This deck is called 'Black Variant' because I already had other mono black decks on Cockatrice when I made this one so I gave it this name. It could probably be called a "Corrupt deck" because it resembles an old deck archetype that was entirely built around Corrupt. Those decks were called "Corrupt Control" but this deck is no control; it's more of a "black slow burn" deck if anything. This deck is not that much built around Corrupt as those decks were but it's still probably the most important wincon that it has and so sometimes I refer to it as "Mono Black Corruption" at tournaments.
The origin story of the deck is funny. It was partially made out of rage and for the purpose of trolling and not much thought was put into it in the beginning. One night I was annoyed by no removal being enough to kill all creatures in certain decks in the format. So I thought: "Well, most decks play 8-14 removals... What if I play even more than that? What if I play a deck with mostly removals and barely anything else? How will they deal with that? The deck probably won't be able to win but at least it will be funny seeing the opposing creatures dying every turn while my opponent starts running out of them."
I put the deck together in a few minutes, and, to my surpsise, it turned out better than I expected. Before trying it out I never even thought that I'll ever have it on paper but now I do. I added the best black removals that came into mind. Of course I still wanted to at least try to win so I added Corrupt and Consume Spirit. I wanted to have a deck with the least amount of creatures possible so I decided to add 5. It used to have Gurmag Angler and Child of Night but, after a while, they didn't add too much to the deck, they mostly held it back so I cut them. Crypt Rats remained the only creature, it was a 1 of but now it's a 2 of, because this one can do something right after it resolves.
Even at it's most primitive form the deck could survive for surprisingly long enough and could cause problems for my opponent, so I decided that it was worth finetuning. That's when I found Crypt Incursion and my mind was blown. This card? Pauper legal? How did I not see it before? It's so underrated and so good. It was just what the deck needed (later I added it to other decks too but it's still the best in this deck).
With this many removals this kind of lifegain can be huge. It can gain me so much life that my opponents, if they drew a lot, can even deck themselves in rare occasions, or it simply just makes me survive long enough for me to fill my hand with more spells. Sometimes it's not even the life but the exiling of the creatures from the grave is what destroys my opponent's plans. The card draw spells somehow seemed enough to make the deck go on most of the time, the removals make it impossible for my opponent to win with creatures early on, and then, when it's time, I can start draining them.
Such a no-brainer, mindless fun deck to play and the best about it is that it works! Sometimes the most simple ideas turn out to be the best. Of course I'm not saying that it's tier level or that it will always top3 an event. But it already had top3 spots and that is in itself a great success and a good reason to keep the deck around for my years to come. I love mono black. It can make so many types of decks. This is one that I don't think I ever saw before even though I'm sure similar decks exist around.
