Depending on your build, you can somewhat safely run Bob if you've got them. I did a bit of maths to figure out Junds average cmc, and tried to match, or fall below that mark. If I remember right it was a little above 1.4. I know my builds are right around that mark. Sometimes you do loose 5 life to a Gary, but on average, my typical flips are less harmful than Junds. If you are playing more 3cmc and above cards then I'd advise you to go with something other than Bob.
I'm not sure if anyone really tested Asylum Visitor. If you feel like you can get your opponent hellbent, or feel comfortable going hellbent, it's theoretically great. We also have Glint-Sleeve Siphoner getting ready to drop which looks to be one of the best bad Bobs we've seen in a long time.
Now as far as Desecration Demon, I'd stay away. Punisher mechanics have historically been bad in Modern. You'll rarely get to swing DD when you want to, and giving the opponent the ability to tap him down removes him as a blocker. I've moved to Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet over Phyrexian Obliterator. While Obliterator gets you more devotion, and walls off attackers, Kalitas provides so much more value, and can use our other creatures to pump himself. A few people have had success with Lashwrithe in their four drop slot. With Fatal Push about to drop, it may be better to have strong and easy to equip equipment over an old school beater.
On Fatal Push forcing fetches in mono black builds, it needs to be seen it it is worth it. Without fetches it will be much harder to turn on revolt, but if you are okay with that, and feel that your other removal is adequate, then that is fine. Some monoblack builds already where using fetches to trigger Bloodghast, so for those builds, Push will slot right in easily.
Finally, On Doom Blade over Victim of Night, that's just a personal deck choice on my end, as I splash green. Monoblack should be running Victim unless their meta's dictate otherwise.
Glint-Sleeve Siphoner seems difficult to fuel on her own without an additional energy source so drawing more than one card is unlikely.
With enough discard spells getting yourself and/or the opponent hellbent can be achived reasonably quickly (maybe adding Wrench Mind can be good ?). Asylum Visitor's 3-power can also be a decent clock against non-interactive decks.
With enough removal in the deck (the removal spells + 4x Gatekeeper of Malakir) can't the drawback of Desecration Demon be mitigated ?
Just remove everything they deploy so they don't have what to sac' or have to sac' an actually valuable creature and will think twice before doing it.
You are right, very weak to Moon with no basic forest. Being weak to Anger of the Gods is something of a given I feel. The inclusion of Eldrich Evolution is interesting. Back when Pod was still in the format there where some who would get a Pod chain of Ghast into Messenger into Murderous Redcap, into Gary. This is somewhat reminiscent of that.
I'll be watching this for sure. Edit: This build looks so very reactive. It seems like it has issues turning the corner without Gary. I also really don't like the lack of mana filtering his deck has. With no way to filter mana from Nykthos, I can see casting Evolution being difficult at times.
Figured I'd throw up my current list, as I haven't done so in a while. I'll probably end up moving down to 2 Abrupt Decay main, and cutting two Doom Blades for Fatal Push when it drops. That'll still leave me with two ways to kill larger creatures with one Doom Blade, and one Slaughter Pact main.
Haven't been playing Mono-black lately now that BUG has become my new passion. Might as well up date my list to fit some of these great new cards though!
Great updated deck Ben! Here's my version, that I plan on piloting next week. I went with more of a "lifelink" version, more akin to the very first iteration I had of this deck 4-5 years ago. I hope that the 12 creatures that gain life plus Collective Brutality if necessary, as well as Batterskull, will help mitigate life loss from thoughtseize and running Bob in a 2.36 average CMC deck. I also cannot afford Liliana of the Veil at the moment, but 3-4 copies would assuredly help this deck tremendously.
Question for the group: Do you think that cards like Fatal Push, Gifted Aetherborn, and Yahenni's Expertise will be enough to shore up our aggro matchups, and maybe (just maybe) break into Tier 1?
Even without triggering revolt you are still killing a large amount of the meta game. That being said, if you aren't running fetches, you can't rely on Fatal Push alone. That's where other cards like Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Victim of Night, Slaughter Pact and Dismember. Which one of those cards you run will depend on what you see in your meta.
I love the brewing process and absolutely love the card Panharmonicon. After I saw safronolives recent budget tech on it I felt like I finally found it's place! So I went with a non budget build of mono black devotion and have been tweaking it for several weeks now. I've finally tested it enough that I feel like it's worth sharing.
