Max Brown Took First at Blue Bell in Jan of 2010 and Mario Vazquez Took Fifth in Zürich on 28.03.2010 With a deck that has many names, Dark Times, Do you fear Death A, Depths of the Void among others.
This is a strong mono black list that I feel is a great budget deck and a strong competitor in the current Noble Fish/Dredge/Shop/Vault metagame we see.
Here is the decklist:
Maindeck (60 cards):
1 Black Lotus
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
4 Dark Confidant
4 Dark Ritual
1 Darkblast
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Duress
1 Grim Discovery
1 Imperial Seal
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Sadistic Sacrament
4 Thoughtseize
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Lands (20):
2 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
11 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
I really like this deck, because of the dual combo engine, powered by the 4x tutors, two instants at one mana and two sorceries, The Imperial Seal is a bit expensive, but I plan to play in a 5 proxy environment, so I think this deck is dead on, only really requiring 4 proxies, with the mox, lotus, seal and Chains.
The Leylines, being free against most decks where they matter, not only hinder several viable budget decks and give you a one for one against anyone hoping for a yawgwin, but they give you a 5 colorless mana one card win condition, easily tutored for. I cannot count the number of times I've been busting ass to assemble Marit Lage, just to have Void Helm win the game with a duress on the 3rd turn.
The 8 Duress effects I feel add a almost counterspellish control aspect to the piloting of this deck, and the abundance of redundancy, along with an excellent toolbox of bullets to expend your tutor suite on (I have consulted for either hexmage or void for the win more times than I can count.) many situations are simply a shuffle and a draw away from a solution, no matter what your game state is.
I ran Nights Whisper, while I pined away for bob, the task of convincing my wife to let me drop $60 on a playset of Confidants was long and arduous. Eventually, of course, the tide of battle fell my way, and once I had my confidants, I never looked back.
I'm sorry to say, but the advantage, turn after turn, of drawing another card, as well as beating face, just takes the cake for bob. Especially when the hardest hit you take in this deck is Leyline of the void, and the count of painful draws is awesomely low in this deck, 8, most of them are no more damaging then a thoughtseize, and with the speed of vintage these days, the only worry I have about bob or seize is the game going longer than 5 turns.
Again, the dual combo engine helps here.
I ran a version, for kicks, that included 2 painters servants and a grindstone, for a third combo option, but I felt that the cost was too high in terms of card dilution and synergy.
Though I have been reminded by several Sphinx of the Steel Wind how useful instant speed non-targeted removal can be, and it has me rethinking the gatekeepers main.
This deck reminds me of my old school Necropotence deck, and is what brought me back into Magic after years of despair at Mono-Black's fall from grace.
I dont know though, I havent faced much creature based combat, as my testing is all done against powered Bob and TP Storm, Stax of various colors, and odd sligh and zoo variants.
Very few Tarmogoyfs, until last week, when we all started proxying them. Which proved disastrous, game after game, when playing against heavy UGW.
Hence the sideboard change:
To:
2 Bitterblossom
3 Diabolic Edict
1 Engineered Plague
2 Null Rod
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Sadistic Sacrament (I love this card, I wish I could run 4x)
2 Yixlid Jailer
3 Perish (this is just wrong, but I dont know how else to clear a tarmo/higherach/pridemage board with a dark ritual. This is one of my most boarded and used cards, plus, its immune to spell snare.)
Perish is the best answer I could find for UGW, for tarmogoyf at all. Edict doesnt help much with a hierach or a pridemage on the board backing goyf up. (Same goes for darkblast.)
Positive or Negative criticism is always appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
And if anyone was wondering, my current (as in, this is what I am taking to my local vintage scene saturday.) List looks like such;
Basically I:
-1 Diabolic Edict (to the sideboard)
-1 Mox Jet (call me crazy, I just dont like looking at it with null rod on the board.)
-1 Grim Discovery
+2 Gatekeeper of Malikir
+1 Null Rod
And the Sideboard is my personal modification for the local meta.
(mostly unpowered something or other)
I really enjoy yawging up a pair of rituals into a kicked sad sac.
7BBB for 15 cards is SO much better than Denying winds.
Nah that's not what I meant, it just all seemed really familiar as I was reading it :). What are the Emissary of Despair for? I know you said on TMD you won't be facing any Stax, so some kind of Affinity or something? I bet you can find something better in that spot.
I see.
No, you know, I dont really know why the emmisarys are there, I've never gotten a chance to swing with them for anything interesting anyways...
Maybe something to shore up the goblins matchup, which suddenly seems relevant.
Or something to combat threads on my confidants...
Blue bell winner on 4/3 was playing Ritual based blue tendrils, and here is his game report against Dark Times:
rd 2: Dark times
g1: I keep a pretty loose hand, as does my opponent. He starts by pithing needle naming polluted delta. This sets me back a turn as i have another one in my hand. I eventually get a jar down and pass. I could have cracked it and had one land untapped, having already playing my land but that seems bad. However, I have a feeling that he might have vamp or demonic for the null rod in his deck. This is confirmed when he vamps eot then casts Null rod. The game was pretty much lost there.
g2: He has turn two hexmage Dark depths. I tutor for chain. This is followed by him demonic consulting for duress. He then tries to duress me. I attempt to chain his hexmage in resp but he makes the good play and makes his token. I lose pretty handily.
