where in the name of the brother's war is Urza's Guilt? It simply ends games.
(click on it if you don't believe me. I mean 1 megrim/Liliana's Caress + Urza's Guilt = a minimum of 8 damage to EACH opponent)
I'm going to respond to this even though the post is far in the past and its author is apparently banned, because I think it's important to reiterate that Megrim is a bad card.
Discard works well because it neutralizes your opponent's threats before they happen (before they are cast). Cards like Nyxathid and The Rack have great synergy with discard because you can empty your opponent's hand and then slam them down as finishers.
Megrim, on the other hand, requires your opponent to be *actively* discarding cards. It won't work if they already have, like other wincons. In other words, it requires them to have cards in hand. Once you're swinging with Specter every turn, Megrim is a dead draw. This is especially true against aggro when your opponent has dumped creatures into play and is racing you for damage.
The best proof of how bad Megrim is is that it requires really janky tactics that actually draw your opponent cards. Urza's Guilt is an example of this. Yes, it's net card disadvantage for them, but you're still giving them a filter effect. Do you really want to draw them into a counter/Wrath/Vindicate/big dumb Timmy creature that will proceed to wipe the floor with you? Also, it's net card disadvantage for YOU, which is generally not good in discard. Yes, we have powerful permanents on the board, but most of our power comes from cards in hand.
Anyway, I just started posting here and I like playing discard a lot. I'll post a decklist soon. In the meantime, I noticed no one has mentioned Shrieking Affliction. I find it to be a great addition to The Rack, as it deal, on average, the same amount of damage.
I would recommend playing something closer to this. The Rack is not very useful in a Skullclamp deck; you want your win conditions to be creatures. I also do not recommend cutting a Clamp/Potence because it's very hard to lose games where you see one in your opening grip.
Can I sacrifice the Augur of Skulls in response to him having a Toughness of 0 from the Skullclamp? And can Skullclamp be attached during my upkeep?
Just wondering why only 2 Ravenous Rats and 4 Augur's.
It looks like a good deck, but my only other concern is I don't want this to be to close to my Gate deck I want to build.
No, you cannot equip during the upkeep because you may only equip as a sorcery. And no, your augur would die as a state based action and you would never get the opportunity to active his ability. This could be wrong, but from what i understand of the rules thats how it is. You would have to ask the judges over in Magic Rules http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28 to get a 100% certain response.
As to augur vs rats, the augur sticks around for a bit as a drudge skeleton, and then hits for 2 cards instead of just 1. its a little better as a creature and a little better as a discard spell, so it seems better in general to me.
As to similarities between this and the gate, it is somewhat inevitable. Mono-black a has a slew of powerful cards that are useful in just about every deck you can fit em in. Phyrexian Obliterator, for instance, is just a better creature than most of the discard themed creatures that there is little reason to not run him in their place. You could cut Nyxanthid for instance, and put him in, and you pay 1 more mana for a much more reliable creature that doesn't depend on their hand size, and has a sort of evasion. Not that he is necessary, but marginally better. And Black's discard is what makes Black, well, Black. Its one of the defining features of the color that you can't find in other colors. so you will see a number of them repeat from deck to deck. Gatekeepr, for instance, is just a excellent all around creature that there is little reason not to run him when you can.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
@Squira12: I was pretty sure about that (concerning equipment).
You make some good points. I put that deck list together because I had a lot of the cards, and other then the Necro and Sol Ring, the ones I don't are all cheap.
However it has it's weaknesses, which make's me wonder if I should just abandon it and focus on my other decks; like The Gate which is similar but probably better, lol.
Not that I don't appreciate the ideas, I do. They just have me thinking; what's the point of two almost identical decks? I already have a Mono-Black deck so do I really need 3 or 4?
Then again; Cz's deck list is pretty cheap so maybe I'll go for it anyways.
To be honest I forgot that I helped you build a Gate deck already. For what it's worth I don't see a point in building a Gate deck a discard deck and a suicide Black deck. Just build a Gate deck and call it a day. It's easily better than playing a sui Black deck or a dedicated discard deck.
Check out my most recent blog post if you have the time. I'm actually re-writing this guide from the ground up since it's horribly outdated.