It's done pretty well, last night I went 4-1 with it.
Beat the following matches:
RG Scapeshift
Esper draw go
8 rack
Infect
Lost to the following matches:
Ad Nauseam
Also player BW tokens on the side and won.
The most difficult were 8 rack and Ad Nauseam. Won the first one against Ad Nauseam, but then lost the next two by one turn.
Its play style is to control your opponents hand for the first several turns. Generally taking their 1, 2 , and 3 drops so they play virtually nothing the first several turns. Following up with removal when they finally hit something. Building up devotion throughout the game and landing a panharmonicon asap and getting extra value out of geralf, gray, and gatekeeper. With Gray it becomes pretty explosive pretty quickly. Even when its only 4 devotion being used, with panharminicon it stabilizes the game.
Also I'm pretty convinced Fatal Push is necessary. It destroyed infect, taking out their inkmoth, and any creature they put up. When I need to hit for more than 2 cmc, I either play another legendary land and use the legends rule. Or Go for the throat on my Geralf while panharmincon is out. Getting double triggers and more value out of Fatal Push.
I think there is still room for development in both the main and sideboard. But I wanted to share my current deck.
Great deck!! You could call it Necroharmonicon :).
A few constructive questions/comments/ideas:
-With 10 4-5 cmc cards you might have slightly more consistency if you ran 24 (or even 25 lands) instead of 23, especially with 4 Urborgs.
-Why no Collective Brutality? Seems like it would be advantageous to trade versatility and a shored-up burn and other aggro matchup(s) for raw non-targeted discard with wrench mind.
-Do you find that you draw Gary too often? 4 seems awfully high, 3 I could see, but I've run 2 and been quite happy with running only 2 for some time now. Especially since you have the option to recur Gary with Relentless Dead.
-Instead of Vampiric Link, have you considered running Collective Brutality or Vampire Nighthawk? Although Vamp. Link is still a decent option vs. burn.
-Definitely impacted by torpor orb, but that's not so much of an issue since no one is really running them at the moment. Still might want to think about a possible way to combat it, as well as general artifact hate targeting panharmonicon
-Why infest over Languish or possibly Yahenni's Expertise?
-Have you thought at all about Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? It synergizes so well so many cards in the deck, and is also added protection against graveyard strategies like Dredge.
If there is a situation where you don't want to exile your own creatures, I would agree that yahenni's expertise is probably better, though Bile Blight might be the better sideboard option.
Great deck!! You could call it Necroharmonicon :).
A few constructive questions/comments/ideas:
-With 10 4-5 cmc cards you might have slightly more consistency if you ran 24 (or even 25 lands) instead of 23, especially with 4 Urborgs.
-Why no Collective Brutality? Seems like it would be advantageous to trade versatility and a shored-up burn and other aggro matchup(s) for raw non-targeted discard with wrench mind.
-Do you find that you draw Gary too often? 4 seems awfully high, 3 I could see, but I've run 2 and been quite happy with running only 2 for some time now. Especially since you have the option to recur Gary with Relentless Dead.
-Instead of Vampiric Link, have you considered running Collective Brutality or Vampire Nighthawk? Although Vamp. Link is still a decent option vs. burn.
-Definitely impacted by torpor orb, but that's not so much of an issue since no one is really running them at the moment. Still might want to think about a possible way to combat it, as well as general artifact hate targeting panharmonicon
-Why infest over Languish or possibly Yahenni's Expertise?
-Have you thought at all about Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? It synergizes so well so many cards in the deck, and is also added protection against graveyard strategies like Dredge.
These are some fantastic thoughts.
- Before I even saw this I noticed I was having mana issues. So I added a swamp.
- I thought about the Collective brutality, but then went with Wrench mind trying to either empty my opponents hand or force a artifact out. Which is something we don't deal with well in mono black (disposing of artifacts. However I have playtested now a couple times with the brutalities in place and have found them to be much more useful.
- Yeah I see what you're saying with Gray I think I can drop down. I tried to go down to 2 but then ran into several situations like enchantress and ensnaring bridge that I could have easily won if I could have just drawn it. So I'm going to try 3 and throw a Kalitas in it's place.
- I haven't see any torpor orbs recently, if I run into them it will be a problem I'm sure.
