Just played mono B again with a terrible janky UR control deck.
T1 he Thoughtseizes an Izzet Charm (and sees Syncopate, so he tries to play around that all game). T2 Pack Rat, which eats Magma Jet. T3 I drop Goblin Electromancer which eats Devour Flesh. T4 I drop Guttersnipe. Opponent tries to Hero's Downfall but it gets Mizzium Skinned LOL. Next turn opponent tries Specter, which gets Syncopated. Opponent Thoughtseizes me again taking Voyage's End, my last card. Next turn he drops Whip of Erebos and I drop Spellheart Chimera. Chimera eats a Hero's Downfall before it can attack for lethal.
So far we've just exchanged 1-for-1s, except I've managed to gain life, scry, and deal a few damage from combat and Snipe's ability. From the same 1-for-1 exchanges and double Thoughtseize draw, opponent has only Lightning Blasted himself. Guttersnipe single-handedly killed him in short order (he tried to cast Gray Merchant I think the next turn and I finished him off with Lightning Strike for 5 in resp).
IMO this is a weakness of mono B. The deck is rather mana-intensive and runs a ton of fair 1-for-1s, falling behind if you can cast multiple efficient things a turn or generate synergistic advantages to break the symmetry. Other decks can find similar ways to exploit weaknesses to win.
I'd argue Pilfered Plans is better in this format than usual. Because of scry (from lands, spells, heroic, etc), top cards tend to have a slightly higher probability of being good cards than random other cards in the deck. Smart players plan their play several turns in advance, so they may have structured their last turn on expecting to draw the card they scryed on top. Therefore, milling to disrupt scry seems like a useful ability. Plus, with Innistrad out, very few decks can adequately exploit having cards in the graveyard.
So in U/B, IMO Pilfered Plans > Divination if you are choosing between the two.
I like Inspiration in the Spellheart Chimera deck, where you have tons of instants to play and commonly won't tap out anyway to threaten counterspells. But Steam Augury is better in that deck by far.
This looks like a weird mix between monoblack aggro and monoblack devotion. Should pick one direction and stick to it. Corrupt and Rakdos Cackler do not belong in the same deck.
On the note of alternate MBD, I've been brewing this budget control alternative focused more around discard and creature control via budget tools.
This is basically a rats deck. 5cc slot is a big clogged.
Devour Flesh because of all those stupid Hexproof/aura decks going around. Ordeal because this deck is often taking the aggro role so you often don't want to be boarding in defensive cards but aggressive cards!
So, i played against a Mono B match the other day where he literally went triple Thoughtseize into double Demon. I had two chains in my opening hand and felt pretty good about it... for like a minute.
The second game i won when i skull cracked as he played a Gary, he then proceeded to complain in the chat with a 'Really?!'. I mentally noted that he did not get hand disruption this game, so i actually got to play magic the gathering, for a change.
The third game he sided in Duresses and after a TS took my only chains in hand and a Duress took my Lightning Bolt, he played Nightveil then Demon. I didnt top deck ***** for the rest of the game and obviously lost.
Thats real fair, let me tell you. The annoying part is i raged a bit and asked him, "Why were you whining in game 2 when you can basically play my hand at will with your deck?" he replied, "I outplayed you." Fcking black players...
EDIT: I forgot that i won the second game, edited the above.
Your mentality about this game is becoming toxic. If your going to rage, act like a child and rant about eveytime you get whooped on MTGO, then you need to recheck your life. I hope some day you realize what an angry dude you sound like with this kind of stuff since your threads always have an angry vibe to them.
I played Mono B and stopped since the mirrors are bad and the deck has a hard time dealing with enchantments. Its a good deck but your far from unbeatable by playing with it. Pack Rat post BNG can be a terrible card at times and getting your Nightveil Domesticated is a total blow out and Gray Merchant can literally do nothing at times and Underworld Connections is garbage in a lot of match ups. I really didnt like playing this cards and dont believe that they are the best that standard has to offer. I wouldnt blame anyone for running the deck but by playing a very streamlined deck just seems like an easy way to get hated out.
