I have a few suggestions for potential sideboard cards:
Illness in the Ranks: Useful against Wave tokens, and adds a bit to devotion which is always good in this deck. Hurts our own Pack Rats though, so I'm wary of including this
Ogre Slumlord: Shares CMC with Gray Merchant of Asphodel, however it synergizes well with Pack Rat as well as the myriad creature removal that runs rampant in this deck. Slumlord might also be better to play before Gray Merchant given the extra 2 to Devotion.
Shrivel: Maybe I'm overly worried about Blue devotion, but this can be another answer to a player who gets out a boatload of Wave tokens
I think the way we fight Master of Waves in this deck is using all of our targeted removal to kill him, rather than try to kill the elementals. If you want to, though, Ratchet Bomb has better coverage than any of them though, killing all tokens outright (and won't hit our rats, as they're copies rather than creature tokens and have a CMC of 2!). This nerfs Voice of Resurgence, Advent of the Wurm and such pretty well too. Probably best to just go after Master of Waves directly though, or even race them.
I think the way we fight Master of Waves in this deck is using all of our targeted removal to kill him, rather than try to kill the elementals. If you want to, though, Ratchet Bomb has better coverage than any of them though, killing all tokens outright (and won't hit our rats, as they're copies rather than creature tokens and have a CMC of 2!). This nerfs Voice of Resurgence, Advent of the Wurm and such pretty well too. Probably best to just go after Master of Waves directly though, or even race them.
You're right -- I haven't faced Blue devotion in any of my match-ups yet and seeing it do well in the last two major events has made me overly cautious. That shouldn't prevent me from using logic, though
Desecration demon is only good against decks with few creatures and gets tapped down/ removed more often then not. Underworld connections is too expensive for what it does and i find myself not wanting to cast it til turn 6-10 when the game should already be almost over. Saying either of those cards is better than a creature with guaranteed card removal is crazy. Its not better than either card but it has uses neither the demon or connections can help with.
My deck is more about controlling the opponent than being aggro. It really depends on the match up. I have never had good results with demon and underworld has killed me more than a few times. Fodder for pack rat is sometimes nice to have.
Oh and the fact you can toss anything allows you to get rid of problem cards early game like blood baron until they get 5 mana up. Ive even used it on the draw turn four to peel a BBoV they drew last turn out of the hand which won me the game. Didnt have lifebane or thoughtseize in hand at the time.
It seems like "card removal" and "card draw" both lead to potential card advantage, which are two different means to a similar end.
If you're worried about a singular threat in their hand, Thoughtseize can have that taken care of at the start of the game.
How do we deal with Thassa, I typically try to keep there devotion down to keep her offline, but Doom Blading and Devour Fleshing can only work for so long - eventually they just flood you with threats and start swinging out.
Underworld Connections is basically the sole reason the deck can 'go long'. It's like Think Twice for blue in last standard - card draw that sticks around and can carry you right through. Pay three now, then you can (effectively) pay one mana and one life to draw at instant speed, for the rest of the game. This, in a deck that is pretty good at gaining back life, doesn't need much mana after the five, and has a great use for dead draws. Watch Brian Braun-Duin's matches - he uses it almost every game to keep on top of his opponent. The devotion is awesome too.
Underworld Connections is to Mono-Black what Sphinx's Revelation is to UW Control. Cutting it basically means sacrificing the ability to outgrind your opponent which makes this deck so powerful to begin with.
If you go the aggro route you probably could cut it but if you want to win long games Connections is the card you want to have.
I like a blue splash. Splashing a color for more 1 for 1 removal like dreadbore or mortars or abrupt decay and putrify isnt worth it. I like far and away a cyclonic rift and some counters for the sideboard, using a thoughtsieze or lifebane and knowing what you plan to counter is great, same with far away bounce followed by discard. Ive said it a couple times already, lilianas reaver has been reasonable alternative to demon if hes is getting tapped more than you like, especially with bounce.
I am curious what weaknesses you are even talking about. This deck is probably the most universally stable deck in the format. I fail to see how splashing for other colors is really going to shore anything up that needs to be shored up.
