This deck is everything mono-black wants to be.
Let me tell you, this guy
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
, I don't like this guy. The reason mono-black is stuck on devotion is this guy. Other than a
Erebos, God of the Dead
in the sideboard devotion doesnt have a dump other than gary. So me and my buddy Nick decided to throw devotion to the curb an run black green.
The first thing that god me excited about running with green in the access to all the grade A removal. Lets just list it off
-
Abrupt Decay
Noteable hits:
Domri Rade
,
Detention Sphere
,
Courser of Kruphix
,
Chained to the Rocks
,
Underworld Connections
-
Hero's Downfall
Noteable hits: any plainswalker, including that pesky
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Soldier of the Pantheon
-
Thoughtseize
Noteable hits:
Blood Baron of Vizkopa
-
Bile Blight
Notable hits
Pack Rat
Elspeth soilders.
Assemble the Legion
tokens
-
Putrefy
Noteable hits:
Whip of Erebos
,
Spear of Heliod
, and creautres with regen, as well as being solid unspecific removal.
and that's just main board, with more deck specific removal in the side featuring
Doom Blade
and
Dark Betrayal
Next thing that excited me was
Reaper of the Wilds
Everyone has gone mad specualting about how good she is. She just never had a deck. Well speculate no more! The deck is here! and it's packing three of her!
Speaking of packing. Im packing rats. Rats on rats. 4 of em. I know. I know. Cliche. But can you profit as much off them as I can? Well with cards like
Scavenging Ooze
and
Deathrite Shaman
I'm not so worried that I have to discard to make rats because anything I throw away, I can make hurt you, or help me.
Now for the sustain.
Scavenging Ooze
is obvious but let me just re-iterate: I don't like gary. He's good because he's got a deck built around his mechanic. But after he hits, he's a blocker, and that's about it. Not even a very good one. Ontop of being a CMC of 5. I think there's a better card in standard at this moment for life swinging and it's
Deathrite Shaman
who, throught his lifetime in plenty of playtesting instances swung life (that's positive for me, negative for them) more than gary had. He also dorks mana when you need on top of being just 1 CMC. Like he was so good that they banned him in modern. Why am I not running 4 copies?
Easy.
Dig.
Grisly slavage making your risky 2 land hand keepable, adding super consistency to the deck, throwing things to eat into the graveyard, and letting you find the perfect creature for any situation. I'm also looking to make this a 4-of if it didn't slow my pace down so much turn 2.
We've also got
Reaper of the Wilds
who with all this removal can scry a bunch... Like seriously.. a sureme verdict with reaper out, half the time, I'm not even mad. I get so much dig out of it you'll just see another one pop out of my deck, that or a rat that will start breeding. She makes up pretty well for the lack of scry land. That being said. Wizards. Im upset with you. I want my scry land. I feel dirty running these gates.
If the above wasn't enough utility let me tell you about
Varolz, the Scar-Striped
He gives you super impressive late game bite. your
Desecration Demon
die? Well that's 6 +1/+1 counters for 4 mana waiting for you. It was a common occurence to have a 10/11 reaper on the feild during testing. He's also naturally resistent to board wipes, so that's always helpful in the control matchup.
Desecration Demon
is obvious. 6/6 flier for 4... Uhh, yes. But this time, when they sack creatures. You can just scooze them or shaman them for a nice profit. That's sac a creature and I gain 2. In a lot of cases.
The sideboard better known as: what am I scared of?
Wellllllll
Blood Baron of Vizkopa
Is something that makes me crap my pants when I see it hit. So I added in a
Lifebane Zombie
to the main just because I know how many fans he has. Lifebane is also great with the recent meta favorite G/R monsters packing things like
Polukranos, World Eater
Which doesn't scare me near as much as baron does. Polukranos. I downfall him. Strombreath Dragon? putrefy. but blood baron....I either race him. Or scoop. So I threw and extra couple of life banes to the sideboard to have an answer to him other than
Thoughtseize
and
Scavenging Ooze
Another thing that scares me is the control matchup, just because the deck is so good. I packed in Mistcutter Hydras in the side to deal with control and mono-blue matches. as well as
Golgari Charm
to surive verdict.