This. Mono B can get ridiculously unprobable lucky hands (3 Thoughtseize) and does have some disgusting card advantage engines for the lategame, but sometimes it just draws the wrong cards at the wrong time and if you can figure out how to play Magic and play around it, then even a janky deck can beat it. I'm not saying it sucks, it's a strong deck, but it's far from unbeatable. I'd argue it's a tad soft to rush aggro, moreso than other decks with such a high curve. It's a deck defined by 1-for-1 spells, unlike other slow decks that can punish you with sweepers or more fatties. Most of the CA comes from Connections, Pack Rat and Whip... but those all take a long time to net a significant advantage compared to say Anger of the Gods
I play a bunch of janky budget decks on MTGO that cost me maybe 5 tix total for about 7 decks. I beat MBD all the time with commons. They look slow and durdly half the time.
The first thing they play that can actually block is Nightveil Specter, on turn 3. Mutavault can block on turn 2, but since there's no reason to play 1/xs without ways to grow them, if they ever chump with Mutavault you are at the worst trading and Stone Raining them. Assuming your curve is lower than theirs, that hurts them a hell of a lot more. Same with Pack Rat. Turn 2 Pack Rat does nothing against aggro. Dies to pretty much every removal, can't profitably block for a few turns. So basically they have no relevant board presence until T3 Nightveil at the earliest. If you win the die roll, that's 3 turns of pretty much goldfishing. All they can do before that is maybe Thoughtseize one dork or remove 1, which doesn't cripple decks with redundant pieces. If they don't have Specter and spend T3 killing something, dropping Connections or making a Pack Rat, then you get 4 turns of goldfishing! 4 turns is enough for many decks to win or at least cripple the opponent.
MBD is a mana hungry deck. MBD doesn't really establish a board presence until turn 4. At that point, Connections is online, Specter can attack, Pack Rat can have up to 3 rats (the safe amount for combat), Demon comes online. Typical midrange deck. With 4+mana then their engines start coming online, they generate crazy card advantage and drop efficient spells. After turn 4 it's an uphill battle. Luckily even a stack of janky commons can pummel them a lot in those 4 turns, enough that you can finish them off the next few turns.
MBD is good at beating other durdly midrange devotion decks. But there are plenty of other viable decks. Just don't play red devotion? Or splash black for Dreadbore.
Or if you are playing red devotion, cut the 5cc stuff, make it more aggro with the highest cc stuff being Purphoros and Fanatic of Mogis as finishers. With a sligh curve you make cards like Hero's Downfall look overcosted.
Enchantments suck with Young Pyromancer though. This deck is an attempt to integrate both. I've gotten a ton of quick wins on MTGO with slight tweak of the above list. I've also lost to myself from having too many garbage combat tricks in hand and not enough creatures. But it can goldfish explosively.
One game, opponent goes first and Double Ordeal of Heliods a Favored Hoplite, gaining 20 life. By turn 4, I swung back for so much that he was down to 14. He stabilized with blockers, so it took 2 more turns to win, but 26 damage by turn 4 with more gas behind seems good.
Dynacharge is amazing. Weapon's Strike is not bad. Titan's Strength has been pretty mediocre, cut down to 2 Titan's Strength + 2 Coordinated Assault. It's best function was letting me keep 1-landers with lots of gas by T2 upkeep Titan's Strength to scry into a land, then swing for 4-5.
I disagree on Prophecy. It requires you to have early creature presence. MBC is lighter on creatures (especially early drops) and Dark Prophecy would draw far fewer cards. I think it's important to consider the role a card plays in the deck, not just what it does (Draws cards for life). Connections digs you into gas when you don't have any, important in a threat-light deck. Connections fuels your hand to generate extra Pack Rat tokens to protect/grow your rats. Prophecy does neither, really. It can't dig you into gas unless you already have gas dying and it can't draw you cards before a Pack Rat has died in an attempt to try to save it. Not enough creatures too. You think it would be better in monoblack aggro with more early creatures, but an aggro deck doesn't want to tap out to play a 3cc do-nothing enchantment. It wants to tap out for a finisher. So I wouldn't run it in either really. Maybe in the SB of monoblack aggro against UW Control to Negate their Supreme Verdict
This was made on MTGO with mostly cards from drafting. Still reluctant to throw too much money into non-paper Magic, especially for a format like Standard that rotates so quickly (I typically play only eternal and Limited). I've managed to curve out and get some decent wins on MTGO against much better decks. The Bloodrush surprise factor really screws up opponent's decision-making, I've found.
I've found Legion Loyalist a lot better than billed. Chump blocking isn't an option, Slaughterhorn bloodrush gets full value trampling through and killing a blocker, deathtouch and lifelink can be ignored, your X/1s look more daunting in general, and first strike+burn/bloodrush can finish off a more expensive midrange creature in a 1-for-1 trade.
