spellheart Chimera. Chimera eats a Hero's Downfall before it can attack for lethal.
So far we've just exchanged 1-for-1s, except I've managed to gain life, scry, and deal a few damage from combat and Snipe's ability. From the same 1-for-1 exchanges and double Thoughtseize draw, opponent has only Lightning Blasted himself. Guttersnipe single-handedly killed him in short order (he tried to cast Gray Merchant I think the next turn and I finished him off with Lightning Strike for 5 in resp).
IMO this is a weakness of mono B. The deck is rather mana-intensive and runs a ton of fair 1-for-1s, falling behind if you can cast multiple efficient things a turn or generate synergistic advantages to break the symmetry. Other decks can find similar ways to exploit weaknesses to win.
Sounds like that player made several play mistakes, had bad draws and missed a land drop.
There is no reason to kill random creatures that are not threats on their own if you have other plays available that turn. I see it a lot that people waste their all their removal spells on random creatures instead of advancing their own position. He clearly made a mistake if he had that Specter the whole time but casted Devour Flesh instead of his Specter on Turn 3.
I wouldnt if I were playing Modern and the Izzet guy would be playing Storm. But there is not much upside to him in Standard besides making Lightning Strike into Lightning Bolt or something like that.
Very true, but it could of easily been a turn 4 Lightning Bolt with a Counterspell backup, which would of removed the Nightveil Specter and held a very favorable position for the Izzet player.
Just played mono B again with a terrible janky UR control deck.
T1 he Thoughtseizes an Izzet Charm (and sees Syncopate, so he tries to play around that all game). T2 Pack Rat, which eats Magma Jet. T3 I drop Goblin Electromancer which eats Devour Flesh. T4 I drop Guttersnipe. Opponent tries to Hero's Downfall but it gets Mizzium Skinned LOL. Next turn opponent tries Specter, which gets Syncopated. Opponent Thoughtseizes me again taking Voyage's End, my last card. Next turn he drops Whip of Erebos and I drop Spellheart Chimera. Chimera eats a Hero's Downfall before it can attack for lethal.
So far we've just exchanged 1-for-1s, except I've managed to gain life, scry, and deal a few damage from combat and Snipe's ability. From the same 1-for-1 exchanges and double Thoughtseize draw, opponent has only Lightning Blasted himself. Guttersnipe single-handedly killed him in short order (he tried to cast Gray Merchant I think the next turn and I finished him off with Lightning Strike for 5 in resp).
IMO this is a weakness of mono B. The deck is rather mana-intensive and runs a ton of fair 1-for-1s, falling behind if you can cast multiple efficient things a turn or generate synergistic advantages to break the symmetry. Other decks can find similar ways to exploit weaknesses to win.
Sounds like that player made several play mistakes, had bad draws and missed a land drop.
There is no reason to kill random creatures that are not threats on their own if you have other plays available that turn. I see it a lot that people waste their all their removal spells on random creatures instead of advancing their own position. He clearly made a mistake if he had that Specter the whole time but casted Devour Flesh instead of his Specter on Turn 3.
I wouldnt if I were playing Modern and the Izzet guy would be playing Storm. But there is not much upside to him in Standard besides making Lightning Strike into Lightning Bolt or something like that.
Very true, but it could of easily been a turn 4 Lightning Bolt with a Counterspell backup, which would of removed the Nightveil Specter and held a very favorable position for the Izzet player.
Well there was a turn 1 Thoughtseize which could have taken care of that
So, i played against a Mono B match the other day where he literally went triple Thoughtseize into double Demon. I had two chains in my opening hand and felt pretty good about it... for like a minute.
The second game i won when i skull cracked as he played a Gary, he then proceeded to complain in the chat with a 'Really?!'. I mentally noted that he did not get hand disruption this game, so i actually got to play magic the gathering, for a change.
The third game he sided in Duresses and after a TS took my only chains in hand and a Duress took my Lightning Bolt, he played Nightveil then Demon. I didnt top deck ***** for the rest of the game and obviously lost.
Thats real fair, let me tell you. The annoying part is i raged a bit and asked him, "Why were you whining in game 2 when you can basically play my hand at will with your deck?" he replied, "I outplayed you." Fcking black players...
EDIT: I forgot that i won the second game, edited the above.
Your mentality about this game is becoming toxic. If your going to rage, act like a child and rant about eveytime you get whooped on MTGO, then you need to recheck your life. I hope some day you realize what an angry dude you sound like with this kind of stuff since your threads always have an angry vibe to them.
I played Mono B and stopped since the mirrors are bad and the deck has a hard time dealing with enchantments. Its a good deck but your far from unbeatable by playing with it. Pack Rat post BNG can be a terrible card at times and getting your Nightveil Domesticated is a total blow out and Gray Merchant can literally do nothing at times and Underworld Connections is garbage in a lot of match ups. I really didnt like playing this cards and dont believe that they are the best that standard has to offer. I wouldnt blame anyone for running the deck but by playing a very streamlined deck just seems like an easy way to get hated out.
This. Mono B can get ridiculously unprobable lucky hands (3 Thoughtseize) and does have some disgusting card advantage engines for the lategame, but sometimes it just draws the wrong cards at the wrong time and if you can figure out how to play Magic and play around it, then even a janky deck can beat it. I'm not saying it sucks, it's a strong deck, but it's far from unbeatable. I'd argue it's a tad soft to rush aggro, moreso than other decks with such a high curve. It's a deck defined by 1-for-1 spells, unlike other slow decks that can punish you with sweepers or more fatties. Most of the CA comes from Connections, Pack Rat and Whip... but those all take a long time to net a significant advantage compared to say Anger of the Gods
I agree that Mono Black is bad verses Aggro. The deck doesnt usually start doing anything until turn 3. I remember having so many hands like Demon, Merchant, Specter, Underworld Connections and 3 Lands and just dying being on the draw. Underworld Connections seems like the "you have to play this card but dont really want to" type of card since in terms of mana efficiency its horrible. 3 mana to have to wait a turn and use up 1 mana just to get 1 card return is bad against most decks, but the deck has to use it for devotion sake and its good against control, which is why its stuck in the deck. I can see why pros like Owen thought it was so bad since almost all games against Aggro it was a complete blank.
