This guy actually pays attention when testing. Seriously there is no real need to go for a splash. Other than screwing you with CitP tapped lands so you can play a card that might stop a god or give you 1% in the mirror. Really the discussion at this point should be match-up based. Talk about ways to help in tough matches and sequences for when to play what card. Sorry but the core and color scheme of this deck are in place. Why mess with what is the best deck thus far?
Have u even tested splashing a color before posting this? Playing the Mono black through a gauntlet i thought the same thing, but then tested a splash of green through it... Now i wouldnt say i have a terrible match up at all. All match ups are not difficult to win, especially after board.
This whole splash thing being discussed reminds me of something someone was saying last season at my FLGS, it turned into a huge discussion over several weeks. Basically...
"All roads lead to Jund"
The argument was... Anytime players people start splashing for answers in B, B/G, B/R control style decks, and the mana allows the deck slowly turns into jund.
Why? Well much like this standard as mentioned above people start doing things like "Gunning for your deck" ala' naya control.
So the evolution ends up with a deck that has all the answers and no direct weakness. Typically. Jund.
Devotion with a bevy of multicolored spells, along with thoughtsieze and underworld connections isn't necessary. It might become better and better as the season goes on though.
Right NOW however... MBD is the deck to beat. People keep saying over and over "WHAT DO THEY DO ABOUT..." and I don't think you can just ignore the shifting meta gunning for you. Right now everyone's favorite answer seems to be Assemble so having an answer to it isn't a bad plan.
those that are not interested in discussing on how to evolve the deck to make it better should just stop posting. If you're so sure that the deck is perfect as it is then you can just keep playing it without variation.
We're coming here to discuss possibilities to improve it. not to go on and say "mono black is so damn good so we're not gonna change anything!". now you wouldn't need a thread for that would you?
I'd like some input on some changes I think we should make due to all the MBD hate that will be coming our way from our "easy" matchups and more difficult ones.
A lot of people are going to try and splash colors and add some inconsistency, I want to rectify that, WITHOUT changing colors.
Duress Mainboard?
Yes. I feel like although splashing a color is nice and adds some better removal, I'd rather pick off my opponents hand. With maindecked Lifebanes (2) and 6 Discards I feel a lot more comfortable getting rid of that card I know my removal itself cannot get rid of. It MAY sometimes take a bit of luck to pull off, but is generally pretty easy.
We have 8 (or 10 if you sideboard the extra 2 Lifebanes in) chances to see our opponents hand and respond to things we can't normally get rid of. You'll usually get about 5 chances to see your opponents hand out of 8 (or 10) on AVERAGE a game and respond accordingly. What more could you really ask for?
2/2 Splits everywhere
It's to cover our bases. You can always board in game 2 whatever you need or that wasn't suited for the match.
Mono Black with a Red Splash. Running Red allows us to standardize our removal giving us up to 8 Hero's Downfall in our deck, which allows for more utility to be used for control matchups. I felt the Red version allows us for a better matchup against control with slaughter games against sphinx rev and assemble the legion, Rakdos Keyrune against sorcery speed removal and Mizzium mortars again BBOV/ Smiter/ Dragon etc. Also, Rakdos's Return, with Nykthos gives inhumane amounts of damage as a finisher. Although its not on par with Green giving enchantment removal and abrupt decay, Red is still worth a shot with the equipment we have.
I'd like some input on some changes I think we should make due to all the MBD hate that will be coming our way from our "easy" matchups and more difficult ones.
A lot of people are going to try and splash colors and add some inconsistency, I want to rectify that, WITHOUT changing colors.
Duress Mainboard?
Yes. I feel like although splashing a color is nice and adds some better removal, I'd rather pick off my opponents hand. With maindecked Lifebanes (2) and 6 Discards I feel a lot more comfortable getting rid of that card I know my removal itself cannot get rid of. It MAY sometimes take a bit of luck to pull off, but is generally pretty easy.
We have 8 (or 10 if you sideboard the extra 2 Lifebanes in) chances to see our opponents hand and respond to things we can't normally get rid of. You'll usually get about 5 chances to see your opponents hand out of 8 (or 10) on AVERAGE a game and respond accordingly. What more could you really ask for?
2/2 Splits everywhere
It's to cover our bases. You can always board in game 2 whatever you need or that wasn't suited for the match.
I think 3 thoughtseize and 2 duress would be fine. 6 felt like you would be drawing more than you should as thoughtseize isn't very good against matchups like devotion red etc. adding an additional removal spell main would be nice. just my 2 cents.
I think 3 thoughtseize and 2 duress would be fine. 6 felt like you would be drawing more than you should as thoughtseize isn't very good against matchups like devotion red etc. adding an additional removal spell main would be nice. just my 2 cents.
Agree with this, the extra thoughtseize could go into the SB and sided in when playing against a less aggressive deck.
I lost the semi-final at today's FNM.
Matchups:
Vs Red Deck Wins: 2-1, first match he won, post sideboard it wasn't even close.
Vs Br Aggro: 1-2, my teammate took out the Dark Betrayals before handing me the deck and I started the tournament without them, a grave mistake specially against this deck, even with 3 Devour Flesh and 4 Pharika's it dodges almost allout removals.
Vs Gruul: 2-0, very easy match where everything came on tempo.
Vs Mirror Match: 2-0, I won on Underwolrd Connections and Pack Rat both games, he foolishly centered his removals on specters and demons while the Rat grew and when he realized his mistake he couldn't contain it, second match he didn't draw enough removal and the rat did it again.
