Well I like Go for the Throat and Ultimate Price over Victim of Night with SOI immediately around the corner because the vast majority of creatures in that set will specifically not qualify. You are going for Modern and not Standard, so maybe I'm wrong there, but for the 2cmc on all three cards I think the restrictions are maybe more viable to work with. I suppose I would at least sideboard them to swap out depending on who you are playing against to really give you some flexibility.

It's too bad Unearth and Stitch Together aren't Modern, I replaced all of my Disentombs with those in my Legacy Black deck since they can both put creatures right back onto the battlefield with minimal restrictions.

I don't know if you've considered Master of the Feast to pair with Underworld Dreams since it's only drawback would put a little hurt on your opponent and his 5/5 Flying body for 3cmc helps not only your Devotion but is a 5/5 Flying body for 3cmc :) I have another Black Constellation-Style deck with all Enchantment Creatures that replaced my Desecration Demons once I figured out what I wanted to do with it. I ended up combo-ing Master of the Feast with Fate Unraveler to help mitigate the drawback, which in this deck along with Underworld Dreams could give it a little more panache if you upped their presence to maybe 2 or even 3 of each.

If you do go that direction, another fun card that can be used offensively or defensively is Sign in Blood to cause more damage while giving up "card advantage". Showing up to FNM and making other people draw cards with a Mono Black Devotion deck is just the kind of shenanigans you won't see every day.

It all still fits with "Gary" (I can't believe that's what I read in my head every time I see Gray Merchant of Asphodel) and your devotion angle and I think it is overall a bit more threatening than Desecration Demon and Erebos, God of the Dead, and it helps the mana curve quite a bit.

Just some thoughts, I've run many of those cards in wildly different decks than this, but that might give you something to chew on.

Btw, +1, I enjoyed reading and thinking this one over :)

Hobbez9186 First of all, thank you! This is an incredibly well thought out response and is filled with awesome suggestions and I really like the make my opponents draw and lose life approach.

I'll run 4x Ultimate Price instead of Victim of Night thanks to your insight. SOI has all of those creatures so yeah.. makes sense. Are you suggesting running Disentombs mainboard?

I love the Master of the Feast suggestion paired with Underworld Dreams and Fate Unravelers combo. I think I'll surprise people at FNM with this new and improved list of cards. So replace Desecration Demons with Master of the Feast and Fate Unraveler? I just don't know what to take out. Sign in Blood will only speed up the process.

Also, should I run more than 1 copy of Underworld Dreams to really try and get that out on the board? Do they stack if I have more than one on the field?

Finally, it makes me sad to not use Desecration Demons as they are one of my favorite cards. Also, it's a shame to not use Erebos, God of the Dead.

Thank you again for the amazing help and any further help with my Modern Black Deck!

I love Desecration Demon too, I was at the same crossroads once...

But anyway, yes, Underworld Dreams do stack with each other as well as with Fate Unraveler. So if you have two of each on the board, they take 4 damage every time they draw a card (1 from each enchantment for each card they draw). In that board state, you could Sign in Blood and force them to draw 2 cards and take 8 damage for two black mana. It doesn't hurt that Fate is a 3/4 body as well that can just be a good blocker or even used to attack for decent damage since the effect still happens even when she is tapped.

If you can keep any of that on the board, your opponent will go down quickly. The nice thing is that since all the damage created is spread out by multiple sources, it will usually take multiple cards to take it all down. Green would really be the biggest challenge if they have a deck with a lot of Enchantment hate (and can sideboard Naturalize, Tranquility, Tranquil Domain, Tranquil Grove, etc... they have a lot of options...) White also has Felidar Cub, but I don't know if you'll run into that one in Modern. Disenchant is always a threat too, but I think you'd have plenty of things for your opponent to worry about anyway.

Let me know how it works for you, it certainly should be entertaining :)

Oh, and Disentomb would probably be nice to have mainboard because Master of the Feast is a guy that warrants immediate removal from the other side of the table, but is cheap enough to return and play again. Even with nothing else on the board, a 5/5 Flyer on turn three is no joke. I had two up on turn 4 once and hit both of them with Cruel Feeding on turn five. Since they already took 5 damage on turn 4 because they couldn't block, I swung out for 12 damage and Lifelink and all the sudden I'm at 32 and they are at 3. It was especially sweet because I had been told that Master of the Feast was a terrible card because you never want to give card advantage. After that perfect hand I just said, "Go ahead. Draw all the cards you want. You're still dead."

All this talk makes me want to post my "Blaggro Constellation" deck that has these in it. I'll be right back :)

You know, you could even shift gears a little more and do a Black draw/discard beatdown deck since you're looking at Modern. Something like:

4x Megrim, 4x Underworld Dreams, 4x The Rack

I call that the holy trinity of pain and suffering.

