Hey guys, first time posting a 'suggestions build' thread. As some of you may have heard/noticed, my wife finally got into Magic six months ago, and enjoys the two decks I've built for her(Crush your enemies[RDW] and Elvez and stuffz). I think it's time to take things up a notch and provide her with another monocolor deck; as the thread title indicates, black is our next destination.
To that end, what would be some appropriately 'black' cards to play? Who would be an ideal commander to work with(I was thinking Ob Nixilis, Unshackled)? Feel free to list all ideas, but note which ones would be fairly expensive. I'm looking at a $100 total cap for the deck, but I have a large collection, so it's very possible I will have many expensive cards already.
One final note: as she's still grasping the nuances, try to limit complicated combos(beyond paying life for effects or beat face). She's doing better with the stack, but complicated stuff like in my other decks could really throw her off any interest in new decks.
You can completely go wrong with Rakdos the Defiler - don't forget that your lands are non-Demon permanents. You don't want to sac half of them when you attack, and ideally, you don't want a do-nothing general. Also, the OP said he wants monocolored.
Krav, the Unredeemed is a good budget option that provides card draw and lifegain in the command zone, and it's on the lower end of the CMC for a legendary demon. Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis could make a budget Voltron deck with built-in removal. Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is a decent card, but whenever your commander starts at 6 mana in a non-green deck, you can't dependably plan on having it in play after it dies a time or two. Razaketh, the Foulblooded has an amazing ability, but 8 CMC is really high.
Are you set on the demon theme? There are a few non-Demon commanders I'd recommend for a budget mono-black deck if not. In particular, Toshiro Umezawa spellslinger can be a lot of fun.
She does like going with tribal themes for now, but I do know that much of black has 'sacrifice for this effect' triggers too, so cannon fodder can be whatever, as long as it helps with the demon growth.
That being the case, I do have a Black Market that I can let her have(doesn't work that well in my Markov deck anyway), so that could help with the more expensive demons. I suppose if we have to, we COULD go with 'Walker-Nix' or even mini-Ob if needed. I just have the Unshackled one ready right now.
By all means though, share the ideas...she's going to need to move into multi-colors later, so even those ideas are great, but yeah...Rakdos 1.0 sounds like a very bad idea. lol
I have a Demon tribal deck that I've been playing and tuning for a few years now. I ran Ob Nixilis, Unshackled for the whole time as the commander up until Demonlord Belzenlok came out. Now I run Belzenlok as the commander.
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is excellent as the commander for a few reasons. Since we're playing with powerful demons that typically cost a lot of resources to cast it really hurts to lose them to removal. Black has many powerful cards that demand immediate response and we've almost all experienced the moment where you drop a bomb and the whole table collectively asks eachother "who has a response for that"? and inevitably someone says "I can tutor for a response" - well, conceptually we have a dilemma....a demon deck has so many demons/powerful cards that in my personal experience, every single card I drop people consider a threat and want to blow up! Well Ob Nixilis, Unshackled will certainly make that harder for your opponents. He protects your boardstate by hindering your opponents' ability to respond to your plays. So when using Ob, you want to have him out when you have bomb cards out, he protects them in this way of making it incredibly painful for an opponent to blow up your stuff. The passive +1/+1 counters on death triggers are clutch. Black is in the business of death, so getting free momentum off doing what you want to be doing anyways is what often pushes Ob Nixilis over the top and thus a great choice for commander.
Demonlord Belzenlok however is useful in the momentum he helps you maintain. Drawing the extra cards is huge because mono-black can actually ramp quite well and you'll often need mana sinks or just some constructive way of using that mana - more spells!. I don't have as much to say about Belzenlok because he's much more straight forward, and that's ok. I like him enough that I think the change will be permanent - or atleast until a better demon comes along.
Bomb cards you want to cram into your deck are anything that lets you bring creatures back from grave straight to play. If people are really hating on your demons or commander it will be ok to let them go to the grave if you can cheat them out for less anyways. Late-game when you have 6 or 8 demons in your yard and one is a boardwipe on enter, you're going to want that option to cheat them into play directly. My personal favorite for this is Strands of Night. People shift in their chairs when this comes into play haha! Yes I will just put these 4 demons back into play, I'm generating 30 mana a turn, what's 4 swamps anyways?