Top 8
Vs Azorius: 2-1, a hard matchup, if your Connections dodge Spheres you win, if they don't you loose. Harder than Esper in my opinion.
Vs Colossal Gruul: 0-2, didn't draw removal when I needed it either game, I had game two with a whip-merchant-merchant-merchant tempo but he top-decked Domri after the second merchant and along Ooze prevented me from dealing the damage I could have.
My teammate also removed the scrylands, DON'T REMOVE THE SCRYLANDS, our mana base is a *****, we flood or dry often and it's really useful to have a turn 1-2 play other than Thoughtseize/removal, that play being virtually a 1 mana scry1 is great for the deck.
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So I ended up going 2-3 tonight with the green splash. I beat Naya midrange/control 2-0 without ever seeing a single card I splashed for. I lost to RDW, RG aggro (not the monsters deck just cheap beaters) and Gu devotion (playing Prophet, and Cyclonic rift for his U cards over Xenagos, Mortars, and Domris).
At the end of the night I felt the same way about the green splash as I did about the red splash. It's cool, I get a lot of cool cards that answers things I normally couldn't in mono B, but at the end of the night if I just ran Mono B I feel I would have done just as well if not better. I tested some more games afterwards both with the green splash and again without it and the Mono B version was just so much more consistent and I was able to beat RDW and Naya as often as I was with the G splash, with less awkward hands and a lot less mulligans. There were also games I wish I had doom blade in over the abrupt decay, and even though it let me do some things like decay a domri when I didn't have a downfall in hand, it just simply felt less good than when I was confident that I wouldn't have to shock myself to get my 5th land or worry about a guildgate off the top of my deck.
Talking with the better players in my shop the consensus seemed to be that Mono B doesn't need any help, and unless a deck shows up that can actually completely stomp it out (Naya control and UWR control was a joke, those matchups feel easier to me than RDW is, and RDW is only scary when they get ridiculous hands, I.E. double BTE into striker into phoenix, into fanatic).
I think if we had scrylands for Red or Green the splash would be much better than it currently is. But given the situation where we are in I just don't think it's worth it. I'll still probably acquire playsets of cards I'd want to splash in most given colors because it could easily be worthwhile post rotation. But as it stands now I feel it's not necessary.
On a side note I did a lot more testing against RDW and the conclusion came down to the matchup is completely draw dependent. RDW has to potential to just have those hands that can beat any deck in the format, but when they don't get those it ultimately depends on how much removal you can curve into before dropping blockers. I feel in the matchup Connections is just terrible, Erebos is mediocre, and that I just want to Jam in Lifebane Zombies (awkwardly everytime I cast him I always always got their Reckoner), Removal, and more rats from the board. I frequently found myself winning games by dropping pack rat turn 2, making a token turn 3 and trading 2 rats for 2 of his creatures and then trying to stabilize the board and live until I can drop a Gary.
Also always kill the Firefist Striker, like killing him over a Reckoner, or pretty much any other creature helped me stabilize against RDW more than anything else. I still don't think I need Pharika's Cure for this matchup, simply because the card is too irrelevant in other matchups to be worthwhile.
So I ended up going 2-3 tonight with the green splash. I beat Naya midrange/control 2-0 without ever seeing a single card I splashed for. I lost to RDW, RG aggro (not the monsters deck just cheap beaters) and Gu devotion (playing Prophet, and Cyclonic rift for his U cards over Xenagos, Mortars, and Domris).
At the end of the night I felt the same way about the green splash as I did about the red splash. It's cool, I get a lot of cool cards that answers things I normally couldn't in mono B, but at the end of the night if I just ran Mono B I feel I would have done just as well if not better. I tested some more games afterwards both with the green splash and again without it and the Mono B version was just so much more consistent and I was able to beat RDW and Naya as often as I was with the G splash, with less awkward hands and a lot less mulligans. There were also games I wish I had doom blade in over the abrupt decay, and even though it let me do some things like decay a domri when I didn't have a downfall in hand, it just simply felt less good than when I was confident that I wouldn't have to shock myself to get my 5th land or worry about a guildgate off the top of my deck.
Talking with the better players in my shop the consensus seemed to be that Mono B doesn't need any help, and unless a deck shows up that can actually completely stomp it out (Naya control and UWR control was a joke, those matchups feel easier to me than RDW is, and RDW is only scary when they get ridiculous hands, I.E. double BTE into striker into phoenix, into fanatic).
I think if we had scrylands for Red or Green the splash would be much better than it currently is. But given the situation where we are in I just don't think it's worth it. I'll still probably acquire playsets of cards I'd want to splash in most given colors because it could easily be worthwhile post rotation. But as it stands now I feel it's not necessary.
On a side note I did a lot more testing against RDW and the conclusion came down to the matchup is completely draw dependent. RDW has to potential to just have those hands that can beat any deck in the format, but when they don't get those it ultimately depends on how much removal you can curve into before dropping blockers. I feel in the matchup Connections is just terrible, Erebos is mediocre, and that I just want to Jam in Lifebane Zombies (awkwardly everytime I cast him I always always got their Reckoner), Removal, and more rats from the board. I frequently found myself winning games by dropping pack rat turn 2, making a token turn 3 and trading 2 rats for 2 of his creatures and then trying to stabilize the board and live until I can drop a Gary.
Also always kill the Firefist Striker, like killing him over a Reckoner, or pretty much any other creature helped me stabilize against RDW more than anything else. I still don't think I need Pharika's Cure for this matchup, simply because the card is too irrelevant in other matchups to be worthwhile.
