To the Slaughter seems pretty useful against both Westvale Abbey and Thing in The Ice considering their effects although i suppose that depends on what else they manage to get on the field.
It's actually a punisher card because your opponent gets to pick the less-worse option unless you have delirium. And it's over-costed when you don't have delirium, making it terrible. Clip Wings and white exile spells are actually much better.
To the Slaughter is an edict, not a punisher. An Opponent who controls one or more creatures, but no planeswalkers HAS to sacrifice a creature, and vice-versa.
Technically it is. It gives your opponent the choice of what to sac. Your opponent will always choose what is best for himself. Same as any punisher effect. Solo creature board states don't happen often in this meta.
It's a punisher effect to the same extent Diabolic Edict is a punisher effect. Which is to say, not very much of a punisher effect at all. Yes, it has a slightly wider group they can sacrifice, but it's not that much wider.
Exactly! And when your deck is filled with other removal like Grasp of Darkness and Anguished Unmaking, they slot in quite nicely. And when you can turn on Delirium by turn 4 consistently, like my BW Floorboards list, it becomes all upside, and card advantage.
I should have given my input earlier. Basically the core of the deck feels similar to my Black White Floorboards list that I have in my B/x Control Primer but weaker.
The problem is that you are trying to squeeze in a 5 mana combo engine that only nets you a 1/1 lifeline creature. Remember the skeleton returns to your hand, not the battlefield.
Don't get me wrong, Call of the Bloodline is very strong vs control decks, but it is very slow and not that good vs aggro. The skeleton doesn't do a whole lot against them either. Basically you have 8 synergistic cards that don't really do much to progress your board and aren't that hard to deal with. When you couple this with the lack of other favorable interactions in the deck, you basically have a deck that relies on drawing a skeleton.
Also, having 7 on-board sources of mana is a big mistake imo. You will be drawing way too many starting hands with 1 or zero sources of black. You shouldn't have more than 5 colorless sources in a 25 land deck, let alone a 24 land deck.
With control being as little of the meta as usual, I think that makes Declaration in Stone mainboard material. You're bringing in hand disruption spells against them anyways right?
A side note, I think your list is far more Midrange/Aggro than Control. It looks to me like your list loses pretty hard to a single Languish unless you have 1 of your 3 creatures with greater toughness, or a Hangarback. No Kalitas in the mainboard seems wrong imo, since dropping him with 9 mana is just game over against most decks. Might want to make some changes to correct those things, since I'm pretty sure most lists in this thread would crush the decklist you just posted.
Post SB my list CRUSHES Spell ramp +4 Duress +1 Mind Rot and +2 Infinite Ob. takes their ramp completely shuts down World Breaker.
Yeah I hear ya. My latest list in the primer wrecks spell ramp, and seems to be doing just as well against the creature ramp as well. Between Duress, Transgress the Mind, and Pick the Brain, the matchup has become cake. Just make sure you set up delirium before you fire off Pick the Brain, and it'll be over.
I'm excited to take this to a big tournament, but I don't think there is much near me for a couple months. So I'm left playing it on MTGO for the time being it looks like.
I've been doing more testing with different cards, and I've kind of started to like a single Call of the Bloodline in place of 1 Sinister Concoction. If gives us a permanent discard enabler, while providing tokens as either blockers or as the first couple tokens to help fuel an Ormendahl, Profane Prince. My matches have usually been playing out as casting a FUTF for about 6 on their end step, and then untapping and activating Ormendahl, and ending the game.
Unfortunately it took me too long to respect the guy and I love the parents too much so I only ever ran one. I didn't mean to suggest that World Breaker loops are the main threat, it was simply an extreme example of how ramp's threats can do so much even if immediately removed.
Oh yeah, and Asylum Visitor doesn't do anything for this deck, especially against G/x Ramp. They are designed to be able to answer early aggro decks without any issues. A 3/1 doesn't do anything. Plus, if we have no cards in hand, we aren't doing something right. And if our opponent has no cards in hand, we're already winning, putting this card into the "Win More" category. Now in an Aggro deck Asylum Visitor is amazing, because they dump their hand onto the battlefield as fast as possible, where they can make use of the draw clause. For control, she is beyond weak.
I've been doing a lot of testing with her recently and she does seem quite poor in this archetype. We don't have a lot of options for early attackers, though.
Okay, so there's some serious confusion here that I noticed immediately. Your list is very much a Mardu Midrange list and not a control list. And we all know that Ramp beats midrange handily. The only meaningful interaction you have is Duress and Kolaghan's Command, and that will only really delay their big threats coming down. Of course it always felt like they just went over the top of you every time. lol Since you had access to white, why didn't you run Hallowed Moonlight or Stasis Snare out of the board if you had issues with Ramp? Transgress the Mind would work too, but that would probably start cutting into your other card slots and would change your deck entirely.
I'm not sure what you meant about not using Kalitas because you respect the guy and love the parents too much. If you aren't playing the best version of your deck, or not even trying to win, what relevance does that loss have? lol
In the end, Black Control's gameplan is much different. Our disruption isn't necessarily to protect our creatures, it is to stop the opponent's gameplan. That is a fundamental difference in the decks, in addition to yours lacking any real card advantage beyond the 3 Painful Truths and the Kolaghan's Command. I'm going to suggest that you actually play one of the lists myself or others have posted in here so you get a feel for what a Control deck actually is. Oh, and when you do play one of those lists, don't just jam the creatures on turn 4. Control first, then finish. Your final comment about not having any early attackers makes it clear to me that you really have no idea what a control deck is, and you are still in the aggro/midrange/beatdown mentality. Tell ya what, to help you out, look at this list.
Okay, so now that you've looked that over, how did that deck win 95% of the time? What was it's gameplan? You probably see all those creatures and think that is the way to win. And you would be wrong. Most games were won off of Nephalia Drownyard and then milling them out. All those creatures and the Jace were all there just to generate card advantage and buy time to get to 12+ lands, in order to mill your opponent out. Granded, some games against aggro had your opponent concede when you cast a huge Sphinx's Revelation, because of how far ahead it would put you. But in the end, it was almost always the Drownyards. Now if only they reprint that or a mill land as good in Eldrich Moon, we'll be in business.
This is my Mono Black Control list and IT WRECKS SPELL RAMP, Esper Control, Collected Company....Erebos Titan is so good right now with all of the graveyard interactions and with Shamble Back but I have faced so much control in my meta that until I see more lists with more than 10 creatures I will add 2 in the side until then it is out. The idea is to bring 50/50 amounts of hand disruption and creature removal to take big decks out of the game with the ability to completely shut down control with +4 Duress and +1 Mind Rot and +2 To the Slaughter and obviously shut down creature based decks with Flaying Tendrils, Languish, Self Inflicting Wound and Infinite Ob.
Thoughts?
I like that list. I've been wondering about Erebos Titan. He looks well poised, but I haven't been seeing much for control just yet. My issue with your list is that the Titan is your only discard outlet for FUTF in your mainboard. And you also said you are seeing a lot of control decks right now, so what creatures are they returning from the graveyard? He does hands down beat Risen Executioner, and makes a nice blocker against Ramp. Having the free discard outlet against Ramp seems sweet with FUTF too. Hmm, that makes me consider swapping out Risen Executioner for him, but I would probably want 3 copies. He is kind of a Non-bo with Kalitas, but they both work well on their own. Drawing multiple Titans could be good too if we need to go the beatdown route. He even survives Languish. Yep, I'm sold!
Also, since you're the only other one who can post a current list, yours is going in the Primer post.
I still think a more tokens based list ala pre-rotation will probably end up on top.
Gideons/Secure/New Sorin/ObNix backed up by a plethora of old and new removal and a demon land that turns games on its own....just seems like a sweet all rounder?
The new Sorin is more of a win-more card. He doesn't really stabilize that well, and he doesn't really finish that well either. 1, maybe 2 slots max for him. Honestly I don't care for him much at all in playtesting. Slow, clunky, and doesn't really win. As for a more token based build, that seems fine, but being fully hosed by Virulent Plague is a real thing. Tokens are being pushed so much now, that I've started seeing multiple Virulent Plague in Vampire sideboards, in addition to control decks. Make sure you have ways to answer it.
He played World Breaker then popped two lands to get two Ulamogs. I killed his stuff repeatedly but he kept recurring World Breaker. I was clearly did before hitting 0 lands but he was a kid so I let him have some fun. Exile does help this problem but this is really the only time I've ever had World Breakers recurred against me.
This deck seems very similar to the Mardu control deck I use to play except planeswalkers instead of bears. The only times I ever beat ramp were like this:
1. Drop a couple early Prowess creatures
+ either
They kept a hand with no payoff and brick on draws for a while
OR
I Duress/kill their ramp/sweepers
Even if they stumble or we're able to slow them down, we must have a clock because they will always win the late game. What about Asylum Visitor as a possible card? Synergy with the Concoction and it has a reasonable fail case of being a 3/1. It's unlikely we will be empty handed but it can get value off of opponents.
Do you mind posting the list you were using? I find a few things odd about your experience.
1. How many games did you play? Was it a full match, or just the single game?
2. If he cracked 2 lands for Ulamogs, that would put him at 5 lands. And if you killed off the World Breaker when it went to attack the following turn, he wouldn't have even been able to cast it the following turn, even if he ramped. That means 2 full turns to find another answer and more lands, and at least 3 or 4 turns before an Ulamog could possibly come down if he never recast the World Breaker. 4+ turns if he did recast.
3. Did you never see a Kalitas?
4. Did you never cast a FUTF? If the World Breaker targets a land, just float the mana and then crack the Sinister Concoction and madness cast the FUTF. If they target the Concoction, crack it on a mana dork and madness cast a FUTF for 3 or 4. If they don't have mana dorks, hold the Sinister Concoction for after they play the first World Breaker. Sounds like your match didn't go that way.
5. If you played a full match, how did you sideboard, and did you bring in Transgress the Mind? How about Duress?
6. Sounds like your opponent wasn't playing Chandra, so you should have been able to save the To the Slaughers for the Ulamogs, and using Concoctions on World Breakers.
Oh yeah, and Asylum Visitor doesn't do anything for this deck, especially against G/x Ramp. They are designed to be able to answer early aggro decks without any issues. A 3/1 doesn't do anything. Plus, if we have no cards in hand, we aren't doing something right. And if our opponent has no cards in hand, we're already winning, putting this card into the "Win More" category. Now in an Aggro deck Asylum Visitor is amazing, because they dump their hand onto the battlefield as fast as possible, where they can make use of the draw clause. For control, she is beyond weak.
Trying to control a ramp deck doesn't work. All of their stuff has so much impact even if you kill it and they'll continue to get more threats. I tried this strategy last night and I lose with 0 lands in play.
How did you have zero in play? Lol. It isn't that bad. That said....
This deck looks really sweet, but how do we beat ramp? Ramp seems like a very obvious level 0 good deck and it seems like it will be ubiquitous as a deck that survived rotation.
Well, it depends on if it is the creature ramp version, or the spell ramp. Creature ramp we pretty much handle easy. Kill their early guys, build mana, drop a Kalitas and kill their big guys with concoctions. Save To the Slaughter for Chandra and Ulamog. Run out as many zombies as you can early and swing away.
If its the spell ramp version, I've come to the realization that we need some major help game 1. This particular matchup along with the possibility of needing to deal with Virulent Plague does let me know we will probably need to splash to be competitive.
I'm thinking I'll change the tread title to Mostly Black Control, or B/x control. What do you all think?
For those of you who asked about splashing white or any other color, I have come up with a new list that actually handles both G/x Ramp, and Virulent plague handily, while addressing token issues, all while not affecting my previous game plan. Let me know what you guys think about moving in this direction.
