I like the new primer, but I think you are too narrow in your selection of cards represented. The Barn Animals, as my group calls it, isn't mentioned here at all.
Good job on the Primer so far! A couple of notable cards that you might want to add to the Primer:
Succumb to Temptation is a great option. As a control deck you want to have an instant card draw and this is the best instant draw spell for black! I replaced Sign in Blood with this in my deck and it's great!
Read the Bones is really good for setting up quality draws.
Complete Disregard is good, but Unmake is better. Disregard does skirt around anything with pro black though. (But I can't think of anything prevalent that's pro black)
Grasp of Darkness hits pretty much anything except Angler, but you can use it along with the Witches to kill Angler too. It stops Regen as well. This has become a preferred choice for removal since it kills opposing Gray Merchants since it can hit any creature. It's very solid removal!
The main deck doesn't have too much creature removal because I also do a great job of tearing through my opponent's hand. A lot of times I found myself with a hand full of spot removal that I didn't really need! The sideboard helps move towards more removal if needed as well as having some Wrench Minds to really hurt control.
I used to run Unearth, but that was before I bought Garys and had Corrupt as my big finisher. Now I use Morbid Plunder to get Gary back along with any other good ETB effect.
I recently went undefeated in a competitive casual tournament with a playgroup of mine and it was against a good amount of Delver (both MonoU and u/b), Burn, and green stomp. I've played MBC for a long time and in a lot of formats and it can easily deal with a lot of other decks in different metas.
Disciple of the Vault is pretty good against Affinity, but you also need a bit more spot removal to try and keep Atogs off the board.
As far as Drake, yeah it was banned, but if you play in groups that don't use bans or against another infinite combo then I suggest boarding in more hand disruption and graveyard hate. Black has a LOT of choices for both options, so just go with the best value or what you prefer.
It's also a bit strange not to play Gray Merchant of Asphodel in 2017 in MBC. This card has been a staple of the archetype for years now, and for good reason.
I would cut the corrupt for merchants, and read the bones for the ninja rat. Grasp of Darkness is also not the most interesting removal spell.
I agree with most of Upkeep's points. Going with the creatures that are discards on a stick definitely gives you more offense as well as defense.
As far as Grasp of Darkness, I would keep it. I use it in my list. It kills most anything other than Gurmag Angler and some of the bigger threats. It is also one of the few 2 mana black removal spells that can kill Merchants in the mirror. If it doesn't kill some of those bigger creatures outright then it can also help as a combat trick to have your rats take them out! The only matchup it might lack in is Green Stomp, but it still puts in work there by reducing some of there pumped creatures.
Decided to try out Grisly Spectacle as a removal option. It can take out troublesome Black creatures and if I hit something big it has potential to boost the Wight is more creatures get milled. It might get cut, but I wanted to give it a chance.
Decided to try out Grisly Spectacle as a removal option. It can take out troublesome Black creatures and if I hit something big it has potential to boost the Wight is more creatures get milled. It might get cut, but I wanted to give it a chance.
Looking good, but I think there are some things that need adjustment.
Bojuka Bog and Wight are a nonbo, you should take out bojukas for something else.
I thought that about Bojuka Bog as well, but I want to keep it main deck anyway. I can always target myself if I don't want to neuter Wight, but it's good to have against any decks that rely heavily on graveyards. Any other option would take up spell space.
Thorn of the Black Rose might actually be good here! I'll have to test it.
I prefer Succumb because of the Instant speed. I'd rather pay the one extra mana to play a bit reactive in situations. I can keep mana open during my opponent's turn to use spot removal if needed or just draw cards. I've always loved Sign in Blood and Read the Bones, but I always wanted them at Instant speed.
So, I'm going to the first pauper FNM event this LGS has ever done. They are sticking with just the online list (so no Hymns for me ), and I'm not really sure what to expect as I haven't played pauper since the Scars/Innistrad days when I was using mono blue delver with cloud of faeries. I recently located a couple of my old oubliette's and decided I would try some monoblack. What do people think of this going into an event blind (expecting about 15-20)?
