Surgical Extraction and Bile Blight are handy sideboard cards. Just depends on your local meta I suppose.

Just curious as to your opinion on Thoughtseize over Duress as well as Geth's Verdict for decks that run Kira, Great Glass-Spinner or hexproof/aura.

Loyalty Bile Blight is a meta call indeed; it's a great card to have against tokens, and I don't play that only because there aren't in my meta. Otherwise, it would be included. :)

As for Surgical Extraction instead, I tried it but didn't like it: it's not a bad card, but it requires heavier discard to be efficient imho.

Thoughtseize is quite useless in here, since our discard spells need to get early threats (Inquisition of Kozilek) and noncreature threats (Duress), which we don't have answers against; actually, Thoughtseize can even be harmful in the case we face fast aggro decks or Burn, that are difficult matchups. I'd use it only in specific cases, like a heavy presence of Tron (another hard deck to beat).

Geth's Verdict is a nice card to have, but again depends on your meta. Normally, Gatekeeper of Malakir is better, since it drops a body and 2 devotion, but if you face a lot of hard-to-kill creatures (Geist of Saint Traft, Slippery Bogle and the likes), it's a good idea to switch some of the removals here to Geth's Verdict. Viceversa, if you face decks which swarm the board with weenies, it's very inefficient.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions for the deck!

Is there a reasonable budget replacement for inquisition of kozilek? Its recent price spike has brought a playset to almost $100.

Loading_Error - Well, Actually Thoughtseize XD

Loading_Error Inquisition of Kozilek is quite the go-to discard spell for this deck, since it hits what this deck fears the most - early threats, combo enablers, and overall annoying cards.

I think the better replacement for it is Duress, since the deck packs enough creature removal to not have problems anyway with them and needs something to take care of all the rest.

Of course, this leaves 2 vacant spots, which you can fill as you want.

Kjartan Against common sense, Thoughtseize performs poorly here, since the deck cannot afford the additional life loss in conjunction with Sign in Blood, Phyrexian Arena, Dismember, and generally poor early game. If you want to run some here, I'd suggest no more than 2.

TheLivingCME Mono black devotion is one of the most Thoughtseize supportive decks in modern.

Your deck is not much different from the actual deck. Are you sure it would underperform here :/

Kjartan Absolutely. I heavily played this deck, and it has 2 problems with Thoughtseize. First one is the life loss itself: since the deck is vulnerable to early aggression, it can hurt you just a bit too much. Second are the other "suicide" spells of the deck that I already mentioned.

Besides, the threats we want to grab with our discard are mostly the ones that Inquisition of Kozilek can hit too: this of course dictates the choice.

Now, I think one could replace the Duress with Thoughtseize, according to personal preference: but imho, the first is more effective here. Thanks for the advice anyway!

Definitely let me know when this deck gets updated. I'm interested to see what you're going to do with it!

Sidenote: love the quote you have on your profile.

I'm just testing the changes, when I'm done and satisfied with the results I'll update this!

And thank you very much! :)

No room for any Phyrexian Obliterators? I feel as though it's basically a staple of MBD decks

Scouty Actually bro, I tried them, but they really don't fit in this deck (as for now). They come too late, and are too easily taken care of, in a meta full of removal like this. I may try to include them later.

No Lashwrithe?

N3XT I considered it, but it's a bit slow and, in the end, it's just a "big body" (even if recurrent) that gives no devotion; it proves somewhat useful only with Vampire Nighthawk on the battlefield. If I had to put a 4-drop in, I'd choose the Phyrexian Obliterator.

Pheardemons Here's the big change I mentioned some time ago. Finally I published it! Let me think what you think about it, bro!

I really like Relentless Dead especially the combo if more than one are in the graveyard. I'd recommend adding in some enchantments to keep the devotion high in case of board wipes, however in trying too look for some I didn't find any that seemed worthwhile (since you already took out Phyrexian Arena).

Question: Is Relentless Dead taking the two drop of Bloodghast? If not how do you feel about Bloodghast to recur and help with devotion?