You didn't play against any of the matchups that the green is there for. Since it was an FNM event, it was probably full of aggro and other jank. The online meta is very different.
And playing green is very meta dependent. You lost to 2 aggro decks and a janky green deck. Not sure you would have won those games either way. Only way playing the splash actively cost you the game would have been if the lands got in the way, which is fairly unlikely.
One thing that you did say that is simply blatantly false, is that Naya Control is a joke against monoblack. It isn't. Whether or not that deck becomes a thing though will remain to be seen. It gets owned pretty hard by other control decks.
That being said, there was a recent VS video series on both TCG and SCG featuring Mono Black vs Naya "Control". Guess which deck got wrecked in both videos? I'll give you a hint, not Mono Black.
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I played 9 games against Naya control, 6 of them postboard with Mono B at the end of the night and I lost 3 total games. The deck just never did what it was designed to do. It is a joke, even BBDs video of Mono B vs Naya control did the same thing. Even when I played against it in the tournament I never saw my splashed cards, and I never needed to. If splashing green doesn't help with the GR matchup or RDW matchup I don't think it's worth playing because people are going to be playing those decks at bigger tournaments. If the rest of the field is Mono B, Mono U, and UWx control, I honestly don't feel that having a worse landbase is going to do much good.
The only deck I can realistically see the green splash being relevant against is the mirror. And from what I can tell it's whoever can overwhelm with a pack rat or land Erebos first wins. The green splash did nothing against any other matchup that are problematic or hard for us to deal with (mainly RDW, we already beat esper control and UWR control just isn't getting there right now).
I could say that it was unlucky matchups at my shop since I saw no U based control decks, but the green splash feels equally irrelevant there (yes we get more cards against them, no we don't need them). I've never been blown out by Dspheres, and I've never had much of a problem from them anyways, so outside of the mirror what would I be splashing green for again?
Also the landbase did mess me up a couple of times, the biggest is when my opponent played a Prophet when I had tapped down low to play connections and played a guildgate tapped. If that guildgate was a swamp I would have easily won that game (had downfall in hand, just not enough to cast it). There was also a game where I just never saw a green source and drew into 2 Abrupt Decays. One could say I should have mulliganed that hand, but when you open up and see Swamp, Swamp, Mutavault, Price, Downfall, Demon, Whip, that is a very keepable hand.
The meta is pretty much netdecked stuff with a couple of jank aggro decks which usually aren't a problem, except when I splash green and don't have as much creature based removal as I needed, nor the ability to 1-for-1 them early enough. The Gu prophet deck ended up getting second place losing a very close game to Mono U devotion purely off some really really good draws on the Mono U players part. His other matches where against Esper, GR devotion, RDW, Naya, and another Mono U. His deck was solid, though I'm not sure how good it would do at a larger tournament (he saw like turn 4 Garruk every game).
I also don't like the fact that I feel like I can't sufficiently turn 1 thoughtseize or duress with a splash. Doing 4 to myself to play a shockland untapped to see what my opponents line of play is then playing 2 more tapped lands is just terrible. It feels bad, and it plays bad.
I was just bringing the green splash to test and get opinions from the shop, and overall while the idea is sound in concept and seems really good, it ended up exactly as the red splash. It just doesn't do enough to warrant giving worse matchups to aggro. I also just like the sideboard flexibility I had in Mono B over the green splash. I just never felt like I'd rather have the charms in the board over removal or duresses.
There's a standard tournament for this weekend for a FTV:20 that should be pretty large, I'll go and depending on the meta I may or may not use a green splash again, but I feel confident that going Mono B will probably be best for the event, and that I'd rather play something tried and true over a splash until better results start popping up.
I honestly don't even understand why the green splash took up the majority of the conversation to begin with - the blue or red splashes have much better options against the field. Cyclonic Rift in particular is a rather amazing answer for some of the bigger problems we face against the mirror, mono-u, and the naya control list. Access to the scry lands is just icing on the cake, and Ashiok has often turned into the best sort of D-sphere bait to make sure my underworld connections stay on the board. The biggest reason I like the blue splash? 99% of the difference between true mono-black and the blue splash is in the sideboard. Depending on the meta, the mainboard can be IDENTICAL (aside from watery graves) to MBD, with the only differences being rift, negate, and ashiok out of the side.
I honestly don't even understand why the green splash took up the majority of the conversation to begin with - the blue or red splashes have much better options against the field. Cyclonic Rift in particular is a rather amazing answer for some of the bigger problems we face against the mirror, mono-u, and the naya control list. Access to the scry lands is just icing on the cake, and Ashiok has often turned into the best sort of D-sphere bait to make sure my underworld connections stay on the board. The biggest reason I like the blue splash? 99% of the difference between true mono-black and the blue splash is in the sideboard. Depending on the meta, the mainboard can be IDENTICAL (aside from watery graves) to MBD, with the only differences being rift, negate, and ashiok out of the side.
So what options does splashing blue gives us against enchantments and planes walkers?
So what options does splashing blue gives us against enchantments and planes walkers?
Cyclonic Rift, it's right there in bright blue and all. And it's a much better card than Decay in the matches where enchantment removal matters: UW and Esper.
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Cyclonic Rift, it's right there in bright blue and all. And it's a much better card than Decay in the matches where enchantment removal matters: UW and Esper.
Ok so you cyclonic rift my connections for 1 turn. I'll just cast it again next turn? Cyclonic rift my dsphere okay u get your stuff back for 1 turn then? Oh you overload a cyclonic rift, so I tap 2 for a negate?
