MTG Salvation

I'd always left Necro out of my cube because of the restrictive mana cost, but now that I'm supporting monoblack a little better (not super heavy, but enough that Geralf's Messenger sees play, I'm considering bringing it in. I'm hoping to get opinions from people who have played with it in the cube environment. What's it like?

Quote from Nof

Hard to cast, slow to go in action, and if aggro is supported well you may not have that much life to spend anyway.

Necropotence MD% was 27% here, with average black spell at 68%.

Aggro is well supported here, but so is Stax, and this seemed like something that'd be pretty awesome in some of the monoblack stax decks I've started seeing recently.

That said I do worry that it's a little slow. I wish I had a little more colored ramp, as is the only ways you can get it out early without Birds of paradise and a Bayou are Dark Rit, Chrome Mox, and Mox Diamond.

Quote from Nof

and if aggro is supported well you may not have that much life to spend anyway.

Or you just run it in aggro?

I love necro in controllish builds, but it is better in aggressive ones.

If you support mono-black cards in the cube, this should be the #1 include.

For us, this is a card that gets left in the sideboard a lot, because no one is heavily enough black to want it. However, when it does get played, it's very often insane. If you're okay with having cards like that, I'd say run it.

I have played it mostly in UB or UBr control decks and treated it as a 5-6 drop (basically just a different version of Bargain). Obviously nuts-o in control mirrors.

Quote from Tiax

For us, this is a card that gets left in the sideboard a lot, because no one is heavily enough black to want it. However, when it does get played, it's very often insane. If you're okay with having cards like that, I'd say run it.

That's why we didn't run it before, but with Geralf's Messenger seeing play in my cube nowadays, I think it's safe to say people will be heavy enough black to run it.

Ya, I'd play Necropotence long before I'd play the Messenger.

Although it is now cut from my cube, I think I would still play Yawgmoth's Bargain before I would play Necropotence. Much of the time they would be coming down on the same turn, and the bargain has a significant upside in drawing cards immediately.

Quote from Humpty_Dumpty

Although it is now cut from my cube, I think I would still play Yawgmoth's Bargain before I would play Necropotence. Much of the time they would be coming down on the same turn, and the bargain has a significant upside in drawing cards immediately.

If you accept the premise that they're coming down on the same turn, then I wouldn't play either of them. The only reason I'm considering Necropotence is that I believe Necro would be coming down on turn 3 more often than not. I'm drafting 8-10 people most of the time now, which means monocolored decks are actually happening as people are able to see enough cards to build good monocolored decks.

The last 4 drafts we've done there were monoblack decks in at least 3 of them, drafted by 3 different players. Each one performed at .500 or better. In my cube, at least, the monoblack deck is a real thing.

So . . . I'm not considering Bargain at this time. It doesn't do what I want (come down early and draw cards for an aggro or staxx deck), and I'm trying to decide if Necropotence will do that or not. I think I'm going to give it a shot on a trial basis.

If you're playing mono-black in your cube, this card is a shoe-in. A staple. If, you support mono-black.

With those figures I would definitely be playing Necropotence. As well as being a powerful effect it is an iconic card from Magic history, something which I enjoy in cube.

It will be interesting to see how early in a pack it is taken: if I'm mono black do I take the bomb for my deck, or do I assume it will wheel?

I haven't tried it, but I think Nof's MD% of 27% would be a fair estimate for our group.

Quote from Humpty_Dumpty

With those figures I would definitely be playing Necropotence. As well as being a powerful effect it is an iconic card from Magic history, something which I enjoy in cube.

It will be interesting to see how early in a pack it is taken: if I'm mono black do I take the bomb for my deck, or do I assume it will wheel?

I haven't tried it, but I think Nof's MD% of 27% would be a fair estimate for our group.

I'm also intrigued to see how early it goes. I was the monoblack drafter on our last draft, and I managed to wheel Geralf's messenger, but Messenger is much less powerful in non-monoblack decks than Necro is. I'd certainly play Necro in a two color deck where it comes down on 6. I just don't want that to be the only way it gets played.

I run it. However I don't draft the most with my cube, and people rarely go mono black. I'm just running it because it's a very iconic card and if a deck can support necro the card is absolutely insane. Also run dark ritual to help support it as it's colorfixing for the card.

If you're supporting mono black necropotence is one of the first cards I would include, if you need to you can straight up cut geralf's messenger for necro. I know that if I'm casting messenger, I would prefer it to be necro almost every time at least on turn 3 necro > messenger.

players I cube with hate being pigeon holed into one archetype. This card is another one of those.

Quote from Happy Gilmore

players I cube with hate being pigeon holed into one archetype. This card is another one of those.

Supporting an archetype isn't pigeon-holing. Supporting mono-black doesn't mean that every card in black is meant for that.

It's the stone cold nuts and the main reason players draft monoblack in my cube (Messenger being the other). It's not exclusively playable in that archetype though - I'll run it as a curve topper in ANY heavy B/x deck, where it is essentially a cut-price 5-drop. So it sees enough play and is just versatile enough for me to run. In game, it's extremely hard to race that card advantage.

Well most decks that ran necro back in the day were not mono-black so...

Inquest said that this card sucks, so it's probably pretty bad. Just putting that out there since no one has yet.

Quote from Sasky

Well most decks that ran necro back in the day were not mono-black so...

Ya, but all of those decks had perfect constructed mana bases and/or 4 dark rituals.

Quote from Blimpy

Inquest said that this card sucks, so it's probably pretty bad. Just putting that out there since no one has yet.

Yeah man even LSV has said the first time he looked at this card he thought it was terrible!

But seriously, there's no reason to not run this card if you support mono-black or if your cube is over 360. There aren't many cards I want to see Pack 1 that I absolutely love to build around except maybe Tinker.

Just picked this card up the other day. Am I right in saying that you play this by playing your cards in hand, then end step grab more cards during your turn (or in response or in hopes of thinning your deck a bit), and rinse repeat?

Just used it on the surface and it seems really good. Is there any other ways to abuse it by itself?

And, yes been drafted with monoblack, but splashing some white on the side has been helpful (for some life gain effects - i.e. Gerrards Verdict yourself :D)

I'm going to be giving mono/heavy-black a nudge when I go up to 500, and this is the card I'm most excited about playing.

Got to cast this card three times in a heavy black aggro deck. I was usually ahead when I casted it, drew 6-9 cards each of those games over the course of three turns. One game I sacrificed it to Smokestack.

It was bad when I was behind but luckily I discarded it to my Looter il-Kor.