This was originally an Adun Oakenshield deck that focused on milling out other people and taking over the cool stuff in their graveyards. Ultimately, I found myself very dissatisfied with the horseman -- as a recur commander, he was exceptionally slow. Sure it was instant speed, but his recur suffered from summoning sickness and he could only bring back a single creature per trip 'round the table!
A couple months after putting it on the shelf, I decided to revisit it. I wanted to keep the stax and graveyard control strategies, but just speed it up. I decided that red could go, if needed (though Vicious Shadows is a tough cut). I took a look at possible commanders in green/black and monoblack. A friend of mine pilots his own Chainer deck (not stax focused though), and the commander seemed a natural fit with his very fast graveyard reanimation. The loss of the color green definitely hurt...but overall this deck has become much more focused on the strategy and I think it's as a whole better despite the loss.
So far I've played it twice and won both games, but there are some things I'm not entirely satisfied with. So maybe other people can take a look and tell me what they think!
The idea of the deck is to use the stax pieces to keep the rest of the table down while we build up our own board position with relative immunity to them, thanks to our token generators. Black mana can quickly become insane with Cabal Coffers and the various mana doublers available to monoblack, both black and artifact-colored. Then, once our build position is built up, use one of our wincons. Who work as follows:
Kokusho, the Evening Star: Everyone knows this one. If we have enough mana and a sac outlet, we can loop it several times with chainer to kill the table. So far, I've won every game I've played with the deck using this.
Exanguinate: This can kill multiple people in a single casting.
Wurmcoil Engine: This forms a backup in the event that Kokusho gets exiled or is otherwise unusable. We can generate a large amount of tokens using a similar process to Kokusho, and then turn them all sideways. Downside being that it's clearly slower, and you'll only have a net lifegain of 6 when you do it.
It That Betrays: Aside from the fact that its huge and has a small annihilator, its ability synergizes amazingly well with the stax theme. If nothing else is available, we can at least get a solid position using this. Also this provides great Jester Cap fodder over our sac outlets -- people I play with have an irrational hatred of Eldrazi, so even if they've played against the deck before they'll hit this before they hit the sac outlets.
Chainer: If all else fails, we can always pull stuff out of someone else's graveyard and put it in the sideways position.
Now I'll try to summarize the rest of the notable or non-obvious cards, and what hasn't been working so far.
Land Package
Buried Ruin: Save some of our stax pieces when they get removed. Can itself be recurred with Crucible of Worlds. Cabal Coffers: One of the things that make monoblack mana get crazy. Deserted Temple: Solely here to untap Cabal Coffers. Terrain Generator: With mostly swamps, we can end up having a lot of them in hand. This turns unused mana this turn into more mana next turn. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Turns our non-swamps into swamps for the purposes of Cabal Coffers. Thespian's Stage and Vesuva: Copy Cabal Coffers, profit.
Ramp
Caged Sun: Standard monocolor mana doubler. Gauntlet of Power: Standard monocolor mana doubler. Be careful though, because if anyone else is running black mana they also get double. I've been considering removing this for an Extraplanar Lens for this exact reason. Crypt Ghast and Nirkana Revenant: Double your mana even more, and the former even has its own version of lifegain! They're more resilient than mana creatures normally are too, because Chainer can resurrect them when they inevitably get removed. Solemn Simulacrum: Just really good to recur a lot with Chainer.
Stax Pieces
Possessed Portal: Seriously underrated. This is a BOSS stax piece. This will wear down the entire rest of the table, and if you have Xiahou Dun or Runescarred Demon on the field or in the graveyard, you can even bypass the no-draw by recurring your tutors.