I been more content using UW devotion over Mono B. I never worry about losing to Aggro or Pack Rat anymore. I got pretty tired of them jamming Pack Rat and dying since I couldnt get a Bile Blight or getting burnt out by Burn Spells since I didnt start playing until turn 3. Granite, now I just die to Skylashers and sometimes Mistcutter Hydras, but that doesnt happen very often. Theres way more Pack Rats out there than Skylashers, which means just by default Im bound to win more just from choosing a different deck. Its pretty great when your excited to see a Pack Rat played since its getting Dsphered at some point or a Nightveil Specter when your holding Domesication since that either leads to a 2 for 1 or you winning the game.
Its just completely narrow minded when people cant understand that you cant win every game or beat every single deck. Its pretty obvious in a game of drawing cards that your not always going to draw the right part of your deck all the time. You just have to play the numbers game and not care about the games where your luck sucks since thats the best you can do.
The thing about the pack rat that people don't seem to be getting here is that it's a 2 mana creature that scales and is resistant to removal. Certainly it's not "killing you" by turn four but if you don't kill the first pack rat, only sweepers are going to finish it off and we're in a fairly sweeper-light format. Thoughtseize makes the lack of sweepers even worse since it's a one mana removal for anything in your hand. That pack rats /also/ contribute to devotion is the last kicker that puts it over the top. The card would have been instantly way less broken (and consequently MBD way worse of a deck) if the tokens weren't copies.
(pack rat is basically aetherling/that sphinx people like for some reason for four less mana)
Re: misplays. He had T1 Thoughtseize T2 Pack Rat, so I don't think he exactly had a bad hand. He didn't miss a land drop either. He played Swamp on turns 1-4 and a tapped scry land on turn 5. Why didn't he play Nightveil on turn 3? He knew I had Syncopate in hand from Thoughtseize. I had Syncopate open (U + Electromancer = Syncopate for 1) and I assume he was trying to play around it by killing the Electromancer first. If he plays Specter then I value-town counter it for 1 mana. But I couldn't counter Devour Flesh with him holding 1 open. I'm assuming that was his reasoning. Also, Electromancer isn't exactly terrible for Izzet. It lets me start casting Steam Auguries and other stuff to bury him in card advantage while keeping counter mana up. Since his threats already cost more than mine, letting my spells cost even less seems like a good way to lose to a blue deck. That's how blue decks used to win when Counterspell was in Standard. Opponent plays a 4-mana threat. You counter it for 2 mana and draw cards with your other 2 mana. Maybe he still should have cast Specter to force out my Syncopate. But it looks like he didn't have any other threats in hand after Pack Rat and Specter, whereas he had more removal (Hero's Downfall).
As for my hand, my opener was 3 lands + Mizzium Skin + Magma Jet + Syncopate + Izzet Charm and he Thoughtseized the charm, so that was not a nut draw even for that janky deck! All game only Syncopate+Charm (out of 14 counters), no card draw, somewhat mana-flooded. But Magma Jet and 2 scry lands let me scry away land and helped me draw into gas, improving my draw quality over the opponent. I was largely able to win because of free scry and because Guttersnipe gets in for extra damage for each spell. Those all add incremental advantages per spell cast, even if they are trading 1-for-1 with the opponent. Whereas my opponent cast about the same number of spells but did not gain any advantage from the ones he resolved. That was the main difference I wanted to highlight with that example. That in a 1-for-1 war of attrition, without one if its engines online, MBD struggles to stabilize. His own spells dealt himself 4 and gave me 2 life while mine scryed and shocked him repeatedly.
I question the critical reading abilities of some people on this forum. Clearly, an anecdote is never presented to act as sufficient sample size to draw a statistical claim. It's presented as an illustrative example, to highlight certain patterns that people who have played with and against the deck have probably noticed. Some of these patterns:
-MBD takes a few turns to establish a threat
-MBD has plenty of 1-for-1 answers (Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, etc.) but, aside from conditional Bile Blight, lacks removals that are 2-for-1 or generate card advantage or even scry. So even if they kill your guy, if it already generated some advantage, they fall behind slightly in the war of attrition.
-curve is higher than many decks, meaning other decks may be better on mana efficiency per turn
-MBD creatures, other than Gray Merchant, don't generate an advantage when immediately put on battlefield (unlike say Thragtusk or a Titan). So if countered or killed, the MBD player is back at 1-for-1 parity (Pack Rat needs some time to protect itself)
-MBD is a bit light on threats
-MBD lacks library manipulation, making its draws have higher variance
The big advantages come from activating Underworld Connections multiple times, activating Pack Rat multiple times, activating Whip of Erebos multiple times or casting Gray Merchant with a big board. The problem is that all of these require significant mana investments and building advantages over multiple turns. If they are quickly countered or removed, not much of an advantage is gained. If opponent is putting pressure on with little aggro weenies, hard to profit.
Re: misplays. He had T1 Thoughtseize T2 Pack Rat, so I don't think he exactly had a bad hand. He didn't miss a land drop either. He played Swamp on turns 1-4 and a tapped scry land on turn 5. Why didn't he play Nightveil on turn 3? He knew I had Syncopate in hand from Thoughtseize. I had Syncopate open (U + Electromancer = Syncopate for 1) and I assume he was trying to play around it by killing the Electromancer first. If he plays Specter then I value-town counter it for 1 mana. But I couldn't counter Devour Flesh with him holding 1 open. I'm assuming that was his reasoning. Also, Electromancer isn't exactly terrible for Izzet. It lets me start casting Steam Auguries and other stuff to bury him in card advantage while keeping counter mana up. Since his threats already cost more than mine, letting my spells cost even less seems like a good way to lose to a blue deck. That's how blue decks used to win when Counterspell was in Standard. Opponent plays a 4-mana threat. You counter it for 2 mana and draw cards with your other 2 mana. Maybe he still should have cast Specter to force out my Syncopate. But it looks like he didn't have any other threats in hand after Pack Rat and Specter, whereas he had more removal (Hero's Downfall).
