Well for starters Thoughtseize or if you can't afford it try Duress but seems solid if you're playing Alms Beast you should play erebos too

My reasoning on Alms Beast is that if I play Desecration Demon then an aggro deck can just sac a creature with summoning sickness and I dont have a decent blocker left. While Erebos would take away his disadvantage he has the same problem as Desecration Demon , in that he doesnt really do anything to help. I cant reliably get the devotion to keep him a creature, I have better draw through Underworld Connections and the lifegain clause is not important enough to pay 4 mana for, Im playing for a longer game anyways. I would like Thoughtseize , but like you guessed the price is a bit of a problem.

I run a similar list. Im heavy permenant so I use Gray Merchant of Asphodel along with Whip of Erebos . I use Nightveil Specter to help boost devotion Desecration Demon is a boss

Thoughtseize is everything sideboard versus those control matchups.

what are the right numbers of thoughtseize, duress and sin collector to run against control?

This deck is a salad of all the expensive white and black spells, but with no real plan.

• Whip of Erebos is a card for decks designed for her. You MUST have some combos to explore its full talents, like Sanguine Bond . Many of your creatures have lifelink already!

• Why is Elspeth, Sun's Champion here? Its makes no sense with the deck whatsoever.

• Ill ignore the fact that you ever considered Alms Beast to a real deck.

• Underworld Connections is a good card, but a little slow. Youd be better of with 4 Read the Bones and more slots for creatures.

• Do you really need 8 creatures removals in the mais deck? Its something to consider. Table wipes like Merciless Eviction are more efficient in the long run. But you need more than one for a decent draw chance.

• High Priest of Penance make them think 100 times before attacking. If your running only 2 Tith Drinkers, and not even for the damage, trade for High Priest. They are scarier blockers than Alms Beast !

• Debt to the Deathless is a scary card. Very scary. If youre considering a regular 6 lands down in any game, you should consider it, like Corrupt for a mono-black. In the long run, it can change the tides of the game. They have 16 HP, you have 6.... suddenly, they have 8, and you have 14. After taking a Debt to the Deathless to the face in the 1st game, they will think twice before allowing themselves any life loss after midgame. A scared opponent it the best opponent.

You need a better focus on how to win. How do you plan on winning? You must define some winning conditions, and work the deck in that objective.

@jsansoldo Alms beast is a totally legitimate card, you don't even back up why you think he is unplayable, and then you start touting cards like Debt to the Deathless , which is completely unplayable because of how restrictive the mana cost is. And then merciless eviction over the cheap removal spells is also a pretty interesting suggestion. Tell me, how many 6 mana boardwipes would you suggest. Please be careful about the advice you give people, please back up your suggestions.

Alms Beast and why you dont need it:

The first question in place is - why do you need Alms Beast?

If its for attacking, Desecration Demon cost the same, but can fly. In the worst case scenario, they have to sacrifice something to deal with it... for now. Next turn, is a 7/7. If Alms Beast had Trample, things would be very different, but her fancy 6 attack at cost 4 will most likely be blocked, and they will get life from it.

If its for defense, why have a creature that give HP to your attacker, when you can have cheaper solutions? High Priest is a nightmare to any player. Real nightmare. He can target the attacker. Can target your enchantment on the field. Can target and artifact. He procs with Anger of the Gods. If a simple blocker is what you want, you can have that cost 1, 0/4 Ox from Theros. Or the cost 3 0/6 Artifact Barrier. All these options are better and cheaper. And I am not even considering how absurd it would be to drop Alms Beast to block one of the heavy beaters of this generation, like Kalonian Hydra .

"But Alms Beast have both offensive and defensive powers at cheap costs!"

Yes, he does. But he is not good at any of those functions. Why not get some more Blood Barons (its insane how thats not Legendary)? Or some more Obzedat? Improve your chances of getting a real game changer. High Priest, for example, is deadly early game. He is deadly late game. He keep them at bay from recklessly attacking. The Ox cost only 1. Why have a multi function bad card (that can backfire if they have ANY fat beaters in play), if you can have more effective cards?

And then, come the second question: how do you wanna win? Is Alms Beast part of your winning conditions? Do you need him attacking (and pray they dont have a 1/1 to block it)? Do you need him to block early attacks (cost 4 is not exactly a very fast defense)? Do you need the fat threat in the field? Why are you playing this card? What does it accomplish?

As far as I can see, your Win comes with Obzedat and Blood Baron. You stall them forever, and then drop the bombshell. gg

Thats what control does. He waits. And thats why I asked - do you need 8 single target removals, and only 1 table wipe? As you can seen in other Control decks, like U/W, table wipe potential is absolutely required to deal with aggro decks. Pin Point Removals are good to deal with determined threats, but against a good aggro deck, they are not enough. There as just too many targets to kill, and he keeps flooding the fields. Merciless Eviction is the only table wipe (and a good one, for its multi purpose, exile effect) you have in W/B. Why only one in the deck? Are you hopping the aggro deck wont do enough damage with their many beaters, while you wait to destroy that single one thats a problem?

