Balaam__ you can use evasive Lifelink and deathtouch, vampires, and drain your opponent, or you can use Crypt Rats, which is the better Pestilence, and hit the board and your opponent, with maybe a few burn spells, removal, hand distraction or land hate, it would still be burn in my opinion.

Crypt Rats is definitely closer to something I’d include. At for a 1/1, it’s too weak to stick around long yet too expensive to justify replacing Bond of Agony with it.

Vampire Cutthroat and Vampire of the Dire Moon Are so underrated.

@HobbyMan5000 They’re good cards to be sure, but unsuitable. This is the mono approximation of a mono burn deck. If it doesn’t cause the opponent to lose life directly, it doesn’t make the cut.

That’s cool to each in their own, me personally Vampire Cutthroat and Vampire of the Dire Moon are hardly ever blocked, they might as well be enchantments that read each turn Targeted opponent loses one life and you gain one life.

I honestly don’t know how you can keep coming up with awesome deck ideas as frequently as you do. It is impressive how fun looking all of your decks are.

Thanks DBCooper! I think I have more fun building them than actually playing them. I find it very compelling to look through old cards or seldom played cards and try and imagine ways to build a deck around some strange mechanic or interaction.

Back again, I’ve been test playing this deck again, because I love black burn, I come in peace with some friendly suggestions, Thrull Parasite would be interesting to extort for all the burn spells, I would mainboard Collective Brutality it can burn, and I can be of other value, Smallpox can burn and slow down the game, in between Collective Brutality and Smallpox they can service as a discard outlet for Alms of the Veins madness ability, I feel like 4 Piranha Marsh coming into play tap slows down the deck too much, I feel like it’s just not worth it for 1 life, I think Marsh Flats would be a good investment it’s the cheapest swamp fetching land that can fetch Leechridden Swamp, I wish more people would make Black burn builts, I am a black burn nut,

Thank you for the continued interest, HobbyMan5000. Your suggestions are viable, although I don’t think they all belong in the same deck. Thrull Parasite is very interesting—I initially passed on it because I thought its Extort ability only applied to creatures, but it’s viable for any spell. I’ll have to playtest it though, since I’m not sure it’s the most efficient way to burn/drain. That one could be used for Bump in the Night for instance. But the thrull is worth considering, at least for now.

Smallpox is a great card, but arguably should be built around rather than just added in. Same with Alms of the Vein. It’s not cost efficient enough at ; I’d need to completely rebuild to take advantage of its Madness cost. I don’t think a 3 card interaction between smallpox, Collective Brutality and Alms of the Vein is worth the self inflicted harm from the pox. We’re not really set up to take advantage of self sacrifice.

I do, however, think you’re right about too many Piranha Marshes. I’ll want to see it around once per game, so I’ll adjust the counts to 2-3 or so. I’d also agree with your feelings on Collective Brutality; it would already be maindecked if not for the steep price.

I consider this a finished build centering around theme and budget. Barring any new cards yet to be released, playtest results or major price drops for certain existing cards, I won’t be making any adjustments aside from lowering the Piranha Marsh counts.

Do you encounter the situation often where you're top-decking? Or do you aim at killing your opponent quick enough? Because Vampire's Kiss can really filter your bad top-decks out.

Thanks for posting owenger. I haven’t done much of anything with this deck since I built it, and I haven’t been keeping up with the hefty number of expansions Wizards churns out each year. Vampire's Kiss is a new card for me, but seems quite nice. I’ll add it to the maybeboard for when I eventually give this deck a tune up. Thanks!

Thanks for posting owenger. I haven’t done much of anything with this deck since I built it, and I haven’t been keeping up with the hefty number of expansions Wizards churns out each year. Vampire's Kiss is a new card for me, but seems quite nice. I’ll add it to the maybeboard for when I eventually give this deck a tune up. Thanks!

I've always wanted to make a very specific burn deck with Triskaidekaphobia as the top end. You could definitely burn them out by turn 5 with that card.

so do i understand this correctly? turn one you play Bond of Agony for 17 or more life, turn two you play Bump in the Night and its GG's? you must be super fun at parties, hahahaha.

@ Bulldawg1310

Bond of Agony has an X-cost, but the life payment is an ADDITIONAL cost, not a supplement to using mana (like Phryexian mana costs on stuff like Dismember). You still have to pay X colorless to fire the spell, and then you lose life equal to X; so no this is not a Turn 2 crusher.

That would be ridiculous haha ;)

Apollo_Paladin duh! sorry, slow brain moment, its still early. thanks for the explanation.

Not sure if you noticed, but Imp's Mischief is no longer a budget card.

@Epidilius that’s true. It wasn’t quite as pricey when I built this, but it rose a bit for sure. I left it in because I happen to have a few, but maybe I ought to remove it for the sake of those wishing to build this with tighter budgets. Problem is that I can’t seem to find any card that comes close to functioning the same way. Any ideas?

Spellskite probably wont lose as much in one shot, but over time it could.

With Spellskite, you can hold priority and keep activating it.

sweet! i did a thing then! made up for my brain fog from earlier.

Also, probably important to note, with Spellskite the ability or spell on the stack doesn't even need to target. If your opponent cracks a fetch land, you can respond by activating Spellskite, targeting the fetch's activated ability. Spellskite's ability won't do anything in this case, just cause you to lose life, but you can target anything that is on the stack.

Pain's Reward deck? lol

For real though, I think Cast Down not hitting legendary creatures is sort of a big deal because of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Omnath, Locus of Creation seeing so much play. Maybe Bloodchief's Thirst, Murderous Rider, Profane Command, or Dismember fit the budget?

Then, I would say you want a more creature focused deck if you're playing Zulaport Cutthroat or to just drop that card for more spells like Smallpox or something. I think playing more creatures along with Warlock Class could be fun, though. You could throw in Ruthless Ripper, Vicious Conquistador, Spawn of Mayhem, and maybe even Reaper's Talisman to just be really aggro with the creatures.

Finally, I think Soot Imp and/or Killing Wave could work for the sideboard.

Thanks for posting, ThisIsMyAccount. That’s a lot to think about and you make some weighty arguments (especially about not being able to hit that stupid Legendary monkey >_>). I’ve gone ahead and added some of your suggestions to the maybeboard for the inevitable future revision of this deck.

I’m also relatively happy with the direction and balance it’s currently at though. Adding more creatures to capitalize on Zulaport Cutthroat is definitely a valid direction to take the build, but I wanted to approximate a true Burn deck as closely as I could, focusing more on casting (pseudo) direct damage spells. I really only have the creatures I do so as to have something of a physical presence. But perhaps that will be adjusted down the road, who knows. In any case, great ideas and thanks again for the interest!

Balaam__ - Another great deck! I see you rotate your decks through but each is always unique and I always need think to myself, “I would hate to play this, it looks so smooth!”. Keep ‘‘em coming!