- I was trying to avoid killing too many of my things with languish and the high cost seemed to be an issue. Now that Yahenni's Expetise is out I will be switching it out.
- You know I always "knew" about Kalitas but never "really" read it. Which is very unlike me. You are absolutely right it's awesome for this deck. I added two.
I'm going to try and run this set up over the next week. I think it should greatly strengthen my game. However, I am a bit concerned because I have "weakened" my discard.
I'll keep everyone updated. Thank you so much for the feedback. Any little bit helps.
Push and Bloodghast synergize. Don't worry too much about getting the revolt trigger, just swing in with the ghast, and if they are dumb enough to block it, then revolt away. I've also tried cutting a few copies of Gary, but I've found that it just harms the deck. Mono black relies on devotion to steal games, and cutting its main win con for more speed is pretty questionable.
I think the main strength with mono black right now is it has the tools to handle a lot of the format, and it doesn't get blown out by hate cards. Anger is solid, but if we land Obliterator, it's useless. Our main weakness is artifacts, and enchantment prison decks. Gary allows us to just blow out those games by landing him with ten devotion on the board, which is why I personally wouldn't run less than three. In the matchups he isn't good, just board him out.
The deck simply controls the field and hand while filling the board with weak but resilient creatures. A lot of the control spells can hurt you too so that's why the large majority of them are needing to be so resilient.
I wish I had all these cards on MTGO and decent wifi to test; however, that is not the case.
Has anyone tried running thought-knot seer? Is it too expensive to have an impact? I know that it doesn't contribute to devotion, but hand shredding is never bad, especially on the back of a 4/4. Also thinking about putting brain maggot back in.
@red_mtg. Tried running 2 Panharmonicon on Wednesday, and found that it was competing with my other four drops too much. If it was a 3 drop it would probably be broken, but also amazing. As it stands it feels like it comes down too late to have an impact. Granted, it may have also been my matchups against Death and Taxes, Through the Breech Emrakul/Valakut/Titan (interesting brew), and Tron. But most times I drew a Panharmonicon, I either played another 4 drop or wished it was another 4 drop.
This deck is all about control. Every thing about the deck controls the hand or the field. The kill cards are Bitterblossom and Waste Not. Note, Prism Ring is to aid in life loss. Though, they are going to kill the opponent slowly. So, if you have a better option that ISNT the rack I'm all ears. I have not tested this deck nor do I have the cards so I have no idea what needs to be refined; however, I think it has promise. One of the first issues I see might be the mana count.
And of course the other black deck that I made...I don't know which one is better. Nor do I know if either of them are competitive. But again, I see promise in them. Maybe one of you fine blokes could take each of them out for a test run and let me know how it goes that would be awesome.
If you are going to run Smallpox I'd highly recommend Drownyard Temple, and possibly splashing white to enable Flagstones of Trokair. This will help negate the effects of pox on your land base.
On the discard heavy deck, as much as you don't want to hear it, 8rack is the way to go. The issue with discard decks is that you need the opponent to keep drawing cards, or you punish them with racks. As you usually don't want to allow people to draw cards, the best option there is to use rack effects.
On the more creature focused deck, it seems like Suicide Black with a few controlling cards thrown in. I'd focus on speeding that up, really leaning on the speed of the creature base, using your spells to keep the field open for them.
The biggest issue I see, is that neither of these decks are Devotion strategies. While they share some cards, without Gary as a win con build around piece, it's not devotion. There certainly are similarities with some decks like The Gate, MBC, 8Rack, Suicide Black, and even Zombie Tribal, it's building around Gary that separates this deck from the other Bx decks. This is why you aren't getting a lot of great feed back here. There are threads for all of these, though, the Suicide Black and Zombie Tribal threads are few and far between, and poorly maintained.
I am back to playing this online, it feels much stronger with fatal push. I have been splashing red though. been running 4x Madcap Experiment and 2x Platinum Emperion. Looking for thoughts on red splash?
I've dabbled with a red splash now and then. Some have tried to go with Demigod of Revenge, and they seemed to like it. I felt that it made the deck feel more aggro/combo, trying to dump and mill Demigods and cheat on onto the board as fast as possible. If you tried to go for a longer game, you open up your Demigods to more and more gravehate, which I always found to be an issue when he is a main win condition.
