This thread-primer is devided and conflicted we need unity and understanding that we all want the same,e thing. Mono blAck co tro,l. Post mono black lists with sideboard options . Stop derailing the thread with splash debate. Its good as long as we respect the other decent decks A d build accordingly .
I would love to play MBC. .. and the card pool is almost there but not quite. ... So I would agree, discussing splashing (as OP also suggested) is not just warranted, but prudent. Each color offers unique options.
Meanwhile I'm just chillin' on my lonesome over here with my aggro devotion list...
Keep in mind, some of you, this is not Mono-Black Control. This is Black Devotion. If you're dedicating to putting on the battlefield and throwing down Merchants, maybe with a little Nykthos on the side, your list belongs here. It doesn't matter whether they're splashing colors or I'm curving out Turns 1-3 with dudes. Some others have already picked up on this, good for them.
Scrylands should be a very minor consideration for our splashes. We have the best draw power in the format, scrying for card quality is simply less useful to us than other decks. Sure, better than guildgates but that doesn't matter if the actual spells aren't worth splashing for. I'm not splashing White instead of Green just because the former gets Scry 1 attached to its taplands. My list of notables includes Slaughter Games, Golgari Charm, Fade into Antiquity, which are incidentally the two combos without scrylands. I don't like Abrupt Decay, yeah it doubles as cheap creature removal but it doesn't hit Assemble the Legion which is probably the single best card against mono- lists.
Meanwhile I'm just chillin' on my lonesome over here with my aggro devotion list...
Keep in mind, some of you, this is not Mono-Black Control. This is Black Devotion. If you're dedicating to putting on the battlefield and throwing down Merchants, maybe with a little Nykthos on the side, your list belongs here. It doesn't matter whether they're splashing colors or I'm curving out Turns 1-3 with dudes. Some others have already picked up on this, good for them.
Scrylands should be a very minor consideration for our splashes. We have the best draw power in the format, scrying for card quality is simply less useful to us than other decks. Sure, better than guildgates but that doesn't matter if the actual spells aren't worth splashing for. I'm not splashing White instead of Green just because the former gets Scry 1 attached to its taplands. My list of notables includes Slaughter Games, Golgari Charm, Fade into Antiquity, which are incidentally the two combos without scrylands. I don't like Abrupt Decay, yeah it doubles as cheap creature removal but it doesn't hit Assemble the Legion which is probably the single best card against mono- lists.
Abrupt decay has been a bomb for me though killing everything from specters to detention spheres. havent seen a resolved assemble the legion yet cause i've been lucky on my thought seize/duress when I play against boros
Honestly I've played against about 8 Assemble the Legion decks ever since Brad Nelson and other pros hyped it to be the "bane of mono black". And between playing the Mono B list and the green splash list I've lost to it exactly 0 times. Unless there's something I'm missing the card seems slow and clunky and doesn't do anything against us. It can't race pack rats with whip, it can't beat double or triple gary, it takes 2 turns to be able to profitably start holding down a single demon, and it still let's us swing in the air or on the ground with Zombies. It's so easy to just race an assemble. It's also just an obvious card to pluck away on a thoughtseize or a duress.
Also abrupt decay has been a house against MUD and should not be sold shortly. The fact that it's uncounterable has been awkwardly relevant because of those damn owls and key in preventing them from getting 1-2 Specter hits in, as well as being able to easily slow down their devotion count. It's also sometimes nice just to have a removal spell that doesn't target MoWs as well so I feel less inclined to hold it and just use it more liberally.
Honestly I've played against about 8 Assemble the Legion decks ever since Brad Nelson and other pros hyped it to be the "bane of mono black". And between playing the Mono B list and the green splash list I've lost to it exactly 0 times. Unless there's something I'm missing the card seems slow and clunky and doesn't do anything against us. It can't race pack rats with whip, it can't beat double or triple gary, it takes 2 turns to be able to profitably start holding down a single demon, and it still let's us swing in the air or on the ground with Zombies. It's so easy to just race an assemble. It's also just an obvious card to pluck away on a thoughtseize or a duress.