As for my hand, my opener was 3 lands + Mizzium Skin + Magma Jet + Syncopate + Izzet Charm and he Thoughtseized the charm, so that was not a nut draw even for that janky deck! All game only Syncopate+Charm (out of 14 counters), no card draw, somewhat mana-flooded. But Magma Jet and 2 scry lands let me scry away land and helped me draw into gas, improving my draw quality over the opponent. I was largely able to win because of free scry and because Guttersnipe gets in for extra damage for each spell. Those all add incremental advantages per spell cast, even if they are trading 1-for-1 with the opponent. Whereas my opponent cast about the same number of spells but did not gain any advantage from the ones he resolved. That was the main difference I wanted to highlight with that example. That in a 1-for-1 war of attrition, without one if its engines online, MBD struggles to stabilize. His own spells dealt himself 4 and gave me 2 life while mine scryed and shocked him repeatedly.
I question the critical reading abilities of some people on this forum. Clearly, an anecdote is never presented to act as sufficient sample size to draw a statistical claim. It's presented as an illustrative example, to highlight certain patterns that people who have played with and against the deck have probably noticed. Some of these patterns:
-MBD takes a few turns to establish a threat
-MBD has plenty of 1-for-1 answers (Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, etc.) but, aside from conditional Bile Blight, lacks removals that are 2-for-1 or generate card advantage or even scry. So even if they kill your guy, if it already generated some advantage, they fall behind slightly in the war of attrition.
-curve is higher than many decks, meaning other decks may be better on mana efficiency per turn
-MBD creatures, other than Gray Merchant, don't generate an advantage when immediately put on battlefield (unlike say Thragtusk or a Titan). So if countered or killed, the MBD player is back at 1-for-1 parity (Pack Rat needs some time to protect itself)
-MBD is a bit light on threats
-MBD lacks library manipulation, making its draws have higher variance
The big advantages come from activating Underworld Connections multiple times, activating Pack Rat multiple times, activating Whip of Erebos multiple times or casting Gray Merchant with a big board. The problem is that all of these require significant mana investments and building advantages over multiple turns. If they are quickly countered or removed, not much of an advantage is gained. If opponent is putting pressure on with little aggro weenies, hard to profit.
tl;dr you got lucky and one game doesn't mean much. But I agree with you on the Goblin Electromancer is underrated and I value him more than Young Pyromancer in my deck and the pyro ain't no slouch.
tl;dr that was a bad draw for me (bad opener, 0 dissipates, 0 card drawing) and bad topdecks for opponent. but that just highlights that MBD is a threat-light higher variance deck. sometimes you draw Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall and no pressure.
I didn't handpick my one slaughterfest of MBD. I've beaten MBD a ton of times with various budget decks. Sometimes Izzet, often RG aggro, sometimes mono red sligh. Want me to tl;dr 100 MTGO game logs for you? Sure, I've also lost to it a fair bit too. But with low-curve aggressive decks my win % is easily over 60% despite pitting $10 against $200. After enough testing, either I have to conclude the people I've played against can't play Magic OR that the slow durdly midrange deck does have weakness to rush and tempo strategies. The latter's supported by other people's posts. The fact I only posted one game log or that you think that one game isn't representative doesn't change any of those other points. Those other points, not my one game result, was the point of the post.
Sure but what does that prove? Your fringe decks would be destroyed in big tournaments. That is where Mono-Black shines.
As far as I know even in the Caw-Blade era there were decks that could beat it but Caw-Blade was still without a doubt the best deck and everything else was garbage.
Not saying that Mono-Black is such a deck but I want to make the point that being good against Mono-Black is not enough, you have to good against the whole field if you want to be successful and that is where many fringe decks fail.
tl;dr that was a bad draw for me (bad opener, 0 dissipates, 0 card drawing) and bad topdecks for opponent. but that just highlights that MBD is a threat-light higher variance deck. sometimes you draw Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall and no pressure.
I didn't handpick my one slaughterfest of MBD. I've beaten MBD a ton of times with various budget decks. Sometimes Izzet, often RG aggro, sometimes mono red sligh. Want me to tl;dr 100 MTGO game logs for you? Sure, I've also lost to it a fair bit too. But with low-curve aggressive decks my win % is easily over 60% despite pitting $10 against $200. After enough testing, either I have to conclude the people I've played against can't play Magic OR that the slow durdly midrange deck does have weakness to rush and tempo strategies. The latter's supported by other people's posts. The fact I only posted one game log or that you think that one game isn't representative doesn't change any of those other points. Those other points, not my one game result, was the point of the post.
Look kid, you're only a common mage. This is a big forum for big players. See, I'm an experienced mage, I've had exp vs the big boys, and Galerion, well, Archmage Overlord, 1,162 posts, say no more, girls want his purple cucumber, not some "common mage" who speaks incoherent babble about "consistently" slaughtering the biggest, baddest deck, mono black, on mtgo. You see, there's this thing called lag and girls know this. They know online is free. Just a couple of boys having a bit of fun it the park. And they also know that real men aka ARCHMAGE OVERLORDS, not common mages play offline. Tournies, against the best of the best, not some chump on mtgo 'tourney room.' They know how the game plays, how to shuffle, how to block out those sexy asian girl players creaming themselves in the background after that clutch counterspell that wins them the game. When you place in that next big tourney with your "budget decks," feel free to discount mono black, but until then, keep it real, common mage.