Anyways, in my guide I explain how discard doesn't win games. Discard + pressure wins games. That's why you want to field Gatekeeper of Malakir for example. Does he interact with discard at all? Nope, not even close. Still, he's a 2-for-1 who beats in for 2 and kills people before they can draw out of their mess. That makes him awesome in discard decks.
@Squira12: I was pretty sure about that (concerning equipment).
You make some good points. I put that deck list together because I had a lot of the cards, and other then the Necro and Sol Ring, the ones I don't are all cheap.
However it has it's weaknesses, which make's me wonder if I should just abandon it and focus on my other decks; like The Gate which is similar but probably better, lol.
Not that I don't appreciate the ideas, I do. They just have me thinking; what's the point of two almost identical decks? I already have a Mono-Black deck so do I really need 3 or 4?
Then again; Cz's deck list is pretty cheap so maybe I'll go for it anyways.
A while back I was in the same exact boat as you. I had 3 black decks that, as I tried to improve them, all converged toward the same sort of deck. And after a while I found myself playing with one significantly more than the other two. It's not that when you play one black deck you've played them all, but they do get really repetitive from deck to deck. I later scrapped the other two decks and ended putting all my focus onto my one Mono-B deck left; Pox.
If you are looking for a slight bit of fresh air from the gate then you could try and build pox. Of course, Pox ain't cheap, but at least it is pretty different from the gate. There are lots of variants of pox and none of them are significantly better than the others, so if you still wanted to try out a discard deck you could go for Rack-Pox. Here's the list I run;
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
I've thought about Pox a few times, and it seems like my kind of deck but;
1. It's not cheap. Other then Bitterblossom nothing in The Gate (my build anyway) is overly expensive; I don't worry about the Jitte.
2. I haven't built either deck yet; these were both (Discard and The Gate) in development so I'm not even close to being bored of it.
I think I'll focus on The Gate (as much as I love Smallpox and Pox) mainly because I really want to run Phyrexian Obliterator and Abyssal Persecutor, lol. The Gate could possibly get away with running a couple copies of Smallpox; might have to playtest it once it's built.
I appreciate all the insight; you guys have helped clear up my build plans which will let me focus on the main three I want.
Note: I should point out I've already got a Mono-Black Infect deck built, so with The Gate that'll be 2 already, lol.
I wanted to try making a deck that used Phyrexian Obliterator and Stillmoon Cavalier to take advantage of their strengths against four of the five colors. Obliterator is awesome against RG , while Stillmoon is really good against WB. Aside from that, I wanted to try to stay away from relying on too many gimmicks like most of my decks have in the past and just build a straight up "good stuff" deck.
I did consider adding Angel's Trumpet, Batterskull, or Sword of Vengeance since the vigilance would be a huge help with most of the creatures but I wasn't sure if any of these would be worth the deck space.
How about Crypt Ghast? or maybe him and some X life loss spells, like Exsanguinate you allready have?
Also helps you get to Titans or maybe Griselbrand faster...
Also, i think Geralf's Messenger would be great. I'd put him in for Stillmoon Cavalier, because that card just seems pretty bad unless your opponents keep playing black and white...
Also, i think Geralf's Messenger would be great. I'd put him in for Stillmoon Cavalier, because that card just seems pretty bad unless your opponents keep playing black and white...
I think you are missing one of the main points to play Stillmoon Cavalier from what I see.
1) It makes topdeck Dark Ritual useful lategame even without any other spells.
2) It makes it possible to use all your mana each turn which can be a lot with Cabal Coffers
3) It got protection against two colours, not only does that make it a great blocker, but it is great offesive as well. Sure they can play blue/green/red, but in that case Geralf's Messenger would be bad as well since it comes into play tapped and you really want blockers vs red/green. Blue got almost no kill spells so it should be safe once it hits the board. Oh, can Cavalier can get first strike which makes it even more useful vs red since they usually got low toughness on their creatures.
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Decks I play:
Legacy:
Pox
Demon Stompy
Black Knights
Modern:
Tainted Shadow
MBC
8 Rack
Casual:
Suicide Black
Old-school Nightmare Effect
EDH:
Anowon, the Ruin Sage
"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Yeah, I think Messenger is an amazing card but he's probably better suited to more aggro oriented strategies as opposed to midrange. The main reason I chose Stillmoon Cavalier is because he compliments Phyrexian Obliterator so well. Each of the two cover two colors pretty well so the only color left the creatures aren't strong against is blue. I figured the discard would be a pretty good defense against blue control decks.