I would rather see Grasp or Doom Blade in the main board in place of Disfigure. Disfigure isn't as good as it used to be since there's a lot more big threats in Pauper these days. Grasp is great in the mirror, but Murder has it's merits in the format. It can do a lot of work in the mirror against Gray Merchant and Gurmag Angler. I usually don't like using spot removal that's 3 or more cmc, but Murder is worth it if the meta is full of MBC.
Gurmag Angler should probably be in the main even as a single copy. It's a really strong creature that's hard to deal with.
It sucks that Hymn isn't legal, but Wrench Mind is a good replacement. It's probably worth some main deck space if you can find the room for them. Wrench Mind plus Chittering Rats can ruin your opponents.
I think Tron sees a lot of play nowadays so running Rancid Earth in the SB might help there or even Sinkhole if it's legal and you got them.
Good luck and it would be great if you could post some results afterwards! I'd love to see how it goes.
Thanks for the info, appreciate it! Yeah I have been considering moving the disfigures, I'll probably swap a couple of them with grasp. With witches, I should be able to even handle X/5's with it pretty often. The one-of angler is probably a good idea. I guess maybe something like this?;
Anyway guys, how do you handle Trons? My current LGS meta is like 3x Tron (different variants), 1x Burn, 3x Affinity, 1x Elves, 4x Mono U Delver, 1x MBC and some Slivers. I struggle to create a good sideboard, since I can hardly get Choking Sands or an alternative (not avaiable since the Pauper in my LGS started regularly).
Oh yeah, choking sands, forgot about that card. I knew there had to be a better card than rancid earth. I feel like hand destruction is one of you better weapons vs Tron, trying to rip cards out of hand while they attempt to build mana. Obviously, it works better when you can take out one of their lands right away. Edict is a good answer to most of their fatty threats.
I agree with Lumovanis. Hand disruption is probably best along with some land destruction. One thing about most Trons I've faced is the amount of counter spells they run. If you Duress those away and Capsize then you just have to worry about their creatures and MBC can deal with creatures. I really don't like playing in tourneys that use the online banlist since Hymn is such a powerful weapon in the match up too.
Wight of Precinct Six is a good card, but it is dead in certain matches. I would run 4 copies main deck since he's generally good against most decks then if you come up against the bad match ups then you have an easy 4 slots to fill with SB cards.
I also forgot about Choking Sands. That will definitely be better against Tron.
Well, I attempted to show up this past Friday with the listed deck, but due to some last minute hold ups I ended up missing the queue by like 5 minutes. I did, however, get to glance around and see what people were running. Couple tron decks (one was mono blue, the other was a weird 4 color one that seemed to do okay with chromatic stars and such for filtering), bunch of affinity, mono-green (looked like a go-wide deck with youngwolf and such), there were a couple other monoblack decks (one was a shadow weenie deck), and I saw at least one burn deck. I didn't get a chance to see them all, but it gave me a good idea of what I'm up against next week. I still feel confident in my listed deck, going to roll with that still, though a friend picked me up another Oubliette to borrow for awhile, so going to add it to the SB and drop one of the Thorns. We'll see how that goes next week.
Mono-green stompy may seem like an easy win since we are equipped to kill creatures, but that's actually been a very tough match up for me. Oubliette can help since they like things like Young Wolf dying. Try and Duress Vines of Vastwood if you can and using more edict and board wipe effects go a long way here. Everything else sounds easy to deal with if you know their strategies.
Drainpipe Vermin, Festering Goblin, Insidious Bookworms,
Mardu Skullhunter, Abyssal Gatekeeper, Ashen-Skin Zubera, Black Cat, Mesmeric Fiend, Pit Keeper, Ravenous Rats, and Rotting Rats. Basically the low CMC incremental control cards, especially when combined with Death Denied.
Example deck:
2 Crypt Rats
4 Phyrexian Rager
4 Cuombajj Witches
4 Mardu Skullhunter
4 Black Cat
4 Ravenous Rats
2 Pit Keeper
1 Thorn of the Black Rose
4 Orzhov Euthanist
2 Death Denied
4 Geth's Verdict
1 Bojuka Bog
20 Swamp
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
Succumb to Temptation is a great option. As a control deck you want to have an instant card draw and this is the best instant draw spell for black! I replaced Sign in Blood with this in my deck and it's great!