Well, you've basically described the ways that you do win against an early assemble. Since those decks typically match you for removal, you're very unlikely to win through damage. If you can get rats going, get multiple garys, and/or have the whip engine, you can win.
The problem is that those decks often sideboard in enchantment/artifact destruction as well so the whip plan goes out the window. Of course, if you can find a way to get your rats around all their removal, you've got a small chance of beating their removal before they start getting a bunch of guys. If not, you're going to need to get lucky with Grey Merchants.
In other words, it sounds as if you've actually gotten fortunate. Most of the times I've seen a turn 4 or 5 Assemble the Legion against monoblack, it is damn near conceding time.
What you did touch on that I agree with is that duress + thoughtseize is often enough to stop it from hitting play on time, and without Assemble or Elspeth those decks have a hard time winning.
You've missed the point. This isn't a thread for MBC. It's for black devotion and the OPs intent was to discus the core set of cards of black devotion AND the various splashing. That's why there's a breakdown of cards into other colors wrapped in spoiler tags in the very first post of this thread. In particular, my flavor of the rock has more card choices in common with devo than it does rock, thus posting it here.
I guess I'm just totally confused. I noticed a guy put up a mono black thread and it was immediately taken down because of this one. So you keep pimping your golgari rock black devotion deal and I'll work on mine, in another form. This is getting nowhere.
It should be obvious to note though that postboard against most RW decks that bringing in 3 duress and 3 Lifebane Zombies gives us 10 hand disruption cards that let's us take a peek at their hand and work with near perfect information to play around cards like wear//tear and destructive revelry, on top of tearing apart their hand. Everytime I've played these matchups I just felt heavily favored as the decks seemed to lean so heavily on assemble to beat us, but then end up not doing anything relevant. There have been games against Naya and Dega where I just played one threat at a time biding time and not overextending until I got a sufficient mana advantage or baited out removal and wear//tears with connections to the point of being able to overwhelm them with CA while they just sit on dead cards or continue to force them to 1 for 1 themselves out of the game. Do note that RW decks (outside of Dega using RtBs) have no real form of card advantage outside of sweepers and fusing wear//tear on a whip and connections (which you shouldn't be walking into) which at worst should 2 for 1 us. So many of these games have just been taken away by connections to overwhelm them and they just can't keep up. Assemble is a crutch and when you sweep it away they fall flat on their face. Though I will admit Dega has more tech against us because BBV is a pain in the neck, but I've learned to win through resolved Blood Barons after the esper decks in my shop started packing 4 in their 75.
The matches are grindy attrition wars, but our deck has so many ways to attack that exact angle whereas assemble decks don't have nearly as many options. Adding in a green splash to give us just that much more flexibility in our card selection (I guess red for slaughter games works about as well) makes the matchup nearly a non issue. I'm honestly more worried about GR and R decks doing dumb things with BTE than I am playing against Assemble.
It should be obvious to note though that postboard against most RW decks that bringing in 3 duress and 3 Lifebane Zombies gives us 10 hand disruption cards that let's us take a peek at their hand and work with near perfect information to play around cards like wear//tear and destructive revelry, on top of tearing apart their hand. Everytime I've played these matchups I just felt heavily favored as the decks seemed to lean so heavily on assemble to beat us, but then end up not doing anything relevant. There have been games against Naya and Dega where I just played one threat at a time biding time and not overextending until I got a sufficient mana advantage or baited out removal and wear//tears with connections to the point of being able to overwhelm them with CA while they just sit on dead cards or continue to force them to 1 for 1 themselves out of the game. Do note that RW decks (outside of Dega using RtBs) have no real form of card advantage outside of sweepers and fusing wear//tear on a whip and connections (which you shouldn't be walking into) which at worst should 2 for 1 us. So many of these games have just been taken away by connections to overwhelm them and they just can't keep up. Assemble is a crutch and when you sweep it away they fall flat on their face. Though I will admit Dega has more tech against us because BBV is a pain in the neck, but I've learned to win through resolved Blood Barons after the esper decks in my shop started packing 4 in their 75.
