But to be honest you won' find cards that "wreck" Mono-black because they don't exist and even if you would have them Discard would take care of that. It's the reason that many people including pro players call it the best deck in Standard right now.
Play an aggro deck or R/w Devotion if you want to have a decent chance of winning.
If you try to go toe to toe with MBD you'll lose more often than you'll win. I've been testing a Junk list that is molded in a way to shore up the weakness (Blood Baron, Connection and etc. MB) and it's still not enough. I figure your best bet is to try and go underneath them with aggro and hope they can't stabilize in time.
Aside from red based aggro, I like Shrout's G/W list that naturally has a good match-up vs. MBD but also runs Mistcutter/Skylasher MB for the MUD match-up.
I honestly don't see why it's such a bad matchup. Abrupt decay hits pack rats and underworld. You have access to thoughtseize, hero's downfall and many kill spells as well. Rakdos return is really good too. I would try cards such as deadbridge chant and primeval bounty as they have no way of dealing with enchantments. You would be gaining advantage every turn.
I honestly don't see why it's such a bad matchup. Abrupt decay hits pack rats and underworld. You have access to thoughtseize, hero's downfall and many kill spells as well. Rakdos return is really good too. I would try cards such as deadbridge chant and primeval bounty as they have no way of dealing with enchantments. You would be gaining advantage every turn.
The problem is MBD does most of what Jund can do but a lot more consistently. You have to have a real good reason to go the 3C route right now (like that Shizuoka build ).
True. As of now unless you're in esper 3 colors is not viable. But as the next sets come out as well as the temples Jund will be a force to reckon with. It's hard to imagine a standard without jund as top tier. I'm just tired of seeing mono black. It was fun at first but now it's boring to see people play.
True. As of now unless you're in esper 3 colors is not viable. But as the next sets come out as well as the temples Jund will be a force to reckon with. It's hard to imagine a standard without jund as top tier. I'm just tired of seeing mono black. It was fun at first but now it's boring to see people play.
I see a lot of these comments but scrying wont change the powerlevel of your cards or that your lands come into play tapped. Decks wont be better just because you can scry a bit.
Esper can only get away with it because it runs universal answers like Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict and of course Sphinx's Revelation and even then Esper vanished because power is not everything.
Reid Duke has a good article on that on Starcity.
Mono-black is streamlined. It has three different plans to win and all are powerful and at least Owen Turtenwalds list is tuned to take maximum advantage of them
Plan A: Pack Rat. Cant answer it, you lose. Simple
Plan B: Underworld Connections and Gray Merchant of Ashpodel
Plan C: Traditional Midrange with Nightveil Specter and Desecration Demon backed up with disruption and removal.
And that is true for most of the top decks now. I quote redtwister on this who made a post about it in the UW control thread:
Control is hard to play successfully right now. Notice how much Esper has virtually disappeared? Thank you Mono-B, Rw Devotion, and Mono-U. Devotion is an absurdly powerful mechanic and, following Reid Duke's article today, it gives these decks very simple, linear strategies. These are, as he calls them, very streamlined decks.
Mono-B? 3 Strategies: Pack Rat FTW, Devotion mid-range, traditional Mid-range, and all three strategies come with the best hand destruction anyone has seen in a long time. Black is the new Jund.
Mono-U? Tempo, tempo, tempo. Land a threat fast, keep hitting, hinder any effective response, and have the ability to suddenly draw a card and win. Mono-U is not unlike Delver, but if Delver with Talrand, Sky Summoner, was playable.
Rw Devotion? Beats and Devotion burn for reach.
Wr aggro? Beat, beat, push through for the last couple with Charm or Brave.
Have you noticed that most of these decks only run cards you want to see as 4-ofs? Not much in the way of bits and pieces. Even the sideboards tend in that direction (OwenTurtenwald's latest sideboard is the most streamlines in the game, with only 5 cards! 3 Erebos, 4 Duress, 3 Dark Betrayal, 2 Pharika's Cure, which takes that card to 4, btw, aka a 4-of.)
Thats why all these 3 color decks fail because they dont have a plan. It is just good stuff crammed together and that wont change with the other sets because this sets pushes decks with less colors. That new red burn spell that got spoiled is a good example because it costs 1RRR
Minimize Thoughtseize's effectiveness against you.
Try to reduce the amount of times a single spot removal spell would be a blowout.