Recur
Crucible of Worlds: Cabal Coffers gets a ton of hate, and this also lets you sac lands to the stax effects without too much worry. Geth, Lord of the Vault: Honestly, I haven't used him that much. I'm thinking of cutting him. The only nice thing is that he can pull other people's artifacts, but so far it hasn't been all that useful. Living Death: It doubles as a boardwipe. With Xiahou Dun to recur it, this card just gets stupid. Myr Retriever: This amazing little guy can pull back a lot of our stax pieces, token generators, Crucible, etc. Strands of Night: It's really just a backup plan if Chainer is shut down, though its nowhere near as strong. Trading Post: Boss card. Can recur the artifact pieces of our deck like Myr Retriever does, but also doubles as a token generator and draw engine if you need it. Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed: I've tried to avoid the really expensive cards in the deck, but there's no getting around this one. Nothing else has this effect. The ability to recur the black instants and sorceries is insane. I mostly use it to recur the tutors (gets us around Possessed Portal locks) and Exsanguinate, which alone makes it worth the slot in the deck. Can also pull back Bitterblossom or Gate to Phyrexia if really needed.
Removal
Black has a major issue with enchant and artifact removal, which was why losing the green part of the deck hurt so badly. All of these cards have some downside, but one that you just have to suck up as a part of playing monoblack.
All Is Dust: I mostly run this to blow through enchants, but it works well enough as a board wipe. We're not really hurt as badly by the downside thanks to all the recur we run. Gate to Phyrexia: Honestly it's terrible, because of the timing restriction. But it's one of the only pieces of artifact removal we have access to, so we have to live with it. Spine of Ish Sah: The mana cost is ridiculous, but it can remove any problematic artifact or enchantment so we run it anyway. We can sac it to one of our stax pieces to reuse it, which can be quite useful.
General Utility
Beseech the Queen, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Rune-Scarred Demon: Standard black tutor suite. Can use the Demon with Chainer to tutor indefinitely and make the table hate you. Entomb, Buried Alive: Grab one of our wincons. Usually with Buried Alive I'll grab Kokusho + a mana doubler, and not have any idea what to do with the third target. It's not a good idea to get Wurmcoil Engine as the third, because then you're screwed if they drop some instant-speed graveyard removal and you don't have the mana to pull them all out at once with Chainer. Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble: Two of the ways we keep our life total up to offset how much we use it for resources. Disciple of Bolas: Extremely useful little guy. Offsets the life we pay for resources, and a great source of card advantage. Greed: Great thing to use your excess mana on. Massacre Wurm: It's a great way to wipe out token decks and deal some damage to the field but honestly...I just haven't found it all that useful so far. A candidate for being cut. Mimic Vat: With all the stax pieces we might be able to grab something useful for it, but honestly...haven't found it too useful so far. Probably best if Chainer can't be used for whatever reason. A candidate for being cut. Mindcrank: Fills enemy graveyards, so we can find good Chainer targets. Nihil Spellbomb: Every deck needs some form of graveyard hate. This one can be recurred with our artifact-recur package. I like it better than the others with similar effect because you get to draw when you use it. Rings of Brighthearth: Can use them with Chainer, Strands, and Trading Post...truth be told though, I haven't found them particularly useful. The interaction with Strands is probably the strongest part, but depending on two cards to hit the table at the same time is rough. A candidate for being cut. Skullclamp: A great source of cards when used with one of our token generators.
Aside from the aforementioned candidates for cut, I'm dissatisfied with Pawn of Ulamog. He doesn't operate off of nontoken creature deaths, so I feel like he's only generating tokens when you're already winning. He's probably better in a deck that doesn't depend so heavily on token generators. If I was to replace him I'd like to do it with a similar-costed token generator, but I can't think of any that would work.
An ideal opening hand is land (obviously), a stax piece, and a token generator. The best imaginable starting hand is swamp x2, sol ring, smokestack, and bitterblossom. Failing that, I'll try to get a hand with at least one stax piece or token generator, and then see if I can tutor for the rest.
Potential additions: Necropotence over Phyrexian Arena. Loxodon Warhammer in somewhere, in case I need an alternate source of lifegain when I'm running out. I swear, monoblack must be the only color that can really make use of lifegain...