The matches are grindy attrition wars, but our deck has so many ways to attack that exact angle whereas assemble decks don't have nearly as many options. Adding in a green splash to give us just that much more flexibility in our card selection (I guess red for slaughter games works about as well) makes the matchup nearly a non issue. I'm honestly more worried about GR and R decks doing dumb things with BTE than I am playing against Assemble.
Well once you have green, you don't need to really worry about that card so much. I was referring specifically to the monoblack version of it.
As I said, there are a lot of ways to disrupt it from hitting the battlefield, yes. That said, if it *does* come into play against you on curve or before curve, monoblack will have a very hard time winning.
With a green splash, though? No worries. Golgari Charm will either wipe out the 1/1s and let you swing or kill the enchantment. It is another reason why I prefer running green (or blue) at the moment.
Well once you have green, you don't need to really worry about that card so much. I was referring specifically to the monoblack version of it.
As I said, there are a lot of ways to disrupt it from hitting the battlefield, yes. That said, if it *does* come into play against you on curve or before curve, monoblack will have a very hard time winning.
With a green splash, though? No worries. Golgari Charm will either wipe out the 1/1s and let you swing or kill the enchantment. It is another reason why I prefer running green (or blue) at the moment.
This is what I mean about going nowhere. This thread goes in circles. It's like we're try to out do each other with the same deck. Kinda lame.
This is what I mean about going nowhere. This thread goes in circles. It's like we're try to out do each other with the same deck. Kinda lame.
yeah why dont you, the almighty genius that goes around saying everyone is wrong give a way for mono black to deal with enchantments without splashing.
yeah why dont you, the almighty genius that goes around saying everyone is wrong give a way for mono black to deal with enchantments without splashing.
Thought seize, Duress or out race it. That's not a way, that's three ways.
Well done, so your deck is completely unbeatable! now you don't have to come back to the forums to look for options anymore!
Would you like some cheese with all the whine? It's real simple, if you don't like being told you are wrong - don't be wrong. I remember this guy that would religiously play mono red aggro and crush, always. One day a kid asked him what he did about COP red. He said, I don't worry about it. I stomp face.
Going nowhere. Yeah, that's what I've been trying to say. Maybe you'll get a more welcome reception because you support the popular opinion. As far as the scg Dallas thing goes - if you want to hate out a deck it gets hated out. Splash or not.
Just got back from my LGS from a standard tournament. Went in using BBD's deck that is listed at the beginning of this thread.
Went 2-0 until I had to face one of the mono blue devotion decks that was 2-0. He beat me 0-2. -4 Thoughtseize +4 Removal (devour flesh/doom blade). This didn't help much. It kept me alive 2 or 3 more turns.
Round 4, I faced the other unbeaten mono blue devotion deck and once again went 0-2. I'm pretty upset with this deck's performance against mono blue right now. These 2 guys win every monday night and I was hoping to stop that this week :/
**Update**
So, I just played the guy who smoked me with the mono blue deck and won 8 out of 10 games. I tried out different sideboards. Someone recommended sideboarding Duress' in. This only removed a cyclonic rift out of 5 matches. The best sideboarding for me I felt was 2 pithing needles shutting down Thassa's unblocking ability and adding more removal (4x Doom blades, 4x Devour flesh). As soon as he would lay a Master down, I had a doom blade or Hero's downfall waiting for it.
Ray of Dissolution - for handling enchantments. Are there "better" alternitives ?
Keening Apparition is 1 cheaper, but as a creature you can’t cast her any time you could an instant. Solemn Offering costs the same as the Ray, but nets you 4 life — again, however, it does not work as an instant.
Sundering Growth perhaps? Lets you destroy artifact or enchantment and only costs WW if you’re splashing white.
I'm almost done building a mono-black devotion deck for my group's gauntlet, and in the process I've kind of gotten stuck on wanting to splash blue myself. I wanted to run 4x temple of deceit or silence in the original list just for the scrying, and I figure I could throw a few more watery graves in there to get access to quite a few options.