So the land base is mostly unaffected by adding only 2 tapped lands and 1 non-black, but I removed a single mage-ring. Honestly, that card has been underperforming anyways. The addition of shambling vents should add a little more stabilization from aggro decks while offering another win condition against control. Plus it gives more targets for ramp to hit giving more chance of Westvale Abbey surviving.
Adding in the two vials has really smoothed out turning on Delirium, while giving us a control and something to stall a big threat such as Ulamog or that 4/9 hasty angel.
The Anguished Unmaking gives us some ways to get rid of the big threats from ramp permanently, in addition to answering any problem enchantments, such as the token makers or the token killer.
Declaration in Stone gives us some mainboard answers to tokens while also being good against ramp. I also love this against aggro decks that draw multiples of the same creature early, and we can just sweep them all with one cheap spell.
I added a Pick the Brain into the mainboard because this list has a really easy time activating delirium, and gives some additional hate against Ramp decks. Hitting a Chandra with this against Ramp or Naya puts a big wrench in their game plan.
As for the sideboard, you can see it is a lot more fleshed out with smaller numbers of a wide variety of cards. Angelic Purge has played pretty sweet. We tend to get a lot of lands in play with this deck, so sacrificing one to remove a big threat is pretty sweet. I have Anguished Unmaking in the mainboard over this because Purge doesn't hit Planeswalkers, and works better against decks where we would rather sacrifice a zombie over a land. I'm also trying out a couple Virulent Plague for some of the more difficult token matchups should they show up. Depending on the matchup, I may or may not side out a copy or two of FUTF.
This deck is lacking in card advantage and suffers from flood frequently. This is the prime reason to go into red for Tormenting Voice and / Chandra, Flamecaller
EDIT:
I'm legitimately triggered that they didn't include Sign in Blood in any of the new sets.
EDIT 2: ^
I disagree on Jace being bad. I think he's still a powerhouse that would benefit this deck. He's a must answer threat, especially for this deck where you can flashback the majority of your spells for value.
Tormenting voice is a nice idea, and gives us another outlet to pitch FUTF. Chandra is good too, so you may be on to something. Care to come up with a list?
And yes, lacking Sign in Blood is really disappointing. I guess we have to hope they include it or something similar in Eldrich Moon.
As for Jace, his power level is nowhere near what he was with fetches. Sounds like you're still in the old mentality. Jace is now just merfolk looter for 3-4 turns before he flips into a planeswalker. He was so much better before because a turn 3 flip is much harder to answer, and only gives you 1 turn. Now everyone will have numerous turns to answer him while he's just a plain ol looter. If you haven't played him without fetches yet, you really should give it a try. He plays like an entirely different card now.
To clarify, he's not bad, he's just a normal turn 4, 5, or 6 planeswalker now.
Is there any reason to not splash a color? It would barely make a dent in your mana base and Jace is just so good.
Jace isn't so good anymore. What made jace so good before was that he could come down turn 2 and flip turn 3 with the fetchlands. Now, he isn't going to be flipping until at least 2 turns later, and in this deck, he possibly won't flip for 3 or more turns. Really, Jace isn't going to be anywhere near as dominant in this format simply because of the loss of fetches, and the slowing down of the format from slower mana. Plus, with the new Jace, there will be competition for those deck slots, and some of the Jace, Vryn's Prodigy slots will be taken up.
As for reasons not to splash a color, there isn't really a large enough benefit at the moment to cause us to have tapped lands. We have all the tools we really need to be competitive, so having a vastly superior mana base while being able to include several colorless lands is the biggest benefit to staying Mono Black at the moment. Now things may change in the near future, and threats may diversify, requiring broader answers, but for the time being Mono Black has what it needs. Especially if BR Vampires becomes the deck it looks like it will be.
Grave Birthing : Ramps us into a bigger FUTF or into Languish if we're stuck on 3 mana, it counters Jace, Deathmist Raptor and Den Protector really well. Less card draw than Merciless Resolve but has no drawbacks.
Alchemist's Vial: Helps activate Delerium, cantrips and helps us keep our life total high.
I was trying Alchemist's Vial for a moment and it played only mediocre. Great if you have a sweeper, but weak otherwise.
Grave birthing is way worse though, and doesn't counter any of those, since the opponent gets to choose what card they want to exile. I'm pretty sure it isn't playable.
I do love this card but feel it is a bit more aggro oriented. It is a possibility that we could go a little more creature heavy, and less dependent on removal. More like the Mono Black Control of the original Zendikar era with Nighthawks and Gatekeepers.
I realized through testing that Price, Dead Weight are lackluster, and I added two copies of Remorseless Punishment. I am not going to lie I have yet been able to discard FUTF to use it for its madness cost.
Where are you having difficulties? Are you having to use your Sinister Concoctions early on? Are you having to use FUTF too early to stabilize? Where were you having issues with Ultimate Price? I've been seeing way less multicolored creatures, but it may be better as Ruinous Path. And Dead Weight is kind of a necessary evil to have enough enchantments to turn on To the Slaughter. But if you have to, don't be afraid to shrink threats that would otherwise kill us pretty quick. Putting a Dead Weight on a World Breaker has kind of nullified that card quite a bit in testing, and makes it so Kalitas can block and not die, and neither does the World Breaker. The perfect stall tool until we stabilize enough to actually kill the World Breaker.
I'll draft up my own list today and post here for discussion. I'm very much onboard (parden the pun) for the FUTF strategy as the main win condition however as that card seems nutty to me. Perhaps more hand disruption is needed in the maindeck like Duress, time will tell.
Edit2: It seems like your current sideboard is to weighted towards the aggro matchups. Granted sideboards are completely meta dependent so this won't count for much but week 1 I would make these changes:
- I would swap to 4 Duress and 2 Transgress the Mind.
- +3 Infinite Obilteration, -1 Dead weight, -1 Shamble Back, -1 Flaying Tendrils.
Thank you for this post. I'll be updating the original post with those card choices. I think you may be on to something with a different deck variation. Post a decklist, and I'll put it in the Primer.
You're right about the excess aggro hate in the sideboard. I always expect a ton of aggro in the first 2-3 weeks of any new standard format. That said, you're probably correct on those sideboard changes.
Why should I assume that no one will be using the one card which can shut down half my win conditions, especially since other token decks exist and it's an easy way to shut them down too? In fact, if I'm running a different sort of control deck, maybe UB, then I'm probably running one main deck just because it's an easy way to hose token decks, especially Black tokens decks because Black has so few ways to deal with an enchantment. White and green has plenty of enchantment hate, so it's less of a concern with those decks.
Zombie tokens, ally tokens, plant tokens, goblin tokens, all these are still in play. Hordeling Outburst is gone, but Dragon Fodder is still around. Captain's Claws is still around. Scion Summoner, Eldrazi Skyspawner, Hangerback Walker, all still around. It's still extremely easy for decks to go very wide. Why waste a Languish or Flaying Tendrils on all that crap when you can just shut it all down? Isn't that the essence of control, to limit your opponent's options?
You have to assume your opponent is going to find a way to hose up your primary win condition in game 1. It's going to happen, and I don't think writing off game 1 is acceptable. I suggested Remorseless Punishment as an alternate win condition because the deck is already structured to take away creatures and planeswalkers. By the time you're ready to cast RP, their hand is probably close to empty, but if it isn't then a little hand destruction sets them up nicely. Sure RP might be suboptimal. Alms of the Vein might be better in that slot, but the deck needs some way to win if its primary win condition is stopped, because everyone runs enough creature hate to deal with 5 creatures.
Actually I played several matches against a UG token deck, and between Thopter Spy Network and From Beyond, I was having some major issues against them. I just couldn't keep up with all the tokens that kept coming out each turn. He actually just went full 4 copies of each post board, added in negates, and removed a bunch of regular creatures. This significantly weakened Kalitas, Risen Executioner couldn't block, the zombie tokens kept coming in tapped, so I was having issues stabilizing. The couple times I did stabilize, I won off the back of a Ormendahl, Profane Prince. You're right, there may be a Tier 1 or 1.5 token deck in the upcoming meta, and Virulent Plague does shut that down overwhelmingly. So much so, that I considered adding in 2 copies in the sideboard myself. I would obviously have to play out a Risen Executioner before I could cast any FUTF, but it looks like the only plan this deck has against them, since we don't have infinite sweepers or ways to exile their enchantments aside from discard. Kalitas can only gain so much life and only block 1 creature a turn.
Basically, if we start running into a lot of control decks packing that narrow card Virulent Plague, we will devise a different way for winning post board, ie. the only time Virulent Plague would be played against us. Until that day arrives, don't worry about such a narrow card.
I have two problems with Remorseless Punishment. 1 is that we don't have the early pressure to actually deal enough damage to make Remorseless Punishment a true finisher. And secondly running enough copies to make it a finisher requires warping the mana curve extremely high. I could see a different decklist with some mainboard Mind Rots and Duress, another resilient creature such as Relentless Dead or Sanitarium Skeleton, and 3x copies Mirrorpool, in order to fork the Remorseless Punishment.
As for suggesting Alms of the Vein in a control deck. That is so laughable. That comment alone seriously just lowered the value of your suggestions to the argument.
As for Virulent Plague shutting down this deck, what control deck runs a dead card mainboard for the off chance that it beats 1 deck in a format comprised of 10+? Besides that, Virulent Plague doesn't really shut us down since we have Risen Executioner. He gives +1/+1 if you forgot. And as for removal, he does come back from the graveyard as well. Anguished Unmaking does cause issues with the Executioner, but hold up a Grasp of Darkness or play out a Kalitas next to him with mana up to sacrifice the Executioner. Really that comes down to a "dies to removal" arguement and who has what exact card at what time. Seriously though, nobody is going to play Virulent Plague for Dragon Fodder, Captain's Claws, Skyspawner, Scion Summoner, or Hangarback Walker. Those are all cards that Control decks have better answers that aren't so narrow.
You are new here, so lets go over the history of token nullifiers in recent Magic history. Were you playing during the time of Innistrad? Curse of Death's hold was a card in standard at the time, and it was arguably a better card as it actually shrunk every single creature, not just tokens. Mono Black control decks ran a total of 2 copies of the Curse in their 75. Do you know how many copies of Curse the Esper Control decks ran? 0-1, and that 1 copy was an outlier deck that had the copy in its sideboard. This was during the time of Lingering Souls, a card which warped the format and was banned in Block. You know what also was in the format? Illness in the Ranks. I want you to guess how many copies of that saw Standard Tournament play? If you guessed zero you would be right. Tokens were a big deal, there was even a deck called W/x Tokens, and the control decks of the time didn't even play the one card that wiped them all. Why? Because the card was too narrow. The only deck it would have been good against was W/x Tokens, and even then, they had better things to cast to beat them. Curse of Death's Hold was really only played in the Mono Black decks because they had less answers to token threats. The same as what will happen in this format, Mono Black decks will run it, and nobody else.
Douse in gloom will rotate out, so you can remove it from your maybeboard.
I don't like merciless resolve very much, are you sure the card is good?
You almost never want to sacrifice Kalitas or the executioner and if you have zombie tokens you want to boost kalitas (at least that's what i imagine)
It does not even draw you cards, you just are just cycling two cards to get 2 other cards (i took the liberty to count a zombie token as a car)
Maybe i am missing some synergies.
I think i'd rather have another read the bones. It is only sorcery speed but with all the removal you have that should not hurt you too much imo.
An interesting card that you might want to consider is grip of desolation.
It costs a lot, but it is an instant and it can get rid of almost any creature (e.g. ulamog) and exiling a land alongside is very relevant in many matchups.
