FEEL FREE TO ADD ME ON ARENA: ApolloPaladin#83413
This deck has taken me up to "Platinum 2" Ranking (so far) in Ranked Historic. It is the revamped incarnation of my existing deck: Mono-Black Hand Hate (MTG Arena Build). Originally, I was just going to edit the original build, but there were so many differences to both card selection and overall strategy that I decided to post a completely new deck and save the old one for posterity & comparison down the road (I did the same for the actual Arena deck build as well).
A couple of the sections outlined here will be copy/pasted from my original deck post just to save time, but most of it is based around new considerations.
General Premise (Strategy):
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Utilize low-mana "hand hate" cards to keep threats at bay which cannot be dealt with by other control means (like creature destruction spells).
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Use Phyrexian Obliterator and Blightbeetle as deterrents and to keep the opponent's board as clear as possible while accumulating mana each turn. Avoid attacking with the Obliterator unless there are multiple copies in play or if the opponent has no blockers. These are far more valuable deterring attackers in this deck than they are dealing damage by attacking. Having one in play can also be a very strong deterrent to Red-colored boardwipe cards which deal damage to "all creatures", which can keep Blightbeetles alive and locking the board down.
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Take care of any Discarded cards in opponent's Graveyard which can still pose a threat (like returnable creatures, Escape, Flashback cards, etc.) using Never / Return and possibly Hive of the Eye Tyrant (should repeat exiles be necessary).
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Wipe the board with Bontu's Last Reckoning (should it be required).
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Attack with whatever creatures are available and make strategic sense, and once resolved, lay down a big Torment of Hailfire to finish off the opponent's board state. Repeat Torments as necessary.
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(OPTIONAL) If an opponent begins hoarding cards in-hand once initial Discards have been played, AND if multiple Waste Nots are in play, then cards like Inquisition of Kozilek have a value mid & late game simply for seeing if these hoarded cards are indeed Lands (this is an especially common tactic for 'weenie' and 'speed' based decks which do not require much mana to function in the first place). Hoarded Lands can make for an especially powerful Torment of Hailfire if they can be force-discarded. Firing off Davriel, Hypnotic Specter, and a follow-up "Discard 2" spell can end up netting 8, 10, even 12 mana some games. These are particularly satisfying wins, but require an awful lot of rather specific conditions to be met in order to pull off. Still, this deck can set up for it, and the few games where it's worked were so brilliant that I feel it's worth mentioning to keep an eye out for should anyone else wish to construct/play this build. I know a common tactic against a mid-late game Davriel is to just hang onto lands, so this combo at least makes some use out of that strategy rather than simply shutting off his attrition damage each turn.
In case anyone play around with the Optional Combo, my record so far with this deck is X=15 one game (and a very bitter opponent who discarded 3 lands against 2 Waste Nots and then resigned with 24 life and zero non-land permanents left when Torment came down with the rest of my own mana).
Disruption/Control:
|| Bojuka Bog ||
Thoughtseize ||
Inquisition of Kozilek ||
Professor's Warning (Sideboard) ||
Baleful Mastery (Sideboard) ||
Check for Traps (Sideboard) ||
Legion's End (Sideboard) ||
Blightbeetle ||
Feed the Swarm (Sideboard) ||
Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage ||
Hypnotic Specter ||
Never / Return ||
Inscription of Ruin ||
Bontu's Last Reckoning ||
Skull Raid ||
Phyrexian Obliterator ||
Torment of Hailfire ||
Thoughts on Card Selection:
1. Graveyard Hate: More and more I've noticed it is beneficial to have some means of exiling something from the opponent's graveyard (be it Flashback, Disturb, Escape, or whatever else). While this is by no means a focus of this deck as a major means of control, I did still want at least a few options along those lines.
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Never / Return is great as a means of creature/planeswalker hate, but then its other side not only can get rid of a key Graveyard asset, I also get a creature (this deck generally has very few creatures in play).
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Hive of the Eye Tyrant is useful because it is only vulnerable to Instant-speed destroy effects. In addition to being a menace creature (which is difficult to have blockers against in this deck given all the other means of control) the Graveyard exile is not only a free bonus for attacking, but that makes it recurring each turn as well if desired.
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Bojuka Bog: In general I'm not a fan of lands coming into play Tapped, but this is a mana-free and counterspell-safe way to take out everything in one shot. This makes a decent follow-up to early Discard spells (particularly if having targeted things with Escape or Flashback).
2. Card Draw: Essential in pretty much ANY deck build any more (at least to some degree) I've got 3 options here.
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Skull Raid is another carry-over from the old deck build. It is very nice to have sitting safely in Foretell-Land (hah) as a follow-up to this deck's other means of hand hate. These become especially useful later on in the game since they very easily become "draw 2" for myself instead.
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Sign in Blood When I can't rely on Skull Raid to draw me cards, I have a couple of these in pocket to guarantee it.
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Waste Not is an excellent source of Card Draw in conjunction with the rest of this build. The effect can even be amplified by having multiple copies in play.
3. Creature Destruction:
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Feed the Swarm: It's generally pretty easy to see the opponent's hand and know whether or not Enchantment destruction will be required, so strategic use of these for Creature destruction isn't out of the question either.
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Never / Return: I love this card. Previously I was using Murderous Rider as my 3-mana Creature/Planeswalker destruction spell, but I've found that having TOO many spells which drain my own life total can easily bring me to a point where I'm disinclined to cast anything after a point. The addition of Graveyard hate on this (plus getting a creature to boot) made this preferable to the Rider.
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Inscription of Ruin: This can be used early-on in dire straits to kill off an annoying or key creature. Most of the time, if I find myself using these early game, it's as a discard against the opponent after clearing out other threats with one or more different Discard options in the deck. Still, having choices is always a good thing, so I'm a large fan of all the Inscription cards. Also, since this deck tends to play towards the mid-game, it's not unheard of for me to be able to cast it with the Kicker.