In playing this deck while proxied, it really does feel like a pure control deck most of the time. Granted, I haven't been playing it very long, but having 1-2 far/away in the main and the option of bringing in cyclonic rift/negates seems strong. I know most people on the splash train like a green splash more then blue, but I feel like the mana is slightly more consistent in blue. Yes, abrupt decay, putrefy, vraska etc.. are all good and help a ton against the bad matchups (elspeth/assemble the legion decks and whatnot) but so can blue imo. If you have cyclonic rift you can bounce all their tokens after desecration got pumped a few times for lethal, or just hold a negate for those few spells that wreck us.
The combination of thoughtseize, duress and negate seems strong against control decks, and cylonic rift + far/away helps bide time against the aggro decks till our bigger dudes take over the board.
Also, and this may seem a bit out there, but I was inspired by the naya control decks.. adding 1-2 dimir keyrunes seems strong against control decks running verdict and planeswalkers. Survives verdict and then swings in to take a planeswalker down, or even when they have blockers out it still helps eliminate them. With the splash, it's hard to run a full compliment of mutavaults, so it sort of fills that role while also ramping/fixing our mana which is always good in those matchups.
It really is just a splash though, running 1 far/away in the main with 9 total sources of blue (4 temple, 4 watery grave, 1 dimir keyrune) and only 4-5 total blue cards in the side.
Is there anyone else running B/u like this that has good success with it that can offer some tips? I'm going to spend most of this week playtesting with a friend in preparation for our LGS's grand prix trial, so any info that might save us the time figuring out for ourselves would be appreciated.
We've got about 7 decks for our gauntlet: colossal gruul, mono-red blitz, rakdos aggro, WBR midrange, naya control, mono-black and esper control. I'm hoping to play mono-black, but gonna play whatever seems to perform the best. If I've got a subpar list though, don't want my results tainted
I'm almost done building a mono-black devotion deck for my group's gauntlet, and in the process I've kind of gotten stuck on wanting to splash blue myself. I wanted to run 4x temple of deceit or silence in the original list just for the scrying, and I figure I could throw a few more watery graves in there to get access to quite a few options.
In playing this deck while proxied, it really does feel like a pure control deck most of the time. Granted, I haven't been playing it very long, but having 1-2 far/away in the main and the option of bringing in cyclonic rift/negates seems strong. I know most people on the splash train like a green splash more then blue, but I feel like the mana is slightly more consistent in blue. Yes, abrupt decay, putrefy, vraska etc.. are all good and help a ton against the bad matchups (elspeth/assemble the legion decks and whatnot) but so can blue imo. If you have cyclonic rift you can bounce all their tokens after desecration got pumped a few times for lethal, or just hold a negate for those few spells that wreck us.
The combination of thoughtseize, duress and negate seems strong against control decks, and cylonic rift + far/away helps bide time against the aggro decks till our bigger dudes take over the board.
Also, and this may seem a bit out there, but I was inspired by the naya control decks.. adding 1-2 dimir keyrunes seems strong against control decks running verdict and planeswalkers. Survives verdict and then swings in to take a planeswalker down, or even when they have blockers out it still helps eliminate them. With the splash, it's hard to run a full compliment of mutavaults, so it sort of fills that role while also ramping/fixing our mana which is always good in those matchups.
It really is just a splash though, running 1 far/away in the main with 9 total sources of blue (4 temple, 4 watery grave, 1 dimir keyrune) and only 4-5 total blue cards in the side.
Is there anyone else running B/u like this that has good success with it that can offer some tips? I'm going to spend most of this week playtesting with a friend in preparation for our LGS's grand prix trial, so any info that might save us the time figuring out for ourselves would be appreciated.
We've got about 7 decks for our gauntlet: colossal gruul, mono-red blitz, rakdos aggro, WBR midrange, naya control, mono-black and esper control. I'm hoping to play mono-black, but gonna play whatever seems to perform the best. If I've got a subpar list though, don't want my results tainted
I've been toying with the idea of splashing blue, and I'm glad I saw your post. The main reason I want to splash blue is the Cyclonic Rift and Ashiok. I prefer to play Nykthos, so getting to 7 mana for Cyclonic rift really isn't Difficult. Ashiok is a metagame choice for me, since R/G monsters and Desecration Demons run wild in my area.