How has three Ghost Quarters done for you? I know you have Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, but you need to have colored mana. I was just wondering if three was too many.

Last suggestion is an alternate win condition other than Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Something like Rakdos's Return or Exsanguinate. You should have enough mana late game and both have their benefits early game if needed. life gain if you get in trouble or making your opponent discard cards.

Aside from all of that how has the deck playtested?

Pheardemons Relentless Dead has been a blast to play, it's a great utility card to have! Yeah, there aren't great enchantments to play, but luckily I have enough recursion not to worry too much about board wipes (except Anger of the Gods).

Actually I don't like too much Bloodghast in here, even because the deck is shifting a lot towards the Zombie tribe ... So I think the best bet would be Gravecrawler in the case! But I don't like "chump attackers" too much. After all, I have enough recursion to keep my devotion high.

3 Ghost Quarter are working well, and have never messed up my mana base until now, while being great for distrupting the opponent's one!

I used to play an alternate win condition in the form of Profane Command; it's a great card that could come back some time, but for now I'm focusing on a more grindy playstyle.

Finally, the deck is working great! I'm really happy about where it is at the moment! :)

Thanks for your insight bro!

Yea no problem man. I've tried black devotion many times bu your list blows all of mine out of the water. Last suggestion but have you looked into Phyrexian Obliterator? Granted 4 can be a little high but your devotion drastically increases, plus he is a fricken monster.

Pheardemons I'm honored this deck has inspired you for some builds! :) Keep up working on them, Black Devotion is tons of fun to play!

Phyrexian Obliterator is a great card, but it has two problems I can't really cope with: it's really mana intensive as you said (BBBB can be a problem even in this deck sometimes), and it doesn't give immediate value when you cast it. These two things combined can provide a huge tempo loss if the opponent has an answer ready. I may work to find an opening for it anyway, since it can be really devastating!

It was just a suggestion, and I figured he was mana intensive for this kind of deck. I figured with the devotion and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx maybe it wouldn't be as bad.

Also just curious as to your thought process. Why Sign in Blood over Phyrexian Arena? I know it is one more mana, but it is more consistent card draw to seriously speed up your deck. Also helps with your devotion.

Pheardemons It would not really speed up the deck.

That doesn't mean it's worse, just saying, it difinately slows it down.

Pheardemons Kjartan It's actually something in between. Phyrexian Arena starts drawing cards only after a turn, but does so without you having to pay mana (thus "speeding up" all your successive plays). Sign in Blood instead replaces itself and draws an additional card immediately, but slows you in that turn (since it requires mana). In both cases, the play could require 2 turns, in the first scenario because we will draw the cards in the next turn, and in the second because we could not have enough mana.

In other words, while Sign in Blood is a fast enabler for a play ("I need some other cards this turn"), Phyrexian Arena is a play itself ("I'm in a good position, I will play this as a long-term advantage").

Now that I play other cards that give me card advantage (Relentless Dead, Kolaghan's Command ...), Phyrexian Arena has become quite redundant, if not straight dangerous (1 life per turn really sums up). Sign in Blood instead is still relevant for its ability of digging fast through the deck, in the case we need to draw some answers or simply some gas. And it acts as an emergency Shock, too.

Might considering running a 0 mana sacrifice outlet for late game finisher maybe Viscera Seer ; sac a Gray Merchant of Asphodel and a Relentless Dead pay 6 to recover them both, can be done once they've been declared as blockers so becomes an instant speed scry 2, block 2 and drain X = devotion.

The other nice thing about the sac outlet is it prevents creatures from exile effects which is particularly important for the Relentless Dead.

RunningPigeon I actually thought about including one, but in the form of Tymaret, the Murder King or Gnawing Zombie (since Zombie shenanigans). What would you take out for them?

Probably drop 1 Vampire Nighthawk and 1 Geralf's Messenger which is a shame since they're both such a good value cards but it does give the deck the alternate path to play to.

The other option is just to drop the Stillmoon Cavalier since they're basically the current mana sink, or put them in the sideboard to bring in vs Black and/or White decks.

RunningPigeon I'll try and test that, thanks for your advice!