You are playing control. Cost 6 is nothing to you. Your winning cards cost 5. You have draw. You have stall for early game. You have all the time in the world. But single creature removals cant buy you enough time. Good blockers and table wipe can.

Debt to the Deathless pays for itself at cost 6 (do 4 damage, get 4 life). Corrupt is better, but only work on monoblack. From 6 lands on, its all smiles. Like Sphinx Revelation (please, Im not saying this is as good as Sphinx Revelantion), its a card that get you more time. How long do you expect the game to go on? Again, your winning cards are cost 5. Do you expect to have less than 6-7 lands in any game?Sphinx Revelation only START to pay for herself at cost 6 (draw 3, get 3 HP).

I am sorry if I was unclear for the reasons behind my opinions before.But then again, this is just my opinion on matters. Hope you build a great deck that suit your playstyle. :)

Whip of Erebos combos with Obzedat, Ghost Council to bring it back permanently. That alone is amazing considering how hard it is to get rid of him for most decks in the first place. The lifelink on it is great, Blood Baron of Vizkopa and Tithe Drinker are the only ones with it already but thats 5 out of 14 creatures and the tithe drinkers are hardly powerful beaters and going to do much. They are there to chump block for small lifegain if needed, and extort. it also brings back sin collectors to steal more cards from the hand, creatures to swing with for the last bit of damage and so on.

Elspeth was a finisher that I have been debating, as for most decks 3 soldiers per turn in addition to whatever spells im playing is quite overwhelming. It may be coming out, as I will agree it doesn't fit as well.

Alms Beast is great. I needed a blocker. not a little one that trades with their creature, I wanted a fat wall that they cannot get through. I dont care about one that comes out earlier, and I dont want one that is irrelevant against control with defender. Alms beast does not die to a lot of the common removal such as Mizzium Mortars , Doom Blade , Ultimate Price , Lightning Strike etc. I wanted something resilient that WILL be there to block. For this reason, I dislike desecration demon. If i am against mono red they sac a creature with summoning sickness and swing for the win that turn anyway. If I am playing against control then they dont have many blockers anyway. As to the praying they dont have blockers if I am attacking with alms beast, why do I care? they can block with a 1/1, they can have one life. as soon as they don't have blockers he will quickly take that life total back down. I am planning for a long game and can deal with a few more turns of play. I drop him on the field and my aggro opponent is quite disappointed. They don't care about their life total, they are playing a deck full of 1/1s and 2/2s and on turn 12 thats a really, really sad play. If they don't kill me in the first 6 turns its very unlikely that they ever will be killing me.

underworld connection is slow, but its also repeatable. If I am playing against control I need lots of card draw, not just a brief spurt with read the bones. read the bones is great when im looking for a specific card, such as a finisher or lands. underworld connections is continual card advantage that I want to have in addition. against aggro I will prob sideboard it out, but I have been pleased with it in testing.

versus many decks I am dead before I get to six mana if that is the first time I am killing their creatures. I consider 8 main deck removal spells to be a little light personally. I need to deal with my opponents threats, and slow them down to when obzedat or blood baron can win me the game. cheap removal does this. I dont need to clear the field frequently, I want my beaters to stick around. the targeted removal is to push them to the late game when my creatures are bigger, better, and harder to kill. Merciless eviction is not really for creatures in my opinion. its for killing annoying enchantments (Gods), planeswalkers, and things that I cannot deal with otherwise. creatures, I can deal with.

High Priest of Penance is indeed a scary blocker. Thats why I have 4 in the sideboard. but against control decks with no creatures but an AEtherling , he is rather pointless. so I have 2 maindeck Tithe Drinker s so I can take advantage of extort in later turns once the body becomes irrelevant, and then sideboard according to what im playing against.

Debt to the Deathless is, as danimal197 said, completely unplayable. It costs too much to do too little. yes yes, with enough mana they die. but by that point Im prob dead from having not played enough spells that actually interact with the board.

as to how I win, the general plan is just what you suggested. play obzedat or blood baron and swing until I win. if I cannot swing then obzedat will be draining for 2 every turn and eventually they will die. alms beast can also swing until they are out of blockers, and then keep swinging until they are out of life. extort also helps keep their life totals down. While some cards may not help me finish the game quickly, my goal is a deck with resilient beaters and blockers that eventually with be the last creatures on the board. once this board is empty, I will be attacking, and my opponent will die.

I do appreciate the criticism, as it makes me really think through my decisions as I try and explain them. Thank you for the advice and good luck with your deckbuilding as well. :)

oh and another reason on only a single larger sweeper is that I have found that once I have a blood baron or obzedat on the field in addition to an alms beast that my opponent starts chump blocking as their own life total starts to dwindle. This blocking decreases their creature count that together with my targeted removal will keep any relevant threats off the field.

I didnt read your whole post, but you're missing the purpose of Alms Beast . Desecration demon will outright win you the game if you are ahead. If you are behind in field position, they sacrifice a creature to tap desecration demon, and then they swing for more damage. Alms beast is more consistent defensively. I also like the idea of High Priest of Penance .