Fade to Antiquity may be the only valid splash I can think of and that is for Thassa, in a match that is really not a match that is generally difficult to close out. The only issue I see with this match is Thassa when they start bouncing everything you do and beating in, which most Mono Blue decks are not really doing.
Surely even the most stable deck has weaknesses, or else we wouldn't be playing anything else. The cards I just mentioned deal with things that mono black either can't normally hit or has relatively few answers for. Even the mirror match has weaknesses that you can improve on, i.e. what if they get to X first? How do you come out to win that situation? You can accept the coin flip, or try to build in more outs.
Blood Baron - most lists run 2-3 Devour Flesh but if they have Mutavault, lots of other creatures, or counters, it's going to be a tough race. Yes you can discard him, but lists running 4 specifically against us will be an issue.
Gods - Specifically Thassa, Purphoros, and Erebos can really hurt, even if they never get to animate.
Removal - Doom Blade and Ultimate Price have limitations; more universal removal suites are available with more colors.
Enchantments/Artifacts - Black normally has no way to remove resolved ones.
Sweepers - Black doesn't have any but Ratchet Bomb and... Shrivel.
I like a blue splash. Splashing a color for more 1 for 1 removal like dreadbore or mortars or abrupt decay and putrify isnt worth it. I like far and away a cyclonic rift and some counters for the sideboard, using a thoughtsieze or lifebane and knowing what you plan to counter is great, same with far away bounce followed by discard. Ive said it a couple times already, lilianas reaver has been reasonable alternative to demon if hes is getting tapped more than you like, especially with bounce.
I'm not a fan of reaver at all but I agree that a splash can be well worth it. Blue is probably the best one for Rift, counters, and a few other tricks you may want to include. Still working with several splashes just to see if any are worth it.
Our main base is underworld connections, gary, and whip. I'm not sure about the specter since I consider even more removal moving in at some point but if things stay the same, then specter is also a foundation. After that, we have some leeway with what we decide to play. The standard set by BBD is still very powerful and possibly the best deck but it's worth looking anyway.
Im not saying underworld is bad but i never want more than 1 on the board. I seriously have died multiple games trying to dig for answers and getting no grey merchant or whip. As for thoughtseize in opening turns, thats just not always possible. Sometimes you dont see one until turn 6 or later in which its not as impactful as on turn 1 or 2.
For the reasons of dieing to underworld i only run 3. When i can get some lifegain it works wonders but when i dont i usually have a harder time winning. This has let me to want to remove threats in opponents hands to slow them down while i try and play catchup.
Mind you this is based on my luck in the draw and specific play style relative to my local meta. Ill post my list after work to show the differences.
I am curious what weaknesses you are even talking about. This deck is probably the most universally stable deck in the format. I fail to see how splashing for other colors is really going to shore anything up that needs to be shored up.
Fade to Antiquity may be the only valid splash I can think of and that is for Thassa, in a match that is really not a match that is generally difficult to close out. The only issue I see with this match is Thassa when they start bouncing everything you do and beating in, which most Mono Blue decks are not really doing.
Splashing blue has been working out really well for me. I only splash for two cards which may not seem like a lot, but both of them help against 2 of the deck's biggest weaknesses. I run 3 Far/Away in the mainboard and this helps against RDW by being a two for one spell. I can also use it to save my creatures, put them in the yard for whip and bring Merchant back to my hand to play again.
The other card I splash for is Cyclonic Rift which takes care of the other problem for our deck Enchantments and Artifacts. This card also serves a secondary function as being a board wipe and is one of the reasons I still run Nykthos in the main.
Surely even the most stable deck has weaknesses, or else we wouldn't be playing anything else. The cards I just mentioned deal with things that mono black either can't normally hit or has relatively few answers for. Even the mirror match has weaknesses that you can improve on, i.e. what if they get to X first? How do you come out to win that situation? You can accept the coin flip, or try to build in more outs.
Blood Baron - most lists run 2-3 Devour Flesh but if they have Mutavault, lots of other creatures, or counters, it's going to be a tough race. Yes you can discard him, but lists running 4 specifically against us will be an issue.
Gods - Specifically Thassa, Purphoros, and Erebos can really hurt, even if they never get to animate.
