Quote from MorrainTheCorruptorYou know the funny thing is after I posted this I looked at the card again, went crap I did read the rules wrong! I was thoughtless when I read this (ergo didn't realize complete rules of rituals). Oh well accidents happen! What are your thoughts on Tormented Soul?
It's an unplayable card. There's no 2 ways about it really. First of all, it's important not to think of this as something that you'll always draw on turn 1. Even if it were, at a 20 tun clock per player, it's not exactly impressive. Still, the card becomes exponentially worse for every turn that passes. Like, you draw this on turn 5 and you 100% ripped something worse than any land or any spell in your deck (castable or not). As a standalone spell it's just not powerful enough to significantly affect the board and that's why I would never field it myself.
Now, I get what it "can" do. If you throw a Loxodon Warhammer on it, hey, things are looking up! I get that, and I get that some % of the time you can make this card a "something." The problem is that the card is horrible in every instance where you can't beef it up. I have the choice of playing good creatures such as Vampire Nighthawk who I can beef up with good equipment to make it better. I'm fine with that because I know that my Nighthawk is still good even if it gets 0 support. What I don't like is pairing an extremely bad card with a few good ones. Even if you'll combo them together some % of the time, in every instance where you don't you're basically down a card for no good reason. Every card in your decks should matter, and this just isn't ever going to be one of those.
I do not like it and I would never recommend playing it.
Lands (20):
19x Swamp
1x Tomb of Urami
Creatures (19):
4x Plagued Rusalka
4x Dark Confidant
4x Stromgald Crusader/Wicked Akuba
3x Garza's Assassin
3x Hypnotic Specter/Rakdos Guildmage
1x Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
Artifacts (4):
4x Umezawa's Jitte
Disruption/kill (17):
3x Dark Banishing
4x Cruel Edict
4x Consume Spirit
2x Soul Spike
4x Pithing Needle
SB:
4x Persecute
4x Waking Nightmare
4x Blackmail
3x Nightmare Void
So this was my first impression of what to run come the rotation. Jitte has been able to handle Confidants thusfar, and Soul Spike helps in a pinch. Basic black beats.
As for your list, I would not suggest using BOTH Bob and the Arena, because the life loss is hard to manage even with Jitte, and Soul Spike is too costly to rely on. I've tried it immensely, and the only card that could make it work is Sensei's Divining Top, ensuring that Bob always hits lands. That won't be an option soon : /. Secondly, 4 spikes is 2 too much. They are terrible early game, and are more of a do or die card, since 3 cards to kill 1 creature is atrocious, and the life gain isn't huge by any means. The guildmage you're using is slow and very weak compared to the Rakdos one. Continuous removal is huge. Lastly, with Drecvac and Avatar, you either need recur or Haakon, because it's just plain not going to work otherwise.
Oh, and how is 3 Jitte's working for ya? 4 ensures you'll see oneby turn 4 at the latest in my experience, ready to equip to one of your flyers, but I mean others become dead draws, but 4 helps when facing enchantment removal, but there's not alot of that going around, so it's a tough call :P. Is 3 working out nicely (maybe I could cut one :P).
Aka: SapphireTri isn't getting any.
Good to hear that you did ok with MBC, I'll be trying it next time I can too, it'll be a welcoem change of pace ^^. Too bad about the Solidarity factor, hopefully Chains will be enough to change the matchup.
Lands (20):
19x Swamp
1x Tomb of Urami
Creatures (19):
4x Plagued Rusalka
4x Dark Confidant
4x Stromgald Crusader/Wicked Akuba
3x Garza's Assassin
3x Hypnotic Specter/Rakdos Guildmage
1x Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
Artifacts (4):
4x Umezawa's Jitte
Disruption/kill (17):
3x Dark Banishing
4x Cruel Edict
4x Consume Spirit
2x Soul Spike
4x Pithing Needle
SB:
4x Persecute
4x Waking Nightmare
4x Blackmail
3x Nightmare Void
So this was my first impression of what to run come the rotation. Jitte has been able to handle Confidants thusfar, and Soul Spike helps in a pinch. Basic black beats.
You MAY Ripple. Anyways, your combo is slow as molasses, you lose to a counterspell or a Sunscour or a ***, it just doesn't seem too viable.
1$ rare, comes out fast, leaves them with no real way to recover, and only takes up 4 slots unlike ritual whoch messes up everything. I could be wrong, I have little actual experience facing the deck so I don't know quite how much mana they have access too, but if the 1 extra mana from Sphere of Resistance is being considered, and since it doesn't hurt you, it seems like it could be a powerful tool.
Also, I usually added 1 Mind Sludge because your discard can't keep up for long, and it completely strips their hand.
I also use Nevy's Disk in my variants, I was just wondering how you deal with the land loss? For me, if I set it off out of desperation the turn it came in, I would surely lose since most decks run fine with little mana, gobos and threashold and such, while our threats require alot : /. Again, I'd like to hear how you've made out with it.
Oh, and my SB included Powder Keg, because it destroys gobos, mongooses, tokens and such. Hell, at one point I used Mutilate + Powder Keg (MD) + Hunted Horror as my win, since the tokens were easy to kill, and a 7/7 was a clock that was very hard to deal with. I still remember dropping Horror on turn 2, then kegging the next turn and setting it off to my opponents keeping them as blockers ^^. You'd be surprised at how formidable a 7/7 on turn 2 can be :P!
Oh, and as far as Gobos go, Innocent Blood/Darkblast both seem like solid options. Blast hits the turn 1 lackey, but falls short in other requirements, while blood knocks one crit out for 1 mana. Blast is re-useable which is a perk ^^. Blood does his Mongoose though, but threshold is an auto-win anyways :P. Have you tried Darkblast yet with any success?
Oh, and when Gobos got really bad for me, I SB'd 4x Contagion. It's insanely under-rated IMO, for it hits at instant speed, for free, and kills 1-2 gobos, whatever works better at the time. The same thing went for Spinning Darkness, but that required black cards in the GY and didn't always work out well (unless I got Duress, Hymn and Contagion within my first few draws, in which case it raped Gobos a new one).
Also, Sickening Dreams is pretty good gobo tech. It hits on turn 2, and for the price of two cards, you ransack their creatures.
Cycled Decree at 5 mana is just too slow to compete.
EDIT: Oh, mad props for not splashing green, being a player who plays pure mono black decks, I know what it's like to deny yourself of green/white splash cards.