Far/Away is a fantastic card. It can stall if you want a bounce spell, or you can just use it as an expensive edict.
I like the Keyrune idea. R/B Control has seen good results running 1. I should know, it beat me in the finals of states. Ugh.
The list I've been playing for past few days, modified with a light blue splash. I'd really like to squeeze in an Erebos in the side, but no idea what to drop.
I've been thinking of a blue splash for awhile, to add a pair of cyclonic rifts, far aways and Ashiok as well.
I'd probably drop Negate for another Erebos. I'd rather have a second Erebos in the mirror then a negate.
Also, where's your Ultimate Prices and Devour Flesh? Drop 2 Doomblades and add in one of each.
Am I the only one disappointed with Nightveil Specter here? I admit it's quite good against:
- B-based (beast here, but we are facing removal+card advantage)
- monoU (unless when they use Domestication and win with it)
- U-based control (already our best matchup)
- 2/2s
But, I played three events with 4 Lifebane Zombie, no losses playing only against full-power tiers. Played 1 event with 4 specters... lost one game because of them (stuck with 2 swamp + 2 mutavault and 2 specters in hand against aggro), they hit around 4-5 times in 4 matches and exiled nothing relevant, and they ate removal all the time... ok this is a good thing, but Lifebane Zombie always provides value if not countered. Plus with the rise of white-based deck (and the usual green decks, BBoV/Obzedat, the game-winning Reckoner exile on the play against red) it could be the right choice maindeck.
Of course, a Nightveil Specter left unchecked for several turns wins alone, but if someone can't remove a threat they obviously deserve to lose.
did you play with the Lifebane Zombie´s against (mono) black devotion decks ? Because i think its rather useless there and the nightveil specter is extremely dominant in the mirror matchup or vs. other black devotion decks.
Due to their similar (nearly the same, maybe with some differences because of a possible splash) mana base.
On the other side, the zombie is rather dominant vs. G/W Decks, but over all, i would still play it in the sideboard.
nice, i love the blood barons in there. just a quick question, against what deck do you side in rest in peace for?
and about the specter, it's been outperforming for me. it stops everything that the red decks throw at us early (phoenix in particular). It's amazing against the mirror or any other decks playing black. while there's many ways to remove it (not counting doom blade and ultimate price), it's easier to remove lifebane.
the only color i see lifebane being better against is the GR devotion decks or the GW decks which is currently not really prominent in my area. If you're playing a lot against those decks then lifebane merits the slots in the main deck
It keeps MBD from hitting Gary with Ultimate Price and then whipping it. That's about it. Also slows them down against control, of which BW devotion is not.
Meanwhile I'm just chillin' on my lonesome over here with my aggro devotion list...
Keep in mind, some of you, this is not Mono-Black Control. This is Black Devotion. If you're dedicating to putting on the battlefield and throwing down Merchants, maybe with a little Nykthos on the side, your list belongs here. It doesn't matter whether they're splashing colors or I'm curving out Turns 1-3 with dudes. Some others have already picked up on this, good for them.
Scrylands should be a very minor consideration for our splashes. We have the best draw power in the format, scrying for card quality is simply less useful to us than other decks. Sure, better than guildgates but that doesn't matter if the actual spells aren't worth splashing for. I'm not splashing White instead of Green just because the former gets Scry 1 attached to its taplands. My list of notables includes Slaughter Games, Golgari Charm, Fade into Antiquity, which are incidentally the two combos without scrylands. I don't like Abrupt Decay, yeah it doubles as cheap creature removal but it doesn't hit Assemble the Legion which is probably the single best card against mono- lists.
Abrupt decay has been a bomb for me though killing everything from specters to detention spheres. havent seen a resolved assemble the legion yet cause i've been lucky on my thought seize/duress when I play against boros
Also abrupt decay has been a house against MUD and should not be sold shortly. The fact that it's uncounterable has been awkwardly relevant because of those damn owls and key in preventing them from getting 1-2 Specter hits in, as well as being able to easily slow down their devotion count. It's also sometimes nice just to have a removal spell that doesn't target MoWs as well so I feel less inclined to hold it and just use it more liberally.