Its a good start, but there's plenty of room for improvement. The most glaring thing is the 6 enchantments. Megrim and caress have, for a very long time, been considered bad strategies for discard decks. Its weird, because that seems like their only purpose, but the ultimate failure of these cards is they are too slow (even at 2 mana) to come down when you need them. Basically, on turn 2, you can either play your caress, but give them another turn before getting hit with hymn to tourach, or just play the hymn, but then your caresses won't be getting much usage. It goes along with discard's one weakness, its great early on, but really struggles to be worthwhile once your opponent gets into topdeck mode. Moral of the story, these cards aren't good, and should be cut. you can just run more untility/discard spells in their place.
Your creature base is solid, and doesn't need much touching up. possible additions would be solid utility creatures like vampire nighthawk and gatekeeper of malakir to add some killing power as well as beats. neither are needed, but are some of your best options to replace the enchantments.
Other decent cards to consider are funeral charm, for cheap utility and discard in one, or ravenous rats as a cheap chump blocker with discard. the rats become real good of you have ways to reuse it, like unearth. unearth can also bring back all your other dudes so its not a bad idea as well.
EDIT: of and the ghost quarters are meh. If you can upgrade them to something like strip mine, great, but if you cant i would just replace them with swamps or something. heck even bojuka bog can give you deck great matchups against decks with graveyard shenanigans.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Thanks for your answer, squira13!
I didn's see like that the caress-megrim, you're right. Also, abyssal nocturnus makes, virtually, the same thing.
So... with your tips i could make something like this.
More changes?
EDIT: Should I use ghastly demise as removal'?
Not over victim of night. while ghastly is decent, it can struggle to kill certain creature early in the game. and there is a small anti-synergy with it and tombstalker. between disk, victim, nighthawk, and funeral charm you should be ok with dealing with what survives your discard.
The only card that is not terribly great s the nocturnus like you said. many times hes just a 2/2 for 3, and rarely a big creature when you need one. nyaxthid would be better, or up the numbers on some of the cards your already running. Other than him though your list looks pretty good. There are, of course, some money options if budget isn't an issue, but stuff like liliana of the veil is usually out of people's price range.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
The first time I thought on Nyxathid but after that I thought on nocturnus because with scepter is a 4/4 "unblockable" (Nyx doesn't have evasion), and also if I use hymn to... Is a party for my opp :).
Anyway,,, what money option do you thought?
However, that requires you to not only have sceptre out, but for your opponent to still have a hand. If you think about it, you want to spend your first few turns dropping your discard. by turn 3 or so, your opponent should be in top deck mode, provided they havent draw a ton of cards somehow. nyxathid would come down on say turn 4 as a 6/6 or 7/7, where nocturnus would stick around as a 2/2, even with the sceptre, because most opponents in topdeck mode will just be playing the card they draw every turn. Neither card is bad, and you can most certainly get away with running either card. The evasion is nice on nocturnus, i just think that nyxathid will be more consistent of a card.
As for more expensive cards, liliana of the veil is probably the best. Inquisition of kozilek and thoughtsieze are the slightly better versions of duress. Mind twist is old but can be really powerful when backed with an early dark ritual. Dark confidant has nothing to do with discard but is just an all around amazing card. Demonic tutor/Vampiric tutor you can put in any deck to make it better. Adding strip mine, sinkhole, and wasteland can really screw over a lot of decks. Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth helps fix your mana base when running lots of nonbasic lands. None of these cards are cheap, or easy to find sometimes. Mishra's factory is a tough to kill creature because its really a land.
Another card I forgot to recommend: raven's crime. Its deceptively awesome. It doesn't look like much, but when it turns all your top-decked lands that you don't need into useful discard spells, you would be surprised how well it works. Usually 1 or 2 copies is all you need if you want to run it.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
Dark confidant is legal in all formats, including legacy. That being said, he is $50 a pop, and not wanting to drop 200 bucks into some cardboard is understandable. Phyrexian arena is similar but a little worse if you want to spend a little less money. sign in blood is fine if you don't want either of the two above options.
