Legality
| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Standard | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Unformat | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Commander / EDH | Legal |
Printings View all
| Set | Rarity |
| Amonkhet | Uncommon |
Combos Browse all
Lay Bare the Heart
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonlegendary, nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
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Lay Bare the Heart Discussion
Variux on
Eternal Solemnity
5 hours ago
So, you need more aggro here. 16 creatures is not enough especially when you're not running any removal aside from Cast Out. You should be running creatures like Plague Belcher instead of Manticore of the Gauntlet. Not everything needs to be -1/-1 counters either. I have found that going three colors with Solemnity is too rough, and have since gone to just B/W. I usually play Plague Belcher, Ammit Eternal, Dread Wanderer, Scrapheap Scrounger, and Gifted Aetherborn. You need removal spells instead of Lay Bare the Heart. Grasp of Darkness is still in standard for a month and Fatal Push is the best removal spell in standard, so you could definitely have a play set here. I do like the combination of Consuming Fervor with Solemnity, but at that point you're relying on having so many things go right. You need to have a good creature to land it on, Solemnity on board, and Consuming Fervor in hand. Kambal, Consul of Allocation is a good sideboard card but not so much mainboard. Bring him in against low creature decks. Invigorated Rampage is interesting, it's a good pump spell.
I would recommend having about ~20-24 creatures, ~24 lands, and the rest can be spells. In your sideboard you have so much to play with. Lost Legacy, Dispossess, Yahenni's Expertise, Bontu's Last Reckoning, Authority of the Consuls, Fragmentize, the list goes on. B/W have amazing sideboard cards for anything. I see you have Gideon of the Trials in your maybeboard so that could also be a good piece to add in to your main deck. I would add in two of them and test it out.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/17-08-17-dPL-bw-midrange/ <-- is the deck I'm currently playing with in terms of running mainboard Solemnity. Hopefully you can pull some ideas from there if it helps!
Variux on
2 days ago
Checking in from Reddit!
So, first thing, I like the deck. U/B Control seems super underplayed and I love U/B control. You are, however, missing a few vital pieces of control that fall under these colors.
Firstly, Fatal Push is the bomb. Such a fantastic card. There are so many <2CMC creatures that can be taken out with Fatal Push. Winding Constrictor, Scrapheap Scrounger, Earthshaker Khenra, the list goes on. A play set of Fatal Push is almost mandatory in U/B control decks.
Censor is missing as well. Not only can it be a great card early game when your opponent taps out to get a creature on board, but you can cycle it late game if they keep leaving mana open. Censor also kind of makes your opponent play around it because they know you could have one in your hand. There's nothing worse than tapping out and getting Censor'd because you assumed your opponent didn't have one in hand.
Essence Scatter could be good here as well to counter creature spells. I see you have plenty of creature removal, but Essence Scatter on a high CMC creature such as Glorybringer or Verdurous Gearhulk.
In terms of stuff you don't need but COULD add in, As Foretold isn't played very often but I always like throwing it in my control decks because in grindy match ups, it allows you to cast more than an extra spell from your hand without paying the mana from it. Not necessary, but it could be fun to tinker around with.
The Scarab God could be fun to play with as well. You can exile a creature from any graveyard to create a 4/4 zombie, but that's just a suggestion that can be used for fun.
Yahenni's Expertise acts as a black version of Sweltering Suns, and you get to cast another <=4CMC card for free. Yahenni into a Glimmer of Genius would be a great combination.
Lost Legacy and Dispossess can be great sideboard cards for you. Playing against God-Pharaoh's Gift decks? No problem, Dispossess it. Oh, you have a deck that revolves around Chandra, Torch of Defiance? Lost Legacy takes care of that.
There are a slew of cheap hand disruption cards you can also mess around with such as Harsh Scrutiny, Lay Bare the Heart, and until rotation you can play Transgress the Mind.
That's all I can think of so far, hopefully this could be of some help to you! Ixalan is coming out soon and doesn't seem to have a ton of control, but there are some neat tricks you can add in there as well.
I'll copy this to Reddit as well so people can hopefully respond there as well.
Argy on
B/W Zombie tokens
6 days ago
You need a 15 card Sideboard.
Some of your cards can be moved to that.
Never / Return can be moved to the Sideboard.
I would also take out Revoke Privileges, you have other removal that is better, and Torment of Scarabs, which will work against some decks but be ineffective against others.
That will put you on 59 cards.
Add a copy of Liliana's Mastery and you will be at 60.
Sideboard could look like this:
4x Never / Return - gets rid of Planeswalkers
4x Fatal Push - very versatile against a lot of low CMC Creatures that grow large, like Winding Constrictor
4x Lay Bare the Heart - gives you a way to deal with Enchantments
3x Murder - gets rid of big Creatures
Argy on
Weak in the knees
1 week ago
OK I've played around with this a bit and would suggest something like this:
Creature
2x Drana, Liberator of Malakir
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
4x Soul-Scar Mage
4x Thermo-Alchemist
2x Voldaren Pariah
Flip
Land
10x Mountain
4x Smoldering Marsh
8x Swamp
(it would make the mana more consistent if you added 4 Canyon Slough instead of 2 Mountains and 2 Swamps)
Instant
2x Abrade
4x Fiery Temper
4x Lightning Axe
4x Magma Spray
Sorcery
2x Diabolic Tutor
2x Incendiary Flow
2x Sweltering Suns
Enchantment
4x Nest of Scarabs
I agree that Outnumber is very situational. Incendiary Flow stops Lord of the Accursed from recurring.
You also need a Sideboard.