Well, you've basically described the ways that you do win against an early assemble. Since those decks typically match you for removal, you're very unlikely to win through damage. If you can get rats going, get multiple garys, and/or have the whip engine, you can win.
The problem is that those decks often sideboard in enchantment/artifact destruction as well so the whip plan goes out the window. Of course, if you can find a way to get your rats around all their removal, you've got a small chance of beating their removal before they start getting a bunch of guys. If not, you're going to need to get lucky with Grey Merchants.
In other words, it sounds as if you've actually gotten fortunate. Most of the times I've seen a turn 4 or 5 Assemble the Legion against monoblack, it is damn near conceding time.
What you did touch on that I agree with is that duress + thoughtseize is often enough to stop it from hitting play on time, and without Assemble or Elspeth those decks have a hard time winning.
I guess I'm just totally confused. I noticed a guy put up a mono black thread and it was immediately taken down because of this one. So you keep pimping your golgari rock black devotion deal and I'll work on mine, in another form. This is getting nowhere.
The matches are grindy attrition wars, but our deck has so many ways to attack that exact angle whereas assemble decks don't have nearly as many options. Adding in a green splash to give us just that much more flexibility in our card selection (I guess red for slaughter games works about as well) makes the matchup nearly a non issue. I'm honestly more worried about GR and R decks doing dumb things with BTE than I am playing against Assemble.
Well once you have green, you don't need to really worry about that card so much. I was referring specifically to the monoblack version of it.
As I said, there are a lot of ways to disrupt it from hitting the battlefield, yes. That said, if it *does* come into play against you on curve or before curve, monoblack will have a very hard time winning.
With a green splash, though? No worries. Golgari Charm will either wipe out the 1/1s and let you swing or kill the enchantment. It is another reason why I prefer running green (or blue) at the moment.
This is what I mean about going nowhere. This thread goes in circles. It's like we're try to out do each other with the same deck. Kinda lame.
yeah why dont you, the almighty genius that goes around saying everyone is wrong give a way for mono black to deal with enchantments without splashing.
Trolling Warning
-DarkRitual
Thought seize, Duress or out race it. That's not a way, that's three ways.
Well done, so your deck is completely unbeatable! now you don't have to come back to the forums to look for options anymore!
Would you like some cheese with all the whine? It's real simple, if you don't like being told you are wrong - don't be wrong. I remember this guy that would religiously play mono red aggro and crush, always. One day a kid asked him what he did about COP red. He said, I don't worry about it. I stomp face.
Warning for trolling
-DarkRitual
**Update**
So, I just played the guy who smoked me with the mono blue deck and won 8 out of 10 games. I tried out different sideboards. Someone recommended sideboarding Duress' in. This only removed a cyclonic rift out of 5 matches. The best sideboarding for me I felt was 2 pithing needles shutting down Thassa's unblocking ability and adding more removal (4x Doom blades, 4x Devour flesh). As soon as he would lay a Master down, I had a doom blade or Hero's downfall waiting for it.
Keening Apparition is 1 cheaper, but as a creature you can’t cast her any time you could an instant. Solemn Offering costs the same as the Ray, but nets you 4 life — again, however, it does not work as an instant.
Sundering Growth perhaps? Lets you destroy artifact or enchantment and only costs WW if you’re splashing white.
No. If you are going to splash blue you should be playing all 8 Dual lands.
Also, I would suggest that if you *are* playing blue you should have Cyclonic Rift somewhere in your 75.
In playing this deck while proxied, it really does feel like a pure control deck most of the time. Granted, I haven't been playing it very long, but having 1-2 far/away in the main and the option of bringing in cyclonic rift/negates seems strong. I know most people on the splash train like a green splash more then blue, but I feel like the mana is slightly more consistent in blue. Yes, abrupt decay, putrefy, vraska etc.. are all good and help a ton against the bad matchups (elspeth/assemble the legion decks and whatnot) but so can blue imo. If you have cyclonic rift you can bounce all their tokens after desecration got pumped a few times for lethal, or just hold a negate for those few spells that wreck us.