You could drop either a nocturnus or the guiltfeeder for the raven's crime. Guiltfeeder is decent, but at 5 mana he is awfully slow and if your opponent exiles/reshuffles their graveyard into their library then he is literally useless outside of chump blocking.
It's a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
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I'm going to respond to this even though the post is far in the past and its author is apparently banned, because I think it's important to reiterate that Megrim is a bad card.
Discard works well because it neutralizes your opponent's threats before they happen (before they are cast). Cards like Nyxathid and The Rack have great synergy with discard because you can empty your opponent's hand and then slam them down as finishers.
Megrim, on the other hand, requires your opponent to be *actively* discarding cards. It won't work if they already have, like other wincons. In other words, it requires them to have cards in hand. Once you're swinging with Specter every turn, Megrim is a dead draw. This is especially true against aggro when your opponent has dumped creatures into play and is racing you for damage.
The best proof of how bad Megrim is is that it requires really janky tactics that actually draw your opponent cards. Urza's Guilt is an example of this. Yes, it's net card disadvantage for them, but you're still giving them a filter effect. Do you really want to draw them into a counter/Wrath/Vindicate/big dumb Timmy creature that will proceed to wipe the floor with you? Also, it's net card disadvantage for YOU, which is generally not good in discard. Yes, we have powerful permanents on the board, but most of our power comes from cards in hand.
Anyway, I just started posting here and I like playing discard a lot. I'll post a decklist soon. In the meantime, I noticed no one has mentioned Shrieking Affliction. I find it to be a great addition to The Rack, as it deal, on average, the same amount of damage.
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Hypnotic Specter
2x Nezumi Shortfang
4x Nyxathid
Spells
4x Dark Ritual
4x Victim of Night
4x Geth's Verdict
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x The Rack
1x Sol Ring
1x Necropotence
3x Leyline of the Void
3x Mutiplate
3x Despise
3x Pithing Needle
3x Card?
I still need a final card for the sideboard; any ideas? Any other changes you would make, feel free to let me know.
U FaerieNinjaStandstill U
B Swag Flu B
In Development
BG Nightmare Survival GB
B The Gate B
BRG Jund GRB
4x Oona's Prowler
2x Ravenous Rats
4x Augur of Skulls
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Nyxathid
4x Victim of Night
2x Geth's Verdict
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Skullclamp
1x Sol Ring
1x Necropotence
2x Grafted Wargear
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Just wondering why only 2 Ravenous Rats and 4 Augur's.
It looks like a good deck, but my only other concern is I don't want this to be to close to my Gate deck I want to build.
U FaerieNinjaStandstill U
B Swag Flu B
In Development
BG Nightmare Survival GB
B The Gate B
BRG Jund GRB
No, you cannot equip during the upkeep because you may only equip as a sorcery. And no, your augur would die as a state based action and you would never get the opportunity to active his ability. This could be wrong, but from what i understand of the rules thats how it is. You would have to ask the judges over in Magic Rules http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=28 to get a 100% certain response.
As to augur vs rats, the augur sticks around for a bit as a drudge skeleton, and then hits for 2 cards instead of just 1. its a little better as a creature and a little better as a discard spell, so it seems better in general to me.
As to similarities between this and the gate, it is somewhat inevitable. Mono-black a has a slew of powerful cards that are useful in just about every deck you can fit em in. Phyrexian Obliterator, for instance, is just a better creature than most of the discard themed creatures that there is little reason to not run him in their place. You could cut Nyxanthid for instance, and put him in, and you pay 1 more mana for a much more reliable creature that doesn't depend on their hand size, and has a sort of evasion. Not that he is necessary, but marginally better. And Black's discard is what makes Black, well, Black. Its one of the defining features of the color that you can't find in other colors. so you will see a number of them repeat from deck to deck. Gatekeepr, for instance, is just a excellent all around creature that there is little reason not to run him when you can.
You make some good points. I put that deck list together because I had a lot of the cards, and other then the Necro and Sol Ring, the ones I don't are all cheap.
