Prehaps Mind Shatter would be a better choice over Mind Sludge since thus is two color build.
I've toyed around with mind shatter, but I've found that 3 cards on turn 4, even at random, isn't as backbreaking as 4 cards on turn 4. The ideal situation is harrow turn 3 into sludge or shatter on 4, but against a control deck, 3 cards simply isn't enough.
With 4 cards pitched, it's guaranteed to either eat into their potential landbase, or they pitch the threats in hand and hope to draw into more. Against Jund, 4 cards is nearly always their entire hand anyway.
Mono-Black Control, or MBC, has been a pet project for a lot of people. Unfortunately, it's been tested enough with any number of builds, and it just can't keep pace with the potential 2-for-1s of Jund, or the speed of Boros. MBC has been able to handle itself pretty well against just about everything else, but the cards simply don't exist in black to effectively deal with tokens, speed, or enchantment/planeswalker threats.
So I had an idea. Splash green, just enough to take care of the issues that constantly crop up for a traditional MBC build. The keys to this build are harrow and maelstrom pulse. Pulse is your generic answer to fatties, walkers, enchantments, and even jacerator permanents. Harrow is... amazing. It speeds you up, lets you do ridiculous things with Ob Nix, and lets you tweak the P/T of nightmare and Ob Nix at instant speed, which can be devastating against damage-based removal.
I've toyed around with Lord of Extinction instead of nightmare, but I really like the evasion + the ability to prevent BSA from racing over bigger fat. Maybe if mutilate gets reprinted in worldwake, Lord of Extinction would be relevant.
This deck is able to keep up with Jund and Boros, with the Jund matchup basically boiling down to the strength of the Jund player's opening hand.
There's a few variations of GRed Deck Wins lists floating around. You don't really need to combo anything off of the hellion, since his toughness is high enough to push through a BSA. I could see a deck that runs mana ramp, cascaders like BBE and captured sunlight, and some easy to cast red hasters like Hell's Thunder and Hellspark Elemental. The only thing that sucks is that you run out of gas kinda quickly.
It seems that Obelisk of Alara won't have the impact that you're searching for. It costs 6 to play, THEN you have to activate it. Other cards in your deck already hit harder than that.
Wargate seems like it has applications here, but not as a 4-of.
If you're really trying to go the other way with Spread 'Em, then you need all 12 cascade cards: Capture Sunlight, Bloodbraid Elf, and Ardent Plea. Hey, those Obelisks are out, cram a few Elves in there.
Magma Phoenix might be sideboard against a deck with smaller creatures. Bogarden Hellkite seems more like what you're looking for.
Very interesting. That would still allow me to run DoJ as a sweeper, but now it's faster threats that ramp into bigger threats. Siege Gang and Ant queen would pair very nicely with Baneslayer, and I wouldn't have to worry too much about the lack of removal. I'll try that build out and see how it goes.
Can't run wargate or martial coup, even though they would fit perfectly within the deck. Wargate could actually be cascaded into and serve as mana ramp, but martial coup is a dead card too many times.
I may try a build that doesn't run captured sunlight in favor of wargate.
Magma phoenix is a sweeper that doesn't affect my own fatties. With ardent pleas on the board plus an obelisk, I can basically take out any creature on the board and suck him back into my hand the next turn.
This deck takes the cascade engine from Spread 'Em, and instead of land disruption you pump out mana ramp in the form of Rampant Growth and Trace of Abundance. The upside to this is a more reliable ramp than Naya Lightsaber, and the ability to run threats from 4 colors.
Black brings a boros hoser in the form of malakir bloodwitch, and jacerator hoser in the form of haunting echoes, and instant card draw in the form of esper charm. Liliana Vess is simply a toolbox, allowing you to dig for answers or force the opponent to empty his hand more quickly than he would prefer.
The best part is that the 3cc version does much better in a mirror match than the 4cc. In the last two matches I've played against the 4cc version, it was a joke to remove random colors from my opponent. O rings dealt with Ajani Vs, deft duelist matched BBE, and my bloodwitches + sphinx of JI forced him to drop DoJ on his own creatures.
Put simply, the esper build has more threats, which dictate the plays my opponent can use.
I actually played a version of this from the Esper Cascade Land Denial thread a while ago. I have won games entirely from hitting Day of Judgment from Deny Reality's cascade.
I still can't see why people play the 4cc variant over this because the manabase is less shaky with 3cc. Also, the list I ran had plenty of cascaders for solid enchanting.
I run Battlegrace Angel over Baneslayer Angel so that a Sphinx can lifelink the turn the Angel comes out. I also still don't really like Esper Charm being in the deck because the opponent almost always has a full hand anyway. It is decent for refueling your own hand, but kind of sucks to cascade into. I tried Mind Funeral for awhile in it's slot which worked pretty well(the more land removed from their deck the better).
The esper charm is almost never used for the discard function. It's always nice to have as enchantment hate and instant card draw. I can see your version wanting to cascade into DoJ, but that's because your threat density is a lot lower, and it's your main form of creature removal.