At the very least it seems like an option against ramp (exile world breaker).
It is a nonbo with kalitas but i am not sure whether that matters too much, since your opponent will likely lose either way if you have a kalitas on the board and kill all his stuff.
I would also consider adding a white splash.
Sorin might be a good addition as a 1 or 2 of and shambling vent has a great synergy with ruinous path.
It would probably mean adding 1 plains and X shambling vents.
I don't know whether it is worth it or not and whether it hurts your manabse too much.
Ahh yes, I totally missed that on Douse in Gloom, thanks.
Merciless Resolve was there as a 2-of primarily for testing because it seemed like it could be good. It never really is an early draw spell, but a mid to late game, so it is possible that it should be a Damnable Pact. The synergies that you are missing, okay let me try to explain. You said you are basically just cycling 2 cards for 2B. Is that really that bad since normal Cycling is 2 for 1 card? In practice, sacrificing an Executioner, Human, or Swamp are the primary sacrifices. The synergy I was looking at was being able to toss an instant and land, or instant and creature (exectioner) into the graveyard for 2B at instant speed while maintaining card parity, thus turning on To the Slaughter. The Executioner isn't exactly blocking incoming damage, and can be recast from the grave, so it isn't really a loss. That said, after about 15 matches yesterday, I'm dropping down to a single copy in the mainboard for now. If it continues to do decently, I'll keep running it. If I would rather it be a Damnable Pact in most instances, I'll switch over.
I do like Grip of Desolation. Actually I've been running a Mono Black Control deck in Standard for the last couple months, and I run 3 copies in my sideboard. I generally have only been able to side it in against midrange decks efficiently. It really doesn't help against Ramp decks because they generally get to 7 mana 2-3 turns before we get to 6. And if they do get to 7 mana, you better add another turn because they are blowing up a land of ours. lol
I do like the idea of a White Splash, mainly for Shambling Vents and Anguished Unmaking. As for Sorin, I don't think the deck needs any more 4, 5 or 6 mana spells, because it is already a bit top heavy as is. The one thing that I should mention though, is that the deck really likes to have all mana untapped starting ideally on Turn 1, but definitely on turn 2. Evolving Wilds is already a little odd in some hands when you want to be playing out an early Sinister Concoction. Making us miss out on a turn 2 Grasp of Darkness or Turn 3 To the Slaughter or Read the Bones, or the worst case, missing a turn 4 Languish. That spells death for this deck. We really need to keep our mana untapped as early as possible. I'm sure there is another deck that can get away with some tapped lands, and even paying life with Caves of Koilos (Esper Draw Go maybe?), this deck is not that deck.
I'm maybe missing something, but it seems Virulent Plague just wrecks at least two of your win conditions. Tokens decks are probably going to be prevalent enough that people will run at least one copy of it main deck. How do you plan to deal with it?
What I'm think is take this basic deck shell and add in several Remorseless Punishment for an additional win con. The deck has enough tools to keep the board clear, and a touch of hand destruction could be added to make sure their hands were close to empty before firing off RP. Transgress the Mind is my favorite for removing threats, but if I just want to empty a hand, I'll go with old and reliable Mind Rot. Three mana, discard two cards. I see that as a turn 5 play in a stall (if your opponent has shut down other options) followed by the turn 6 RP.
What makes you think token decks will be such a big deal? Are you afraid of U/R artifacts? Definitely not Mono Red tokens since they are losing Hordling Outburst. I don't think people are bringing Virulent plague in against Hangarback Walker. I don't see a reason to believe that any deck will run Virulent Plague mainboard. The only reason to do that would be if token decks made up 30-40%+ of the metagame. Obviously Virulent Plague is a card to be run in Black Midrange and Black Control decks. What % of the meta do you think that will be? I might expect at a maximum 10% of the meta being capable of running Virulent Plague. That is nowhere near something to warp the deck strategy. Now if you do run into a control deck that has a couple copies of Virulent Plague, aren't we running Transgress the Mind and Duress anyways? Beyond that, aren't we also running a couple copies of Risen Executioner? I think the first step to combating Virulent Plague is to run 1 or 2 more Executioners in the sideboard. IF, a big if, we start seeing a lot of Virulent Plague, then switching to a B/w version splashing for Anguished Unmaking seems reasonable, but that is a long ways down the line.
Mind Rot is always good, but it is only really good against Midrange (which this deck already stomps) and Control decks, which hardly exist. Sideboard only at the moment.
Remorseless Punishment is only mediocre in my playtesting. Besides, why run that when you can run From Under the Floorboards? If you do add Remorseless Punishment, how are you managing your mana curve?
actually is 4 languish necessary? I might test a version with less
I very much believe 4x Languish is right as it is arguably the best sweeper in standard at the moment. I never really have an issue with seeing multiple copies because if you have way too many, just pitch it to a Sinister Concoction if you have nothing else to toss. No big deal. Don't forget that it stacks rather well with a Grasp of Darkness to kill bigger threats.
I see a lot of good discussion, and a lot of ideas of what to add, but no suggestions on what to remove. I'd love to see some other decklists to add to the main post.
~ Top post updated.
Seems like Ruinous Path in some number should be in the mainboard. I think 2 would be correct. I would also opt for 2 copies of Blighted Fen as it's a free kill spell in this deck imo.
Why do you think Ruinous Path needs to be in here? Do you not think 4 instant speed Planeswalker kill cards are enough? If you add 2 more 3 mana sorcery speed spells, what would you be taking out?
As for Blighted Fen, I have tried running as many as 5 and 6 non-black lands and that really makes for some awkward hands far too often, especially if you are only running 25 or 26 lands. If you aren't going up to 27 lands, then what would you suggest cutting from the mana base? I feel that having Westvale Abbey in a format where there is no land destruction seems like a pretty obvious inclusion to me. And cutting copies of Mage-Ring Network doesn't seem right when the whole goal of the deck is to blast out a large X spell. I suppose cutting the Mortuary Mire is okay, but I'd have to go up to 27 lands.
I suppose I should give a little background on my Mono Black experience. I've been participating in working on Mono Black Control decks on these forums since June 2010. I have worked hand in hand with Niche to bring up the Competitive Zendikar Mono Black Control, New Phyrexia Mono Black Infect Control, B/x Devotion, and a few other Mono Black or mostly black control decks. We've both taken these decks, among others and placed Top 8 in multiple PTQ's. I took a 2 year hiatus from Magic when I moved for work, and have since come back slowly into Standard mainly on MTGO. Unfortunately Niche hasn't been seen on these forums in a couple years. Fingers crossed that this thread will be noticed and Niche will come on back and help put this deck on top.
Much appreciated. I haven't used Untap yet, but I just built the deck on there, so I'll try to get in some testing as well once I figure out the interface. Good luck and I look forward to seeing what your results are.
His deck plays out in more of a tapout style. In my opinion, the ramp takes up too many deck slots for what it does. Also, there needs to be more instants in the deck to activate Delirium more often. There were many times in the matches he played where he had numerous sorceries, a land and an artifact, but no instants or enchantments in the graveyard. Both Michael and Ross Merriam both agreed that Sorin shouldn't be a 4-of, and there needs to be more ways to actually win the game. Hence why I like FUTF as a win condition.
The advantages of this style are keeping a simpler (and cheaper mana base) and answering most of the format. Has some weakness to spell based G/x Ramp decks, and enchantment decks.
Once upon a time, there was a young man who attended the June 2003 MTG Japanese Nationals. His name was Osamu Fujita. He brought a deck to this tournament that resembled an Odyssey block constructed deck from 2002. Who would have thought that this odd assortment of kill spells and a low number of win conditions would actually be enough to take him to the finals.
While killing stuff and slamming a hard to deal with threat on the board for a victory has been a thing before, this was really one of the first decks to do it successfully in Mono Black. And if he wasn't attacking with an Undead Glatiator, he was draining them for a bunch with Corrupt.
The following deck was put together by Justin Gary in the 2003 US Nationals, where he took 3rd place. You can see some obvious similarities to Fujita's deck.
The reason that both of these decks were successful, was because they lived in a time where creatures were king, a lot like now, in addition to other people playing 3 color decks with mediocre mana fixing. Having a single color mana base gives an amount of consistency that many of our opposing decks won't have. And as I'm sure you've all noticed, spells really aren't the most powerful thing to be doing these days. The better plan that almost every deck uses is to mash a bunch of creatures on the board, and swing away. Granted there are spells that facilitate this, such as Explosive Vegetation and Collected Company. But what they are really doing is just trying to run either a lot of little creatures, or a few powerful creatures. This is the environment where Mono Black decks thrive, but until now, we really didn't have the tools to deal with these decks. With the printing of Shadows of Innistrad, we now have lots of new tools that can get the job done.
When we start seeing heavy black Control decks placing in Tournaments, I'll update with a new section.
Why should we play Mostly Black Control now?
I think the real reason to play black right now, is that we have a true win condition with From Under the Floorboards, aka Black Revelation. So the real question is how do we move that spell from a sorcery, to an instant speed X spell? Well as you can see from above, it is with the card Sinister Concoction or to a lesser extent, Call of the Bloodline. Sinister Concoction not only lets us kill something for B, but it also allows for instant speed discard. Sure you lose a single life, but you are gaining that life back with FUTF. Yes you do mill yourself and sacrifice that enchantment, but that doesn't need to be a downside at all. As for Call of the Bloodline, discarding a card for a single colorless mana is a low cost, and adding a 1/1 creature to the table makes for a great little chump blocker, or an end of turn creature to swing at a planeswalker. This is for all intents and purposes recycling that mana into another creature in addition to FUTF, which means XBB for X creatures.
Now in the end, this deck is really just about killing creatures and planeswalkers and playing a big X spell to win the game. This format is full of creatures, most are pretty small, some are fairly large, but all can be killed with our plethora of kill options between Languish, Grasp of Darkness, To the Slaughter, Sinister Concoction, Dead Weight, Ultimate Price, and the list goes on. Whether or not you want to play Mono Black Control basically comes down to do you want to kill stuff? If the answer is yes, then let's go play some Mono Black Control!
Card Choices
Lands: 25+ For starters, this is a control deck, so we need to be hitting our land drops in order to cast our big FUTF to put the game out of reach. Swamp: This is Mono Black or a Mostly Black deck, so we kind of need to play a lot of these. Because we are in only 1 color, we can play quite a few non-basics for some incremental advantages. I would stick to about 3-5 non-black sources if you are running 25 lands. You may be able to squeeze in 1 more non-black land if you bump up to 26 or 27 lands. Caves of Koilos: If you splash a color, you want to be playing untapped lands as much as possible, so as to keep up with the tempo of aggro early on. Mage-Ring Network: This is a land that plays a similar roll of Cabal Coffers and will help us cast a giant FUTF Westvale Abbey: The front part stalls us to the late game as lots of little 1/1's work as great chump blockers. And creating a giant 9/7 Flying, Lifelink, Indestructible, Haste demon is a nice way to finish out a game or even stabilize. 9 life definitely isn't an irrelevant amount. Having a man-land gives us additional ways to win without losing out on spell slots in the deck. Shambling Vents: This man-land helps us stabilize while also providing more white mana sources to cast our exile effect spells. Evolving Wilds: This is the fastest way to get a land into our graveyard and start to turn on To The Slaughter. Plus a slight deck thinning doesn't hurt either. Wastes: A singleton works well with Evolving Wilds, giving us effectively 11 ways to turn on Thought-Knot Seer.
