Competitive Mono Black Midrange on a Budget

Modern Budget Competitive Midrange Mono-Black Primer Tempo

Sargeras

Creature (22)

• 2x Brain Maggot
• 4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
• 4x Geralf's Messenger
• 3x Gifted Aetherborn
• 3x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• 2x Kitesail Freebooter
• 3x Nyxathid

Instant (6)

• 4x Dismember
• 2x Victim of Night

Land (24)

• 24x Swamp

Enchantment (2)

• 2x Phyrexian Arena

Sorcery (4)

• 3x Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1x Wrench Mind

Artifact (2)

• 2x Lashwrithe

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Sideboard

Sorcery (9)

• 2x Drown in Sorrow
• 3x Duress
• 1x Memoricide
• 3x Rain of Tears

Artifact (4)

• 3x Nihil Spellbomb
• 1x Whip of Erebos

Instant (2)

• 2x Extirpate

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Maybeboard

Creature (9)

• 1x Abyssal Persecutor
• 1x Despoiler of Souls
• 1x Geralf's Messenger
• 1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
• 1x Liliana's Specter
• 1x Nantuko Shade
• 1x Pack Rat
• 1x Sangromancer
• 1x Voldaren Pariah  ^Flip

Artifact (5)

• 1x Dragon's Claw
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Ratchet Bomb
• 1x Tormod's Crypt

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Waste Not

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Flaying Tendrils
• 1x Rain of Tears
• 1x Sign in Blood

Land (2)

• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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WELCOME TO BUDGET MONO BLACK MIDRANGE

If you are like me and money for magic isn't exactly something you have a ton of, then this deck might be for you. There is also an upgraded list towards the bottom of this.

WHY SHOULD YOU PLAY MONO BLACK MIDRANGE?

This deck is very effective at fighting a majority of popular decks in the format, as the massive amount of creature hate, hand disruption, and card advantage allow us to stop our opponent's hand and board from becoming an issue and keeping them on top-deck support while we beat them to death with our efficient creatures.

Since we are a mono black deck, we have access to the cheapest and most effective creature and hand hate magic has to offer us without the pain of dealing with things like mana fixing. Also, you will notice that we play a LOT of removal, very smilier to Jund in that sense, everything is based on value, and as a midrange deck thats exactly what we are shooting for.

MAINBOARD

Inquisition of Kozilek: With budget being a big concern here, we can't just throw in Thoughtseize, so in game 1, this is your main weapon against combo and control strategies since it hits most of the cards in the format anyway.

Wrench Mind: The closest we have to Hymn to Tourach in modern, Wrench mind is great as a one-of since it can widdle down our opponents hand even further. (unless they are playing affinity/eggs/tron)

Victim of Night: One of Mono black's cheapest and most effective removal spells, since there aren't way too many vampires, werewolves, or zombies running around in modern.

Gifted Aetherborn: One of the most efficent black two drops ever printed, Aetherborn is a Vampire Nighthawk that has had it's CMC reduced by 1 in exchange for clipping it's wings. It is great against aggressive strategies like burn and can take down any creature we can block.

Gatekeeper of Malakir: Although it is technically a 2-drop, Gatekeeper is almost always a 3 drop bear with a Cruel Edict unless you are playing something like a combo deck where the kicker trigger isn't very necessary. Also, any creature that brings it's own removal is welcome to our table.

Dismember: Super key in a format where decks like infect run around, dismember can be a removal spell as quickly as turn 1, which is fantastic should we need to remove something like a Glistener Elf or a Hollow One. Since we play a bunch of lifegain it's no big deal.

Brain Maggot: A Thoughtseize like effect on a 1/1 body, maggot helps us control all the combo decks out there by making them trade cards to kill our little maggot.

Kitesail Freebooter: A Duress on a body, kitesail is great in the air at attacking our opponent, especially if we suit it up with a Lashwrithe.

Lashwrithe: can make our lifelinkers like gifted ae4therborn into burn killing cards, and sometimes when equipped to Kitesail Freebooter you can just fly over for the kill. But since it isn't great for devotion and gets blown out by Kolaghan's Command, we are only running two.

Geralf's Messenger: The evil Kitchen Finks, Messenger contributes devotion and makes our opponent lose life.

Phyrexian Arena: Arena can be a key piece to winning grindy games, as the consistent card draw will allow you to draw more threats and interaction, and while yes it might kill you, your more likely to hit something like Gray Merchant of Asphodel and win the game.

Nyxathid: Many decks in modern like to toss their hands, and Nyxahid takes full advantage of this, often being a 4+ power threat as fast as turn 3.