It is a combination of both. MBD is slightly vulnerable to being blitzed. However, the people you played against were most likely scrubs on average. While that point was correct, it isn't so much an achilles heel so much as it is a soft spot. If I were to attack mono black specifically, indeed that'd be a good place to start doing it. Or hex. However, that doesn't make the deck bad, nor is the matchup "that favorable" given best play. However, you have to consider the whole competitive scene, not just MBD.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Standard. Anyway from what I hear, Jund and GR Monsters together is played more often than Mono Black right now.
Also, RW Burn has a great Mono Black matchup. I still believe that UW Control has a good Mono Black matchup too. Now on the topic of Mono Black making you want to strangle puppies, I felt the same way. I played the deck and it was very solid. However it just seemed to methodical and boring; I quickly switched to GR Devotion at the time and had nearly the same record while having more fun.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Welcome to the wonderful world of Standard. Anyway from what I hear, Jund and GR Monsters together is played more often than Mono Black right now.
Also, RW Burn has a great Mono Black matchup. I still believe that UW Control has a good Mono Black matchup too. Now on the topic of Mono Black making you want to strangle puppies, I felt the same way. I played the deck and it was very solid. However it just seemed to methodical and boring; I quickly switched to GR Devotion at the time and had nearly the same record while having more fun.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the notion that RW burn has a great matchup vs MBD. Typically I have a winning record VS boros burn unless I'm screwed or they top deck amazingly (only draw 4 lands in 10 turns,including starting hand, for example).
Look kid, you're only a common mage. This is a big forum for big players. See, I'm an experienced mage, I've had exp vs the big boys, and Galerion, well, Archmage Overlord, 1,162 posts, say no more, girls want his purple cucumber, not some "common mage" who speaks incoherent babble about "consistently" slaughtering the biggest, baddest deck, mono black, on mtgo. You see, there's this thing called lag and girls know this. They know online is free. Just a couple of boys having a bit of fun it the park. And they also know that real men aka ARCHMAGE OVERLORDS, not common mages play offline. Tournies, against the best of the best, not some chump on mtgo 'tourney room.' They know how the game plays, how to shuffle, how to block out those sexy asian girl players creaming themselves in the background after that clutch counterspell that wins them the game. When you place in that next big tourney with your "budget decks," feel free to discount mono black, but until then, keep it real, common mage.
Straw man, ad hominem, slippery slope, other ridiculousness, etc. I may be a "common mage" on this forum, but you're clearly the "common mage" at life. Calm down kid.
I really question some people's basic reading skills. I never argued that MBD is bad, or that the aforementioned jank common decks are good, or that they could win tournaments. I would never sleeve up such a monstrosity IRL. That's why I openly refer to them as "janky" and "budget decks", expressing no delusions that they are anything else. So why am I talking about winning with bad decks? In part, I probably just outplayed the slops online. But the deeper point was that if certain bad decks can beat a good deck more than just once in a blue moon, it highlights a weak point of that good deck. Because otherwise that good deck shouldn't be repeatedly losing to the bad deck. No deck is perfect. Every deck has weaknesses. That's the rock-paper-scissors of Magic. People capable of mature adult thought know having weaknesses does not mean it is not still tier 1. They also know that just because a budget deck can hit one deck's Achilles heel doesn't mean it can do the same for all tier 1 decks.
I'm not the only one saying monoblack is a bit soft to rush aggro and tempo strategies. However, sligh curve decks are soft to UW and Esper control and other stuff. My budget decks are clearly soft to a lot, not worth bringing to an event and hoping to survive rounds.
So why bring any of this up in the first place? The OP complained mono B is this unfair unbeatable monstrosity. I'm just arguing that while it is strong, like any deck it still has weaknesses and can be beaten by certain strategies. If you're losing to Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall ripping your best threats for 1-3 mana, you can negate that by running more threats that only cost 1-3 mana and more 2-for-1s. Basic tempo. Something every Legacy and Modern player knows. I just wanted to highlight that you can implement such a strategy shift even with cheap cards. That doesn't mean those strategies will necessarily beat the other tier decks, just that he doesn't always have to lose to mono B.
Why bring up the 1-for-1 thing? In Standard's history, tier 1 midrange decks consistently beat out aggro decks when they had either mass removal (e.g. Supreme Verdict, Bonfire of the Damned, Wrath of God, Death Cloud, Pernicious Deed) or fatties that generate immediate value (e.g. Primeval Titan, Inferno Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Thragtusk, Loxodon Hierarch, etc.). Those really help stabilize against aggressive boards. Monoblack has many powerful tools but lacks those anti-aggro ones. No mass removal. Only fatty is Desecration Demon, good in general but surprisingly bad against a bunch of janky tokens. Only creature with ETB profit is Gray Merchant, but its value depends on your board development and decreases when you are far behind. Meanwhile, some of the best cards (Thoughtseize, Connections) lose you life. That doesn't mean they aren't good cards. That doesn't mean they don't make a powerful deck. However, it does mean that combined there is a soft spot to get rushed that tier 1 Standard midrange decks haven't typically had.
Maybe a good brewer can use those weaknesses to design a deck that hits those monoB weaknesses but also has good matchups against UW and other contenders.
FYI SCG Seattle was won by R/W burn in a top 8 full of black decks, so looks like Neil Hartman just did that.
St Louis was dominated by G/R with almost no showing from mono B.
Atlanta had a better monoB showing but still had a couple red decks in top 16.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Standard. Anyway from what I hear, Jund and GR Monsters together is played more often than Mono Black right now.
Also, RW Burn has a great Mono Black matchup. I still believe that UW Control has a good Mono Black matchup too. Now on the topic of Mono Black making you want to strangle puppies, I felt the same way. I played the deck and it was very solid. However it just seemed to methodical and boring; I quickly switched to GR Devotion at the time and had nearly the same record while having more fun.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the notion that RW burn has a great matchup vs MBD. Typically I have a winning record VS boros burn unless I'm screwed or they top deck amazingly (only draw 4 lands in 10 turns,including starting hand, for example).