1-1
You know what I've learned from this?
Pithing Needle on Fetchlands... And I was gonna cut pithing needle.
I've also discovered in testing, that cutting a wasteland and adding a black source, really helps ease the burden of opening a wasteland or stripmine with a dark depths and no urborg.
Also, I love 3x duress effects and a dark ritual in my opening hand, which happens more then you'd think!
Also, lets hear it for "hard-casting" Marit Lage too.
Game senario is thus; His first turn ritual, sadistic sacrament taking 3 of my hexmages, followed by his third turn sadistic sacrament taking my yawgwill, 1x depths and last hexmage, Met with my null rod, shutting him out of his mox mana, which was all he had, and my drawing 7 of the 8 duress effects, in 9 turns, along with one depths in my hand, and 3 swamps, leads to 7 turns of me paying 3 at the end of his turn to remove ice counters, then I drop a gatekeeper and a confidant and top deck double dark rituals to eot crack depths.
Swing for 20, gg for me.
Testing this deck has proven to be a lot of fun.
Awesome deck. I'm going to put together my own version once I find a Mox Jet ;). I've got a build right now but it doesn't have any power nine. Thanks for some of the cool ideas for what you included.
One thing I do when I'm releasing the kraken (Marit Lage) is pack in a Shizo, Death's Storehouse in place of a swamp or two so that in a pinch you can give him Fear and slip him past a chump blocker like a Birds of Paradise or something. And please always say "Release the Kraken!" when you bust out the 20/20 token. I know he's not actually a kraken, but he does have tentacles.
It is always nice when you can "Release the Kraken." I love cracking a depths, then yawgWilling for both the depths and hexmage, with a duress off a rit, into a second black 20/20 flying indestructable legendary token, to respond to them StP'ing my first Marit Lage.
This is a strong mono black list that I feel is a great budget deck and a strong competitor in the current Noble Fish/Dredge/Shop/Vault metagame we see.
Here is the decklist:
Maindeck (60 cards):
1 Black Lotus
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
4 Dark Confidant
4 Dark Ritual
1 Darkblast
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Diabolic Edict
4 Duress
1 Grim Discovery
1 Imperial Seal
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Sadistic Sacrament
4 Thoughtseize
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Lands (20):
2 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
11 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
Mario's Sideboard: (15 cards)
2 Bitterblossom
1 Chain of Mephistopheles
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Emissary of Despair
1 Engineered Plague
3 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Sadistic Sacrament
2 Yixlid Jailer
Max's Sideboard:
Sideboard:
3 Null Rod
2 Emissary of Despair
2 Yixlid Jailer
2 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Phyrexian Negator
I really like this deck, because of the dual combo engine, powered by the 4x tutors, two instants at one mana and two sorceries, The Imperial Seal is a bit expensive, but I plan to play in a 5 proxy environment, so I think this deck is dead on, only really requiring 4 proxies, with the mox, lotus, seal and Chains.
The Leylines, being free against most decks where they matter, not only hinder several viable budget decks and give you a one for one against anyone hoping for a yawgwin, but they give you a 5 colorless mana one card win condition, easily tutored for. I cannot count the number of times I've been busting ass to assemble Marit Lage, just to have Void Helm win the game with a duress on the 3rd turn.
The 8 Duress effects I feel add a almost counterspellish control aspect to the piloting of this deck, and the abundance of redundancy, along with an excellent toolbox of bullets to expend your tutor suite on (I have consulted for either hexmage or void for the win more times than I can count.) many situations are simply a shuffle and a draw away from a solution, no matter what your game state is.
I ran Nights Whisper, while I pined away for bob, the task of convincing my wife to let me drop $60 on a playset of Confidants was long and arduous. Eventually, of course, the tide of battle fell my way, and once I had my confidants, I never looked back.
I'm sorry to say, but the advantage, turn after turn, of drawing another card, as well as beating face, just takes the cake for bob. Especially when the hardest hit you take in this deck is Leyline of the void, and the count of painful draws is awesomely low in this deck, 8, most of them are no more damaging then a thoughtseize, and with the speed of vintage these days, the only worry I have about bob or seize is the game going longer than 5 turns.
Again, the dual combo engine helps here.
I ran a version, for kicks, that included 2 painters servants and a grindstone, for a third combo option, but I felt that the cost was too high in terms of card dilution and synergy.
Though I have been reminded by several Sphinx of the Steel Wind how useful instant speed non-targeted removal can be, and it has me rethinking the gatekeepers main.
This deck reminds me of my old school Necropotence deck, and is what brought me back into Magic after years of despair at Mono-Black's fall from grace.
I dont know though, I havent faced much creature based combat, as my testing is all done against powered Bob and TP Storm, Stax of various colors, and odd sligh and zoo variants.
Very few Tarmogoyfs, until last week, when we all started proxying them. Which proved disastrous, game after game, when playing against heavy UGW.