Ended up cutting Pawn of Ulamog for Greed. It juts wasn't working well enough.
Next up on the potential chopping block is Geth. He can snag enemy artifacts, but it's just so random and his CMC is enormous. If he could get my own artifacts it would be an insta-include, but as it is he just hasn't pulled his weight in any of my games so far.
With "Will", you can cast your whole graveyard in one go if you've ramped into enough mana.
"Helm" is a costly sac outlet but the pay-off is sweet.
"Insidious" can set up your graveyard AND fetch for the remaining pieces to go off. I really love this card. I use everything I have just mentioned in my Ghave deck and I will never take them out.
Ugh, I had a whole reply typed up and my browser ate it, go figure.
I find Yawgmoth's Will to be less useful in this deck than in many other black decks. It's still good, don't get me wrong...but the best it can really do for us is let us reuse our tutors and targeted destruction. For the rest of the graveyard cards, it's cheaper to recur them. I suppose it also another method of artifact recursion, which isn't bad. It's something to think about.
Helm of Possession is a horrible sac outlet, and I'm not really interested in single-target control. If I want a creature so badly, I'll get rid of it then reanimate it. Not worth the slot in the deck.
Mindslicer is one I am seriously considering adding.
As far as Mikaeus + Triskeleon goes, well, first of all my group bans infinite combos. Second, even if they didn't, I don't think I would include it. Mikaeus is extremely anti-synergistic with the deck. If I reanimate *any* enemy creature, and it dies, it returns to the battlefield under their control. If I was going to use an infinite combo in the deck, I'd add Bloodchief Ascension and use it + Mindcrank to instakill.
I'm not too familiar with Chainer so I respect your perspective but I think you should at least reconsider/test Dreams. I, however, play a grave-heavy, resource-driven list that maximizes its potential. At instant speed, few tutors beat it. I know the restrictions can be costly but the payoff has always won me games that I've cast it.
At the very least, get rid of Myr Turbine. Five mana for a 1/1 on a stick that, even if you have 5, fetches for a Myr Retriever at best, is terrible. There is some synergy there but not enough to waste a slot for something that specific/limited. I still think Contamination is the best lock mono-black has access to. Phyrexian Delver is a pretty saucy recursion creature also.
A couple months after putting it on the shelf, I decided to revisit it. I wanted to keep the stax and graveyard control strategies, but just speed it up. I decided that red could go, if needed (though Vicious Shadows is a tough cut). I took a look at possible commanders in green/black and monoblack. A friend of mine pilots his own Chainer deck (not stax focused though), and the commander seemed a natural fit with his very fast graveyard reanimation. The loss of the color green definitely hurt...but overall this deck has become much more focused on the strategy and I think it's as a whole better despite the loss.
So far I've played it twice and won both games, but there are some things I'm not entirely satisfied with. So maybe other people can take a look and tell me what they think!
29 Swamp
1 Buried Ruin
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Deserted Temple
1 Terrain Generator
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vesuva
Ramp (8)
1 Caged Sun
1 Crypt Ghast
1 Expedition Map
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Liliana of the Dark Realms
1 Nirkana Revenant
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
Sac Outlets (4)
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Phyrexian Altar
1 Spawning Pit
Token Generators / Easy Recur (6)
1 Bitterblossom
1 Bloodghast
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Grave Titan
1 Myr Turbine
1 Thopter Assembly
1 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Grave Pact
1 Magus of the Abyss
1 Possessed Portal
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Slum Reaper
1 Smokestack
Recur (7)
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
1 Living Death
1 Myr Retriever
1 Strands of Night
1 Trading Post
1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
Removal (7)
1 All Is Dust
1 Bone Shredder
1 Damnation
1 Doom Blade
1 Gate to Phyrexia
1 Murder
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Blood Artist
1 Buried Alive
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Entomb
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Greed
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Mimic Vat
1 Mindcrank
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sangromancer
1 Skullclamp
1 Vampiric Tutor
Wincon (4)
1 Exsanguinate
1 It That Betrays
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Wurmcoil Engine
The idea of the deck is to use the stax pieces to keep the rest of the table down while we build up our own board position with relative immunity to them, thanks to our token generators. Black mana can quickly become insane with Cabal Coffers and the various mana doublers available to monoblack, both black and artifact-colored. Then, once our build position is built up, use one of our wincons. Who work as follows:
Now I'll try to summarize the rest of the notable or non-obvious cards, and what hasn't been working so far.