Maybe Lands: Blighted Fen: This can be a useful card post Languish. Mirrorpool: This seems like it may work well as a singleton in the deck. This card could play a Mirari role in our deck. Being able to double up on a To the Slaughter or Languish is pretty awesome. But we don't have a Corrupt, so it isn't really a win condition. Doubling a Kalitas doesn't work, so we're stuck doubling a Risen Executioner. Not the most exciting. Sea Gate Wreckage: Additional card draw is nice, but we are a control deck. If we are going into topdeck mode, we probably already lost unless we have a superior board presence. Mortuary Mire: This is a card I really liked as a 5th non-swamp land. It is solely for bringing back a Kalitas when we don't have another one in hand. The bonus, is that this land actually still produces B instead of C.
Creatures: Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: There are a lot of creatures in the format that can come back from the graveyard. Kalitas exiles those creatures that we kill, so we don't have to worry about them coming back and wreaking havoc. Basically preserving our card parity and advantage. Risen Executioner: This fella is an interesting threat. He plays a lot like the old Undead Gladiator in the way that he can just keep coming back from the grave. We don't run many creatures to begin with, so he will pretty much always be 4 or 5 mana. He also makes a nice sacrifice to Kalitas, and when you get up in the range of 10-12 mana, it isn't uncommon to be able to sacrifice and recast and then sacrifice again. Kalitas, can become huge very quickly. And after that, you can even cast Languish without worry of actually losing either of your creatures. Erebos Titan: A big threat that has a form of recursion that combos with FUTF with his discard clause. Free discard is never a bad thing. This guy works well against Ramp, and Control decks, while putting a huge wall in front of aggro decks. He also survives Languish and Grasp of Darkness, so keep that in mind. Relentless Dead: A recurring creature. Once you have multiples, you can chain them together to never run out of blockers or attackers. The evasion can be relevant against creature light decks or late game. Thought-Knot Seer: Was a great card before, and is still a great card. Some mid game disruption is really great in this deck, and pulling a Chandra, or an answer to our threats really can seal the deal.
Maybe Creatures: Mindwrack Demon: We are already achieving Delirium for To the Slaughter, so that isn't a real drawback. I can see running either 2 or 4 of him depending on the deck build, but then you would be losing out on some other key creature slots, or spell slots. So in the end, I'm not too sure about the demon. Surviving Languish is a big positive for him though. Fleshbag Marauder: A good edict removal spell, that would best be used in conjunction with Liliana, Heretical Healer. Sanitarium Skeleton: Recurring discard that allows us to use Altar's Reap over Merciless Resolve. Liliana, Heretical Healer: Can be used in a more creature centric build
Sorceries: From Under the Floorboards: Otherwise known as the black Sphinx's Revelation. This is the card that will win us most games. This thing stabilizes against aggro with the life gain, and puts down a bunch of zombies to either block or attack with. The madness ability gives us the chance to cast this as an instant. Now how will we do that? Enter stage right Sinister Concoction. Being able to pitch this for just B is what we wanted. Being able to also kill a threat of theirs for that same mana makes this a very powerful 1-2 punch. Languish: We want to be killing creatures to get us to the late game where we can cast some big nasty spells, and this kills a whole bunch of critters at the same time. Don't be afraid to cast this on a board of Kalitas vs 3+ of their creatures. When they all die at the same time, we still get the Zombie triggers from Kalitas. A nicer trick though, is to sac a zombie to pump up Kalitas so he actually survives the Languish. Flaying Tendrils: More mass creature removal, but this one exiles. This is good against Den Protector, breaking up their loop. Plus getting this down 1 turn earlier is nice against the hyper aggro decks. However, this doesn't hit as many medium sized creatures as Languish, so I would be bringing this in only against the small aggro decks, and anything with Hangarback Walker or Den Protector Read the Bones: This is our primary source of card draw. 2 life is a small price to pay for 2 cards. Going up to the full compliment of 4 isn't the worst idea either. But I want to have some instant speed card draw with Merciless Resolve. Angelic Purge: This is a good exile effect that costs us a permanent in place of a land. This works to trade in a Zombie token, Executioner, or Alchemist's Vial for exiling a threat instead of losing 3 life like Anguished Unmaking. Still a great effect, but slightly more narrow. Declaration in Stone: A great token exiler, or works well against Ulamog the Ceaseless Hunger or World Breaker. Bonus, works against Hangarback Walker or the tokens it made. Transgress the Mind: Taking a big threat from your opponent's hand and exiling it for 2 mana. Everything that would worry our deck costs more than 3 mana anyways, so this is basically a slightly better Distress. Biting Rain: Collected Company is a deck, and having a way to cast an instant speed sweeper in conjunction with Sinister Concoction or Call of the Bloodline gives this an easy 1-2 slots in the deck. Shamble Back: This card gives us another way to fight those graveyard recursive creatures, and at the same time helps against early aggression, and gives us a 2/2 zombie beater to either block or put on some pressure. Just an amazing card. Mostly a sideboard card if recursion is a thing, but I could even see this being played as a 1 of in the mainboard against aggro as well.
Maybe Sorceries: Damnable Pact: This is a very good mid to late game draw spell. But it could also be used to burn someone out for the last few points of damage. It isn't Corrupt, and doesn't gain you life, so a 1 or 2 of is probably the max you could play, and definitely a card to bring in out of the Sideboard if Control becomes a thing. I am keeping this high on my list of cards to test. Duress: This is a good card against Control, but against everything else, we would rather be playing something that can hit actual threats the way Transgress the Mind can. Self Inflicting Wound: If Green or White become a big issue in your meta, this seems to be a fairly viable card. The lack of Instant speed makes it considerably worse than Grasp of Darkness, To the Slaughter, and Sinister Concoction. Ruinous Path: This a great card, and I can see playing 1 or two copies after your max out on To the Slaughter. Infinite Obliteration: I have never really liked Extractioneffects because when you miss a card from their hand, you really just discarded a card for something they may have never drawn. And this one is no different. That said, casting one of these on turn 3 against G/x Ramp naming World Breaker or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, sure solves a lot of our problems with that deck. Sideboard only though, and I don't think going higher than 3 in the board is necessary. Mind Rot: A great sideboard card against Control or possibly Midrange. Remorseless Punishment: This card will need to be run with some more discard spells in addition to a large selection of kill spells to make it effective. Also cuts into our mana curve and FUTF slots.
Instants: Grasp of Darkness: This is a staple early kill spell that will help us stabilize early on, and hits Jace, Vryn's Prodigy before he can flip. Merciless Resolve: Instant speed card draw is always good. Sacrificing a token creature is probably what this will do the least. Pitching a land or an Executioner will be the better choice here. When you sac a land, it also fuels Delirium on the To the Slaughter. To the Slaughter: A 3 mana edict is a little on the high side over the history of Magic, but when you can tack on the ability to edict a Planeswalker, and all at instant speed, that becomes a very powerful effect. This even answers things like Gideon after he has landed and created a token. Or Sorin, Grim Nemesis, or Arlinn Kord, or Nissa, Vastwood Seer, or Nissa, Voice of Zendikar. Anguished Unmaking: A perfect unconditional removal spell. Use it for planeswalkers, enchantments, bigcreatures, whatever you want.
Maybe Instants: Foul-Tongue Invocation: If you ever decide you need to run Dragons in your deck(not many good options), then this could see a place. Otherwise, it is a worse To the Slaughter. Altar's Reap: Arguably better than Merciless Resolve, but can't sacrifice a land to turn on To the Slaugher. Ultimate Price: This is an interesting card right now. A lot of the multi-colored creatures are leaving Standard, so this gets much much better. But the fact that G/x Ramp is a prominent deck, makes this much less attractive to me.
Enchantments: Sinister Concoction: BB, pay 1 life: destroy target creature is already powerful effect. Milling yourself for 1 is not even really a cost. But adding the discard clause does make things interesting. It makes you actually have to plan out your turns and think about your hand and what cards you will still need. Benefit #1 of discarding is turning on To the Slaugher. Benefit #2, and the really plus of this card, is being able to discard FUTF at instant speed, gaining a bunch of life back and leaving the board with a ton of zombies ready to swing on your turn. Dead Weight: This is basically just a 5th enchantment that will hit the graveyard early turning on Delirium. Not much to say other than it is cheap, it can kill some early aggression, or it can be used later on to shrink a larger creature. This also kills Jace. A must have somewhere in your 75.
Maybe Enchantments: Call the Bloodline: Perhaps a 1 of as an additional discard outlet. Virulent Plague: This is a sideboard only card if token decks become rampant or more than 30% of the field. I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future though.
Planeswalkers: Ob Nixilis Reignited: This is the only mono black planeswalker that we have available at the moment that actually suits a control role. Yes a lot of the time he will just be coming down killing a creature and saving us a couple damage by dying. But when he stays on the battlefield for more than 1 turn, he will usually just take over the game.
Artifacts: Alchemist's Vial: A cantrip, a card to stall, and it helps turn on Delirium. This card just does it all. Corrupted Grafstone: Michael Majors made a B/w Control deck centered around ramping into big mana. It is an interesting idea, but seems to take up a lot of card slots with Hedron Archive. Hedron Archive: This is definitely better than Corrupted Grafstone in that it makes mana and can give us cards when we don't need it anymore, while at the same time turning on Delirium.
Matchups: W/x Humans: This actually is a pretty good reason to run Mono Black or Mostly black decks at the moment, as Languish gets incredible value. Just use the early kill spells to preserve some life until you run out a sweeper. Follow that up with one of our big threats/blockers, and then finally with a FUTF. Pretty simple anti aggro gameplan as usual. Post sideboard, you probably shouldn't bring in Biting Rain unless you expect Eerie Interlude. You should be able to tell if they are holding that up, because it isn't exactly a cheap spell for them to play, so play conservatively and don't get blown out by it.
G/x Ramp:
Running out a Kalitas early may seem like the best plan, but only if your opponent doesn't have a Kozilek's Return in their graveyard. If they do, what you want to do, is let the World Breaker land, killing a land, and then play your Kalitas on your turn, followed by a kill spell, ideally Sinister Concoction. That way you get a zombie token, and don't have to fear a Kozilek's Return from the graveyard that turn. Just make sure to pump up Kalitas as soon as you can. Once he gets to a 5/6, the only way for them to remove him is by casting Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or totally burning a Chandra, Flamecaller. As long as you haven't lost too many lands, and once you've used an edict or exile the Ulamog, the game should be pretty much wrapped up. Bring in some more zombies and swing away. Game 2 goes more in our favor with Transgress the Mind, Pick the Brain, Duress, and more exile effects, while removing weaker removal spells like Flaying Tendrils, Dead Weight, Languish, and Grasp of Darkness. Unless they are still running a creature ramp version, in which case you should decide what you really need to slow down their ramp, and if you want to keep in the faster kill spells. There are 2 main routes you can take. 1, take all the 6+ CMC threats from their hand, or 2 take all the Explosive Vegetation from their hand. I prefer the former, because they will always draw into more ramp spells, and what good is it for them to ramp into more ramp with nothing big to cast? This is the one matchup where I could see bringing in some number of Infinite Obliteration, but it isn't necessary. Make sure to apply pressure as soon as possible, even if that means casting From Under the Floorboards at sorcery speed if you are sure they don't have Kozilek's Return.
Collected Company: Kill stuff, and then play a Kalitas and kill more stuff is the first plan for game 1. If that doesn't work, hopefully you've bought enough time to cast a x=5+ From Under the Floorboards, to gain a bit of life back and create a bunch of end of turn blockers. Game 2 goes a bit better with some more early kill spells and additional sweepers. Remember that exiling their creatures instead of sending them to the graveyard makes the Zulaport Cutthroat triggers never happen. If they are still a 3 color deck with Deathmist Raptors, then Shamble Back and other exile effects gets even more value. I have brought a single copy of Biting Rain into the sideboard as an instant speed way to sweep the board in conjunction with one of our discard outlets. All you have to do is survive until we cast a huge From Under the Floorboards, and put the game out of their reach. In the end, they are just an aggro deck, so life gain beats them handily.