Your take on the deck is very interesting through. I wonder if an esper mill spread 'em list could be functional.
I would actually run Drudge Skeletons over the Dregscape Zombies, since the deathbaron affects skeletons as well, and now you get regenerating deathtouchers.
I would try to find a better answer to flyers instead of trying to push Lord of Extinction. Maybe Vampire Nighthawks, with windstorm in the sideboard to deal with Baneslayer?
Also, there is a limit to playing the high casting cost cascaders in such a deck. I never want to get Day of Judgment out of a Deny Reality, nor do I want to hope to cascade into it when I need a sweeper. I much prefer the card draw of esper charm and the innate card draw of spreading seas. Deny Reality is merely a tempo gain for 5cmc, and kathari remnant is laughably bad, even with ardent pleas.
As I said earlier, I've found that the land-lockdown in the original spread 'em decklist is overkill, and sacrifices solid threats in favor of pushing out more land disruption, making it both more consistent and yet more vulnerable to decks that can handle the disruption.
I've found that the land disruption in the original spread 'em list was overkill against the decks with fragile mana bases, and more uselessness against the mono-decks or aggro decks that couldn't care less about land disruption.
So the cascaders that could be cut were cut. The loss of BBE is significant, but this version of the deck has other early threats in the duelist/ardent pleas. In fact, BBE ended up being stalled out without 1-3 ardent pleas on the board to pump it beyond the "trades with thrinax/goblin guide/knight of the white orchid" level.
I've found that Liliana and the esper charms perform an extremely vital function in the mid-game. They act as the toolbox, giving me chances to dig for answers, or remove them from my opponent's hand. Eventually the opponent is going to get enough of the right mana to cast his stuff. Your early disruption forces him to discard the color-intensive stuff, and he has to play the lighter and less effective cards. Once he starts pumping out those cards, you can use liliana and the esper charms to demolish his hand, or tutor and draw the answers you need to seal the deal.
The land disruption is just a part of the deck. It's not the focus. They delay the game to the point that you can drop your more expensive and more powerful threats, while keeping the trump cards unavailable to your opponent.
It's disgustingly easy to prevent Jund from using it's inherent card-advantage machines to run you over. It's also easy to watch Naya lightsaber drop it's hand in the first 3 turns to pump out that BS angel, then O-ring it or DoJ the board and keep them hosed through disruption.
The land base could be tweaked to accomodate fetches and more basics, but I find the life-gain and the dual-source nature of the refuges to be solid against aggro matchups, despite occasionally being forced to play a turn behind on key spells like DoJ.
Here's a list I've been refining for the last few weeks, and it's landed pretty good percentages against the most common deck matchups. It takes the core of the spread 'em archetype and splashes black instead of red/green in order to make use of esper charm, bloodwitch, and Liliana Vess. The singleton sphinx of the steel wind is there as a late game tutor-piece against jund, valakut, eldrazi, and very rarely boros.
I've been toying with whether or not the bloodwitch is worth running over sphinx of lost truths, and it really comes down to how much presence white has in your meta. She's unanswerable by white weenies and boros, but becomes nearly a dead card against jund.
Splashing black opens up a strong set of sideboard answers to the 2 of the 3 toughest matchups for spread 'em - boros and jacerator. Haunting echoes or quest for ancient secrets both hose jacerator, and the agony warps + wall of denial + path to exile is sided in for the land disruption against boros.
Eldrazi green is the natural enemy to this deck, and every win I've managed against that deck largely comes down to having DoJ and pithing needles available.
I've toyed around with mind shatter, but I've found that 3 cards on turn 4, even at random, isn't as backbreaking as 4 cards on turn 4. The ideal situation is harrow turn 3 into sludge or shatter on 4, but against a control deck, 3 cards simply isn't enough.
With 4 cards pitched, it's guaranteed to either eat into their potential landbase, or they pitch the threats in hand and hope to draw into more. Against Jund, 4 cards is nearly always their entire hand anyway.
So I had an idea. Splash green, just enough to take care of the issues that constantly crop up for a traditional MBC build. The keys to this build are harrow and maelstrom pulse. Pulse is your generic answer to fatties, walkers, enchantments, and even jacerator permanents. Harrow is... amazing. It speeds you up, lets you do ridiculous things with Ob Nix, and lets you tweak the P/T of nightmare and Ob Nix at instant speed, which can be devastating against damage-based removal.
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest
13 Swamp
4 Terramorphic Expanse
Creatures
2 Nightmare
2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Putrid Leech
4 Harrow
3 Mind Sludge
4 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Sign in Blood
2 Grim Discovery
2 Liliana Vess
2 Sorin Markov
2 Deathmark
3 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
3 Vampire Hexmage
2 Doom Blade
3 Marsh Casualties
2 Haunting Echoes
3 Duress
I've toyed around with Lord of Extinction instead of nightmare, but I really like the evasion + the ability to prevent BSA from racing over bigger fat. Maybe if mutilate gets reprinted in worldwake, Lord of Extinction would be relevant.