Golgari Charm
is more versitile than just suriving board whipes though. It kills detention spehere along with
Abrupt Decay
and
Assemble the Legion
which is a killer game 1.
i also have found that I crave removal like a fat kid craves cake. But I do like it when my remval doesnt take up all the mana I need for a turn. So the deck specific remval in the side is a choice of mine that can really profit if you board right. You can even just swap the card advantage of
Read the Bones
out for more remval if you run into an aggro deck.
Updates on this deck:
First time testing at FNM (don't usually have fridays off)
Took 1st place! Going 2-0, 2-0, 2-0
First game I was running against a boros burn deck packing stormbreaths, chandras pehonix, chained to the rocks boros reckoner and a ton of face burn. Beat it pretty handily. Desecration demon really was a meance in the air, stopping stormbreath dead in its tracks once while I found the removal for it. He did get quite flooded on game 1 but game 2 was a fair win.
Also playes his slesnya aggre deck with compelete with voices, advent of the worm and selesnya charm. Beat it no sweat, even when it was packing heat.
round 2 was this weird green white karmetra deck I've never seend before. It used Bow of nylea, spear of heliod, and tried to pump out a ton of soilders. Unsussefully I might add, due to the fact that killed the soilders he did manage to get out with bile blight and kept pummeling with pack rats.
round 3 I was facing a land destruction deck. It was actually crazy good and I really commend the builer for his rouge work. He poped my lands one by one, but since I had resolved a demon (thank you grisly slavage!!) before they were all gone and answered a stormbreath with a downfall he lost due to demon abuse.
game 2 was much the same. Resolved a demon, he slaughtergames the turn after and calls for demon. To late dude. I bet he will be salty about that one for some time to come.
Will be going next friday and will keep a more detailed report, until then, happy magicing!
--2nd time at FNM--
Round 1 1-2 loss
Lost the first round to a boros burn deck similar to the one I played in the first FNM. First game looked great. T1 shaman T2 grisly slavage T3 Desecration Demon with shaman as a dork. I dominated that first one.
Game 2 didn't go so hot as I kept being forced to remove his chandra's pheonix, normally not a problem as I can simply scavenging ooze of deathrite shaman out of it going back to my opponents hand but just couldn't get any of those creatures in my hand despite digging for them. I sided in golgari charms to wipe creatures with 1 toughness. Sided out read the bones and looking back at this matchup I'm moving golgari charms to the main because there are so many matchups that having charm comes in handy. He eventually just tapped my demons down and burned me out by shocking my face and getting chandras pheonix back to his hand, a good win on his part.
Game 3 I had to mulligan down to 5. It wasn't to difficult to come back from it though, I managed to remove his threats, shaman his phoenixes and stabalize at 7 life left and a desecration demon out. He has 2 cards in hand and they just happen to be boros charm and lightning strike. He burned out my shaman earlier so I had no life gain and I had to swallow it. It sucked but it was a matchup that I don't think favored him and kudos to him for pulling it out, I'll take the loss.
Round 2 2-0 Win
Playing another burn deck of a friends I was paired up with. I had a hand in designing this deck that packs firedancer satyr, young pyromancer, purpheros, and a lot of burn. It wasn't the most favorable match-up for him as I managed to easily steamroll as soon as I dug into some of my bigger creatures, namely reaper. Not much to say about this 2-0 other than the deck just wasn't built to handle mine.
Round 3 2-0 win
Game 1
Playing a slightly modified white black deck running Barons, arch angels and lifelink. It was actually a successfully put together deck and the games went long. I played the control deck in this matchup and the game even got so out of my favor that my opponent had an buffed baron for a turn, which I quickly deathrited out of. Winning the match with quite a few pack rats taking there toll as I raced with baron and recouped life with shaman. It was a satisfying victory to say the least.
Game 2
He managed to land not 1 but 2 archangels of thune that began to buff eachother. I ended up with a varolz, reaper and demon on my board and him with the two angels. My reaper is 10/11 from a varloz helping me scavenge a previously grisly salvaged desecration demon. I manage to top deck a hero's downfall and take care of the angel he sent in to attack. He ended up at 8 life with a slightly beefy angel ready to block for him out when he top decks a devour flesh. I sac demon and gain 6. Next run I scavenge onto varolz and swing for 8 each, he blocks with angel and recoups the life while that angel dies (just barely) and top decks nothing to get him out of the situation. was a good victory