You also want the brand new liliana's contract if you have 4 demons with different names you just win just like that and you get to draw 4 for on the ETB trigger
Sorry, had to cut your quote down a bit. All GREAT information, and should we manage to get him, I'll consider Belzenlok as a commander. A number of mono-B commanders contending for that spot. lol
Perhaps later. Life loss to cast her commander is still a little beyond my wife's abilities just yet, even considering that she uses Nehebrains! to great effect in her RDW deck. Good idea to keep in mind; if those two are on the field, that'll be devastating.
And if you have them these are your must put in cards
And if you can accept making room for them if you want atleast 6 Shadowborn Apostle's
Got a number of those(even have the OG Lord of the Pit and Demonic Hordes which will be placeholders for now), but I'll keep an eye out for the missing ones. And I think we can manage to swing 6 slots for some BB tutors...oh yeah. lol
You also want the brand new liliana's contract if you have 4 demons with different names you just win just like that and you get to draw 4 for on the ETB trigger
o.O Why yes, I think that would be a PHENOMENAL addition for a potential win-con. Danke!
Not sure why everyone seems to be suggesting multi-color commanders or those that require complicated lines of play. It seems his wife is looking for simpler play and black only.
A good starting point could definitely be Erebos, God of the Dead. Low CMC, indestructible, card draw built right in, can easily come "alive" and beat face, and extremely flexible in the rest of the 99. You can still go the demon theme with the God commanding his minions, but doesn't force her into a single line of play or get her stuck with a high CMC commander who is also a hate-magnet and vulnerable.
Not sure why everyone seems to be suggesting multi-color commanders or those that require complicated lines of play. It seems his wife is looking for simpler play and black only.
A good starting point could definitely be Erebos, God of the Dead. Low CMC, indestructible, card draw built right in, can easily come "alive" and beat face, and extremely flexible in the rest of the 99. You can still go the demon theme with the God commanding his minions, but doesn't force her into a single line of play or get her stuck with a high CMC commander who is also a hate-magnet and vulnerable.
Future thinking, I believe. She's gonna grow in this game and learn, and eventually, she'll want to branch out. Some of those ideas will be good to have.
Erebos is an interesting idea. Not many people run life-gain decks anyway, and as you say, built in card draw would be useful. I'll definitely keep that in mind as well.
Just do Kaalia of the Vast with a preference on demons.
Then YOU explain to her why she's hated out of every game. Sorry no.
Bad threat assessment by players doesn't mean the deck is the threat it's perceived to be. Let them hate the elvish piper deck when there's a lab man or flash hulk at the table.
But hey. "At least you didn't get attacked" right?
And if you can accept making room for them if you want atleast 6 Shadowborn Apostle's
Six Shadowborns are a waste of six slots. Most Shadowborn decks run about 35, just to ensure they actually draw 6. If you only run six in the deck, you have to draw 100% of them before they do anything. If you only draw 4-5, you have a bunch of useless vanilla 1/1s.
And I think we can manage to swing 6 slots for some BB tutors...oh yeah. lol
I'd reconsider Shadowborns. Run something like Demonic Tutor if you can, and Blood Speaker because it's thematic, but Shadowborns are only good in a dedicated Shadowborn deck, and even then, they can whiff.
Apostles are fun but can pretty boring. There's a good chance every game is going to be roughly the same thing. Its a deck thats built to eliminate variance.
Apostles either does its thing or fails to launch. I've both seen it and played it when it got stuck at 5 Apostles and just sat helpless, doing nothing until the sixth one was drawn. It's a very boring, linear deck. Sure, it can win with overwhelming advantage, but it does so the same way every time - unless it does nothing at all. I do not recommend it, especially to a new player.
Does it sound like I dislike Shadowborn Apostles? I do. I built the deck and found it stunningly boring - either you run away with the game, or you don't even play it. I think it would be very discouraging for a newish player.
Just do Kaalia of the Vast with a preference on demons.
Then YOU explain to her why she's hated out of every game. Sorry no.
Bad threat assessment by players doesn't mean the deck is the threat it's perceived to be. Let them hate the elvish piper deck when there's a lab man or flash hulk at the table.
But hey. "At least you didn't get attacked" right?
Kaalia is not liked for very good reasons, and 'bad threat assessment' is not one of them. A lot of decks are not initially liked solely because of their commander. I will not put my wife off from continuing to get into EDH because of that. End of discussion.