However it has it's weaknesses, which make's me wonder if I should just abandon it and focus on my other decks; like The Gate which is similar but probably better, lol.
Not that I don't appreciate the ideas, I do. They just have me thinking; what's the point of two almost identical decks? I already have a Mono-Black deck so do I really need 3 or 4?
Then again; Cz's deck list is pretty cheap so maybe I'll go for it anyways.
U FaerieNinjaStandstill U
B Swag Flu B
In Development
BG Nightmare Survival GB
B The Gate B
BRG Jund GRB
Check out my most recent blog post if you have the time. I'm actually re-writing this guide from the ground up since it's horribly outdated.
Anyways, in my guide I explain how discard doesn't win games. Discard + pressure wins games. That's why you want to field Gatekeeper of Malakir for example. Does he interact with discard at all? Nope, not even close. Still, he's a 2-for-1 who beats in for 2 and kills people before they can draw out of their mess. That makes him awesome in discard decks.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I'll check out your blog once I get a chance.
U FaerieNinjaStandstill U
B Swag Flu B
In Development
BG Nightmare Survival GB
B The Gate B
BRG Jund GRB
A while back I was in the same exact boat as you. I had 3 black decks that, as I tried to improve them, all converged toward the same sort of deck. And after a while I found myself playing with one significantly more than the other two. It's not that when you play one black deck you've played them all, but they do get really repetitive from deck to deck. I later scrapped the other two decks and ended putting all my focus onto my one Mono-B deck left; Pox.
If you are looking for a slight bit of fresh air from the gate then you could try and build pox. Of course, Pox ain't cheap, but at least it is pretty different from the gate. There are lots of variants of pox and none of them are significantly better than the others, so if you still wanted to try out a discard deck you could go for Rack-Pox. Here's the list I run;
4 mishra's factory
2 bojuka bog
2 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
3 strip mine
1 nether spirit
4 bloodghast
1 cursed scroll
2 ensnaring bridge
4 inquisition of kozilek
4 hymn to tourach
3 innocent blood
4 liliana of the veil
4 smallpox
1 raven's crime
1 mind twist
1 demonic tutor
1. It's not cheap. Other then Bitterblossom nothing in The Gate (my build anyway) is overly expensive; I don't worry about the Jitte.
2. I haven't built either deck yet; these were both (Discard and The Gate) in development so I'm not even close to being bored of it.
I think I'll focus on The Gate (as much as I love Smallpox and Pox) mainly because I really want to run Phyrexian Obliterator and Abyssal Persecutor, lol. The Gate could possibly get away with running a couple copies of Smallpox; might have to playtest it once it's built.
I appreciate all the insight; you guys have helped clear up my build plans which will let me focus on the main three I want.
Note: I should point out I've already got a Mono-Black Infect deck built, so with The Gate that'll be 2 already, lol.
U FaerieNinjaStandstill U
B Swag Flu B
In Development
BG Nightmare Survival GB
B The Gate B
BRG Jund GRB
2 Grave Titan
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Stillmoon Cavalier
Instants/Sorceries (22)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Black Sun's Zenith
4 Victim of Night
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Necropotence
2 Exsanguinate
20 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
I did consider adding Angel's Trumpet, Batterskull, or Sword of Vengeance since the vigilance would be a huge help with most of the creatures but I wasn't sure if any of these would be worth the deck space.
Sasky for the Sig.
I am in your [PACK]. Watching you... do... something.
Sasky for the Sig.
I am in your [PACK]. Watching you... do... something.
Also helps you get to Titans or maybe Griselbrand faster...
Think of it: Turn 1 Discard, Turn 2 Dark Ritual for Crypt Ghast, Turn 3 Grave Titan...
Also, i think Geralf's Messenger would be great. I'd put him in for Stillmoon Cavalier, because that card just seems pretty bad unless your opponents keep playing black and white...
And, depending on your opponents, you might want to have Go for the Throat rather than Victim of Night.
Have fun
Steelblade7
I think you are missing one of the main points to play Stillmoon Cavalier from what I see.
1) It makes topdeck Dark Ritual useful lategame even without any other spells.