T1 Hoplite, T2 Madcap Skills is pretty nice. I've pulled a couple turn 4 wins and turn 2-3 concessions. But (obviously) you're an absolutely dog if this goes into the lategame against a deck with card drawing and non-targetted removal (i.e. avoid monoblack).
It can be fairly inconsistent with all the pump. The main idea is to curve out low. The more draw steps and mana you give the opponent, the higher probability he has of stopping your Voltron. So I think you have to just Go For the Throat. Especially since a lot of decks spend the first 2 turns dropping Scry lands. Turn 2 Madcap Skills/Ordeal is pretty nice. I've found running the 1-drop bestow guys helps me support that plan without making terrible lategame topdecks (like Akroan Crusader would). They give you a body when you need a body and add to Voltron when you need Heroic. Also ups the enchantment count for Ethereal Armor.
I really wanted to run Dragon Mantle (cycles) but I think without shocklands there just aren't enough red sources to make it consistently deal more damage than an Ordeal.
I was running Boros Charm but then cut it. Strain on manabase, made torn between leaving mana open or casting another threat/pumping something. With 20 lands, I've preferred just having to leave only 1 mana open each turn.
Titan's Strength might be a better choice than Ethereal Armor. Although Armor gets amazing if you run Sacred Foundry and Chained to the Rocks as removal... Tried running Pacifism as removal and it was OK, taking out spot problem creatures while adding to Ethereal Armor power and costing less with Hero. It rotates in and out of my SB for now.
I remember that I had a lot of cheap guys but a lot of them were double costed like wingsteed rider. So I had a lot of dead cards in my hand as I was looking for the second color to show up.
I piloted WB aggro at an M11 prerelease to a 4-0-1 win. I had both Black Knight and White Knight in my pool. In that format, both were very strong, particularly in aggro. But I had Nantuko Shade, some other swamp heavy stuff, and more black cards in general. I wanted to hit BB on turn 2 a lot more than I wanted to hit WW on turn 2 and I knew I couldn't design the deck to do both. So I cut White Knight for Glory Seeker and left it relegated to SB. This drew criticisms from friends. But I'm glad I made the choice. Limited aggro is all about consistency. Curve doesn't matter if you don't have the right lands to curve out properly. Aggro decks cannot afford to have a strong beater as a dead card in hand waiting for the second color to show up. If you have a lot of early drops with color-intensive mana costs in your aggro deck, you can't play the colors equally - IMO you need to pick one to be dominant. In my pool, Nantuko Shade and Tendrils of Corruption were worth playing 10 swamps. And I'm not hitting WW on turn 2 with 10 swamps.
T1 he Thoughtseizes an Izzet Charm (and sees Syncopate, so he tries to play around that all game). T2 Pack Rat, which eats Magma Jet. T3 I drop Goblin Electromancer which eats Devour Flesh. T4 I drop Guttersnipe. Opponent tries to Hero's Downfall but it gets Mizzium Skinned LOL. Next turn opponent tries Specter, which gets Syncopated. Opponent Thoughtseizes me again taking Voyage's End, my last card. Next turn he drops Whip of Erebos and I drop Spellheart Chimera. Chimera eats a Hero's Downfall before it can attack for lethal.
So far we've just exchanged 1-for-1s, except I've managed to gain life, scry, and deal a few damage from combat and Snipe's ability. From the same 1-for-1 exchanges and double Thoughtseize draw, opponent has only Lightning Blasted himself. Guttersnipe single-handedly killed him in short order (he tried to cast Gray Merchant I think the next turn and I finished him off with Lightning Strike for 5 in resp).
IMO this is a weakness of mono B. The deck is rather mana-intensive and runs a ton of fair 1-for-1s, falling behind if you can cast multiple efficient things a turn or generate synergistic advantages to break the symmetry. Other decks can find similar ways to exploit weaknesses to win.
So in U/B, IMO Pilfered Plans > Divination if you are choosing between the two.
I like Inspiration in the Spellheart Chimera deck, where you have tons of instants to play and commonly won't tap out anyway to threaten counterspells. But Steam Augury is better in that deck by far.
On the note of alternate MBD, I've been brewing this budget control alternative focused more around discard and creature control via budget tools.
This is basically a rats deck. 5cc slot is a big clogged.