I don't see how delaying 1 turn makes it a better option than destroying with abrupt decay or putrefy or golgari charm.
I was thinking blue just got Shipwreck Singer just because he is good in the mirror and is almost even an I win button against aggro (except not because of red devotion.. good against non-devotion based aggro though and stops Master of Wave tokens as well. Shuts mono-white down, or at least semi-counteracts a spear.
I took 18th/over 200 people with this deck was 6-1 but ended up 6-2 after the last round. Got 50 bucks a play-mat and 10 TCG points though so I am happy. Here is the list I played.
Splashing makes answering certain problem cards easier but mono has all the required tools to do it slightly less efficiently, with said efficiency arguably more than made up for by the more consistent manabase. The only thing we can't answer is gods that aren't animated; Liliana can remove them if they are. Ratchet Bomb and Pithing Needle are pretty good catch-all answers otherwise, if you can't just nip the problem cards in the bud with discard.
If you want to shake things up to stay ahead of the curve or whatever, you can always play my aggro list. World of difference between playing control and aggro even in the same color, surely more than splashing for a few marginally better answer cards.
I think 3 thoughtseize and 2 duress would be fine. 6 felt like you would be drawing more than you should as thoughtseize isn't very good against matchups like devotion red etc. adding an additional removal spell main would be nice. just my 2 cents.
Problem with that is consistency and now you're limited to either hitting 2 spells and 3 whatever, vs. 4 whatever and 2 spells.
If you're facing Aggro, you obviously side out. But picking off a boros or something from hand, albiet not the best.. is still a decent option.
Does anybody ever feel as though the deck is running too much removal and not enough creatures? I've been losing alot of games 1s to control decks simply due to not being able to draw into any creatures despite digging about 20 cards into the deck...
Has this been happening to anyone else, or is it just me having terrible luck?
Any thoughts on Thrill-Kill Assassin ? Vs. Control it serves to put early pressure and vs. aggro it serves as pseudo-removal. I've been running BBD's list and i'm thinking on putting it maindeck (maybe taking off one or two removals and one Connections), any thouhgts?
I played 9 games against Naya control, 6 of them postboard with Mono B at the end of the night and I lost 3 total games. The deck just never did what it was designed to do. It is a joke, even BBDs video of Mono B vs Naya control did the same thing. Even when I played against it in the tournament I never saw my splashed cards, and I never needed to. If splashing green doesn't help with the GR matchup or RDW matchup I don't think it's worth playing because people are going to be playing those decks at bigger tournaments. If the rest of the field is Mono B, Mono U, and UWx control, I honestly don't feel that having a worse landbase is going to do much good.
The only deck I can realistically see the green splash being relevant against is the mirror. And from what I can tell it's whoever can overwhelm with a pack rat or land Erebos first wins. The green splash did nothing against any other matchup that are problematic or hard for us to deal with (mainly RDW, we already beat esper control and UWR control just isn't getting there right now).
I could say that it was unlucky matchups at my shop since I saw no U based control decks, but the green splash feels equally irrelevant there (yes we get more cards against them, no we don't need them). I've never been blown out by Dspheres, and I've never had much of a problem from them anyways, so outside of the mirror what would I be splashing green for again?
Also the landbase did mess me up a couple of times, the biggest is when my opponent played a Prophet when I had tapped down low to play connections and played a guildgate tapped. If that guildgate was a swamp I would have easily won that game (had downfall in hand, just not enough to cast it). There was also a game where I just never saw a green source and drew into 2 Abrupt Decays. One could say I should have mulliganed that hand, but when you open up and see Swamp, Swamp, Mutavault, Price, Downfall, Demon, Whip, that is a very keepable hand.
The meta is pretty much netdecked stuff with a couple of jank aggro decks which usually aren't a problem, except when I splash green and don't have as much creature based removal as I needed, nor the ability to 1-for-1 them early enough. The Gu prophet deck ended up getting second place losing a very close game to Mono U devotion purely off some really really good draws on the Mono U players part. His other matches where against Esper, GR devotion, RDW, Naya, and another Mono U. His deck was solid, though I'm not sure how good it would do at a larger tournament (he saw like turn 4 Garruk every game).
I also don't like the fact that I feel like I can't sufficiently turn 1 thoughtseize or duress with a splash. Doing 4 to myself to play a shockland untapped to see what my opponents line of play is then playing 2 more tapped lands is just terrible. It feels bad, and it plays bad.
I was just bringing the green splash to test and get opinions from the shop, and overall while the idea is sound in concept and seems really good, it ended up exactly as the red splash. It just doesn't do enough to warrant giving worse matchups to aggro. I also just like the sideboard flexibility I had in Mono B over the green splash. I just never felt like I'd rather have the charms in the board over removal or duresses.
There's a standard tournament for this weekend for a FTV:20 that should be pretty large, I'll go and depending on the meta I may or may not use a green splash again, but I feel confident that going Mono B will probably be best for the event, and that I'd rather play something tried and true over a splash until better results start popping up.
As someone who's been playing the B/g splash list for awhile, this is what I realised...
The green splashed list is pretty good at what it offers:
1) It improves the aggro matchup. You never have the wrong removal with Abrupt Decay, don't argue with this point, Abrupt Decay is always the right 2 drop removal against aggro. Reaper of the Wilds actually doesn't sleep like demon against aggro and can decently block(yes I know Firefist Striker exists, that's what your 10+ removal spells are for.)