You cannot compare a 5 drop to a 4 drop. Turn 4 is absolutely not a late turn to make a defensive creature play in a deck like this, and you don't care about them gaining life, because you're just trying to stall until you get your big bombs out.

On the subject of Merciless Eviction ... you are comparing it to Supreme Verdict , right? You are comparing 4 and six drop again. The only reason Verdict is so playable is its accessible mana cost. Stalling to turn 4 versus stalling until turn 6 are completely different things. I don't know what kind of aggro decks you play against, but the ones I play win on turn 4 and 5 consistently. You simply cannot dawdle until merciless eviction, especially when it exiles your creatures also.

You make an excellent point, the win con cards have a cost of 5. Compare obzedat to debt to the deathless. Debt is clearly a winmore card, and has no place in a competitive deck.

I do think high priest might be really good. especially if you run RBW instead of BW.

I also like Read the Bones 4 of maindeck. Underworld connections feels like more of a sideboard card, because in aggro matchups it can be a dead card.

I don't necessarily disagree with Moonreader's cards, although I'm less inclined to run Blind Obedience in the current environment. What I do disagree with is the numbers. I think having 4 of Blood Baron and 3 of Ghost Council to be a mistake, particularly when you get a hand clogged with them. I'd drop at least one copy of each, maybe even down to just 2 of the cards each, and run of something else. While my inclination would be to increase Eviction and Connections to 2, I'd be willing to entertain just more removal or a way to cheat creatures into play, if one is inclined..

what do you have in mind as far as cheating creatures into play?

Congrats on your victory. I'm realizing that the whip provides so much more against control than I originally thought. How is it against aggro?

The whip has been amazing against aggro. a whip and alms beast out at the same time really messes up anyone who wants to win through attacking. It also is nice to toss a creature that died back at them for some lifelink damage to keep my life total up.

Like the deck, +1 for me !! i'd say remove Orzhov Guildgate and replace it for Temple of Silence .Way better to scry 1 than doing nothing, and it's a cheap card. If you want to i'd love if you could look at my 2 decks . My take on Red Deck FTW and Dead Humans Festival!! for some advice.

I really like Tithe Drinker as a card but I'm not a huge fan of Thrill-Kill Assassin .

Tithe Drinker is such a decent card for its cost but personally I like High Priest of Penance more as it's more focused on control (a good combo with High Priest of Penance is using Last Breath on him to get 4 life and destroy something from your enemy).

I'd change the Thrill-Kill Assassin for Desecration Demon it's 2 more mana but it's also a 6/6 with evasion that can destroy enemy creatures and get more buff at the same time.

Anyway, I like the deck! I'd also change the Orzhov Guildgate for Temple of Silence but that's it!

GJ! :)

@Keshiji The Last Breath combo with the High Priest of Penance does not work. You exile target creature, you deal no damage to it, and High Priest of Penance requires to have damage dealt to it in order to destroy a permanent.

Gah, I derped. I meant Pharika's Cure , not Last Breath ! And it was a 2 life, not 4! :p

I think you can replace Duress and Obzedat, Ghost Council on your sideboard and put in Sanguine Bond , useful in "Game 3" situations.

The Thrill-Kill Assassin is there as it has a better game 1 matchup against control than High Priest of Penance while still being good against aggro. My problem with Pharika's Cure on my own High Priest of Penance is that is still trading 2 cards for only 1 of my opponents, and I have to have both for them to be relevant. I would like to swap the guildgates for Temple of Silence , but I don't want to buy them as I am going on a LDS mission in December and I cant reliably trade them off at my LGS before I leave, and they are not cards I would use outside of standard in 2 years when I get home.

I don't really like Desecration Demon because aggro decks can just play a creature and sac it and then swing in with their whole team anyway. It may be needed though as he does a good job at finishing matches once I have taken board control, which is something ive struggled at doing quickly a little bit.

I like the second Obzedat in the board against control as he is amazing, same with the duress, but I have considered putting Sanguine Bond somewhere in the 75 just because I gain so much life, that would really help finish off my opponent. My problem with it is on an empty board it does nothing for me, so is it really just a win more card?

Indeed! Sanguine Bond is pretty funny and it works fine if your enemy have a lot of ways to kill your creatures (with cards like our new instant friend Hero's Downfall ).

It's a good moment to take air: Keep Calm and Extort, so take out one Obzedat, Ghost Council and one Alms Beast and put it into the action.

Hey, with the pro tour winner running mono-blue devotion, what changes do you think would be good against that matchup? Master of waves is pretty easy to get rid of with all our removal and the other creatures don't pose too much of a threat (nightveil specter seems hard to get rid of). I'm worried about Thassa and both her ability to scry every turn and make dudes unblockable. I don't think Pithing Needle will remove her scry, so I'm thinking about using Angelic Edict as 2 of in the sideboard. But I don't know if it's worth trying to worry about since most people will be running four.