Land Package
Cabal Coffers: One of the things that make monoblack mana get crazy.
Deserted Temple: Solely here to untap Cabal Coffers.
Terrain Generator: With mostly swamps, we can end up having a lot of them in hand. This turns unused mana this turn into more mana next turn.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Turns our non-swamps into swamps for the purposes of Cabal Coffers.
Thespian's Stage and Vesuva: Copy Cabal Coffers, profit.
Ramp
Gauntlet of Power: Standard monocolor mana doubler. Be careful though, because if anyone else is running black mana they also get double. I've been considering removing this for an Extraplanar Lens for this exact reason.
Crypt Ghast and Nirkana Revenant: Double your mana even more, and the former even has its own version of lifegain! They're more resilient than mana creatures normally are too, because Chainer can resurrect them when they inevitably get removed.
Solemn Simulacrum: Just really good to recur a lot with Chainer.
Stax Pieces
Recur
Geth, Lord of the Vault: Honestly, I haven't used him that much. I'm thinking of cutting him. The only nice thing is that he can pull other people's artifacts, but so far it hasn't been all that useful.
Living Death: It doubles as a boardwipe. With Xiahou Dun to recur it, this card just gets stupid.
Myr Retriever: This amazing little guy can pull back a lot of our stax pieces, token generators, Crucible, etc.
Strands of Night: It's really just a backup plan if Chainer is shut down, though its nowhere near as strong.
Trading Post: Boss card. Can recur the artifact pieces of our deck like Myr Retriever does, but also doubles as a token generator and draw engine if you need it.
Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed: I've tried to avoid the really expensive cards in the deck, but there's no getting around this one. Nothing else has this effect. The ability to recur the black instants and sorceries is insane. I mostly use it to recur the tutors (gets us around Possessed Portal locks) and Exsanguinate, which alone makes it worth the slot in the deck. Can also pull back Bitterblossom or Gate to Phyrexia if really needed.
Removal
All Is Dust: I mostly run this to blow through enchants, but it works well enough as a board wipe. We're not really hurt as badly by the downside thanks to all the recur we run.
Gate to Phyrexia: Honestly it's terrible, because of the timing restriction. But it's one of the only pieces of artifact removal we have access to, so we have to live with it.
Spine of Ish Sah: The mana cost is ridiculous, but it can remove any problematic artifact or enchantment so we run it anyway. We can sac it to one of our stax pieces to reuse it, which can be quite useful.
General Utility
Entomb, Buried Alive: Grab one of our wincons. Usually with Buried Alive I'll grab Kokusho + a mana doubler, and not have any idea what to do with the third target. It's not a good idea to get Wurmcoil Engine as the third, because then you're screwed if they drop some instant-speed graveyard removal and you don't have the mana to pull them all out at once with Chainer.
Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble: Two of the ways we keep our life total up to offset how much we use it for resources.
Disciple of Bolas: Extremely useful little guy. Offsets the life we pay for resources, and a great source of card advantage.
Greed: Great thing to use your excess mana on.
Massacre Wurm: It's a great way to wipe out token decks and deal some damage to the field but honestly...I just haven't found it all that useful so far. A candidate for being cut.
Mimic Vat: With all the stax pieces we might be able to grab something useful for it, but honestly...haven't found it too useful so far. Probably best if Chainer can't be used for whatever reason. A candidate for being cut.