Removal - Doom Blade and Ultimate Price have limitations; more universal removal suites are available with more colors.
Enchantments/Artifacts - Black normally has no way to remove resolved ones.
Sweepers - Black doesn't have any but Ratchet Bomb and... Shrivel.
I never said it did not have soft spots, but these soft spots for this deck are really not very soft in all actuality. Splashing to fix minor problems creates more problems than it ever even had to fix in the first place. You beat Blood Baron by stacking out non creature permanents into multiple Merchants. Decks like BWR have no way to stop you from jamming the board with things like Underworld Connections and Whip of Erebos except for Thoughtseize and Wear/Tear and you shoudl realistically be keeping them too busy to even be using those cards effectively enough to stop Gray Merchant from closing the game out. You beat Blood Baron by grinding out their life without ever having to attack. Besides, Devour Flesh fixes enough in that match as it is.
Thassa decks you should be able to beat. I am sorry, but I do not buy into the idea that the Mono Blue match is so hard that you have to actually dig deep and dip into a second color. Not by any stretch. The same goes for Purphoros. Erebos is an actual God I think you are justified worrying about, but Duress and Thoughtseize really make playing this card in the mirror, not a very effective maneuver in my opinion. Erebos is good when his count is low enough to impact a game based on the sheer luck of drawing him and splashing is not going to hinder luck.
You are mono Black. Run 4 Hero's Downfall...
As for Ratchet Bomb, that is the best you can do. If you want a sweeper, you really thing trying to eek out RR is going to help your deck? Or are you going to be bold and try to stick it out until turn 6 so you can cast Merciless Eviction? We all know Supreme Verdict will almost never happen...
I understand the desire to splash a second color to patch holes, but unlike Mono U and GR, Mono Black and Mono Red cannot afford to be splashing simply because the splashes are just not stronger than running your mono colored set up, in Mono Red's case, this might not be entirely true, but it is still valid.
Mono Black has the fewest holes to patch and they are not even holes, they are dents and nicks.
Duress cannot hit Erebos, although I guess it indirectly helps Thoughtseize. Gaze of Granite is a real sweeper, though not that big of a draw it is usually better than Ratchet Bomb.
I think the main thing we disagree on is how much you lose by splashing. Personally I find my mana base perfectly fine and would argue that we have much less to lose from a couple tapped lands than the blue and red aggro-devotion decks. The strongest argument I see in favor of staying mono is that it's likely to cost a couple extra life against RDW but you get some good options against them in return.
Regarding splashing, I gave up on the red splash because the Mana was way too ****ty. If we had the RB scry lands currently I think it would have been fine, but playing 4 guildgate 4 bloodcrypt and 2 mountain to be able to run Anger in the board had me losing to my manabase more often than not. While I did enjoy the cards Red gave me (Dreadbore was amazing, as was Slaughter Games out of the board, Rakdos's Return, and Mizzium Mortars), I just gave up and switched out those cards for more thoughtseizes main, devour flesh, ultimate price, and doom blades main to replace the dreadbores and mortars, and while it has made certain hands awkward against various matchups, the fact I could always simply just cast my spells on the turn I needed to cast them was a god send and had led me to performing much better than I did with the red splash.
I feel that even though we do get very powerful and good cards that help shore up our decks weaknesses by splashing, hurting the mana base creates a much larger problem then those weaknesses. I might try a light blue splash again at some point for cyclonic rift and Far//Away again, but I'll see about that. For now being able to just cast removal turn after turn against aggro or just rip apart controls hand without worrying about the manabase slowing me down or hurting me has been sufficient enough, my biggest losses lately are due to me either playing suboptimally (I.E. making poor decisions, poor sideboarding, not playing around obvious bait) or drawing poorly (sometimes you just draw 7 lands off the top of your deck even with Underworld Connections and don't get there).
I think at this point the only thing to do with the deck is just make slight changes to the 75 based on how the meta is looking. Deciding between things like main deck Lifebane Zombie, whether Specter is good enough in the 75, whether or not we need more discard or removal, etc... And just tuning those numbers until either there's some major breakthrough that we haven't considered or the meta drastically changes in a direction we didn't see coming.