The combination of thoughtseize, duress and negate seems strong against control decks, and cylonic rift + far/away helps bide time against the aggro decks till our bigger dudes take over the board.
Also, and this may seem a bit out there, but I was inspired by the naya control decks.. adding 1-2 dimir keyrunes seems strong against control decks running verdict and planeswalkers. Survives verdict and then swings in to take a planeswalker down, or even when they have blockers out it still helps eliminate them. With the splash, it's hard to run a full compliment of mutavaults, so it sort of fills that role while also ramping/fixing our mana which is always good in those matchups.
It really is just a splash though, running 1 far/away in the main with 9 total sources of blue (4 temple, 4 watery grave, 1 dimir keyrune) and only 4-5 total blue cards in the side.
Is there anyone else running B/u like this that has good success with it that can offer some tips? I'm going to spend most of this week playtesting with a friend in preparation for our LGS's grand prix trial, so any info that might save us the time figuring out for ourselves would be appreciated.
We've got about 7 decks for our gauntlet: colossal gruul, mono-red blitz, rakdos aggro, WBR midrange, naya control, mono-black and esper control. I'm hoping to play mono-black, but gonna play whatever seems to perform the best. If I've got a subpar list though, don't want my results tainted
I've been toying with the idea of splashing blue, and I'm glad I saw your post. The main reason I want to splash blue is the Cyclonic Rift and Ashiok. I prefer to play Nykthos, so getting to 7 mana for Cyclonic rift really isn't Difficult. Ashiok is a metagame choice for me, since R/G monsters and Desecration Demons run wild in my area.
Far/Away is a fantastic card. It can stall if you want a bounce spell, or you can just use it as an expensive edict.
I like the Keyrune idea. R/B Control has seen good results running 1. I should know, it beat me in the finals of states. Ugh.
That's it, I'm doing it.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
I've been thinking of a blue splash for awhile, to add a pair of cyclonic rifts, far aways and Ashiok as well.
I'd probably drop Negate for another Erebos. I'd rather have a second Erebos in the mirror then a negate.
Also, where's your Ultimate Prices and Devour Flesh? Drop 2 Doomblades and add in one of each.
Mono Black B
Mono Blue U
Esper Control BUW (Soon)
Commander
Mindseize BRU
Esper BWU
Modern
Black Deck Wins B
Goblin Deck Wins R
- B-based (beast here, but we are facing removal+card advantage)
- monoU (unless when they use Domestication and win with it)
- U-based control (already our best matchup)
- 2/2s
But, I played three events with 4 Lifebane Zombie, no losses playing only against full-power tiers. Played 1 event with 4 specters... lost one game because of them (stuck with 2 swamp + 2 mutavault and 2 specters in hand against aggro), they hit around 4-5 times in 4 matches and exiled nothing relevant, and they ate removal all the time... ok this is a good thing, but Lifebane Zombie always provides value if not countered. Plus with the rise of white-based deck (and the usual green decks, BBoV/Obzedat, the game-winning Reckoner exile on the play against red) it could be the right choice maindeck.
Of course, a Nightveil Specter left unchecked for several turns wins alone, but if someone can't remove a threat they obviously deserve to lose.
nice, i love the blood barons in there. just a quick question, against what deck do you side in rest in peace for?
and about the specter, it's been outperforming for me. it stops everything that the red decks throw at us early (phoenix in particular). It's amazing against the mirror or any other decks playing black. while there's many ways to remove it (not counting doom blade and ultimate price), it's easier to remove lifebane.
the only color i see lifebane being better against is the GR devotion decks or the GW decks which is currently not really prominent in my area. If you're playing a lot against those decks then lifebane merits the slots in the main deck
I don't understand this statement. Could someone explain how Rest in peace is even remotely good against mono black
Standard:
UR Control
the only interaction i can see with RIP against mono black devo is shutting down recurrence with whip.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, and if that's the case wouldn't pithing needle serve the exact same purpose and be cheaper and easier to cast?