Hmm. Would you say you have higher variance than RW burn? Red-based aggro is pretty consistent with most cards serving similar roles, aside from getting land-flooded (and Magma Jet helps stop that). Would you say your beating R/W is more dependent on getting certain draws? Are you equally able to win with Pack Rat hands as spells+Demon hands? If they win the die roll, does it make a big difference? Also are you playing just monoB or white splash?
Look kid, you're only a common mage. This is a big forum for big players. See, I'm an experienced mage, I've had exp vs the big boys, and Galerion, well, Archmage Overlord, 1,162 posts, say no more, girls want his purple cucumber, not some "common mage" who speaks incoherent babble about "consistently" slaughtering the biggest, baddest deck, mono black, on mtgo. You see, there's this thing called lag and girls know this. They know online is free. Just a couple of boys having a bit of fun it the park. And they also know that real men aka ARCHMAGE OVERLORDS, not common mages play offline. Tournies, against the best of the best, not some chump on mtgo 'tourney room.' They know how the game plays, how to shuffle, how to block out those sexy asian girl players creaming themselves in the background after that clutch counterspell that wins them the game. When you place in that next big tourney with your "budget decks," feel free to discount mono black, but until then, keep it real, common mage.
Straw man, ad hominem, slippery slope, other ridiculousness, etc. I may be a "common mage" on this forum, but you're clearly the "common mage" at life. Calm down kid.
I really question some people's basic reading skills. I never argued that MBD is bad, or that the aforementioned jank common decks are good, or that they could win tournaments. I would never sleeve up such a monstrosity IRL. That's why I openly refer to them as "janky" and "budget decks", expressing no delusions that they are anything else. So why am I talking about winning with bad decks? In part, I probably just outplayed the slops online. But the deeper point was that if certain bad decks can beat a good deck more than just once in a blue moon, it highlights a weak point of that good deck. Because otherwise that good deck shouldn't be repeatedly losing to the bad deck. No deck is perfect. Every deck has weaknesses. That's the rock-paper-scissors of Magic. People capable of mature adult thought know having weaknesses does not mean it is not still tier 1. They also know that just because a budget deck can hit one deck's Achilles heel doesn't mean it can do the same for all tier 1 decks.
I'm not the only one saying monoblack is a bit soft to rush aggro and tempo strategies. However, sligh curve decks are soft to UW and Esper control and other stuff. My budget decks are clearly soft to a lot, not worth bringing to an event and hoping to survive rounds.
So why bring any of this up in the first place? The OP complained mono B is this unfair unbeatable monstrosity. I'm just arguing that while it is strong, like any deck it still has weaknesses and can be beaten by certain strategies. If you're losing to Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall ripping your best threats for 1-3 mana, you can negate that by running more threats that only cost 1-3 mana and more 2-for-1s. Basic tempo. Something every Legacy and Modern player knows. I just wanted to highlight that you can implement such a strategy shift even with cheap cards. That doesn't mean those strategies will necessarily beat the other tier decks, just that he doesn't always have to lose to mono B.
Why bring up the 1-for-1 thing? In Standard's history, tier 1 midrange decks consistently beat out aggro decks when they had either mass removal (e.g. Supreme Verdict, Bonfire of the Damned, Wrath of God, Death Cloud, Pernicious Deed) or fatties that generate immediate value (e.g. Primeval Titan, Inferno Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Thragtusk, Loxodon Hierarch, etc.). Those really help stabilize against aggressive boards. Monoblack has many powerful tools but lacks those anti-aggro ones. No mass removal. Only fatty is Desecration Demon, good in general but surprisingly bad against a bunch of janky tokens. Only creature with ETB profit is Gray Merchant, but its value depends on your board development and decreases when you are far behind. Meanwhile, some of the best cards (Thoughtseize, Connections) lose you life. That doesn't mean they aren't good cards. That doesn't mean they don't make a powerful deck. However, it does mean that combined there is a soft spot to get rushed that tier 1 Standard midrange decks haven't typically had.
Maybe a good brewer can use those weaknesses to design a deck that hits those monoB weaknesses but also has good matchups against UW and other contenders.
FYI SCG Seattle was won by R/W burn in a top 8 full of black decks, so looks like Neil Hartman just did that.
St Louis was dominated by G/R with almost no showing from mono B.
Atlanta had a better monoB showing but still had a couple red decks in top 16.
Black has actually access to Drown in Sorrow, Bile Blight and Pharika's Cure. They are not soft to rush strategies in general and if they dont want to. It's just that these kind of strategies are bad in the meta and therefore these cards dont see as much play as they could since the likelihood of running into one of those decks is low.
Also beating Mono-Black with some fringe deck is probably a lot more about you playing with a random pile of cards and they therefore not knowing what to play around, how to sideboard etc.
It is common knowledge that Mono-Black has no true bad matchups. The deck can be configured in a way to beat pretty much everything. It is just that you have only 15 sideboard slots so you cant really hedge against everything. That is were meta-knowledge comes in.
For example look at Paul Rietzl who has now Pharika's Cure in his deck at SCG Los Angeles because Burn decks are now a consideration.
tl;dr that was a bad draw for me (bad opener, 0 dissipates, 0 card drawing) and bad topdecks for opponent. but that just highlights that MBD is a threat-light higher variance deck. sometimes you draw Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall and no pressure.
I didn't handpick my one slaughterfest of MBD. I've beaten MBD a ton of times with various budget decks. Sometimes Izzet, often RG aggro, sometimes mono red sligh. Want me to tl;dr 100 MTGO game logs for you? Sure, I've also lost to it a fair bit too. But with low-curve aggressive decks my win % is easily over 60% despite pitting $10 against $200. After enough testing, either I have to conclude the people I've played against can't play Magic OR that the slow durdly midrange deck does have weakness to rush and tempo strategies. The latter's supported by other people's posts. The fact I only posted one game log or that you think that one game isn't representative doesn't change any of those other points. Those other points, not my one game result, was the point of the post.