Read the Bones is really good for setting up quality draws.
Complete Disregard is good, but Unmake is better. Disregard does skirt around anything with pro black though. (But I can't think of anything prevalent that's pro black)
Grasp of Darkness hits pretty much anything except Angler, but you can use it along with the Witches to kill Angler too. It stops Regen as well. This has become a preferred choice for removal since it kills opposing Gray Merchants since it can hit any creature. It's very solid removal!
22x Swamp
2x Bojuka Bog
Creatures
2x Ravenous Rats
3x Cuombajj Witches
3x Phyrexian Rager
3x Chittering Rats
3x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2x Grasp of Darkness
2x Doom Blade
2x Tendrils of Corruption
Discard
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
Card Advantage
2x Morbid Plunder
2x Read the Bones
4x Succumb to Temptation
3x Echoing Decay
3x Geth's Verdict
3x Crypt Rats
3x Wrench Mind
3x Complete Disregard
The main deck doesn't have too much creature removal because I also do a great job of tearing through my opponent's hand. A lot of times I found myself with a hand full of spot removal that I didn't really need! The sideboard helps move towards more removal if needed as well as having some Wrench Minds to really hurt control.
I used to run Unearth, but that was before I bought Garys and had Corrupt as my big finisher. Now I use Morbid Plunder to get Gary back along with any other good ETB effect.
I recently went undefeated in a competitive casual tournament with a playgroup of mine and it was against a good amount of Delver (both MonoU and u/b), Burn, and green stomp. I've played MBC for a long time and in a lot of formats and it can easily deal with a lot of other decks in different metas.
I'm sure you can find someone that can do custom foil jobs on cards! If you are dead set on foiling your entire deck then that will probably work out.
So you do a judge call and there isnt a game 2.
As far as Drake, yeah it was banned, but if you play in groups that don't use bans or against another infinite combo then I suggest boarding in more hand disruption and graveyard hate. Black has a LOT of choices for both options, so just go with the best value or what you prefer.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Chittering Rats
Spells 29
4x Disfigure
4x Grasp of Darkness
4x Victim of Night
4x Sign in Blood
4x Hymn to Tourach
3x Read the Bones
3x Geth's Verdict
3x Corrupt
18x Swamp
3x Barren Moore
2x Bojuka Bog
4x Duress
4x Shrivel
4x Rancid Earth
1x Geth's Verdict
1x Bojuka Bog
Death's Shadow - Living End - Eldrazi Tron
Standard:
Mono Black Control
Pauper:
Suicide Black
EDH:
Doran, the Siege Tower - The Locust God
A more discad-oriented approach is interesting, though.
Along with your rats, Liliana's Specter and Okiba-Gang Shinobi are popular choices for this strategy.
It's also a bit strange not to play Gray Merchant of Asphodel in 2017 in MBC. This card has been a staple of the archetype for years now, and for good reason.
I would cut the corrupt for merchants, and read the bones for the ninja rat. Grasp of Darkness is also not the most interesting removal spell.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
As far as Grasp of Darkness, I would keep it. I use it in my list. It kills most anything other than Gurmag Angler and some of the bigger threats. It is also one of the few 2 mana black removal spells that can kill Merchants in the mirror. If it doesn't kill some of those bigger creatures outright then it can also help as a combat trick to have your rats take them out! The only matchup it might lack in is Green Stomp, but it still puts in work there by reducing some of there pumped creatures.
Here's what I have so far:
2x Bojuka Bog
22x Swamp
Creatures
3x Chittering Rats
3x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
2x Gurmag Angler
3x Phyrexian Rager
4x Wight of Precinct Six
Removal
2x Doom Blade
2x Grasp of Darkness
1x Grisly Spectacle
1x Tendrils of Corruption
1x Evincar's Justice
1x Corrupt
3x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
Card Advantage
3x Succumb to Temptation
3x Read the Bones
3x Complete Disregard
3x Crypt Rats
3x Shrivel
3x Geth's Verdict
3x Wrench Mind
Decided to try out Grisly Spectacle as a removal option. It can take out troublesome Black creatures and if I hit something big it has potential to boost the Wight is more creatures get milled. It might get cut, but I wanted to give it a chance.