This deck is able to keep up with Jund and Boros, with the Jund matchup basically boiling down to the strength of the Jund player's opening hand.
Very interesting. That would still allow me to run DoJ as a sweeper, but now it's faster threats that ramp into bigger threats. Siege Gang and Ant queen would pair very nicely with Baneslayer, and I wouldn't have to worry too much about the lack of removal. I'll try that build out and see how it goes.
I may try a build that doesn't run captured sunlight in favor of wargate.
Magma phoenix is a sweeper that doesn't affect my own fatties. With ardent pleas on the board plus an obelisk, I can basically take out any creature on the board and suck him back into my hand the next turn.
4 Seaside Citadel
3 Forest
3 Island
2 Plains
2 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Jungle Shrine
Creatures: 10
4 Baneslayer Angel
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 Magma Phoenix
3 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Trace of Abundance
4 Ardent Plea
4 Captured Sunlight
4 Rampant Growth
4 Day of Judgment
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Obelisk of Alara
2 Chandra Nalaar
3 Pithing Needle
3 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
4 Pyroclasm
2 Quest for Ancient Secrets
3 Luminarch Ascension
The best part is that the 3cc version does much better in a mirror match than the 4cc. In the last two matches I've played against the 4cc version, it was a joke to remove random colors from my opponent. O rings dealt with Ajani Vs, deft duelist matched BBE, and my bloodwitches + sphinx of JI forced him to drop DoJ on his own creatures.
Put simply, the esper build has more threats, which dictate the plays my opponent can use.
The esper charm is almost never used for the discard function. It's always nice to have as enchantment hate and instant card draw. I can see your version wanting to cascade into DoJ, but that's because your threat density is a lot lower, and it's your main form of creature removal.
Your take on the deck is very interesting through. I wonder if an esper mill spread 'em list could be functional.
I would try to find a better answer to flyers instead of trying to push Lord of Extinction. Maybe Vampire Nighthawks, with windstorm in the sideboard to deal with Baneslayer?
As I said earlier, I've found that the land-lockdown in the original spread 'em decklist is overkill, and sacrifices solid threats in favor of pushing out more land disruption, making it both more consistent and yet more vulnerable to decks that can handle the disruption.
So the cascaders that could be cut were cut. The loss of BBE is significant, but this version of the deck has other early threats in the duelist/ardent pleas. In fact, BBE ended up being stalled out without 1-3 ardent pleas on the board to pump it beyond the "trades with thrinax/goblin guide/knight of the white orchid" level.
I've found that Liliana and the esper charms perform an extremely vital function in the mid-game. They act as the toolbox, giving me chances to dig for answers, or remove them from my opponent's hand. Eventually the opponent is going to get enough of the right mana to cast his stuff. Your early disruption forces him to discard the color-intensive stuff, and he has to play the lighter and less effective cards. Once he starts pumping out those cards, you can use liliana and the esper charms to demolish his hand, or tutor and draw the answers you need to seal the deal.
The land disruption is just a part of the deck. It's not the focus. They delay the game to the point that you can drop your more expensive and more powerful threats, while keeping the trump cards unavailable to your opponent.
It's disgustingly easy to prevent Jund from using it's inherent card-advantage machines to run you over. It's also easy to watch Naya lightsaber drop it's hand in the first 3 turns to pump out that BS angel, then O-ring it or DoJ the board and keep them hosed through disruption.
The land base could be tweaked to accomodate fetches and more basics, but I find the life-gain and the dual-source nature of the refuges to be solid against aggro matchups, despite occasionally being forced to play a turn behind on key spells like DoJ.
I've been toying with whether or not the bloodwitch is worth running over sphinx of lost truths, and it really comes down to how much presence white has in your meta. She's unanswerable by white weenies and boros, but becomes nearly a dead card against jund.
Splashing black opens up a strong set of sideboard answers to the 2 of the 3 toughest matchups for spread 'em - boros and jacerator. Haunting echoes or quest for ancient secrets both hose jacerator, and the agony warps + wall of denial + path to exile is sided in for the land disruption against boros.
Eldrazi green is the natural enemy to this deck, and every win I've managed against that deck largely comes down to having DoJ and pithing needles available.
2 Swamp
4 Sejiri Refuge
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Island
4 Plains
4 Jwar Isle Refuge
4 Arcane Sanctum
2 Glacial Fortress
Creatures: 9
2 Malakir Bloodwitch
3 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
3 Deft Duelist
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
2 Liliana Vess
4 Spreading Seas
4 Esper Charm
4 Convincing Mirage
4 Ardent Plea
4 Day of Judgment
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Wall of Denial
2 Haunting Echoes
3 Pithing Needle
4 Path to Exile
2 Quest for Ancient Secrets
2 Agony Warp
Feel free to point out weaknesses or possibly card alternatives.