Have enough removal, always.
Try to use your Thoughtseizes for specific cards.
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Nocturnal God of Chaos of The Æsir Probably the most random person you will ever meet. Trust me on this one. Well, I'm off to poop.
Oh, my username is the same on Xbox and Cockatrice, add me!
"For some of us, easier Magic is good Magic, but if you are one of those 'intelligent types,' feel free to play your Hive Mind mirrors. The rest of us are here for the fireworks." - Kent Ketter
Playing in Type 2...BGRJundHearted
How well does RW Devotion do against Mono Black Devotion? Would it stand a better chance than my Jund Midrange Deck?
Definitely Hammer of Purphoros, Assemble the Legion and Purphoros, God of the Forge cant be removed by mono-black and the damage from these will be too much if the game goes long.
But dont expect to steamroll them. They also have cards that are good against you like the Demon.
Minimize Thoughtseize's effectiveness against you.
Try to reduce the amount of times a single spot removal spell would be a blowout.
Have enough removal, always.
Try to use your Thoughtseizes for specific cards.
So RW Devotion would stand up better to them then? For It has plenty of creatures to eat up removal. Thoughtseize is extremely ineffective against many small guys.
Assemble they can't deal with.
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Decks I play:
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
Depends. If there's a lot of Assemble in the meta, they just start boarding Illness in the Ranks. It's not a hard answer but it's the same kind of "will probably deal with the problem long enough to turn the game back around" answer Pithing Needle is for other problematic cards.
It's also very high on the Thoughtseize/Duress priority list if you don't draw it with enough mana to cast it.
I see a lot of these comments but scrying wont change the powerlevel of your cards or that your lands come into play tapped. Decks wont be better just because you can scry a bit.
Esper can only get away with it because it runs universal answers like Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict and of course Sphinx's Revelation and even then Esper vanished because power is not everything.
I don't disagree with that, sure scrying doesn't make your deck better but it filters your deck for answers. It's not going to win you games but it'll improve your deck a little bit. Honestly the best options in standard right now are to have the devotion decks as templates but splashing colors. I think if you want to beat mono black you must play mono black and splash another color. I think the B/w midrange deck is very good against mono black. It has the same template but blood baron just wrecks mono black if they can't devour flesh it the turn you play it. Mono black splashing green is decent as golgari charm and abrupt decay is great removal in the format right now. Reaper of the wilds is hard to deal with too.
In order to play jund and have success you can't be greedy with the mana. I would honestly start with the typical mono black package (thoughtseize downfall, pack rat etc.) and splash green and red. I see all these decks trying to run anger of the gods, downfall stormbreath dragon and polukranos. With such a greedy mana base you will be too slow and inconsistent to beat the devotion decks.
But to be honest you won' find cards that "wreck" Mono-black because they don't exist and even if you would have them Discard would take care of that. It's the reason that many people including pro players call it the best deck in Standard right now.
Play an aggro deck or R/w Devotion if you want to have a decent chance of winning.
Slaughter Games Gary.
Then remove Pack Rat as soon as it comes out before they have the mana and tap ability to create a copy.
Sticking an Erebos is also kind of nice, gives you inevitability, provided you can get through for damage reliably.
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Nocturnal God of Chaos of The Æsir Probably the most random person you will ever meet. Trust me on this one. Well, I'm off to poop.
Oh, my username is the same on Xbox and Cockatrice, add me!
"For some of us, easier Magic is good Magic, but if you are one of those 'intelligent types,' feel free to play your Hive Mind mirrors. The rest of us are here for the fireworks." - Kent Ketter
Playing in Type 2...BGRJundHearted
As title says, my meta is now 70% Mono Black Devotion and I did horrid today.
What cards can wreck them?
Cards that give me a hard time:
Desecration Demon
Blood Baron
Opposing Under. Connections
The MANY Kill spells they have.
Rakdos's Return wrecks days. Honestly, that card resolving for anyone's whole hand is just a win unless you're way behind on the board. It's especially effective in Jund as Jund can actually run ways to remove Underworld Connections via Abrupt Decay or Golgari Charm post-board.
I've found MBD to be the most popular deck on the other side of the table as well lately. But I really enjoy that, because my Simic ramp wins 95% of the time against black devo decks. Their graveyards inevitably fill up with removal spells and seizes but to no avail.
