"A gargoyle's voice reaches pitches that will shatter glass and warp bone."- Shrieking Affliction flavor text.
My very own Discard-deck, slowly built from scratch by a lot of playtesting, advice taken from local players and 8 months of parental leave with my son Mr. Sleep-alot. I am starting to near a stable build, but your suggestions and advice is always welcome!
The idea of the deck is to maintain a board empty of creature-threats while forcing your opponent to discard their hand and finally kill them with Shrieking Affliction and The Rack.
A card-by card walkthrough will follow below:
Barter in Blood: Mid-late game removal that gets you 2 for 1. Can take out a monstrous
Fleecemane Lion
as well as stopping an Invisible Stalker with a ton of equipment despite it's controller fetching a Dryad Arbor. I've also considered Damnation, Languish and
Consuming Vapors
for this slot, but so far this has been proven to be the best choice.
Blightning
: A Lightning Bolt and an unconditional
Wrench Mind
together in a single card. What's not to like!?
Browbeat: Drawing three cards for three manaor getting 5 damage for three mana? It truly is a win-win situation! Hast be a four of since your opponent will always choose damage the first time.
Lightning Bolt: A modern staple card with good reason. Provides instant speed creature removal, speeds up the kill late game and get's 3 loyalty points removed from any planeswalker.
Pain Magnification
: Stalls the opponent in the zone where they take damage from Shrieking Affliction, turns Lightning Bolt and Browbeat into discard-spells and increases the number of discarded cards from
Blightning
and Rakdos's Return. Does nothing on it's own.
Shrieking Affliction: The win-con of the deck. A low cost enchantment that will deal 3 damage to your opponent at least two turns from emptying their hand. Can be cast any turn you have a single black mana left, including T1.
Smallpox: A conditional bomb. Rids you of hexproof/regeneration/indestructible creatures, land-stalls the opponent and brings your opponent one card closer to taking damage from The Rack and Shrieking Affliction. The only Modern legal 2-mana sacrifice effect I know of. Having a Waste Not out helps lessen the blow against yourself a little.
Terminate: Instant-speed unconditional CMC 2 creature removal that also stops regeneration. A crazy amount of value packed in a single card.
The Rack: Win-condition. Wins out over other 1-drops that might fit because of reliability. Deals damage 1 turn earlier/longer than Shrieking Affliction and is even easier to cast, but the damage decreases for each turn your opponent keeps his drawn card.
Waste Not: A versatile card with very good synergies. Provides additional card draw, mana filtering and chump blockers. Also lessens the blow to you for playing Smallpox.
Wrench Mind
: A discard card that will get you 2 for 1 more often than not.
And the sideboard:
Anger of the Gods: A sweeper for when the need of a good sweeping arrives. The exile effect is particularly effective against Eternal Witness-, Token- and Tribal-decks.
Tormod's Crypt: Empties your opponents graveyard. Effective against Reanimator, Delve, Flashback etc.
Disenchant
: Instant-speed removal for enchantments and artifacts, can rid you of a Chalice of the Void or a Leyline of Sanctity. I have yet to meet a deck sideboarding the former, so experience will prove whether I also need to make room for
Shatter
.
Leyline of Punishment: Shuts down any lifegain deck, which is essential when your decks win-con is to outright kill your opponent.The leyline ability makes this card stand out over the alternatives Rain of Gore or Tainted Remedy, especially considering Martyr of Sands.
Leyline of Sanctity: I know of only two cards effective against Boros burn: Leyline of Sanctity and Chalice of the Void. The choice for this deck was obvious.
Smallpox: An additional piece of early removal for those decks that are just riddled with hexproof/regeneration/indestructible creatures.
Cards that i have previously tried but ruled out:
Duress - A card for a card is too ineffective, and i have plenty of other 1-drops.
Inquisition of Kozilek: Same as Duress.
Liliana's Caress - Has to be played early to be efficient, giving the opponent a crucial turn without me bothering them.
Sign in Blood - Losing life to draw cards is too much for me.
Cards that i am still considering:Liliana of the Veil: A versatile planeswalker that helps you keep the field clean and stalls the opponent in that lovely 0-1 hand size zone. And the best part? She only costs three mana!
Tormod's Crypt - Cheaper than Crypt Incursion and does the full job instead of just the half.
Consuming Vapors
- A slower Barter in Blood that i wont hesitate to play if theres only one creature out and that lets me keep my Zombies.
And that's the deck folks!
I'd like to thank zeentch for setting me up with a competitive mana base and sharkudi for building the deck Discarded & Destroyed (Consistent TOP8's @ FNM) that got me hooked on discard to begin with.
Again, if you have any suggestions, please comment below and +1 if you like the deck!