I enjoyed pairing Liliana, Defiant Necromancer and Fulminator Mage. A powerful engine if you can get it going, but relying on two three drops kinda sucked. The good news was you got to run Lightning Bolt and Terminate. Combined with Fatal Push that is one hell of a removal package, with Bolt threatening to steal games for you. The only great creature addition other than maindeck Fulminators the red splash really gives you is Tymaret, the Murder King. He goes quite well with Gravecrawler, and is usable with Bloodghast. Having a repeatable sac outlet would make Push more reliable along side the fetches you'd run to trigger revolt. You can also main deck or side in Blood Moon if you craft your mana base correctly.
If you are going to run Smallpox I'd highly recommend Drownyard Temple, and possibly splashing white to enable Flagstones of Trokair. This will help negate the effects of pox on your land base.
On the discard heavy deck, as much as you don't want to hear it, 8rack is the way to go. The issue with discard decks is that you need the opponent to keep drawing cards, or you punish them with racks. As you usually don't want to allow people to draw cards, the best option there is to use rack effects.
On the more creature focused deck, it seems like Suicide Black with a few controlling cards thrown in. I'd focus on speeding that up, really leaning on the speed of the creature base, using your spells to keep the field open for them.
The biggest issue I see, is that neither of these decks are Devotion strategies. While they share some cards, without Gary as a win con build around piece, it's not devotion. There certainly are similarities with some decks like The Gate, MBC, 8Rack, Suicide Black, and even Zombie Tribal, it's building around Gary that separates this deck from the other Bx decks. This is why you aren't getting a lot of great feed back here. There are threads for all of these, though, the Suicide Black and Zombie Tribal threads are few and far between, and poorly maintained.
Oh I see now. I will move my post to the respective thread. Thank you.
So here is my take on Bx Devotion. It is a lot of fun to play but I've been tweaking it a lot to try and make it more competitive. I ran a more traditional version closer to what you would see in the primer here but could only really go 1-3 or 2-2 at FNM's. In over 20 games there was never a single time that I was able to resolve a Gray Merchant of Asphodel that killed my opponent so I removed it from the deck as a finisher. I've decided to replace it with Greater Gargadon which has some very nice interaction with Gravecrawler and Liliana, Heretical Healer. Being able to sacrifice creatures on demand to flip Lili or even just keep recasting crawlers to get Gargadon out is pretty useful. A 9/7 coming out with haste definitely puts the opposing player on a quick clock with how often we can sac/bring back creatures. I don't have much testing done with this final version but if I end up playing it at FNM's more I will report back here with any changes/outcomes.
The only thing I really want to change so far with my latest list is to maybe go up to 3 Blood Crypts and go down to 5 Swamps. Let me know what you guys think!
I like the look of it. The only thing I see is lack of Lightning Bolt and your curve looks kinda high.
I would drop down to 5 swamps, cut Arena for a Mountain, and add a third Blood Crypt.
I like the look of it. The only thing I see is lack of Lightning Bolt and your curve looks kinda high.
I would drop down to 5 swamps, cut Arena for a Mountain, and add a third Blood Crypt.
Let us know how your red splash goes!
The curve is a little high. I treat Greater Gargadon as a 1 drop but it is still lacking some 1 and 2 drops that could really help the curve. I've debated dropping Desecration Demon for maybe more Tymaret, the Murder King's or even maybe Stromgald Crusader but I'll have to play with it a bit before making that decision. With how little removal the deck runs already it is kinda nice to have things like Desecration Demon to force the opponent to remove their own creatures.
As far as Lightning Bolt goes, I know that Bolt is technically way better than Fatal Push but I am not so sure in this deck with how little red the deck runs. I would feel way more comfortable with Bolt if there was more red mana in the deck. I could definitely see having Bolt in hand with no way to cast it with my current list.
I actually used to also run a mainboard Mountain but took it out for Arena. Maybe I will switch it back but I kinda like the spice of Arena. Forcing someone to fight a Phyrexian Obliterator is pretty game ending or provides a huge advantage. If I am playing against Blood Moon having a basic Mountain isn't something I am going to need or fetch for. I might put it back in if I have a lot of people Ghost Quartering my Crypts... but I can't really think of another reason I would want one. Against a Path I think I would get a swamp 99/100 times. Any other reason you were thinking to have a basic Mountain mainboard?