As for trying the Jund thing on them, Whip of Erebos and lots of removal with plenty of big, cheaply costed creatures. Go creature heavy and use a walker to get them into your hand (Domri, eg). Don't be surprised when they get downfall'ed though.
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"There's plenty of Youth in the world. What we need is a fountain of Smart."
MBD and Black control in general may be highly consistent, but they are still doing alot of 1 for 1'n and depend on UWC to generate what the deck needs. Card advantage. To be perfectly clear, you need cards that 2 for 1 a lot.
Going back to last season Thragtusk, Huntmaster of the fells, garruk, RR, bonfire of the damned. What made Jund so amazing was all the cards were so much CA by their own right. If a 1 for 1 removal deck went up aganst old Jund you're set to out pace them quickly. Right now in standard there isnt alot of that. You have Rakdos's return, game breaking. Xenagos is pretty good, it dies to downfall but you still generate CA with him via tokens. Left unanswered for a turn or two and it can easily lock you a game. Reaper of the wilds can some what help, as can caryatid to get you ahead of the game a little faster. Against the meta compiled of mono black, i'd probably say DD over polukranos.
What Jund needs is good 3/4 drops that generate CA, and not just impressive single bodies.
Like mentioned before Jund is just missing the cards. At this moment Jund is mono black devotion with bad mana. The best card in the format for midrange decks to get value is underworld connections and mono black has acces to it already. Underworld Cerberus is something I seen people try and it just seems too slow and maybe only ok against control. In all honesty if you want to play midrange you should be playing either monoblack or rg monsters with lots of walkers.
I have been running an aggro Jund build with considerable success against MBD. It runs as hard aggro with answers to everything MBD runs. I'll admit it is still aneough matchup and people are right MBD doesn't have mana issues. This build puts MBD in survival mode. Again I cannot overstate that this is not a guaranteed answer. When it fires it fires but if you don't get that jump, while not the end immediately, it can be a rough uphill climb. I run Experiment One, Rakdos Cackler, Spike Jester. It actually flavors Rakdos aggro with green in there for DregMangler and Ex. One.
I run Experiment One, Rakdos Cackler, Spike Jester. It actually flavors Rakdos aggro with green in there for DregMangler and Ex. One.
Dark Betrayal hits Cackler, Jester, and Mangler. Pharika's Cure hits Experiment One, Cackler, and Jester. Pre-board it's fast enough, but post-board it seems like mono-black has enough sideboard options to stabilize long enough to take control of the game.
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What cards can wreck them?
Cards that give me a hard time:
Desecration Demon
Blood Baron
Opposing Under. Connections
The MANY Kill spells they have.
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
But to be honest you won' find cards that "wreck" Mono-black because they don't exist and even if you would have them Discard would take care of that. It's the reason that many people including pro players call it the best deck in Standard right now.
Play an aggro deck or R/w Devotion if you want to have a decent chance of winning.
Aside from red based aggro, I like Shrout's G/W list that naturally has a good match-up vs. MBD but also runs Mistcutter/Skylasher MB for the MUD match-up.
The problem is MBD does most of what Jund can do but a lot more consistently. You have to have a real good reason to go the 3C route right now (like that Shizuoka build ).
As for Underworld Connections, you have Abrupt Decay, which also deals with Pack Rat, and Nightveil Specter.
Both answer multiple threats for a cheap cost.
Also, Thoughtseize and Rakdos's Return as universal answers
Bident Layers
B Devotion
RG Devotion
UW Control
Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod
Legacy:
DeathBlade
RUG Delver
BUG Control
I see a lot of these comments but scrying wont change the powerlevel of your cards or that your lands come into play tapped. Decks wont be better just because you can scry a bit.
Esper can only get away with it because it runs universal answers like Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict and of course Sphinx's Revelation and even then Esper vanished because power is not everything.
Reid Duke has a good article on that on Starcity.
Mono-black is streamlined. It has three different plans to win and all are powerful and at least Owen Turtenwalds list is tuned to take maximum advantage of them
Plan A: Pack Rat. Cant answer it, you lose. Simple
Plan B: Underworld Connections and Gray Merchant of Ashpodel
Plan C: Traditional Midrange with Nightveil Specter and Desecration Demon backed up with disruption and removal.