4 Pack Rat
4 Lifebane Zombie
3 Ogre Slumlord
4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4 Duress
3 Devour Flesh
2 Ultimate Price
2 Bile Blight
1 Doom Blade
4 Read the Bones
Dark Favour looks bad too. I'm not sold on Boon of Erebos but it's probably a useful swarm trick.
4 Tormented Hero
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Rakdos Shred-Freak
4 Thrill-kill Assassin
4 Pain Seer
4 Mogis's Marauder
3 Xathrid Necromancer
2 Agent of the Fates
4 Boon of Erebos
3 Ultimate Price
2 Bile Blight
Lands: 22
22 Swamp
1 Doom Blade
3 Dark Betrayal
4 Duress
1 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Ordeal of Erebos
3 Devour Flesh
Devour Flesh because of all those stupid Hexproof/aura decks going around. Ordeal because this deck is often taking the aggro role so you often don't want to be boarding in defensive cards but aggressive cards!
This. Mono B can get ridiculously unprobable lucky hands (3 Thoughtseize) and does have some disgusting card advantage engines for the lategame, but sometimes it just draws the wrong cards at the wrong time and if you can figure out how to play Magic and play around it, then even a janky deck can beat it. I'm not saying it sucks, it's a strong deck, but it's far from unbeatable. I'd argue it's a tad soft to rush aggro, moreso than other decks with such a high curve. It's a deck defined by 1-for-1 spells, unlike other slow decks that can punish you with sweepers or more fatties. Most of the CA comes from Connections, Pack Rat and Whip... but those all take a long time to net a significant advantage compared to say Anger of the Gods
The first thing they play that can actually block is Nightveil Specter, on turn 3. Mutavault can block on turn 2, but since there's no reason to play 1/xs without ways to grow them, if they ever chump with Mutavault you are at the worst trading and Stone Raining them. Assuming your curve is lower than theirs, that hurts them a hell of a lot more. Same with Pack Rat. Turn 2 Pack Rat does nothing against aggro. Dies to pretty much every removal, can't profitably block for a few turns. So basically they have no relevant board presence until T3 Nightveil at the earliest. If you win the die roll, that's 3 turns of pretty much goldfishing. All they can do before that is maybe Thoughtseize one dork or remove 1, which doesn't cripple decks with redundant pieces. If they don't have Specter and spend T3 killing something, dropping Connections or making a Pack Rat, then you get 4 turns of goldfishing! 4 turns is enough for many decks to win or at least cripple the opponent.
MBD is a mana hungry deck. MBD doesn't really establish a board presence until turn 4. At that point, Connections is online, Specter can attack, Pack Rat can have up to 3 rats (the safe amount for combat), Demon comes online. Typical midrange deck. With 4+mana then their engines start coming online, they generate crazy card advantage and drop efficient spells. After turn 4 it's an uphill battle. Luckily even a stack of janky commons can pummel them a lot in those 4 turns, enough that you can finish them off the next few turns.
MBD is good at beating other durdly midrange devotion decks. But there are plenty of other viable decks. Just don't play red devotion? Or splash black for Dreadbore.
Or if you are playing red devotion, cut the 5cc stuff, make it more aggro with the highest cc stuff being Purphoros and Fanatic of Mogis as finishers. With a sligh curve you make cards like Hero's Downfall look overcosted.
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Favored Hoplite
4 Vanguard of Brimaz
4 Phalanx Leader
3 Anax and Cymede
3 Eidolon of Countless Battles
4 Coordinated Assault
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Madcap Skills
3 Gods Willing
3 Dauntless Onslaught
One game, opponent goes first and Double Ordeal of Heliods a Favored Hoplite, gaining 20 life. By turn 4, I swung back for so much that he was down to 14. He stabilized with blockers, so it took 2 more turns to win, but 26 damage by turn 4 with more gas behind seems good.
Dynacharge is amazing. Weapon's Strike is not bad. Titan's Strength has been pretty mediocre, cut down to 2 Titan's Strength + 2 Coordinated Assault. It's best function was letting me keep 1-landers with lots of gas by T2 upkeep Titan's Strength to scry into a land, then swing for 4-5.