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My current modern paper decks with current match records since 02/01/17:
I'm going to test the following list that at least to me seems really good. It has lot of synergy and tricks and have low CMC and recursive threats so we do not lose tempo in a format full of lightning bolt, PTE and FP.
With this configuration we have plenty of 1CC spells and creatures and have the better recursive ones. We can even have a combo in the form of Hex Parasite + Geralf's Messenger + Greater Gargadon or in Greater Gargadon + gravecrawler + other zombie and our creatures are inmune to PTE and anger of the gods because Gargadon can eat them and you can recur them later.
The list also have 1 alpha strike card in form of Scourge Devil and 16 removal to make sure our threats connect or remove all the problematic ones the opponent would have.
What do you think? Any suggestions or constructive feedback is appreciated
Sounds OK except the part with Hex Parasite and Greater Gargadon, a suspended card is exiled and not considered a permanent so you can't remove a suspend counter with parasite.
I also don't like Angler and Rotting Rats in the list. Rotting Rats can only come back once from the yard once and then is exiled. Angler requires us to exile quite a few cards to get him out quickly and there aren't many cards in the yard that you would want to have exiled because then they can't come back. Maybe Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet would be better in that slot, I'm not sure.
But maybe a low cmc version of the deck can hold up. You'll have to let us know.
I'm not sure if anyone really tested Asylum Visitor. If you feel like you can get your opponent hellbent, or feel comfortable going hellbent, it's theoretically great. We also have Glint-Sleeve Siphoner getting ready to drop which looks to be one of the best bad Bobs we've seen in a long time.
Now as far as Desecration Demon, I'd stay away. Punisher mechanics have historically been bad in Modern. You'll rarely get to swing DD when you want to, and giving the opponent the ability to tap him down removes him as a blocker. I've moved to Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet over Phyrexian Obliterator. While Obliterator gets you more devotion, and walls off attackers, Kalitas provides so much more value, and can use our other creatures to pump himself. A few people have had success with Lashwrithe in their four drop slot. With Fatal Push about to drop, it may be better to have strong and easy to equip equipment over an old school beater.
On Fatal Push forcing fetches in mono black builds, it needs to be seen it it is worth it. Without fetches it will be much harder to turn on revolt, but if you are okay with that, and feel that your other removal is adequate, then that is fine. Some monoblack builds already where using fetches to trigger Bloodghast, so for those builds, Push will slot right in easily.
Finally, On Doom Blade over Victim of Night, that's just a personal deck choice on my end, as I splash green. Monoblack should be running Victim unless their meta's dictate otherwise.
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With enough discard spells getting yourself and/or the opponent hellbent can be achived reasonably quickly (maybe adding Wrench Mind can be good ?).
Asylum Visitor's 3-power can also be a decent clock against non-interactive decks.
With enough removal in the deck (the removal spells + 4x Gatekeeper of Malakir) can't the drawback of Desecration Demon be mitigated ?
Just remove everything they deploy so they don't have what to sac' or have to sac' an actually valuable creature and will think twice before doing it.
I've also seen some decks that run Abyssal Persecutor though I'm not sure if it's drawback is more manageable than Desecration Demon's.
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I'll be watching this for sure. Edit: This build looks so very reactive. It seems like it has issues turning the corner without Gary. I also really don't like the lack of mana filtering his deck has. With no way to filter mana from Nykthos, I can see casting Evolution being difficult at times.
Figured I'd throw up my current list, as I haven't done so in a while. I'll probably end up moving down to 2 Abrupt Decay main, and cutting two Doom Blades for Fatal Push when it drops. That'll still leave me with two ways to kill larger creatures with one Doom Blade, and one Slaughter Pact main.
3 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
2 Relentless Dead
3 Dark Confidant
4 Lotleth Troll
3 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Liliana of the Veil
Spells
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Doom Blade
2 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Collective Brutality
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Forest
5 Swamp
3 Overgrown Tomb
4 Blooming Marsh
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
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4x Dark Confidant
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Gifted Aetherborn
2x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Instant (7)
4x Fatal Push
1x Slaughter Pact
2x Victim of Night
4x Liliana of the Veil
Land (22)
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Mutavault
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
15x Swamp
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sorcery (10)
2x Collective Brutality
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
1x Damnation
2x Fulminator Mage
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Pithing Needle
2x Ratchet Bomb
2x Shadow of Doubt
1x Spellskite
1x Yahenni's Expertise
BRGLiving EndBRG
Question for the group: Do you think that cards like Fatal Push, Gifted Aetherborn, and Yahenni's Expertise will be enough to shore up our aggro matchups, and maybe (just maybe) break into Tier 1?