2) It improves the control matchup(I know, we already stomp them, but Golgari Charm seals their fate). Abrupt Decay is as versatile as Hero's Downfall here. Golgari Charm's very existence forces them to Detention Sphere our Pack Rats rather than Supreme Verdicting. Sometimes they'd simply have to play into the Charm and then followup with a Sphere. Every one less Sphere to be wasted on Rats, is every one less Sphere to be harassing my Underworld Connections, the card that when left alone just run away with the game.
3) It improves the mirror matchup. The ability to answer the whip with a super versatile charm that can also be used as pseudo removal should creatures start trading is priceless.
Of these 3 matchups, I'd dare say they total up to over 80% of the field alone.
The splash however eats into often otherwise keepable hands. However it's up to a risk vs rewards thing. Personally I feel that the splash has been working for me, it gives me huge percentage points over the entire field. In exchange for sometimes(once in a blue moon) simply losing to itself. If you are conservative in your splash(I have 8 g sources with only 3 out of 5 green cards I want to play early), the manabase should be able to handle it.
As for deck "slowdown", I hardly see that's the case, in place of your 4 Scrylands I get 4 Gates, similar in speed, but yours with a bonus. However the 4 shocklands effectively sometimes make me play with 20% less life than usual. That's a valid concern yes, but I shore up my aggro matchup with abrupt decay and reaper so much that it's irrelevant and so damn worth it anyways.
Also the myth of Shockland, Thoughtseize turn 1, start the game with 16 life, concede to aggro? Utter rubbish. I used to avoid playing Thoughtseize in modern as well because I thought, turn 1 fetchland, shockland, thoughtseize I'll just die if my opponent reveal a whole hand full of red. So no, that's a misconception that I have gotten over with. We have almost no turn 2 plays, it's almost always right to play your shockland tapped and only thoughtseize on turn 2. But if I see a Hallowed Fountain on the draw, you'd be darn sure I'll just shockland + thoughtseize turn 1 lol.
Even if you have a 2cmc removal, there's nothing so urgent u'd have to answer right on turn 2 itself, so Thoughtseize-ing turn 2 is still fine, I don't shock myself unless I have a proactive play(that's Lifebane/UC/Demon/Gary only). Thoughtseize actually increases in value the later you cast it against aggro. I often Thoughtseize and rip their Spear of Heliod, Ghor-Clan Rampager, Removal for my Demons/Reapers against aggro, so I sometimes only TS turn 3/4 even though it showed up in my opening 7. So it's just about timing the Thoughtseize right, the format's slow unlike modern, I see little to no point slamming it turn 1 when we can do it turn 2.
My one and only bad matchup, is GR Devotion, but that deck's so draw dependant, thoughtseize usually just destroys them. The 3rd Golgari Charm might even become Fade into Antiquity if I anticipate more Nyleas tomorrow, but frankly, the entire meta is just Black, Verdict and Aggro here.
So just watched a Bg deck on camera try to cast an Abrupt Decay with only 8 green sources against an aggressive deck. Note, he didn't.
My problem with the splash is that 8 sources simply is not enough and moving up to 10 - 12 simply makes your consistency worse. Now if we're talking about a heavier green splash with both actual value cards and the sources needed to cast them, well that's different. Lotleth Troll, Dreg Mangler, Varolz, Decay, Reaper, Ooze. These are all great cards and these are arguably a better reason to splash a colour for. Making your mana base worse to play uncastable cards half of the time and inbreeding your decks to such a point that you convincingly beat the mirror but just open yourself to be worse against almost everything else is just not smart magic.
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So just watched a Bg deck on camera try to cast an Abrupt Decay with only 8 green sources against an aggressive deck. Note, he didn't.
My problem with the splash is that 8 sources simply is not enough and moving up to 10 - 12 simply makes your consistency worse. Now if we're talking about a heavier green splash with both actual value cards and the sources needed to cast them, well that's different. Lotleth Troll, Dreg Mangler, Varolz, Decay, Reaper, Ooze. These are all great cards and these are arguably a better reason to splash a colour for. Making your mana base worse to play uncastable cards half of the time and inbreeding your decks to such a point that you convincingly beat the mirror but just open yourself to be worse against almost everything else is just not smart magic.
im starting to lean towards this line of thinking. in my green splash im only running abrupt decays right now and with all the removal options we have its kinda pointless vs aggro to risk not being able to cast it. they are nice vs dsphere but with duress and pithing needle in the side esper is already a decent match up for us.
So just watched a Bg deck on camera try to cast an Abrupt Decay with only 8 green sources against an aggressive deck. Note, he didn't.
My problem with the splash is that 8 sources simply is not enough and moving up to 10 - 12 simply makes your consistency worse. Now if we're talking about a heavier green splash with both actual value cards and the sources needed to cast them, well that's different. Lotleth Troll, Dreg Mangler, Varolz, Decay, Reaper, Ooze. These are all great cards and these are arguably a better reason to splash a colour for. Making your mana base worse to play uncastable cards half of the time and inbreeding your decks to such a point that you convincingly beat the mirror but just open yourself to be worse against almost everything else is just not smart magic.
Why would you run 8 forests in a splash for mono B? In my list I run 4 guildgate 4 tomb and 3 Temple of Mystery.
Have u even tested splashing a color before posting this? Playing the Mono black through a gauntlet i thought the same thing, but then tested a splash of green through it... Now i wouldnt say i have a terrible match up at all. All match ups are not difficult to win, especially after board.
Man they would be handsome.
