This deck shares a similar theme with Emry, Lurker of the Loch; we're trying to fill up our own graveyard with goodies, but I think when it comes down to who is better equipped to do so, best not pit two bad bitches against each other. I wouldn't even know where to start on that analysis.
Anywho, each category will detail the nuance of it's inclusion, and maybe some funny dialogue about why the cards we chose were what was chosen.
Mill
Being able to self mill as early as turn 1 means you need to prioritize having something like Stitcher's Supplier in the opening hand. Luckily, I included a lot of colorful cast to help make that happen.
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Codex Shredder is a bottom rung pick at this point and may end up getting swapped for more relevant placeholders.
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Golgari Thug is my hero whenever it comes to mono-black constructions, because you hold up an ability to fetch.
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Stinkweed Imp might be on notice after doing some digging into low curve creatures. Retaining dredge as an incentive is always nice whenever we talk about updates to the list and change the overall synergy of the construction.
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Gorging Vulture will have a creature holding up flying, AND then you'll gain some life for your troubles.
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Undead Butler straight up front runs the deck whenever i did test hands and test-plays.
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Snarling Gorehound is a low to the ground hero in terms of effective abilities. I saw the ability hero-d in the War on Ravnica set, and introduced Surveil as a strong contender for self-mill.
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Doom Whisperer was one of the coolest cards that I wanted to include in this list, and I'm super happy it worked for the curve to include it.
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Angel of Suffering is the proverbial chef's kiss, the perfect Antagonist icon, with the same purpose, as Doom Whisperer. Either one of these hitting the field should mean I'm about to do something harrowing.
Recursion
The strongest element of this deck is the spitefulness I will have in my voice when I say "yeah, I let that resolve-NOT" before casting Return to Action. There's a few cards in the list and plenty more not listed here that do something similar.
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Supernatural Stamina was just the first thing that came to mind.
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Return to Action was literally included in the description of the tab but it might see swapping for more relevant cast that don't tap on the return.
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Postmortem Lunge was once a prominent cast member in a red black deck that absolutely sucked due to having built the deck when the cards weren't printed yet. Now, it sees play here for the reasoning that it'll beat face once.
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Undying Evil is a one-cast cost of eat shit and die, we're swinging again.
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Reanimate Dead will bring spooky scary skeletons that send shivers down your spine. (cringe.)
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Stitch Together is under the oppressive casting curve and what's not to like about incentivizing casting something back that may or may not hold up the potential to bring the target right back to the field.
Removal
Black has been loved for it's unwavering ability to destroy, demolish, mutilate and leave unrecognizable.. whatever it is you loved prior to us tapping our mana. I mean, at least in this case you got to cast whatever it is I'm about to Murder, because if it was bad enough I would have just Grief that card away, or Thoughtsieze all the same. The detailed catalogue below is the colorful incriminating evidence of how this deck prevents rebellion.
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Long Goodbye was a strong choice for me, but it came at the cost of not including Feed the Swarm, which is certainly worth mentioning. However, in the grand scheme of my creation, I valued the not being able to be countered MUCH more.
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Toxic Deluge is a wonderful, time told classic for Black Board wipe capabilities. We're gonna dump our life total, or alternatively, very little life total, in order to wipe out a whole bunch of tokens/creatures, etc.
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Languish is ibid what we said above but we have a fixed rate on it's use, and that's still very valuable in mono-black.
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Stalactite Stalker was a last minute inclusion that I'm proud of for several reasons, most of which is that it can be dealing small bits of damage at first and stacking counters as the turn goes on, growing legs, and inevitably if you attempt to blow it up I can sac the creature in response to Toxic Deluge one creature.
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Tragic Slip was almost out of the deck for Stalactite Stalker, but having both is proving to be very worthwhile.
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Fatal Push is required in all mono-black decks. If you're not running it, you're making a mistake.
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Cruel Sadist does so much work for us, picking fights and softly bullying the other kids on Egon's Playground. She reminds me of Bully Maguire.
Draw
Oh me oh my, I actually had a hard time limiting the amount of draw power I wanted to include with my line up because the nuance of draw power was being able to draw, when it was NEEDED, and damn, I can't believe I'm actually gonna say- I didn't NEED it as often as I could have provided it, and for god's sakes we didn't even include Skullclamp in the damn list.
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Reckoner's Bargain provides not only the utility to expend these tokens for draw power, but what if instead you targeted Egon in order to net a lot of value prior to your upkeep? It'd be super nasty to resolve that, and then Reanimate him back to the field.
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Corrupted Conviction is a grand way to repeat the Village Rites effect and send another 2 for 1 effect into gaining an extra card in hand. This might have been the draw card that reminded me that Souls of the Lost had been printed, and no, I don't remember how that connection actually happened in my head. My brain is going smooth and we're only four brains into the deck. This will take several weeks at least and I need way more caffeine in order to stand a chance.
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Village Rites literally just read that shit above. Saying ibid every time is gonna make me barf.
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Deadly Dispute is just another variant of Village detailed above, but it's nice to generate a Treasure off the spell, in case you need to pop a Dark Ritual or maybe a Vampiric Tutor in order to make this happen. The ability to do what you want is there, and I leave all of that available underneath 4 mana throughout the deck.
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Dark Confidant absolutely holds up the capability to be considered good draw mechanics. He's in every Jund Wins deck for a reason. While it does not technically consider a draw, it does put cards into your hand for a resource the color black is known for abusing (life total).