4x Gifted Aetherborn
4x Vampire Nighthawk
2x Geralf's Messenger
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3x Phyrexian Obliterator
2x Grey Merchant of Asphodel
4x Fatal Push
3x Collective Brutality
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
1x Batterskull
18x swamp
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Mutavault
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Collective Brutality
1x Hero's Downfall
2x Yahenni's Expertise
1x Night of Soul's Betrayal
1x Sadistic Sacrement
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Ratchet Bomb
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
BRGLiving EndBRG
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I love the brewing process and absolutely love the card Panharmonicon. After I saw safronolives recent budget tech on it I felt like I finally found it's place! So I went with a non budget build of mono black devotion and have been tweaking it for several weeks now. I've finally tested it enough that I feel like it's worth sharing.
It's done pretty well, last night I went 4-1 with it.
Beat the following matches:
RG Scapeshift
Esper draw go
8 rack
Infect
Lost to the following matches:
Ad Nauseam
Also player BW tokens on the side and won.
The most difficult were 8 rack and Ad Nauseam. Won the first one against Ad Nauseam, but then lost the next two by one turn.
Its play style is to control your opponents hand for the first several turns. Generally taking their 1, 2 , and 3 drops so they play virtually nothing the first several turns. Following up with removal when they finally hit something. Building up devotion throughout the game and landing a panharmonicon asap and getting extra value out of geralf, gray, and gatekeeper. With Gray it becomes pretty explosive pretty quickly. Even when its only 4 devotion being used, with panharminicon it stabilizes the game.
Also I'm pretty convinced Fatal Push is necessary. It destroyed infect, taking out their inkmoth, and any creature they put up. When I need to hit for more than 2 cmc, I either play another legendary land and use the legends rule. Or Go for the throat on my Geralf while panharmincon is out. Getting double triggers and more value out of Fatal Push.
I think there is still room for development in both the main and sideboard. But I wanted to share my current deck.
2 Gifted Aetherborn
3 Relentless Dead
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Geralf's Messenger
3 Phyrexian Obliterator
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Instants & Sorceries
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Fatal Push
3 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Wrench Mind
1 Go for the Throat
1 Phyrexian Arena
Planeswalkers
2 Liliana of the Veil
Artifacts
3 Panharmonicon
Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
17 Swamp
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Infest
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Fatal Push
2 Vampiric Link
A few constructive questions/comments/ideas:
-With 10 4-5 cmc cards you might have slightly more consistency if you ran 24 (or even 25 lands) instead of 23, especially with 4 Urborgs.
-Why no Collective Brutality? Seems like it would be advantageous to trade versatility and a shored-up burn and other aggro matchup(s) for raw non-targeted discard with wrench mind.
-Do you find that you draw Gary too often? 4 seems awfully high, 3 I could see, but I've run 2 and been quite happy with running only 2 for some time now. Especially since you have the option to recur Gary with Relentless Dead.
-Instead of Vampiric Link, have you considered running Collective Brutality or Vampire Nighthawk? Although Vamp. Link is still a decent option vs. burn.
-Definitely impacted by torpor orb, but that's not so much of an issue since no one is really running them at the moment. Still might want to think about a possible way to combat it, as well as general artifact hate targeting panharmonicon
-Why infest over Languish or possibly Yahenni's Expertise?
-Have you thought at all about Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? It synergizes so well so many cards in the deck, and is also added protection against graveyard strategies like Dredge.
If there is a situation where you don't want to exile your own creatures, I would agree that yahenni's expertise is probably better, though Bile Blight might be the better sideboard option.
These are some fantastic thoughts.
- Before I even saw this I noticed I was having mana issues. So I added a swamp.
- I thought about the Collective brutality, but then went with Wrench mind trying to either empty my opponents hand or force a artifact out. Which is something we don't deal with well in mono black (disposing of artifacts. However I have playtested now a couple times with the brutalities in place and have found them to be much more useful.
- Yeah I see what you're saying with Gray I think I can drop down. I tried to go down to 2 but then ran into several situations like enchantress and ensnaring bridge that I could have easily won if I could have just drawn it. So I'm going to try 3 and throw a Kalitas in it's place.