Looking good, but I think there are some things that need adjustment.
Bojuka Bog and Wight are a nonbo, you should take out bojukas for something else.
You are very creature heavy, which suggests thorn of the black rose over succumb for card draw. Also why succumb and not night's whisper or sign in blood?
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
Thorn of the Black Rose might actually be good here! I'll have to test it.
I prefer Succumb because of the Instant speed. I'd rather pay the one extra mana to play a bit reactive in situations. I can keep mana open during my opponent's turn to use spot removal if needed or just draw cards. I've always loved Sign in Blood and Read the Bones, but I always wanted them at Instant speed.
4x Chittering Rats
2x Crypt Rats
4x Cuombajj Witches
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4x Phyrexian Rager
2x Thorn of the Black Rose
Instant (7)
4x Disfigure
3x Tendrils of Corruption
3x Chainer's Edict
4x Sign in Blood
Enchantment (3)
2x Oubliette
1x Pestilence
Land (23)
4x Barren Moor
1x Bojuka Bog
18x Swamp
4x Duress
3x Distress
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Crypt Rats
2x Thorn of the Black Rose
2x Doom Blade
Would Grasp of Darkness be better than Doom Blade in SB?
Gurmag Angler should probably be in the main even as a single copy. It's a really strong creature that's hard to deal with.
It sucks that Hymn isn't legal, but Wrench Mind is a good replacement. It's probably worth some main deck space if you can find the room for them. Wrench Mind plus Chittering Rats can ruin your opponents.
I think Tron sees a lot of play nowadays so running Rancid Earth in the SB might help there or even Sinkhole if it's legal and you got them.
Good luck and it would be great if you could post some results afterwards! I'd love to see how it goes.
4x Chittering Rats
1x Crypt Rats
4x Cuombajj Witches
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1x Gurmag Angler
4x Phyrexian Rager
1x Thorn of the Black Rose
Instant (7)
2x Disfigure
2x Grasp of Darkness
3x Tendrils of Corruption
2x Chainer's Edict
4x Sign in Blood
2x Wrench Mind
Enchantment (3)
2x Oubliette
1x Pestilence
Land (23)
4x Barren Moor
1x Bojuka Bog
18x Swamp
4x Duress
1x Wrench Mind
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Crypt Rats
2x Thorn of the Black Rose
1x Grasp of Darkness
3x Choking Sands
What are your thoughts on Wight of Precinct Six? I was told he's pretty solid, but it feels like it's a dead card vs Gurmag and such.
Anyway guys, how do you handle Trons? My current LGS meta is like 3x Tron (different variants), 1x Burn, 3x Affinity, 1x Elves, 4x Mono U Delver, 1x MBC and some Slivers. I struggle to create a good sideboard, since I can hardly get Choking Sands or an alternative (not avaiable since the Pauper in my LGS started regularly).
My current deck:
4 Chittering Rats
4 Cuombajj Witches
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4 Phyrexian Rager
2 Gurmag Angler
Enchantments (3):
1 Pestilence
2 Dead Weight
Sorceries (9):
2 Chainer's Edict
4 Sign in Blood
3 Unearth
2 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Grasp of Darkness
1 Spinning Darkness
1 Reaping the Graves
Lands (22):
16 Swamp
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Barren Moor
3 Wrench Mind
3 Disfigure
3 Doom Blade
1 Evincar's Justice
2 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Duress
Mono U Draw & Go fan
Decks:
Modern - Mono U Tron, UR Delver
Legacy - UR Delver
Pauper - BGRUW Tron, Mono U Delver, Mono B Control
Wight of Precinct Six is a good card, but it is dead in certain matches. I would run 4 copies main deck since he's generally good against most decks then if you come up against the bad match ups then you have an easy 4 slots to fill with SB cards.
I also forgot about Choking Sands. That will definitely be better against Tron.