4x Master of the Feast, 4x Fate Unraveler, 4x Ravenous Rats, 4x Black Cat

Draw cards? Ok, burn for it. Discard cards? Ok, burn for it. No cards? Ok, die.

4x Disentomb, 4x Sign in Blood, 4x Duress (or Despise or pick a cheap first turn discard option)

Rinse, repeat, don't forget to lather.

20x Swamp

Gotta pay for it somehow.

Ok so I just took my Legacy deck and updated it for Modern with a twist... That actually looks pretty sexy...

Hobbez9186 Wow! So much help! I updated it for now and when I can afford more cards I'll buy more! For now I'll keep it the way it is and eventually I'll turn it into something similar to your Modern updated Legacy deck haha!

Thank you so much!

You, sir, are welcome :)

I love magic... so many possibilities...

Hobbez9186 So this is what I'm thinking for now. I love the idea of a draw/discard beatdown deck. However, until I can afford 4 Rack's I'll keep this as a discard/devotion deck. I have a feeling it won't be as effective as the latter, but it'll have to do for now. :)

The older Racks are cheaper for some reason, only $6-$7 each. Not sure why the new one is $3-$4 more other than the artwork is pretty tight. The original sad face stuffy doll version looks kind of silly, but it symbolizes victory.

Too bad Rackling isn't Modern, they do the same thing (but for 3 more mana and can attack) and don't even cost $.25 lol

Hobbez9186 Wow yeah Rackling would be incredible.

Turns out I can afford everything I'm missing in the draw/discard modern deck you suggested except for The Rack.

So I'll just pick up copies of The Rack as I go and maybe give the deck a shot without them for now.

What do you think?

Hobbez9186 So I did another update and I believe this is the exact deck you posted. Which is far from the devotion deck I intended it to be. However, this seems like it'll work better and it seems like it will be a lot of fun.

While I have everything ordered now that I'm missing other than 4x The Rack.. but that's fine. I'll leave something like 2x Doom Blade and 2x Hero's Downfall in there until I pick up some The Racks.

Thank you again!

If you have a devotion deck you'd like to suggest I'm more than willing to check it out!

Cool :)

Take a look at my page, I'm slowly just adding the decks that I actually have and play with every week and then I'll be getting into more theoretical stuff. I really like looking over other people's decks though and talking through how it works/doesn't work. It's almost as fun as actually playing sometimes ;)

Also, if you have 4x Dash Hopes, I'd say that would be the best to mainboard as replacements for The Rack and otherwise round out the sideboard with 3x. In a situation where you are winning already and then you Dash their Hopes away from them sounds especially amusing. Even if they get to play the card, that 5 life will come back to haunt them...

Hobbez9186 I don't have 4x Dash Hopes, however.. I could afford those faster than I could afford 4x The Rack.

You're right though.. That's an incredible deal for 2 black mana.

Thank you again for the continued help!

Hobbez9186 I'm finding when I play test this deck that this slow to really get things going. I have to wait till turn three to get either enchantment on the field before I start forcing my opponent to discard or draw.

Any playing suggestions or maybe alterations to the deck? maybe remove add a different type of creature?

Well is Dark Ritual Modern legal? If it is, that.

If it isn't I'll have to ponder it. The way it should play out though is:

1 - The Rack (when you get them)

2 - Black Cat or Ravenous Rats (Always attack or chump block to let them die and reanimate with Disentomb to re-use their effect)

3 - Underworld Dreams or Megrim

4 - Duress (if you got the Megrim down), Ravenous Rats or Black Cat, or Master of the Feast or Fate Unraveler (preferably if you have Underworld Dreams)

5+ - Anything else you haven't played yet, or especially another The Rack.

As long as you aren't dying already by turn 5 you should have enough to get the ball rolling. Dark Ritual sure would be nice to be able to drop either enchantment on turn one or even Master of the Feast, but either way you should be in good shape.

I'll keep thinking about it, let me know how the testing goes.

This type of deck is meant to limit your opponents options by dropping their hand as much as possible and forcing them to top deck. It's not supposed to be a fast win, but slow and painful. I was able to beat a few standard decks with my Legacy version without any creatures down simply by forcing them to repeatedly discard and let The Rack do it's work.

It really puts the screws to those that like to draw cards like all those B/W control decks. They typically have answers to your creatures, but not necessarily your Enchantments.

Also, sorry... Dark Ritual is not Modern Legal... That is all kinds of lame...