2) It makes it possible to use all your mana each turn which can be a lot with Cabal Coffers
3) It got protection against two colours, not only does that make it a great blocker, but it is great offesive as well. Sure they can play blue/green/red, but in that case Geralf's Messenger would be bad as well since it comes into play tapped and you really want blockers vs red/green. Blue got almost no kill spells so it should be safe once it hits the board. Oh, can Cavalier can get first strike which makes it even more useful vs red since they usually got low toughness on their creatures.
Decks I play:
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Also I always like to play Skeletal Scrying with Cabal Coffers.
As great as a card he is, he's not worth it outside of a dedicated infect deck.
When your Crusaders are dead with him at 10 Life and at 5 poison, you have catching up to do.
Sasky for the Sig.
I am in your [PACK]. Watching you... do... something.
Its a good start, but there's plenty of room for improvement. The most glaring thing is the 6 enchantments. Megrim and caress have, for a very long time, been considered bad strategies for discard decks. Its weird, because that seems like their only purpose, but the ultimate failure of these cards is they are too slow (even at 2 mana) to come down when you need them. Basically, on turn 2, you can either play your caress, but give them another turn before getting hit with hymn to tourach, or just play the hymn, but then your caresses won't be getting much usage. It goes along with discard's one weakness, its great early on, but really struggles to be worthwhile once your opponent gets into topdeck mode. Moral of the story, these cards aren't good, and should be cut. you can just run more untility/discard spells in their place.
Your creature base is solid, and doesn't need much touching up. possible additions would be solid utility creatures like vampire nighthawk and gatekeeper of malakir to add some killing power as well as beats. neither are needed, but are some of your best options to replace the enchantments.
Other decent cards to consider are funeral charm, for cheap utility and discard in one, or ravenous rats as a cheap chump blocker with discard. the rats become real good of you have ways to reuse it, like unearth. unearth can also bring back all your other dudes so its not a bad idea as well.
EDIT: of and the ghost quarters are meh. If you can upgrade them to something like strip mine, great, but if you cant i would just replace them with swamps or something. heck even bojuka bog can give you deck great matchups against decks with graveyard shenanigans.
Not over victim of night. while ghastly is decent, it can struggle to kill certain creature early in the game. and there is a small anti-synergy with it and tombstalker. between disk, victim, nighthawk, and funeral charm you should be ok with dealing with what survives your discard.
The only card that is not terribly great s the nocturnus like you said. many times hes just a 2/2 for 3, and rarely a big creature when you need one. nyaxthid would be better, or up the numbers on some of the cards your already running. Other than him though your list looks pretty good. There are, of course, some money options if budget isn't an issue, but stuff like liliana of the veil is usually out of people's price range.
However, that requires you to not only have sceptre out, but for your opponent to still have a hand. If you think about it, you want to spend your first few turns dropping your discard. by turn 3 or so, your opponent should be in top deck mode, provided they havent draw a ton of cards somehow. nyxathid would come down on say turn 4 as a 6/6 or 7/7, where nocturnus would stick around as a 2/2, even with the sceptre, because most opponents in topdeck mode will just be playing the card they draw every turn. Neither card is bad, and you can most certainly get away with running either card. The evasion is nice on nocturnus, i just think that nyxathid will be more consistent of a card.
As for more expensive cards, liliana of the veil is probably the best. Inquisition of kozilek and thoughtsieze are the slightly better versions of duress. Mind twist is old but can be really powerful when backed with an early dark ritual. Dark confidant has nothing to do with discard but is just an all around amazing card. Demonic tutor/Vampiric tutor you can put in any deck to make it better. Adding strip mine, sinkhole, and wasteland can really screw over a lot of decks. Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth helps fix your mana base when running lots of nonbasic lands. None of these cards are cheap, or easy to find sometimes. Mishra's factory is a tough to kill creature because its really a land.
Another card I forgot to recommend: raven's crime. Its deceptively awesome. It doesn't look like much, but when it turns all your top-decked lands that you don't need into useful discard spells, you would be surprised how well it works. Usually 1 or 2 copies is all you need if you want to run it.
You could drop either a nocturnus or the guiltfeeder for the raven's crime. Guiltfeeder is decent, but at 5 mana he is awfully slow and if your opponent exiles/reshuffles their graveyard into their library then he is literally useless outside of chump blocking.