And if you can accept making room for them if you want atleast 6 Shadowborn Apostle's
Six Shadowborns are a waste of six slots. Most Shadowborn decks run about 35, just to ensure they actually draw 6. If you only run six in the deck, you have to draw 100% of them before they do anything. If you only draw 4-5, you have a bunch of useless vanilla 1/1s.
And I think we can manage to swing 6 slots for some BB tutors...oh yeah. lol
I'd reconsider Shadowborns. Run something like Demonic Tutor if you can, and Blood Speaker because it's thematic, but Shadowborns are only good in a dedicated Shadowborn deck, and even then, they can whiff.
Apostles are fun but can pretty boring. There's a good chance every game is going to be roughly the same thing. Its a deck thats built to eliminate variance.
Apostles either does its thing or fails to launch. I've both seen it and played it when it got stuck at 5 Apostles and just sat helpless, doing nothing until the sixth one was drawn. It's a very boring, linear deck. Sure, it can win with overwhelming advantage, but it does so the same way every time - unless it does nothing at all. I do not recommend it, especially to a new player.
Does it sound like I dislike Shadowborn Apostles? I do. I built the deck and found it stunningly boring - either you run away with the game, or you don't even play it. I think it would be very discouraging for a newish player.
Okay, whoops. I completely screwed up on reading that rules text, and yes...Shadowborns are NOT going to be part of this deck. Demonic Tutors and Diabolic Tutors were already part of the plan, but I'll add in stuff like Reanimate and the like too, to get them straight to the battlefield.
Funnily enough, my wife runs a Demon tribal under Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath. It's a really decent, strong deck with a lot of resilience and plenty of ways to stay in the game or control the game. I'd recommend him as a strong general. He may not be a demon (at least not at the point the card depicts), but the flavour sits well and he's strong.
To that end, what would be some appropriately 'black' cards to play? Who would be an ideal commander to work with(I was thinking Ob Nixilis, Unshackled)? Feel free to list all ideas, but note which ones would be fairly expensive. I'm looking at a $100 total cap for the deck, but I have a large collection, so it's very possible I will have many expensive cards already.
One final note: as she's still grasping the nuances, try to limit complicated combos(beyond paying life for effects or beat face). She's doing better with the stack, but complicated stuff like in my other decks could really throw her off any interest in new decks.
Thanks for the help, guys!
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
Krav, the Unredeemed is a good budget option that provides card draw and lifegain in the command zone, and it's on the lower end of the CMC for a legendary demon.
Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis could make a budget Voltron deck with built-in removal.
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is a decent card, but whenever your commander starts at 6 mana in a non-green deck, you can't dependably plan on having it in play after it dies a time or two.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded has an amazing ability, but 8 CMC is really high.
Are you set on the demon theme? There are a few non-Demon commanders I'd recommend for a budget mono-black deck if not. In particular, Toshiro Umezawa spellslinger can be a lot of fun.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
That being the case, I do have a Black Market that I can let her have(doesn't work that well in my Markov deck anyway), so that could help with the more expensive demons. I suppose if we have to, we COULD go with 'Walker-Nix' or even mini-Ob if needed. I just have the Unshackled one ready right now.
By all means though, share the ideas...she's going to need to move into multi-colors later, so even those ideas are great, but yeah...Rakdos 1.0 sounds like a very bad idea. lol
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is excellent as the commander for a few reasons. Since we're playing with powerful demons that typically cost a lot of resources to cast it really hurts to lose them to removal. Black has many powerful cards that demand immediate response and we've almost all experienced the moment where you drop a bomb and the whole table collectively asks eachother "who has a response for that"? and inevitably someone says "I can tutor for a response" - well, conceptually we have a dilemma....a demon deck has so many demons/powerful cards that in my personal experience, every single card I drop people consider a threat and want to blow up! Well Ob Nixilis, Unshackled will certainly make that harder for your opponents. He protects your boardstate by hindering your opponents' ability to respond to your plays. So when using Ob, you want to have him out when you have bomb cards out, he protects them in this way of making it incredibly painful for an opponent to blow up your stuff. The passive +1/+1 counters on death triggers are clutch. Black is in the business of death, so getting free momentum off doing what you want to be doing anyways is what often pushes Ob Nixilis over the top and thus a great choice for commander.
Demonlord Belzenlok however is useful in the momentum he helps you maintain. Drawing the extra cards is huge because mono-black can actually ramp quite well and you'll often need mana sinks or just some constructive way of using that mana - more spells!. I don't have as much to say about Belzenlok because he's much more straight forward, and that's ok. I like him enough that I think the change will be permanent - or atleast until a better demon comes along.