Hence the sideboard change:
To:
2 Bitterblossom
3 Diabolic Edict
1 Engineered Plague
2 Null Rod
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Sadistic Sacrament (I love this card, I wish I could run 4x)
2 Yixlid Jailer
3 Perish (this is just wrong, but I dont know how else to clear a tarmo/higherach/pridemage board with a dark ritual. This is one of my most boarded and used cards, plus, its immune to spell snare.)
Perish is the best answer I could find for UGW, for tarmogoyf at all. Edict doesnt help much with a hierach or a pridemage on the board backing goyf up. (Same goes for darkblast.)
Positive or Negative criticism is always appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
And if anyone was wondering, my current (as in, this is what I am taking to my local vintage scene saturday.) List looks like such;
1 Black Lotus (Proxy)
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Lotus Petal
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top
Enchantments (4):
4 Leyline of the Void
Creatures (10):
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Hexmage
2 Gatekeeper of Malikir
Instants (7):
4 Dark Ritual
1 Darkblast
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Night's Whisper
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Sadistic Sacrament
Lands (20):
2 Dark Depths
1 Strip Mine
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
12 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wasteland
2 Null Rod
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Chains of Mephistopheles (Proxy)
1 Perish
1 Natures Ruin
Basically I:
-1 Diabolic Edict (to the sideboard)
-1 Mox Jet (call me crazy, I just dont like looking at it with null rod on the board.)
-1 Grim Discovery
+2 Gatekeeper of Malikir
+1 Null Rod
And the Sideboard is my personal modification for the local meta.
(mostly unpowered something or other)
I really enjoy yawging up a pair of rituals into a kicked sad sac.
7BBB for 15 cards is SO much better than Denying winds.
Let me know what you think!
Trade Thread
Modern
RWGBurnGWR
GUInfectUG
GRTronRG
UWGifts TronWU
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RGWZooWGR
Legacy
BUWTinFinsWUB
UROmniTellRU
BURTESRUB
GElves!G
GBPSIBG
RGBelcherGR
UBRGWDredgeWGRBU
UBAffinityBU
RBurnR
Vintage
UBGDoomsdayGBU
0Martello Shops0
GElves!G
UBTPSBU
UBelcherU
0Dredge0
I'm just that much a fan of this deck, I want to get as many opinions as I can.
Trade Thread
Modern
RWGBurnGWR
GUInfectUG
GRTronRG
UWGifts TronWU
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RGWZooWGR
Legacy
BUWTinFinsWUB
UROmniTellRU
BURTESRUB
GElves!G
GBPSIBG
RGBelcherGR
UBRGWDredgeWGRBU
UBAffinityBU
RBurnR
Vintage
UBGDoomsdayGBU
0Martello Shops0
GElves!G
UBTPSBU
UBelcherU
0Dredge0
No, you know, I dont really know why the emmisarys are there, I've never gotten a chance to swing with them for anything interesting anyways...
Maybe something to shore up the goblins matchup, which suddenly seems relevant.
Or something to combat threads on my confidants...
Blue bell winner on 4/3 was playing Ritual based blue tendrils, and here is his game report against Dark Times:
rd 2: Dark times
g1: I keep a pretty loose hand, as does my opponent. He starts by pithing needle naming polluted delta. This sets me back a turn as i have another one in my hand. I eventually get a jar down and pass. I could have cracked it and had one land untapped, having already playing my land but that seems bad. However, I have a feeling that he might have vamp or demonic for the null rod in his deck. This is confirmed when he vamps eot then casts Null rod. The game was pretty much lost there.
g2: He has turn two hexmage Dark depths. I tutor for chain. This is followed by him demonic consulting for duress. He then tries to duress me. I attempt to chain his hexmage in resp but he makes the good play and makes his token. I lose pretty handily.
1-1
You know what I've learned from this?
Pithing Needle on Fetchlands... And I was gonna cut pithing needle.
I've also discovered in testing, that cutting a wasteland and adding a black source, really helps ease the burden of opening a wasteland or stripmine with a dark depths and no urborg.
Also, I love 3x duress effects and a dark ritual in my opening hand, which happens more then you'd think!
Also, lets hear it for "hard-casting" Marit Lage too.
Game senario is thus; His first turn ritual, sadistic sacrament taking 3 of my hexmages, followed by his third turn sadistic sacrament taking my yawgwill, 1x depths and last hexmage, Met with my null rod, shutting him out of his mox mana, which was all he had, and my drawing 7 of the 8 duress effects, in 9 turns, along with one depths in my hand, and 3 swamps, leads to 7 turns of me paying 3 at the end of his turn to remove ice counters, then I drop a gatekeeper and a confidant and top deck double dark rituals to eot crack depths.
Swing for 20, gg for me.
Testing this deck has proven to be a lot of fun.
One thing I do when I'm releasing the kraken (Marit Lage) is pack in a Shizo, Death's Storehouse in place of a swamp or two so that in a pinch you can give him Fear and slip him past a chump blocker like a Birds of Paradise or something. And please always say "Release the Kraken!" when you bust out the 20/20 token. I know he's not actually a kraken, but he does have tentacles.
Current Favorite decks:
GBGlissa EDHGB