As far as Mono U goes I think the matchup is fine. Game 1 can be rough, but postboard you just side in every piece of removal against them, even Dark Betrayal is good (nabs that nasty specter), and pithing needle (naming Thassa usually, occasionally Jace) and just keep them off devotion. There's those awkward times where their devotion is from Bident, Jace and Thassa, but Hero's Downfall and Devour Flesh really shine here.
I played Br Devotion at a local tournament today and did pretty poorly and i believe it was pretty much bad luck on at least 2 matches.
Round 1 - BUG Control
Kicked his butt off with Seize and Return followed by demon and gary. Game 2 was piece of cake
Round 2 - Junk Midrange
Won game 1 by dropping multiple seizes / lifebanes (i run them MD) and killing the threats he dropped.
Lost Game 2, mulliganed to 5 with land land Gary Seize, Dreadbore and Downfall. Never made it to the third land and got crushed by a Baron.
Lost Game 3 after deciding to keep a hand of 4 lands, Seize and Mortars. Got flooded and disrupted a lot by his own seize and Sin Collectors
Round 3 - GW Aggro
Won game 1 pretty fast by outracing him with Demons and Gary
Lost game 2 and 3 after multiple mulligans (both i've mulled to 5) and getting bad draws, stuck on 2-3 lands the whole game and with nothing to do with caryatid + witchstalker
Round 4 - Monored Devotion
Lost both games, this one kinda intentionally since i was tired already and kinda mad for losing 3 matches for bad land draws. Kept hands without enough answers and got punished for it.
Score: 1-3 drop.
I'm tempted to try the monoblack version but I only have 2 Thoughtseizes and cannot get another two until next month. Any ideas of what I could put on its place ?
Splashing blue has been working out really well for me. I only splash for two cards which may not seem like a lot, but both of them help against 2 of the deck's biggest weaknesses. I run 3 Far/Away in the mainboard and this helps against RDW by being a two for one spell. I can also use it to save my creatures, put them in the yard for whip and bring Merchant back to my hand to play again.
The other card I splash for is Cyclonic Rift which takes care of the other problem for our deck Enchantments and Artifacts. This card also serves a secondary function as being a board wipe and is one of the reasons I still run Nykthos in the main.
By splashing blue we'll also have access to Ashiok, which is cool in some situations...
How do we deal with Thassa, I typically try to keep there devotion down to keep her offline, but Doom Blading and Devour Fleshing can only work for so long - eventually they just flood you with threats and start swinging out.
Liliana is the only way to kill her in mono-B, I'm running 1 main and 1 sideboard. As for splashes, the only one I'd consider would be white for Blood Baron, he's a very difficult creature to deal with for the mirror, Esper, Mythic Midrange, UW. I'm sideboarding 2.
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Regarding splashing, I gave up on the red splash because the Mana was way too ****ty. If we had the RB scry lands currently I think it would have been fine, but playing 4 guildgate 4 bloodcrypt and 2 mountain to be able to run Anger in the board had me losing to my manabase more often than not. While I did enjoy the cards Red gave me (Dreadbore was amazing, as was Slaughter Games out of the board, Rakdos's Return, and Mizzium Mortars), I just gave up and switched out those cards for more thoughtseizes main, devour flesh, ultimate price, and doom blades main to replace the dreadbores and mortars, and while it has made certain hands awkward against various matchups, the fact I could always simply just cast my spells on the turn I needed to cast them was a god send and had led me to performing much better than I did with the red splash.
This right here is why I'm going back to just Mono-Black. I loved when Rakdos Return was going off and Dreadbore and Mizzium Mortars are often just what I need, but too many games were lost due to bad mana. Statistically, the chances of me getting screwed by mana drops is pretty low considering I'm running 4 whole red mana symbols in my deck, but even if it happens just once to me in a tournament, that's too much. Splashing colors might not just be what we need right now. If you do splash, I'd recommend blue or white, as you get access to those scrylands that offset the ETB tapped clause with the Scry 1.
This deck is powerful enough to beat any deck if it draws correctly, so the biggest thing we need is consistency. I think the deck as of now has a solid foundation in the Mono-Black deck that BBD won with last weekend, and the only changes with the deck should only come after the rest of the meta adjusts to MBD.