- I haven't see any torpor orbs recently, if I run into them it will be a problem I'm sure.
- I was trying to avoid killing too many of my things with languish and the high cost seemed to be an issue. Now that Yahenni's Expetise is out I will be switching it out.
- You know I always "knew" about Kalitas but never "really" read it. Which is very unlike me. You are absolutely right it's awesome for this deck. I added two.
I'm going to try and run this set up over the next week. I think it should greatly strengthen my game. However, I am a bit concerned because I have "weakened" my discard.
I'll keep everyone updated. Thank you so much for the feedback. Any little bit helps.
2 Gifted Aetherborn
3 Relentless Dead
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Geralf's Messenger
3 Phyrexian Obliterator
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Instants & Sorceries
2 Fatal Push
2 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Collective Brutality
1 Go for the Throat
1 Phyrexian Arena
Planeswalkers
2 Liliana of the Veil
Artifacts
3 Panharmonicon
Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
18 Swamp
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Yahenni's Expertise
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Fatal Push
2 Vampiric Link
I think the main strength with mono black right now is it has the tools to handle a lot of the format, and it doesn't get blown out by hate cards. Anger is solid, but if we land Obliterator, it's useless. Our main weakness is artifacts, and enchantment prison decks. Gary allows us to just blow out those games by landing him with ten devotion on the board, which is why I personally wouldn't run less than three. In the matchups he isn't good, just board him out.
4 Relentless Dead
4 Bloodghast
4 Nether Traitor
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Gravecrawler
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Collective Brutality
4 Fatal Push
4 Bone Splinters
20 Swamp
CONSIDERING: 4
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
The deck simply controls the field and hand while filling the board with weak but resilient creatures. A lot of the control spells can hurt you too so that's why the large majority of them are needing to be so resilient.
I wish I had all these cards on MTGO and decent wifi to test; however, that is not the case.
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: GOBOTS
@red_mtg. Tried running 2 Panharmonicon on Wednesday, and found that it was competing with my other four drops too much. If it was a 3 drop it would probably be broken, but also amazing. As it stands it feels like it comes down too late to have an impact. Granted, it may have also been my matchups against Death and Taxes, Through the Breech Emrakul/Valakut/Titan (interesting brew), and Tron. But most times I drew a Panharmonicon, I either played another 4 drop or wished it was another 4 drop.
4 Liliana of the Veil
SUPPORT: 36
4 Bitterblossom
4 Waste Not
4 Smallpox
4 Collective Brutality
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Fatal Push
4 Bone Splinters
4 Prism Ring
20 Swamp
And of course the other black deck that I made...I don't know which one is better. Nor do I know if either of them are competitive. But again, I see promise in them. Maybe one of you fine blokes could take each of them out for a test run and let me know how it goes that would be awesome.
4 Relentless Dead
4 Bloodghast
4 Nether Traitor
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Gravecrawler
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Collective Brutality
4 Fatal Push
4 Bone Splinters
20 Swamp
CONSIDERING: 4
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: GOBOTS
On the discard heavy deck, as much as you don't want to hear it, 8rack is the way to go. The issue with discard decks is that you need the opponent to keep drawing cards, or you punish them with racks. As you usually don't want to allow people to draw cards, the best option there is to use rack effects.
On the more creature focused deck, it seems like Suicide Black with a few controlling cards thrown in. I'd focus on speeding that up, really leaning on the speed of the creature base, using your spells to keep the field open for them.
The biggest issue I see, is that neither of these decks are Devotion strategies. While they share some cards, without Gary as a win con build around piece, it's not devotion. There certainly are similarities with some decks like The Gate, MBC, 8Rack, Suicide Black, and even Zombie Tribal, it's building around Gary that separates this deck from the other Bx decks. This is why you aren't getting a lot of great feed back here. There are threads for all of these, though, the Suicide Black and Zombie Tribal threads are few and far between, and poorly maintained.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
I enjoyed pairing Liliana, Defiant Necromancer and Fulminator Mage. A powerful engine if you can get it going, but relying on two three drops kinda sucked. The good news was you got to run Lightning Bolt and Terminate. Combined with Fatal Push that is one hell of a removal package, with Bolt threatening to steal games for you. The only great creature addition other than maindeck Fulminators the red splash really gives you is Tymaret, the Murder King. He goes quite well with Gravecrawler, and is usable with Bloodghast. Having a repeatable sac outlet would make Push more reliable along side the fetches you'd run to trigger revolt. You can also main deck or side in Blood Moon if you craft your mana base correctly.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
Oh I see now. I will move my post to the respective thread. Thank you.