R/x Aggro: This deck appears to be slowing down a bit, so it really shouldn't be much of an issue, especially since we have access to so many instant speed kill spells now, in addition to our sweepers. Kalitas is hard for them to deal with since he has 4 toughness, and casting From Under the Floorboards even for just the regular casting cost seems like a real big issue for them. Shamble Back looks decent against any non-evasive creatures in their decks too, but is untested so far.
Esper Dragons: They are losing Dig and Crux, so they are probably going to transition into a more UB Control deck. This may be a pretty difficult matchup due to them having access to a lot of the same spells in addition to countmagic, so the number of Duress may need to go up in the sideboard. Game 1 we need to go the aggro route with Risen Executioner. Make sure you hit your land drops, and save your edict effects for Dragonlord Ojutai. If you can land an Ob Nixilis Reignited once they've tapped out., or a FUTF on their end step, you should be able to get in enough damage to finish them off. I would say game 1 is about 45/55 unless we can start making tokens with a Westvale Abbey early on. I probably wouldn't even try to transform the Abbey simply because they have Anguished Unmaking and access to the same kinds of edicts we have. Just make a ton of Human tokens, kill their dragons, and peck away at them.
Other Control Decks: Basically you want to kill any Jace's you see with Grasp of Darkness, Dead Weight, or as a last resort, Sinister Concoction. Save your To the Slaughter for when they actually land a planeswalker like Sorin or Ob Nixilis, and be aware of manlands if you haven't activated Delirium. The rest of the gameplan is basically the same as Esper Dragons. Make tokens with Westvale Abbey, or get them to tap out for you to cast an Ob Nixilis Reignited, or more ideally, a FUTF. Games 2 and 3 bring in the disruption spells and get rid of sweepers and planeswalkers. Also probably bring in the enchantment removal in case they run Virulent Plague.
B/W Control: We are a delirium based deck with a heavier amount of black, so use those things to our advantage. The first way to do that is FUTF. Our Zombies are bigger than their Warriors, so if we can play smart, we will win that fight every time. Playing To the Slaughter gives us additional instant speed removal for any planeswalkers or Avacyn (If they are dumb enough to run her), or other big creatures or manlands. Erebos's Titan pulls some extra weight in this matchup as well, since there generally aren't any creatures on the board most of the time. Feel free to side out Kalitas unless you're running against other Erebos's Titans. I wouldn't worry too much about bringing in more than 2 Duress and I'd skip Pick the Brain entirely, but Transgress is very good here.
At this point, I truly see this becoming a very strong deck, possibly even Tier 1. If that happens, we'll have to come up with a plan for the mirror. A non-Delirium BW Control has been all over MTGO the last couple days, but thankfully this deck actually trumps theirs with very few changes post board. Have fun killing things!!
Exactly! And when your deck is filled with other removal like Grasp of Darkness and Anguished Unmaking, they slot in quite nicely. And when you can turn on Delirium by turn 4 consistently, like my BW Floorboards list, it becomes all upside, and card advantage.
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Evolving Wilds
1x Mage-Ring Network
1x Plains
2x Shambling Vent
10x Swamp
2x Westvale Abbey
1x Wastes
Enchantment (5)
1x Dead Weight
3x Sinister Concoction
1x Call of the Bloodline
2x Alchemist's Vial
Planeswalker (2)
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited
Sorcery (12)
2x Declaration in Stone
3x From Under the Floorboards
3x Languish
4x Read the Bones
Instant (8)
2x Anguished Unmaking
3x Grasp of Darkness
3x To the Slaughter
Creature (6)
2x Thought-Knot Seer
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Risen Executioner
1x Angelic Purge
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Dead Weight
1x Declaration in Stone
3x Duress
1x Biting Rain
2x Pick the Brain
3x Transgress the Mind
2x Virulent Plague
The problem is that you are trying to squeeze in a 5 mana combo engine that only nets you a 1/1 lifeline creature. Remember the skeleton returns to your hand, not the battlefield.
Don't get me wrong, Call of the Bloodline is very strong vs control decks, but it is very slow and not that good vs aggro. The skeleton doesn't do a whole lot against them either. Basically you have 8 synergistic cards that don't really do much to progress your board and aren't that hard to deal with. When you couple this with the lack of other favorable interactions in the deck, you basically have a deck that relies on drawing a skeleton.
Also, having 7 on-board sources of mana is a big mistake imo. You will be drawing way too many starting hands with 1 or zero sources of black. You shouldn't have more than 5 colorless sources in a 25 land deck, let alone a 24 land deck.
Just my 2 cents.
A side note, I think your list is far more Midrange/Aggro than Control. It looks to me like your list loses pretty hard to a single Languish unless you have 1 of your 3 creatures with greater toughness, or a Hangarback. No Kalitas in the mainboard seems wrong imo, since dropping him with 9 mana is just game over against most decks. Might want to make some changes to correct those things, since I'm pretty sure most lists in this thread would crush the decklist you just posted.
I'm excited to take this to a big tournament, but I don't think there is much near me for a couple months. So I'm left playing it on MTGO for the time being it looks like.
I've been doing more testing with different cards, and I've kind of started to like a single Call of the Bloodline in place of 1 Sinister Concoction. If gives us a permanent discard enabler, while providing tokens as either blockers or as the first couple tokens to help fuel an Ormendahl, Profane Prince. My matches have usually been playing out as casting a FUTF for about 6 on their end step, and then untapping and activating Ormendahl, and ending the game.
I'm not sure what you meant about not using Kalitas because you respect the guy and love the parents too much. If you aren't playing the best version of your deck, or not even trying to win, what relevance does that loss have? lol
In the end, Black Control's gameplan is much different. Our disruption isn't necessarily to protect our creatures, it is to stop the opponent's gameplan. That is a fundamental difference in the decks, in addition to yours lacking any real card advantage beyond the 3 Painful Truths and the Kolaghan's Command. I'm going to suggest that you actually play one of the lists myself or others have posted in here so you get a feel for what a Control deck actually is. Oh, and when you do play one of those lists, don't just jam the creatures on turn 4. Control first, then finish. Your final comment about not having any early attackers makes it clear to me that you really have no idea what a control deck is, and you are still in the aggro/midrange/beatdown mentality. Tell ya what, to help you out, look at this list.
4x Snapcaster Mage
3x Restoration Angel
1x Ætherling
Instant: 18
3x Tragic Slip
4x Azorius Charm
3x Think Twice
2x Far // Away
2x Dissipate
4x Sphinx's Revelation
4x Supreme Verdict
3x Terminus
Planeswalker: 1
1x Jace, Memory Adept
Land: 26
4x Watery Grave
4x Hallowed Fountain
4x Godless Shrine
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Drowned Catacomb
2x Isolated Chapel
3x Nephalia Drownyard
1x Island
I like that list. I've been wondering about Erebos Titan. He looks well poised, but I haven't been seeing much for control just yet. My issue with your list is that the Titan is your only discard outlet for FUTF in your mainboard. And you also said you are seeing a lot of control decks right now, so what creatures are they returning from the graveyard? He does hands down beat Risen Executioner, and makes a nice blocker against Ramp. Having the free discard outlet against Ramp seems sweet with FUTF too. Hmm, that makes me consider swapping out Risen Executioner for him, but I would probably want 3 copies. He is kind of a Non-bo with Kalitas, but they both work well on their own. Drawing multiple Titans could be good too if we need to go the beatdown route. He even survives Languish. Yep, I'm sold!
Also, since you're the only other one who can post a current list, yours is going in the Primer post.
The new Sorin is more of a win-more card. He doesn't really stabilize that well, and he doesn't really finish that well either. 1, maybe 2 slots max for him. Honestly I don't care for him much at all in playtesting. Slow, clunky, and doesn't really win. As for a more token based build, that seems fine, but being fully hosed by Virulent Plague is a real thing. Tokens are being pushed so much now, that I've started seeing multiple Virulent Plague in Vampire sideboards, in addition to control decks. Make sure you have ways to answer it.
Do you mind posting the list you were using? I find a few things odd about your experience.
1. How many games did you play? Was it a full match, or just the single game?
2. If he cracked 2 lands for Ulamogs, that would put him at 5 lands. And if you killed off the World Breaker when it went to attack the following turn, he wouldn't have even been able to cast it the following turn, even if he ramped. That means 2 full turns to find another answer and more lands, and at least 3 or 4 turns before an Ulamog could possibly come down if he never recast the World Breaker. 4+ turns if he did recast.
3. Did you never see a Kalitas?
4. Did you never cast a FUTF? If the World Breaker targets a land, just float the mana and then crack the Sinister Concoction and madness cast the FUTF. If they target the Concoction, crack it on a mana dork and madness cast a FUTF for 3 or 4. If they don't have mana dorks, hold the Sinister Concoction for after they play the first World Breaker. Sounds like your match didn't go that way.
5. If you played a full match, how did you sideboard, and did you bring in Transgress the Mind? How about Duress?
6. Sounds like your opponent wasn't playing Chandra, so you should have been able to save the To the Slaughers for the Ulamogs, and using Concoctions on World Breakers.
Oh yeah, and Asylum Visitor doesn't do anything for this deck, especially against G/x Ramp. They are designed to be able to answer early aggro decks without any issues. A 3/1 doesn't do anything. Plus, if we have no cards in hand, we aren't doing something right. And if our opponent has no cards in hand, we're already winning, putting this card into the "Win More" category. Now in an Aggro deck Asylum Visitor is amazing, because they dump their hand onto the battlefield as fast as possible, where they can make use of the draw clause. For control, she is beyond weak.
Well, it depends on if it is the creature ramp version, or the spell ramp. Creature ramp we pretty much handle easy. Kill their early guys, build mana, drop a Kalitas and kill their big guys with concoctions. Save To the Slaughter for Chandra and Ulamog. Run out as many zombies as you can early and swing away.
If its the spell ramp version, I've come to the realization that we need some major help game 1. This particular matchup along with the possibility of needing to deal with Virulent Plague does let me know we will probably need to splash to be competitive.
I'm thinking I'll change the tread title to Mostly Black Control, or B/x control. What do you all think?
For those of you who asked about splashing white or any other color, I have come up with a new list that actually handles both G/x Ramp, and Virulent plague handily, while addressing token issues, all while not affecting my previous game plan. Let me know what you guys think about moving in this direction.
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Evolving Wilds
1x Mage-Ring Network
1x Plains
2x Shambling Vent
11x Swamp
2x Westvale Abbey Flip
Enchantment (5)
1x Dead Weight
4x Sinister Concoction
Artifact (2)
2x Alchemist's Vial
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited
Sorcery (13)
2x Declaration in Stone
4x From Under the Floorboards
3x Languish
1x Pick the Brain
3x Read the Bones
Instant (8)
2x Anguished Unmaking
3x Grasp of Darkness
3x To the Slaughter
Creature (5)
3x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Risen Executioner
2x Angelic Purge
1x Dead Weight
1x Declaration in Stone
2x Duress
1x Flaying Tendrils
2x Pick the Brain
1x Shamble Back
3x Transgress the Mind
2x Virulent Plague
So the land base is mostly unaffected by adding only 2 tapped lands and 1 non-black, but I removed a single mage-ring. Honestly, that card has been underperforming anyways. The addition of shambling vents should add a little more stabilization from aggro decks while offering another win condition against control. Plus it gives more targets for ramp to hit giving more chance of Westvale Abbey surviving.