Look kid, you're only a common mage. This is a big forum for big players. See, I'm an experienced mage, I've had exp vs the big boys, and Galerion, well, Archmage Overlord, 1,162 posts, say no more, girls want his purple cucumber, not some "common mage" who speaks incoherent babble about "consistently" slaughtering the biggest, baddest deck, mono black, on mtgo. You see, there's this thing called lag and girls know this. They know online is free. Just a couple of boys having a bit of fun it the park. And they also know that real men aka ARCHMAGE OVERLORDS, not common mages play offline. Tournies, against the best of the best, not some chump on mtgo 'tourney room.' They know how the game plays, how to shuffle, how to block out those sexy asian girl players creaming themselves in the background after that clutch counterspell that wins them the game. When you place in that next big tourney with your "budget decks," feel free to discount mono black, but until then, keep it real, common mage.
What ?
MTGO is more competitive then most RL events, except only for those insenally competitive ones (the ones people here don't play much). If you're doing good MTGO dailies, you're doing good, period. MTGO isn't free either. You're probably mixing up free softwares (cockatrice and mws) with MTGO.
While it is likely a correct statement that the scrubs online lost because they were scrubs, their losses prove little as people who misplay a deck cannot be used to judge a deck's actual potential (To the extreme example, the burn player hits himself with lightning bolt is not a reflection of what burn is or isn't good at.) or weaknesses. Like before, while the conclusions is mostly correct as well as the fact that MBD has a bit of a soft spot to blitzy type play or things they don't interact all that well with like burn (which may often enough boil down to something like gray merchant vs skullcrack to see if MBD can stabilize.), the way it gets there has a few notable holes.
Black has actually access to Drown in Sorrow, Bile Blight and Pharika's Cure. They are not soft to rush strategies in general and if they dont want to. It's just that these kind of strategies are bad in the meta and therefore these cards dont see as much play as they could since the likelihood of running into one of those decks is low.
Also beating Mono-Black with some fringe deck is probably a lot more about you playing with a random pile of cards and they therefore not knowing what to play around, how to sideboard etc.
It is common knowledge that Mono-Black has no true bad matchups. The deck can be configured in a way to beat pretty much everything. It is just that you have only 15 sideboard slots so you cant really hedge against everything. That is were meta-knowledge comes in.
For example look at Paul Rietzl who has now Pharika's Cure in his deck at SCG Los Angeles because Burn decks are now a consideration.
Good point. I was getting more wins off them before BNG and a few weeks ago when the lists were more geared to beat Monsters and UW. Now that most black players are smartening up with mainboard Bile Blights and Pharika's Cures, not so well. Them sideboarding wrong or planning wrong against an unknown is part of it too, but that's the whole point of bringing a rogue deck, right?
tl;dr that was a bad draw for me (bad opener, 0 dissipates, 0 card drawing) and bad topdecks for opponent. but that just highlights that MBD is a threat-light higher variance deck. sometimes you draw Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall and no pressure.
I didn't handpick my one slaughterfest of MBD. I've beaten MBD a ton of times with various budget decks. Sometimes Izzet, often RG aggro, sometimes mono red sligh. Want me to tl;dr 100 MTGO game logs for you? Sure, I've also lost to it a fair bit too. But with low-curve aggressive decks my win % is easily over 60% despite pitting $10 against $200. After enough testing, either I have to conclude the people I've played against can't play Magic OR that the slow durdly midrange deck does have weakness to rush and tempo strategies. The latter's supported by other people's posts. The fact I only posted one game log or that you think that one game isn't representative doesn't change any of those other points. Those other points, not my one game result, was the point of the post.
Look kid, you're only a common mage. This is a big forum for big players. See, I'm an experienced mage, I've had exp vs the big boys, and Galerion, well, Archmage Overlord, 1,162 posts, say no more, girls want his purple cucumber, not some "common mage" who speaks incoherent babble about "consistently" slaughtering the biggest, baddest deck, mono black, on mtgo. You see, there's this thing called lag and girls know this. They know online is free. Just a couple of boys having a bit of fun it the park. And they also know that real men aka ARCHMAGE OVERLORDS, not common mages play offline. Tournies, against the best of the best, not some chump on mtgo 'tourney room.' They know how the game plays, how to shuffle, how to block out those sexy asian girl players creaming themselves in the background after that clutch counterspell that wins them the game. When you place in that next big tourney with your "budget decks," feel free to discount mono black, but until then, keep it real, common mage.
What ?
MTGO is more competitive then most RL events, except only for those insenally competitive ones (the ones people here don't play much). If you're doing good MTGO dailies, you're doing good, period. MTGO isn't free either. You're probably mixing up free softwares (cockatrice and mws) with MTGO.
Also beating Mono-Black with some fringe deck is probably a lot more about you playing with a random pile of cards and they therefore not knowing what to play around, how to sideboard etc.
It is common knowledge that Mono-Black has no true bad matchups. The deck can be configured in a way to beat pretty much everything. It is just that you have only 15 sideboard slots so you cant really hedge against everything. That is were meta-knowledge comes in.
Not so sure about that part. As far as I know Esper is the favorite one in that match up.
Also beating Mono-Black with some fringe deck is probably a lot more about you playing with a random pile of cards and they therefore not knowing what to play around, how to sideboard etc.
It is common knowledge that Mono-Black has no true bad matchups. The deck can be configured in a way to beat pretty much everything. It is just that you have only 15 sideboard slots so you cant really hedge against everything. That is were meta-knowledge comes in.
Not so sure about that part. As far as I know Esper is the favorite one in that match up.
Esper is the favorite. But its not an auto-loss either. A good discard-heavy start can be hard to deal with. Of course the end game of Control is far more powerful than the black one and there lies the issue in the matchup.
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Modern: UW Control
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Never underestimate Goblin Electromancer.