Naya Mid Rang
"All roads lead to Jund"
The argument was... Anytime players people start splashing for answers in B, B/G, B/R control style decks, and the mana allows the deck slowly turns into jund.
Why? Well much like this standard as mentioned above people start doing things like "Gunning for your deck" ala' naya control.
So the evolution ends up with a deck that has all the answers and no direct weakness. Typically. Jund.
Devotion with a bevy of multicolored spells, along with thoughtsieze and underworld connections isn't necessary. It might become better and better as the season goes on though.
Right NOW however... MBD is the deck to beat. People keep saying over and over "WHAT DO THEY DO ABOUT..." and I don't think you can just ignore the shifting meta gunning for you. Right now everyone's favorite answer seems to be Assemble so having an answer to it isn't a bad plan.
We're coming here to discuss possibilities to improve it. not to go on and say "mono black is so damn good so we're not gonna change anything!". now you wouldn't need a thread for that would you?
A lot of people are going to try and splash colors and add some inconsistency, I want to rectify that, WITHOUT changing colors.
4 Mutavault
4 Temple of Deceit
17 Swamp
Creatures (15)
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4 Desecration Demon
2 Nightveil Specter
2 Lifebane Zombie
2 Pack Rats
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Ultimate Price
2 Devour Flesh
Disruption (6)
4 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
Utility (6)
2 Whip of Erebos
4 Underworld Connections
2 Pack Rat
2 Lifebane Zombie
2 Nightveil Specter
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Dark Betrayal
2 Doom Blade
2 Duress
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
I'll explain a few choices:
Duress Mainboard?
Yes. I feel like although splashing a color is nice and adds some better removal, I'd rather pick off my opponents hand. With maindecked Lifebanes (2) and 6 Discards I feel a lot more comfortable getting rid of that card I know my removal itself cannot get rid of. It MAY sometimes take a bit of luck to pull off, but is generally pretty easy.
We have 8 (or 10 if you sideboard the extra 2 Lifebanes in) chances to see our opponents hand and respond to things we can't normally get rid of. You'll usually get about 5 chances to see your opponents hand out of 8 (or 10) on AVERAGE a game and respond accordingly. What more could you really ask for?
2/2 Splits everywhere
It's to cover our bases. You can always board in game 2 whatever you need or that wasn't suited for the match.
Mono Black B
Mono Blue U
Esper Control BUW (Soon)
Commander
Mindseize BRU
Esper BWU
Modern
Black Deck Wins B
Goblin Deck Wins R
4 Blood Crypt
4 Rakdos Guildgate
13 Swamp
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Mountain
2 Mutavault
Creatures
1 Abhorrent Overlord
3 Pack Rat
4 Nightveil Specter
4 Desecration Demon
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
3 Thoughtseize
1 Rakdos's Return
2 Devour Flesh
2 Hero's Downfall
2 Doom Blade
3 Dreadbore
4 Underworld Connections
2 Whip of Erebos
3 Phraika's Cure
1 Rakdos's Return
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Lifebane Zombie
1 Thoughtseize
2 Rakdos's Keyrune/ Contaminated Ground?
1 Abhorrent Overlord
2 Slaughter Games
Mono Black with a Red Splash. Running Red allows us to standardize our removal giving us up to 8 Hero's Downfall in our deck, which allows for more utility to be used for control matchups. I felt the Red version allows us for a better matchup against control with slaughter games against sphinx rev and assemble the legion, Rakdos Keyrune against sorcery speed removal and Mizzium mortars again BBOV/ Smiter/ Dragon etc. Also, Rakdos's Return, with Nykthos gives inhumane amounts of damage as a finisher. Although its not on par with Green giving enchantment removal and abrupt decay, Red is still worth a shot with the equipment we have.
I think 3 thoughtseize and 2 duress would be fine. 6 felt like you would be drawing more than you should as thoughtseize isn't very good against matchups like devotion red etc. adding an additional removal spell main would be nice. just my 2 cents.
Agree with this, the extra thoughtseize could go into the SB and sided in when playing against a less aggressive deck.
Matchups:
Vs Red Deck Wins: 2-1, first match he won, post sideboard it wasn't even close.
Vs Br Aggro: 1-2, my teammate took out the Dark Betrayals before handing me the deck and I started the tournament without them, a grave mistake specially against this deck, even with 3 Devour Flesh and 4 Pharika's it dodges almost allout removals.
Vs Gruul: 2-0, very easy match where everything came on tempo.
Vs Mirror Match: 2-0, I won on Underwolrd Connections and Pack Rat both games, he foolishly centered his removals on specters and demons while the Rat grew and when he realized his mistake he couldn't contain it, second match he didn't draw enough removal and the rat did it again.
Top 8
Vs Azorius: 2-1, a hard matchup, if your Connections dodge Spheres you win, if they don't you loose. Harder than Esper in my opinion.
Vs Colossal Gruul: 0-2, didn't draw removal when I needed it either game, I had game two with a whip-merchant-merchant-merchant tempo but he top-decked Domri after the second merchant and along Ooze prevented me from dealing the damage I could have.
My teammate also removed the scrylands, DON'T REMOVE THE SCRYLANDS, our mana base is a *****, we flood or dry often and it's really useful to have a turn 1-2 play other than Thoughtseize/removal, that play being virtually a 1 mana scry1 is great for the deck.