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Bontu's Last Reckoning: Another Hour of Devastation card like the Torment of Hailfire this deck features, I love this card. I so often find myself winning against speed-creature decks because a guaranteed board wipe (no mana cost restrictions or anything) cast on Turn 3 is awfully hard to prepare for. It is true that not getting my mana back for a turn can be annoying, but with only 3 mana to cast it, it also makes it reasonably likely to be able to follow up playing it with a Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek if I play it later than Turn 3.
4. Other Picks:
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Kaya's Ghostform: With so many threatening targets in this deck, these have proved quite useful. In addition, they help negate the effects of those oh-so-common Boardwipes (whether they be an opponent's, or my own Bontu's). These can also trigger a double-discard effect on Davriel (see below), should I wish to use his last Loyalty counter
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Waste Not: After quite a bit of testing, these made the overall cut. They pair amazingly well with this deck's overall control strategy, providing a useful effect regardless of what cards are discarded. Sometimes, I find a common tactic for opponents is to hang onto unneeded lands once they realize they're facing a Discard deck. These can be picked off by any number of other means in mid-late game play, which can really lead to some amped up Torment of Hailfires (particularly if I can get multiple Waste Nots onto the board first).
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Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage: This guy is fairly solid attrition mid-late game. This can create an incentive for an opponent to hang otherwise "moot" land plays various Instant/Sorcery spells, which helps to provide ammunition for my Skull Raids and Inscription of Ruins (thus triggering my Waste Not's, even once I've worked down an opponent's hand to nothing)
Creature Selection:
1. Blightbeetle: It is REALLY hard to overstate the power of Blightbeetle. I've won a CRAZY number of games on the back of this little guy. Protection from Green can be a real nice surprise when it's a color in your opponent's arsenal & these can become chump blockers (particularly since I seem to run up against the same Netdecked Elf build over and over), but shutting down your opponent's +1/+1 counter generation can be an absolute GAME-CHANGER. Many, many of those games I've played with this deck on the back of Blightbeetle were won by just having him sit in play & preventing my opponent from gaining any real strength. This is especially true given how many super-lazy "Ajani Decks" I've run into in rotation where anyone can just stick Ajani's and Lifegain into a deck with no real direction or overall strategy beyond that. This is a complete #shutdown for those type of 'lowbrow' decks, as well as Amass and Adapt-mechanic decks (since opponents can't even create a token and/or upgrade existing creatures with the Beetle on the board), and quite a few other types. In addition to the chump-blocking, Protection from Green also provides some limited destroy-protection from the array of mono-green and red-green creature damage (or creature 'fight') options.
Other commonly-played creatures (continuing to update as I've run across them in Historic) that Blightbeetle COMPLETELY shuts down (kills as they enter play) are:
- Hydroid Krasis (he's still a decent Card Draw ratio though before he dies)
- Stonecoil Serpent
- Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig
- Embodiment of Agonies
- Swarm Shambler
- Polukranos, Unchained
- Worldsoul Colossus
- Ivy Elemental and
- Grakmaw, Skyclave Ravager (possibly even some others I've forgotten or some that aren't used all that often)
As if all of that wasn't enough, in this deck construction, this little beetle can be SO threatening to some decks that often an opponent is forced to use some means of control against him, which keeps my more threatening targets safer.
2. Hypnotic Specter: This guy is a crazy threat once on the board. In actuality, his ability can be hit-or-miss, though the two upsides here are that (1) This can force an opponent to discard Lands when they don't wish to, unlike more targeted Discard spells, and (2) The psychological threat of the chaos of Random Discard means these guys get picked off fairly quickly, but again this makes other threating targets safer overall.
3. Phyrexian Obliterator: This guy pairs VERY well with Torment of Hailfire for eliminating all kinds of permanents (it's even potentially a way to deal with Indestructible threats without needing to Exile them). Having even one of these in play is often enough to hold off quite a few creatures since blocking the highest-damage threat can just rip the opponent's board apart.
Sideboard Selections:
The sideboard for this deck is comprised almost entirely of Exile option versions of cards that I already run for use against decks which require it.
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Baleful Mastery: This almost made it into the main build as it is a great card all-around. In general I'm not a fan of letting my opponent draw any more than they already do (too much chance involved), but in this deck these CAN function okay as a 2-mana spell -- provided I can rely on having a Thoughtseize or Check for Traps available to get rid of whatever they drew. These may make it into the main build given all the Hand Hate I run already, but for now they're Sideboarded.
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Legion's End: This is a great spell to use against decks which focus on creating lots of swarm tokens (be it Angels, bugs, Elementals, etc. -- even Goblins and Elves in certain instances). It can also be extremely fun to use it to wipe out a few Lands against an opponent using Nissa, Who Shakes the World. Being able to get rid of all copies of something on the board can certainly be great, but with the 2 mana-cost restriction, these are more of a case-by-case type card to include. Counting on being able to get rid of 2 or 3 Llanowar Elves or Soul Wardens with one isn't a likely enough event to warrant having them in the main build in my opinion. These get flipped in if I find I'm playing against a deck with lots of vulnerable targets.
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Professor's Warning: I use this card in quite a few builds because 1-mana, Instant-speed, Indestructible can be a game-saver. I can generally count on my Hand Hate to keep threats away from any of the few creatures I have in play, but for decks which run a LOT of creature control, these can be nice for saving a Phyrexian Obliterator or a Blightbeetle that happens to be keeping an opponent at bay or locked down.
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Check for Traps: It was this or Agonizing Remorse for a 2-mana exile w/o other conditions. Overall Check for Traps is slightly better in my opinion.