I wouldnt if I were playing Modern and the Izzet guy would be playing Storm. But there is not much upside to him in Standard besides making Lightning Strike into Lightning Bolt or something like that.
Very true, but it could of easily been a turn 4 Lightning Bolt with a Counterspell backup, which would of removed the Nightveil Specter and held a very favorable position for the Izzet player.
Well there was a turn 1 Thoughtseize which could have taken care of that
I agree that Mono Black is bad verses Aggro. The deck doesnt usually start doing anything until turn 3. I remember having so many hands like Demon, Merchant, Specter, Underworld Connections and 3 Lands and just dying being on the draw. Underworld Connections seems like the "you have to play this card but dont really want to" type of card since in terms of mana efficiency its horrible. 3 mana to have to wait a turn and use up 1 mana just to get 1 card return is bad against most decks, but the deck has to use it for devotion sake and its good against control, which is why its stuck in the deck. I can see why pros like Owen thought it was so bad since almost all games against Aggro it was a complete blank.
I been more content using UW devotion over Mono B. I never worry about losing to Aggro or Pack Rat anymore. I got pretty tired of them jamming Pack Rat and dying since I couldnt get a Bile Blight or getting burnt out by Burn Spells since I didnt start playing until turn 3. Granite, now I just die to Skylashers and sometimes Mistcutter Hydras, but that doesnt happen very often. Theres way more Pack Rats out there than Skylashers, which means just by default Im bound to win more just from choosing a different deck. Its pretty great when your excited to see a Pack Rat played since its getting Dsphered at some point or a Nightveil Specter when your holding Domesication since that either leads to a 2 for 1 or you winning the game.
Its just completely narrow minded when people cant understand that you cant win every game or beat every single deck. Its pretty obvious in a game of drawing cards that your not always going to draw the right part of your deck all the time. You just have to play the numbers game and not care about the games where your luck sucks since thats the best you can do.
(pack rat is basically aetherling/that sphinx people like for some reason for four less mana)
As for my hand, my opener was 3 lands + Mizzium Skin + Magma Jet + Syncopate + Izzet Charm and he Thoughtseized the charm, so that was not a nut draw even for that janky deck! All game only Syncopate+Charm (out of 14 counters), no card draw, somewhat mana-flooded. But Magma Jet and 2 scry lands let me scry away land and helped me draw into gas, improving my draw quality over the opponent. I was largely able to win because of free scry and because Guttersnipe gets in for extra damage for each spell. Those all add incremental advantages per spell cast, even if they are trading 1-for-1 with the opponent. Whereas my opponent cast about the same number of spells but did not gain any advantage from the ones he resolved. That was the main difference I wanted to highlight with that example. That in a 1-for-1 war of attrition, without one if its engines online, MBD struggles to stabilize. His own spells dealt himself 4 and gave me 2 life while mine scryed and shocked him repeatedly.
I question the critical reading abilities of some people on this forum. Clearly, an anecdote is never presented to act as sufficient sample size to draw a statistical claim. It's presented as an illustrative example, to highlight certain patterns that people who have played with and against the deck have probably noticed. Some of these patterns:
-MBD takes a few turns to establish a threat
-MBD has plenty of 1-for-1 answers (Thoughtseize, Hero's Downfall, etc.) but, aside from conditional Bile Blight, lacks removals that are 2-for-1 or generate card advantage or even scry. So even if they kill your guy, if it already generated some advantage, they fall behind slightly in the war of attrition.
-curve is higher than many decks, meaning other decks may be better on mana efficiency per turn
-MBD creatures, other than Gray Merchant, don't generate an advantage when immediately put on battlefield (unlike say Thragtusk or a Titan). So if countered or killed, the MBD player is back at 1-for-1 parity (Pack Rat needs some time to protect itself)
-MBD is a bit light on threats
-MBD lacks library manipulation, making its draws have higher variance
The big advantages come from activating Underworld Connections multiple times, activating Pack Rat multiple times, activating Whip of Erebos multiple times or casting Gray Merchant with a big board. The problem is that all of these require significant mana investments and building advantages over multiple turns. If they are quickly countered or removed, not much of an advantage is gained. If opponent is putting pressure on with little aggro weenies, hard to profit.
tl;dr you got lucky and one game doesn't mean much. But I agree with you on the Goblin Electromancer is underrated and I value him more than Young Pyromancer in my deck and the pyro ain't no slouch.
I didn't handpick my one slaughterfest of MBD. I've beaten MBD a ton of times with various budget decks. Sometimes Izzet, often RG aggro, sometimes mono red sligh. Want me to tl;dr 100 MTGO game logs for you? Sure, I've also lost to it a fair bit too. But with low-curve aggressive decks my win % is easily over 60% despite pitting $10 against $200. After enough testing, either I have to conclude the people I've played against can't play Magic OR that the slow durdly midrange deck does have weakness to rush and tempo strategies. The latter's supported by other people's posts. The fact I only posted one game log or that you think that one game isn't representative doesn't change any of those other points. Those other points, not my one game result, was the point of the post.
As far as I know even in the Caw-Blade era there were decks that could beat it but Caw-Blade was still without a doubt the best deck and everything else was garbage.
Not saying that Mono-Black is such a deck but I want to make the point that being good against Mono-Black is not enough, you have to good against the whole field if you want to be successful and that is where many fringe decks fail.
Look kid, you're only a common mage. This is a big forum for big players. See, I'm an experienced mage, I've had exp vs the big boys, and Galerion, well, Archmage Overlord, 1,162 posts, say no more, girls want his purple cucumber, not some "common mage" who speaks incoherent babble about "consistently" slaughtering the biggest, baddest deck, mono black, on mtgo. You see, there's this thing called lag and girls know this. They know online is free. Just a couple of boys having a bit of fun it the park. And they also know that real men aka ARCHMAGE OVERLORDS, not common mages play offline. Tournies, against the best of the best, not some chump on mtgo 'tourney room.' They know how the game plays, how to shuffle, how to block out those sexy asian girl players creaming themselves in the background after that clutch counterspell that wins them the game. When you place in that next big tourney with your "budget decks," feel free to discount mono black, but until then, keep it real, common mage.