Bomb cards you want to cram into your deck are anything that lets you bring creatures back from grave straight to play. If people are really hating on your demons or commander it will be ok to let them go to the grave if you can cheat them out for less anyways. Late-game when you have 6 or 8 demons in your yard and one is a boardwipe on enter, you're going to want that option to cheat them into play directly. My personal favorite for this is Strands of Night. People shift in their chairs when this comes into play haha! Yes I will just put these 4 demons back into play, I'm generating 30 mana a turn, what's 4 swamps anyways?
GL!
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/334931-what-is-the-most-pimp-card-deck-youve-seen-or?comment=5361
Commander
RGOmnath, Locus of Rage Grenades! EDHGR
UWSygg's Defense, EDH - Voltron & ControlWU
BUGMimeoplasm EDH ft. Ifnir Cycling-discard comboBUG
WBTeysa, Connoisseur of CullingBW
BWSelenia & Recruiter of the Guard suicice combo EDHWB
UBRWGO-Kagachi - 5 Color Enchantments - EDHUBRWG
And if you have them these are your must put in cards
And if you can accept making room for them if you want atleast 6 Shadowborn Apostle's
You also want the brand new liliana's contract if you have 4 demons with different names you just win just like that and you get to draw 4 for on the ETB trigger
Then YOU explain to her why she's hated out of every game first. Sorry, but no.
Sorry, had to cut your quote down a bit. All GREAT information, and should we manage to get him, I'll consider Belzenlok as a commander. A number of mono-B commanders contending for that spot. lol
Perhaps later. Life loss to cast her commander is still a little beyond my wife's abilities just yet, even considering that she uses Nehebrains! to great effect in her RDW deck. Good idea to keep in mind; if those two are on the field, that'll be devastating.
Got a number of those(even have the OG Lord of the Pit and Demonic Hordes which will be placeholders for now), but I'll keep an eye out for the missing ones. And I think we can manage to swing 6 slots for some BB tutors...oh yeah.
Hhhmmm...interesting idea on Kagemaro. We'll see how it runs(and she plays it) with the others for now, but I like your dastardly thinking.
o.O Why yes, I think that would be a PHENOMENAL addition for a potential win-con. Danke!
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
This episode of Game Knights displays it's power.
A good starting point could definitely be Erebos, God of the Dead. Low CMC, indestructible, card draw built right in, can easily come "alive" and beat face, and extremely flexible in the rest of the 99. You can still go the demon theme with the God commanding his minions, but doesn't force her into a single line of play or get her stuck with a high CMC commander who is also a hate-magnet and vulnerable.
Future thinking, I believe. She's gonna grow in this game and learn, and eventually, she'll want to branch out. Some of those ideas will be good to have.
Erebos is an interesting idea. Not many people run life-gain decks anyway, and as you say, built in card draw would be useful. I'll definitely keep that in mind as well.
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
Bad threat assessment by players doesn't mean the deck is the threat it's perceived to be. Let them hate the elvish piper deck when there's a lab man or flash hulk at the table.
But hey. "At least you didn't get attacked" right?
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I'd reconsider Shadowborns. Run something like Demonic Tutor if you can, and Blood Speaker because it's thematic, but Shadowborns are only good in a dedicated Shadowborn deck, and even then, they can whiff.
Apostles either does its thing or fails to launch. I've both seen it and played it when it got stuck at 5 Apostles and just sat helpless, doing nothing until the sixth one was drawn. It's a very boring, linear deck. Sure, it can win with overwhelming advantage, but it does so the same way every time - unless it does nothing at all. I do not recommend it, especially to a new player.
Does it sound like I dislike Shadowborn Apostles? I do. I built the deck and found it stunningly boring - either you run away with the game, or you don't even play it. I think it would be very discouraging for a newish player.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
Useful Resources:
MTGSalvation tags
EDHREC
ManabaseCrafter
Kaalia is not liked for very good reasons, and 'bad threat assessment' is not one of them. A lot of decks are not initially liked solely because of their commander. I will not put my wife off from continuing to get into EDH because of that. End of discussion.
Okay, whoops. I completely screwed up on reading that rules text, and yes...Shadowborns are NOT going to be part of this deck. Demonic Tutors and Diabolic Tutors were already part of the plan, but I'll add in stuff like Reanimate and the like too, to get them straight to the battlefield.
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
Good luck!