Korlash and Haakon’s Casual Leisure Club

Modern Control Discard Midrange Mono-Black Primer

JKRice

Creature (11)

• 3x Gatekeeper of Malakir
• 3x Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
• 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 4x Korlash, Heir to Blackblade

Sorcery (10)

• 4x Collective Brutality
• 4x Night's Whisper
• 2x Torment of Hailfire

Land (21)

• 1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 18x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Planeswalker (5)

• 2x Liliana of the Veil
• 3x Liliana, the Last Hope

Instant (8)

• 1x Dismember
• 4x Fatal Push
• 3x Nameless Inversion

Artifact (5)

• 1x Blackblade Reforged
• 4x Nightmare Lash

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Sideboard

Artifact (7)

• 2x Silent Gravestone
• 3x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1x Sword of Truth and Justice

Creature (5)

• 1x Gatekeeper of Malakir
• 2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 2x Mirri the Cursed

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Damnation
• 1x Mutilate
• 1x Torment of Hailfire

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The Deck

As a modern player, I know that we always spend so much time keeping up with the meta and trying to build the best decks that we forget to relax, kick back our feet, and play a nice, slow game. Here at Korlash and Haakon’s Casual Leisure Club, you can learn once again to unwind and get rid of all the trauma caused by playing against twelve tron decks in a row at the last GP.

This is a slow, black, midrange control deck featuring Korlash, Heir to Blackblade as our key beater, and some combos involving the other star of the deck, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge. We have a removal package that is not to be trifled with in order to make it to the midgame, where this deck shines. Finally, we have some ramp, as well as alternative midrange wincons, so we can with with Nightmare Lash or even a big enough torment of hail fire. In this deck you will not find complicated combos that are tedious and easy to mess up, nor will you find a boring linear strategy in which you brainlessly play out broken bears. Instead, you will find Ann uncomplicated, but pleasant to play deck with synergies, but no combos. Welcome to casual modern.

Card Choices

Removal

1: Fatal Push is just the best removal spell in modern period. Automatic 4-of in most decks that run black.

2: Dismember is a great situational card, and even though it is good as a one mana spell, we will usually be able to pay the full mana cost.

3: Collective Brutality kills off creatures and mitigates much of the self-damage that this deck can cause, but it is really a four-of because it can discard haakon.

4: Nameless Inversion is the sweet superstar of the deck. Although it is a good removal spell on its own, it has a special place in the deck. When haakon is on the field, we can recursively play it (changeling means it is a knight) and wipe the board.

Midrange/Other

1: Korlash, Heir to Blackblade is the go-to beater, which is pretty obvious considering the amount of swamps we play. He also ramps quite a bit, and is very helpful when he does.

2: Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is basically a combo piece (although I guess 3 damage is better than nothing), as he lets you play a discarded korlash, and can also boardwipe with Nameless Inversion.

3: Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is the extra midrange whacker. His lifelink becomes ridiculous when you equip Nightmare Lash, he is a hate card against dredgevine, and he mini-combos with haakon (sac haakon every turn, then play him back). All in all a good choice.

4: Gatekeeper of Malakir is part of the removal package, but is honestly better played in many cases as an early beater to force an answer. The main reason I play him is because he is on curve

5: Liliana, the Last Hope kills dorks, and that’s just amazing. In casual, and even in competitive, killing a birds of paradise or a noble hierarch can mean a win. However, it also helps to ramp with korlash. When you discard a korlash to his grandeur ability, you can bring him back to your hand with liliana’s -1 and do it again.

6: Liliana of the Veil is removal and a discard outlet for haakon. Although her ulti isn’t an automatic game ender, it sure helps a lot.

7: Night's Whisper is an extremely important card. This deck quickly empties its hand, and the curve is far too high for bob (as I found out the hard way). Therefore, a card that not only replaces itself, but gives you an extra card as well, has extreme value in the deck. This was originally Read the Bones, but the extra mana cost proved not to be worth the scry.

Wincons

1: Nightmare Lash is the main wincon. With this on the field and removal in hand, you can win in two swings with korlash. Honestly Lashwrithe would be better here, but I didn’t like the art at all.

1.5: Blackblade Reforged is a wincon I guess, but mostly it’s in here for the flavor.

2: Torment of Hailfire is the backup. Even if it doesn’t kill them, it should set them so far behind that you are sure to do so yourself in the near future. If you have ramped off of korlash, it is likely you will kill them outright.

3: Liliana, the Last Hope is the final wincon. If we are playing a grindy game, getting her ulti will be vital, since it will outpace any control deck.

Sideboard

For the sideboard we have a wide array of equipment, removal, and utility, presented for your perusal

1: Damnation, Mutilate, and Gatekeeper of Malakir make up the extra removal, which we bring in for most matchups.

2: Mirri the Cursed absolutely kills decks that have blockers that we couldn’t get through game one. If we have a lash on the field, we can sometimes just play her and win on the spot.

3: Having an extra Torment of Hailfire can be very useful in resetting the board state against wide matchups.

4: Silent Gravestone is actually there to stop cards like Surgical Extraction and Scavenging Ooze from ruining your fun (although its dual nature as graveyard hate is also quite nice).