Adding in the two vials has really smoothed out turning on Delirium, while giving us a control and something to stall a big threat such as Ulamog or that 4/9 hasty angel.
The Anguished Unmaking gives us some ways to get rid of the big threats from ramp permanently, in addition to answering any problem enchantments, such as the token makers or the token killer.
Declaration in Stone gives us some mainboard answers to tokens while also being good against ramp. I also love this against aggro decks that draw multiples of the same creature early, and we can just sweep them all with one cheap spell.
I added a Pick the Brain into the mainboard because this list has a really easy time activating delirium, and gives some additional hate against Ramp decks. Hitting a Chandra with this against Ramp or Naya puts a big wrench in their game plan.
As for the sideboard, you can see it is a lot more fleshed out with smaller numbers of a wide variety of cards. Angelic Purge has played pretty sweet. We tend to get a lot of lands in play with this deck, so sacrificing one to remove a big threat is pretty sweet. I have Anguished Unmaking in the mainboard over this because Purge doesn't hit Planeswalkers, and works better against decks where we would rather sacrifice a zombie over a land. I'm also trying out a couple Virulent Plague for some of the more difficult token matchups should they show up. Depending on the matchup, I may or may not side out a copy or two of FUTF.
And yes, lacking Sign in Blood is really disappointing. I guess we have to hope they include it or something similar in Eldrich Moon.
As for Jace, his power level is nowhere near what he was with fetches. Sounds like you're still in the old mentality. Jace is now just merfolk looter for 3-4 turns before he flips into a planeswalker. He was so much better before because a turn 3 flip is much harder to answer, and only gives you 1 turn. Now everyone will have numerous turns to answer him while he's just a plain ol looter. If you haven't played him without fetches yet, you really should give it a try. He plays like an entirely different card now.
To clarify, he's not bad, he's just a normal turn 4, 5, or 6 planeswalker now.
As for reasons not to splash a color, there isn't really a large enough benefit at the moment to cause us to have tapped lands. We have all the tools we really need to be competitive, so having a vastly superior mana base while being able to include several colorless lands is the biggest benefit to staying Mono Black at the moment. Now things may change in the near future, and threats may diversify, requiring broader answers, but for the time being Mono Black has what it needs. Especially if BR Vampires becomes the deck it looks like it will be.
Grave birthing is way worse though, and doesn't counter any of those, since the opponent gets to choose what card they want to exile. I'm pretty sure it isn't playable.
I do love this card but feel it is a bit more aggro oriented. It is a possibility that we could go a little more creature heavy, and less dependent on removal. More like the Mono Black Control of the original Zendikar era with Nighthawks and Gatekeepers.
Where are you having difficulties? Are you having to use your Sinister Concoctions early on? Are you having to use FUTF too early to stabilize? Where were you having issues with Ultimate Price? I've been seeing way less multicolored creatures, but it may be better as Ruinous Path. And Dead Weight is kind of a necessary evil to have enough enchantments to turn on To the Slaughter. But if you have to, don't be afraid to shrink threats that would otherwise kill us pretty quick. Putting a Dead Weight on a World Breaker has kind of nullified that card quite a bit in testing, and makes it so Kalitas can block and not die, and neither does the World Breaker. The perfect stall tool until we stabilize enough to actually kill the World Breaker.
Thank you for this post. I'll be updating the original post with those card choices. I think you may be on to something with a different deck variation. Post a decklist, and I'll put it in the Primer.
You're right about the excess aggro hate in the sideboard. I always expect a ton of aggro in the first 2-3 weeks of any new standard format. That said, you're probably correct on those sideboard changes.
Actually I played several matches against a UG token deck, and between Thopter Spy Network and From Beyond, I was having some major issues against them. I just couldn't keep up with all the tokens that kept coming out each turn. He actually just went full 4 copies of each post board, added in negates, and removed a bunch of regular creatures. This significantly weakened Kalitas, Risen Executioner couldn't block, the zombie tokens kept coming in tapped, so I was having issues stabilizing. The couple times I did stabilize, I won off the back of a Ormendahl, Profane Prince. You're right, there may be a Tier 1 or 1.5 token deck in the upcoming meta, and Virulent Plague does shut that down overwhelmingly. So much so, that I considered adding in 2 copies in the sideboard myself. I would obviously have to play out a Risen Executioner before I could cast any FUTF, but it looks like the only plan this deck has against them, since we don't have infinite sweepers or ways to exile their enchantments aside from discard. Kalitas can only gain so much life and only block 1 creature a turn.
Basically, if we start running into a lot of control decks packing that narrow card Virulent Plague, we will devise a different way for winning post board, ie. the only time Virulent Plague would be played against us. Until that day arrives, don't worry about such a narrow card.
I have two problems with Remorseless Punishment. 1 is that we don't have the early pressure to actually deal enough damage to make Remorseless Punishment a true finisher. And secondly running enough copies to make it a finisher requires warping the mana curve extremely high. I could see a different decklist with some mainboard Mind Rots and Duress, another resilient creature such as Relentless Dead or Sanitarium Skeleton, and 3x copies Mirrorpool, in order to fork the Remorseless Punishment.
As for suggesting Alms of the Vein in a control deck. That is so laughable. That comment alone seriously just lowered the value of your suggestions to the argument.
As for Virulent Plague shutting down this deck, what control deck runs a dead card mainboard for the off chance that it beats 1 deck in a format comprised of 10+? Besides that, Virulent Plague doesn't really shut us down since we have Risen Executioner. He gives +1/+1 if you forgot. And as for removal, he does come back from the graveyard as well. Anguished Unmaking does cause issues with the Executioner, but hold up a Grasp of Darkness or play out a Kalitas next to him with mana up to sacrifice the Executioner. Really that comes down to a "dies to removal" arguement and who has what exact card at what time. Seriously though, nobody is going to play Virulent Plague for Dragon Fodder, Captain's Claws, Skyspawner, Scion Summoner, or Hangarback Walker. Those are all cards that Control decks have better answers that aren't so narrow.
You are new here, so lets go over the history of token nullifiers in recent Magic history. Were you playing during the time of Innistrad? Curse of Death's hold was a card in standard at the time, and it was arguably a better card as it actually shrunk every single creature, not just tokens. Mono Black control decks ran a total of 2 copies of the Curse in their 75. Do you know how many copies of Curse the Esper Control decks ran? 0-1, and that 1 copy was an outlier deck that had the copy in its sideboard. This was during the time of Lingering Souls, a card which warped the format and was banned in Block. You know what also was in the format? Illness in the Ranks. I want you to guess how many copies of that saw Standard Tournament play? If you guessed zero you would be right. Tokens were a big deal, there was even a deck called W/x Tokens, and the control decks of the time didn't even play the one card that wiped them all. Why? Because the card was too narrow. The only deck it would have been good against was W/x Tokens, and even then, they had better things to cast to beat them. Curse of Death's Hold was really only played in the Mono Black decks because they had less answers to token threats. The same as what will happen in this format, Mono Black decks will run it, and nobody else.
On that note, mirror matchup card: Triskaidekaphobia.
I encourage you all to post decklists so we can see some different strategies.
Merciless Resolve was there as a 2-of primarily for testing because it seemed like it could be good. It never really is an early draw spell, but a mid to late game, so it is possible that it should be a Damnable Pact. The synergies that you are missing, okay let me try to explain. You said you are basically just cycling 2 cards for 2B. Is that really that bad since normal Cycling is 2 for 1 card? In practice, sacrificing an Executioner, Human, or Swamp are the primary sacrifices. The synergy I was looking at was being able to toss an instant and land, or instant and creature (exectioner) into the graveyard for 2B at instant speed while maintaining card parity, thus turning on To the Slaughter. The Executioner isn't exactly blocking incoming damage, and can be recast from the grave, so it isn't really a loss. That said, after about 15 matches yesterday, I'm dropping down to a single copy in the mainboard for now. If it continues to do decently, I'll keep running it. If I would rather it be a Damnable Pact in most instances, I'll switch over.
I do like Grip of Desolation. Actually I've been running a Mono Black Control deck in Standard for the last couple months, and I run 3 copies in my sideboard. I generally have only been able to side it in against midrange decks efficiently. It really doesn't help against Ramp decks because they generally get to 7 mana 2-3 turns before we get to 6. And if they do get to 7 mana, you better add another turn because they are blowing up a land of ours. lol
I do like the idea of a White Splash, mainly for Shambling Vents and Anguished Unmaking. As for Sorin, I don't think the deck needs any more 4, 5 or 6 mana spells, because it is already a bit top heavy as is. The one thing that I should mention though, is that the deck really likes to have all mana untapped starting ideally on Turn 1, but definitely on turn 2. Evolving Wilds is already a little odd in some hands when you want to be playing out an early Sinister Concoction. Making us miss out on a turn 2 Grasp of Darkness or Turn 3 To the Slaughter or Read the Bones, or the worst case, missing a turn 4 Languish. That spells death for this deck. We really need to keep our mana untapped as early as possible. I'm sure there is another deck that can get away with some tapped lands, and even paying life with Caves of Koilos (Esper Draw Go maybe?), this deck is not that deck.
What makes you think token decks will be such a big deal? Are you afraid of U/R artifacts? Definitely not Mono Red tokens since they are losing Hordling Outburst. I don't think people are bringing Virulent plague in against Hangarback Walker. I don't see a reason to believe that any deck will run Virulent Plague mainboard. The only reason to do that would be if token decks made up 30-40%+ of the metagame. Obviously Virulent Plague is a card to be run in Black Midrange and Black Control decks. What % of the meta do you think that will be? I might expect at a maximum 10% of the meta being capable of running Virulent Plague. That is nowhere near something to warp the deck strategy. Now if you do run into a control deck that has a couple copies of Virulent Plague, aren't we running Transgress the Mind and Duress anyways? Beyond that, aren't we also running a couple copies of Risen Executioner? I think the first step to combating Virulent Plague is to run 1 or 2 more Executioners in the sideboard. IF, a big if, we start seeing a lot of Virulent Plague, then switching to a B/w version splashing for Anguished Unmaking seems reasonable, but that is a long ways down the line.
Mind Rot is always good, but it is only really good against Midrange (which this deck already stomps) and Control decks, which hardly exist. Sideboard only at the moment.
Remorseless Punishment is only mediocre in my playtesting. Besides, why run that when you can run From Under the Floorboards? If you do add Remorseless Punishment, how are you managing your mana curve?
I very much believe 4x Languish is right as it is arguably the best sweeper in standard at the moment. I never really have an issue with seeing multiple copies because if you have way too many, just pitch it to a Sinister Concoction if you have nothing else to toss. No big deal. Don't forget that it stacks rather well with a Grasp of Darkness to kill bigger threats.
I see a lot of good discussion, and a lot of ideas of what to add, but no suggestions on what to remove. I'd love to see some other decklists to add to the main post.
~ Top post updated.
Why do you think Ruinous Path needs to be in here? Do you not think 4 instant speed Planeswalker kill cards are enough? If you add 2 more 3 mana sorcery speed spells, what would you be taking out?
As for Blighted Fen, I have tried running as many as 5 and 6 non-black lands and that really makes for some awkward hands far too often, especially if you are only running 25 or 26 lands. If you aren't going up to 27 lands, then what would you suggest cutting from the mana base? I feel that having Westvale Abbey in a format where there is no land destruction seems like a pretty obvious inclusion to me. And cutting copies of Mage-Ring Network doesn't seem right when the whole goal of the deck is to blast out a large X spell. I suppose cutting the Mortuary Mire is okay, but I'd have to go up to 27 lands.