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Here is my decklist:
4 Gravecrawler
2 Relentless Dead
2 Tymaret, the Murder King
3 Geralf's Messenger
2 Desecration Demon
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Phyrexian Obliterator
2 Greater Gargadon
Planeswalkers - 2
2 Liliana, Heretical Healer
Spells - 11
2 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Profane Command
2 Kolaghan's Command
3 Phyrexian Arena
2 Whip of Erebos
Lands - 23
1 Arena
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
4 Polluted Delta
6 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Extirpate
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pithing Needle
2 Shattering Spree
2 Vampiric Link
1 Vandalblast
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Yahenni's Expertise
The only thing I really want to change so far with my latest list is to maybe go up to 3 Blood Crypts and go down to 5 Swamps. Let me know what you guys think!
Dragon Stompy - R 11-6-0
Ponza - RG 8-4-0
Tron - BG 1-2-0
Naya Burn - WRG 2-4-0
Spirits - UW2-2-0
Dragons - R
I would drop down to 5 swamps, cut Arena for a Mountain, and add a third Blood Crypt.
Let us know how your red splash goes!
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
The curve is a little high. I treat Greater Gargadon as a 1 drop but it is still lacking some 1 and 2 drops that could really help the curve. I've debated dropping Desecration Demon for maybe more Tymaret, the Murder King's or even maybe Stromgald Crusader but I'll have to play with it a bit before making that decision. With how little removal the deck runs already it is kinda nice to have things like Desecration Demon to force the opponent to remove their own creatures.
As far as Lightning Bolt goes, I know that Bolt is technically way better than Fatal Push but I am not so sure in this deck with how little red the deck runs. I would feel way more comfortable with Bolt if there was more red mana in the deck. I could definitely see having Bolt in hand with no way to cast it with my current list.
I actually used to also run a mainboard Mountain but took it out for Arena. Maybe I will switch it back but I kinda like the spice of Arena. Forcing someone to fight a Phyrexian Obliterator is pretty game ending or provides a huge advantage. If I am playing against Blood Moon having a basic Mountain isn't something I am going to need or fetch for. I might put it back in if I have a lot of people Ghost Quartering my Crypts... but I can't really think of another reason I would want one. Against a Path I think I would get a swamp 99/100 times. Any other reason you were thinking to have a basic Mountain mainboard?
Dragon Stompy - R 11-6-0
Ponza - RG 8-4-0
Tron - BG 1-2-0
Naya Burn - WRG 2-4-0
Spirits - UW2-2-0
Dragons - R
The list I'm going to try is:
2 Hex Parasite
2 Rotting Rats
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Bloodghast
4 Geralf's Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
4 Greater Gargadon
1 Scourge Devil
2 Kolaghan's command
4 Fatal Push
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Tragic Slip
Sorcery (4)
4 Faithless Looting
Artifact (1)
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Blood Crypt
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Polluted Delta
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Bloodstained Mire
5 Swamp
With this configuration we have plenty of 1CC spells and creatures and have the better recursive ones. We can even have a combo in the form of Hex Parasite + Geralf's Messenger + Greater Gargadon or in Greater Gargadon + gravecrawler + other zombie and our creatures are inmune to PTE and anger of the gods because Gargadon can eat them and you can recur them later.
The list also have 1 alpha strike card in form of Scourge Devil and 16 removal to make sure our threats connect or remove all the problematic ones the opponent would have.
What do you think? Any suggestions or constructive feedback is appreciated
I also don't like Angler and Rotting Rats in the list. Rotting Rats can only come back once from the yard once and then is exiled. Angler requires us to exile quite a few cards to get him out quickly and there aren't many cards in the yard that you would want to have exiled because then they can't come back. Maybe Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet would be better in that slot, I'm not sure.
But maybe a low cmc version of the deck can hold up. You'll have to let us know.
Dragon Stompy - R 11-6-0
Ponza - RG 8-4-0
Tron - BG 1-2-0
Naya Burn - WRG 2-4-0
Spirits - UW2-2-0
Dragons - R