Gray Merchant of Asphodel: The big daddy of mono-black, Gray Merchant rewards you for playing your deck by giving you the ability to win games through cards like Ghostly Prison and Ensnaring Bridge. Since almost every permanent in the deck contributes at least 2 devotion, it'll win you games.

Swamp: We need lands.

Sideboard

The sideboard should be tuned to your meta, if you want tips, you can go ahead and check out the Mono-black Primer at the end of this list.

PLAYING THE DECK

GAME START

When you play this deck, you want to start out with about 2-3 swamps in hand, anything less is virtually unplayable and will likely result in you losing the game. Make sure you have some removal and/or discard (shouldn't be too hard)

EARLY GAME

This deck plays out the early game mostly through removal and discard spells while keeping up on board control through cards like Gatekeeper of Malakir, this way when our threats hit the board we just need to push to the finish. You have to use your removal and discard spells well, just like if you were to play Jund, wasting spells can cost you the game. Against the grand majority of match ups, you might just be playing discard and removal spells until you get something like Erebos's Titan to give you some wiggle room.

LATE GAME

This deck closes the game by beating our opponent to death (as was mentioned earlier) with value creatures while keeping the pressure on our opponent with cards like Nyxathid.

MATCHUPS

Some people have asked me how the deck does, and what are good/bad matchups for it, so I'll lay down as much as I can:

GOOD MATCHUPS:

These are matchups that we have a good chance of winning against.

Any deck that relies on creatures, things like Zoo, Elves, Hatebears, Infect, Bant Eldrazi, Jund, Affinity, 8-Whack/Goblins, Stompy, Death's Shadow Zoo, Merfolk, etc.

FAIR MATCHUPS:

These are matchups we can win, but are not favorable, especially post board we stand a chance at winning games. (check the maybeboard for hate against these decks if they are in your meta and hate for them isn't already in the sideboard)

Most Combo decks (Ad Nauseum, Pilla-Pala, Sword Combo, Restore Balance)

Boggles, Junk, Token decks, Naya Burn, Skred Red, Delver, etc.

Soul Sisters (If you draw Crusader or Erebos)

POOR MATCHUPS:

These are the worst matchups this deck can face, the list is pretty short, you'll have to work hard to beat these ones.

UW(X) Control Builds (discard is key here)

Graveyard decks like Dredge and Living End (Should you not interact with them post board)

Tron: Tron is probably the worst matchup i've had with this deck besides boggles, as a turn 3 karn pretty much ends us and we can't stop them from ramping, you'd need to play something like Rain of Tears or Ghost Quarter to win this matchup.

FEEDBACK

Please feel free to leave me a comment or an upvote, I'd really appreciate any suggestions that people have for me on how to make the deck stronger/ more competitive while staying on a budget.

WANT TO UPGRADE THIS LIST? NOT A BUDGET PLAYER? LOOK NO FURTHER!

1. Get 4 Thoughtseize, it's necessary for balancing matchups, and you'll thank yourself later if you go into basically any other deck that plays black.

2. Replace the 3 copies of Nyxathid, anbd 1 Lashwrithe with Phyrexian Obliterator, obliterator is an absolute monster, and is huge on the devotion side of things.

3. Tune the sideboard with better pieces to fit your meta, cards like Damping Sphere, Surgical Extraction, etc.

4. Decide if your meta wants Fatal Push or not.

5. Try to find room for Liliana of the Veil she will help you win a large variety of matchups. (she is the most expensive upgrade by far.

6. This is one of my favorite decks I play (YES I DO ACTUALLY PLAY THIS DECK) and the greatest budget build I've made so far, if you want to see what I personally do with it you can find it here, How The Devil Plays MTG: The Mono-Black Primer (This deck eventually just became fused with the primer)

WANT TO SEE A FULL MONO-BLACK PRIMER?

Yes, I did actually make a full mono-black primer, you can check it out at this link! If you are looking for more options or anything else, look here!

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How The Devil Plays MTG: The Mono-Black Primer

Modern Sargeras

SCORE: 73 | 63 COMMENTS | 17530 VIEWS | IN 55 FOLDERS

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WANT MORE?

If you enjoyed this deck, feel free to check out my other budget decks on my profile @ Sargeras

Date added	8 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 11 - 4 Rares 21 - 3 Uncommons 3 - 8 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.69
Tokens	Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Budget Ideas, Budget Decks, NEXT DECK, Budget, Modern, MODERN, Potential Decks, BUY THIS!, modern decks, And now for something completely different