This right here is why I'm going back to just Mono-Black. I loved when Rakdos Return was going off and Dreadbore and Mizzium Mortars are often just what I need, but too many games were lost due to bad mana. Statistically, the chances of me getting screwed by mana drops is pretty low considering I'm running 4 whole red mana symbols in my deck, but even if it happens just once to me in a tournament, that's too much. Splashing colors might not just be what we need right now. If you do splash, I'd recommend blue or white, as you get access to those scrylands that offset the ETB tapped clause with the Scry 1.
This deck is powerful enough to beat any deck if it draws correctly, so the biggest thing we need is consistency. I think the deck as of now has a solid foundation in the Mono-Black deck that BBD won with last weekend, and the only changes with the deck should only come after the rest of the meta adjusts to MBD.
Splashing both blue and green don't hurt the deck very much, and arguably make it better in certain instances. For example, I'd say that Bg Devotion is better than straight black in the mirror simply because they have ways of dealing with enchantments while straight black does not. That, and Reaper of the Wilds can be difficult to deal with. With blue, you don't really lose much on the mana because you have 8 duals. The problem is that blue doesn't give too much other than Far//Away, Cyclonic Rift, and/or counterspells.
The blue splash doesn't hurt the manabase at all. The scry lands alone are worth the card filtering. And as above posters have said, cyclonic rift and far//away are pretty insane in the mirror, as we'll as the control matchup.
And without losing a single black source, we've gained a way to kill the Gods (great in mirror, an enemy Erebos is disastrous for us), gained one of the best removal cards ever in Abrupt Decay (it also hits Hammer, Spear and Bow, enemy Underworld Connections, and danger cards like Boros Reckoner, and can't be countered), and also gained access to an alternate four-drop in Reaper of the Wilds if more answers pop up for Desecration Demon. We could rework the deck to have ramp with Sylvan Caryatid, or put in Scavenging Ooze because that thing is just a house anyway (though I'd rather stick to the main plan). You could even use Vraska the Unseen if you want! Additionally, each of these cards only have a single G in them, so we only ever need a single dual on the field. And once the BG scrylands come in (I think next set?), the list only gets stronger.
(Still gonna pray to Erebos for proper black sweeper though!)
I think the way we fight Master of Waves in this deck is using all of our targeted removal to kill him, rather than try to kill the elementals. If you want to, though, Ratchet Bomb has better coverage than any of them though, killing all tokens outright (and won't hit our rats, as they're copies rather than creature tokens and have a CMC of 2!). This nerfs Voice of Resurgence, Advent of the Wurm and such pretty well too. Probably best to just go after Master of Waves directly though, or even race them.
You're right -- I haven't faced Blue devotion in any of my match-ups yet and seeing it do well in the last two major events has made me overly cautious. That shouldn't prevent me from using logic, though
It seems like "card removal" and "card draw" both lead to potential card advantage, which are two different means to a similar end.
If you're worried about a singular threat in their hand, Thoughtseize can have that taken care of at the start of the game.
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If you go the aggro route you probably could cut it but if you want to win long games Connections is the card you want to have.
Surely even the most stable deck has weaknesses, or else we wouldn't be playing anything else. The cards I just mentioned deal with things that mono black either can't normally hit or has relatively few answers for. Even the mirror match has weaknesses that you can improve on, i.e. what if they get to X first? How do you come out to win that situation? You can accept the coin flip, or try to build in more outs.
Blood Baron - most lists run 2-3 Devour Flesh but if they have Mutavault, lots of other creatures, or counters, it's going to be a tough race. Yes you can discard him, but lists running 4 specifically against us will be an issue.
Gods - Specifically Thassa, Purphoros, and Erebos can really hurt, even if they never get to animate.
Removal - Doom Blade and Ultimate Price have limitations; more universal removal suites are available with more colors.
Enchantments/Artifacts - Black normally has no way to remove resolved ones.
Sweepers - Black doesn't have any but Ratchet Bomb and... Shrivel.