At the end of the night I felt the same way about the green splash as I did about the red splash. It's cool, I get a lot of cool cards that answers things I normally couldn't in mono B, but at the end of the night if I just ran Mono B I feel I would have done just as well if not better. I tested some more games afterwards both with the green splash and again without it and the Mono B version was just so much more consistent and I was able to beat RDW and Naya as often as I was with the G splash, with less awkward hands and a lot less mulligans. There were also games I wish I had doom blade in over the abrupt decay, and even though it let me do some things like decay a domri when I didn't have a downfall in hand, it just simply felt less good than when I was confident that I wouldn't have to shock myself to get my 5th land or worry about a guildgate off the top of my deck.
Talking with the better players in my shop the consensus seemed to be that Mono B doesn't need any help, and unless a deck shows up that can actually completely stomp it out (Naya control and UWR control was a joke, those matchups feel easier to me than RDW is, and RDW is only scary when they get ridiculous hands, I.E. double BTE into striker into phoenix, into fanatic).
I think if we had scrylands for Red or Green the splash would be much better than it currently is. But given the situation where we are in I just don't think it's worth it. I'll still probably acquire playsets of cards I'd want to splash in most given colors because it could easily be worthwhile post rotation. But as it stands now I feel it's not necessary.
On a side note I did a lot more testing against RDW and the conclusion came down to the matchup is completely draw dependent. RDW has to potential to just have those hands that can beat any deck in the format, but when they don't get those it ultimately depends on how much removal you can curve into before dropping blockers. I feel in the matchup Connections is just terrible, Erebos is mediocre, and that I just want to Jam in Lifebane Zombies (awkwardly everytime I cast him I always always got their Reckoner), Removal, and more rats from the board. I frequently found myself winning games by dropping pack rat turn 2, making a token turn 3 and trading 2 rats for 2 of his creatures and then trying to stabilize the board and live until I can drop a Gary.
Also always kill the Firefist Striker, like killing him over a Reckoner, or pretty much any other creature helped me stabilize against RDW more than anything else. I still don't think I need Pharika's Cure for this matchup, simply because the card is too irrelevant in other matchups to be worthwhile.
You didn't play against any of the matchups that the green is there for. Since it was an FNM event, it was probably full of aggro and other jank. The online meta is very different.
And playing green is very meta dependent. You lost to 2 aggro decks and a janky green deck. Not sure you would have won those games either way. Only way playing the splash actively cost you the game would have been if the lands got in the way, which is fairly unlikely.
One thing that you did say that is simply blatantly false, is that Naya Control is a joke against monoblack. It isn't. Whether or not that deck becomes a thing though will remain to be seen. It gets owned pretty hard by other control decks.
The only deck I can realistically see the green splash being relevant against is the mirror. And from what I can tell it's whoever can overwhelm with a pack rat or land Erebos first wins. The green splash did nothing against any other matchup that are problematic or hard for us to deal with (mainly RDW, we already beat esper control and UWR control just isn't getting there right now).
I could say that it was unlucky matchups at my shop since I saw no U based control decks, but the green splash feels equally irrelevant there (yes we get more cards against them, no we don't need them). I've never been blown out by Dspheres, and I've never had much of a problem from them anyways, so outside of the mirror what would I be splashing green for again?
Also the landbase did mess me up a couple of times, the biggest is when my opponent played a Prophet when I had tapped down low to play connections and played a guildgate tapped. If that guildgate was a swamp I would have easily won that game (had downfall in hand, just not enough to cast it). There was also a game where I just never saw a green source and drew into 2 Abrupt Decays. One could say I should have mulliganed that hand, but when you open up and see Swamp, Swamp, Mutavault, Price, Downfall, Demon, Whip, that is a very keepable hand.
The meta is pretty much netdecked stuff with a couple of jank aggro decks which usually aren't a problem, except when I splash green and don't have as much creature based removal as I needed, nor the ability to 1-for-1 them early enough. The Gu prophet deck ended up getting second place losing a very close game to Mono U devotion purely off some really really good draws on the Mono U players part. His other matches where against Esper, GR devotion, RDW, Naya, and another Mono U. His deck was solid, though I'm not sure how good it would do at a larger tournament (he saw like turn 4 Garruk every game).
I also don't like the fact that I feel like I can't sufficiently turn 1 thoughtseize or duress with a splash. Doing 4 to myself to play a shockland untapped to see what my opponents line of play is then playing 2 more tapped lands is just terrible. It feels bad, and it plays bad.
I was just bringing the green splash to test and get opinions from the shop, and overall while the idea is sound in concept and seems really good, it ended up exactly as the red splash. It just doesn't do enough to warrant giving worse matchups to aggro. I also just like the sideboard flexibility I had in Mono B over the green splash. I just never felt like I'd rather have the charms in the board over removal or duresses.
There's a standard tournament for this weekend for a FTV:20 that should be pretty large, I'll go and depending on the meta I may or may not use a green splash again, but I feel confident that going Mono B will probably be best for the event, and that I'd rather play something tried and true over a splash until better results start popping up.
So what options does splashing blue gives us against enchantments and planes walkers?
Cyclonic Rift, it's right there in bright blue and all. And it's a much better card than Decay in the matches where enchantment removal matters: UW and Esper.
Ok so you cyclonic rift my connections for 1 turn. I'll just cast it again next turn? Cyclonic rift my dsphere okay u get your stuff back for 1 turn then? Oh you overload a cyclonic rift, so I tap 2 for a negate?
I don't see how delaying 1 turn makes it a better option than destroying with abrupt decay or putrefy or golgari charm.