Mindcrank: Fills enemy graveyards, so we can find good Chainer targets.
Nihil Spellbomb: Every deck needs some form of graveyard hate. This one can be recurred with our artifact-recur package. I like it better than the others with similar effect because you get to draw when you use it.
Rings of Brighthearth: Can use them with Chainer, Strands, and Trading Post...truth be told though, I haven't found them particularly useful. The interaction with Strands is probably the strongest part, but depending on two cards to hit the table at the same time is rough. A candidate for being cut.
Skullclamp: A great source of cards when used with one of our token generators.
Aside from the aforementioned candidates for cut, I'm dissatisfied with Pawn of Ulamog. He doesn't operate off of nontoken creature deaths, so I feel like he's only generating tokens when you're already winning. He's probably better in a deck that doesn't depend so heavily on token generators. If I was to replace him I'd like to do it with a similar-costed token generator, but I can't think of any that would work.
An ideal opening hand is land (obviously), a stax piece, and a token generator. The best imaginable starting hand is swamp x2, sol ring, smokestack, and bitterblossom. Failing that, I'll try to get a hand with at least one stax piece or token generator, and then see if I can tutor for the rest.
Potential additions: Necropotence over Phyrexian Arena. Loxodon Warhammer in somewhere, in case I need an alternate source of lifegain when I'm running out. I swear, monoblack must be the only color that can really make use of lifegain...
GRW Mayael the Anima WRG
Next up on the potential chopping block is Geth. He can snag enemy artifacts, but it's just so random and his CMC is enormous. If he could get my own artifacts it would be an insta-include, but as it is he just hasn't pulled his weight in any of my games so far.
GRW Mayael the Anima WRG
With "Will", you can cast your whole graveyard in one go if you've ramped into enough mana.
"Helm" is a costly sac outlet but the pay-off is sweet.
"Insidious" can set up your graveyard AND fetch for the remaining pieces to go off. I really love this card. I use everything I have just mentioned in my Ghave deck and I will never take them out.
I find Yawgmoth's Will to be less useful in this deck than in many other black decks. It's still good, don't get me wrong...but the best it can really do for us is let us reuse our tutors and targeted destruction. For the rest of the graveyard cards, it's cheaper to recur them. I suppose it also another method of artifact recursion, which isn't bad. It's something to think about.
Helm of Possession is a horrible sac outlet, and I'm not really interested in single-target control. If I want a creature so badly, I'll get rid of it then reanimate it. Not worth the slot in the deck.
Insidious Dreams is just awful.
Mindslicer is one I am seriously considering adding.
As far as Mikaeus + Triskeleon goes, well, first of all my group bans infinite combos. Second, even if they didn't, I don't think I would include it. Mikaeus is extremely anti-synergistic with the deck. If I reanimate *any* enemy creature, and it dies, it returns to the battlefield under their control. If I was going to use an infinite combo in the deck, I'd add Bloodchief Ascension and use it + Mindcrank to instakill.
GRW Mayael the Anima WRG
Death Cloud-win con/game lock
Nether Traitor-obv.(and great with equipment, i.e. shadow)
Bottomless Pit-awesome with Braids, Portal, Smokestack, etc...
Phyrexian Reclamation-instant speed graveyard resource
Tortured Existence-hilarious graveyard tricks with Chainer
Ancient Tomb-ramp
Volrath's Stronghold-auto include
Cavern of Souls-protects your general
Crystal Vein-ramp and great with Crucible
Lake of the Dead-" " " " "
Phyrexian Tower-"/sac outlet
Beacon of Unrest-consistency points here
Black Sun's Zenith- " " "
Nim Deathmantle-great "stax" synergy
Shred Memory-great tutor as you have 11 targets at 2 mana including Exsanguinate, Bitterblossom and 2 sac outlets being among the best choices. 13 if you add B. Zenith and Nim. Veritable toolbox.
Victimize...it's risky but powerful. No guts no glory.