I suppose I should give a little background on my Mono Black experience. I've been participating in working on Mono Black Control decks on these forums since June 2010. I have worked hand in hand with Niche to bring up the Competitive Zendikar Mono Black Control, New Phyrexia Mono Black Infect Control, B/x Devotion, and a few other Mono Black or mostly black control decks. We've both taken these decks, among others and placed Top 8 in multiple PTQ's. I took a 2 year hiatus from Magic when I moved for work, and have since come back slowly into Standard mainly on MTGO. Unfortunately Niche hasn't been seen on these forums in a couple years. Fingers crossed that this thread will be noticed and Niche will come on back and help put this deck on top.
4x Caves of Koilos
4x Evolving Wilds
1x Mage-Ring Network
1x Plains
2x Shambling Vent
10x Swamp
2x Westvale Abbey
1x Wastes
Enchantment (5)
1x Dead Weight
3x Sinister Concoction
1x Call of the Bloodline
2x Alchemist's Vial
Planeswalker (2)
2x Ob Nixilis Reignited
Sorcery (12)
2x Declaration in Stone
3x From Under the Floorboards
3x Languish
4x Read the Bones
Instant (8)
2x Anguished Unmaking
3x Grasp of Darkness
3x To the Slaughter
Creature (6)
2x Thought-Knot Seer
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Risen Executioner
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Dead Weight
1x Declaration in Stone
3x Duress
1x Biting Rain
2x Pick the Brain
3x Transgress the Mind
3x Virulent Plague
This is my most updated list. This has answers to pretty much everything, and looks to be positioned the best against the most decks.
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
4x Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Lands (26)
2x Plains
8x Swamp
4x Blighted Fen
4x Caves of Koilos
2x Evolving Wilds
2x Forsaken Sanctuary
4x Shambling Vent
Instants: (4)
2x Grasp of Darkness
2x To the Slaughter
2x Dark Petition
2x Declaration in Stone
2x Duress
3x Languish
1x Pick the Brain
1x Ruinous Path
2x Transgress the Mind
Enchantments: (4)
3x Dead Weight
1x Virulent Plague
Artifacts: (7)
4x Corrupted Grafstone
3x Hedron Archive
3x Risen Executioner
1x Virulent Plague
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Declaration in Stone
1x Duress
2x Flaying Tendrils
2x Pick the Brain
3x Read the Bones
His deck plays out in more of a tapout style. In my opinion, the ramp takes up too many deck slots for what it does. Also, there needs to be more instants in the deck to activate Delirium more often. There were many times in the matches he played where he had numerous sorceries, a land and an artifact, but no instants or enchantments in the graveyard. Both Michael and Ross Merriam both agreed that Sorin shouldn't be a 4-of, and there needs to be more ways to actually win the game. Hence why I like FUTF as a win condition.
4 Relentless Dead
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Erebos's Titan
Sorceries:
2 Mind Rot
2 Languish
4 Transgress the Mind
3 Ruinous Path
4 From Under the Floorboards
4 Read the Bones
1 To the Slaughter
3 Grasp of Darkness
2 Ultimate Price
Enchantments: 2
2 Dead Weight
Land: 25
3 Mirrorpool
18 Swamp
2 Mage-Ring Network
1 Westvale Abbey
1 Mortuary Mire
2 To the Slaughter
2 Infinite Obliteration
1 Self-Inflicted Wound
1 Mind Rot
4 Duress
2 Languish
3 Flaying Tendrils
The advantages of this style are keeping a simpler (and cheaper mana base) and answering most of the format. Has some weakness to spell based G/x Ramp decks, and enchantment decks.
2x Cabal Therapy
4x Chainer's Edict
3x Corrupt
4x Diabolic Tutor
4x Duress
1x Haunting Echoes
1x Mind Sludge
4x Mutilate
2x Skeletal Scrying
4x Smother
Creature (4)
2x Undead Gladiator
2x Visara the Dreadful
Land (26)
3x Cabal Coffers
23x Swamp
Artifact (1)
1x Mirari
1x Corrupt
3x Graveborn Muse
1x Haunting Echoes
2x Laquatus's Champion
1x Mind Sludge
4x Nantuko Shade
1x Riptide Replicator
2x Withered Wretch
While killing stuff and slamming a hard to deal with threat on the board for a victory has been a thing before, this was really one of the first decks to do it successfully in Mono Black. And if he wasn't attacking with an Undead Glatiator, he was draining them for a bunch with Corrupt.
The following deck was put together by Justin Gary in the 2003 US Nationals, where he took 3rd place. You can see some obvious similarities to Fujita's deck.
3x Undead Gladiator
1x Visara the Dreadful
2x Innocent Blood
1x Mind Sludge
2x Haunting Echoes
3x Corrupt
3x Mutilate
4x Diabolic Tutor
4x Duress
2x Skeletal Scrying
3x Chainer's Edict
4x Smother
Artifact(2)
1x Mirari
1x Riptide Replicator
Lands (26)
23x Swamp
3x Cabal Coffers
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Engineered Plague
1x Mind Sludge
1x Mutilate
4x Nantuko Shade
1x Skeletal Scrying
1x Undead Gladiator
2x Visara the Dread
The reason that both of these decks were successful, was because they lived in a time where creatures were king, a lot like now, in addition to other people playing 3 color decks with mediocre mana fixing. Having a single color mana base gives an amount of consistency that many of our opposing decks won't have. And as I'm sure you've all noticed, spells really aren't the most powerful thing to be doing these days. The better plan that almost every deck uses is to mash a bunch of creatures on the board, and swing away. Granted there are spells that facilitate this, such as Explosive Vegetation and Collected Company. But what they are really doing is just trying to run either a lot of little creatures, or a few powerful creatures. This is the environment where Mono Black decks thrive, but until now, we really didn't have the tools to deal with these decks. With the printing of Shadows of Innistrad, we now have lots of new tools that can get the job done.
When we start seeing heavy black Control decks placing in Tournaments, I'll update with a new section.
Why should we play Mostly Black Control now?
I think the real reason to play black right now, is that we have a true win condition with From Under the Floorboards, aka Black Revelation. So the real question is how do we move that spell from a sorcery, to an instant speed X spell? Well as you can see from above, it is with the card Sinister Concoction or to a lesser extent, Call of the Bloodline. Sinister Concoction not only lets us kill something for B, but it also allows for instant speed discard. Sure you lose a single life, but you are gaining that life back with FUTF. Yes you do mill yourself and sacrifice that enchantment, but that doesn't need to be a downside at all. As for Call of the Bloodline, discarding a card for a single colorless mana is a low cost, and adding a 1/1 creature to the table makes for a great little chump blocker, or an end of turn creature to swing at a planeswalker. This is for all intents and purposes recycling that mana into another creature in addition to FUTF, which means XBB for X creatures.
Now in the end, this deck is really just about killing creatures and planeswalkers and playing a big X spell to win the game. This format is full of creatures, most are pretty small, some are fairly large, but all can be killed with our plethora of kill options between Languish, Grasp of Darkness, To the Slaughter, Sinister Concoction, Dead Weight, Ultimate Price, and the list goes on. Whether or not you want to play Mono Black Control basically comes down to do you want to kill stuff? If the answer is yes, then let's go play some Mono Black Control!
Card Choices
Swamp: This is Mono Black or a Mostly Black deck, so we kind of need to play a lot of these. Because we are in only 1 color, we can play quite a few non-basics for some incremental advantages. I would stick to about 3-5 non-black sources if you are running 25 lands. You may be able to squeeze in 1 more non-black land if you bump up to 26 or 27 lands.
Caves of Koilos: If you splash a color, you want to be playing untapped lands as much as possible, so as to keep up with the tempo of aggro early on.
Mage-Ring Network: This is a land that plays a similar roll of Cabal Coffers and will help us cast a giant FUTF
Westvale Abbey: The front part stalls us to the late game as lots of little 1/1's work as great chump blockers. And creating a giant 9/7 Flying, Lifelink, Indestructible, Haste demon is a nice way to finish out a game or even stabilize. 9 life definitely isn't an irrelevant amount. Having a man-land gives us additional ways to win without losing out on spell slots in the deck.
Shambling Vents: This man-land helps us stabilize while also providing more white mana sources to cast our exile effect spells.
Evolving Wilds: This is the fastest way to get a land into our graveyard and start to turn on To The Slaughter. Plus a slight deck thinning doesn't hurt either.
Wastes: A singleton works well with Evolving Wilds, giving us effectively 11 ways to turn on Thought-Knot Seer.
Maybe Lands:
Blighted Fen: This can be a useful card post Languish.
Mirrorpool: This seems like it may work well as a singleton in the deck. This card could play a Mirari role in our deck. Being able to double up on a To the Slaughter or Languish is pretty awesome. But we don't have a Corrupt, so it isn't really a win condition. Doubling a Kalitas doesn't work, so we're stuck doubling a Risen Executioner. Not the most exciting.
Sea Gate Wreckage: Additional card draw is nice, but we are a control deck. If we are going into topdeck mode, we probably already lost unless we have a superior board presence.
Mortuary Mire: This is a card I really liked as a 5th non-swamp land. It is solely for bringing back a Kalitas when we don't have another one in hand. The bonus, is that this land actually still produces B instead of C.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: There are a lot of creatures in the format that can come back from the graveyard. Kalitas exiles those creatures that we kill, so we don't have to worry about them coming back and wreaking havoc. Basically preserving our card parity and advantage.
Risen Executioner: This fella is an interesting threat. He plays a lot like the old Undead Gladiator in the way that he can just keep coming back from the grave. We don't run many creatures to begin with, so he will pretty much always be 4 or 5 mana. He also makes a nice sacrifice to Kalitas, and when you get up in the range of 10-12 mana, it isn't uncommon to be able to sacrifice and recast and then sacrifice again. Kalitas, can become huge very quickly. And after that, you can even cast Languish without worry of actually losing either of your creatures.
Erebos Titan: A big threat that has a form of recursion that combos with FUTF with his discard clause. Free discard is never a bad thing. This guy works well against Ramp, and Control decks, while putting a huge wall in front of aggro decks. He also survives Languish and Grasp of Darkness, so keep that in mind.
Relentless Dead: A recurring creature. Once you have multiples, you can chain them together to never run out of blockers or attackers. The evasion can be relevant against creature light decks or late game.
Thought-Knot Seer: Was a great card before, and is still a great card. Some mid game disruption is really great in this deck, and pulling a Chandra, or an answer to our threats really can seal the deal.
Maybe Creatures:
Mindwrack Demon: We are already achieving Delirium for To the Slaughter, so that isn't a real drawback. I can see running either 2 or 4 of him depending on the deck build, but then you would be losing out on some other key creature slots, or spell slots. So in the end, I'm not too sure about the demon. Surviving Languish is a big positive for him though.
Fleshbag Marauder: A good edict removal spell, that would best be used in conjunction with Liliana, Heretical Healer.
Sanitarium Skeleton: Recurring discard that allows us to use Altar's Reap over Merciless Resolve.
Liliana, Heretical Healer: Can be used in a more creature centric build
From Under the Floorboards: Otherwise known as the black Sphinx's Revelation. This is the card that will win us most games. This thing stabilizes against aggro with the life gain, and puts down a bunch of zombies to either block or attack with. The madness ability gives us the chance to cast this as an instant. Now how will we do that? Enter stage right Sinister Concoction. Being able to pitch this for just B is what we wanted. Being able to also kill a threat of theirs for that same mana makes this a very powerful 1-2 punch.