I took 18th/over 200 people with this deck was 6-1 but ended up 6-2 after the last round. Got 50 bucks a play-mat and 10 TCG points though so I am happy. Here is the list I played.
4x Heroe's Downfall
2x Ultimate Price
1x Doom Blade
1x Devour Flesh
2x Corrupt
2x Pack Rat
4x Nightveil Spectre
4x Desecration Demon
4x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1x Erebos, God of the Dead
19x Swamp
2x Temple of Deceit
3x Mutavault
1x Nikthos, SHrine of NIk
With more blue I would probably drop Pack Rat for either Shipwreck Singer or another Erebos because mono black is very popular in my meta.
If you want to shake things up to stay ahead of the curve or whatever, you can always play my aggro list. World of difference between playing control and aggro even in the same color, surely more than splashing for a few marginally better answer cards.
Problem with that is consistency and now you're limited to either hitting 2 spells and 3 whatever, vs. 4 whatever and 2 spells.
If you're facing Aggro, you obviously side out. But picking off a boros or something from hand, albiet not the best.. is still a decent option.
Mono Black B
Mono Blue U
Esper Control BUW (Soon)
Commander
Mindseize BRU
Esper BWU
Modern
Black Deck Wins B
Goblin Deck Wins R
Has this been happening to anyone else, or is it just me having terrible luck?
EDH
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
GBGlissa, the Traitor
Modern
X Affinity
EDH
BUGTasigur, the Golden Fang (French 1v1)
Modern
RWG Burn
On DeTora's extra land drop on PT:GTC
As someone who's been playing the B/g splash list for awhile, this is what I realised...
The green splashed list is pretty good at what it offers:
2) It improves the control matchup(I know, we already stomp them, but Golgari Charm seals their fate). Abrupt Decay is as versatile as Hero's Downfall here. Golgari Charm's very existence forces them to Detention Sphere our Pack Rats rather than Supreme Verdicting. Sometimes they'd simply have to play into the Charm and then followup with a Sphere. Every one less Sphere to be wasted on Rats, is every one less Sphere to be harassing my Underworld Connections, the card that when left alone just run away with the game.
3) It improves the mirror matchup. The ability to answer the whip with a super versatile charm that can also be used as pseudo removal should creatures start trading is priceless.
Of these 3 matchups, I'd dare say they total up to over 80% of the field alone.
As for deck "slowdown", I hardly see that's the case, in place of your 4 Scrylands I get 4 Gates, similar in speed, but yours with a bonus. However the 4 shocklands effectively sometimes make me play with 20% less life than usual. That's a valid concern yes, but I shore up my aggro matchup with abrupt decay and reaper so much that it's irrelevant and so damn worth it anyways.
Also the myth of Shockland, Thoughtseize turn 1, start the game with 16 life, concede to aggro? Utter rubbish. I used to avoid playing Thoughtseize in modern as well because I thought, turn 1 fetchland, shockland, thoughtseize I'll just die if my opponent reveal a whole hand full of red. So no, that's a misconception that I have gotten over with. We have almost no turn 2 plays, it's almost always right to play your shockland tapped and only thoughtseize on turn 2. But if I see a Hallowed Fountain on the draw, you'd be darn sure I'll just shockland + thoughtseize turn 1 lol.
Even if you have a 2cmc removal, there's nothing so urgent u'd have to answer right on turn 2 itself, so Thoughtseize-ing turn 2 is still fine, I don't shock myself unless I have a proactive play(that's Lifebane/UC/Demon/Gary only). Thoughtseize actually increases in value the later you cast it against aggro. I often Thoughtseize and rip their Spear of Heliod, Ghor-Clan Rampager, Removal for my Demons/Reapers against aggro, so I sometimes only TS turn 3/4 even though it showed up in my opening 7. So it's just about timing the Thoughtseize right, the format's slow unlike modern, I see little to no point slamming it turn 1 when we can do it turn 2.
The list I'm gonna bring to a GPT very soon:
2 Pack Rat
3 Lifebane Zombie
3 Desecration Demon
2 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Enchantments [6]
4 Underworld Connections
2 Whip of Erebos
Sorceries [4]
4 Thoughtseize
1 Doom Blade
2 Ultimate Price
1 Devour Flesh
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Hero's Downfall
Lands [25]
3 Mutavault
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Golgari Guildgate
14 Swamp
My one and only bad matchup, is GR Devotion, but that deck's so draw dependant, thoughtseize usually just destroys them. The 3rd Golgari Charm might even become Fade into Antiquity if I anticipate more Nyleas tomorrow, but frankly, the entire meta is just Black, Verdict and Aggro here.
360 Infinity Cube (No mana-screw multiplayer madness!)
My problem with the splash is that 8 sources simply is not enough and moving up to 10 - 12 simply makes your consistency worse. Now if we're talking about a heavier green splash with both actual value cards and the sources needed to cast them, well that's different. Lotleth Troll, Dreg Mangler, Varolz, Decay, Reaper, Ooze. These are all great cards and these are arguably a better reason to splash a colour for. Making your mana base worse to play uncastable cards half of the time and inbreeding your decks to such a point that you convincingly beat the mirror but just open yourself to be worse against almost everything else is just not smart magic.
im starting to lean towards this line of thinking. in my green splash im only running abrupt decays right now and with all the removal options we have its kinda pointless vs aggro to risk not being able to cast it. they are nice vs dsphere but with duress and pithing needle in the side esper is already a decent match up for us.
Why would you run 8 forests in a splash for mono B? In my list I run 4 guildgate 4 tomb and 3 Temple of Mystery.