I'm not a fan of reaver at all but I agree that a splash can be well worth it. Blue is probably the best one for Rift, counters, and a few other tricks you may want to include. Still working with several splashes just to see if any are worth it.
Our main base is underworld connections, gary, and whip. I'm not sure about the specter since I consider even more removal moving in at some point but if things stay the same, then specter is also a foundation. After that, we have some leeway with what we decide to play. The standard set by BBD is still very powerful and possibly the best deck but it's worth looking anyway.
For the reasons of dieing to underworld i only run 3. When i can get some lifegain it works wonders but when i dont i usually have a harder time winning. This has let me to want to remove threats in opponents hands to slow them down while i try and play catchup.
Mind you this is based on my luck in the draw and specific play style relative to my local meta. Ill post my list after work to show the differences.
Splashing blue has been working out really well for me. I only splash for two cards which may not seem like a lot, but both of them help against 2 of the deck's biggest weaknesses. I run 3 Far/Away in the mainboard and this helps against RDW by being a two for one spell. I can also use it to save my creatures, put them in the yard for whip and bring Merchant back to my hand to play again.
The other card I splash for is Cyclonic Rift which takes care of the other problem for our deck Enchantments and Artifacts. This card also serves a secondary function as being a board wipe and is one of the reasons I still run Nykthos in the main.
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I never said it did not have soft spots, but these soft spots for this deck are really not very soft in all actuality. Splashing to fix minor problems creates more problems than it ever even had to fix in the first place. You beat Blood Baron by stacking out non creature permanents into multiple Merchants. Decks like BWR have no way to stop you from jamming the board with things like Underworld Connections and Whip of Erebos except for Thoughtseize and Wear/Tear and you shoudl realistically be keeping them too busy to even be using those cards effectively enough to stop Gray Merchant from closing the game out. You beat Blood Baron by grinding out their life without ever having to attack. Besides, Devour Flesh fixes enough in that match as it is.
Thassa decks you should be able to beat. I am sorry, but I do not buy into the idea that the Mono Blue match is so hard that you have to actually dig deep and dip into a second color. Not by any stretch. The same goes for Purphoros. Erebos is an actual God I think you are justified worrying about, but Duress and Thoughtseize really make playing this card in the mirror, not a very effective maneuver in my opinion. Erebos is good when his count is low enough to impact a game based on the sheer luck of drawing him and splashing is not going to hinder luck.
You are mono Black. Run 4 Hero's Downfall...
As for Ratchet Bomb, that is the best you can do. If you want a sweeper, you really thing trying to eek out RR is going to help your deck? Or are you going to be bold and try to stick it out until turn 6 so you can cast Merciless Eviction? We all know Supreme Verdict will almost never happen...
I understand the desire to splash a second color to patch holes, but unlike Mono U and GR, Mono Black and Mono Red cannot afford to be splashing simply because the splashes are just not stronger than running your mono colored set up, in Mono Red's case, this might not be entirely true, but it is still valid.
Mono Black has the fewest holes to patch and they are not even holes, they are dents and nicks.
I think the main thing we disagree on is how much you lose by splashing. Personally I find my mana base perfectly fine and would argue that we have much less to lose from a couple tapped lands than the blue and red aggro-devotion decks. The strongest argument I see in favor of staying mono is that it's likely to cost a couple extra life against RDW but you get some good options against them in return.
Erebos is a creature.
He has the creature subtype so he is a creature everywhere except on the battlefield when you dont have enough devotion.
Thanks though.
I feel that even though we do get very powerful and good cards that help shore up our decks weaknesses by splashing, hurting the mana base creates a much larger problem then those weaknesses. I might try a light blue splash again at some point for cyclonic rift and Far//Away again, but I'll see about that. For now being able to just cast removal turn after turn against aggro or just rip apart controls hand without worrying about the manabase slowing me down or hurting me has been sufficient enough, my biggest losses lately are due to me either playing suboptimally (I.E. making poor decisions, poor sideboarding, not playing around obvious bait) or drawing poorly (sometimes you just draw 7 lands off the top of your deck even with Underworld Connections and don't get there).