The Swords

Ah yes, the swords. Following the pseudo-equipment-theme of the deck (korlash and his blackblade), these fit right in. Not only do they provide utility and aggro off of the triggered abilities, their static abilities are vital as well. In any matchup except mono red, you can bring in a sword and it will be useful.Light and Shadow protects against Path to Exile and Dismember, while returning a discarded korlash so that you can ramp and extra time each turn. Truth and Justice protects against the odd Vapor Snag and proliferates the planeswalkers. Feast and Famine is the best value sword in here, increasing your boardwipe potential with nameless inversion and getting rid of answers your opponent has in their hand. The swords make this deck somewhat of a transformer, turning from mono black control to equipment value post-board.

Notable Exclusions

1: Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek are usually staples in mono black control. They were excluded because they are not fun to play, nor are they fun to play against. Also, the only good art on either of them is lorwyn thoughtseize.

2: Dark Confidant was originally in the deck, but since a lot of the deck is three of four mana, we would just lose the game after playing Bob.

3: Phyrexian Obliterator is a cruel card when you lay it down, a card that would not be on curve for the deck, and it has bad art.

Gameplay

Early Game (T1-T3)

Your main goal here is to keep them off the board until turn four

Unless you have a Collective Brutality and haakon in hand, the early game is very draw-go. You want to wait for the opponent to force you to make a move, which will usually be sticking their turn one play in the yard. Whenever you can, cast Night's Whisper, unless there is some sort of imminent threat within the first couple of turns. You want to dig for as many swamps as possible. If you have haakon, this is especially important, since you can night's whisper on turn two, going up to eight cards in hand, allowing you to discard haakon. If you have brutality and haakon in hand, drop those as soon as possible. If by turn three you have killed all their stuff and they don't have a threat on the field (or they have a creature with 2 toughness), you can play out Liliana, the Last Hope and start gearing towards her ulti. However, if you can get haakon on the field by turn three, and you have nameless inversion either in hand or the yard, definitely go for that instead. The very first priority, but one that is rarely necessary, is that you should lay down a Blackblade Reforged over anything else. This will save mana in the midgame.

The best start is probably fatal push killing the turn one play, collective brutality killing their turn 2 play and discarding haakon, and butcher of malakir killing the turn three play.

quick note on Collective Brutality: if you are playing the first mode of brutality, you should prioritize the important combo cards first, then the draw spells, then everything else. In this deck, if someone makes you discard Night's Whisper, you will feel the pain in a couple of turns, and the same is true for other decks, so go for the draw spells unless there is something else worth making them discard.

Mid Game (T4-T6)

Your main goal at this point is to either drop a couple of threats or start the haakon/inversion combo to continuously reset the boardstate.

Turn four is a gateway turn for you, since that is when you play a beater (korlash/kalitas) or start wiping the board with nameless inversion. You want to transition to tempo a bit here, keeping big threats off the field but investing most of your mana into your own threats. If you lay down a korlash and have another in hand, wait until your opponent's end step on the turn after you play it, then discard the one in your hand. This way, you wait out any removal they might have, but you don't wait too long, and you get the ramp no matter what if you need it. If you manage to discard the korlash in hand, but the korlash on the field dies somehow, it might be time to punish them with a Torment of Hailfire, the minimum X value by that point being 4, more than enough to decimate any advantage they might have. If you played Kalitas instead, be prepared for him to die. You have no way to protect him and no redundancy. On turn five, you want to either equip an already played blackblade, or play and equip Nightmare Lash, on to korlash, then swing for average ten damage. If you ramped with his grandeur ability, you should keep those two mana open to regenerate korlash should your plans go awry.

Now let's say you got haakon on the field, and you have nameless inversion either in hand or in the yard. Instead of transitioning to a slightly more tempo playstyle, you should instead be more aggressive in your removal. Act as though every creature your opponent lays down has just said something overly frivolous about your mother. Go ham on the nameless inversion. Turns four and five you can play it twice (-6 toughness probably being enough to kill any creature played during these turns), with the ability to weave in a fatal push on turn five. Turn six is where you can start veating out wide decks, killing three creatures in a turn being a large setback for them. You should focus solely on this, and ignore your wincons for now. If they cant find a way to get rid of haakon, they will run out of steam before you do, leaving you free to kill them at your lesiure.

Late Game (T7-)

At this point, let's assume that you have the game decently under control, or at least that you aren't losing yet. Playing at this point comes down to blockers. Much of the time you will have multiple equipments on your beater of choice (although in Korlash's case you only need one), meaning you can swing for 12+ with one creature. The game then becomes a race, them trying to kill you over the top of your 12/12, you trying to kill them through their interaction and blockers. You should use your removal offensively now, letting their threats connect so they think you don't have interaction, then using interaction to kill the one blocker they keep up, leaving you open to whack them in the face.

Now let's assume you are behind and losing. when playing from behind, you want to get the haakon combo, as that is the easiest and most efficient way to counter an opponent's growing board state. Then, if they run out of steam, rather than investing mana in a creature that will probably be removed, you should go for a grindier win, like a liliana ult or a big hailfire.

A Fancy Button That Definitely Doesn't Give Me An Upvote

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 6 Mythic Rares 21 - 8 Rares 12 - 1 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.59
Tokens	Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, Zombie 2/2 B