And that is true for most of the top decks now. I quote redtwister on this who made a post about it in the UW control thread:
Thats why all these 3 color decks fail because they dont have a plan. It is just good stuff crammed together and that wont change with the other sets because this sets pushes decks with less colors. That new red burn spell that got spoiled is a good example because it costs 1RRR
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
Minimize Thoughtseize's effectiveness against you.
Try to reduce the amount of times a single spot removal spell would be a blowout.
Have enough removal, always.
Try to use your Thoughtseizes for specific cards.
Oh, my username is the same on Xbox and Cockatrice, add me!
"For some of us, easier Magic is good Magic, but if you are one of those 'intelligent types,' feel free to play your Hive Mind mirrors. The rest of us are here for the fireworks." - Kent Ketter
Playing in Type 2...BGRJundHearted
Definitely
Hammer of Purphoros, Assemble the Legion and Purphoros, God of the Forge cant be removed by mono-black and the damage from these will be too much if the game goes long.
But dont expect to steamroll them. They also have cards that are good against you like the Demon.
So RW Devotion would stand up better to them then? For It has plenty of creatures to eat up removal. Thoughtseize is extremely ineffective against many small guys.
Assemble they can't deal with.
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
Depends. If there's a lot of Assemble in the meta, they just start boarding Illness in the Ranks. It's not a hard answer but it's the same kind of "will probably deal with the problem long enough to turn the game back around" answer Pithing Needle is for other problematic cards.
It's also very high on the Thoughtseize/Duress priority list if you don't draw it with enough mana to cast it.
I don't disagree with that, sure scrying doesn't make your deck better but it filters your deck for answers. It's not going to win you games but it'll improve your deck a little bit. Honestly the best options in standard right now are to have the devotion decks as templates but splashing colors. I think if you want to beat mono black you must play mono black and splash another color. I think the B/w midrange deck is very good against mono black. It has the same template but blood baron just wrecks mono black if they can't devour flesh it the turn you play it. Mono black splashing green is decent as golgari charm and abrupt decay is great removal in the format right now. Reaper of the wilds is hard to deal with too.
In order to play jund and have success you can't be greedy with the mana. I would honestly start with the typical mono black package (thoughtseize downfall, pack rat etc.) and splash green and red. I see all these decks trying to run anger of the gods, downfall stormbreath dragon and polukranos. With such a greedy mana base you will be too slow and inconsistent to beat the devotion decks.
Slaughter Games Gary.
Then remove Pack Rat as soon as it comes out before they have the mana and tap ability to create a copy.
Oh, my username is the same on Xbox and Cockatrice, add me!
"For some of us, easier Magic is good Magic, but if you are one of those 'intelligent types,' feel free to play your Hive Mind mirrors. The rest of us are here for the fireworks." - Kent Ketter
Playing in Type 2...BGRJundHearted
Rakdos's Return wrecks days. Honestly, that card resolving for anyone's whole hand is just a win unless you're way behind on the board. It's especially effective in Jund as Jund can actually run ways to remove Underworld Connections via Abrupt Decay or Golgari Charm post-board.
Standard:
RW Boros devotion/Purphoros combo
RGB Jund Midrange
Modern:
WB Martyr.proc
As for trying the Jund thing on them, Whip of Erebos and lots of removal with plenty of big, cheaply costed creatures. Go creature heavy and use a walker to get them into your hand (Domri, eg). Don't be surprised when they get downfall'ed though.
Going back to last season Thragtusk, Huntmaster of the fells, garruk, RR, bonfire of the damned. What made Jund so amazing was all the cards were so much CA by their own right. If a 1 for 1 removal deck went up aganst old Jund you're set to out pace them quickly. Right now in standard there isnt alot of that. You have Rakdos's return, game breaking. Xenagos is pretty good, it dies to downfall but you still generate CA with him via tokens. Left unanswered for a turn or two and it can easily lock you a game. Reaper of the wilds can some what help, as can caryatid to get you ahead of the game a little faster. Against the meta compiled of mono black, i'd probably say DD over polukranos.
What Jund needs is good 3/4 drops that generate CA, and not just impressive single bodies.
Dark Betrayal hits Cackler, Jester, and Mangler. Pharika's Cure hits Experiment One, Cackler, and Jester. Pre-board it's fast enough, but post-board it seems like mono-black has enough sideboard options to stabilize long enough to take control of the game.