I think at this point the only thing to do with the deck is just make slight changes to the 75 based on how the meta is looking. Deciding between things like main deck Lifebane Zombie, whether Specter is good enough in the 75, whether or not we need more discard or removal, etc... And just tuning those numbers until either there's some major breakthrough that we haven't considered or the meta drastically changes in a direction we didn't see coming.
As far as Mono U goes I think the matchup is fine. Game 1 can be rough, but postboard you just side in every piece of removal against them, even Dark Betrayal is good (nabs that nasty specter), and pithing needle (naming Thassa usually, occasionally Jace) and just keep them off devotion. There's those awkward times where their devotion is from Bident, Jace and Thassa, but Hero's Downfall and Devour Flesh really shine here.
Round 1 - BUG Control
Kicked his butt off with Seize and Return followed by demon and gary. Game 2 was piece of cake
Round 2 - Junk Midrange
Won game 1 by dropping multiple seizes / lifebanes (i run them MD) and killing the threats he dropped.
Lost Game 2, mulliganed to 5 with land land Gary Seize, Dreadbore and Downfall. Never made it to the third land and got crushed by a Baron.
Lost Game 3 after deciding to keep a hand of 4 lands, Seize and Mortars. Got flooded and disrupted a lot by his own seize and Sin Collectors
Round 3 - GW Aggro
Won game 1 pretty fast by outracing him with Demons and Gary
Lost game 2 and 3 after multiple mulligans (both i've mulled to 5) and getting bad draws, stuck on 2-3 lands the whole game and with nothing to do with caryatid + witchstalker
Round 4 - Monored Devotion
Lost both games, this one kinda intentionally since i was tired already and kinda mad for losing 3 matches for bad land draws. Kept hands without enough answers and got punished for it.
Score: 1-3 drop.
I'm tempted to try the monoblack version but I only have 2 Thoughtseizes and cannot get another two until next month. Any ideas of what I could put on its place ?
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By splashing blue we'll also have access to Ashiok, which is cool in some situations...
Liliana is the only way to kill her in mono-B, I'm running 1 main and 1 sideboard. As for splashes, the only one I'd consider would be white for Blood Baron, he's a very difficult creature to deal with for the mirror, Esper, Mythic Midrange, UW. I'm sideboarding 2.
This right here is why I'm going back to just Mono-Black. I loved when Rakdos Return was going off and Dreadbore and Mizzium Mortars are often just what I need, but too many games were lost due to bad mana. Statistically, the chances of me getting screwed by mana drops is pretty low considering I'm running 4 whole red mana symbols in my deck, but even if it happens just once to me in a tournament, that's too much. Splashing colors might not just be what we need right now. If you do splash, I'd recommend blue or white, as you get access to those scrylands that offset the ETB tapped clause with the Scry 1.
This deck is powerful enough to beat any deck if it draws correctly, so the biggest thing we need is consistency. I think the deck as of now has a solid foundation in the Mono-Black deck that BBD won with last weekend, and the only changes with the deck should only come after the rest of the meta adjusts to MBD.
Splashing both blue and green don't hurt the deck very much, and arguably make it better in certain instances. For example, I'd say that Bg Devotion is better than straight black in the mirror simply because they have ways of dealing with enchantments while straight black does not. That, and Reaper of the Wilds can be difficult to deal with. With blue, you don't really lose much on the mana because you have 8 duals. The problem is that blue doesn't give too much other than Far//Away, Cyclonic Rift, and/or counterspells.
And without losing a single black source, we've gained a way to kill the Gods (great in mirror, an enemy Erebos is disastrous for us), gained one of the best removal cards ever in Abrupt Decay (it also hits Hammer, Spear and Bow, enemy Underworld Connections, and danger cards like Boros Reckoner, and can't be countered), and also gained access to an alternate four-drop in Reaper of the Wilds if more answers pop up for Desecration Demon. We could rework the deck to have ramp with Sylvan Caryatid, or put in Scavenging Ooze because that thing is just a house anyway (though I'd rather stick to the main plan). You could even use Vraska the Unseen if you want! Additionally, each of these cards only have a single G in them, so we only ever need a single dual on the field. And once the BG scrylands come in (I think next set?), the list only gets stronger.
(Still gonna pray to Erebos for proper black sweeper though!)