for the past few months ive been playing black/white control and mono black. theres a magic shop in my area that does a wed nite stnd and a thurs nite stnd on top of doing the usual fri nite, ive been doing all three for the whole time testing each deck and trying my hardest to figure out which one would be my best bet in knoxville and tweeking each of them to try to refine them and honestly, im still at a complete loss. ill be honest, i hate playing mono black, it just seems so boring to me. playing with blood barons, obzedats, and elspeths, the deck just seems like its so boring, just my opinion.
now this is where i need your help. everyone tells me and we all kno that when it comes to high level competitive magic rite now, mono black is what gets there and does the best overall. its has more wins and more top 8's then most decks combined, scary lol. black white shows up to, sometimes. i dont think its actually won an open or done well in top 8 for awhile now. so heres the main problem, ive gotten royally screwed with both decks many many many times, both with mana and with spells. i run 25 land in both. ill post the black.white list at the bottom, the mono black list is pretty much all the same from any other one out there. everyone tells me i should run mono black, but, the black white ive had more success with locally and i havent gotten as screwed with it as i have the mono black, wierd rite? i kno. seems like it should be the other way around but its not. i dont want to risk taking one deck and flopping and regretting not taking the other one. so i need some help deciding which to take. i will say its my first open ive ever done so i kno alot of ppl are just going to say take the black white cuz its fun for me to play and to just go and have fun but i want to also do well. ive always wanted to be a good competitive magic player. ive won many fnms, gamedays, pre-releases and sealed tournaments in my area and i want to move to bigger better things. im driving just over 7 hours to go to knoxville and i dont want the drive to be a waste. so help me out, please. here is the black/white deck list.
Creatures (14)
3 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
4 Desecration Demon
4 Pack Rat
3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
Planeswalkers (2)
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Spells (19)
3 Underworld Connections
2 Bile Blight
3 Devour Flesh
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Ultimate Price
1 Whip of Erebos
3 Thoughtseize
1 elixir of immortality
Sideboard
3 Lifebane Zombie
2 Sin Collector
1 Blind Obedience
1 Dark Betrayal
1 Doom Blade
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Drown in Sorrow
3 Duress
2 Revoke Existence
and before anyone says something about the one elixir, i kno blue control really only does that but, theres also always a few ppl in my area that does some stupid mill deck that somehow does really well and beats alot of ppl so i put it in there for that locally, but overtime i noticed it actually did alot of work for me. the 5 life really helps against aggro incase i cant draw what i need on time, or it lets me blow them out quicker. and against control it lets me get all my threats back theyve countered or verdicted. and surprisingly they never d sphere it since i have other threats like rats or demons out that have to be taken care of first, so by the time they get rid of those, i have plenty of mana to crack elixir in responce to the d sphere. and against everything else, its just a good way to reload everything.
I run a similar deck, and I've always been adamant that two out of your three win cons need to be in the main, while one needs to be in the side in case the match up doesn't work for it. I've always liked Obzedat in the side because matchups that can get rid of him with instant speed mean he's usually a dead card after he drops. Also, you really want a read the bones in there for an Underworld Connections. Underworld is a great card, and will win you games in some matchups, but sometimes it's just dead and a Read the Bones in its place would do wonders.
I run something very similar to this list, modified for my meta, but it's still very close.
for the past few months ive been playing black/white control and mono black. theres a magic shop in my area that does a wed nite stnd and a thurs nite stnd on top of doing the usual fri nite, ive been doing all three for the whole time testing each deck and trying my hardest to figure out which one would be my best bet in knoxville and tweeking each of them to try to refine them and honestly, im still at a complete loss. ill be honest, i hate playing mono black, it just seems so boring to me. playing with blood barons, obzedats, and elspeths, the deck just seems like its so boring, just my opinion.
now this is where i need your help. everyone tells me and we all kno that when it comes to high level competitive magic rite now, mono black is what gets there and does the best overall. its has more wins and more top 8's then most decks combined, scary lol. black white shows up to, sometimes. i dont think its actually won an open or done well in top 8 for awhile now. so heres the main problem, ive gotten royally screwed with both decks many many many times, both with mana and with spells. i run 25 land in both. ill post the black.white list at the bottom, the mono black list is pretty much all the same from any other one out there. everyone tells me i should run mono black, but, the black white ive had more success with locally and i havent gotten as screwed with it as i have the mono black, wierd rite? i kno. seems like it should be the other way around but its not. i dont want to risk taking one deck and flopping and regretting not taking the other one. so i need some help deciding which to take. i will say its my first open ive ever done so i kno alot of ppl are just going to say take the black white cuz its fun for me to play and to just go and have fun but i want to also do well. ive always wanted to be a good competitive magic player. ive won many fnms, gamedays, pre-releases and sealed tournaments in my area and i want to move to bigger better things. im driving just over 7 hours to go to knoxville and i dont want the drive to be a waste. so help me out, please. here is the black/white deck list.
Creatures (14)
3 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
4 Desecration Demon
4 Pack Rat
3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
Planeswalkers (2)
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Spells (19)
3 Underworld Connections
2 Bile Blight
3 Devour Flesh
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Ultimate Price
1 Whip of Erebos
3 Thoughtseize
1 elixir of immortality
Lands (25)
2 Plains
10 Swamp
4 Godless Shrine
4 Mutavault
1 Orzhov Guildgate
4 Temple of Silence
Sideboard
3 Lifebane Zombie
2 Sin Collector
1 Blind Obedience
1 Dark Betrayal
1 Doom Blade
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Drown in Sorrow
3 Duress
2 Revoke Existence
and before anyone says something about the one elixir, i kno blue control really only does that but, theres also always a few ppl in my area that does some stupid mill deck that somehow does really well and beats alot of ppl so i put it in there for that locally, but overtime i noticed it actually did alot of work for me. the 5 life really helps against aggro incase i cant draw what i need on time, or it lets me blow them out quicker. and against control it lets me get all my threats back theyve countered or verdicted. and surprisingly they never d sphere it since i have other threats like rats or demons out that have to be taken care of first, so by the time they get rid of those, i have plenty of mana to crack elixir in responce to the d sphere. and against everything else, its just a good way to reload everything.
I run something very similar to this list, modified for my meta, but it's still very close.
http://themeadery.org/articles/winners-circle-peter-shmanka-wins-minneapolis-ptq
URW Control
U R Blood Moons Over My Hammy