Languish: We want to be killing creatures to get us to the late game where we can cast some big nasty spells, and this kills a whole bunch of critters at the same time. Don't be afraid to cast this on a board of Kalitas vs 3+ of their creatures. When they all die at the same time, we still get the Zombie triggers from Kalitas. A nicer trick though, is to sac a zombie to pump up Kalitas so he actually survives the Languish.
Flaying Tendrils: More mass creature removal, but this one exiles. This is good against Den Protector, breaking up their loop. Plus getting this down 1 turn earlier is nice against the hyper aggro decks. However, this doesn't hit as many medium sized creatures as Languish, so I would be bringing this in only against the small aggro decks, and anything with Hangarback Walker or Den Protector
Read the Bones: This is our primary source of card draw. 2 life is a small price to pay for 2 cards. Going up to the full compliment of 4 isn't the worst idea either. But I want to have some instant speed card draw with Merciless Resolve.
Angelic Purge: This is a good exile effect that costs us a permanent in place of a land. This works to trade in a Zombie token, Executioner, or Alchemist's Vial for exiling a threat instead of losing 3 life like Anguished Unmaking. Still a great effect, but slightly more narrow.
Declaration in Stone: A great token exiler, or works well against Ulamog the Ceaseless Hunger or World Breaker. Bonus, works against Hangarback Walker or the tokens it made.
Transgress the Mind: Taking a big threat from your opponent's hand and exiling it for 2 mana. Everything that would worry our deck costs more than 3 mana anyways, so this is basically a slightly better Distress.
Biting Rain: Collected Company is a deck, and having a way to cast an instant speed sweeper in conjunction with Sinister Concoction or Call of the Bloodline gives this an easy 1-2 slots in the deck.
Shamble Back: This card gives us another way to fight those graveyard recursive creatures, and at the same time helps against early aggression, and gives us a 2/2 zombie beater to either block or put on some pressure. Just an amazing card. Mostly a sideboard card if recursion is a thing, but I could even see this being played as a 1 of in the mainboard against aggro as well.
Maybe Sorceries:
Damnable Pact: This is a very good mid to late game draw spell. But it could also be used to burn someone out for the last few points of damage. It isn't Corrupt, and doesn't gain you life, so a 1 or 2 of is probably the max you could play, and definitely a card to bring in out of the Sideboard if Control becomes a thing. I am keeping this high on my list of cards to test.
Duress: This is a good card against Control, but against everything else, we would rather be playing something that can hit actual threats the way Transgress the Mind can.
Self Inflicting Wound: If Green or White become a big issue in your meta, this seems to be a fairly viable card. The lack of Instant speed makes it considerably worse than Grasp of Darkness, To the Slaughter, and Sinister Concoction.
Ruinous Path: This a great card, and I can see playing 1 or two copies after your max out on To the Slaughter.
Infinite Obliteration: I have never really liked Extraction effects because when you miss a card from their hand, you really just discarded a card for something they may have never drawn. And this one is no different. That said, casting one of these on turn 3 against G/x Ramp naming World Breaker or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, sure solves a lot of our problems with that deck. Sideboard only though, and I don't think going higher than 3 in the board is necessary.
Mind Rot: A great sideboard card against Control or possibly Midrange.
Remorseless Punishment: This card will need to be run with some more discard spells in addition to a large selection of kill spells to make it effective. Also cuts into our mana curve and FUTF slots.
Grasp of Darkness: This is a staple early kill spell that will help us stabilize early on, and hits Jace, Vryn's Prodigy before he can flip.
Merciless Resolve: Instant speed card draw is always good. Sacrificing a token creature is probably what this will do the least. Pitching a land or an Executioner will be the better choice here. When you sac a land, it also fuels Delirium on the To the Slaughter.
To the Slaughter: A 3 mana edict is a little on the high side over the history of Magic, but when you can tack on the ability to edict a Planeswalker, and all at instant speed, that becomes a very powerful effect. This even answers things like Gideon after he has landed and created a token. Or Sorin, Grim Nemesis, or Arlinn Kord, or Nissa, Vastwood Seer, or Nissa, Voice of Zendikar.
Anguished Unmaking: A perfect unconditional removal spell. Use it for planeswalkers, enchantments, big creatures, whatever you want.
Maybe Instants:
Foul-Tongue Invocation: If you ever decide you need to run Dragons in your deck(not many good options), then this could see a place. Otherwise, it is a worse To the Slaughter.
Altar's Reap: Arguably better than Merciless Resolve, but can't sacrifice a land to turn on To the Slaugher.
Ultimate Price: This is an interesting card right now. A lot of the multi-colored creatures are leaving Standard, so this gets much much better. But the fact that G/x Ramp is a prominent deck, makes this much less attractive to me.
Sinister Concoction: BB, pay 1 life: destroy target creature is already powerful effect. Milling yourself for 1 is not even really a cost. But adding the discard clause does make things interesting. It makes you actually have to plan out your turns and think about your hand and what cards you will still need. Benefit #1 of discarding is turning on To the Slaugher. Benefit #2, and the really plus of this card, is being able to discard FUTF at instant speed, gaining a bunch of life back and leaving the board with a ton of zombies ready to swing on your turn.
Dead Weight: This is basically just a 5th enchantment that will hit the graveyard early turning on Delirium. Not much to say other than it is cheap, it can kill some early aggression, or it can be used later on to shrink a larger creature. This also kills Jace. A must have somewhere in your 75.
Maybe Enchantments:
Call the Bloodline: Perhaps a 1 of as an additional discard outlet.
Virulent Plague: This is a sideboard only card if token decks become rampant or more than 30% of the field. I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future though.
Ob Nixilis Reignited: This is the only mono black planeswalker that we have available at the moment that actually suits a control role. Yes a lot of the time he will just be coming down killing a creature and saving us a couple damage by dying. But when he stays on the battlefield for more than 1 turn, he will usually just take over the game.
Artifacts:
Alchemist's Vial: A cantrip, a card to stall, and it helps turn on Delirium. This card just does it all.
Corrupted Grafstone: Michael Majors made a B/w Control deck centered around ramping into big mana. It is an interesting idea, but seems to take up a lot of card slots with Hedron Archive.
Hedron Archive: This is definitely better than Corrupted Grafstone in that it makes mana and can give us cards when we don't need it anymore, while at the same time turning on Delirium.
Matchups:
W/x Humans: This actually is a pretty good reason to run Mono Black or Mostly black decks at the moment, as Languish gets incredible value. Just use the early kill spells to preserve some life until you run out a sweeper. Follow that up with one of our big threats/blockers, and then finally with a FUTF. Pretty simple anti aggro gameplan as usual. Post sideboard, you probably shouldn't bring in Biting Rain unless you expect Eerie Interlude. You should be able to tell if they are holding that up, because it isn't exactly a cheap spell for them to play, so play conservatively and don't get blown out by it.
G/x Ramp:
Running out a Kalitas early may seem like the best plan, but only if your opponent doesn't have a Kozilek's Return in their graveyard. If they do, what you want to do, is let the World Breaker land, killing a land, and then play your Kalitas on your turn, followed by a kill spell, ideally Sinister Concoction. That way you get a zombie token, and don't have to fear a Kozilek's Return from the graveyard that turn. Just make sure to pump up Kalitas as soon as you can. Once he gets to a 5/6, the only way for them to remove him is by casting Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or totally burning a Chandra, Flamecaller. As long as you haven't lost too many lands, and once you've used an edict or exile the Ulamog, the game should be pretty much wrapped up. Bring in some more zombies and swing away. Game 2 goes more in our favor with Transgress the Mind, Pick the Brain, Duress, and more exile effects, while removing weaker removal spells like Flaying Tendrils, Dead Weight, Languish, and Grasp of Darkness. Unless they are still running a creature ramp version, in which case you should decide what you really need to slow down their ramp, and if you want to keep in the faster kill spells. There are 2 main routes you can take. 1, take all the 6+ CMC threats from their hand, or 2 take all the Explosive Vegetation from their hand. I prefer the former, because they will always draw into more ramp spells, and what good is it for them to ramp into more ramp with nothing big to cast? This is the one matchup where I could see bringing in some number of Infinite Obliteration, but it isn't necessary. Make sure to apply pressure as soon as possible, even if that means casting From Under the Floorboards at sorcery speed if you are sure they don't have Kozilek's Return.
Collected Company: Kill stuff, and then play a Kalitas and kill more stuff is the first plan for game 1. If that doesn't work, hopefully you've bought enough time to cast a x=5+ From Under the Floorboards, to gain a bit of life back and create a bunch of end of turn blockers. Game 2 goes a bit better with some more early kill spells and additional sweepers. Remember that exiling their creatures instead of sending them to the graveyard makes the Zulaport Cutthroat triggers never happen. If they are still a 3 color deck with Deathmist Raptors, then Shamble Back and other exile effects gets even more value. I have brought a single copy of Biting Rain into the sideboard as an instant speed way to sweep the board in conjunction with one of our discard outlets. All you have to do is survive until we cast a huge From Under the Floorboards, and put the game out of their reach. In the end, they are just an aggro deck, so life gain beats them handily.
R/x Aggro: This deck appears to be slowing down a bit, so it really shouldn't be much of an issue, especially since we have access to so many instant speed kill spells now, in addition to our sweepers. Kalitas is hard for them to deal with since he has 4 toughness, and casting From Under the Floorboards even for just the regular casting cost seems like a real big issue for them. Shamble Back looks decent against any non-evasive creatures in their decks too, but is untested so far.
Esper Dragons: They are losing Dig and Crux, so they are probably going to transition into a more UB Control deck. This may be a pretty difficult matchup due to them having access to a lot of the same spells in addition to countmagic, so the number of Duress may need to go up in the sideboard. Game 1 we need to go the aggro route with Risen Executioner. Make sure you hit your land drops, and save your edict effects for Dragonlord Ojutai. If you can land an Ob Nixilis Reignited once they've tapped out., or a FUTF on their end step, you should be able to get in enough damage to finish them off. I would say game 1 is about 45/55 unless we can start making tokens with a Westvale Abbey early on. I probably wouldn't even try to transform the Abbey simply because they have Anguished Unmaking and access to the same kinds of edicts we have. Just make a ton of Human tokens, kill their dragons, and peck away at them.
Other Control Decks: Basically you want to kill any Jace's you see with Grasp of Darkness, Dead Weight, or as a last resort, Sinister Concoction. Save your To the Slaughter for when they actually land a planeswalker like Sorin or Ob Nixilis, and be aware of manlands if you haven't activated Delirium. The rest of the gameplan is basically the same as Esper Dragons. Make tokens with Westvale Abbey, or get them to tap out for you to cast an Ob Nixilis Reignited, or more ideally, a FUTF. Games 2 and 3 bring in the disruption spells and get rid of sweepers and planeswalkers. Also probably bring in the enchantment removal in case they run Virulent Plague.
B/W Control: We are a delirium based deck with a heavier amount of black, so use those things to our advantage. The first way to do that is FUTF. Our Zombies are bigger than their Warriors, so if we can play smart, we will win that fight every time. Playing To the Slaughter gives us additional instant speed removal for any planeswalkers or Avacyn (If they are dumb enough to run her), or other big creatures or manlands. Erebos's Titan pulls some extra weight in this matchup as well, since there generally aren't any creatures on the board most of the time. Feel free to side out Kalitas unless you're running against other Erebos's Titans. I wouldn't worry too much about bringing in more than 2 Duress and I'd skip Pick the Brain entirely, but Transgress is very good here.
At this point, I truly see this becoming a very strong deck, possibly even Tier 1. If that happens, we'll have to come up with a plan for the mirror. A non-Delirium BW Control has been all over MTGO the last couple days, but thankfully this deck actually trumps theirs with very few changes post board. Have fun killing things!!