I would build something like this:
3x Grasp of Darkness - excellent against gods
4x Lay Bare the Heart - the only way to deal with Enchantments in these colours
4x Never / Return - killls Planeswalkers and big Creatures
2x Sweltering Suns - more board wipes
2x Unlicensed Disintegration - kills big Creatures, and the colours are easier to get than Murder, although you could use that instead
Variux on
Harsh Consultation
1 week ago
Awesome deck! I have been trying to make something like this work for awhile now but haven't really found the pieces to make it super viable. I like the taxation effects of cards like Kambal, Consul of Allocation and Harsh Mentor, so making a deck around them is great.
I tried to add in Solemnity in mine to shut down any type of counter or energy decks as well. I would possibly remove Tormenting Voice for that. I have also found that too many Cast Out is a bad thing and they often end up being cycled. Perhaps you could them down and add in creatures like Ammit Eternal or cards like Grind / Dust as you already have the white/black mana. Cast Grind on cards that are either 1 toughness or cards you need to exile quickly, it has tons of value in it. Also, if you want to play more creatures that have exile effects, Angel of Condemnation is something I've been fooling around with as it's pretty much Cast Out but with the ability to exile your own cards to dodge spells, or bounce your opponents creatures back in their hand. I would probably drop Make a Stand for more creatures.
Perhaps cards like Harsh Scrutiny, Transgress the Mind, and Lay Bare the Heart would work nicely here as you can get some hand disruption in as well. Or, if you want a creature as well, Gonti, Lord of Luxury can be a big swing in momentum. Torment of Hailfire would probably work better than Torment of Scarabs because with the amount of removal and taxation effects you have, they'll probably have to take the life loss.
These are just some ideas that I've had when I fiddled around with it for awhile, hopefully they helped you a bit too.
gabrielguieiro on
Mono Black Control
1 week ago
Hi there!
Nice to see someone else trying to keep alive the MBC in Standard (if you want to, take a look at mine MBC - Ideas are welcome! Standard MBC!!)
I'll leave my 2 cents, based in results I'm having these days, facing the current meta:
- A main sweeper is essencial theses days. Ramunap reds, Zombies and UW Monuments have a good share of the current meta. I'm using 2x Yahenni's Expertise and 1x Bontu's Last Reckoning (this one have a strong downside, but was a game changing several times)
- I've tried Doomfall instead of To the Slaughter. Beside the sorcery speed, can be used for discard when facing control opponents. And delirium is something hard to archieve with monoblack.
- 4 copies of Liliana, the Last Hope isnt causing some overdraw sometimes?
- Thought-Knot Seer has been proved very huge. Discard (exiling) leaving a beefy body have put Knot Seer in lots of Legacy lists. Maybe deserves a room in a STD control deck. The con is have to add colorless mana in deck. Nothing that 4x Ifnir Deadlands (very synergic with the deck) not solves.
Asking for advices:
- Harsh Scrutiny or Lay Bare the Heart? I choose the last one for being more wide, but I can see the benefits of a Harsh Scrutiny on turn 1.
- I like the idea of Gifted Aetherborn. Im using Asylum Visitor for card advantage (its commom to run out of cards with so many removals - I use a little bit more than you do). And with 9 discards cards in main, empty my opponents hand happens very often too.
Well, hope the deck increases its share in meta! MBC is an archetype (such mono-red aggro) thats deserves always a place.
vhpiasson on
Monoblack Madness Vampires
1 week ago
tardaniele: Hello! Glad you enjoy playing it. I'll give you my opinion on the cards you've mentioned.
Call the Bloodline: I love this as well, it has a lot of synergy with the deck. I used to run it in earlier versions but since I was playing Modern when I first built the deck, it was just too slow. I don't like removing Key to the City though, because when I play, I just dump the hand so fast and recurring card draw is just essential for this deck. But again that's my opinion.
Twins of Maurer Estate: This is just too awesome for the deck as well. The reason I was using Gifted Aetherborn instead is the lack of life-gain in the current deck, and he is a really good target for removal when you don't want your other important vampires being targeted. Should work exceptionally well with Call the Bloodline, as you mentioned, for those lifelink guys to help you out.
Doomfall: I loved this suggestion! I'll probably end up buying a set of four to test it out. It has no drawback in any time of the game, different from Lay Bare the Heart, which can be useless when your opponent is on top-deck mode. The only advantage this card has is the lower cmc cost, which is great for the consistency of opening hands and grabbing the information of your opponent's hand. I actually was running only 4 removals on the FNM (Grasp of Darkness) so I decided to include 4 more to have 8 total in the deck, and Doomfall seems like a great choice too.
Faith of the Devoted: This card seems pretty bad, I know, 3 cmc and no tempo at all. I just thought it would be a great inclusion to have more life gain to endure more on the game and to finish off games where you can't really hit with creatures (gotta hate that Torrential Gearhulk deck). You might be right in removing it for your version.
I have something I want you to consider when playing: your options when you're on topdeck mode. What are the discard choices when a unwanted Swamp pops up? You have Call the Bloodline, Stromkirk Condemned, Key to the City and Heir of Falkenrath Flip. Depending on the board state, Faith of the Devoted can really come in handy to help you finish a game off. I'd probably always choose Key because more draw, is more discard triggers you can do per turn (that is considering you got rekt by a board clear lol - man I'm really traumatized by that Torrential Gearhulk deck).
tardaniele on
Monoblack Madness Vampires
1 week ago
Really nice deck! i love it!I built it, and I'm trying to run it with Twins of Maurer Estate instead of Gifted Aetherborn to have more madness cards and Call the Bloodline, removing 1 Key to the City and 2 Faith of the Devoted. I think the tokens could be helpful to sacrifice them for pariah and for the aristocrat. Maybe could be an idea also to change Lay Bare the Heart for Doomfall. What do you think?