Black Ramp, a deck I've been toying with for a while now. I have finally had some mild success with the deck on MTGO, so I figured I'd show everyone my current list!
The lands are simple:
x16 Swamp - Self explanatory in a mono black deck.
x1 Urborg - Helps make my Field of Ruin's give black mana, as well as my Cabal Strongholds before I can activate them for black mana.
x2 Cabal Stronghold - Nice M19 edition helps make lots of mana in case we don't land a Crypt Ghast on the battlefield.
x4 Field of Ruin - Concession to Tron, Celestial Colonnade, Azcanta decks. Also fine against decks that use manlands as a wincon (Affinity, Infect)
A few mainboard cards might need some explaining:
x4 Thoughtseize, x4 Inquisition - Gives us a turn one play, just good discard spells that work well in the format.
x4 Collective Brutality - Used as discard against control / some combo decks. Can also be used as removal against Humans / other aggro decks and can gain life against Burn.
x4 Mind Stone - We have lots of 4 drops. This helps us land them on turn 3.
x3 Read the Bones - Needed card draw in the deck to find our payoffs.
x1 Promise of Power - Janky card draw spell, can also be used in some situations to make a giant Demon to win the game. I believe I have won every game I have casted this against midranged / control decks.
x4 Crypt Ghast - Our main "combo" card. It is our only creature in the deck besides our 1 of Ulamog so it will usually eat a removal spell if your opponent has one, but our 12 discard spells in the deck help clear the way for this guy. Untapping with a Crypt Ghast allows us to do some crazy things if we have a payoff in hand, or can just extort our opponent to buy time until we draw into payoffs.
x4 Damnation - Doesn't synergize well with Crypt Ghast but is a much needed board wipe for the deck. In matchups where it's useless we can discard it to Collective Brutality.
x4 Liliana of the Dark Realms - Alright, I know what you're thinking. There have to be other Liliana planeswalkers that are better than this right? Here's my defense for this card:
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Liliana of the Veil can remove creatures, but the discard usually hurts us more than it helps us since we have 12 discard spells already in the deck to deplete our opponents hand while we want to hold our late game cards in our hand and play everything else. The sacrifice effect is useful in some situations but I find that the -3 from Dark Realms is better in this deck most of the time.
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Liliana Vess can tutor up our big threats, but the discard effect once again doesn't do much for us and this card can't remove creatures with any of its abilities outside of tutoring a removal spell.
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Liliana of the Dark Realms gives us both a targeted removal spell and a card advantage engine by drawing us Swamps. If unanswered this card will guarantee us a land drop every turn and can act as a powerful removal spell for even the biggest threats in the format the later the game goes. Admittedly though, the ultimate has never been useful (although I once casted an Everflowing Chalice for 37 multikicker after her ultimate back when I ran that card :P)
Overall it could be debated that this card is worse than other options, but it covers all of the bases I wanted this planeswalker slot to cover.
x4 Diabolic Revelation - The main payoff of the deck. Even casting it for 7 mana lets you tutor for any card + another Diabolic Revelation. Casting it for 8+ mana gets pretty bonkers pretty quickly.
x1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - Tutorable win condition in the deck
IMPORTANT NOTE: In the maindeck, the only win conditions are Ulamog, Crypt Ghast and the demon from Promise of Power. If you lose all of these cards, you cannot win outside of Collective Brutality drain. This is why the discard in the deck is so important: you can clear your opponents hand of threats to answer your cards so you know the coast is clear to win the game. If I have a lot of mana I'll usually tutor up a discard spell or two with Diabolic Revelation along with a win condition to make sure the coast is clear.
SIDEBOARD
x4 Fatal Push - For aggro / Storm (Baral / Electromancer)
x4 Relic of Progenitus - For graveyard decks, although graveyard matchups are usually decent since they have little interaction for your Crypt Ghast which you can slam right away.
x4 Pack Rat - Alternate win con against control / midrange matchups.
x1 Doom Blade, x1 Go for the Throat - Varied removal for specific threats.
x1 Curse of Death's Hold - For go wide decks / Affinity. Deals with Inkmoth / Blinkmoth Nexus which are scary for us to deal with.
If anyone has any questions feel free to ask away, and thanks for reading!
MTGO ign - EpicWarfare
