So I've brewed up this deck, and while it's not off to the most glorious of league starts, a lot of that is my own unfamiliarity with the metagame and misplays (especially the misplays).
The Main Deck is pretty solid; the deck switches pretty fluidly between aggro (with Vile Manifestation and to a lesser degree Gifted Aetherborn curving into Hollow One being a pretty beaty start) and the semi-combo finish (God-Pharoah's Gift is a complete beating), and Archfiend/token Archfiend is pretty brutal (just kills their board a LOT). I've fumbled a few games so far but I've usually felt like it's been me failing the deck.
Some quantity of Walking Ballista may be correct. Ruthless Sniper is pretty hit-and-miss - the 1 mana per counter adds up fast - so it might get his slot. Still, games where you drop him and pop their guys for mana and no cards down are great.
I've seen pure combo builds, but feel like the consistency of mono black, plus the aggro draws with the pretty beefy 2 drop Vile Manifestation (usually comes down as a 1/4), goes a long way to making this a contender for the best build (essentially, this deck does better in games where it *doesn't* hit Gate than other builds would).
It's not quite perfect, but it's fairly solid. The SB - the Hour of Glory is imortant vs. Scarab God and Ulamog and should probably have more buddies, Distended Mindbender comes in so often I'm considering starting it main (getting a creature into the bin via sacrifice while making them discard their best big AND small plays is amazing), Collective Brutality #4 got pushed out there and Doomfall is sort of a compromise between Hour of Glory and discard. (you need quite a lot of discard post SB because navigating counterspells AND abrade AND possibly more artifact kill is a nuisance!)
Indulgent Aristocrat and Faith of the Devoted are for base red decks that attack the life total directly - I'm not sure about them, but I did want the full 6 lifelink guys to bring back with Gift.
Yahenni's Expertise, ehn, it's a flex slot it can theoretically be pretty clutch.
Scarab Feast is good just as a cheap cycler that can mess up enemy plans (I hit a few pseudo-mirrors in the testing room ).
Sanitarium is there in case I felt like boarding in an extra land. Could conceivably eat the slot of one of the Deadlands, but seriously - every land that doesn't tap for black HURTS. You often want to cycle 3x Rotbeast/Horror on turn 3 to get a free Hollow One (or two!).
SB definitely should consider more answers to big (4+ toughness) creatures though. They get annoying.
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4 Vile Manifestation
4 Gifted Aetherborn
4 Lurching Rotbeast
4 Hollow One
4 Archfiend of Ifnir
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
4 Gate to the Afterlife
1 Razaketh's Rite
2 God-Pharoah' Gift
4 Desert of the Glorified
1 Hostile Desert
4 Ifnir Deadlands
13 Swamp
1 Collective Brutality
1 Doomfall
1 Ruinous Path
1 Hour of Glory
1 Yahenni's Expertise
2 Distended Mindbender
2 Scarab Feast
3 Faith of the Devoted
2 Indulgent Aristocrat
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
The Main Deck is pretty solid; the deck switches pretty fluidly between aggro (with Vile Manifestation and to a lesser degree Gifted Aetherborn curving into Hollow One being a pretty beaty start) and the semi-combo finish (God-Pharoah's Gift is a complete beating), and Archfiend/token Archfiend is pretty brutal (just kills their board a LOT). I've fumbled a few games so far but I've usually felt like it's been me failing the deck.
Some quantity of Walking Ballista may be correct. Ruthless Sniper is pretty hit-and-miss - the 1 mana per counter adds up fast - so it might get his slot. Still, games where you drop him and pop their guys for mana and no cards down are great.
I've seen pure combo builds, but feel like the consistency of mono black, plus the aggro draws with the pretty beefy 2 drop Vile Manifestation (usually comes down as a 1/4), goes a long way to making this a contender for the best build (essentially, this deck does better in games where it *doesn't* hit Gate than other builds would).
It's not quite perfect, but it's fairly solid. The SB - the Hour of Glory is imortant vs. Scarab God and Ulamog and should probably have more buddies, Distended Mindbender comes in so often I'm considering starting it main (getting a creature into the bin via sacrifice while making them discard their best big AND small plays is amazing), Collective Brutality #4 got pushed out there and Doomfall is sort of a compromise between Hour of Glory and discard. (you need quite a lot of discard post SB because navigating counterspells AND abrade AND possibly more artifact kill is a nuisance!)
Indulgent Aristocrat and Faith of the Devoted are for base red decks that attack the life total directly - I'm not sure about them, but I did want the full 6 lifelink guys to bring back with Gift.
Yahenni's Expertise, ehn, it's a flex slot it can theoretically be pretty clutch.
Scarab Feast is good just as a cheap cycler that can mess up enemy plans (I hit a few pseudo-mirrors in the testing room ).
Sanitarium is there in case I felt like boarding in an extra land. Could conceivably eat the slot of one of the Deadlands, but seriously - every land that doesn't tap for black HURTS. You often want to cycle 3x Rotbeast/Horror on turn 3 to get a free Hollow One (or two!).
SB definitely should consider more answers to big (4+ toughness) creatures though. They get annoying.