I disagree on Prophecy. It requires you to have early creature presence. MBC is lighter on creatures (especially early drops) and Dark Prophecy would draw far fewer cards. I think it's important to consider the role a card plays in the deck, not just what it does (Draws cards for life). Connections digs you into gas when you don't have any, important in a threat-light deck. Connections fuels your hand to generate extra Pack Rat tokens to protect/grow your rats. Prophecy does neither, really. It can't dig you into gas unless you already have gas dying and it can't draw you cards before a Pack Rat has died in an attempt to try to save it. Not enough creatures too. You think it would be better in monoblack aggro with more early creatures, but an aggro deck doesn't want to tap out to play a 3cc do-nothing enchantment. It wants to tap out for a finisher. So I wouldn't run it in either really. Maybe in the SB of monoblack aggro against UW Control to Negate their Supreme Verdict
Maybe Pain Seer in monoblack aggro?
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Frostburn Weird
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Magma Jet
4 Dynacharge
2 Weapon Surge
3 Lightning Strike
3 Molten Birth
Basically you generate a ton of 1/1s and smash face a lot. You hope opponent doesn't draw Anger of the Gods.
This was made on MTGO with mostly cards from drafting. Still reluctant to throw too much money into non-paper Magic, especially for a format like Standard that rotates so quickly (I typically play only eternal and Limited). I've managed to curve out and get some decent wins on MTGO against much better decks. The Bloodrush surprise factor really screws up opponent's decision-making, I've found.
3 Legion Loyalist
4 Experiment One
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
3 Firefist Striker
4 Gore-House Chainwalker
4 Slaughterhorn
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Lightning Strike
4 Stomping Ground
10 Mountain
6 Forest
I've found Legion Loyalist a lot better than billed. Chump blocking isn't an option, Slaughterhorn bloodrush gets full value trampling through and killing a blocker, deathtouch and lifelink can be ignored, your X/1s look more daunting in general, and first strike+burn/bloodrush can finish off a more expensive midrange creature in a 1-for-1 trade.
Suggestions?
3 Nyxborn Shieldmate
2 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Akroan Skyguard
4 Hero of Iroas
4 Fabled Hero
4 Coordinated Assault
4 Madcap Skills
4 Gods Willing
3 Ordeal of Purphoros
10 Plains
6 Mountain
T1 Hoplite, T2 Madcap Skills is pretty nice. I've pulled a couple turn 4 wins and turn 2-3 concessions. But (obviously) you're an absolutely dog if this goes into the lategame against a deck with card drawing and non-targetted removal (i.e. avoid monoblack).
It can be fairly inconsistent with all the pump. The main idea is to curve out low. The more draw steps and mana you give the opponent, the higher probability he has of stopping your Voltron. So I think you have to just Go For the Throat. Especially since a lot of decks spend the first 2 turns dropping Scry lands. Turn 2 Madcap Skills/Ordeal is pretty nice. I've found running the 1-drop bestow guys helps me support that plan without making terrible lategame topdecks (like Akroan Crusader would). They give you a body when you need a body and add to Voltron when you need Heroic. Also ups the enchantment count for Ethereal Armor.
I really wanted to run Dragon Mantle (cycles) but I think without shocklands there just aren't enough red sources to make it consistently deal more damage than an Ordeal.
I was running Boros Charm but then cut it. Strain on manabase, made torn between leaving mana open or casting another threat/pumping something. With 20 lands, I've preferred just having to leave only 1 mana open each turn.
Titan's Strength might be a better choice than Ethereal Armor. Although Armor gets amazing if you run Sacred Foundry and Chained to the Rocks as removal... Tried running Pacifism as removal and it was OK, taking out spot problem creatures while adding to Ethereal Armor power and costing less with Hero. It rotates in and out of my SB for now.
I piloted WB aggro at an M11 prerelease to a 4-0-1 win. I had both Black Knight and White Knight in my pool. In that format, both were very strong, particularly in aggro. But I had Nantuko Shade, some other swamp heavy stuff, and more black cards in general. I wanted to hit BB on turn 2 a lot more than I wanted to hit WW on turn 2 and I knew I couldn't design the deck to do both. So I cut White Knight for Glory Seeker and left it relegated to SB. This drew criticisms from friends. But I'm glad I made the choice. Limited aggro is all about consistency. Curve doesn't matter if you don't have the right lands to curve out properly. Aggro decks cannot afford to have a strong beater as a dead card in hand waiting for the second color to show up. If you have a lot of early drops with color-intensive mana costs in your aggro deck, you can't play the colors equally - IMO you need to pick one to be dominant. In my pool, Nantuko Shade and Tendrils of Corruption were worth playing 10 swamps. And I'm not hitting WW on turn 2 with 10 swamps.