Also, RW Burn has a great Mono Black matchup. I still believe that UW Control has a good Mono Black matchup too. Now on the topic of Mono Black making you want to strangle puppies, I felt the same way. I played the deck and it was very solid. However it just seemed to methodical and boring; I quickly switched to GR Devotion at the time and had nearly the same record while having more fun.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
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Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I'm not sure I'd agree with the notion that RW burn has a great matchup vs MBD. Typically I have a winning record VS boros burn unless I'm screwed or they top deck amazingly (only draw 4 lands in 10 turns,including starting hand, for example).
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Straw man, ad hominem, slippery slope, other ridiculousness, etc. I may be a "common mage" on this forum, but you're clearly the "common mage" at life. Calm down kid.
I really question some people's basic reading skills. I never argued that MBD is bad, or that the aforementioned jank common decks are good, or that they could win tournaments. I would never sleeve up such a monstrosity IRL. That's why I openly refer to them as "janky" and "budget decks", expressing no delusions that they are anything else. So why am I talking about winning with bad decks? In part, I probably just outplayed the slops online. But the deeper point was that if certain bad decks can beat a good deck more than just once in a blue moon, it highlights a weak point of that good deck. Because otherwise that good deck shouldn't be repeatedly losing to the bad deck. No deck is perfect. Every deck has weaknesses. That's the rock-paper-scissors of Magic. People capable of mature adult thought know having weaknesses does not mean it is not still tier 1. They also know that just because a budget deck can hit one deck's Achilles heel doesn't mean it can do the same for all tier 1 decks.
I'm not the only one saying monoblack is a bit soft to rush aggro and tempo strategies. However, sligh curve decks are soft to UW and Esper control and other stuff. My budget decks are clearly soft to a lot, not worth bringing to an event and hoping to survive rounds.
So why bring any of this up in the first place? The OP complained mono B is this unfair unbeatable monstrosity. I'm just arguing that while it is strong, like any deck it still has weaknesses and can be beaten by certain strategies. If you're losing to Thoughtseize and Hero's Downfall ripping your best threats for 1-3 mana, you can negate that by running more threats that only cost 1-3 mana and more 2-for-1s. Basic tempo. Something every Legacy and Modern player knows. I just wanted to highlight that you can implement such a strategy shift even with cheap cards. That doesn't mean those strategies will necessarily beat the other tier decks, just that he doesn't always have to lose to mono B.
Why bring up the 1-for-1 thing? In Standard's history, tier 1 midrange decks consistently beat out aggro decks when they had either mass removal (e.g. Supreme Verdict, Bonfire of the Damned, Wrath of God, Death Cloud, Pernicious Deed) or fatties that generate immediate value (e.g. Primeval Titan, Inferno Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Thragtusk, Loxodon Hierarch, etc.). Those really help stabilize against aggressive boards. Monoblack has many powerful tools but lacks those anti-aggro ones. No mass removal. Only fatty is Desecration Demon, good in general but surprisingly bad against a bunch of janky tokens. Only creature with ETB profit is Gray Merchant, but its value depends on your board development and decreases when you are far behind. Meanwhile, some of the best cards (Thoughtseize, Connections) lose you life. That doesn't mean they aren't good cards. That doesn't mean they don't make a powerful deck. However, it does mean that combined there is a soft spot to get rushed that tier 1 Standard midrange decks haven't typically had.
Maybe a good brewer can use those weaknesses to design a deck that hits those monoB weaknesses but also has good matchups against UW and other contenders.
FYI SCG Seattle was won by R/W burn in a top 8 full of black decks, so looks like Neil Hartman just did that.
St Louis was dominated by G/R with almost no showing from mono B.
Atlanta had a better monoB showing but still had a couple red decks in top 16.
Hmm. Would you say you have higher variance than RW burn? Red-based aggro is pretty consistent with most cards serving similar roles, aside from getting land-flooded (and Magma Jet helps stop that). Would you say your beating R/W is more dependent on getting certain draws? Are you equally able to win with Pack Rat hands as spells+Demon hands? If they win the die roll, does it make a big difference? Also are you playing just monoB or white splash?
Black has actually access to Drown in Sorrow, Bile Blight and Pharika's Cure. They are not soft to rush strategies in general and if they dont want to. It's just that these kind of strategies are bad in the meta and therefore these cards dont see as much play as they could since the likelihood of running into one of those decks is low.
Also beating Mono-Black with some fringe deck is probably a lot more about you playing with a random pile of cards and they therefore not knowing what to play around, how to sideboard etc.
It is common knowledge that Mono-Black has no true bad matchups. The deck can be configured in a way to beat pretty much everything. It is just that you have only 15 sideboard slots so you cant really hedge against everything. That is were meta-knowledge comes in.
For example look at Paul Rietzl who has now Pharika's Cure in his deck at SCG Los Angeles because Burn decks are now a consideration.
What ?
MTGO is more competitive then most RL events, except only for those insenally competitive ones (the ones people here don't play much). If you're doing good MTGO dailies, you're doing good, period. MTGO isn't free either. You're probably mixing up free softwares (cockatrice and mws) with MTGO.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Good point. I was getting more wins off them before BNG and a few weeks ago when the lists were more geared to beat Monsters and UW. Now that most black players are smartening up with mainboard Bile Blights and Pharika's Cures, not so well. Them sideboarding wrong or planning wrong against an unknown is part of it too, but that's the whole point of bringing a rogue deck, right?
Not so sure about that part. As far as I know Esper is the favorite one in that match up.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Esper is the favorite. But its not an auto-loss either. A good discard-heavy start can be hard to deal with. Of course the end game of Control is far more powerful than the black one and there lies the issue in the matchup.