Ok, so now I'm card searching and see some options to use like:

Augur of Skulls. Regenerate on a Flyer is a fantastic chump blocker, but being able to just sac him to force 2 discards whenever you want can be clutch. He's also cheap enough to Disentomb and immediately replay. Hell, if you had 5 mana you could play him and use him twice on the same turn :)

Blackmail is another powerful spell that I actually like a lot better than Duress. No wonder it's listed at $3 a piece lol.

Call to the Netherworld is Disentomb with a crazy Madness mechanic. It's Modern Legal, absolutely no reason to not trade those out.

Cry of Contrition is a fun spell to play on Black Cat, but would also work pretty well on Augur of Skulls.

Despise is another good alternative to Duress that can target Planeswalkers. I'd say good for sideboard.

Drainpipe Vermin is kind of fun.

Dream Salvage is an interesting option to help speed you up after the first few turns.

Fade from Memory would be good against Delve or Reanimation in the sideboard.

Funeral Charm was such a fun little card, I forgot about this guy...

Hypnotic Specter is apparently Modern legal. I didn't expect that, and he may be good to split with Master of the Feast with two of each in the deck.

Liliana of the Veil is a... holy crap she's over $100 lol. Nevermind :)

Quest for the Nihil Stone does.. wait, back up. Damn. Modern legal and stacks just fine with The Rack. You can put two counters on that on turn 2 if you play and sacrifice Augur of Skulls. This makes the discard engine much more of a machine than the draw engine, but holy cow.

I'm not even going to finish the alphabet here, I think I have your answer.

+2 Quest for the Nihil Stone, -2 Underworld Dreams

+2 Hypnotic Specter, -2 Master of the Feast

+4 Augur of Skulls, -2 Black Cat, -2 Ravenous Rats

+4 Blackmail (or Funeral Charm or two of each), -4 Duress

+2 Dream Salvage, -2 Fate Unraveler

+4 Call to the Netherworld, -4 Disentomb

+2 Drainpipe Vermin, -2 Black Cat or Ravenous Rats.

I'd say Vermin is slightly better than Black Cat since you can force the trigger to happen and Ravenous Rats is still a good drop to force a card. The timing part of Drainpipe Vermin though for the same cmc might make it better to have 4 of them instead. Drop and immediately trigger or wait if they don't actually have any cards and trigger as soon as they draw one. Augur and Vermin also can act in response to control, so that should give you a little more bite.

For Black, the Discard mechanic is definitely easier to force than draw so it makes sense to focus heavier on that than right in the middle. I still like Sign in Blood with Fate Unraveler + Underworld Dreams and since they will draw at least one card per turn no matter what it is still a decent output of damage every turn. Hopefully all of that didn't discourage you from keeping the dream alive, but after digging through all the options that Modern has to offer, I think this is a good way to go.

Also, Augur of Skulls does not in fact fly. I was looking at a lot of cards... They started to blur together :) Still amazing here, even without flying.

Oh man, I really should slow down. Drainpipe Vermin can't sacrifice himself, so he's basically the same as Black Cat and Ravenous Rats but not as immediate and for one less mana. Cute though, I'd still make the switch.

Hobbez9186 You are truly incredible. If only Dark Ritual were modern legal. I love the suggestions and I'm definitely going to play around with them until I find a combination I'm comfortable with.

I'm glad I asked because it seemed to me that by turn 5 or so I should have the draw/discard engine really cooking and then it's all downhill from there.

Call to the Netherworld will be placed in this deck somewhere. As does Augur of Skulls for the sacrifice and immediate damage output that it could cause. You're right.. with 5 mana I could sac him.. cause damage.. bring him back with Call.. and then sac him again for 2x the damage.

Regardless.. You are amazing giving me all these wonderful suggestions and pointing me in the right direction for a black deck that is not like any other I've seen.

You did not discourage me and I'm going to stick to this deck. When I get all the paper cards together and I try it out against some people I'll let you know how it goes.

Lacking The Rack is going to be a pain.. but it'll be okay without it.

No problem :)

Twice in one turn is more like twice in two turns since I also (sorry) missed that you can only use it during upkeep. Still the best two drop with discard two in Modern I think since Hymn to Tourach isn't legal. It allows you to play something else that turn instead though which will probably be discard related anyway.

Hobbez9186 That's fine! I'm fine with this. Plenty of discards and draw cards to play with. I'm also learning exactly HOW to play this deck so I can seem somewhat smart when I force people to draw/discard and lose life.

I love the idea. It's a relatively simple concept. I just need to be smart about how I play.. in general that is.

Damnable Pact would fit perfectly in this deck

Hmm. It also has some amazing artwork. Nice choice.